A Comparison of Secondary Intelligibles and Kantian Categories

 Nasir Arab Mu’mini

Muslim philosophers believe that there are four types of perception: sense perception, imaginal perception (khayali), intellectual perception and estimation (wahm). Intellectual (or intelligible) perception itself is of two kinds: 1- primary intelligible, 2- secondary intelligible. Secondary intelligibles are so important for man’s perception that, as one of the contemporary thinkers states, rationalist philosophers, including Muslim philosophers, regard the knowledge of these intelligibles as a key to the reality and correspondence of cognitive forms with objective things.[1] There are also certain similarities between these intelligibles and Kant’s categories. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze and compare them with Kantian categories.

The difference between primary and secondary ineligibles is that firstly, primary intelligibles are a reflection of the forms of external objects (their immediate forms) and no other perceptual form is involved in their formation in the mind; hence, they are contingent upon one of the senses. However, secondary ineligibles are not derived immediately from the external world and, thus, they have not been through the sensible and imaginal stages. For example, we cannot say that the concept of existence or unity has had certain sensible and imaginal forms and then turned into an intelligible form. Secondly, like primary intelligibles, secondary intelligibles are not limited to a particular object and do not comprise a specific category. In other words, none of the secondary intelligibles is a representative of a particular existent such as man, horse or tree, while primary intelligibles represent the quiddities of objects and that is why they are called quiddative (mahuwi) concepts. The secondary intelligibles, too, have been called abstract concepts, since they cannot be referred to by the senses and, thus, have no external referent (of course, the term “abstract” is mostly used for philosophical concepts; however, we have made a generalization here and called logical concepts as abstract concepts as well).

Secondary intelligibles are of two kinds: 1- logical intelligibles, 2- philosophical intelligibles. The secondary logical intelligible is only predicated on mental concepts and forms, and the container of its truth is the mind. For example, we can say that man is a universal form or a species in the external world. Nevertheless, the container of the truth of the secondary philosophical intelligible is the external existent and suggests the ontological modes of objective existents. Thus when one says that the container of the truth of secondary philosophical intelligibles is the external world, we mean that things actually have existence, necessity, possibility, impossibility, unity, plurality and the like in the external world. And when indicating that secondary philosophical intelligibles suggest the ontological modes of external existents, we mean that the mode of the existence of external things is either in the form of unity, or plurality, or possibility, or the like. Such concepts are among the essential attributes of external things; for example, we cannot say that each of these things is a quiddity and that thingness, unity or plurality is a quality other than the mode of its existence and has occurred to it like blackness or whiteness, which is additionally predicated. In other words, we cannot claim that quiddity is separate from the thing, and unity, too, is an independent quality which occurs to that quiddity later.

On the basis of what was stated above, it has been said that the container of the qualification of secondary philosophical intelligibles is the external world, but the container of their occurrence is the mind. According to Mutahhari:

By saying that the container of the occurrence of secondary philosophical intelligibles is the mind and that of their qualification is the external world, we mean that they are among literal concepts, lacking an independent existence in the outside and having their existence and reality depending on relation. That is why we attribute them to the outside and say that the external world is the container of their essential existence and existence is their relation. However, since we can grant them an independent and predicative existence (as nominal concepts) in the mind, we maintain that their container of occurrence is the mind.[2]&[3]

In another place, he maintains that occurrence ‘urud is compatible with predicative and psychic (nafsi) existence and qualification (ittisaf) is compatible with copulative existence (wujud-i rabit). Thus, when we say that something is white, here both the predicate and the subject that it qualifies exist in the external world (the container of both psychic and copulative existences is the external world). When saying that man is universal, the place for the occurrence of universality to man and man’s being attributed universality is the mind, not the external world. Sometimes, however, “is”  (ast) is in the external world, while there is no “exists” (hast) there and it is, rather, in the mind. In other words, the copulative existence is in the external world, while the predicative existence is not. Such concepts have no referent independent of the subject, since their referent is the same as the existence that is the referent of the subject, or the very existence of the subject from which these concepts are abstracted.[4]&[5] When saying that the three modes of propositions (possibility, necessity, impossibility) in particular, and all secondary philosophical intelligibles in general are mentally–posited, we use this adjective as meaning abstract and as an opposite to real and quiddative, rather than in the sense of conventional, designated and optional, since these concepts themselves are necessarily considered by the reason, too. In al- Asfar, Mulla Sadra says:

