Knowledge in Post-Avicennian Islamic Philosophy
Main funder
Funder's project number: 266178
Funds granted by main funder (€)
- 425 005,00
Funding program
Project timetable
Project start date: 01/09/2013
Project end date: 31/08/2018
Summary
The project investigates the treatment of knowledge in two post-Avicennian intellectual currents: the ishrāqī tradition founded upon the work of Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī (d. 1191) and the tradition of theoretical Sufism instigated by Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240). The new concept of knowledge that emerges in the two traditions tends to emphasize intuition and immediate experience. As a consequence, it is often conceived as a mystical turn away from the rational epistemology of classical Avicennian philosophy. The present project will explore these strands of thought in close relation to Avicenna whose thought they depart from, and strives to give a new account of them as conceptions of knowledge that are presented as genuine alternatives to Avicenna instead of simply inimical to the use of reason. The end term of the period under investigation is the highly influential new system of Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1640) whose philosophy was largely a synthesis of the two strands with more traditional Avicennian ideas.
