Explanation of Avicenna's Epistemological Model through the Effect of His Ontological Foundations in Justifying Perceptual Phenomena

In Avicenna's epistemological model, the human soul is likened to a mirror that accepts perceptions, which consist of accidental qualities. So, perception is a kind of representation. The soul has two perceptual domains: the intellectual immaterial domain, which represents universals and essences, and the sensory and imaginal material domain, which represents the characteristics of present and past perceived things. In this model, the appearance of sensory, imaginal, and intellectual perceptions is explained by the theory of impression and abstraction. Explaining how this epistemological model is shaped, it could be imagined that the philosopher introspectively considers phenomenal states of perception, identifies their characteristics, and then seeks to explain them based on his ontological foundations, ultimately proposing a theory of knowledge informed by this consideration. Avicenna recognizes phenomenal characteristics such as subjectivity, accidentality, universality, and particularity among perceptions, and based on his ontological grounds, he establishes an essentialist epistemological model that implies the unity of the perceiver and the object of perception.