جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « primary intelligible » در نشریات گروه « فلسفه و کلام »

The classification of the universals and the intelligibles is one of the main philosophical topics that plays a fundamental role in organizing other philosophical issues. The words and views of Muslim philosophers in the classification of the intelligibles have been subject to many conflicts and ambiguities. As long as the underlying factors of ambiguity are not clarified, it is not possible to achieve a proper classification of universals and general concepts. Here we can name the causes such as the lack of terminology, the ambiguity of the relationship between the primary intelligible and the secondary intelligible, the confusion of areas when classifying the intelligibles, tying the classification of concepts to philosophical theories, and the ambiguity of the relationship between existence and quiddity. By carefully examining the causes of ambiguity and their epistemological implications, it can be realized that the philosophical secondary intelligible and the logical secondary intelligible cannot be categorized in a same classification, and in the classification of the intelligibles, the way the concept refers to the referent should be the criterion of division, not the way the concept is formed and abstracted; due to its inclusiveness, existence should not be classified beside essence, but should be defined according to the ontological primacy of existence over essence. By placing the concept of existence and reality as the source of division, a new classification can be proposed that is free from the current problems and ambiguities.

The classification of the universals and the intelligibles is one of the main philosophical topics that plays a fundamental role in organizing other philosophical issues. The words and views of Muslim philosophers in the classification of the intelligibles have been subject to many conflicts and ambiguities. As long as the underlying factors of ambiguity are not clarified, it is not possible to achieve a proper classification of universals and general concepts. Here we can name the causes such as the lack of terminology, the ambiguity of the relationship between the primary intelligible and the secondary intelligible, the confusion of areas when classifying the intelligibles, tying the classification of concepts to philosophical theories, and the ambiguity of the relationship between existence and quiddity. By carefully examining the causes of ambiguity and their epistemological implications, it can be realized that the philosophical secondary intelligible and the logical secondary intelligible cannot be categorized in a same classification, and in the classification of the intelligibles, the way the concept refers to the referent should be the criterion of division, not the way the concept is formed and abstracted; due to its inclusiveness, existence should not be classified beside essence, but should be defined according to the ontological primacy of existence over essence. By placing the concept of existence and reality as the source of division, a new classification can be proposed that is free from the current problems and ambiguities.

In the contemporary Islamic philosophy, the intelligibles (universal concepts) fall under three categories: primary or essential intelligibles, philosophical secondary concepts, and logical secondary concepts. In this study, the term intelligible is the characteristic of mental concepts. A glance at the philosophical references proves that in the past, the term intelligible was sometimes used to describe the very real entities, rather than the concepts, and were merely divided into two primary and secondary ones. Suffering from the primacy of quiddity and some other doubts, the illuminationist philosophers made existence and its attributes fall under secondary intelligibles and thus be regarded as merely mental concepts. Having made the illuminationist's errors correct, later philosophers divided secondary intelligibles into two categories of logic and philosophy and thus they put attributes of existence under philosophical secondary intelligibles. They have also proposed criteria to distinguish those three categories one from another. In his present study of the historical development of the issue, the author has come to the conclusion that putting the concepts as the subject of description, classification of the intelligibles into three categories, and bringing philosophical entities under "secondary intelligibles" are not recommended, and in some cases are incorrect. Like previous references, we ought to consider the very entities as the intelligibles and to classify them into two categories of primary and secondary intelligibles. In this classification, the philosophical entities go under primary intelligibles and they are divided into three: those of quiddity, philosophical ones, and those mentally-constructed.

The classification of general concepts and types of intelligibles is one of the most important philosophical issues that has had an important position and influence on philosophical thinking. According to some Muslim philosophers, the intelligibles are divided into three categories: primary intelligible and philosophical secondary intelligible and logical secondary intelligible. This famous division is not complete and seems to be confusing and is faced with some difficulties such as incompatibility with holy concepts and its vague relationship to the primacy of existence and some other concepts; in this article, at first, the famous narrative is described, and then we address it critically. A new division is proposed that does not include flaws and ambiguities of the famous division. Finally, the concept of existence is considered as the source of division and other concepts are considered the its branches and, in this way, the popular division of general concepts changes fundamentally.

