Salahaddin Khalilov

PHENOMENOLOGY OF LIFE
or

LIFE OF IDEA

Baku 2012

Khalilov S.S. Phenomenology of Life or Life of Idea. Baku, Azerbaijan University Press, 2012 184 p.

ISBN 978-9952-8147-3-6

Khalilov S.S., 2012 ___________________________________________________

This book is dedicated to: Prof. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka

To be is to be alive!
A.-T. Tymieniecka

Being is the enlivenment of Idea!

Abu Turkhan

Introduction
The rise of modern Western civilisation is related to the formation of the new type of thinking. This thought became possible due to the descent from the heavens to the earth and to choosing earthly realities from sensory experience and eventually to the widely application of scientific experiments to real vital processes. Thus, during many centuries, the West made significant progress from researching abstract realities towards the realities of practical activity, and in this way the bases of the second technogenic nature and the information society were founded. However, it did not realise that it would be alienated from man and from the essence of individual life when covering this long distance. Nevertheless not everybody in the West could keep his finger on the pulse of time and the initiatives of western pragmatism and rationalism towards overcoming the crisis by replacing them with so-called postmodern views does not justify itself. On the other hand, the knowledge which has been objectivized on account of the alienation from the inner world of the human being, his experiences and existence and the epistemic methodology, positivism, neo-positivism, post-positivism and eventually linguistic analyze, semantic philosophy, structuralism, neo-structuralism, which have been established 5

Introduction on the base of it (knowledge), and the transition from here to postmodernism this is the very crisis that has been caused by the one-sided development of rationalism. Everything is transformed to its opposite and reach the point of self-denial when it goes too long on the same line. Nonetheless, on account of the fact that the Earth is round, there is another way to go to India, and it would be possible to suppose that this movement that continued to the opposite direction, one day would be directed towards the East once again. It is interesting that the second way to India goes via America as well as the way of the Western world to Eastern philosophy this time goes via America. I would like to talk about the distinguished American philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka`s philosophy of the return to the East. The Husserlian Phenomenology managed to gain a place for itself in a condition when there was hegemony of science, and when scientism had become a leading mode of thought. Indeed, science and its application can be considered as the symbols of the West. But what kind of science is it? Is it the science of sciences, which attempts to be transformed to the abstract mathematical-philosophical system, or the deductiveaxiomatic science or the science which arises from experience and serves experience, practice and technique? Does not technicism, which is not approved by Husserl, underlie Modern Europe? Husserl speaks, on the one hand, about the spirit of Europe, and on the other hand, criticizes empiricism. Nevertheless, first off all, due to empiricism and scientific-practical activity, Europe managed to lay the foundation of Modern Western civilization. For this reason, for us, it symbolizes the 6

Introduction essence of Modern Times better than F. Bacon and R. Descartes. By putting forward phenomenology, which is a kind of alternative to empiricism, naturalism, technicism and even positivism, for finding a solution of the crisis, did Husserl, in fact, want to `rescue` Europe in Modern Times from the crisis or from its Western essence? Or, will Existentialism, which is another teaching that has been based on phenomenology, return Europe its real face? Is not Existentialism an Eastern phenomenon formed in the West? Jean-Paul Sartre writes: We have in Husserl... a gradual elucidation and a remarkable description of the essential structures of conciseness (un pointillisme dessence) but never the posing of the ontological problem, namely that of the being of conciseness In the same manner the problem of the being of the world remains in suspense We never return from the phenomenological epoch to the world. 1 That is to say, Husserls practice of denying Ontology and Metaphysics was, in fact, another face of positivism. There was a need to the real great philosophy. Max Scheler's phenomenological realism, Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception and such other new phenomenologies were not, in fact, a direct continuation of Husserls teaching, but were the result of the inclinations towards becoming distant from it in different

J.-P. Sartre, Conscience de soi et connaissance de soi , Socit Franaise de philosophie (Sance du 2 juin 1947), p. 55; Herbert Spiegelberg, The phenomenological Movement, Dordricht-Boston, 1994, p. 476.

Introduction directions as well as towards approaching philosophical problematic. And finally, we encounter the phenomenology of life and with the return back to the real great philosophy. The guarantor of this return is Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka who is one of the most distinguished philosophers of the present day. Poles coalesce on the top. If the West truly wants to move away from its rationalistic traditions, instead of searching the alternatives for logic and sensory experience, it should be found the methods which could complete them and rescue mankind from the one-sided thought and from the syndrome of `alienation`, and pave the way for moral richness. Phenomenology has special place among the philosophical teachings, which try to create the integrated view of cognitive process in the 20th century. At first sight, phenomenology appears as a new stage in the development of the history of Western thought. Nevertheless, the analyze indicates that the cognitive element, which is presented as `a phenomenon` and explicitly expresses the truth at the intentional point, looking back over several centuries, was known in Medieval Islamic philosophy as the illumination of idea. Henry Corbin, who drew the attention to this direction, considered it possible to compare phenolmenology with Illuminationism (Ishraqiyya). In the second half of the 20th century, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka has directed the attention to this very aspect and has considered it necessary to learn Islamic philosophy in the West from a new perspective. On the one hand, she has built her teaching on the basis of the traditions of Western Philosophy, but on the other hand, by 8

Introduction attaching great importance to the inner and emotional lives of human beings, she has developed `phenomenology of life`, which is a new branch of phenomenology. Tymieniecka herself has emphasized the necessity of applying to Islamic philosophy in this issue: A significant situation of the living individualbeingness within the system of life, and one of paramount importance for our argument, concerned as it is with preparing the way for possible dialogue between phenomenology and Islamic philosophy is to be acknowledged. 2 Thus, Tymieniecka`s works arise not only from the thoughts of E. Husserl, M. Heidegger and E. Levinas, but also from Eastern thought. It should not be a coincidence that during the recent years she has been attaching importance to Illuminationism, in particular to the teaching of Mulla Sadra. We find there a great deal of usage from the terminological basis of the concept of Illuminationism. It is also not a coincidence that Tymieniecka supports introducing the thought of the great Azerbaijani philosopher and the founder of Illuminationism Shihabaddin Suhrawardi to Western Philosophy in a new form. It is true that traditionally phenomenology has been accepted as a product of Western thought. However, even among Husserls sources of idea some Eastern sources are mentioned (usually Buddhism). The close relation of this teaching to Islamic philosophy, especially to Ishragism (Illumi-

A.-T.Tymieniecka, The Unveiling and the Unveiled, The Passion of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming, Edited by A.-T.Tymieniecka, Dordricht-Boston, 2003, p. XLIII.

Introduction nationism) has been revealed in the studies conducted under the leadership of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka in last decades. In this book, we also tried to put the issue in another light. The phenomena here are also viewed in the context of illumination of idea. In doing so, the thought of Abu Turkhan Being is the enlivenment of Idea is taken as a basis. This kind of approach took its bases from middle age Islamic philosophy, in particular, Ishragism. In fact, this approach has even deeper roots, and can be traced back Plutos doctrine. It is not by chance, that Spiegelberg writes, In fact, the conception of a logos of the phainomena is quite Platonic and can be traced more or less explicitly to Platos attempt to salvage the appearances from the world of Heraclitean flux by relating them to the world of logos, i.e., of the changeless Forms. 3 However, for seeing the changeless Forms, we first need to remove the multicolored covers that are the cause of the diversity in the material world. It is called unveiling in Islamic philosophy. Tyminiechka investigates this event in her article The Unveiling and The Unveiled, and directs the attention to the solution and analysis of this problem in the Islamic philosophy. Though the reality of the physical world is accepted in Islamic philosophy, it is considered there as mortal, transient and deceptive: and the human soul is accepted as a second existence of the only real being-of the spirit on a local-individual scale. The body, in turn, is considered as the instrument of the soul. The human world there is, in fact, the world of the
Herbert Spiegelberg. The Phenomenological movement. A historical introduction. Dordrecht . Kluwer, 1994, p.7.
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Introduction soul. However, the soul is not uniform but is the interior part of the multi-stage inner structure. The revelation of truths is possible due to the contact of the individual spirit (soul) with the divine spirit, and this is what is called intuition. It is called illumination (ishraq) in Ishraqism. However, intuition itself has various levels: the moments of inspiration (ilham), ecstasy (wajd), unveiling (kashf) and finally revelation (wahy). The whole existence is viewed on the scale of consciousness in the Husserlian phenomenology. The unveiling of phenomena is, in fact, a revelation or illumination of truths by means of intuition. That is to say, the notion of phenomenon in the Husserlian phenomenology is closely related to the notion of truth in Islamic philosophy. The knowledge gained through sensory experience is not considered as true (truth). On the contrary, for reaching the truth, it is required to become free from the impacts of sensory experience. It reminds us, in turn, the phenomenological reduction. In fact the epistemological system in Islamic philosophy has been comprehensively studied. Merely Western philosophy, which had not been aware of these developments, had to re-discover all these, and phenolmenology undertook this mission. Nevertheless, the Husserlian phenomenology can explain the problem only one-sided. The variety and multi-stageness of structure of the soul is not taken into consideration. Reason in Islamic philosophy is only one aspect of the soul. In the Husserlian teaching, in turn, only reason is drawn forth and this variety is not sufficiently expressed. Probably for this reason Tymieniecka establishes her teaching on the world of soul which is a richer world (in the context of Avicennas and Suhrawardi`s discussions). 11

Introduction A.-T. Tymieniecka views the formation of intuition in the context of creativity. For her, in fact, the human being lives when he creates. A more precise approach than Descartess thesis I think, therefore I am is the attitude I create, therefore I am. Considering the fact that creativity is a specific experience, it could be said that Tymienieckas philosophy is closer to Existentialism; or more precisely, in Tymienieckas works, the way from Phenomenology to Existentialism is continued, and it is taken a step towards a new stage by quality (essence). She rightly calls this teaching the phenomenology of life, because this teaching could be considered as a transformation of the philosophical searches within phenomenology from the abstract sphere to real human life.

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MAN AND THE WORLD

Way to The Logos of Life The Esoteric Passion of Western Philosophy for the Eastern Basis

Man is there present under all his aspects: natural man who fulfils physiological functions, social man in the bosom of the human community, as well as the man who feels, who loves, or who hopes and who, so doing, transcends himself and wins his freedom by breaking the chains of natural man. This system which knots harmonious bonds between man and the world does it on a different basis, issuing from man's conquest of himself.

A.-T. Tymieniecka

Way to The Logos of Life

Every man lives out his own ordained life; a life that has been predestined for him. However, after the human being reaches a certain mature age, he begins to weigh up, and if he reaches a higher mature age then he calculates his own life. Namely, this life is a conscious life perceived in the first stage, but man still cannot build his life on his own. Consciousness here is posterior to events and life. In the second stage, man chooses his life on his own; that is to say, what is of concern here is a consciously built life. The cognition of man of his own life and his building his future life consciously become possible only due to philosophical thinking. However, not every man can rise to the level of philosophical thinking and the vast majority live an unconscious and spontaneous life. The aim is to convey the illumination and self-cognitive practices of limited number of human beings, who have perceived themselves and the world, to others and to present it to the use of everyone. Is it however possible? For the present, we can only transfer knowledge. Namely, the practice of the transfer of inner illumination and mental energy among people is not yet known. For this reason, everything can be transferred to others only after arranging them into logical patterns and brin15

Man and the World ging them into the form of knowledge, and as if they go into space-cosmos that is common for everyone, and only after this they become useful for being accepted by others; or more precisely, the transfer becomes possible by means of language. A man can transfer his condition as well as his feelings through scientific, philosophical and artistic languages. It is impossible for every man, of course, to be a philosopher. However, can philosophers, besides perceiving the world and the life they live, also find the methods of conveying it to others? Self-cognition, that is, mans understanding of his personal life as if by observing from outside, and his using the dialogue and mutual agreement between him and Ego, which he has pushed it aside, in his life experience, differ from the abstraction and depersonalization of gained knowledge and carrying them out of personal life and as if entering these types of knowledge, which belong to man and to his relations with the world, into the system and creating from them a theoretical teaching. However, in the next stage, this system of depersonalized and abstracted knowledge philosophy- must re-descend into life and illuminate the lives of non-philosophers. A specialized man, of course, in a certain meaning, is asymmetric and sometimes even degenerative, that is, in spite of his poor development in all other fields, he has great unexampled knowledge and skills in a certain field. For this reason, he has left the entire harmonious human image and has possessed a specific and different image. However, it does not mean that the germ of completeness in his activities has disappeared for ever. The image of that completeness, which 16

Way to The Logos of Life has lagged behind development, is probably continuing to remain as a germ in that man. When life treads on his corns and when the world twinkles in front of his eyes, then as if that completeness within him becomes revived, and by gaining completeness for an instant, man understands the great, true meaning of life. Literature and the arts undertake the mission of providing the harmony for such specialized people and causing them to experience the beauty of the complete image of the world. Literature forms a virtual world for us and shows the completeness and another aspect of the world to specialized but yet incomplete men; and the real world becomes completed with this figurative world; and thus man reaches his completeness. Unlike the universe, which is infinite, a stone that weighs a gram, a small part of the world is finite in measure. Air, which weighs a gram, spreads all over the world and as if includes the whole world. Reason, as thickened and patterned senses in the form of knowledge, has lost its opportunity to spread over the world by being re-thinned. Senses, in turn, are active and agile like air. If a drop of a sense evaporates then it can re-conquer the whole world; or more precisely, with our senses we are determined to include the entire world. How many times should we gather, with our knowledge, different local beings, which have been detached from the world, together so that we can re-create an image of the world? Literature can make man complete just because it excites feelings. Science takes man to pieces just because it has been increasingly localized in the small parts of the world. In this respect, unlike science, literature is formed due to inspiration 17

Man and the World and fervency rather than rational thinking. For this reason, literature is closer to philosophy in terms of its mission and duty. It is not a coincidence that Tymieniecka speaks of the contest between them: Philosophy and literature are caught in a constant contest as each attempts to absorb each others task. 4 The aim of teaching philosophy to people is, in fact, to return them their completeness and give them a chance of living a perfect and complete life. It is very difficult. Music and poetics can accomplish this function better. Philosophy, in turn, attempts to establish that complete image, not on feelings and senses, but on reason itself. The reunification of the separated.... However, each one builds a different world from the parts of this constructor. They build and thus every time establish themselves once again. There cannot be a philosopher who does not have senses. That is, only by means of senses philosophy can gain completeness. This is a specific sense. This has been always called love in the history of philosophy. Love is a connective sense. As Abu Turkhan says: Reason separates, love unites. The personal sensory experiences and life of every man are, first of all, the realisation of senses. The life of the body, to wit, as it is accepted in biology, life-breathing, the metabolism with nature and the activities of every organ of the body like circulation of blood, heartbeat, etc. all these are usually the same processes for all people. Namely, the model of the body and its functionality cannot characterize personal life. ConA.-T.Tymieniecka, Logos and Life. The Passions of the Soul and the Elements in the Onto-Poiesis of Culture. Book 3: the Life-Significance of Literature, Dordricht-Boston: Kluwer, 1990, p. 16.
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Way to The Logos of Life sidering this fact, philosophers do not seek human life in the context of the bodys functionality. However, the body is an instrument and means for the practical activity of the human being. The activities realized by means of it, reveal the intention, aim and also the knowledge and skills of the human being. Man becomes revealed in society as a social being. For this reason, there are some inclinations towards seeking human life at social plane and in its social functioning. Nevertheless, what kind of actions does the human being do? What kind of functions does he perform and which position does he represent as Self in relations with others? When seeking the answer to these questions we have to return to the wishes and ideals of the human being as well as to his functioning programme and to his knowledge and skills. However, there is a need here to differentiation and identifycation. Namely, although knowledge is a main index of human life, only quantitative indices could be shown as its criterion. That is to say, the contents of knowledge are usually same for all people who study in a certain field. There are few differences and many common aspects. Less or more knowledge cannot be a major factor that characterizes a person. What distinguish people are rather their goals of life and what they look forward to. There is a saying: Where there is s a will there is a way. However, the human being does not have a single intention and goal in his life. There are small and big plans in life; and the achievement of a certain goal paves the way for a greater goal. It would be naive to think that the whole activity of the human being is consciously planned by him and he chooses his way of life on his own. The outside impacts, social norms, 19

Man and the World traditions and tendencies, moral values, religious canons, prejudices, temporary fashions and the impacts of the local social environment and collective that a person has accidentally entered, etc. all these have serious impacts on mans daily life and sometimes on his whole life. In fact, there are people who, despite all outside impacts, choose their lives themselves and consciously determine it, but they are minorities. In any case, we mean these very minorities when we speak of personal life and the meaning of life, because the lives of the rest might be suggested not by themselves but by social environment. The meaning of human life, in fact, manifests itself not due to the absolutization of any of mans rational, sensual or practical functionings, but at their crossroad and in the whole, which includes all his aspects. Tymieniecka writes: Man is there present under all his aspects: natural man who fulfils physiological functions, social man in the bosom of the human community, as well as the man who feels, who loves, or who hopes and who, so doing, transcends himself and wins his freedom by breaking the chains of natural man. This system which knots harmonious bonds between man and the world does it on a different basis, issuing from man's conquest of himself. 5 R. Descartes, E. Husserl and other followers of the line of Cogito Ergo Sum treat reason and rational thinking as a central element. Nevertheless, what is the role of reason in
A.-T.Tymieniecka, Logos and Life. Creative experience and the critique of reason Book 1, // Analecta Husserliana: v. 24, DordrichtBoston, 1988, p. 58.
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Way to The Logos of Life choosing personal life and in living it? We have mentioned above that the contents of knowledge are usually same for all people who study in a certain field. Then what about reason? Can the human being be characterized by the knowledge that he has obtained not from his sensory experiences but from rational thoughts? With what does the thought of a man differ from that of another man? At least, logic is same for all people as well as mathematics. Yet the degree of adopting and using them can be different. However, all adopters adopt a same thing and a same content. If all people keep to the norms of thought then they will be the same in this aspect; or if a cosmic mind, the logos of the world, etc. are taken as sources of reason then it should be taken into consideration that this is also the same for everybody. In other words, reason can only be a means for individual life, but cannot be life itself. Then what can individualize man, characterize his personal life, cause him to know himself and reveal `Self`? If we return to sensory experience once again, we will find there the experiences that are common for everybody and are usually repeated. Nonetheless, there are some individual, dear and native experiences and besides being the most striking pages of human life, they are also his personality and indicator of his level. Such pages are related not to the current, traditional and normal life of man, but rather to his creative activities. For in the act of creativity, the real nature of man and his essence becomes unveiled. Paying attention to this very necessity Tymieniecka writes: First and foremost the discovery of human creative experience allowed us access to the logos of life, for it is reflected in human creative experience in its manifold ra21

Man and the World diation. 6 Afterwards, Tymieniecka shows the way that leads to revealing the Ontopoiesis of Life: We found a definitive station (platform) and our compass not in cognition but in the human creative act, which enters the sphere of becomingindividualizing life. We thus interpret in its original nature the becoming that reveals the logos of life within pristine nature. With only one step further (but what an infinite step!), the entire field of the becoming of life, of the ontopoiesis of life, lies open. 7 The great enigmas of the Universal Logos 8 becomes unveiled due to Tymieniecka`s conception of Ontopoiesis. The Husserlian phenomenology is not sufficient for the identification of individual life. The points, which are put forward here, are not for individual and personal lives, but for an abstract common man. However, the window to mans native world can be open only from within his life. Ego stands at the centre of the world and the goal of philosophy is to create a world model that Ego stands at its centre. One of the main goals of Tymieniecka is to lay stress on human life, look at the world from the prism of the life values of man and see, as a central element in the architectonics of the world, not a cognitive process, knowledge, concrete senses, etc., but life itself: Life as such means primordially differenttiation and constructiveness. It means individualization from

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, The Fullness of the Logos in the Key of Life. Book 1. The Case of God in the New Enlightenment. Springer, 2009. p. xxxiii. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid.

