Foundationalism in Mullā Ṣadrā’s Epistemology

Document Type : The Quarterly Jornal

Authors

1 PhD student of philosophy, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

2 Associate Professor, Research Institute for Islamic Culture and Thought, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Foundationalism is a major early theory concerning epistemic justification, which has the capacity to resist against many rival approaches which lead to skepticism and relativism. Given his principles such as primacy of existence and the relation between epistemology and ontology in his view, Mullā Ṣadrā’s brand of foundationalism has many advantages. In this research, we adopt a descriptive-analytic method to offer a comprehensive consideration and analysis of foundationalism in the views of this prominent philosopher. We conclude that, firstly, Mullā Ṣadrā’s epistemology is quite influenced by his ontology; secondly, the process of knowledge acquisition and justification can be explained only by distinguishing different stages of knowledge given the arcs of ascent and descent; thirdly, knowledge by acquisition is an act and thus a manifestation of the subject’s immaterial soul. Hence, knowledge by acquisition goes back to knowledge by acquaintance; and finally, epistemic justification which solely applies to assents (taṣdīqāt) is accounted for by reducing theoretical assents to self-evident assents and the latter to knowledge by presence.

Keywords

References

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