Secondary intelligibles are abstract concepts such as blindness. “Abstract” means that the existence of the qualified in the outside is such that we can perceive this quality from it. In fact, unlike the logical secondary intelligibles (such as universality and particularity), which only exist in the mind, these qualities have both objective and mental existences.[6]

The abstraction of secondary intelligibles

The manner of the acquisition and abstraction of these concepts has not been much dealt with in the books of earlier philosophers, including Mulla Sadra. However, we can find certain instances in their words which are compatible with what contemporary philosophers have suggested concerning the quality of their acquisition. We will first refer to Mulla Sadra’s words in this regard and then review the ideas of contemporary thinkers in short. Through drawing on the simplicity of the soul, Mulla Sadra argues that perceptual activity begins from the senses. Our knowledge is acquired either through the senses or by the soul’s getting ready for their acquisition through the accumulation of sensory perceptions. After this argument, he continues by describing the activities of sensory organs as follows: the senses act like a great number of different informants who bring the news from various places and feed the soul. He also adds:

Thus the soul utilizes the senses in this way and gets prepared for obtaining the primary concepts and judgments. These concepts and judgments are then combined with each other and, as a result, an infinite number of theoretical concepts and judgments are developed. This happens because of the differences among various sense organs, while the theoretical concepts and judgments are formed through the combination of the former with each other. And, in any case, this occurs in a natural way, that is, earlier concepts and judgment precede the later ones.[7]

Meanwhile, Mulla Sadra believes that at the beginning the soul needs the senses and without them there would be no knowledge; however, these very senses will prevent its joining the active intelligence (‘aql-i fa’al) at the end.[8]

‘Allamah Tabataba’i was the first person in the 20th century who inquired into the quality of the abstraction of philosophical concepts (the secondary philosophical intelligibles) and proposed a series of clear ideas in this regard. He believe that the abstraction of these concepts requires mental explorations and comparing certain issues with each other, such as the concept of “cause-effect relation”, which is abstracted from the fact that the existence of one of them depends on the other. And if there are no such comparisons, these concepts will never be acquired. For example, if the fire and heat are observed together for thousands of times, without their being compared with each other in the mind, the concepts of cause and effect will never be acquired. According to Tabataba’i:

When certain concepts are formed by the senses in the mind, through comparing these concepts with each other, we obtain concepts such as “is”, “is not” (and then from them we proceed to the concepts of relative existence and non-existence) and relative unity, plurality, and the like. Finally, we consider them independently and establish concepts such as existence, non-existence, unity, plurality, etc. For example, the two concepts of whiteness and blackness are formed in our mind. When we compare blackness with itself and say that blackness is blackness, we have made a judgment between blackness and itself, and thus inferred the concept of “is”. Nevertheless, when we compare whiteness with blackness, we see that these two concepts are not compatible and, therefore, we do not make a judgment. We consider this very act of not making a judgment as a kind of judgment itself and infer the concept of “is not” from it. In this proposition, not making a judgment has separated the subject from the predicate. It is from this that we acquire the concept of “plurality”, and it is from the non-existence of plurality (for example in the proposition of blackness is blackness) that we acquire the concept of unity. Thus plurality is among negative concepts and the concept of unity is the negation of negation. These concepts have so far been relative ones; that is, they are evaluated in the proposition with respect to the relation in the proposition. However, the mind derives a series of independent concepts such as existence, non-existence, unity and plurality from these relative concepts. As we see, although these concepts are not quiddities, they depend on quiddities, for as mentioned before, they are firstly derived from comparing quiddative concepts (secondary concepts) with each other, and, secondly, though they are neither quiddities nor indications of the external world, we confirm their unveiling aspect and consider them as being capable of representing the outside.[9]