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Way to The Logos of Life within a circumambient realm, an individualization which simultaneously transforms that realm into ones own milieu. 9 Life, in turn, is related to the factors, which have important place in the daily activities of man and are native to him, excite him and encourage him to live, rather than science and rational cognition, which are alien to him and do not charge him emotionally. No doubt Tymieniecka does not reach this conclusion all of a sudden. If we follow the evolution of her thought we do not encounter any rectilinear trajectory. This way is zigzagging. Till reaching this final and decisive formulation of her philosophy, Tymieniecka had continued her studies in many directions and more than once she walked up and down in philosophical space. However, because the history of philosophy is in sight, if we draw this way linearly in retrospect, we would see the line of Leibnitz - Ortega y Gasset - Tymieniecka. Jos Ortega y Gasset thinks that phenomenological thinking must be based on a phenomenon, which is an independent system, and this system must be human life. He writes that he abandoned Phenomenology at the very moment of accepting it. Instead of withdrawing from consciousness, as has been done since Descartes, we become firm in the radical reality which is for every one his [or her life] 10 .
A.-T.Tymieniecka, Logos and Life. Creative experience and the critique of reason. Book 1. // Analecta Husserliana: v. 24, DordrichtBoston, 1988, p. 327. 10 Ortega y Gasset, Jos, The Idea of Principle in Leibnitz and the Evolution of Deductive Theory. New York: Norton, 1971. 29 // http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gasset/
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Man and the World May be Tymieniecka has directly benefited from Ortega y Gasset; because he himself started his studies from Leibnitz. However, when we look back from the 21st century, we can determine the shining and deflation periods and places of this brilliant idea. This is may be a virtual model. However we stand on this very line of Leibnitz - Ortega y Gasset - Tymieniecka. Ortega y Gasset brilliantly anticipated that phenomenology and in fact future philosophy would follow this way. However, this idea has not been developed by him. He emphasized the necessity of the application of the phenomenological reduction in the phenomenon of life, but did not work on the realization of this idea. The attempts of Tymieniecka, who is a representative of phenomenology and, besides the line of Leibnitz, has also represented the line of Descartes-Husserl-Heidegger for a time, are of prime importance in this issue. As if she unites different sources and directions in phenomenology in one large way. Her works have been formed in near retrospect from the syntheses of the line of Husserl and Ortega y Gasset, and in far retrospect, from the syntheses of Western way of thinking and Eastern thinking, mainly medieval Islamic thought and in particular Sufi and Illuminationist (Ishraqi) thoughts.

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The Esoteric Passion of Western Philosophy for the Eastern Basis

Heart and inspiration are praised more than mind and reason in the East. Although reason is accepted by Islamic Peripatetics as the highest stage in the structure of the soul, divine love is considered higher than anything else in Sufi philosophy. According to Suhrawardi`s classification, there is a great emotional-spiritual spectrum between animal and reasoning souls in the structure of the soul and it basically implies aesthetic emotions. Unlike Western Sensualism, which overrates the role of the five senses in cognition and unlike Western Realism that insists on the importance of the reasoning soul, Suhrawardi pays attention to the active role of all three steps in cognitive process, and this, in turn, becomes possible on account of the synthetic functions of aesthetic emotions. For the reason that beauty is related to both instinct and truth, the way to reach the truth goes through the artistic-aesthetic life. A poet needs to be filled with enthusiasm as well as a philosopher cannot embrace truth without ecstasy (wajd). In her article called The esoteric passion for space Prof. Tymieniecka tries to explain the relationship between aesthetic and voluptuous feelings of human being and the space factor, 25

Man and the World which is more fundamental-existential factor than others. Here we remember al-Farabi`s notion of the soul of the Earth. This notion means that without being dependent on the human approach to them, different places have esoteric power and attractiveness. Uniting with the vital process of humans or animals and even plants, this attractiveness creates an opposite relationship. The idea of the unity of the world appears not only ontologically but also subjectively as a coherence and unity of emotional experiences. The unity of man and world is put forward in the emotional perspective of space. From what necessity do the expressions such as the soul of the Earth, the esoteric passion for space, the reviving of idea and other non-traditional and metaphoric and even mystical expressions originate? Although the word aliveness is mainly used as a synonym of having the soul there are other shades of meaning too. The verbs to be alive and to breathe coincide with one another in most languages. However, there is one more term of aliveness. The living being is born from another living being. In other words, all living beings come to the world through genetic inheritance and increase in generation and, after remaining as living beings for a period of time, they pass away from this world. Life is established between birth and death. The dead do not return to life. However, the word reviving is also used in a broad sense. Namely, if any being has not yet died and favourable conditions have been created (or cured) then it can become revived. What is of concern here is the reviving of a living one. That is to say, the movement, which is directed from life to death, 26

The Esoteric Passion for the Eastern Basis changes its moving direction again towards life. Why do the plants become withered? Is it because of the lack of water, light and fertilizer? If a withered plant is watered or is lightened then it becomes revived. The main point is that it should be taken into consideration what and how much the plant needs. The potential opportunity is within the plant. The material (or energy) needed for its realization is taken from outside. The reviving becomes possible only when the opportunities of the environment meet the needs of the central factor. Things are divided into living and non-living ones. The reviving of non-living things is considered impossible. However, we will view reviving as a universal category. Namely, we will investigate the terms of the reviving of non-living things. The living world has been programmed. However, the objects of the non-living world also contain certain information; they have certain forms and structures. These forms are the copies of an idea. The reviving of this copy requires energy from outside. The energy source for the reviving of idea could be obtained only due to the intellectual potential of men. The attention of the human being is directed to the object and thus a certain image of the object is formed. Whose reviving do we mean in this case? For the reason that the idea in the object (its structure and form) is a copy, it is not capable of being revived. It can only take part in fermentation. Only the human being, who has access to the real McCoy of these ideas, is capable of giving birth to idea. The human soul also does not keep all ideas alive in itself. As a rule, they settle in the passive fund. At the result of 27

Man and the World the contact with the copies, which are in the material world, mans ideas, which are reserved in the passive fund, can be activated. As if this is a process of fermentation and, as a result of it, passive ideas can become revived. The revived ideas are those phenomena that a special teaching based on them has been established in the West. At the heart of the controversy is what attitude do phenomena have towards the relation between objects and human mind? To what extent is their connection to the object as well as their adequacy to it? For Kant, the 'thing-in-itself' is incomprehensible. What do we comprehend then? According to Husserl, what consciousness is directed to are phenomena. Namely, what is of concern is not the object, but its meaning. On the other hand, what we take as being is phenomenon, and the existence of the object and its perception as a whole stays out of cognition. The different aspect of Humes agnosticism is that what it talks about is the image of sensory impression. Namely, what is perceived is not the object itself, but the mental image of sensory impression. The problem of to what extent this image corresponds to the object is out of cognition. The model is same. Hume, Kant and Husserl take, as an object of cognition, not a concrete object, which is considered as material reality, but its image, form and appearance. However, in Hume this image is formed through organs of sense, while in Husserl it is accepted as a pure meaning purified of senses. The purification of this image of the senses and the liberation of reason from all kinds of psychologism and the adoption of meaning purely is one of the important problems in Husserl. 28

The Esoteric Passion for the Eastern Basis However, the senses also can be completely at different levels. The cognitive senses serve the perception formation of the knowledge of an object gained though organs of sense. This sensory image resembles the object in terms of its external signs, or more precisely, we think so. Nevertheless, there can be another way of being affected by the object. Namely, we do not form an image considering its colour, form, sound and other physical indicators; on the contrary, by being liberated from this sensory information, we suffice only with an impression formed within us through non- apparent ways; more precisely, the external signs of the object recede into background and we take into account only the sensual experience and emotional state formed by it. This experience, however, is incomprehensible for us. As if an abstract image gradually differentiates and the secret relations between our sensual condition and the object become revealed. For the reason that such clarification mostly does not happen, we become unaware of our senses and their sources. Unlike a sensory image, an image of idea is related to our primary knowledge. Leibnitz says: ...the knowledge that our ideas give us, for ideas are the only things that knowledge has anything to do with. 11 *** Just as different things, every plant and all living beings have been programmed, and just as the whole future life has been taken into account in every germ as a project, likewise the
G. W. Leibniz. New Essays on Human Understanding. Book III: Ideas, p. 177 // http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdf/leibnew4.pdf.
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Man and the World whole nature and world can be viewed as a programmed system. Individual programs are included within the macro-programme in the context of nature. Every man as well as society as a whole have inner development regularity and inner motive impulses as an organism. Just as every human thought has a certain relative independence, likewise the world of reason is also autonomous and it has its own inner regularity and objective development ways. Merely, sometimes man follows one of these ways and the way leads man. Husserl writes: According to the guiding ideal of the Renaissance, ancient man forms himself with insight through free reason. For this renewed Platonism this means not only that man should be changed ethically [but that] the whole human surrounding world, must be fashioned anew through free reason, through the insights of a universal philosophy. 12 However, on the one hand the human being has to consider himself in the context of the experience of humanity, but on the other hand as a part of nature. Nature itself, besides being a manifestation of an idea, is also a reality of a certain experience. Leibnitz writes: space is only an order of coexisting things. 13 Order, in turn, is a manifestation of logos. In this sense, space itself, on the one hand, is a carrier of divine idea and, on the other hand, a carrier of reason. Thus the mental
Husserl Edmund, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. An introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, Evanston, 1970. p. 47 13 G. W. Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, Book II: Ideas, p. 102 // http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdf/leibnew2.pdf222.
12

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The Esoteric Passion for the Eastern Basis relief of space, together with the ideals of man, is a manifestation of collective sensory experience (Carl Jung) and subconscious memory in a different perspective. In her studies, Tymieniecka pays a special attention to the subconscious desires of man and their roles in human life. This sense, which is called by her esoteric passion, is presented as a result of the hidden attempts of human reason. In the analysis of the esoteric passion for space, which is related to the cosmos and imagined extraordinary space, Tymieniecka applies to the ontopoetic revealing of life and ascribes it, in fact, to its essence that arises from the individual cosmic beginning of life. She writes: Can there be a more fundamental grounding, a firmer and more indicative point of departure than life itself? I submit that the living being recognizes itself as himself or herself not by a cognitive act but by being alive by experiencing itself within its milieu of beingness, directing its instincts and appetites, recognizing the elements of the circumambient world in their vital relatedness to itself, and lastly but foremostly, by recognizing that one is the acting center of the existence, as a self-sustaining agent who directs within this universe of existence through experience, observation, reflection, and deliberation his or her own course and who, finally, endows that course with moral and aesthetic values, and upon the wings of the spirit seeks to understand the reasons of it all and soars to the metaphysical

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Man and the World and spiritual realm above, carrying within a thoroughly felt self-aware conviction that to be is to be alive.. 14 Tymieniecka mentions that under the wings of creative imagination, mans subconscious passions enable him to rise to higher positions and thus man becomes capable of moving away from the bounds of his personal existence. Which inner aspect of man does Tymieniecka mean when speaking of the passions of the Earth or the esoteric passion for space? The human being has conscious searches as well as, together with a space that his mind reaches and his knowledge make it possible to describe it, he has also an unbelievable broadness, which cannot be comprehended by ordinary reason, and the inconceivable world of imagination which is revealed by a spiritual will directed to eternity. This eternal world and cosmic expanse has a mirror reflection as well as it has a projection to the inner world of man, to the material environment to which he is directly related, and to the esoteric homeland. In fact, before Tymieniecka, a number of great philosophers, including Sufi thinkers, have spoken of the projection of the whole sea in a drop of water and of the manifestation of the whole world in every particle of the world, or modern nature scientists speak of the existence of the code system of the whole organism in each cell of the organism. Tymieniecka`s contribution is that she attempts to conceive of every individual as a projection of the cosmic expanse, which corresponds to
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, The Fullness of the Logos in the Key of Life. Book 1. The Case of God in the New Enlightenment. Springer, 2009. p. xxxi-xxxii.
14

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The Esoteric Passion for the Eastern Basis human life and which is codified to this life. Namely, the human being seeks his life and his native material place directly in the image of the cosmic expanse which could be revealed, in fact, by individual sense and reason. What bring her creativity closer to Sufism are mostly these searches. For this very reason, in the last period of her creativity, she increasingly refers to distinguished Islamic thinkers. It is not coincidence that Tymieniecka acknowledges that her phenomenology of life considers with the metaphysics of Mulla Sadra on the matter of a radical metamorphosis. 15 There have been written many works on the comparison of a man with the whole world and universe and on revealing the sameness of them. Ibn Arabi`s al-Tadbirat al-Ilahiyya ( - Governance of the Human Kingdom) is dedicated completely to this problem. According to Hurufism, the secrets of the universe are manifested in man and man, in turn, expresses his secret in letters. In this sense, the soul and letter are considered same. For the reason that all these searches have not found their systematic continuation in following philosophical investigations, it is very hard to put them in the context of modern philosophical thinking. Nevertheless, the studies of Tymieniecka seem to be a continuation of these ideas. Although she is a western person, her closeness to the eastern spirit means the transformation of Western philosophical thinking from spiritlessness to spirit and the determination of the return

A.-T.Tymieniecka, The Unveiling and the Unveiled, The Passion of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming, Edited by A.T.Tymieniecka, Dordricht-Boston, 2003, p. XLIII.

15

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Man and the World

In Eastern philosophy, in particular in Sufism, this problem has been symbolized as a relation of drop and the ocean. Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi says: Listen, O drop, give yourself up without regret, and in exchange gain the Ocean.... Give a drop, and take this Sea full of pearls. The drop and the ocean is a poetic and figurative expression of the serious philosophical problems like finite and infinite, death and eternity, soul and spirit, dark and light, individual and society, quantity and quality. And once again two poles are of concern; but the poles of sameness, and the essences that are more sharply expressed in these poles; or the manifestation of the same content to minimum and maximum extents, and the change in quality and essence due to quantity difference. These poles could be taken at different perspectives and scales. Tymieniecka speaks of the different poles of living being: We may see living beingness as a filigree, a microcosmic counterpart of the great macrocosmic horizon. 16 This world is between two infinities: the infinite small and the infinite big are the opposite poles. Opposites are in unity and can be transformed to one another. This, in turn, leads to the conclusion that space is inclined and the lines of the world are circular. The fact that the drop in the example of the drop and the ocean is, in fact, infinitely divisible leads us to the questions put in Zeno of Elea's Aporia. Although the
16

Ibid, p. XXIX.

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The Esoteric Passion for the Eastern Basis drop is finite in terms of its final measure, it is infinite in terms of its complex inner structure. It is impossible to find the correlation of infinities in mathematics, or it is a special discussion. In this case, the correlation of the drop to the ocean is zero. Namely, only the ocean exists, and the drop is only an apparent being. Speaking with the terminology of Plato, it is the shadow as well as it is appearance (Schein; Erscheinung) in Hegel and fana (annihilation), non-existence and nothingness in Sufism and Existentialism. If we take it in the spiritual context, it could be said that in return for the Divine or Absolute Soul, the individual soul (human soul) is nothing, and it needs to join to the Absolute for existing. The wish of the drop to become, by being united with the ocean, eternal, arises from this need. Only in this case it can prove its existence. The reason why individual existence is abandoned is because it is temporary and mortal.

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PHENOMENOLOGY OF LIFE: HISTORICAL PREMISES

The Effect of Illumination on the Way Back from Aristotle to Plato Al-Suhrawardis Doctrine and Phenomenology Intentionality and Transcendentality

The Effect of Illumination on the Way Back from Aristotle to Plato

Though both Plato and Aristotle have been regarded as the representatives of rationalism, in fact, Aristotle was not so consistent in his attitude; he also attached great importance to the sensory experiment and to the role of the knowledge gained in this very way. Aristotle`s statements against Plato, which give the impression of struggle, in fact, caused the two teachings to become clearer and to come `cleared out` until today. As it was mentioned by the famous researcher of the Ancient philosophy V. Asmus, the criticism of Plato`s theory of forms constitutes the main line of Aristotle`s book Metaphysics. 17 Namely, for Plato idea (form) and notion are not merely our opinions about existence, but existence itself. Aristotle, in turn, considers that if there is not anything cognized then the knowledge about it does not exist too. (Otherwise, it would be knowledge about nothing.) For getting the idea about the correct and comprehensive view of reality, it is not sufficient to divide it into the indefinite
., . . . , 1, ., 1976, p. 5.
17

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Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises and conditional notions like thinking and substance. Then the place that he occupies and the role that he plays could not be clearly conceived. For us, the most optimum model is to define the ultimate idea on the one hand and the ultimate matter on the other; and the peculiarities of the world and the human being that are placed between the two poles as well as the relationships between them could be elucidated only after this. After understanding God as the only Ultimate Being which includes in him the poles of the ultimate idea and matter, we are going to elucidate the status of the ultimate idea and the ultimate matter which are completely separated from each other. Some researchers identify the ultimate idea with God. Matter in this case is left aside and two alternatives remain to explain it; either matter was derived from idea, or by not depending on God, it has existed from the very outset. None of these explanations could lead to the efficient conclusion for understanding the world. The first approach reminds us of the teaching of Plato. That is, the only true being is the world of forms (ideas). The material world as well as the things and events in it, are supposedly the copies of ideas, and so they are deprived of the real existence. The temporality and conditionality of things and events in the world leads to the denial of their real existence in general. Nevertheless, the path of the human being to God, in fact, goes through the material world. The absolutization of the soul and the denial of the body, in one sense, could not play the role of the optimal methodological basis for learning the gist and mechanism of the events that happen in real life. By being, in fact, a dualist standpoint, the second approach considers matter and God at the same status. This stand38

The Effect of Illumination from Aristotle to Plato point could be considered as an equivalent to the conceptualization of the duality of light and darkness, good and evil, idea and substance, fire and earth (in Empedocles) - which goes back to Zoroastrianism- in the form of idea and matter. By having the body, the human being himself is a part of the middle world. Other things consist of the unity of idea and materiality, or more precisely, they are made of matter-material on the basis of a certain idea, likewise, the human being is also the carrier of the idea of the body. To tell the truth, unlike all other creatures, the human being is also the carrier of another idea-the idea of the universe, namely he is microcosm, as well as he is the idea which could become active in certain times, that is, he is an idea which is transformed into consciousness. In other words, though by having the soul, the human being gets the opportunity to approach the ultimate idea and travel to the world of ideas (and to be absorbed in himself, to head towards his inner and spiritual world), he could appear as the same organized side with things and events if is in this world. That is to say, he has to obey the laws of this world and adjust himself to its harmony. The human being, who includes the world in himself as a passive idea, `learns` it in parts at the time when he is in the concrete contact with it. That is to say, by depending on the contact points with this world, the inner world of the human being is illuminated and opened. However, by not being dependent on the external world, the human being could also travel to his inner cosmic world and would like to turn back and find or create in this world what he saw there. This very point stands on the basis of the creative process. 39

Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises If the human being wants to reveal (in himself) the idea that is conveyed by either other things and events or his own body, then it will be clear that not only one idea but many ideas are included in these things. Then which idea appears at the first approach and what do the things, which do not appear, mean for us? The whole question is that the human being accepts the sign, peculiarity, form, structure and regularity, in a word, the idea that he could discover in objects and events, as idea, and the rest, which are obscure and unknown, he accepts them as matter and material. For the reason that the material substance has a complex structure, the higher levels, which are revealed in the hierarchy of ideas that it includes, are accepted as idea and the lower levels, which are obscure, as matter. By the idea of `table`, for example, the macrostructure and form, which provide its function, are meant. What it was made of, as well as the structure of its `material`, and the lower structural layers of this structure (molecules, atoms and etc.) are silently belonged to content and matter. When the human being looks at the object not with the naked eye, but with the microscope, what he observes are cells, molecules and etc. In this case he will not be able to observe the microstructure. Indeed, the illuminated side is accepted as idea and the obscure one as matter, exactly like that of Illuminationism (Ishraqiyya). Analogically, the illuminated side in the brain-microcosm corresponds to consciousness (the idea, which is brought to a focus, - intentionality) and the passive side to unconsciousness and unrevealed-consciousness (in the obscure part of the brain). Therefore, the main question is that which structural level the human being gives his attention to. The material 40

The Effect of Illumination from Aristotle to Plato object and event are maybe the carriers of many things. However, what we know is its part that coincides with his cognitive view. The obscure part has been called differently by different philosophers. In fact, it corresponds to Kant`s notion of `the thing-in-itself (das Ding an sich)`. Aristotle also tried to determine the mutual relationship and correlation between form and matter. He brilliantly noticed that there was a problem here. By reason of the fact that it was difficult to fully clarify the problem, he used another notion the notion of substratum. For Aristotle, everything refers to substratum but it does not refer to anything. `And in one sense matter is said to be of the nature of substratum, in another shape, and in a third, the compound of these. (By the matter I mean, for instance, the bronze, by the shape the pattern of its form, and by the compound of these the statue, the concrete whole.) Therefore if the form is prior to the matter and more real, it will be prior also to the compound of both, for the same reason`. 18 In this search Aristotle came to the idea of `thing in itself`, which, considering the knowledge level of his time, was a brilliant notion: `because each thing is inseparable from itself, and its being one just meant this`. 19 The human being sees, hears (gets information with his sense organs) when he is in contact with this world, and each time a certain life table appears in front of him. It gives the human being the impression that truth is outside and the aim is

