The examination of particulars is characteristic of the process of Philosophy- “the study of things inasmuch as they exist and are divided into two types of existence, meaning the external and the mental… and the study of every theoretical matter and from every point of view.” (Inati, 64) The Philosopher then, proceeds by examining particulars hoping to arrive at an all-encompassing understanding of all particulars both physical and mental that is in accord with perfect reason in an infinite number of individual details. These are the sorts of philosophers Ibn Tufayl criticizes for their reaction to his description of Hayy’s intuitive experience of Truth. They tell Tufayl he has “abandoned the rule of reason,” to which he replies, “I shall grant him that… What he means by reason- he and his ilk- is no more than the power to articulate, to abstract a general concept from a number of sensory particulars, and his ‘men of sound reason’ are simply those who think the same way. But the kind of understanding I am speaking of transcends all this.” (Goodman, 152) This conception is the highest form of knowledge possible for the Philosopher, for one whose aim is the possession of the grandest of ideas brought about by rational examination. In Tufayl’s introduction, he refers to this being the state to which Ibn Bajja describes, “reached by the use of reason,” and also as corresponding to the mystical experience of the intuitive faculty which knows the same object as this pure rationality. However, Tufayl asserts that the level of intuitive experience is distinguished from rational knowledge in that it is a wholly different form of knowing which experiences a content that is also of this wholly transcendent nature, in effect knowing it as it is rather than as it is represented in rational thought. He compares this to a blind man learning about the existence of color through reasoned descriptions and accounts, conceiving color as a mental formation such that if he was not blind, this conception would not contradict the experience of actually seeing colors. However, with only the thought of color and not experience, the man cant really know the world of vision in the way it is known by the faculty appropriate to its nature, that of sight. In the same way, the Philosopher cannot know the Necessarily Existent Being without the faculty appropriate to its nature, and it is the pursuit of this faculty which characterizes Philosophical-Metaphysics as opposed to mere philosophy. If the motivation for seeking the Truth is anything other than yearning and Love of that Truth, then there cannot be complete fulfillment or perfection of knowledge. Love, Avicenna describes as, “the joy of conceiving of the presence of a certain existent essence.” Sri Aurobindo reiterates the essential nature of this principle to the process of philosophy and the perfection of necessarily existent wisdom; “All those that cannot coexist with the perfect union of love, must eventually fall away, while only those that can form themselves into expressions of divine love and into means of enjoying divine love, can remain. For love is the one emotion in us which can be entirely motiveless and self-existent; love need have no other motive than love. Love is a passion and it seeks for two things, eternity and intensity, and in the relation of the Lover and Beloved the seeking for eternity and for intensity is instinctive and self-born. Love is a seeking for mutual possession, and it is here that the demand for mutual possession becomes absolute. Passing beyond desire of possession which means a difference, it is a seeking for oneness, and it is here that the idea of oneness, of two souls merging into each other and becoming one finds the acme of its longing and the utterness of its satisfaction. (Synthesis of Yoga, 599) https://youtube/watch?v=vPiYCDyANEs#t=11
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 06:48:43 +0000
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