 We derive the concepts of “substance” and “accident” from witnessing the soul’s relations with its own faculties, acts and effects. When we see that the soul has existential independence, we obtain the concept of substance; on the other hand, since all its effects and acts are dependent, we derive the concept of accident. Mutahhari agrees with this view and adds that these concepts cannot be obtained from the external world, since we can only perceive, for example, the concepts of two bodies and their falling in succession; however, we can never feel “need” and “needfulness”.[10]

Tabataba’i, Mutahhari and Misbah unanimously believe in the formation of the concepts of cause and effect in this way and maintain that they are rooted in the soul’s knowledge by presence. Now, one might ask why knowledge by presence? This is because man observes them in the soul and its states and acts. For example, he sees that his mental and intelligible forms necessarily belong to and depend on his soul, while his soul does not need them. Therefore, we derive the concepts of cause and effect and then generalize them to external realities.[11]

On the basis of what was mentioned above, it now becomes clear why we call secondary intelligibles as such. As discussed previously, none of them are derived directly from the external world, but through some kind of mental analysis. Of course, Misbah denies the dependence of such concepts upon quiddative concepts when explaining the quality of the acquisition of philosophical secondary intelligibles, while confirming their being secondary concepts. He maintains that although it is necessary for secondary philosophical intelligibles to be generally dependent on particular concepts (both sensible and non-sensible), they are not necessarily dependent on sensory concepts (as Mulla Sadra and Tabataba’i’s words indicate the priority of the sense to these concepts). Misbah believes that his explanation, as presented below, is simpler and more comprehensive.

When the soul witnesses a psychic quality such as fear in itself and, after removing it, compares his two states (being afraid and not being afraid) with each other, his mind would be prepared to abstract the concept of “existence of fear” from the first state and the concept of “non-existence of fear” from the second. After removing all the relations, the mind would derive the absolute concepts of “existence” and “non-existence”. This method is also used to abstract other secondary intelligibles, and through comparing two things from a specific point of view, two opposite concepts are derived. This is revealed from the fact that the two comprise a pair such as the concepts of cause and effect and the like. For example, the mind is able to consider the way in which a perceptual form depends on the soul, develop the concepts of cause and effect, and assign the former to the soul and the latter to the perceptual form.[12]

If we consider sense perception in its general sense so that it includes both the external and internal senses (which seems to be the idea of Mulla Sadra and Tabataba’i, as well), Misbah’s explanation would only be different from theirs in his choice of words. Mulla Sadra regards all perceptions as being presential and Tabataba’i views them as being contingent upon knowledge by presence; therefore, it can be concluded that both of them believe that philosophical secondary intelligibles rely on knowledge by presence. However, as mentioned elsewhere, the absoluteness and representativeness of these concepts cannot be derived from such knowledge. This would only be possible through the soul’s presential knowledge of its own states such as its essence, fear and affection. Interestingly enough, Misbah mainly believes that philosophical secondary intelligibles are formed on the basis of these states and then compared to external cases and that, basically, quiddative concepts play no role in their formation. That is why he says: “Since philosophical secondary intelligibles are perceived by means of knowledge by presence, they are certain and error-free”[13] (we will return to this point later).

Furthermore, it should be added that in some place in al-Asfar, Mulla Sadra introduces the concepts of ‘existence’, ‘possibility’, ‘necessity,’…as being intuitive and evident, and considers the concept of existence as the most evident of all evident concepts in conception (we will discuss this point in more detail when comparing the secondary intelligibles with Kant’s categories).

A Comparison of secondary intelligibles and Kant’s categories

Kant believes that there are four major kinds of categories (quantity, quality, relation and modality), each divided into three subcategories as follows: 1- quantity (unity, plurality and totality); 2- quality (reality, negation or non-existence, and limitation); 3- relation (subsistence and accident, cause and effect, and community); and 4- modality (possibility – impossibility, existence - non-existence, necessity - contingence). Kant’s categories are 12 in number and, since some of them (such as substance and accident) are mentioned with their opposites, they amount to 17. With the addition of the four major kinds, their total number will be equal to 21.

