In spite of his major debt to Avicenna’s philosophy, Suhrawardī departs from his predecessor in two interrelated questions of fundamental impor-tance. Thefirst of these concerns the foundation of epistemology: what in thefinal analysis is primarily known, epistemologically primitive and foun-dational, and therefore the basis of our knowledge? The second question penetrates the corresponding foundation of metaphysics: what in thefinal analysis is primarily there, metaphysically primitive and foundational, or, in Aristotelian terms, the primary sense of the verb‘to be’?
Interestingly for our topic, self-awareness functions in a most prominent role in the articulation of the Suhrawardian alternative in both of the two questions. The epistemological point is stated most explicitly in the Talwīh.āt and the Mashāri‘ wa al-mut.ārah.āt, that is, in those of Suhrawardī’s philo-sophical works that are considered ‘Peripatetic’ in comparison to the full-blown illuminationism of the H· ikma al-ishrāq. In fact, the positive treatment of the concept of knowledge in the latter is relatively scant, the focus being instead on the metaphysical question. The presence of its overarching termi-nology shows, however, that the concept of knowledge articulated in the two systematically ‘prior’ works is preliminary to illuminationist metaphysics.
One can therefore speculate upon the argumentative order between the two departures and say that the concept of knowledge as presence is a condition of the concept of being as appearance in much the same way as the general account of being comes after– indeed much later than – the theory of science in the structure of the Peripatetic system. This would tally neatly with Suhrawardī’s own advice to study his philosophical treatises in an order culminating in the H· ikma al-ishrāq.1 Systematically speaking, however, it seems more natural to conceive of the two as fundamentally interdependent.
Indeed, it does not seem to be a coincidence that Suhrawardī’s metaphysics hinges on the concept of appearance (z·uhūr), derived from a term
1 See Mashāri‘ III, muqaddama, 194 Corbin; cf. Ziai1990,9–11, 14–19.
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with a primarily epistemic meaning, whereas the corresponding epistemology is based on the concept of presence (h.ud˙ūr), a term with existential connotations.2
6.1 Self-awareness and knowledge as presence
Although the Talwīh.āt follows a rather traditional Peripatetic order of procedure, Suhrawardī introduces the notion of knowledge as presence neither in the sections devoted to the theory of science nor in those discussing cognitive psychology. Rather, it is only towards the end of the third, metaphysical part, when tackling the problem of God’s knowledge, that he has recourse to the term and the idea behind it. The termfigures systematically only in the enigmatic passage in which Suhrawardī recounts how Aristotle, as an emphatically mythical figure, appears to him in a dreamlike vision after he had exhausted himself labouring with‘the ques-tion of knowledge’.3
Much has been written about this passage, but few writers have paid close attention to its context. Two observations in particular are quite crucial for a full comprehension of why and in what sense Suhrawardī introduces the concept of presence here. First of all, the passage is embedded in the metaphysical discussion of God, the particular explanandum being God’s knowledge of particular things.4Secondly, this section of Talwīh.āt shows considerable similarities with the way in which self-awarenessfigures in the discussion of God’s knowledge in Avicenna’s Ta‘līqāt.
Before introducing the appearance of Aristotle, Suhrawardī briefly reviews the problems in some of the available alternatives for making sense of knowledge in general and of God’s knowledge in particular. He first argues against the identity theory of knowledge in a manner that is entirely derivative of Avicenna.5But he also has qualms with Avicenna’s own theory, according to which cognitive forms inhere in the knowing subject, universal forms in an intellectual subject, and particular forms in a corporeal organ of perception.6 According to the standard Avicennian phrase, God knows particular things‘in a universal manner’, which is often
2 The rest of this chapter is a refined adaptation of Kaukua2013and2011, respectively.
3 Talwīh.āt III.3.1, 238–239 Habībī; 70 Corbin.
4 This observation is somewhat controversial; I will discuss Eichner’s (2011) alternative interpretation below.
5 Talwīh.āt III.3.1, 237–238 Habībī; 68–69 Corbin. Cf. Avicenna, Shifā’: Fī al-nafs V.6, 239–240 Rahman.
6 Eichner2011(119–127) shows that the problems Suhrawardī raises were commonplace in the twelfth-century reception of Avicennian epistemology.