18 19

Aristotle, Metaphysics, tr. W. D. Ross, Oxford 1924, p. 76 Ibid, pp. 95-96, 98

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Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises `to reflect` this outsider with senses and thus to get knowledge about the world in this way. When philosophers approached the problem more deeply, they started to be sceptical about the degree of adequacy of the information, which was gained through senses, to the truth. The idea of reaching the ultimate truth by means of the purposeful thought or intuition or revelation was diversely expressed in Indian and Chinese philosophies as well as in Ancient Greek Philosophy. This idea was leading in Medieval Islamic Philosophical Thought. Shahab al-din al-Suhrawardi also mentions that the knowledge gained through the outside senses mislead the human being and alienate him from the ultimate truth. In the New Age philosophy Descartes took the same approach and claimed that the truth is not gained due to the sensory experiment but to the purposeful thought. However, the notions, which claimed that the ready ideas in the human mind existed without being dependent on material realities, have been also met with resistance. The discussion of this problem was clarified in the teaching of John Look at its best. Kant, in turn, by accepting either the results of the sensory experiment or pure reason, claimed that the real panorama of the world arose from the synthesis of these two truths. Thus, throughout the whole history of philosophical thought, the seeking of truth has realized by being based sometimes on the sensory experiment and sometimes on the purposeful rational thought. At the same time, there were the cases in which accepting the human being as an independent being and comparing him with the material world as an independent substance and even regarding idea as the only being were subjected to humiliating 42

The Effect of Illumination from Aristotle to Plato attitude; this attitude was also taken towards the material world and the human body. Plato, for instance, accepted the material world as a shadow of ideas (forms) and only ideas were considered by him as real. However, Plato`s ideas were able to stand not only above things and events but also above human consciousness. Whereas what is clear to the human being is his inner world as well as it is the only reality for man. This world, in turn, does not always become clear and illuminated for the human being. Only certain points of this world become clear and illuminated when the human being is in contact with external objects and events as well as when he focuses his thought on his inner world. What we saw yesterday and our past experiences are no longer alive, they have moved towards the archive and towards the stock section (memory) as well as towards the dark and passive section, and have lost their reality. What are real for me are only the sensations, ideas and experiences-phenomena that I now experience. My own reality, in fact, consists of these very phenomena. The problem of the place of sensation and idea in the structure of experience is also very important. Edmund Husserl, who, throughout his whole philosophical activity, was against psychologism and took the standpoint of avoiding its influence and expressing scientific teachings with mathematical exactness, attached great importance to clear ideas in the structure of human consciousness and suggested the experiences, which are out of all kind of sensational influences and at a level of idea , as real. Due to directing and intending consciousness, every object or event that is known to us from the sensory world are fixed by different models and phenomena. 43

Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises Then what is of concern here? What is of concern here is the acceptance of a certain image, which has been formed in our consciousness, as reality; that is to say, not a material thing or object, which stands behind the image, but the image itself is accepted as reality. On the other hand, a question arises here: what is the difference between the image, which appears in the sensory experiment, and this intellectual image? The difference is that this image, in fact, is not an image of the single-of any object, which is taken in isolation, but an image of the whole. Everything was clear in the pre-Kantian philosophical teachings, because the problem of the preference of either idea or matter, either God`s will or human`s sensory experiment as well as the problem of giving priority either to senses or reasoning in the cognitive process were unambiguously solved there. Although there were different standpoints and sometimes they contradicted with each other, there was no need for controversies, because there was a clearness in every teaching about what should have been taken as substance as well as what should have been accepted as initial or derivative. Even Aristotle, who moved away from the teaching of Plato and took neither a systematic idealistic nor a systematic materialistic positions, took a clearer epistemological and ontological position than Kant. It is unquestionable that Aristotle accepted the objective existence of the sensory world. In his teaching, idea is not taken as an independent substance, furthermore by identifying it with `form` it is even presented as a way of the existence of the things and events of the material world. The things and events, which are cognized through the sense organs, as well as the logical principles, which have been gene44

The Effect of Illumination from Aristotle to Plato ralized later and which are the bases of intellectual activity, are in fact chosen from material real processes. In Kant, in turn, `the thing in itself`, whose independent existence is not denied, does not play in the cognitive process a main role but a supporting one. Cognition takes its sources not only from the material world but also from the intellectual world itself. Furthermore this dualism is not simply a dualism, that is, this teaching gives no ground for accepting both the material and ideal beginning as a same formed dual substances. The teaching of Kant has synthetic character. On the one hand it is shown in this teaching an initiative towards preserving the rationalist tradition, which by corresponding to those of R. Descartes B. Spinoza and G.W. Leibniz assumes intellectual thinking as a basis, and on the other hand it is seen here the obvious and unobvious impacts of the English empiricism, which was developed by F. Bacon and J. Locke, and even the influences of Berkeley`s Sensualism, which is the idealist variant of this tradition. The reason why Kant`s successors gave different and sometimes incompatible explanations to his teachings is related to from the standpoint of which philosophical tradition they approached the problem. The efforts towards explaining Kant`s teaching on the basis of rationalism, empiricism, agnosticism or even subjective idealism are the main reasons that condition the motleyness of Neo-Kantism. In fact, the philosophy of Kant cannot find its explanation in the context of all these traditional teachings, because this philosophy has a new essence. This is, in fact, a newness for Western philosophy. For six centuries before Kant, in the East, in Medieval Islamic philosophy, the bases for the syncretic philosophical teaching 45

Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises were founded, and the great Azerbaijani philosopher Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi was the first who took the first step in this direction. The transition from the moral and material polarisation as well as from the polarisation of thought and nature towards the system of the internal relationship between the trinity of God, nature and man, was the main reason that conditioned this syncretism. Indeed, the world is seen from the prism of the relations between poles, when man goes out and observes the world from outside. When man enters himself into these relations he has either to be absorbed by one of these poles or he has to give a new explanation of the world. The movements that accept man as a part of nature, as a living and physical being, and even the most vulgar materialism lead in the last instance to the very bipolar explanation of the world that was created by God. On the other hand, the absorption of the human nature into the divine idea and taking him only as an idealspiritual being, as an `ego` or an emotional-spiritual world and as an arena of sensual experiences, make it necessary, willingly or unwillingly, to take into consideration another pole in the form of the shadow of ideas or in the form of virtual world and `non-ego`. However, if the one foot of man is taken in this world and another foot in the other, that is, if he is taken on the one hand as a physical being and on the other hand as idealspiritual being, as a unity of contradictions and as a complex syncretic system, then the necessity of going out of traditional ontology appears. In other words, by dividing man into two parts and then adding one of them (the body) to the material world and another one (reason, morality) to the world of ideas, 46

The Effect of Illumination from Aristotle to Plato it is possible however to get one more variant of the traditional polarization. Nevertheless, if we do not divide man into these two parts and in case we take him as a unit independent being, then the world becomes not bipolar but three polar. This is, in turn, an absurd from the standpoint of geometrical logical tradition or more precisely it is an absurd for the onedimensional space. Namely one line may have not three, but two poles and two edges. The multipolness is normal in two and three-dimensional space. It means that the transition to syncretic teachings in philosophy, in one sense reminds us the transition from one-dimensional space to multidimensional space. Accepting man as a substance by abandoning traditional beings, and beside simple movements, like solipsism, the duty of finding the new combinations of the trinity of God, nature and man are the central problems of a number of modern philosophical movements. Although the material being, the world of things are not the main source of human cognition in Kant`s teaching, or more precisely, though the information that we get from this world does not express the real truth, however its independent existence and its participation in the cognitive process are accepted. On the other hand, the human being enters the information that he gets into his unique thinking system as well as he regulates and packs them. It is supposed that the categories of time, space and causality play this very role. However it is questionable that where and how does man gets this inborn ability? Another question arises that if the things, which are drawn to the cognitive process and which are the partners of the sensory experiment, as well as their nature still remain un47

Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises known for us, then what kind of thing the object that we cognize? Whose reflections are the knowledge gained from nature? Where has the place been left for the idea of God; has it been left in the nature of a-priori knowledge or in the nature or essence of `the things in themselves`? Some researches of Kant blamed him for subordinating the object to the subject. N. Hartmann emphasized that the subject in Kant`s teaching was not only the individual subject, but subject in general. Namely the empirical subject and empirical object stand vis--vis and both of them enter space and time at the same time. The thought of the subject includes the empirical object through `the transcendental ideality`. 20 Hartmann, however, unfortunately continues this point of view and hurries to abandon the scheme of Kant in this problem: It is not possible to cognize the appearance outside the `thing in itself`: either both of them are cognizable, or none of them. 21 . However Hartman forgets that what is of concern here is not essence and manifestation, but is `the thing in itself` and manifestation. The thing in itself, in turn, is single and every single does not include any ordinary essence, but the hierarchy of essences. It is, of course, possible that any essence may appear from this complex system and hierarchy and it could be cognized as a sensory image and then as an empirical idea. However, the reason why the cognized idea does not correspond to `the thing in itself` is that the thing still keeps in itself many uncognized essences (generals, forms, eidoses) and there could be an infinite number of these latter. There is an
See. . oscow., , 1987, p. 28-29. 21 Ibid, p. 29.
20

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The Effect of Illumination from Aristotle to Plato indefiniteness here and its adequate cognition, of course, is impossible. Is the subject of science really the dehumanized objective world, or the world of meaning as it has been accepted by the community of scientists, or the general-scientific panorama of the world, or a model, which has been become a paradigm and the mode of thought that corresponds to this model? To what extend what a neutral person sees and feels in the sensorial course of the event correspond to what a scientist, who has researched that event for years, sees and feels? For what accounts does the difference appear? The thing is inexhaustible, infinite and indefinite. Then what does man cognize adequately? He does not cognize the thing itself, but its model; as well as he cognizes a concrete form and concrete structure, which have been foregrounded by being simplified and taken out from the hierarchy of infinite essences, forms an eidoses. What are cognized here are the structure and wholeness. Is the thing entire then? Each thing is different under different angles, scales, perspectives and under different structural levels. That is to say, it includes a large number of wholenesses. Materia, in turn, is unattainable for cognition. It is not possible to see absolute darkness. However, it is also impossible to see absolute light. Al-Suhrawarti writes: The light of lights (nur al-anwar) is invisible because of the severity of his clarity. 22 What we see are those who are between two invisibles.

22

.Shrvrdi, q heykllri, p. 221.

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Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises The human being is at the crossroads of idea and matter. He is in twilight, lights up now and again and then is extinguished once again. He shines and then sets like twinkling stars. The coordination of the term of `light` with intellect and the term of `darkness` with `the thing in itself` and matter in alSuhrawardi, makes it possible to draw certain parallels between these two epistemological systems. In the philosophical teaching of al-Suhrawardi, the cognitive problems were solved differently and uniquely from the Platonic, Neo-Platonic and Aristotelian views which had existed until that time. Though at first glance, the epithets of light and darkness corresponds here to the world of forms and the world of things, in fact, what is of concern here is the unity of these two worlds personified by the human consciousness (the thinking soul). That is to say, unlike Plato, he does not see the truth in comprehending forms, namely in merely being united with light. In fact, what is of concern here is the illumination of the physical being and its becoming clear to the human being. Only at the level of illumination and unveiling (kashf), the true essence of the thing and event is unfolded and the forthcoming duty is to purify this essence from the knowledge that we get them via our sense organs and cognize it purely. The views about not taking knowledge from the world of events and their appearance as products of thought had existed in the pre-Kantian period. However, as a general rule, in the previous philosophies one of the two extreme views was chosen. By taking the material world- the objective reality as initial, materialists regarded all knowledge as derivative, as well as idealists, by completely abandoning the material word and 50

The Effect of Illumination from Aristotle to Plato matter as a form of existence, sought the truth only in the world of ideas, which exists outside of man, or in the feeling world of man himself. Kant was the first who accepted the participations of both two bases in the cognitive process and divided knowledge into two parts - one comes from experiment (a pesterior) and another is the product of pure reason (a priori). Unlike the claims of materialists Kant does not accept experiment as a reflection of the material world. `The thing in itself` is unattainable for cognition. That is to say, what is cognized is not matter. What is cognizable then? For Kant, it is the form, which is manifested and explained in the relation of `the thing in itself` with us (in experiment). In other words, what we cognize are not matter and `the thing in itself`, but the certain manifested signs of it. But how are the manifested and hidden signs determined. `A deaf understands what is in his heart` as it is said in an Azerbaijani proverb. Namely, during the contact of man with object, man cannot recognize the sign, which he has not possessed before, that is, which has been never programmed in his world of genetic or genetic-social-intellectual knowledge. In other words, what is clear for us is only the sign of a thing and event which we can see its form and hear its voice as well as we (our brain, nervous system and mentality) are the carriers of it (of its idea and basic forms). In the spectrum of electromagnetic waves, for instance, we can see only the waves in the interval of 0.40.8 microns. The ultra-violet rays, whose wavelength is less than 0.4 , as well as the infra-red rays, whose wavelength is larger than 0.8 , go out of our view. At the same time, we cannot hear what bats hear. Our possibility to receive sound waves has been determined in advance. It means 51

Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises that the human being takes the information from the event that he encounters only within the scope his natural abilities. This opinion could also be considered valid for the form. If any form, which has been known and `native` to us in advance, is not observed in object, then we consider it as amorphous. Continuing these views we could conclude that if we went beyond the human egoism and did not claim that the mutual interaction of man and object, the resonance points in this process (recognition, cognition) are the same with object and object consist of these points, then we would not discuss the material being, but we would discuss its process of contact with object as well as its known aspects to our cognition. What we should talk about is not the transition of `the thing in itself` to `the thing for us`, but taking `the thing for us` from `the thing in itself`. Each `thing in itself` has infinite signs as well as it is inexhaustible and eternal, or more precisely, it is infinite inasmuch as indefinite. All the indefiniteness is equal to one another (just because we are deprived of the possibility of evaluating them). Thus experiment, in fact, is the point of mutual relationship of man (ego) with matter, or more precisely it is the point of their sameness; the point of sameness between the ideal world of man and the material world. This point is finite that has been chosen from infinity. Especially the knowledge that is expressed by language is now a knowledge which is finite, definite, and capable of being made mathematical as well as which is established under logical forms, in a word, which is formal knowledge-information. Living knowledge, in turn, has not yet been deprived of its relationship with existence as well as it has not been broken off, separated, put into language fra52

The Effect of Illumination from Aristotle to Plato mes and `preserved`. The idea, which by the influence of `the thing in itself` has been transformed from the passive existence in the world of ideas into the form of active existence and which returns to life and is refreshed, is the very empirical cognition. (And then it is put into the Procrustes frame of formal logic and utilized for preserving and then preserved - with material ways out of burning cognition). Theoretical cognition, in turn, is the product of the thought which is directed to the inner of man and to his ideal world, not to the material world and to `the thing in itself`. These epistemological problems are expressed in Eastern (Islamic) philosophy with the term of `illumination` (ishraq). The attempts towards the explanation of epistemological problems by means of the notion of `illumination` were also known to Ancient Greek Philosophy. Referring to an unknown philosopher, Aristotle said in a passage of Rhetoric: God kindled our reason to be a lamp within our soul. 23 His comparison of reason with the light within the human soul shows that relating light to the divine source of human thought and entering wajd (the state of ecstasy in Sufism) and revelation to epistemology do not belong only to Medieval Islamic Philosophy. However what is of concern in Aristotle`s teaching is the phenomenon of intellect as a whole; the relationship between object and the knowledge about it are not a subject of discussion within this context. Al-Suhrawardi took a step further in this problem and tried to reveal the mechanism of the cognitive process. What is important here is to determine the initial carAristotle, Rhetoric, tr. W. Rhys Roberts, 2010 The Pennsylvania State University, p.75
23

53

Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises rier of information. Namely, to what extent the thing-object is initial, comparing to our knowledge, and to what extent it is the carrier of truth; or, truth is a phenomenon, which was given to man by nature and revealed in the light of the divine contact and, in fact, is an independent phenomenon comparing to the thing-object. If so, then the adequacy between the information that the thing carries and our knowledge is not only the result of the sensory experiment, but the result of deriving both of them from the same divine beginning and the transformation of the same idea from the same beginning into the human ego and things (in the shape of form). One of the main differences of the Modern Philosophy with Ancient Greek philosophy and Medieval philosophy is that not only it removed the indifference to the sensory experiment but also tried to base scientific knowledge on observation and experiment. Unlike the rationalism of Descartes, F. Bacon and Spinoza, the development of Naturphilosophie (philosophy of nature) by Galileo and Newton as well as the attempts of F. Bacon and J. Locke towards establishing new science on the basis of the methodology based on sensory cognition divided philosophy into two diametrically opposite lines. These two lines were in fact the extension and struggle of the lines of Aristotle and Plato, which were founded in Ancient Time, in Modern Time. One of the main problems that philosophical thought faced in 18th century was the problem of passing from empirical knowledge to theoretical knowledge. In this very period, it seems as if I. Kant showed an initiative to combine these two lines and to establish the entire conception of cognition, and tried to found the entire unit system that included the relations 54

The Effect of Illumination from Aristotle to Plato between sensory and rational cognitions. In this sense, Kant`s teaching could be also accepted even as a bridge between materialism and idealism. Kant does not regard matter as derivative from idea and as a form when he speaks of the relation between the sensual image and the sensory object. `It has been sufficiently demonstrated by the critique of pure reason that there can be absolutely no theoretical knowledge beyond the objects of the senses, nor any theoretico-dogmatic knowledge, since in that case everything would have to be known a priori through concepts; and this for the simple reason, that all concepts must be capable of resting upon an intuition of some sort, to provide them with objective reality; but all our intuition is sensuous.` 24 By looking at the later development line of philosophical thought we can see that these peace efforts were not so successful as well as the initiative towards establishing theoretical knowledge and scientific theories on empirical material and basing them on the philosophical plane did not justify itself. The analysis of the development way of scientific knowledge shows that theory is possible only due to generalizing idea. Such ideas, in turn, are not taken from experiment and they become possible only as a product of rational thinking. Especially the development of mathematics, and the possibility of the relative-independent formation of abstract theoretical constructions without being dependent on experiment, reinforced the necessity of the return to the line of Plato once again. That is to say, gaining the truth and founding perfect theoretical teachings demonstrated the necessity of the abstraction from the
24

Kant, Theoretical Philosophy after 1781, Cambridge, 2002, p. 385

55

Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises sensory world as well as the necessity of seeking for the connection with the world of forms. Indeed, the above-mentioned examples from al-Suhrawardi show that the ideas about the two independent sources of cognition were put forward still in the Middle Ages. Namely, it was claimed in these teachings that the basic way to reach the truth was not based on the sensory experiment but on the divine illumination (ishraq), ecstasy and unveiling (wajd and kashf). The analogical approaches in 19th and 20th centuries continued in the different branches of intuitivism and irrationalism and this process, in turn, demonstrates the appearance of the necessity of the return from the Aristotelian line, which has been methodological basis in science for a long time, to the line of Plato.

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Al-Suhrawardis Doctrine and Phenomenology

Although the doctrine of Shihabaddin Yahya al-Suhrawardi (1154-1191) emerged from a combination of several doctrines, it is an original and independent theory, one which unfortunately has not yet been deeply studied. However, as time passes, this doctrine not only does not become outdated, but becomes more timely. In it can be found elements and the main principles of Kantian philosophy, phenomenology, existentialism, intuitionism, and even Freudianism and several other modern doctrines. Al-Suhrawardis philosophy was created through a combination of Zoroastrianism, ancient Greek philosophy, Islamic theology (kalam), and Sufism. Employing an original synthesis of Plato and Aristotle, he made a great step forward in the direction of formulating rationalism in the modern sense. If we abstract ourselves from the ontological problem of alSuhrawardis rather complex and comprehensive doctrine and

Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology on the Perennial Issue of Microcosm and Macrocosm. ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniceka, (Berlin: Springer, 2006), pp. 262-276.