These categories are in fact the same concepts known as secondary intelligibles in Islamic philosophy, concerning which the views of Muslim philosophers were discussed. Now it is time to study their similarities to and differences from Kant’s categories. Out of the four major categories (quantity, quality, relation and modality), quality, quantity and totality are exactly the same as the concepts that Mulla Sadra and other Muslim philosophers call logical secondary intelligibles. These are the same concepts that all philosophers regard as being mental (their place of occurrence and qualification is the mind). The only difference here is that according to Kant, they are present in the mind prior to any experience (a priori); however, they are secondary intelligibles for Muslim Philosophers and are formed in the mind after sensory concepts.

Two other categories (relation and modality), as well as the other eleven categories, which amount to 16, are all compatible with secondary intelligibles in philosophical terms. Nevertheless, as indicated in Asfar,[14] if we take all secondary intelligibles into account, whether philosophical or logical, we can say that all Kant’s categories are compatible with philosophical secondary intelligibles, the only difference being that Kant’s categories are finite and specified (amounting to 21 in our calculation), while philosophical secondary intelligibles include all concepts of al-umur al-‘ammah (general metaphysical issue). And concepts such as ‘unity’, ‘plurality’, ‘substance’, ‘accident’, ‘cause’, ‘effect’, ‘existence’, ‘non-existence’ and the like, which are exclusively referred to as categories, are only a part of philosophical secondary intelligibles.

Both Kant and Aristotelian philosophers agree that there is no object of reference for these concepts in the external world and that they are not acquired through the senses. However, unlike Kant, who maintains that categories do not apply to external objects or objects in themselves and that their domain of application is restricted to mental issues or, as he says, phenomena, they believe that although they have no referent in the external world, their container of truth is the outside; that is, objects really possess necessity or possibility, or unity or plurality, etc.

Kant believes that the existence of the sense (experience) is necessary for the formation of these concepts in the mind and it is the sense which paves the way for preparing the mind so that it can establish them in itself. That is why he says all our knowledge begins with experience; however, not all of it originates form experience. Of course, he believes that experience plays the role of the first spark and when it flashes, the mind pays attention to these concepts, which existed a priori.[15] Although Mulla Sadra agrees with Kant in that knowledge begins with sense experience, he goes still further and, like other Muslim philosophers, says: “After passing through certain stages, sense perception turns into a philosophical concept, and since it is at the stage after the stage of the senses or, in other words, after the primary intelligible, it is called the secondary intelligible”. In sum, in Kant’s view, these concepts are fully formed in the mind a priori, that is they are not secondary (though the existence of sense perception is necessary as a starting point and for preparing the mind). Neither philosophical secondary intelligibles nor logical ones are a priori in this sense and, generally speaking, all secondary intelligibles come after the primary ones, and even immediate principles temporally come after sensibles, though their conception and judgment is evident and primary.

Of course, Kant makes a distinction between mental dispositions (which are, in fact, a kind of pre-fabricated system of the pure reason or, as Descartes and other rationalists maintain, innate) and categories. He says:

By these categories I do not mean dispositions. For in this case, categories will not have the necessities which are attributed to their concepts and; as a result, such concepts will turn into false ones. For example, with respect to cause and effect, we cannot say that the effect is in a necessary relationship with the cause in the external world; rather, we can only say that we are created in a way that we can never have such a concept, unless in this way. And this is exactly the same thing that Skeptics long for.[16]

Nevertheless, Kant’s categories are not less than these mental dispositions and if these mental dispositions are supposed not to be related to the external world and fulfill the Skeptics’ hope, the same objection can also be raised against the categories. This is completely evident in Kant’s statements, particularly, in his claim concerning the “Copernican revolution”. We believe that Kant himself had noticed this flaw in his theory, and here he has tried to defend himself against this objection in a way, unaware of the fact that, in this way, he attracted much more attention to the flaw of his work. We will later see that Mulla Sadra also falls in the same trap and in one place he explicitly declares that the concepts of existence, possibility, necessity, etc, are primary and innate.