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qualified by saying that He knows His creation by knowing Himself as its cause.7The universality of God’s knowledge is due to His immateriality, which entails that He is a subject of intellection and that therefore the proper objects of His knowledge are universal.8The equivalence of imma-teriality and intellectuality is explicitly borne out in Avicenna’s discussion of human access to particulars in Shifā’: al-Madkhal I.12.9Given that the human soul is intellectual, the manner of cognition proper to it is the apprehension of universals, and so as an intellect, like God, it only has access to particular entities in a universal manner. For instance, I can only know my friend Zayd as a human being with a particular complexion, build, gait, humoral character and so forth– with as many other universal attributes as I like to add. But the problem is that the Zayd that I thereby grasp is not a particular person but a bundle of universal properties which can in principle be shared by individuals other than Zayd. Yet I find it intuitively plausible that my friend is a unique person whose individuality cannot be reduced to the accidental fact that there happen to be no other human beings with the exact same bundle of properties. The problem Suhrawardī seems to perceive here is that I am somehow certain that I apprehend an individual in this strong sense and that our theory of knowledge should be able to save this intuition.10
But Avicenna did propose a solution to the dilemma: human beings are not merely intellects but also souls that function in and engage with the material world by means of corporeal instruments proper to them. Thus, their faculties of sense perception allow them an ostensive reference to the unique spatiotemporal co-ordinates which are the foundation of the indi-viduality of material entities. The person I am conversing with can be none other than my friend Zayd because I perceive him as this individual here right now.11 Now, Suhrawardī is perfectly aware of this attempt at a solution.12Why does hefind it unsatisfactory?
It has recently been suggested that this is because of problems related to Avicenna’s substance dualism, more precisely his inability to make lucid sense of the relation between the immaterial human substance and its body.13 Since the case is exclusively epistemological here, the relevant
7 For the relevant texts and discussion, see Marmura1962and Adamson2005.
8 For this traditional tenet in Avicenna, see Adamson2011a.
9 Avicenna, Shifā’: al-Madkhal I.12, 70; cf.Chapter3.1,48–50.
10 Talwīh.āt III.3.1, 237–238 Habībī, 69 Corbin; for discussion, see Eichner2011,129.
11 Avicenna, Shifā’: al-Madkhal I.12, 70; cf. Ishārāt, nahj 1, 5–6. For discussion, see Black2012and Eichner2011,130.
12 Talwīh.āt I.1.4, 8 Habībī; cf. Eichner2011,129. 13 Eichner2011,135–136.
aspect of the mind–body relation is of course how a material process in the organs of perception can cause an immaterial appearance of a particular object in a cognitive subject that is designed to apprehend universal objects. Merely stating that the organs are causally related to particular things does not explain how those things can be given as appearances to the soul.
Although this problem is a real one for any substance dualist, it is difficult to see how Suhrawardī’s proposed solution could meet with any greater success. I will revisit this point once we have a clearer idea of what the concept of knowledge as presence is about, but let it now be said that I believe a rather different motive for Suhrawardī’s dissatisfaction emerges from the context of discussion. Two conditions are relevant here. First of all, since God is absolutely one, His knowledge of Himself and the world of His creation cannot be two pieces of knowledge in Him. Secondly, since God is the supreme knower, He has to somehow know the world lest there be any deficiency to His knowledge.14As a result, Suhrawardī needs a concept of knowledge that is capable of making sense of a subject’s simultaneous knowledge both of itself and other objects, and allows for both particular and universal objects to be given to the same subject. Avicenna’s theory of knowledge, because it is based on the inherence of cognitive forms in the knowing subject and makes the apprehension of particular objects condi-tional to a relation to matter, fails on both accounts as an explanation of God’s knowledge. This is why Suhrawardī attempts to carve the conceptual map anew by means of the notion of knowledge as presence.
In fact, it is precisely in the solution of the problem of how to account for the possibility of an immaterial subject apprehending particular objects that Aristotle comes to help Suhrawardī:
[a] So he said to me: Return to yourself (irja‘ ilā nafsika), and it will be solved for you.
I said: How?
And he said: You apprehend yourself, and your apprehension of yourself is either by yourself or by means of another (innaka mudrikun li nafsika, fa idrākuka li dhātika bi dhātika aw ghayrihā), but then you would have another faculty or self that apprehends yourself (dhātun tadruku dhātaka), and the discussion would revert, and so its absurdity is evident.
