Abstract:
The basic question of a theory of knowledge: In which authentic way may we know the world? Is this way a sensual/experimental way, an intellectual one, or an intuitive way, or is it a combination of two of these or a joining together of all of them? The positivist and empiricist philosophers have chosen the first option, peripatetic and the realist philosophers went to the second one, illuminationist philosophers and mystics accepted the third way, and the followers of the transcendental philosophy of Mulla Sadra suggested the last answer.
In order to elucidate the real significance of this issue as a basic problem in the philosophy of religion and the position of Islamic philosophy in this regard, I will briefly explain, in this paper, the definition of knowledge from an Islamic philosophical perspective, the possibility of having absolute knowledge, the instruments for acquiring knowledge, the criteria by which we may recognize the true knowledge from the false one on the basis of the foundations of Islamic philosophy. This, in its turn, equips and mobilizes us to realize, understand and have confidence on our understanding of facts, religious realities and truths.
Machine summary:
"In order to elucidate the real significance of this issue as a basic problem in the philosophy of religion and the position of Islamic philosophy in this regard, I will briefly explain, in this paper, the definition of knowledge from an Islamic philosophical perspective, the possibility of having absolute knowledge, the instruments for acquiring knowledge, the criteria by which we may recognize the true knowledge from the false one on the basis of the foundations of Islamic philosophy.
Soul-body problem, God’s attributes, the theory of knowledge, sources of man’s knowledge, motion, substantial motion, intellectual and imperial vocations, principality of existence or quiddity, gradation of existence and many other ontological as well as epistemological problems, fundamental in themselves and yet linked on many levels, have been discussed and subject to many attempts at resolving them, developing them by Muslim philosophers and mystics through the centuries.
In order to elucidate the real significance of this issue as a basic problem in the Origins of Religion and the position of Islamic philosophy in this regard, I will briefly explain, in this paper, the definition of knowledge from an Islamic philosophical perspective, the possibility of having absolute knowledge, the instruments or the tools for acquiring knowledge, the sources, the levels, and the types of knowledge in this philosophical tradition.
In other words, although in Islamic philosophy there is still no independent treatise or chapter that discusses the "theory of knowledge or epistemology," most of the discussion, debate and argument on this issue has been disputed in isolated writings, such as in chapters on science and perception, intellect, mental existence, soul and its modes, etc."