It seems that according to Muslim philosophers, including Mulla Sadra, who believe that secondary intelligibles are derived from primary ones, two of the basic problems raised against Kant are irrelevant: 1- the problem of the relation between particular concepts (sensory and imaginal perceptions) and universal concepts (secondary intelligibles), which compelled Kant to develop the doctrine of Schematism,[17] and 2- the problem of the validity of such concepts, in the sense that if these concepts are supposed to be mentally pre-fabricated, having nothing to do with the conceptions that suggest the external world, their representativeness will be meaningless, and as Kant himself says, with respect to mental dispositions, this will open the door to the Skeptics. According to Muslim philosophers, neither philosophical nor logical secondary intelligibles are alien to concepts suggesting the external world, for they have been derived form these concepts. Logical secondary intelligibles consist of the states, statements and accidents of primary intelligibles; that is, when the objective quiddity becomes a mental one; it assumes certain effects and states which are only applied to this very mental existence and have no application in the external world, such as man’s being a universal or species. Thus the difference between these concepts and Kant’s categories is that the latter is independent of external things and is a priori to experience, while logical secondary intelligibles are obtained after the formation of primary intelligibles and through paying attention to them. Therefore, these concepts lead to the recognition of things in the external world.[18] In this regard, Mutahhari says: “There is no minor, major, middle term, syllogism, etc, in the external world and all of them are in the mind. However, through posing minor and major premises and arriving at a conclusion, we can actually discover a new relation in the external world.[19]&[20]

According to Muslim philosophers, like logical secondary intelligibles, philosophical secondary intelligibles have been derived from primary intelligibles after sense perception; thus they are superior to Kant’s categories, both in terms of their relation to the external world and their scientific importance and representative ness. Moreover, their criteria for truth are in the outside, i.e., they represent the external and objective world. For example, the concepts of existence, unity or cause suggest the existential mode of the external thing, while Kant’s categories pertain to mental issues and their domain of application is the world of the mind or phenomena. To be more accurate, one cannot claim that these categories are applicable to external issues or, as Kant puts it, to things by themselves[21] (However, it is somehow difficult to judge which of these two theories is closer to reality and it is better to deal with this issue elsewhere).

It seems that the problem of knowledge is a solved one for Muslim philosophers, for, firstly, mental concepts are exactly the same as external forms (they have a quiddative unity with each other) and, secondly, secondary intelligibles and, particularly, philosophical intelligibles, which are derived from these very concepts in conformity with the external world and are not formed in the mind accidentally and are accordingly in conformity with the external world, play a determining role in developing man’s knowledge. Their share in this process is so great that without them, there would remain no philosophy, no logic and no science. And Kant had well understood that no knowledge could be acquired solely on the basis of quiddative concepts. He had also found out that knowledge is accumulated through a combination of the senses (experiences) and categories or pure concepts; otherwise, most scientific problems would remain unsolved, as Berkeley and Hume fell in such traps. However, two points seem to have been ignored in Kant’s solution: 1- the quality of the relationship between universal concepts of perception and particular concepts (to remove this problem, he initiated the discussion of Schematism) 2- the categories’ lacking the capacity to represent the external world (as discussed before, the theory of secondary intelligibles does suffer from this problem).