57

Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises focus our attention only on the issue of the mind and cognition, we can see very great similarities with phenomenology. Al-Suhrawardis doctrine has its own specific terminology. According to him, light is a personification of the divine, while darkness is a representation of the sensible world. But, in an approach distinct from that of Plato, al-Suhrawardi does not confront the world of ideas and its relation to the sensible world. Al-Suhrawardis doctrine rather deals with the irradiation of the human and the illumination of mans inner world. Only at the moment of illumination does the human acquire authentic knowledge through revelation. Cognition of the perceptible world is not denied. However, according to al-Suhrawardi, only the outer aspects of an object, rather than its inner aspects, are cognized on the perceptual level and through sensible experience. 25 For al-Suhrawardi, it is in the process of illumination that the thinking soul acquires all the real form of an object, which is whole and cannot be analyzed. On the contrary, analysis concerns only sensible things. In addition, a thing is unable to create anything nobler than itself. He considered delusion to be inevitable in the sphere of observation and perception. Yet delusion is not excluded in the sphere of logic and verbal description. Truth can neither be expressed by words, nor fitted into language. 26 On the contrary, verbal description occurs only after illumination has ceased. The truth cannot be attained through perception, or representation, or inference.
25 26

Al-Suhrawardi 1999a, p. 218 H.Z. Ulken 1995, p. 236

58

Al-Suhrawardis Doctrine and Phenomenology Although in the gnoseology of al-Suhrawardi, knowledge is achieved through the interrelations between humans and the perceptible world, on the one hand, and the world of light, on the other. In its ontological aspect, the thinking soul stands at the center of his attention. He assumes that a human is able to see an object only if it is illuminated. That is to say, for an object to be cognized by a human, there needs to be an emanation generated by the Light of Lights, i.e. an illumination of the soul, al-Ishraq 27 Thus, matter concerns the interrelation of object and subject, and enlightenment concerns them both. Due to the impact of the object, enlightenment occurs in the humans inner world, and he cognizes what is in himself already. This interrelation resembles the role played by the thing in itself in Kants doctrine. The source of light is not any object, but the Supreme Light, Nur al-Anvar. In his The Shape of Light, al-Suhrawardi writes that you cognize a thing only by generating the image of it in yourself. The object cognized by you ought to be adequate to that thing, otherwise you would be unable to cognize it as it is. 28 Unlike Kant, al-Suhrawardi admits the cognizibililty of things, objects, because he stresses the adequacy between the thing and image. At first glance, it may be thought that this position coincides with the sensualist theory of cognition. But when viewed in the context of al-Suhrawardis doctrine, it becomes clear that he is not speaking of the object, but of the generation of the image of the object by human imagination. On the other hand, the image is not understood as a set of
27 28

M A Razavi 1998, p 606. Al-Suhrawardi 1999a, p 217.

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Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises sensations, rather as proceeding from the cogitative soul i.e. reason. Al-Suhrawardi writes: your rational soul-intellect is neither body, nor corporeal, nor implied for it is revealed to some extent. It is an indivisible element, it exists permanently, and no imagination may divide it.29 When reading this book, it becomes clear that his theory is more about ideas than about sensual images. By contrast, ideas take part in the formation of sensual images as a whole. Sometimes it happens that the soul internally observes a mental thing (emphasis added), 30 and at some point it imaginarily imitates it, and that image is reflected onto the sensual world. 31 Al-Suhrawardi does not deny the participation of sensible objects in the cognition process, for in his doctrine the soul plays quite a significant role vis--vis the object. To be explicit, at first enlightenment has to occur at the intellectual level in order for the object to be seen. According to the natural sciences, light (here spoken of not as enlightenment, but as an optic phenomenon) brightens an object, which is then reflected, strikes the senses, and causes the creation of a definite sensible image. The light here is an ordinary cause along with other physical qualities (such as sound and heat) and is known to be
Al-Suhrawardi 1999a, p 217. Being different from the sensing of sensual things and objects, directing thought to a mental thing is consonant with the expression internal representation in modern philosophy. The expression to observe internally reinforces this conclusion even more and calls to mind intentionality. Moreover, in al-Suhrawardi these expressions do not have an occasional character, but rather are used in a systematic manner and are the main terms in his theory of cognition. We want to emphasize once more that in al-Suhrawardi internal observation is directed at mental objects. 31 Al-Suhrawardi 1999a, p 229.
30 29

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Al-Suhrawardis Doctrine and Phenomenology a simple transmitter. Actually, sight possesses a number of advantages and priorities vis--vis other senses; it plays a greater role in the entire implication of entities and events. However, the whole sensible image cannot be generated from senseperceived data, for the essence of the object is embodied in the whole image. That wholeness (eidos, form) is generated by physical light, but as a result of an emanation, i.e. being not the result of perception, but of intellection. This analysis indicates that al-Suhrawardi came close to Kants gnoseology, or more correctly, that he anticipated Kant. Analyzing al-Suhrawardis Hikmat al-Ishraq, Russian philosopher Smirnov writes that, like Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Suhrawardi distinguished between two kinds of True Cognition: direct, intuitive cognition and indirect, logical cognition. According to al-Suhrawardi, direct acquisition of truth is connected with the cognition of self, while logical cognition is associated with investigation. 32 Is there not conformity between the truth acquired by means of investigation and Kants notion of experience? The first mode of cognition, again just as in Kant, is considered to be innate cognition. It is very interesting that al-Suhrawardi, not satisfied with only this, also classified knowledge as follows: innate knowledge and acquired knowledge. This is Kant`s distinction of a priori and a posteriori knowledge enunciated in other terms. According to al-Suhrawardis doctrine, at first a human has to cognize himself in order to acquire knowledge and

32

Smirnov 1998, p. 57.

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Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises cognize any object. 33 This idea can be viewed in the context of Socrates dictum Know thyself. However, here the emphasis is on the object, not on the self. The point is an inquiry into self by cognizing the external object. The enlightenment discovery occurs when a human finds that what is in the object is himself. Thus the cognitive process is possible due to an adequacy between the self and the external object. 34 A question arises at this point: Does this inquiry of humans into the self in order to cognize the object, seeking knowledge of it first in the self, not signify a priori knowledge? (Though al-Suhrawardi does not use the term a priori, he seeks the origin of knowledge first in the self, then in the object.) Here it is possible also to divide human inquiry into the self into two steps. In as much as humans may cognize any object through comparison with knowledge gained through previous experiences, that knowledge appears to be a posteriori rather than a priori. Kant himself wrote in this respect: In what follows, therefore, we shall understand by a priori knowledge, not knowledge independent of this or that experience, but knowledge absolutely independent of all experience. 35 The goal of cognition is ascension from the knowledge acquired in semidarkness to the knowledge achieved in complete illumination. Referring to al-Suhrawardis imaginary discussion with Aristotle, Corbin writes: His first answer to the seeker who questions him is Awaken to yourself. Then begins a progressive initiation into self-knowledge as know33 34

Razavi, p. 607 Al-Suhrawardi 1999a, p. 223 35 Kant 2003, p. 43.

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Al-Suhrawardis Doctrine and Phenomenology ledge which is neither the product of abstraction, nor a representation of the object through the intermediary of a form, a Species, but a Knowledge which is identical to the Soul itself, to the personal, existential subjectivity, and which is therefore essentially life, light, epiphany, and awareness of self. 36 Al-Suhrawardi opposes the view that peoples souls are parts of a unified soul likened to a divine being, because a single, incorporeal being cannot have parts. In explaining the link between the divine being and individual souls, al-Suhrawardi compares the soul to a wick. Wicks are enkindled by fire and then while the wick burns, and the fire remains intact and is undivided. In traditional Peripatetic thought the notion of indivisibility is regarded as an attribute of simplicity. In al-Suhrawardi, the soul, though indivisible, is at the same time heterogeneous. All of these aspects of the soul must then be reviewed in the light of another notion, that of the whole. The soul has an elevation which raises a person from an animal soul to a rational one. In the middle are all the senses, perceptions, and so on. Unfortunately, Descartes does not accept the possibility of a conditional partition of the soul and speaks against the idea of any interaction between the lower and higher parts of the soul. As he writes: For there is within us but one soul, and this soul has within it no diversity of parts; it is at once sensitive and rational too, and all its appetites are volitions. It is an error to identify the different functions of the soul with persons who play different, usually mutually opposed roles an error which
36

Corbin 1993, p. 210.

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Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises arises simply from our failure to distinguish properly the functions of the soul from those of the body. 37 Furthermore, Descartes tries to explain all this by relying on natural scientific considerations, on the construction of the parts of the body: the brain, heart, the circulation of the blood. Here an important drawback of Aristotles doctrine appears in Descartes, according to which the sensual level of the soul is ascribed to the body. He writes: So there is no conflict here except in so far as the little gland in the middle of the brain can be pushed to one side by the soul and to the other side by the animal spirits (which, as I said above, are nothing but bodies), and these two impulses often happen to be opposed, the stronger canceling the effect of the weaker. 38 In al-Suhrawardi, the internal structure of the soul is described as comprising two spheres. The macrostructure, as already mentioned, includes the animal soul, the sensual soul (power of soul) and the rational soul, whereas the microstructure comprises composite parts of all of these levels. For instance, in describing the middle link he sets forth five outer and five inner senses. The outer senses are the traditional sensations: touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight; the inner senses are common sense (sensus ommunis) (which is a faculty integrating all of the sense-perceived data), retentive imagination (which is the repository of all the forms integrated by the sensus communis), estimation (which enables a subject to judge the imperceptible intentions of individual sensible objects), compositive [and creative] imagination (ana37 38

Descartes 1985b, Vol. 1, p. 346. Ibid.

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Al-Suhrawardis Doctrine and Phenomenology lysis, synthesis, and investigation are accomplished due to this sense), and finally memory. 39 The animal soul stands at the lowest level in the internal hierarchy of the soul. Contact with the body is realized through the animal soul. All senses arising from the requirements of the body pertain to it. All desires and passions pertain to it as well. There is a relation between the different levels of the soul. The animal soul is the carrier of the requirements of the rational soul. While the body lives, the soul governs it. 40 AlSuhrawardi presents this example in order to explain this relation. A thing that generally causes pleasure or pain sometimes occurs without causing them. The sensual state of a person can be such that he may not feel the pain of a blow, or not be made happy by some pleasant event. 41 Hence, the reality of sensation does not depend only on the external cause that gave rise to it, but is also related to the propensity of the soul to experience that sensation. The doctrine of al-Suhrawardi contains a hierarchy of light (nur) as well. This system is very complex. There are many types of light in al-Suhrawardi. But in order for it to be clear we would like to present this complex system in the relatively simple model given below in Fig. 1 (Schema 1). It is difficult to imagine this model in three-dimensional space. As the corporeal world itself is three dimensional and natural light is understood within it, we can imagine the light of reason only in a fourth dimension.
39 40

Al-Suhrawardi 1998, pp. 30-32. Al-Suhrawardi 1999a, p. 218. 41 Ibid, p. 227.

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Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises That is to say that thought should go beyond traditional geometrical notions. The main purpose is to demonstrate existence alongside the corporeal world and the world of reason, for the structure of the soul can only be demonstratively imagined in terms of its spatial contact. In al-Suhrawardi, the relationship between the soul and the body, on the one hand, and the world of reason, on the other, requires imagining both of the worlds in the same space in order to understand the soul. There is another major feature of the soul in al-Suhrawardi, which is its individuality. In our first model, we illustrate the relationship of the corporeal and the mental world of one soul, which is still not sufficient. There is an interim world of individual souls in al-Suhrawardi, and taking this into account as well makes the model considerably complex. We present this complexity in schemata 2 and 3 in Fig. 1. This scheme, however, is not advantageous for creating a general impression. The discourse in the doctrine of al-Suhrawardi goes beyond the 66

Al-Suhrawardis Doctrine and Phenomenology scope of human cognition. Here the Heavens also possess cognition and stand at a higher level in the hierarchy. It should also be taken into consideration that there is one more thing that creates difficulties in that the relationship between the corporeal world and the world of souls is expressed as being between external and internal worlds in ordinary thinking and language. If we want to adapt to this we have to imagine the soul as being within the body. Moreover, in al-Suhrawardis doctrine, the soul of Heaven, the Light of Lights, and other levels must be placed inside. But if we consider the traditional usage of the notions of internal and external to be quasi contrary, both nature and heaven in common consciousness will remain inside the circle. And the world of reason (the world of light), which is greater and infinite, surrounds it and stands outside. Then the system of all these complex relations, such as darkness within the circle and the helplessness of even the sun, the coming of light from the outside (the cosmos...), and the illumination of the soul by the light of reason would be framed more correctly. However the unconformity of this complex doctrine with the ordinary mind was the cause of some erroneous interpretations both in the East and, subsequently, in the West. Various philosophers have incorrectly seen a parallel expression for reason in the metaphor of light. In his book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Richard Rorty places great importance on the metaphor of mirror reflection when explaining rationalism. 42 Pointing to the capability of reason to reflect the truth as it is and, thereby,
42

Rorty 1997, pp. 32-33.

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Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises play the role of a mirror, to use Francis Bacons words, Rorty at the same time reminds us of the inappropriateness of this metaphor in the context of sensory cognition. For Bacon, who equated the human intellect with sensory perception, the intellect mirror naturally distorts and creates delusive appearances. 43 However, neither the representatives of empirical philosophy, nor Descartes and the rationalists that followed him, directed their attention to the mirror essence of reason by expressing the degree of adequacy and authenticity of the knowledge obtained through reason (which is largely because Descartes rationalism is a vague rationalism). However, it is also a fact that several centuries previously a doctrine of pure rationalism existed and the mirror reflection metaphor was used to express its essence more clearly. 44 It is interesting that this is spoken of as a twofold (even threefold) reflection in al-Suhrawardi. This is because his doctrine of cognition constitutes a multifaceted hierarchic system. The highest level is the celestial level. The complete revelation of truth, the most radiant condition of knowledge, is on this level. The world of reason is illuminated by the divine light (Nur al-anvar). That is why, as the first mirror reflection, the level of cognition can be considered to be in direct contact with the Divinity (His reflection, emanation), which corresponds to Neo-Platonic and scholastic notions. In this, al-Suhrawardi describes the essence of the first mirror reflection: The soul sometimes enters the holy (Guds) world and merges with its
43 44

Ibid. Al-Suhrawardi 1999a, p 229.

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Al-Suhrawardis Doctrine and Phenomenology Holy Father, obtains knowledge from Him ... both in sleep and wakefulness, as if standing in front of an ornamental panorama and, as a mirror-reflecting ornament, acquires extra-mundane data from them. 45 Attachment to the body precludes the soul from joining the world of reasons 46 and reflecting them. But when bodily attachments are lessened, the soul joins the celestial souls. 47 The souls finding what it seeks means deliberate direction of thought. In this context al-Suhrawardi puts forward the model of a twofold mirror: Know that souls may see varieties of forms because the sensus communis knows that whatever form appears is due to the vision of that form; and the faculty of imagination will be imprinted from it, as between two facing mirrors. Two things prevent the faculty of imagination from imprinting forms upon the sensus communis: when the mind preoccupies the imagination with thoughts; and when outer senses preoccupy it with sense perceptions resulting in the distraction of the sensus communis. 48
Al-Suhrawardi 1999a, p 229. It would be relevant to recall Suhrawardis own classification in order to understand correctly the place of the world of reasons in his doctrine. According to Suhrawardi there are three worlds: the first is the world of reasons, the second is the world of souls, and, finally, the third is the world of things. If we consider that the souls highest level is the rational soul, then it will be clear that there is a difference between reason and the mind that is included in the soul. There is a difference in terms of degree between them. Suhrawardi notes that the light of the first being illuminates reason. Then there originates the passage from reason to soul, which is possible due to the reflection of reflection. Suhrawardi writes that the reflection of light is more honorable than the reflection of its reflection (Ibid, p.225). 47 Al-Suhrawardi 1998, p 81. 48 Al-Suhrawardi 1998, p. 82.
46 45

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Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises Imagination has a special place in al-Suhrawardis doctrine of reflection in the world of reason. Unlike memory, which remembers sensory images, imagination vitalizes mental things in thought and creates imaginary relations among them: The image may ... be illuminated upon the faculty of imagination and from there fall upon the sensus communis, thus making it visible [to the subject]. Thus, the subject may see a pleasant form, which may even speak to the person in pleasant terms; or the subject may not hear a voice nor see a writ. All such phenomena are due to [images] that are imprinted upon the sensus communis. 49 In al-Suhrawardi, the architectonics and structure of the soul are so perfect that it can only be talked about by first approaching the classics of Western philosophy. Rorty considers one of Descartes greatest merits to be the differentiation of thought and extended substance 50 . However, in the doctrine of al-Suhrawardi, there is already a perfect system of such differentiation. In his Statutes of Light, al-Suhrawardi writes: The soul does not become nonsense with the nothingness of body, because it does not possess extension 51 . To explain this idea, he gives an interesting example. There is no definiteness to the dimensions of an elephant or a fly as such. However, in reality (existence), they do differ in their dimensions and volumes. They do not, however, occupy space in their soul; thus they are non-dimensional. 52

49 50

Ibid, p. 83. Rorty 1997, p 32. 51 Al-Suhrawardi 1999a, p. 226. 52 Ibid, p. 217.

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Al-Suhrawardis Doctrine and Phenomenology In another place, al-Suhrawardi writes: The soul does not originate due to any thing, as a thing cannot create something nobler than itself. 53 On this issue his position fundamentally differs from Aristotles. According to Aristotle, It ... seems that all the affections of soul involve a body. 54 But alSuhrawardi puts the emphasis on the independence of the soul from the body and on its functioning due to illumination. The soul both cognizes and controls the body. Aristotle puts forth the question of how could what has no parts think what has parts, or what has parts think what has none? 55 Aristotle does not take into account the essence and degree of difference, the essential difference between the soul and the body. In contrast, there is a hierarchy of them in al-Suhrawardi: Soul is higher and nobler than body. Therefore, though what has parts cannot think what has no parts, what has no parts can think what has parts. The ancient Greeks always had what is universal at the center of their attention. The eidos of Plato and the forms of Aristotle are universal. However, likening souls one to another does not explain the individuality and the true existence of humans. It is one thing if in the example of the soul the point is some human essence in general; it is another if the soul is the essence of each individual, his personality, and his ego. In this understanding the soul is equivalent to consciousness. Unlike Plato, al-Suhrawardi asserts that eide are in the body itself and, unlike Aristotle, he does not accentuate form as
53 54

Ibid, p. 221. Aristotle 2001, p. 537. 55 Aristotle 2001, p. 545.

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Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises being a substance. In al-Suhrawardis view, a thing is a thing only with a form. As M. Abou Rayan notes, according to alSuhrawardi, things consist of matter and sensual qualities. 56 Al-Suhrawardis notion of idea (heyet) of is more assonant with Lockes notion of idea than with Platos. The location of an idea in a thing illuminates it to some degree; it is not in a state of darkness, but of semidarkness. Finally, according to alSuhrawardi, the shapes of these eide are also in the mind (rational soul) and, therefore, their reflections in the necessary illumination can appear as identification. 57 Hence, he does not give ground to dualism. In his view, these two essences, two worlds, are in a unity. But, according to dualists like Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibniz, physical and mental phenomena cannot be associated. 58 The al-Suhrawardis doctrine is monistic on the ontological plane as well. For him, darkness is not a self-contained substance and is explained as the absence of light. Light is the essence of a unified being. Descartes was the first Western philosopher to separate the soul and the body, which he viewed as two different substances. According to Descartes, the soul has no extension. AlSuhrawardi also asserted this. The soul does not disappear with the disappearance of the body, because it does not possess extension. 59 Now, Rorty, to give an example, ascribes this theory only to Descartes. This is true only given that the Western
56 57

Rayan 1976, p. 260. Al-Suhrawardi 1976, p.71. 58 See Priest 2000, p. 25. 59 Al-Suhrawardi 1999a, p. 227.

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Al-Suhrawardis Doctrine and Phenomenology world is still not sufficiently aware of Eastern philosophy. Reza Davari Ardakani, who supports the opinion Rorty expresses, makes the following generalization in his article on the common features of Islamic Philosophy and Phenomenology: Islamic philosophy and mysticism can neither be considered phenomenology nor its root, since phenomenology has been nourished in a new philosophical and intellectual context and emerged only after Kant and Descartes. 60 He tries to establish this by noting that in ancient philosophy the knower and the known were not differentiated. But while this declaration takes in all Islamic Philosophy too, the point was actually contested therein before Descartes. Perhaps Ardakanis declaration appears so for the reason that he does not consider the doctrines of Ibn Sina and al-Suhrawardi, who put forward the principles of the demarcation of the knower and the known several centuries before Descartes. Moreover, Descartes was not always consistent in his position. Sometimes, he wandered too far toward naturalism and tried to explain the mind through physiological processes in the body. It could be thought that since Descartes stands between al-Suhrawardi and Husserl, it would be more reasonable to compare al-Suhrawardi and Descartes first. However, reflection shows that, although Descartes is in the middle chronologically, the sequence in the relative position of the doctrines here is different. In actuality, the philosophy of Ishraq is somewhere between that of Descartes and Husserl. Some of alSuhrawardis thoughts are very relevant even within the context of the research of the most recent philosophers.
60

Ardakani 2003, p. 242.