[b] Since you apprehend yourself by yourself (adrakta dhātaka bi dhātika), is that by considering a trace of yourself in your self (bi i‘tibāri atharin li dhātika fī dhātika)?
I said: Of course.
14 For these conditions, see the discussion immediately following the account of Aristotle’s appearance, especially Talwīh.āt III.3.1, 244–245 Habībī; 75–76 Corbin.
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He said: Then if the trace does not correspond to your self (dhātaka), it will not be its form, and you will not apprehend [your self].
I said: Thus, the trace is the form of my self (dhātī)?
He said: Is your form of an absolute soul or one individuated by other attributes?
And I opted for the second.
So he said: Every form in the soul is universal – even if it were composed of many universals– and it does not prevent participation in itself; if it is supposed to be prevented, that is due to another preventing [factor]. You apprehend yourself (anta mudriku dhātika), and it prevents participation in itself, and so this apprehension is not of form.
So I said: I apprehend the concept‘I’ (udriku mafhūma anā).
And he said: The concept‘I’ as the concept of I does not prevent participation from occurring in it, and you know that the particular, insofar as it is nothing but a particular, is universal;‘this’, ‘I’, ‘we’ and
‘he’ have universal intelligible meanings with respect to their separate concepts without particular reference.
So I said: How then?
He said: Since your knowledge of yourself (‘ilmuka bi dhātika) is not by means of any faculty other than your self (dhātika) and you know that you are nothing but the one apprehending your self (anta al-mudriku li dhātika lā ghayr), not by a trace that does not correspond and not by one that does, your self (dhātuka) is an intellect, that which understands and that which is understood.15
Aristotle relies on the indubitable phenomenon of self-awareness in an extended argument against the validity of the impression theory of knowledge as an account of our apprehension of particular things such as ourselves. He begins in section [a] by countering the view that self-apprehension is by means of something apart from the self that apprehends and is apprehended. The argument is a condensed version of the familiar refutation of reflection-based models of self-awareness, construed here as a regress argument: if awareness of a special object is supposed to render me aware of myself, then I must somehow recognize the other as myself, which forces us again to face the question of whether this recognition is due to the same self being both that which apprehends and that which is apprehended or due to a further special object.
Since the regress must be ceased at the earliest possible stage, the thesis that self-awareness is by means of a special object distinct from the self can be ruled out.
Section [b] addresses the possibility that although self-awareness is due to the self instead of any distinct object, it should be explained by a special feature in the self, such as a trace or a form, that is caused by and corresponds to the self. Here we come across the concern extrapolated
15 Talwīh.āt III.3.1, 239–240 Habībī; 70–71 Corbin.
above. Since the soul is immaterial, all forms in it will be universal. Thus, if I were aware of myself by means of an impression of the form of myself, I would be aware of something universal, and this has to be rejected in the face of my intuitive certainty of my uniqueness as an individual. Along lines familiar from his denial of the self’s substantiality, Suhrawardī also suggests that self-awareness is induced by an apprehension of thefirst-person index-ical, but Aristotle cogently argues that there’s nothing individual in the concept‘I’ when taken alone as a concept. All subjects of experience share in being an I, and although the concept expresses in each case an inherently individual self’s awareness of itself, as a point of reference this awareness is prior to the concept.
Thus, self-awareness is presented here as a paradigmatic example of knowledge that cannot be explained as a case of the inherence of what is known in the knower. As we know, this is something Avicenna would have agreed with. However, as we have also learned, Avicenna was ill at ease in his attempts to articulate the cognitive category proper to self-awareness. This tension in Avicennian cognitive psychology is increased by further phenom-ena that the mythical Aristotle introduces to Suhrawardī. The first of these is our constant awareness of our bodies as being unique to ourselves.