Nevertheless, we can claim that the theory of secondary intelligibles has solved the two problems of the relationship between particular and universal perceptions and also the correspondence between these concepts and the external world only when two basic issues are proved: 1- The issue of mental existence, i.e., the quiddative correspondence between mental existence and objective things. In an article, under the title of “mental existence in Mulla Sadra’s view”, I have proved that despite his interest in this issue, Mulla Sadra could not prove it easily and that the arguments he posed in favor of mental existence were not only insufficient, but also worked to its disadvantage in certain respects. Besides, other issues such as Mulla Sadra’s discussion of the reality of knowledge, the existential and emanative nature of knowledge, the union of the intellect and the intelligible, knowledge by presence and its union with the active intellect, archetypes and even appealing to evidence (bidahat) are not scientifically and rationally capable of solving this problem. 2- The certainty of the acquisition of these concepts from quiddative concepts; however, as we saw previously, first, thinkers such as Mulla Sadra paid less attention to the manner of the formation of secondary intelligible and what we concluded was based on his using the term “secondary” intelligible as well as some of his words suggesting the priority of the sense (experience) over all concepts, including evident and primary concepts (principles), and also based on the explanations provided by contemporary philosophers. Second, there are certain disagreements among those who have paid more attention to the way in which such concepts are derived. For example, we understand from ‘Allamah Tabataba’i and Mutahhari’s words that philosophical secondary intelligibles originate from primary intelligibles or quiddative concepts. Misbah, however, says that it is not necessary for these intelligibles to depend on quiddative concepts; rather, they are derived from the soul’s knowledge of itself and its own states, which is a kind of knowledge by presence, and since they are based on knowledge by presence, they are certain. And these intelligibles are the key to unveiling the correspondence between quiddative concepts and the external world. It is also through these very concepts that one can totally obtain the knowledge of external things and their objective relations. However, it is emphasized that this idea is only advocated by Misbah and we cannot claim that this is the idea of other philosophers as well.[22]

It is interesting to point out that Mulla Sadra calls concepts such as existence, necessity and possibility as spatial and considers their imprinting in the mind as being innate and natural. He argues that the first of firsts in judgment, to which the other judgments are connected, holds also true about concepts. Taking this point into account, there does not remain much difference between Kant and Mulla Sadra’s ideas concerning the primacy of philosophical concepts. Concerning the importance of the issue, we will first quote Mulla Sadra’s words in this regard and then discuss them in brief:

In the case of judgments, a thing cannot be perceived unless another thing has been previously perceived. For example, if we wish to enquire into the existence of intelligence, we are firstly in need of some other judgments in order to arrive at an ultimate judgment prior to which there had been no other judgment. However, this judgment is essentially necessary, primary and essentially evident for the reason. For instance, one can say that the thing is the thing itself and not the negation of the thing, and that two opposites cannot agree and at the same time be denied reality in reality. This is also true about concepts. That is, from the very fact that a concept should be preceded by another concept, one cannot conclude that every concept should be so. However, the sequel of concepts ultimately leads to a concept such as necessity, possibility and existence, none of which is preceded by any other concept. This is because they are perfect concepts, appearing automatically in the mind and imprinted in the reason. They are primary innate impressions and when one aims at revealing them through words, this would be a signal to the mind to make them present in memory and distinguish them from the other things that appear in the reason, in order to recognize things through the things which are better known (which are already present in the mind).[23]

It might be said that the mind only pays attention to the clarity and evidence of Mulla Sadra’s words, that is, everybody has a clear idea of such concepts. When it is said that the concept of existence is the first of firsts of all concepts, it means that it is the most evident of all and that its evidence is also evident. That is why we cannot provide a definite and well-grounded definition (logically evident) for it. Of course, this does not mean that it is also the first with respect to its mental appearance and acquisition (temporal priority). When Mulla Sadra says: “these concepts and the similar ones are among the correct and spatial concepts in the mind, and their imprinting on the reason is primary and innate”, we understand that in addition to priority in mental evidence and clarity, he also means priority in mental acquisition. Hence, we should either agree that these words contradict what was previously quoted from him or maintain that he has eventually agreed with one of these two positions. If he agrees with the second view, like Kant, he also believes that these concepts are prior to experience, i.e., they are a priori.

Whether Mulla Sadra agrees with Kant on these concepts’ being prior to experience, it is certain that, like Kant, he believes that these concepts play a significant role in developing man’s knowledge and that they are basically the means of thinking and reasoning so that without them, the mind loses its power of thinking. If knowledge is limited to primary intelligibles, not only Hume’s criticisms will remain unanswered, but also knowledge will lose its meaning in the real sense of the word.[24] For example, if we do not have a clear idea of the concept of cause or necessity, we can never say that one thing is the cause of another, since we cannot make such a judgment merely on the basis of observing two simultaneous or successive things. If we have no concept of necessity or possibility, we can never state that the existence of a certain thing is necessary or that it is necessarily followed by another thing, nor could we claim that its existence is possible.