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Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises Despite the great achievements of Ibn Sina and alSuhrawardi in the formulation of rationalism as a whole system, the prioritization of knowledge would not be accomplished in Western rationalism until Kant and until that point the treatment of knowledge had a merely syncretic character. Reason, feelings, desires, and knowledge obtained through experience, their logical analysis, etc., all occupied the same space. Here Rorty points out the definition of thought given by Descartes: By the term thought, I understand everything which we are aware of as happening within us, in so far as we have awareness of it. Hence, thinking is to be identified here not merely with understanding, willing, and imagining, but also with sensory awareness. 61 As can be seen, Descartess approach does not coincide with that of modern phenomenology. Taking reason as pure reason, differentiating it from practical reason and sensory experience, differentiating a priori knowledge from a posteriori knowledge, and analytic and a priori synthetic arguments from synthetic experiential arguments in philosophy, all began with Kant, and this demarcation and crystallization of concepts made it possible for Husserl to create a theoretical doctrine that is perfect, both philosophically and logically, and considerably free of the internal contradictions seen in syncretic rationalism. Husserl writes: The faith in the possibility of philosophy as a task, that is, in the possibility of universal knowledge, is something we cannot let go. We know that we are called to this task as serious philosophers. 62
61 62

Descartes 1985c, p. 195. Husserl 1970, p. 17.

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Al-Suhrawardis Doctrine and Phenomenology According to al-Suhrawardi, beyond the individual soul there are souls in the High Heavens existing outside its margins both in terms of their scale and in terms of the power of passion. According to the philosophers, along with our rational soul there exists a living, enlightened celestial soul, which is in love with its originator, rational souls loving with eternal passion. 63 In one of his works, Kant writes on the destiny of mankind: Individuals and even whole peoples think little on this. Each, according to his own inclination, follows his own purpose, often in opposition to others; yet each individual and people, as if following some guiding thread, go toward a natural but to each of them unknown goal; all work toward furthering it, even if they would set little store by it if they did know it. 64 Herein Kant talks about the purpose of nature. He emphasizes that, although individuals and things do not possess their own plans, because nature has a common plan, they are therefore related. 65 Al-Suhrawardi writes: The thing that is necessarily renewed and continues to exist is motion. Every motion may cease, with the exception of the circular motion of the celestial spheres. These cause innovations to happen in our world. Unless the first effective factor alters, there is no cause setting innovative things in motion. If the motion of the celestial spheres motion ceased what would induce innovative things to happen? The motion of heaven is volitional. 66
63 64

Al-Suhrawardi 1999b, p 213. Kant 1963, pp 11-12. 65 Ibid, p 12. 66 Al-Suhrawardi, 1999a, p.. 223.

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Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises The explanation of celestial motion by its soul in alSuhrawardi is more comparable to Kants notion of natural purpose and Schopenhauers notion of universal will than to hylozoism. It is soul that makes Heaven move. 67 According to al-Suhrawardi the processes taking place in the universe are the causes of innovations in our world. That is to say, connections between large-scale and small-scale phenomena are generated by the relations between big and small purposes, as well as by the universal and individual souls. Kant writes: Since the philosopher cannot presuppose any [conscious] individual purpose among men in their great drama, there is no other expedient for him except to try to see if he can discover a natural purpose in this idiotic course of things human. In keeping with this purpose, it might be possible to have a history with a definite natural plan for creatures who have no plan of their own. 68 This thought of Kant is consonant with al-Suhrawardis idea of a spark in the darkness, and this in its turn can be compared to the notion of order in chaos, which constitutes the basis of synergism. How can it be that order, harmony, and purposeful events originate on the ground of disorderly, complicated motions in amorphous systems? Or how can it be possible that in endless and infinite darkness illumination takes place within it or in part of it? Though the relations between big and small systems, the universe and the human world, macrocosm and microcosm
67 68

Ibid. Kant 1963, p. 12.

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Al-Suhrawardis Doctrine and Phenomenology in al-Suhrawardis, as well as Kants, doctrine somehow remind one of astrology, it may simply be that possessing a perfect philosophical system is the methodological background for astrology. Distinct from the material unity of the world, here is a unity of ideas, a unity of purpose, a unity of souls of universal consciousness and individual consciousness! Here is a merging of parts with the whole and of individual consciousness with world consciousness! Here Kant is very consonant with al-Suhrawardi and Husserl. Although Husserl, unlike Kant, does not speak of universal, but only of European humanity, the purpose he seas at work is the same. Husserl is original because the full formulation of rationalism in modern European philosophy was first accomplished by him. However, in our view, before being a philosophical doctrine, the doctrine of Husserl is a meta-mathematical and meta-scientific doctrine, and such an attitude toward philosophy in Europe had been developed by scholars long before. But where mere scientists do not try to ground their indifference to every metaphysical appearance Descartes and Husserl set this very goal for themselves. Indeed, Descartes is one of those who laid the conceptual base of modern European thought. This was not because he raised rationalism to a high level, but rather because, somehow in acting as a renaissance scholar, he took part in the process of connecting the rationalist ideas of the ancient Greeks, primarily Aristotle, and to some extent of medieval Eastern (Islamic) scholars, with the experimental sciences which are the main success story of modern times and so initiated the self-cognition of this scientific process in the philosophical sphere. 77

Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises The principal merit of Descartes and Bacon is primarily their founding what we call today the philosophy of science. It should be taken into consideration that modern Western civilization is characterized more by science and the practical application of science than by any philosophical doctrine. Descartes himself writes that it is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to apply it well. 69 Yes, science and its application can be considered the symbols of the West! But which science? The science of sciences, world-comprehending science, deductive axiomatic science that attempts to frame an abstract mathematical philosophical system, or that science which to a large degree is accumulated through experience and serves practice, application, and the science of techniques? Does not the technologism that Husserl so much disliked stand at the foundation of modern Europe? On the one hand, Husserl speaks about the European spirit; on the other hand, he opposes skepticism and empiricism. But, in fact, Europe (actually when I say Europe I mean the whole of the West in todays realities) established the basis of modern Western Civilization primarily due to its empiricism and scientific practical activity. Consequently, in our view, Francis Bacon symbolizes the essence of modern times better than does Rene Descartes. When seeking a remedy for the crisis of Europe in modern times, Husserl puts forward phenomenology in part as an alternative to empiricism, technologism, and positivism. By that does he want to save Europe from crisis or from the Western core? Or will another doctrine, that of existentialism,
69

Descartes 1985a, p.111.

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Al-Suhrawardis Doctrine and Phenomenology which took its essential features from phenomenology, restore the true image of Europe? Is not existentialism an Eastern phenomenon emergent in the geographical West? No, quite the opposite! These doctrines signify a synthesis with the East or a return to the East rather than a return to Europe or the West!

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Intentionality and Transcendentality

The cognitions subject intentionally finds out the idea carried by the object or event when cognizing it. That is to say, the idea passively contained in the object is not illuminated by itself, but as a result of focus of humans-subjects attention on it. In conception of Ishragism it is called illumination, but in phenomenology it is intentionality. The phenomenon differs from the object itself in the point that not the whole complex of passive ideas but only one of them are illuminated, and in considered context it replaces the object. But the rest is the collection of passive ideas which remains dark to the subject is called thing in itself by Kant. In this meaning darkness could also be understood as nonbeing. Thus, in fact thing in itself as it is presented in Kants conception, is not something that remains untouchable, dark for the human being, but it is assessed as a dark part standing in every concrete cognition process. In this approach, relying to synthesis of agnosticism and phenomenology a new model of knowledge appears here. Transcendentality is being relativized and conditioned by intentionality. The process of cognition doesnt only begin by means of external sense organs. To achieve the truth it is necessary the 80

Intentionality and Transcendentality joining of the soul to this process. Especially, the poetry is need of it. The famous Arabic poet and thinker Ameen Rihani wrote: A body, says Umapati in a chapter on the Souls Enlightenment, lives by union with the soul; so the embodied soul lives by union with pure Thought. 70 The problem of illumination of soul is not only necessary part of poetry, but also in general, of the true cognition. The factor of illumination of soul is very important in the ishragism of Suhrawardi and generally in tasavvuf. By this way, according to these doctrines the covert aims and deep means that can not be achieved just by perception but only can be opened by illumination. Ameen Rihani explains it that: This is the highest, noblest form of spirituality the divine essence, which can be attained only by those who follow devotedly the path of vision those who seek the light that bridges the darkness between eye and soul, and without which there can be no vision. But there is what might be called a workaday spirituality, which is within the reach of all. And we need not be afraid to yield in this to the practical spirit of the times to discover the light within us. 71 The light within us illuminates the things and is evident to its idea. Suhrawardi wrote: Anything that apprehends its own essence is a pure light, and every pure light is evident to itself and apprehends its own essence. 72 The enlivened idea of human being is the same with the illumination of the idea of the thing.
Rihani Ameen F., The path of Vision, Platform nternational, Washington, D.C., 2008, p. 12. 71 Ibid. 72 Suhrawardi, The philosophy of illumination, Brigham Young University Press, Provo, Utah, 1999, p. 82.
70

81

Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises Anna-Teresa Tymieniechka connects the illumination with idea of phenomena: All is the work of logos. Reason? Spirit, life, human significance, partake of its innumerable lights. They manifest themselves in concrete phenomena within the orbit of living beings. 73 Ideas in things and in genetic memory of human being are the result of the same creation process. In other words, passive ideas in microcosm and passive ideas in things are equivalent to each-others, since both of them are the copies of same active, original idea. A humans relation with the cosmic spirit (with the spirit of the world) takes place as a realization of a higher level idea that it carries. Reason is a realization of the cosmic idea. The realization of this idea is well happens in mutual contact and relation with external world. As the cosmic spirit (microcosm) is the same potential base for all people, everybody knows this language. But simply, for different people different parts of this program are activated. In order to use this potential base of knowledge that is intrinsic to a person, he has to exercise his will. The idea that has been illuminated and enlivened has the possibility of being reproduced. This is turn happens during the material realization process. The existence of several carriers of the same idea depends on the ampleness of material. The possibility of creating different things, in its turn, from the same amount of material depends on the ampleness of ideas.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, The Unveiling and The Unveiled //The Passions of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003, XXI.
73

82

Intentionality and Transcendentality In the condition of idea poverty, the world would consist of the things repeating each other and would be monotonous. In such a case the diversity would result only from variety of material and space/time. The richness of ideas, however, gives the possibility of creation of things with different essences. This diversity often shows itself as a potential possibility. In other words, we can talk about a virtual diversity in such a case. On the one side limited amount of material but a range of different ideas, forms, and projects...On the other side, by contrast, limited number of ideas but ampleness of material... Every creation consists of the concrete unification of matter and idea, in other words material realization of an idea. On the other hand, any thing that is already a reality, cannot by itself enliven or illuminate the passive idea it carries. This is only possible by a deliberate focus of human cognition. Hence, enlivened idea can be multiplied by hundreds of copies again. Our real world is a result of coincidental unifications of the worlds of virtual ideas and virtual matters. The congregation of two opposite poled virtuals creates one reality. Sometimes it may seem to a person that he can control these congregations. But a person can achieve it only in the local scale, in the scale of realization of the concrete idea. On a broader scale this is an uncontrollable process for a human being and it is realized only by a greater mights will. People call this Might (power) God (almighty). The enlivenment of material things can result in the emergence of a new essence, new system only due to the gravity of some alive idea. This congregation is in fact synthesis, i.e. the utilization of previous materials by a new es83

Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises sence. In such a case the essence of summands is not in focus, rather the whole system comes into play as a material realization of one new alive idea or an essence. If there is no such kind of a mobilizing idea, the as if accumulated things will in fact stay as themselves, and their congregation in one place will not result in the emergence of a new essence. *** Pantheist philosophic concepts, in fact, depart from the idea of universal unity by relying on the ideas about the whole sensual world and the whole nature, and identifying this whole as a unified image, with God. At least, a human being, his senses and thoughts remain outside of this unity. Thus, this creates the basis for confrontation of Man-Nature. There are a number of examples where God had been proposed to be understood as a unity of all things He had created (first approach). However, in case when God is not separated from the sum of His creations but rather is equated to it, this appears to coincide with classical pantheist concepts (second approach). In a third approach, after creating the world, God moved away, and the world which we are in contact with became to exist without of His influence and participation (deism). The main active party here becomes a human being. In a fourth approach, even after creating the world, God continues to control processes happening in it, and any minor acts of will and activities of a human being always becomes a part of greater idea, and greater activity in a larger scale. One of the issues which always was a matter of dispute in Middle Ages philosophy was the fact that a statement nature 84

Intentionality and Transcendentality always existed is in conflict with the statement the nature was created by God. When God is identified with nature this contradiction becomes resolved in itself, and infinity of nature does not become an object of debate. However, if God stands in a higher level, then doesnt it lead to a necessary conclusion that nature was created at some point of time? These questions have been debated for a long time. However, there is a fifth approach as well. According to this approach, though a sensual world as a sum is not equated to God, active participation of God in all things and events in this world is presumed. Unlike the view that all events and things, in particular alive beings have been genetically programmed in advance and their fates have been determined from birth (fatalism), the approach recognizing the role of both will of a human being and God in the world processes, gives a chance of creating a better model of the world. In fact, the acceptance of the world as an objective reality or its creation by God does not change anything (this is merely a debate between religious men and atheists, or is a metaphysical problem in a meaning as used by positivists). The important issue in philosophy is sound determination of a scale and subject of active beginning in the world. Thus, there is a difference between idea that things and events have been programmed in advance, and the idea that though the fate of large scale processes are programmed, the small events from which they are consisting exist simply to create a statistic effect. The fundamental issue is whether the whole nature, the whole humanity, the whole world have been programmed and whether they are the carriers of a certain mission. 85

Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises According to other conception, both big and small events have been programmed. However, the alteration activity of people possessing freedom of will distorts this harmony In such as case which programmer is taken as a basis? Are small ones being adjusted to the mission of the big or big ones compromise small ones? In fact the mission of bigger ones prevail over the smaller ones. As it is stated in Holy Koran, the harmony of Earth and Haven is more complex and perfect that that of humans who is considered the greatest miracle. In Spinozas pantheism, as well as in some traditional pantheist-materialist concepts God is presented in a personality of sensual world. Understanding of the idea of God in the context of natural laws, and harmony of the world is closer to materialist views. However, how do those who are not accepting sensual world as a being, and who are considering an idea as a being, formulate the relationship between God and the world, and in what form can pantheism come into play here? If we identify the world of ideas with God, then the matter of relationship between sensual world and God, will come to the same point as the relation between an idea and a thing. However, this will not be a traditional pantheism, because according to this approach the sensual world is a world which does not have any relation with God. This approach is closer to views of some religious persons. Inasmuch as, some people (mostly dealing with religion) by identifying the world of spirits with God, are not in fact aware that they give a way to a thought as if the sensual world is beyond God. Nevertheless, identification of the entire world of spirit or a world of 86

Intentionality and Transcendentality ideas with God, is in fact a form of pantheism - idealist pantheism. However, it is not right to approach to any idealist system as pantheism, because in the world of ideas as well there is a hierarchy and God is considered to be the creator of all these ideas, even of the most common idea, i.e. God stands above being. According to religious view however, the only being in fact is the God himself, but it should not be understood that this being encompasses both worlds of ideas and senses. If it had been understood so, then it would be no different than pantheism again. The world of ideas is being evaluated as either a shed, creative product of a real being, or the below stage in the hierarchy. When the goal is understanding or giving some logical explanation of God, or attempt to reveal His structure and essence, then the ideas generally go in the direction of one of the kinds of pantheism. Sometimes Hegel is also considered in a pantheist. But in fact Hegel differentiates absolute spirit from concrete embodiments of spirit. There could be two versions: in a first version, God is considered to be an absolute spirit, and the existence of spirit in lower levels is not included here. In a second version, absolute spirit is understood as a spirit in a wider meaning. In this case it can be considered pantheism. Let us consider the relativity between the thoughts that God embraces the whole world and that God is the only being. According to Islamic philosophy, everything is insubstantial and relative except God. The absolute truth belongs only to God. True knowledge belongs only to God either. Can 87

Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises something, which does not belong to being and which represents nonbeing, possess a true knowledge about being? This world is insubstantial. Our senses can deceive us. But how can we find the truth? It seems only by reaching the true being (world of being). But how can something belonging to nonbeing enter to being? Maybe, a human being is awarded with a feature of becoming being. Maybe, when a human being leaves his body he joins the true being. Remember, when God created a human being he blew him from his spirit. And in this meaning a human being is a carrier of a true being. A being is an Absolute Spirit. When a human being lives with his body he joins to nonbeing, when he lives with his spirit he joins to being. What about other things? What is their chance to be a being? According to pantheism live beings, non-live being and human beings are regarded all in the same status. All are encompassed by God in the same level or all are carriers of the idea of God in the same degree. When materialist pantheism is speaking in a position of divinized nature (nature = sensual world) no differentiation is made between a human being and a stone. Idealist pantheism (being = spirit = God) on the other hand, does not leave any chance for contact with God for the representatives of sensual world. Entire sensual world and life remain outside God, and are considered non-being. What is the factor that generalizes sensual world, which gives the possibility to evaluate things perceivable sensually, as parts of the whole? The question here can be presented in two directions: Is there anything that encompasses everything, and which is the sum of everything? Or is there anything that penetrates to everything, in other words, what is behind all sensual 88

Intentionality and Transcendentality things? In scientific doctrines these are indicated as cosmos, universe and atom, and element. However, there is also something that encompasses in itself both the greatest and broadest and the smallest and basic, and this is the idea of God. In other words, being that encompasses everything and at the same time is reflected in everything is God. When we try to understand this internal relationship and commonality we reach to the idea of God. It is not by chance that those who are explaining Sufism in the context of pantheism evaluate God as a symbol of unity of a human being with universe, mystery of the world, and symbol of eternity. The reference to the idea of God is necessary because, the sensual world which is infinite from the perspective of time and space (spaceless and timeless), goes beyond the cognition capacity of a human being. The creativity of a human being encompasses only the local meetings of idea and matter.When a person creates something he at the same time distorts another thing, and sometimes he even does not think of what was distorted. On the one hand a person can cognize only what he himself created, on the other hand he can create only what he has cognized. Being one of the local fields of the eternal world, both of these consist of models world with a human and world for a human. Thus, the world in which we live, the one which is real for us is the world which fits to the scale of human reason which is illuminated. The rest of the world is dark for us, i.e. non-existent for us. In Kants terms, it is a thing in itself on a larger scale. The real world is blurred; it is located between absolute light and darkness, between being and non-being. In the philosophy of Neo-Platonism the world of reason is considered 89

Phenomenology of Life: Historical Premises lightened, while the sensual world is considered dark. Time and space is also relevant to only matter and material world. In fact, what is dark is not material world but rather the absolute matter. As it is the case with the idea, the absolute matter is also beyond time and space. Creation and annihilation are realized as illumination of some fields in the dark, and darkening of others.

