Abstract

The issue of knowledge and perception, for Muslim philosophers, is essentially other than what is dealt with by Western philosophers. In Islamic thought, man's knowledge is based on Divine origin, since existence itself is a Divine issue. This Divine issue, of course, has been spoken of in various Islamic schools of thought.As a philosopher, inherited the Peripatetic and Illuminationist schools, Mulla Sadra seeks to found his own theory of perception on a completely mystical basis; and in fact he is to define the knowledge in mysticism in a philosophical way.Hence, the foundations of his epistemology are firstly and essentially mystical and Illuminationist and secondly and accidentally, Peripatetic. As regards the reality of knowledge, Mulla Sadra says that knowledge is among those realities, whose beings and essences are same as their quiddities. All things are summoned through knowledge for reason; and hence knowledge itself cannot be summoned through a thing other than knowledge. The reality of knowledge is not other than light and presence. That is why, in classification of philosophical issues, Mulla Sadra not only has classified the issue of knowledge under the topic of existence, but also has regarded it among the first divisions of existence, discussed under the philosophia prima; and thus he has regarded knowledge, knower and known to be among essential accidents of existence.