And even “is”, which is used in any predicative proposition (for example, when we say A “is” B) requires our previous familiarity with the concept of existence and its evidence (bidahat). That is why it has been said that the presence of a concept of existence is necessary for every definition and explanation. Mutahhari says:

To clarify the meaning of “evident” and to explain the evidence of the concept of existence, Hajj Mulla Hadi Sabziwari quotes a passage from Ibn Sina (al-Najat, p. 200) in his commentary which has been interpreted in different ways: “What should come first in any description is existence”. Perhaps this could be best explained in this way: “everything should be defined in terms of existence. This is because for defining everything you must first have a concept of existence. For example, when explaining a specific object you might say that A possesses such and such characteristics. The very “is” which is used in this definition is the same as “existence”. You can never define anything unless you first have a concept of existence. Thus, to define existence, you must have a concept of existence beforehand to be able to make a sentence. In other words, man cannot make a sentence including a subject and predicate, unless he already has a concept of existence and non-existence.[25]

Mutahhari also says: “…However, if we had no concept of existence and non-existence, we would not be able to think. Likewise, if we had no concept of necessity and possibility, we would not be able to think and acquire knowledge”.[26]

It is from here that we discover the importance of this theory of Mulla Sadra that existence is necessary for union to be realized, whether it is union by essence or union by accident.[27] In fact, union in proposition and predication is also a kind of union which is based on the concept of existence, and even the realization of essence, whose predication is primary and essential, would not be possible for essence.

Having grasped the importance of philosophical secondary intelligibles in terms of their role and evidence in man’s thought, we also learn about their infallibility in terms of mental issues and the relations among mental concepts. That is, when these concepts are applied to quiddative concepts and such concepts are used in propositions referring to such intelligibles, this proposition assumes a kind of universality and necessity. What we understand from the words of Muslim philosophers, including Mulla Sadra, is that such universality and necessity define the relations among external things as well[28] (If we accept Misbah’s view concerning the manner of acquiring secondary intelligibles and their dependence on knowledge by presence or the soul’s knowledge of itself and its own states, this view will be more justified). Kant, however, maintains that it is not necessary for the result of the cooperation of sensibles and categories, which consist of universal and necessary types of knowledge to represent the external world. This is also Kant’s idea of “objectivity” (universality and necessity), which is different from that of Mulla sadra and the like, who believe that the mind is like a mirror fully representing the external world. Now, it seems a good idea to discuss Kantian objectivity and compare it with Sadrian objectivity.

A comparison of Kant’s objectivity and the standard of truth in propositions

In philosophy, whether Western or Eastern, the meaning of “truth” has always been a matter of debate. Almost all Muslim philosophers believe that “truth” means a thought or perception which corresponds to reality and when it is posed in propositions, it is discussed under “the standard of the truth of propositions”. Evidently, this issue is highly influenced by the discussion of intelligibles and their division into primary and secondary (logical and philosophical) intelligibles. Nevertheless, such a definition of “truth” has not been favored much by Western schools of philosophy, since it suffers from a series of shortcomings and, logically speaking, its domain of application is very limited. This is because there are certain propositions to which no real objects correspond, though there is no doubt in their truth. The examples here include all mathematical propositions, propositions related to mental issues, which we call logical secondary intelligibles and, generally, everything which is related to mental propositions. Meanwhile, a great number of verity propositions have no actual and objective correspondent. And above all, scientific theories are constantly being changed or replaced by new ones. For example, the once accepted theories concerning the celestial bodies, the shape and size of the earth and other planets, their distances from the sun, the sun’s volume, etc, are now refuted and a series of other theories have replaced them. Now, one wonders which theory to follow as the most convenient one.

