, husseini1390@iau.ac.ir
Abstract: (83 Views)
The divide between internalism and externalism constitutes one of contemporary epistemology's fundamental impasses regarding epistemic justification. Internalists ground justification in reflective accessibility but fail to secure the connection between belief and objective reality; externalists establish this connection through reliable processes yet deprive epistemic subjects of direct access to justificatory grounds. This article argues that Mullā Ṣadrā al‑Shīrāzī's (1571–1640 CE) theory of presential knowledge (ʿilm ḥuḍūrī) in his Transcendent Philosophy (al‑Ḥikma al‑Mutaʿāliya) provides a genuine third alternative satisfying both requirements. Unlike contemporary theories treating knowledge as a mental state, presential knowledge constitutes an immediate existential relation where the knower is directly present to the known, without conceptual mediation or representational imagery. Grounded in the principles of the primacy of existence (aṣālat al‑wujūd) and substantial motion (al‑ḥaraka al‑jawhariyya), this knowledge‑type provides a non‑derivative justificatory base that is argued here to secure both existential access and a constitutive link to truth without reducing to standard internalist or reliabilist accounts. Through systematic analysis of primary sources (al‑Asfār al‑Arbaʿa, al‑Shawāhid al‑Rubūbiyya) and critical engagement with Goldman, BonJour, and Sosa, and employing an analytical‑comparative methodology that reconstructs and assesses Ṣadrā’s arguments against contemporary justificatory frameworks, this study demonstrates how presential knowledge transcends the internalism–externalism dichotomy by dissolving the epistemic gap at its foundation: the soul's presence to reality is not a secondary relation but existence's own structure. The paper further sketches how fallible, acquired propositional knowledge relates to and is epistemically grounded in these presential bases.
Keywords: presential knowledge, Mullā Ṣadrā, internalism, externalism, epistemic justification, Transcendent Philosophy.
Type of Study: Original Article |
Subject:
Philosophy
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