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SOUL AND BODY

The Specificity of the Body: Two Ideas in one Thing Soul and Body in the Phenomenological Context About the Correlation of Memory and Remembrance in the Structure of the Soul

The life of a river is in its flow. It looks as if its life comes to an end when merging with the sea. However, its life finds its meaning just in this very moment of merging

Abu Turkhan

The Specificity of the Body: Two Ideas in one Thing

In philosophical literature mostly the problems of spirit and body or soul and body have been researched. But the problem of spirit-soul-body or mind-soul-body has not been clarified enough. As a part of the nature a human being is in interrelation with it. From the other side, a human being is spiritual phenomenon; he/she possesses the soul as well. Via the soul it becomes into contact with spirit, cosmic reason. Spirit is considered to be a cosmic phenomenon. With entering a drop of that to human being the bridge among human being and world of spirits is realized. The human being, above all, needs the physical health to maximally realize himself and his material and moral potential. The quotation `a sound mind in a sound body`, was not said in vain. This idea of course could not be absolutized; that is to say, physical health is not sufficient for spiritual health. Nevertheless, this condition is necessary, though it is not sufficient. It has been mentioned a lot that the healthy body is necessary for the healthy soul. However, for some reason or other, it is forgotten that the soul, in its turn, is also necessary for body health. Nonetheless, this thesis has older roots in the 93

Soul and Body history of philosophical thought. It is not a coincidence that the traditional Eastern medicine does not try to treat the soul by the use of the body, but it treats the body by the use of spirit. Though the physical recourses of the body are limited, its spiritual energy potential is high. If the human being could get into harmonious contact with nature then he could get an extraordinary strength to control spiritual energy and direct it where he wants. It is said in the teaching of Lao Tzu that `the weak and gentle could defeat the strong and sound` when spiritual perfection is attained at the level of Tao. 74 Like Taoism as well as the teaching of Yoga and other Eastern teachings also based on the principle of the harmony and unity of the soul and body. 75 Plato says: `I do not think that if the human body is sound it creates complacency in itself; for me, complacency is a condition for the better situation of the body`. 76 It is not at all a coincidence that psychology and psychotherapy, which are based on the most modern techno/experimental phase, apply to Taoism and Zen-Buddhism. The contact of the human soul with the cosmic energy gives further opportunities for the realisation of the structure, which is codified in the body as an embryo. On the contrary, the spiritual inconstancy as well as the fall of the soul to the level of the animal soul and negative
, , Moscow 1999, p. 158. See for example. The History of Psychiatry: an Evaluation of Psychiatric Thought and Practice from Prehistoric Times to the Present, by Franz G.Alexander, M.D. and Sheldon T.Selesnick, M.D., N.-Y., 1966; Harriet Beinfield, Efrem Korngold, Between heaven and earth: a guide to Chinese medicine, Ballantine Books, 1992. 76 , , : , Moscow, 2003, p. 157.
75 74

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The Specificity of the Body: Two Ideas in one Thing emotions weaken the body and separate him from the cosmic harmony. At the same time they relegate its instinct and immunity of self-defence as well as its power of resistance to outside influences. For us, it should be spoken of physical training rather than protecting health. For the body genetically possesses the healthy development programme. Our aim is to expose all the factors that ruin this health and remove them. The determination of the optimal mutual contact norms of the body with the environment is necessary for its protection from further loadings. How does the human breathe, in what local climatic conditions he is as well as the food that he is fed with and the boundaries of the motive dynamics of the different parts of the organism, all these things are also genetically codified. The education should be realized in accordance with the genetic and intellectual potential of the human being, and likewise physical training also should be realized in accordance with the characteristics and potential of each concrete organism. Frankly speaking, physical training in fact should consist of the realisation of physical potential. Accordingly, it is necessary to learn the bases of the healthy way of living for solving this problem optimally. The Valeology was founded for this very need. The central problem of Valeology is the suggestion and training of the health culture in the personal development process of an individual. The purpose here is to develop the health resources of the human being and therefore to determine the boundaries of the healthy way of living. Different people have different health resources as well as the loading possibilities of the different organs and muscles of the body are different. 95

Soul and Body The science of medicine, which is an entirely scientific and practical field of activity, exist for taking care of human`s health and treating him for illnesses. And who and how is engaged in the protection and treatment of the spiritual existence of the human being? The way of living of the human being and his practical activity is subjected not only to one but also to a number of different scientific-theoretical and practical fields. The conditions of physical health are based on learning the human body scientifically and the science of medicine is formed primarily on anatomy and physiology whereas there are, in fact, more pretenders to guide morality and assume possession of it. Besides scientific fields like ethics and pedagogy, ethics and religion also play decisive role in this field. The health of soul could not be only based on knowledge. Faith and belief are also important here as well. First of all, all these aspects should be taken into consideration in schools and the educational strategy. On the individual scale, medicine plays one of the main roles in the coordination of relationships between the body and soul. Moreover, the task of Medicine is comparatively easy, because the creation of the model of the healthy organism is wholly and totally monopolized by science. And `the conception of healthy morality` does not have alternatives. Different countries and nations have different ideas about this subject. At the philosophical level, ethics could be valued only theoretically but at the same time socio-popular consciousness plays the decisive role at the practical-empirical level. Indeed, the healthy body could not be a sufficient condition for the healthy soul. The healthy social environment is also at least necessary for it. The criteria for the society and the 96

The Specificity of the Body: Two Ideas in one Thing social environment have not been determined as equal values. When the society is ill, then for the reason that human beings, who are in charge of treating it, are also parts of that social environment, the situation becomes complicated. Accordingly, it becomes doubtful who has an authority to treat others as well as the side which is supposed to be ill thinks that the opposite side is ill and etc. On the other hand, the criteria of emotional/spiritual health do not have the same historico-geographical invariants. That is to say, these criteria are different in different times and nations. In this respect, it could be considered that the creation of the atmosphere for `the healthy soul` is one of the main functions of the state. Traditionally considered cognition is a reflection of reality, sensory cognition is a result of the physical interrelation of the body with the circumambient world and material environment. Herewith, the human body even in a passive condition reflects external effects and even counteracts them. Defending this position materialists consider that physical signals (light, sound etc.) turn into the fact of sensation, perception and ultimately the fact of consciousness. However, the realization comes if the human body is considered an object of physical reaction, as essentially side, that it is impossible to uncover the core of the cognitive process, and so proponents of this reflection theory do ascribe some activity to the human body. The human body as it were becomes not an object but the subject of the physical interrelation in the deliberative cognitive process. In our view, one of the drawbacks of such conceptions as these is the identification of the human with the human body, whereas the hard core task lies in ascertainment of the conditions 97

Soul and Body (criteria) for demarcating reason (conscious acts) and unconscious states of the soul. The complexity of the structure of soul, the diversity of its states long ago attracted the attention of researchers. The separation of reason (mind) from the remaining parts and levels of the soul is the main element of the epistemological doctrines of Ibn Sina and Suhrawardi also. In Islamic philosophy, a human being himself is a perfect world. Ibn Rushd says in his work, Fusus Al-Hikam: The world itself is a great human being. All truth in the world resides in the truth of a man. The body is of course the form of existence of the soul. As for the further existence of the soul it needs the body as well. A human soul mentally apprehends itself only because it is prescinded, whereas animal souls are not prescinded, which is why they do not apprehend themselves. For, the mental apprehension of any object is its prescindment from matter. As Al-Farabi says: The soul apprehends by means of organs only imaginable and perceivable objects. As for universals and mentally conceivable objects, it conceives them per se 77 . A human soul is a carrier of two different ideas, and there is no primordial relation between them. One of these ideas refers to the body. That is to say, the body itself is an in advance coded and programmed system. On the other hand, one part of the body the brain appears to be a carrier of another idea. That is the idea operative in the whole Universe. That is to say, the universe is the main carrier of its own idea. This idea is actualized over the flow of time, and by it the universe as it were evolves. The idea in the universe is also a coded,
77

Ibid.

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The Specificity of the Body: Two Ideas in one Thing programmed, and evolving system. Everything begins with the conception of the embryo. There happens the unification of Yin and Yang, form and matter, idea and chaos. It is actualized in the material world, but copies of this idea are as if multiplied and in potential, passive form the idea is present in all human beings in their brains. By that a human is primordially aware (informed) of everything going on in universe, including his/ her body. According to the terminology of Suhrawardis doctrine of Ishrag stronger sources of light contemplate dark matters by illuminating them. That standing lower in the hierarchy of luminosity is not able to contemplate and cognize that standing higher. Ideas in the brain (the idea of the cosmos) are higher than the ideas of the other organs of the body. But a man not focusing (meditating) on some organ cannot contemplate it. An organ can be cured due to our arriving at a picture of its perfect form (idea). In turn, the body can contribute to perfecting the soul. Al-Farabi writes: When the soul is imperfect, then it gains perfection due to [the body], for the body appears to be a condition of its perfection just as the soul appears to be a condition of the bodys existence 78 . Thus aiming at cognizing the world, a man can appeal on the one hand to the external world, partly revealing for himself the ideas established in the universe. These are all those codes, regularities of the external world that are discovered by means of experience, experimental-scientific investigations. On the other hand he can fathom all these in his internal world. The internal world is precisely a copy of the idea of the universe; that is present in the brain of a man. But not every human is aware of it about
78

Ibid.

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Soul and Body his internal treasure. He generally seeks for it outside. According to Ibn Sina and Suhrawardi, all bodies move through the will of their souls. In the hierarchy, the soul lies higher than the body (soulless bodies cannot move without intervention from outside). By scientific investigations a man cannot exactly demarcate which knowledge he acquires from the external world and which from the internal world. In the process of scientific creation they blend. Kant made an effort to differentiate (demarcate) knowledge between the a priori and the a posteriori. Thus the transcendental world appears to be inside humans. However, to a priori (internal) knowledge Kant assigned only some system-forming knowledge such as knowledge of space, time, causality etc. But without the mediation of the feeling of harmony inwardly inherent to humans, knowledge from experience could never grow to become theory. And all mathematical knowledge is acquired only due to the operations of the internal world of a man. Speaking on the soul, al-Suhrawardi, the founder of Ishraqizm, of addresses himself to the second person singular (to you): You cannot remind yourself about yourself. But you sometimes forget some part of body. If you were an aggregate of those parts, in forgetting the body, or some part of it, you would stop realizing yourself, and being yourself. Consequently, you are not in the body or in its parts. 79 Al-Suhrawardi continues his discourse on this issue and reminds us that the body needs food, is constantly renewed as time passes, and maybe nothing will remain from the previous condition. If
al-Suhrawardi, Hikmat al-Ishraq in H. Corbin (ed), Tehran and Paris, 1999, p. 216.
79

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The Specificity of the Body: Two Ideas in one Thing you were a part of the body, then gradually nothing would remain of your personality and your thinking substance would cease to exist. 80 Yes, much takes place in the body that a person does not even suspect. Al-Suhrawardi asks how it can be that one is not informed about processes emanating in one and concludes that ones personality is in another world, in a different space than that of the body. A person always knows what takes place in the soul, for this is ones true existence. Here, in al-Suhrawardi, we see the mind and itself so he reverses the Cartesian thesis: I am thinking, therefore I exist. 81 Al-Suhrawardis thought could be expressed in succinct terms: My existence is not in my body, but in my rational soul, or even more succinctly: I exist, therefore I am thinking. The thinking person can also think without seeing. According to al-Suhrawardi in the perfect state the soul finds things that are not seen by the eyes, not heard by the ears. If the soul does not enter the world of reason, it is dependent on the external world, as it were becoming blind. In his doctrine, the images of blindness and of the eyes of reason are more appropriate, because according to his terminology the material world corresponds to darkness, whereas the world of reason corresponds to light. Besides, we want to stress once more that in al-Suhrawardi, the discourse is not only a meditation on the external
Ibid, p. 217. Rene Descartes, The Principles of Philosophy. Part II. The principles of material things, in philosophical writings of Descartes, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stroothoff, and Dugald Murdock. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), Vol. I, p. 127.
81 80

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Soul and Body world, but a meditation on the self, on the ones own soul and internal processes. This is a condition for conscious life. This position conforms to the approach of phenomenology. It is not an accident that Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka considers the re-establishment of the basic foundational unity of the conscious life as one of the merits of Husserl. 82 In contrast to naturalists who characterize life as metabolic exchange with the environment, philosophers are right to direct attention to internal for potential development. Sun, soil and water are only sources of energy. However, the progress and future states of a plant are planned earlier in its seed. The specific status of plants in the animate world was defined more accurately by Plato, in accord with the conception suggested in this article.) For Plato a plant moves only internally, within itself, and resists foreign influences. It does not know its nature and condition. Thus though existing as an animate being, a plant is fastened to its place, inasmuch as it is not given the possibility of moving by itself, to change its place. 83 In animals too, for the vivification and movement of the idea within the form of the embryo, additional energy, a beneficial environment and the influence of the environment is required. Otherwise the potential idea cannot be fulfilled. (Energy is required for the vivification of the idea). What differrentiates an animal from a plant is its possession of a will. That is to say an animals actions are not planned beforehand in the

A-T. Tymieniecka, Logos and Life: Three Movements of the Soul, Book 2 (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998, p. 4. 83 Plato, Timaeus. 77 b.

82

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The Specificity of the Body: Two Ideas in one Thing form of a passive idea. What is planned is only the animals existence, its functioning as an animate being. An animals movement as a whole thing is different from its inner movement. Its inner movement, regardless of its having a will, is realized as a material embodiment of the idea in its embryo. Like an animal, a human also has inner movement, and the process of the material embodiment of an idea occurs, regardless of the persons own will. The difference with a human is that he himself has the capability to put forward an realize ideas distinct from the idea his body expresses. In conclusion, it could be said that not only the intellectual activity, psychological condition and spiritual-moral life of the human being, but also his physical health, in the last instance, are dependent on the state of his soul and its potentials.

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The problem of determining the boundary between conscious and unconscious is in some sense equivalent to the problem of isolating the rational soul in the structure of internal life. From what does consciousness originate? The core condition for consciousness is the obviousness of an object. This is achieved by the concretion of a certain idea in the confines of the body. (For every object, reality is the synthesis of an infinite number of ideas). Intentionality, phenomenological reduction, is the isolation of a single idea in pure form. Alongside Brentanos and Husserls notably efficient idea about the intentionality of consciousness, other ideas and constructions of Husserl directed at the creation of an all-embracing theory seem to be argumentative and are sometimes also artificially constructed. For instance, there is the problem of the corporeal activity of man, the idea of kinetic consciousness, etc. where

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed.), Phenomenology of LifeFrom the Animal Soul to the Human Mind, Book II. The Human Soul in the Creative Transformation of the Mind,. Analecta Husserliana XCIV (Berlin: Springer,2007), pp.189-199.

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Soul and Body in the Phenomenological Context the functions of the body are seen as if detached from the functioning of the sensory organs. Analyzing Husserls thought, P. Prekhtel writes this: Considering the intentional structure of consciousness, it seems that these sensory impressions repose in receptivity, hence in sensory affects incurred by the body. Now sensory impressions emanate from movement of the body, the hands, head, and eyes. Ostensibly, the body thereby becomes the organ of perception. But actually all the sense organs make up one whole and pertain to the body. So-called kinetic motion is easily ascribed to the context of subject-object relationships. Traditionally considered, cognition is a reflection of reality, sensory cognition is a result of the physical interrelation of the body with the circumambient world and material environment. Herewith, the human body, even in a passive condition, reflects external effects and even counteracts them. Defending this position, materialists consider that physical signals (light, sound, etc.) turn into the fact of sensation, perception, and, ultimately, the fact of consciousness. However, the realization comes if the human body is regarded as an object of physical reaction, as essentially passive, that it is impossible to uncover the core of the cognitive process, and so proponents of this reflection theory do ascribe some activity to the human body. The human body as it were becomes not the object but the subject of physical interrelation in the deliberative cognitive process. In our view, one of the drawbacks of such conceptions is identifying the human with the human body, whereas the hard core task lies in ascertaining the conditions (criteria) for demarcating reason (conscious acts) and the unconscious states of the soul. The complexity of 105

Soul and Body the structure of the soul and the diversity of its states have long attracted the attention of researchers. The separation of reason (mind) from the remaining parts and levels of the soul is the main element of the epistemological doctrines of Ibn Sina and Suhrawardi too. *** The idea of acquiring genuine truth by way of intentional thought, intuition, and revelation has been expressed in Indian-Chinese and ancient philosophies of different shades. This idea was a leading one in the Middle Ages, in Islamic philosophical thought as well. S. Suhrawardi notes that the knowledge obtained by means of the external senses distances man from the genuine truth. In Modern philosophy, Rene Descartes also defends this position and claims that truth is obtained not through sensory experience, but by intentional thought. However, the concept of the existence of ideas in the human brain without any connection to material reality met resistance. This problem is especially elucidated in John Lockes doctrine. But Kant, by accepting the results of both sensory experience and pure reason, claims that the real view of the world is formed by the synthesis of these two sources of knowledge. Thus over philosophical history the search for truth was conducted by referring either to sensory experience or to rational, intentional thought. There were also instances of taking an idea as an autonomous being and confronting it with the material world as a free substance and even of considering ideas to be the only being, as well as adopting a negative attitude toward the material world and the human body. Plato considered the material world to be a shadow of ideas and for him only ideas were the truth. However, Platos ideas are above not only things and 106

Soul and Body in the Phenomenological Context events, but also human consciousness. Nevertheless, the directly known and only factual reality for a human being is his inner world. But this world too is not always illuminated and revealed to him. Whether in human contact with external things and events, or while focusing his mind on his inner world, only some moments of this world are revealed and illuminated for him. Past events are not alive today and are transferred to an archive, a passive area, and have lost their reality. For a human being the real is only his feelings, ideas, and the phenomena of the moment. Thus his reality consists of these phenomena. The role of idea and sense in the structure of feeling is also a very important question. Opposing psychologism and holding the position that scientific doctrines should be expressed with mathematical precision in our philosophical activity, Edmund Husserl gives importance to clear ideas in the structure of the human brain and presents feelings as a reality on the level of ideas, that is, as being independent of the senses. Things and events known from the sensory world are fixed with corresponding ideal images and phenomena here when consciousness is directed at a thing. The question here is that of accepting an image that has appeared in our consciousness as a reality. That is to say not the thing, the matter behind this image, but the image itself is regarded as reality. The question is what the difference is between the image formed by sensory experience and the mental image. The difference is that the mental image is not actually the image of an individual concrete thing, but of a universal. Generally it is thought that Husserls doctrine is built on Descartes doctrine. But there is an important point made in John Lockes doctrine on the way from Descartes to Husserl. 107

Soul and Body Locke writes that our cognition concerns our ideas. And as the mind has no direct object other than its own ideas, which it studies or will study in all its thoughts and discourses, so our cognition concerns only them. Here the question is not about the origin of ideas. Nor is it whether they were obtained through previous experience or by way of intuition. The question is about the role of the ideas of the ego in the process of cognition. Once formed as an image, an idea is kept in the memory and can feature on the agenda at any time in future life. There are also ideas acquired in an intuitive way. The following process of knowledge consists of mans observation of his own ideas. 84 There is no need for proof if the comparison of ideas is made without referring to sensory experience. John Locke even uses the notion of self-evidence and considers it an important condition for cognition. 85 John Locke considers the directing of thought toward one definite theme to be the main means of cognition. So he not only refers to Descartes doctrine, but also considerably improves it. He uses the notion of actual cognition and explains it as direct observation of the mind. (As it happens the idea of actual cognition has been put forward by Ibn Sina.) Here Locke also directs attention for a moment to the fact that our limited reason is able to think correctly and clearly about only one thing at a given time. 86 And a person is the active bearer of the idea to which his

John Locke. An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. Book IV. Of knowledge and probability. Chapter II.1. (http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/6/1/10616/) 85 Ibid., Chapter III.6. 86 Ibid., Chapter I.8.