Thus, our awareness of them cannot be due to a universal form of the body inherent in us.16Further corroboration for the claim that we must be aware of individual objects is provided by a brief excursion into Avicennian faculty psychology and its account of discursive thought by means of the system of internal senses. The human faculty of thought (mufakkira) can only operate by means of particular objects of cognition, which Suhrawardī considers especially problematic because thought plays an indispensable role in the acquisition of the universal objects of intellection proper to the immaterial subject of cognition. Were it not for this faculty, we could never abstract from the particular features of our percepts, nor could we arrange acquired propositions into syllogisms that render us capable of understand-ing new propositions as their conclusions. Thus, Avicennian epistemology itself requires that we are aware of both universal and particular objects.
Finally, Suhrawardī’s Aristotle suggests that we are indubitably aware of the activity of our internal senses in such processes of thought, and this aware-ness is something that none of these faculties is capable of, for since they act through a corporeal organ, they cannot establish a transparent relation to themselves. On the other hand, if the incorporeal self only knows by
16 Talwīh.āt III.3.1, 240 Habībī; 71 Corbin. Suhrawardī uses the expression lā taghību ‘anhu (‘you are not absent from it’) of the body, indicating thereby his concept of knowledge as presence.
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means of universal forms inhering in it, it cannot grasp this particular activity either.17The unstated conclusion is that a new concept of knowl-edge is direly needed.
Having dealt with these phenomena as so many problems for the impression theory of knowledge, Aristotle moves on to present a new positive definition:
[c] He said: Since you know that [the soul] apprehends neither by means of a corresponding trace nor by means of a form, know that intellection is the presence of the thing to a self (al-dhāt) separate from matter, or if you like, you can say: [the thing’s] not being absent from [the self]. This is more complete because it includes the apprehension of something of both itself (li dhātihi) and another, for the thing is not present to itself, but it is not absent from [itself] either (al-shay’u lā yah.d˙uru li nafsihi wa lākinna lā yaghību ‘anhā). As regards the soul, it is separate and not absent from itself (ghayru ghā’ibatin ‘an dhātihā), and in accordance with its separation it apprehends itself (dhātahā) and what is absent from it, which when it is not made present to [the soul] in concrete (‘aynihi), such as heaven, earth and their kind, [the soul] makes present its form. As regards particulars, they are in faculties that are present to [the soul], and as regards universals, they are in [the soul] itself (fī dhātihā), for among those that are apprehended the universal is not impressed in bodies, and what is apprehended is the very form that is present, nothing external to conception. If it is said of the external that it is apprehended, that is in a secondary sense. [The soul’s] self is not absent from itself (dhātuhā ghayru ghā’ibin ‘an dhātihā), nor is its body [absent from the soul] in any regard whatsoever, nor are any faculties apprehending its body [absent from the soul] in any regard whatsoever.18 At the outset, knowledge is defined as the presence of what is known to the knower, and so it is contrasted with the Avicennian theory based on the inherence of a representation or form of what is known in the knower.
The notion of presence is then rephrased by means of a semantic double negation as the known object’s not being absent from the knower. The latter definition is stated to be more appropriate because it is inclusive of both self-awareness and the awareness of other objects, which suggests that presence is a special case of the non-existence of absence. All objects of cognition, whether universal or particular, as well as the cognitive capacities of the subject that is aware of them, are known by the subject through their presence to her. Since they are present to the subject, by definition they cannot be absent from her. On the contrary, the subject’s
17 Talwīh.āt III.3.1, 240 Habībī; 71 Corbin.
18 Talwīh.āt III.3.1, 240–241 Habībī; 71–72 Corbin; cf. Mashāri‘ III.7.1, 487.
awareness of herself is not due to presence, for presence being characteristic of objects, nothing can be present to itself, but the subject is not absent from herself either, and in this latter sense her self-awareness can also be spoken of as knowledge. Thus, it seems that knowledge in the more specific sense of presence means being an object of knowledge for a subject, or, to use a Suhrawardian expression, an it that appears for an I. The non-existence of absence on the other hand seems to be a more vague phrase for simply being given as a matter of experience, appearing either as an it or as an I.
awareness of herself is not due to presence, for presence being characteristic of objects, nothing can be present to itself, but the subject is not absent from herself either, and in this latter sense her self-awareness can also be spoken of as knowledge. Thus, it seems that knowledge in the more specific sense of presence means being an object of knowledge for a subject, or, to use a Suhrawardian expression, an it that appears for an I. The non-existence of absence on the other hand seems to be a more vague phrase for simply being given as a matter of experience, appearing either as an it or as an I.