[3.7.2] Suhrawardi’s Illuminationist Ontology

A. L. KomáromiLeave a comment

The Persian Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi (1154–1191 AD) was the founder of the “Illuminationist” (ishraqi) philosophical tradition. In the “Philosophy of Illumination” he criticized the Avicennan peripatetic ontology and metaphysics (see [3.3.1]), sustaining that quiddity and existence are just mental considerations, and proposed a new ontology, based on the concept of Light.

  • The essential quality of the Light is its direct and immediate manifestation, an aspect necessary for its epistemology based on the concept of presence (see [3.7.1]).
  • The basic structure of his ontology is derived from the dual nature (substance and state) of the Light, and its relation to the “dark” substances which lack light.

Suhrawardi’s ontology is presented in the following OntoUML diagram:

Suhrawari’s illuminationist ontology
ClassDescriptionRelation
Light“al-Suhrawardī’s basic ontological scheme posits that light can have not only accidental but also substantial being. This twofold occurrence of light as a state and as a substance is explicitly singled out for discussion in a passage from the second treatise of the Philosophy of Illumination’s second part, where the author has an anonymous opponent demur: “Here [in the material world] light is [invariably] a quality and an accident, so how could it be self-subsistent (kayfa yaqūmu bi-nafsihi)? And if some lights were to be not in need of a substrate (maḥall), then this would have to hold for all of them [since they all share the nature of luminosity]. What underlies this objection is clearly the assumption that luminosity could only have a single ontological modality, as it were: either all luminosity is substantial or all luminosity is accidental; how could it occur sometimes in the one mode, sometimes in the other if all its occurrences share in the same essence of being light? Al-Suhrawardī responds by envisaging light in general as essentially self-subsistent, or as substantial by default, and accordingly conceives of accidental light as deficient light, as light whose immanent character has been impaired or weakened to such a degree that it becomes dependent”is a Category including LuminousSubstance and LuminousState
SubstanceSubstances can be luminous (“pure lights”) and nonluminous
(“barriers”).
LuminousSubstance“A luminous substance can only possess states that are themselves luminous.”
Luminous substances are immaterial, manifest and self-manifest, like: intellects, souls, celestial bodies. 		subkind of Substance
NonLuminous
Substance		“Non-luminous or ‘dark’ [substances] entities therefore do not form a positive contrary of light but are conceived in privative terms, as entities lacking in (or perhaps lying below a certain threshold of) luminosity: ‘darkness is simply an expression for the lack of light (ʿadam al-nūr)‘”.
Non-luminous substances are material, not-manifest like earthly bodies.		subkind of Substance
StateState is “distinction between the luminous and the non-luminous – or the manifest and the nonmanifest – with the Aristotelian sounding distinction between that which is a ‘state’ (hayʾah) of something else and that which is not”.characterizes NonLuminousSubstance
LuminousState“luminous states – which include, but are not limited to, visual light – can be possessed both by luminous and non-luminous substances”. Luminous stat is accidental.subkind of State; characterizes LuminousSubstance
NonLuminous
State		“while a non-luminous state (e. g., shapes and quantitative determinations such as weight) must have a nonluminous bearer”subkind of State

Sources

First published: 02/04/2020

[3.7.1] Suhrawardi on Presence and Knowledge of Particulars

A. L. KomáromiLeave a comment

The Persian Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi (1154–1191 AD) was the founder of the ‘Illuminationist’ (ishraqi) philosophical tradition. In the works Talwīḥāt and al-Mashāriʿ wa-l-muṭāraḥāt:

  • he criticized the Avicennan peripatetic epistemology (see [3.3.3] and [3.3.6]) because that rules out the God’s knowledge of particulars, even God’s knowledge of itself (see [3.3.2])
  • and proposed a theory of knowledge which includes the knowledge of the self and other particular objects, based on the phenomena of apperception and presence
  • self awareness, knowledge of the self is a necessary basis of all knowledge.

In his opinion, this kind of knowledge is superior to the one based on intellection.

Suhrawardi’s theory of knowledge is presented in the following OntoUML diagram:

Suhrawardi on knowledge and presence
ClassDescriptionRelations
SubjectSubject is entity capable of knowledge, like a human or God.relates to ObjectOfKnowledge
ObjectOfKnowledgeObject of knowledge
UniversalUniversalis subkind of ObjectOfKnowledge
ParticularParticularis subkind of ObjectOfKnowledge
KnowledgeSuhrawardī’s “concept of knowledge […] 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 apprehended the same subject.” (Kauka)mediates between Subject and ObjectOfKnowledge
FacultyFaculty is an inherent mental power.is subkind of Particular
IntellectionSuhrawardi “also mentions an argument against Avicenna’s idea, familiar from the Talwīḥāt, that if the immaterial human soul’s proper mode of cognition is intellection of universals, it cannot be aware of itself as a particular entity.” (Kauka)
Intellection is a conceptual, discursive and syllogistic knowledge using syllogistic (see [3.3.5]).		is subkind of Knowledge; mediates between Subject and Particular
ApperceptionApperception “is a type of knowledge that is self-evident, innate and unmediated through any type of abstraction or representation of forms, whether it be through an image, a form, a notion or an attribute of the self (Marcotte 2006) [is]a type of knowledge that is self-evident, innate and unmediated through any type of abstraction or representation of forms, whether it be through an image, a form, a notion or an attribute of the self (Marcotte 2006).
The perception of pain becomes paradigmatic of the type of apperception or awareness he envisions when discussion self- awareness as unmediated perception, i.e., a non-discursive, non-conceptual and non-propositional type of knowledge that, nonetheless, constitutes a mode of knowing distinct from discursive knowledge.” (Marcotte)		is subkind of Knowledge; mediates between Subject and Particular
SelfAwareness“Suhrawardī took self-awareness [shu‘ur bi-l-dhat] to be the epistemological basis on which the body and its faculties, and their actions and respective objects in turn, appear to the self-aware subject.”(Kauka)is subkind of Apperception; mediates between the Self and the Self as ObjectOfKnowledge
Apperception
OfFaculties		Apperception of faculties [‘ilm huduri] is based on the presence of faculties: “The subject’s presence to itself is the foundation for the presence of its faculties, and it is only by means of the faculties that objects of the subject’s operations by means of them are present to it.”(Kauka)is subkind of Apperception; mediates between the Self and the Faculty
Presence“It is not sufficient for perception that a physical process takes place in the organ of perception. The process has to be attended by the soul, or it has to be present [hudur] to the soul. In other words, what goes on in the organ of perception has to enter the field of presence constituted by the soul – that is, its experience – in the manner proper to the particular faculty in whose organ the process takes place. In itself, the soul is nothing but this field of presence, this first-personal experience, which is entered by various contents that are thereby made present.”(Kauka)characterizes Apperception

Sources

  • Marcotte, Roxanne, “Suhrawardi”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
  • Marcotte, Roxanne, “Suhrawardī’s apperception of the self in light of Avicenna”, Transcendent Philosophy 1, 1-22 London Academy of Iranian Studies
  • Kaukua, Jari, “Suhrawardī’s knowledge as presence in context”. Studia Orientalia 114, Helsinki 2013

First published: 26/03/2020