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Soul and Body in the Phenomenological Context thought is directed at any moment. Other ideas and knowledge are not illuminated and are out of ones focus and attention. *** In the inanimate world every event, every thing, is a passive carrier of a certain idea. However, though found in the passive and inanimate, this idea has a complex, hierarchic structure. That is to say the organization of a thing has lower layers that exist regardless of the macro idea. But how is movement in the inanimate world understood? The removal of a thing in relation to other things, that is, mechanical movement, does not require any change in the idea, the thing. That is, if a thing moves, preserving its persona, this is only displacement. A change in a things idea is possible due to a change in the relations between its inner parts. Every structural change here can bring about a change in the idea at a higher level. The change in an object over time, without any foreign influence causing it, is in fact envisaged in its idea. However, the difference with the world of plants is that here change induced by foreign influence is also planned beforehand. (That is, some changes caused by external influences can also be potentially envisaged.) For instance, additional energy from the sun and the soil is required for an embryo (seed) to sprout. What form this embryo will grow into is planned in the embryo itself. This is revivification of a passive idea by external influence (additional energy). That is, here the movement takes the form of the revivification of an idea. Although foreign influence, additional energy, was not in the structure of the seed before, there was a place ready for it. When the original idea is not fulfilled, the thing (seed) acts like 109

Soul and Body an inanimate thing, that is, there is no movement inside it. No movement at its lower levels serves to effect a change in the macrostructure. At most, these levels provide for its preservation. Tymieniecka also shares the view that the life of animate beings is the realization of a certain project. 87 In contrast to naturalists who characterize life as metabolic exchange with the environment, philosophers are right to direct attention to the internal for potential development. Sun, soil, and water are only sources of energy. However, the progress and future states of a plant are planned earlier in its seed. The specific status of plants in the animate world was defined more accurately by Plato, in accord with the conception suggested in this article. For Plato a plant moves only internally, within itself, and resists foreign influences. It does not know its nature and condition. Thus, though existing as an animate being, a plant is fastened to its place, inasmuch as it is not given the possibility of moving by itself, of changing its place. 88 In animals too, additional energy, a beneficial environment, and the influence of the environment are required for the vivification and movement of the idea within the form of the embryo. Otherwise the potential idea cannot be fulfilled. (Energy is required for the vivification of the idea.) What differenAnna-Teresa Tymieniecka. The Unveiling and the Unveiled. Uncovering the Cornerstones for Metaphysical Dialog between Occidental Phenomenology and Islamic Philosophy. In A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.) The Passion of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming. Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Philosophy in Dialog 1. Dorchreht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003. 88 Plato, Timaeus. 77 b.
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Soul and Body in the Phenomenological Context tiates an animal from a plant is its possession of will. That is to say, an animals actions are not planned beforehand in the form of a passive idea. What is planned is only the animals existence, its functioning as an animate being. An animals movement as a whole thing is different from its inner movement. Its inner movement, regardless of its having a will, is realized as a material embodiment of the idea in its embryo. Like an animal, a human being also has inner movement, and the process of the material embodiment of an idea occurs, regardless of the persons own will. The difference with a human being is that he himself has the ability to put forward and realize ideas distinct from the idea his body expresses. *** The analyses and generalizations of the conceptions of Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and Suhrawardi bring us to the following conclusions. The world is what man is in at every moment. A human beings cognition of the world is possible only within the limits of how he was programmed in advance and of that potential which he has. Reality is neither an external nor an internal world, rather it appears from their contact. Exactly at this time the transcendental ego coincides with the empirical ego and a human being finds wholeness, as it were, and duality disappears. At every moment of contact between a human being and the world, a local reality appears. This reality is the real feelings of the human being. The life of five minutes before is no longer a reality. Although there can be a causal relation between the life lived before and filed away in the archive under the name of the past (life that is retained in the 111

Soul and Body memory) and the life being lived now, life in fact consists only of the actualized, activated part of mans world of ideas at the present moment. Infinite potential worlds exist that are not lived by the human ego, but of whose existence in the form of possibilities there is no doubt. This world was present in the past and will be present in the future; it has its own regularities and structure. It exists as the embodiment of a great idea. Yes, the world is programmed, it is also controlled. A great, complex idea is realized in the form of ongoing actualization within it, under a system of smaller ideas. But separate events, separate systems in the world enter into a relationship with each other only on the basis of a primordial program. One event cannot interfere in anothers project. Each lives only its own life. Each exists only through the realization of its destiny. All objects and events in the world are under the competence of a primordial program, fate, and destiny. Man is the only exception. Only he has a will and the possibility of choice. Only man can actively intervene in the processes going on in the world, can change the flow of events, and can abrogate fate on a local level. Here the multi-staged, hierarchical structure of the world has to be taken into consideration. There is a local idea standing at the base of every object, and this is its destiny. It results from the structure and internal logic of the object. It determines a local system. But the greater system that surrounds it has its own structure, logic, and destiny. Changes taking place in the large system are reflected in the fate of sub-systems and elements. Fate in the large sense depends generally on ongoing processes in the whole system occurring alongside the internal being of every element. In other words, programming itself has a hierarchic structure. Little ideas obey big ideas. Events hap112

Soul and Body in the Phenomenological Context pening on one step also depend on events on a higher step. Hierarchy here should be understood not only in terms of matter, but also and more importantly in terms of ideas. Thus events taking place in any one world are under the sphere of influence of the superior world. Here the degree of superiority, the direction of the rising line goes like an arrow toward the outside, on the one hand, and like an arrow toward the inside, on the other. Suhrawardi writes that something standing on a lower level cannot command something standing on a higher level. As an example he points out that the body does not control the soul, rather the soul controls the body. The lowest level is the level of materiality. The way up passes through the stage of morality. There are different stages on the way from darkness to light The direction is from dark to light, from exterior to interior, from local idea to universal idea. Among all beings, only the human being is the bearer of an active idea alongside a passive idea and only he possesses the ability to program events himself. Although he was created, he has the ability to create, construct, and influence the flow of events. A human being differs from other creatures by his ability to conceive ideas and to make free choices an aptitude that even angels do not possess. *** A human soul is the carrier of two different ideas, and there is no primordial relation between them. One of these ideas refers to the body. That is to say, the body itself is a system coded and programmed in advance. On the other hand, one part of the body the brain appears to be the carrier of another idea. That is, of an idea operative throughout the whole Universe. That is to say, the universe is the main carrier of its 113

Soul and Body own idea. This idea is actualized over the flow of time, and by it the universe evolves, as it were. An idea in the universe is also a coded, programmed, and evolving system. Everything begins with the conception of the embryo. The unification of Yin and Yang, form and matter, idea and chaos occurs. It is actualized in the material world, but copies of this idea are multiplied and in potential, passive form the idea is present in all human beings in their brains. By that, a human is primordially aware (informed) of everything going on in the universe, including in his/her body. According to the terminology of Suhrawardis doctrine of Ishrag, stronger sources of light contemplate dark matters by illuminating them. That which stands lower in the hierarchy of luminosity is not able to contemplate and cognize that which stands higher. Ideas in the brain (the idea of the cosmos) are higher than the ideas of the other organs of the body. But man, if he does not focus (meditate) on some organ, cannot contemplate it. An organ can be cured by arriving at a picture of its perfect form (idea). In turn, the body can contribute to perfecting the soul. Al-Farabi writes: When the soul is imperfect, then it gains perfection due to [the body], for the body appears to be a condition of its perfection, just as the soul appears to be a condition of the bodys existence. 89 Thus by trying to cognize the world, man can appeal, on the one hand, to the external world, partly revealing for himself the ideas established in the universe. These are all those codes, regularities, of the external world that are discovered by means of experience and experimental-scientific investigations. On the other Al-Farabi. Natural-scientific treatise. Translation from Arabic. (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1987, p. 292.) 114
89

Soul and Body in the Phenomenological Context hand, he can fathom all these in his internal world. The internal world is a precise copy of the idea of the universe; that is, it is present in the brain of man. But not every human being is aware of it of his internal treasure. He generally seeks for it outside. According to Ibn Sina and Suhrawardi, all bodies move through the will of their souls. In the hierarchy, the soul lies higher than the body (soulless bodies cannot move without intervention from the outside). By scientific investigations man cannot demarcate exactly what knowledge he acquires from the external world and what from the internal world. In the process of scientific creation they blend. Kant made an effort to differentiate (demarcate) between a priori and a posteriori knowledge. Thus the transcendental world appears to be inside humans. However, Kant assigned only some system-forming knowledge, such as knowledge of space, time, causality, etc. to a priori (internal) knowledge. But without the mediation of the feeling of harmony inwardly inherent in humans, knowledge from experience could never grow to become theory. And all mathematical knowledge is acquired only due to the operations of the internal world of man. *** According to Eastern philosophy, a human being is himself a perfect world. However, there are also conscious worlds other than humans. The main thing is a humans ability to create contact between his own and the outside world. According to Taoism, the Earth, the Sun, and the constellations are all sources of energy. Man can consciously benefit from these energies. Although nothing is said directly about the consciousness of celestial objects or the material world in the clas115

Soul and Body sic works of Taoism and Buddhism, contemporary representtatives of Taoism claim it to be factual. Mantek Chia declares: The Earth is a very big and exceptionally alive being And it is one that affects human life. This idea was widespread in the Islamic East in the10th to 12th centuries. Ali Ibn Abu Talib writes in an appeal to man, a very big world resides in you. Ibn Rushd Fusus Al-Hikam says in his work: The world itself is a great human being. All the truth in the world resides in the truth of man. The body is of course the form of existence of the soul. As for the further existence of the soul it needs the body as well. When a soul is imperfect, then it gains perfection due to [the body], for the body appears to be a condition of its perfection just as the soul appears to be a condition of the bodys existence 90 A human soul mentally apprehends itself only because it is prescinded, whereas animal souls are not prescinded, which is why they do not apprehend themselves. For the mental apprehension of any object is its prescindment from matter. As Al-Farabi says: The soul apprehends by means of organs only imaginable and perceivable objects. As for universals and mentally conceivable objects, it conceives them per se. 91 *** In what relations are the object itself, as well as its copy, model, and its separate features of sound, color, etc.? Aristotle in Metaphysics uses the term Socrates himself 92
Ibid., p.292. Ibid., p.292. 92 Aristotle. Metaphysics. in The basic works of Aristotle. Richard McKeon. ed. The Modern Library. (New York. 2001), p. 694.
91 90

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Soul and Body in the Phenomenological Context and tries to explain him as a substratum. This comes from Aristotles materialist view, for a himself may be not a substratum, rather it is a form, idea, eidos. The explanation of a passive idea is less complicated, inasmuch as it is supposed that it is equivalent to the notions of structure and form. This explication is directed toward an already constructed, existent world. When it is said that any object is a bearer of a certain idea and has a definite form, it is not its creation, activity, the motion toward self-exhaustion, or end that is being spoken about. Its activity and functioning are considered only in the form of possibilities in the passive idea and form. When positing that the world is created with a definite form and system of forms and that the Creator does not interfere in the processes going on afterwards, we have to search for motion and the source of activity in this world. Aristotle rightly points out that Platos doctrine of ideas gives only a static model of the world and cannot show the source of motion. In his search for the first cause, Aristotle considers not only the cause of being, but also of motion. Causes are spoken of in four senses. In one of these we mean the substance, i.e. the essence (for the why is reducible finally to the definition, and the ultimate why is a cause and principle); in another the matter or substratum, in a third the source of the change, and in a fourth the cause opposed to this, the purpose and the good (for this is the end of all generation and change). 93 As we can see, two of the causes that Aristotle points to are related to being, the other two are connected to motion and its purpose.
93

Ibid., p.693.

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Soul and Body By analyzing the views of the philosophers before him, Aristotle points out that most of them take only the material beginning as the start, i.e. that from which things are constituted and into which they will turn in the end. This natural beginning does not appear from anything, it is always being maintained. However, Aristotle shows that the idea of a unitary material beginning is not sufficient. Because besides providing an answer to what these changes, appearances, and disappearances have emanated from, an explanation should also be given of why they have appeared. For at least the substratum itself does not make itself change; e.g. neither the wood, nor the bronze causes the change of either of them, nor does the wood manufacture a bed and the bronze a statue, but something else is the cause of the change. And to seek this is to seek the second cause, as we should saythat from which comes the beginning of the movement. 94 When searching for the cause of movement Aristotle does not differentiate between living and nonliving, and specifically does not relate the source of movement with the soul. But subsequently medieval Islamic philosophers (Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina) treated this problem specifically in relation to the soul. They apprehended the soul as being the cause of all movements. Firstly, we have again to look at the difference between the spiritual and the material, the living and the non-living. Rene Descartes considers thought to be the main attribute of non-corporeal substance and extension to be that of corporeal substance. 95 But the ability to think is reveaIbid., p.695. Rene Descartes, The Principles of Philosophy. Part II. The principles of material things, in philosophical writings of Descartes, trans. John
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Soul and Body in the Phenomenological Context led only at the higher level of the soul and is inherent only in the human soul. Non-corporeal substance has various forms distinct from thought. While it is true that Descartes understands the notion of thought in the broad sense, even so this notion is not enough for characterizing the world of soul, spirit. Nor is it enough to differentiate the corporeal world, things and objects, by just their spatial extension. For imagining reality more rightly and comprehensively, it is not sufficient to divide it according to such conditional and indefinite notions as thought and essence. In that case we cannot clearly imagine the place and role of man. In our view, the optimal model is again to define the notion of an absolute idea, on the one hand, and the notion of absolute matter, on the other. Only after that is it possible to clarify the characteristics and relations of the human and sensory world that is between those two poles. Some researchers identify the absolute idea with God. Then the matter is left aside, and two explanations of matter become possible: either matter is the progeny of an idea, or it existed primordially and independently of God. Neither of these explanations can yield results on the way to understanding the world. The first view recalls the doctrine of Plato. In other words, the only true being here is the world of ideas. The material world, things and events are the copies of ideas, as it were, and so they are deprived of real being. The condition of the temporariness of things and events in the material world spurs complete rejection of their real existence. But for humans the way to the world of ideas and God passes through the material
Cottingham, Robert Stroothoff, and Dugald Murdock. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), Vol. I, p. 244

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Soul and Body world. Rejection of the body and absolutizing the spirit cannot be the optimal methodological approach for learning the mechanism and core of the events happening in real life. The second view, being dualist, in fact accords matter and God with the same status. This view arises from conceptualizing the duality of light and dark, good and evil, idea and body, fire and soil, now in the form of idea and matter. By having a body, man is part of an interim world. As other things are constituted from the unity of idea and matter, more correctly, as they are formed, made of matter on the basis of a certain idea, so man is the carrier of the idea of the body. Unlike all other things, a human being is also the carrier of another ideathe idea of the universe, of which he is a microcosm. Moreover, these ideas are those that can at any moment be activated, animated, and turned into consciousness. In other words, by possessing soul and spirit, man has the ability to approach the absolute idea, to set out from his interim world to the world of ideas (be directed to the inner, spiritual world) while being in this world, and he can also be on the same level with things and events (as the owner of a body and an empiric I). He has to obey the rules of this world and adapt to its harmony. Keeping the world in himself as a passive idea, man learns it part by part while being in concrete contact with it. So the inner world of man is mainly illuminated and uncovered depending on the moments of contact with this world. However, man can travel to his inner world (in fact, a microcosm and the idea modeling the universe) independently of this external world and would like to find or create in this world the things that he has seen there. It is specifically this moment that stands at the base of the creative process. If man wants to reveal an idea carried by 120

Soul and Body in the Phenomenological Context other things, events, or his own body, it will be seen that these things bear not one but numerous ideas. What idea is revealed on the first approach and what others are there for us? The problem is that man will use only the one word idea for attribute, form, structure, and regularity that he finds in a thing or event and will consider all the rest that is dark and unknown as matter, material. As a thing has a complex structure, the upper levels that are revealed in the hierarchy of ideas embodied in it are designated as ideas; the unclear lower parts are designated as matter. *** For instance, when speaking of the idea of a table, is only the macrostructure serving its main function, its form considered. However, what it is made from, the structure of its matter, its lower structural layers (molecular, atomic, and other levels) is beyond a doubt related to its substantial matter. When looking at a thing through a microscope, what is observed is a molecule, a cell, so that the macrostructure cannot be observed. The illuminated, clarified side is what is accepted as its idea, while the dark side is designated as matter, as it is in al-Suhrawardis Ishrag teaching. Analogically in the microcosm that is the brain, the illuminated side corresponds to consciousness, while the passive side corresponds to unconsciousness, to unrevealed consciousness. So the main issue is the structural level mans attention is focused on. Things and events are perhaps the carriers of many things. But what is known to us is that part encountered by the minds view. Different philosophers name the dark side differently. Suhrawardi calls it barzakh, which actually corresponds to Kants notion of the thing in itself. 121

About the Correlation of Memory and Remembrance in the Structure of the Soul
Knowledge is the most alien of the different forms of consciousness for the human being, particularly, knowledge which is not related to the human being, his personal life, and his fate. In fact, human participation as a subject is ruled out in the content of knowledge. Because of the events reflecting personal life and reflecting events that happened in the life of a human being are related to personal emotions and feelings, they are kept in the memory as a remembrance. In this sense, knowledge and remembrance can be distinguished. Certainly this differentiation comes from distinguishing events as native and alien to a person. It also expresses the difference between single and common. Thus, remembrance remains in the memory not as knowledge, but as an image. The human being retains events in his memory as he understands and lives. That is because remembrance is the second mental existence of the human life. It is also the form of existence of life, as opposed to material life, which does not obey the law of the inevitability of time and which can reoccur and be restored at any desirable moment. The remembrance can be bitter or sweet, pale or motley, and can make a person feel what he lived in his past. But knowledge is inanimate and neutral and is not directly 122

Memory and Remembrance in the Structure of the Soul related to the personal senses, and in this sense it is alien to the person. Are the events related to personal life not summarized in the mind? Are imagination and sensual images not connected with appropriate notions, and proper knowledge deduces from it accordingly? As Suhrawardi stated: luminosity, discovery, occurs when a human being finds in the object what is in himself. Thus the cognition process is possible due to adequacy what is in the self and in the external object.96 This opinion corresponds to Anna-Teresa Tymienieckas idea of ontopoiesis of life. 97 In real mental life, neither are sensual images separate from notions, nor are notions separate from sensual images. It should be said that the sensual and rational are always in unity and complete each other. However, both sense and image, as well as notions and judgments, possess a certain relative independence. Thanks to this independence we differentiate them and assess them as different levels of cognition. Events that organize personal life can be divided into two parts: first unique phenomena which happen only once or rarely, second repeat events which happen on a regular basis and very often depending on the circumstances. The second also includes events which seem to be different, while the main elements of them coincide. Certainly there are no events that are totally unique and completely unrepeated in their all elements. However, a person
al-Suhrawardi, Hikmat al-Ishraq in H. Corbin (ed), Tehran and Paris, 1999, p.223 97 The Passions of the Soul in the Metamorphousis of Becoming. Ed. by A.-T. Tymieniecka, p. 3.
96

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Soul and Body does not feel the need to compare unrepeated, mainly unique events in terms of their second degree elements. That is because the sensual images of these events, remembrances, do not succumb to rational operation which consists of getting rid of some elements and generalizing others. It keeps its sensual integrity and concreteness. However, there is no need to keep in mind every detail of repeated events in all their own concreteness, and this is of course impossible. This is because most of personal life is composed of repeated events. This is why details are left and the sensual image gets rid of the insignificant elements and the main repeated elements are generalized. Notions are formulated and events become interpreted by the system of notions. So repeated events, which are the necessary elements of every-day life, are not retained in the memory as entire sensual images and do not become a remembrance. Events that are retained in the memory through the notions in a generalized form, namely an inanimate scheme of a certain group of events, do not influence the sensual state of the human being. It is only possible to think through notions, whereas it is impossible to be affected by them. Understanding everyday events that are not connected with human specialization and professional activity, and are mostly general for all, is suitable for cognition form and is called ordinary consciousness. As a professional cognitive form of philosophical thought, scientific cognition, and literary cognition, ordinary consciousness is one of the main forms of understanding reality. However, it has one main distinctive quality. Ordinary consciousness is not professional cognition form and composes 124

Memory and Remembrance in the Structure of the Soul the main basis of cognitive activity of all people. Everyone mainly addresses ordinary consciousness, not only from the perspective of their personal life and in everyday activity, but also in professional activity in any field. The production of daily sensual practice is often called ordinary knowledge. This knowledge is organized as the generalization of reflections of peoples everyday practical activity and is a kind of first knowledge that appeared due to the formulation of the generalized ability of human beings. As stated above, transferring from thinking through sensual images (prelogical thinking), remembrance, and sensual imagination of the consciousness to thinking through notions mostly encompasses daily life activity (activity which is not imposed on labor division). Early notions are those reflections of generalized elements that appear at the time of necessary activity. Relations among things are reflected as relations among notions, and early knowledge appeared accordingly. By reflecting life activity, which is common to everyone, and by reflecting daily life, that kind of knowledge is considered ordinary knowledge. However, along with the expansion of human activity that kind of knowledge goes beyond the notion of ordinary knowledge. Gradually, the centre of gravity in Human-Nature relations shifts toward Nature. In that kind of interaction a human being systematically receives impulses and his activity goes beyond the necessary needs of ordinary individual life. Consequently, ordinary knowledge loses its simplicity to a higher degree. Specifically, ordinary knowledge, which organizes the core of human activity, knowledge appears in a relatively different character, providing activity in a wider sense. That kind of knowledge is not for direct use in indivi125

Soul and Body dual life, but for societys use. However, through society, this knowledge indirectly affects the life of the human being as a member of society. In his first formulation process, the human being gradually ceases to live for himself, but mostly lives as a member of society, as a personality. That kind of change appears not only in his material activity, but also in the character of his knowledge, as well as in the scope of his knowledge. Knowledge that was alien to human beings becomes more alien because of its wandering from his personal life. On the other hand, knowledge forces him to become a member of society, forces him to become closely tied to society. In spite of seeming paradoxical, the formulation of a human being as a social being and a member of society in this context, the formulation of society, is connected with expanding humannature relations and human influence on society. Historically, human beings (their first ancestors) were an indivisible part of society and were essentially not separated from the other parts. At that time, mans ancestors lived as a flock, lived in a certain correlation with each other. However, this is a characteristic element of nature and it would not be right to look for mans social essence here. During the next period of natural-historical development, the process of mans separation from nature began. During this period, there were no personalities or biosocial beings, but only biological existence. However at the top level of biological evaluation, the process of becoming human beings began, due to the appearance of the first components of consciousness and changes in objective reality. And this process 126

Memory and Remembrance in the Structure of the Soul coincides with the separation of man from nature and putting himself before it. During mutual correlation with nature, man primarily acts to ensure his material needs and to understand nature as his extension, then as being different from himself, as an opposite side. As long as man does not separate himself from nature, his imagination is restricted to sensual images and sensual thinking. Although sensual images of the first historical reflection forms of human-nature relations possessed certain dynamism, it did not reflect reality and its objective context adequately. It is very difficult for people to separate themselves from nature and feel their ancestors prelogical syncretic mode of thinking, since contemporary man thinks with notions proper to the law of logic. It is possible to understand, but it is difficult to feel. So, the law of logic (we mean dialectical logic) is also reliable for prelogical matters. Analyzing national creative masterpieces and mostly mythology shows that the appearance of knowledge in its objective content and logical thinking are products product of long-term transformation. During transformation periods, trends toward uniting personal fate with desires and symbolic meaning with the real images of real events gradually decrease. Events become free from decorations and they are shown in all their bareness, simplicity, relatively dim, but with their own color. Nature is no longer regarded as an extension of man and becomes independent. Man separates himself from nature, and nature from himself. A relative division between the moral and the material gradually becomes obvious. As long as sensual images were not generalized and formulated in the shape of a notion, the world was Chaos in human understanding. The 127

Soul and Body formulation of a notion made it possible for man to transfer the order and harmony that exist in the material world to the human moral world. The human intention to separate nature from himself and to study objective reality did not only come from his personal needs, but also from the needs of a human being, people, and society, acquiring impersonal knowledge and shaping it to the logical form which is general for all and expressed with words all these are serious steps in the formation of personality, from biological existence to biosocial existence. Speech appeared in the formation of notions and its importance as a mode of intercourse among people gave a strong boost to the formulation of man as a social being. The transformation from human-nature relations to society-nature relations happens in harmony with the transformation from syncretic to logical thinking. As the field of human activity expands, the field of human knowledge broadens as well. Ordinary knowledge is historically the most ancient among the forms of knowledge formulated as a result of material activity, which is common and necessary to all. Other fields of knowledge have been appeared thanks to the division of labor and did not belong to all but to some group of people depending on the field of activity. However, this first formulation process, division of labor and specialization, encompasses only the material field of activity. During that period, acquiring knowledge was not an independent activity, rather it was only a necessary part of expedient material activity. Knowledge was not separate and did not become an independent object of cognition. 128

Memory and Remembrance in the Structure of the Soul When talking about speech, we do not mean material communication, and real life language. As long as thought was not separate from activity, speech could not be independent. But at that time there was objective reality for knowledge, as well as the formation of speech, to become independent. Although communication in a primary human flock was different in quality from communication among contemporary human beings, and intellectual communication, it played a very important role in the formation of the second one as a necessary historical process. As Karl Marx noted, the human being does not begin to act from a theoretical attitude toward the objects in an external world. Just like every animal, he begins from needs such as eating, drinking, etc., which do not have any active impact, but through this impact he ensures his needs by possessing external objects. Through the repetition of this process, the ability of this object to ensure a persons need becomes fixed in the human memory. So, origination of knowledge was related to mans active material influence on nature to ensure his needs. However, at that time. man could not separate his attitude toward the external world from external objects. A human being did not understand what he possessed; he possessed it only unconsciously, as a part of his active influence on nature. Since the human being could not separate himself from nature, and nature from himself, his knowledge was not separated from material activity as an event of consciousness and did not become an independent fact of consciousness. However, human activity was not only restricted to material activity. Already mans influence on nature became expedient. The early form of activity based on ensuring indivi129

Soul and Body dual material needs and the trial-and-error method was gradually substituted by activity, the results of which could be predicted. This process, which has taken hundreds of thousands years, was the formation and perfection of labor. However, mans conscious material activity does not indicate a separation of consciousness from material activity and its independent existence: at that time, consciousness was also related to material activity. Objective reality beyond human material activity was not yet a subject of cognition. At that time, intellectual and physical activities (labors) had not yet been separated.