Accordingly, some people say that truth means every theory that has been useful in its own time. Thus both Ptolemaic and Copernican astronomies are true, for we can justify the occurrence of eclipses by both of them. There are still others who provide a different definition for truth and maintain that truth is what all minds agree with in a given period of time. Muslim philosophers, who have defined truth as a perception or thought which corresponds to reality, have also faced similar criticisms; however, they have not changed their definition in return; rather, they have tried to justify the problems and answer them, while sticking to their original definition. They have divided propositions into external (kharijiyyah), mental, and verity (haqiqiyyah) propositions. According to this definition, there is no problem with external propositions, but what about the other two? It is here that they try to sort out the problem by posing the discussion of “the standard of truth in propositions”.

Mulla Sadra has not dealt with this issue independently, yet we will try to explain it by drawing on his words with respect to other problems, particularly, regarding secondary intelligibles and through referring to the commentaries provided by Hakim Sabziwari and ‘Allamah Tabataba’i (It should be emphasized that both Sabziwari’s Sharh al-manzumah and Tabataba’i’s Nihayat al-Hikmah are summaries of Mulla Sadra’s al- Asfar al- arba‘ah). In his Sahrh al- manzumah, Sabziwari deals with this issue in an independent chapter entitled “Ghurar fi bayan-i munat al-sidq fi’l qadyyah” and, to be fair, we should admit that he has discussed it more thoroughly than others.[29] 

He says that in external (kharijiyyah) propositions, the truth of a proposition depends on its correspondence with reality and the external world, and since verity (haqiqiyyah) propositions are also concerned with external things, including both realized and possible individuals, the truth of this proposition, too, depends on its correspondence with the external world. The truth of mental propositions, however, depends on their correspondence with nafs al- amr (actual fact).

Nevertheless, this explanation is not foolproof and, cannot be specifically applied to verity propositions at all, for those individuals whose existence is pre-determined have no reality in verity propositions and, thus, we cannot say that the truth of these propositions lies in their correspondence with the external world. We prefer ‘Allamah tabataba’i and Mutahhari’s view and say: The truth of all propositions depends on their correspondence with reality and nafs al- amr”. Yet, as Sabziwari himself says, nafs al- amr is not limited to the objective and external actual existence; rather, it is the limit of the essence of things or a level among the levels of reality.[30] In other words, it is something which stands against assumption and in Sabziwaris own words, against “posited assumption” (fard-i farid), that is, it is a nafs al-amri consideration, rather than a supposed one. To put it more clearly, the truth means the correspondence of a proposition with what it suggests. This suggestion is not limited to external actual things; rather, it sometimes reports about the past or future of things, sometimes about the level of essence, and some other times about the mental state of a thing.

Thus we should take care not to confuse mental issues with nafs al-amri (actual fact) ones. This is because although nafs al-amri issues include mental concepts, a great deal of mental concepts are illusive and false, rather than nafs al-amri,, such as man is stone, 4 is an odd number, or man has 50 heads. Therefore, as Sabziwari says, there is an absolute universal-particular relationship between the external world and nafs al- amr. That is, what is there in the external world is also available in nafs al- amr; however, the opposite does not hold true. Also there is a partial particular-universal relationship between mental and nafs al- amri issues; that is, some of the mental issues are nafs al- amri in nature and some others, like illusive and false propositions, are not. On the other hand, some nafs al- amri issues, such as true mental propositions are mental and correspond with the level of their own essence and some others, such as the propositions representing the external world, are not mental.

Sabziwari refers to other definitions for nafs al- amri (actual fact) as well. He defines it as the active intellect and the world of command (‘alam-i amr), in which the forms of all intelligibles and their realities are contained.[31] According to ‘Allamah Tabataba’i, the weak point of this view is that the intellectual form contained in the active intellect should also correspond with a form beyond itself, which leads to a vicious circle.[32]

In this discussion, we are not concerned with the truth of philosophers’ definitions of “truth”, “standard of the truth of proposition”, and “nafs al- amr”. Rather, our aim is to show that what is quoted from Muslim philosophers in this regard is in a way compatible with Kant’s objectivity and also to clarify the meaning of “truth” more comprehensively.