Philosophical concepts have significant role in philosophy as well as in many other sciences and the basis of all sciences is made by these concepts. These concepts are, not neither the result of immediate contemplation on tangible world and nor as the result of pure mental activity, therefore, understanding and analyzing them has raised many problems in various philosophical schools. Among the intelligible, the concept of "existence" is distinct and important in many ways. On the one hand, in the Transcendent theosophy, existence is real per se while the quiddity is per accident so the concept of the existence has essentially direct referent but the concepts of quiddity fails it; On the other hand, the famous feature of the concepts that state essence of things is that they have objective reference and the famous feature of philosophical secondary intelligible is that they have not. So the question to which this research deal with can be posed: is the concept of existence a primary intelligible or a secondary intelligible? This paper by an analytical-descriptive method, aiming at analyzing the philosophical secondary intelligible, attempts to present a more precise criterion to distinguish the primary and the secondary intelligible concepts. According to this fact that existence is real, the existence itself is external and real, but the concept of existence created by mental activity is a secondary intelligible and representing the external reality. Other philosophical concepts that are affirmative represent the modes of external reality.

Primary intelligibles, philosophers hold, are general concepts whose referents exist in the external world. On the contrary, secondary intelligibles or mentally constructed concepts do not have referents in the outside world. People like Suhrawardi who believe in the real primacy of quiddity consider existence as a secondary concept because they hold that existence is merely constructed by the mind and thus is not real. On the other hand, after Mulla Sadra who vindicated the real primacy of existence, his followers were to consider existence and its attributes as primary concepts, because according to them it is existence that really exist by itself in the external world, rather than the quiddity. Nevertheless, they still believe that existence and its attributes are secondary intelligibles. A few solutions have been proposed to dispel that contradiction. Ayatullah Fayyazi holds that the correct view is that existence as an infinitive is a secondary intelligible and mentally constructed, but as a verbal noun is a primary one and real. Other views are: 1-the general concept of existence qua its generality is not real; 2- the fake concept of existence -viewing the fact that the reality of existence does not come into the mind- is regarded as a secondary intelligible; 3- the secondary philosophical intelligible is interpreted as a concept lacking any independent referent, or as concept secondarily understood, or as a concept made through comparison. All those solutions are invalid .

The main goal in the present article is an investigation of the classification of intelligible things into logical and philosophical primary and secondary ones as well as classification of the concept of existence under primary intelligible concepts. In this article, we have referred to the background of the issue of intelligible things in Islamic philosophy to scrutinize the argument for considering the concept of existence as the secondary intelligible concept, and to argue – assuming the principality of existence – that the concept of existence can be of the type of primary intelligible concepts.
This article, while using a fundamental method, is not a descriptive one; rather, it is a criticism and presenting a view. Here, we prove that conventionality of the concept of existence does not mean it is a secondary intelligible concept. In view of the various intentions of existence and separating them from one another, the selected view of the article is explained and, finally, considering the objections and problems stated in the article, a redefinition of the philosophical primary and secondary intelligible as well as logical secondary intelligible is presented.

The place of concepts and the quality of the interaction between the mind and the object are two of the important issues in the fields of epistemology and ontology. The problems of primary and secondary intelligibles and their distinction from each other also enjoy equal significance. The common view regarding the difference between primary and secondary intelligibles is that, unlike the logical and philosophical secondary intelligibles, primary intelligibles have some external referents. In this paper, the writer maintains that this criterion is not enough for distinguishing them from each other. To justify his position, he argues that the theory of the principiality of existence plays an influential role in clarifying the distinction between these two types of intelligibles.

The intelligibles are divided into primary, secondary philosophical, and secondary logical intelligibles. Mulla Sadra differentiates between the three according to the process of abstraction of general concepts from particulars as well as their position in the mind. Hajji Sabzevari, however, distinguishes between them on the basis of objectivity or subjectivity of prosody and ascription. On the other hand, Motahhari introduces another distinguishing factor, an ontological one, on the basis of Mulla Sadra’s theory of copulative and non-copulative types of existence. Studying Mulla Sadra’s and Hajji Sabzevari’s factors, the authors of this article prove that they refer to a single fact, and the ontological factor is the combination of the two. They also seek to analyze Motahhari’s criticisms of Mulla Sadra’s and Hajji Sabzevari’s factors in order to demonstrate that they are often irrelevant.

According to Kant, the faculty of understanding possesses apriori concepts. These concepts or categories are the basis of universal and necessary judgments. In his view, the knowledge of facts is possible for humans through these concepts. On the other hand, in Islamic philosophy true and universal concepts are divided into primary intelligibles or quiddative concepts indicating the quiddities of objects, logical secondary intelligibles, and philosophical secondary intelligibles. This paper compares the Kantian categories with the secondary intelligibles in Islamic philosophy. The writer believes that paying attention to various viewpoints of concepts makes this paper distinct from similar ones. Here, he has first explained the various viewpoints of concepts, and then, after a brief explanation of Kantian categories and secondary intelligibles in Islamic philosophy, compared them with each other.