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PHENOMENOLOGY AND SCIENCE

Synergetics as a Positivistic Trick for Philosophy On the Idea of Circular Development of the Philosophy of Science Native and Alien Knowledge and the Conditions of Their Compatibility Two Mathematical Models of the World Mind and Sense as the Frame and Membrane of the Shrine of Life

Synergetics as a Positivistic Trick for Philosophy

A mans life, like his thought, exists between two poles: between physical and spiritual lives. For the reason that our aim is to determine the place and role of knowledge in human life, we will attempt to analyze it separately according to the perspectives of both lives. The notion of knowledge itself, in fact, is differentiated according to these different perspectives. It is traditionally accepted that knowledge consists of the information gained by men from the external environment through sensory cognition and then of its different transformations obtained through logical cognition. However, this type of knowledge, in fact, is an integral part of a life directed to the maintenance of mans physical existence. And what is important in the spiritual life of man is not cognitive knowledge, but spiritual states (hal) and stations (maqam). It is true that the senses also play significant roles at the beginning, but they do not act here as sense-perception, but they act here as sensual experiences, excitements and supreme feelings

Phylosofy Study, January 2012, Vol.2, No. 1, 27-34.

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Phenomenology and Science For thousands of years, human beings have either tried to cognize larger-scale events considering their own current and practical activities or, considering the meaning of life and the highest power as well as the being who created the universe, they have sought the solution to all other problems in the divine power and in worshiping him. In fact, this is the starting point of science and religion. Both of them have chosen from the actual life of the human being and once again have been relatively-independently structuralized and developed for applying to the same actual life. Correspondingly, philosophical thinking has also two different sources - two starting points. The first of them is the philosophy which has its roots in the practical activity of the human being as well as in rational thought and generally in rational life; it is the very way that goes from naive realism to the idea of God and religious philosophy. And the second is the philosophy which has arisen from astonishment, intuition and the sense of holiness; this is the way that begins from the idea of God and religious philosophy and moves towards the philosophy of actual life. These two ways, which come face to face with each other, of course, intersect somewhere here. Simultaneously, there have been attempts at thinking in both directions and trying to unite the two different types of thinking and worldview. For materialist philosophy, sensualism and the rationalist teachings, which confirm that the cognitive process starts from sensory experience, the direction of the cognitive way is from the specific towards the general and from real material to scientific-theoretical theses. For even general principles mostly 134

Synergetics as a Positivistic Trick for Philosophy come out as the components of rational cognition when deductive methods are implemented. It means that in terms of time and space, the human being acts in a local environment so his learning object should also be finite. If the solution of a vital or even mathematical problem leads to infiniteness then it is explained such that the task has not been correctly put and its solution is impossible. The aim here is to transform the object of cognition into the finite models of the infinite world. At the same time, logical thinking itself is finite and belongs to local objects, and it only exists for the solution of solvable problems. On the contrary, if the human being imagines his own personal life and the local environment that surrounds him as an indivisible part of infinity - in other words, if he looks at the concrete events of life from the peak of eternity and infinity, then sensory cognition as well as logical thought becomes helpless here. However, two variants are possible here. Firstly, in return for this infinity, the human being feels himself as `nothing` and abandons hope to achieve anything with his own experience and mind in the cognition of the world. He leaves himself up to the will of supernatural powers, at best to the discretion of divine belief. In this case, in order to keep balance, it becomes necessary to connect with those supernatural powers and to use mystical methods. Mythical thinking is mostly distinguished by these aspects. The second is to consider religious emotion and the general harmony of the world as well as the idea of unity and to seek the finite in the infinite and to be based for the cognition of the finite on the pieces of information which come through the non-rational way. In fact, the situation considerably changes if scientists go a step further from the level of being ordinary researchers as 135

Phenomenology and Science well as from the level of generalization and systematization of the empirical experiment, to wit, if they are not only limited to logical cognition and take a creative attitude towards the problem. If a research includes the pieces of information which `was intuited` in some way or another, then it could not be explained within the conventional cognitive models as well as the removal of the research subject from locality towards an infinite context could not be elucidated by these models. Depending on the research and the angle of the approaching method, what is important here is either the non-revealed (nonconscious) consciousness, or intuition, or irrational cognition, or ecstasy and prophetic revelation. However, according to the traditional approach within New Age epistemology, the sensory experiment and rational cognition are the main lines of scientific cognition. The way the problem is put and the subject of research are determined at this very level. When and how `alien` cognitive means intervene is basically accepted as a subjective factor as well as a creative impulse. In fact, there is not here only one, but two ways. Where and how does the way, which goes from the sensory experiment towards theories and principles, intersects with the way that comes down from the divine level to daily practices? To be sure, if each of researches of problems in different subjects is accepted as an independent chain of cognition as well as an intellectual movement then it is entirely possible that these movements that are in different directions could intersect each other. Nevertheless, here we look at the intersection through vertical lines, but not at that of the surface of the plane 136

Synergetics as a Positivistic Trick for Philosophy and this is the very meeting point where rising up and walking down thought ways meets. The data, which have been obtained by the different ways that differ from traditional research methods and their sources are unknown, are accepted by scientists as a sort of coincidence. It means that it is not certain in advance when the muse will come and intuition will be active and when a darkness will be lightened. All these are counter-intuitive and have not arisen from the logical course of cognition and healthy thinking and at the same time they are` additions` that occur unexpectedly, like `a gift from the unseen world` or `a divine gift`. However, according to other thinkers (poets, philosophers and theologians) the human attains knowledge not in a planned, balanced and predictive manner but as a result of an inner spiritual progress and spiritual enlightenment as well as a divine gift; and other types of knowledge that are attained otherwise, are considered as imperfect and one-sided. This approach, which is widely spread in philosophy, implies that the ultimate truth could be attained not with sensory experiment and logical thinking, but it could be attained as a `divine gift` through divine inspiration, ecstasy and prophetic revelation. However, we disagree with this confrontation and onesided approach. We think that either real scientific activities or philosophical researches demand to synthesize both of the cognitive ways. Scientists have to seek outside influences whenever they cannot explain the events, which happen in relatively closed systems that they research, within the boundaries of that system. Such outside influence is accepted either as a `coincidence` or the appearances of the higher system on the lower sys137

Phenomenology and Science tem. For example, the emergence of a self-directed and regulated motion in the homogeneous and amorphous system (as well as in chaos) is not understood by logic. A number of researchers who consider the emergence of order in chaos almost as a sensation and the study of such non-standard events are presented as a new scientific direction and method which differ from the conventional sciences. The main reason why so much importance is attached to synergetics is to emphasize this very `abnormality` and exception. The synergetic method is a quiet ordinary and normal research method while it comes down through the vertical. That is to say, not only certain types of systems, but also all objects and events as well as relatively closed systems and even so-called fully closed systems, being the parts of bigger systems and infinity, are carriers of their harmony. The period of motions in large systems is larger than usual and the understanding of lower systems of their own situation, `because of not having patience to wait`, as a stationery situation is natural. And suddenly this stationarity is disordered and the new order and rule appears from amorphism and chaos. In other words, whatever exists earlier appears in our viewing circle and draws our attention. If the subject is excludes, then the equilibrium of a local system is disturbed, to wit, not depending on our observing, the balance of a local system is upset. (It is interesting that a same event could be accepted as `disorder` from one side and as `new order` from another. ) In fact, just because ordinary science works within the scopes of stationary systems and local time, it accepts the rules, which are incompatible with the system and could not be explained within the system and comes from outside (in fact from 138

Synergetics as a Positivistic Trick for Philosophy a higher system, for instance, from cosmos), as a disturbance of the inner rule. Indeed, science is not sufficient to provide the claim (or need) of the human being to include the world as a whole. For the reason that science serves the detailed and adequate expression of the world, it could be claimed that within a scientific activity only local world, namely a certain part of the world which is included by our `viewing circle` could be learnt. Even inside the local world, rules could be chosen differently.

Fig. 1. Alternative perspectives of the same system 1. 2. 3. The diagonal creates the knot point in each small square. The diagonal creates the knot point from the each two small squares. The diagonal creates the knot point from the each three small squares.

An example of the classification of the framework`s knot point and dividing it into different rules is shown in the figure 139

Phenomenology and Science 1. Similarly, different rules, panoramas, harmonies and structures-ornaments appear when we look over the world or a local part of it in different cross-sections and different perspectives as well as at different angles. What is important is that the talking point here is not time-space continuum and the locality of the geometric space but the paying attention to the world from a certain perspective and the choosing a certain type of attitudes from within the complex and multi-scale attitude system and adopting them separately. It means that a number of models of the world are established and it is demanded to gather these models somehow in order to create the general scientific view of the world. In fact, because it is very difficult to reach the most general and the total view, the human cognition uses here the possibility of contrary connection. Being somehow in contact with the ultimate destination it determines not only its own orientation, but also gets additional strength for its motion. This is the very attraction of the purpose and the ultimate destination! To move being captivated by the absolute and general harmony!!! As if the human being by throwing a lasso rivets himself to the other end of the word and tugs himself. Alpinists also behave in this way. Each time the hook is thrown to the top of the destination and thus the rope becomes the shortest and most acceptable way between the alpinist and the top of the destination. The distance is overcome not only on account of brawn, but also with the support from the top of the destination. The gravitation is not repulsed only by muscle strength but also by means of `the gravity from above`. It is easy to rise up when the wish of `the above` is completed with the consent of `the below`. 140

Synergetics as a Positivistic Trick for Philosophy It is impossible for a human being, who does not imagine the ultimate destination, to find way. Any moving trajectory is not yet `the way`, because a light should be seen at the end of the way. By leaving one empirical-real material to another, one could be lost within the chaotic collection of these materials. It is not possible to create a theory by collecting empirical data. On the contrary, the counters of the theory should be predetermined so that the empirical material could be correctly placed and connected, to wit, it is necessary to have some early information about the data that is sought. It seems of course too paradoxical and contradictious. It is not a coincidence that even in ancient ages Plato turned this dilemma into the subject of his dialogues. In his dialogue Meno, a debate between Socrates and Meno takes place. Meno asks Socrates that ` how will you ever know that this is the thing which you did not know? ` And Socrates points out the second part of the problem: ` if he knows, he has no need to enquire; and if not, he cannot; for he does not know the very subject about which he is to enquire`. 98 Here the problem towards the difference between one form of knowledge and another, namely the problem of the relativity of knowledge emerges. Science cannot go from pure darkness to light. Science seizes a ray, which has come from somewhere, and by following it, goes through the way of emerging into the daylight. This ray could not be a result of empirical researches; it comes from afar - from the philosophical approach towards the world as well as from inspiration and ardour; it is called intuition or God`s gift in different contexts. The science can never replace the function of philosophy.
98

Plato, Meno, . , Moscow: , 2008, I/383-384.

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Phenomenology and Science Any concrete scientific field and the special sciences reflect a certain perspective of the complex model of the world and the structure of the majority of the certain kind of knot problems. And the philosophical standpoint is the directing power for the whole view of the world. For, the fundamental principles of a great number of scientific principles have been put forward by philosophers. Heisenberg, for instance, thinks that the atomistic philosophy of the Ancient Greeks should be methodological basis for the contemporary atomic physics.99 The search for ultimate substance in ancient philosophy developed in a number of directions. We can divide them into two main parts. It was started either from accepting a substance (water, air, fire etc.), a number of substances, for example, the four elements (water, air, fire and earth.), as prima materia, or the starting point was not the matter, but numbers or the primarity of the geometrical form. The concept of atomism itself is an extension of the first line. That is to say, the smallest material beginning is accepted as a basis. What is important is that after passing several hundreds of years, the development of science has eventually provided an opportunity to re-establish these philosophical ideas in the basis of experimental and mathematico-theoretical material. I mentioned above that each field of science researches the world not as a whole, but as local problems. The attention is drawn to a perspective or a local part of the world and this part is seemed as if it is the whole world. In fact, considering the principle of the identity of the whole and
.. . . oscow, , 1989, p. 28
99

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Synergetics as a Positivistic Trick for Philosophy the part, each field of science researches the whole world. However, we are in need of the service of philosophy for collecting the fields of science. The development of science in the 20th century was so noteworthy that the atomistic model that had been put forward by Leucippus and Democritus were driven into a corner and sloughed off by the mathematical model of the world, which had been put forward by Pythagoras and Plato. The question here is that modern physics cannot accept the atom or elementary particle as a material particle which has its concrete trajectory. Now, we can speak of particle only with a certain probability; it is mostly easier to present it as a packet of waves. And what is the most important here is that the only thing which remains stable is the mathematical formulae. For this very reason, Heisenberg points out that the elementary particles for the modern quantum theory are mathematical forms in the last instance, they are merely more complex mathematical forms in comparison with the geometrical forms that were conceived in the age of Pythagoras and Plato. 100 The most remarkable aspect of Heisenberg`s point of view is that he considers easier to explain the achievements of modern physics in the context of the teaching of Heraclitus. As in case the notion of `fire` is replaced by energy then contemporary scientific ideas become compatible with that of Heraclitus. 101 The reason that made Heisenberg to address the history of philosophy is that not being satisfied with the local re100 101

Ibid, p. 36. Ibid, p. 35.

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Phenomenology and Science searches in a certain field of physics, he tries to create the general scientific view of the whole world and give the indivisible mathematical formula of the whole material. 102 And it becomes clear that the creation of the general view is possible, without being based on a few centuries of empirical and theoretical researches, considering the more universal notions, to wit, it is possible with philosophical approaching. On the contrary, if theoretical ideas and philosophical models had not existed, the empiric materials would probably have lost their ways. However, modern physics follows exactly the line drawn by Plato and the Pythagoreans. 103 We are now in the 21st century. If Einstein and Heisenberg had been alive, they would have probably drawn their attention to the other ideas that were put forward in philosophical teachings but at the same time scientific searches still now could not approach them. I mentioned above that Heisenberg differentiated between the two philosophical directions that the scientific-theoretical notion, which is connected with the searching of the fundamental substance, is based on them. However, there is a third direction too. It is re-emergence of the principles, which were formerly put forward by Parmenides and Anaxagoras and can be bases for not only materia, but also for soul. Namely, Parmenides was guided by the idea of unity. At the same time Anaxagoras and the Neo-Platonists based their ideas on the idea of `nous`. I think the development of science in the 21st century will continue with this direction.
... // . Moscow, , 1971, p. 126. 103 .. . , p. 37.
102

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Synergetics as a Positivistic Trick for Philosophy Michio Kaku, for example, writes in the preface of his book, `Physics of the Impossible`: So is it impossible to think we might one day be able to teleport ourselves from one place to another, or build a spaceship that will one day take us lightyears away to the stars? Normally such feats would be considered impossible by today's physicists. Might they become possible within a few centuries? Or in ten thousand years, when our technology is more advanced? Or in a million years? To put it another way, if we were to somehow encounter a civilization a million years more advanced than ours, would their everyday technology appear to be "magic" to us? That, at its heart, is one of the central questions running through this book; just because something is "impossible" today, will it remain impossible centuries or millions of years into the future?104 M. Kaku`s fantasy, in fact, seems entirely emaciated. The problem of `invisibility` has already become one of the most real studies of Japanese researchers. For now, the concrete steps towards the screening of the object, as well as towards creating the effect of `absolute transparency` have been taken. Not only the films on `the journey to stars` as well as ` on the reading of thoughts and on the issues of telepathy` are being made, but also science itself is doing certain research studies in this field. In a word, these quests of realizing the impossible are not only a finding of M. Kaku. It is possible to say that all the great thinkers of all times have not been satisfied with `what is possible`; they have achieved what they could, and have thrown a stone at what they could not have achieved. Some of them, in
104

M. Kaku. Physics of Impossible, London, 2008, xii.

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Phenomenology and Science turn, have thought even on its philosophy and have presented the unattainable and unfathomable as a form of reality. In his book, `The unknowable`, Semen Liudvigovich Frank, who is an outstanding researcher in the field of the philosophy of science, tries to explain the attempts of mind to go beyond its possibilities as a regularity. Yet Frank accepts that `our cognition is sufficient to cognize existence only within a limited circle` Our standpoint will be clearer if we take into consideration the fact that the cognitive ability of the human being is limited not only qualitatively but also quantitatively. 105 It is questionable that if the discrepancy between the upper and lower systems appears and if one of them is subjected to the change, then how the other one will approach this change. If we take into consideration the fact that in comparison with the lower system, the upper system, in one sense, plays the role of the environment, then this question will sound as reminding of the known problem between the central element and the environment. It reminds us of Avenarius' doctrine of the principal coordination as well as of the theory of contrary relationship. The century-old discussions towards comparing heredity with the upbringing as well as towards comparing the gene with the environment will be also remembered here. The environmental change influences its inhabitants (the central factor) by some means or other. However, is it possible for the changing of an inhabitant to find its reflection in the environment? Or in other words, how many inhabitants, factors should be changed to consider the environment to be changed.
... // , ., , 1990, pp. 218-219.
105

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Synergetics as a Positivistic Trick for Philosophy Or, another question arises here. Is it possible, in principle, for the factor and environment to be changed without depending on one another? For the teaching of Abu Turkhan, which begins directly from eternity and relates the reasons of all changes to the system that has been planned and programmed on the universal scale, and which claims that nothing is accidental and a more universal harmony appears on all scales, the order of things is a ring and component of the order of the universe. If, at any stage, a certain system seems to us as chaos, it means that the time of planned intentional change has not yet reached. Therefore, all of them pre-existed in the program in advance. Merely for the reason that we are not aware of the fine structure of the system that we call chaos, we cannot also see the embryos of the forthcoming regulated motions that are hidden here. The emergence of an order in chaos and reaching the transition time to the regulated order could be possible only for two reasons. The first reason could be taking it into account in `in the internal program`. The second reason, in turn, could be taking it into consideration in the program of the upper system, namely in `the external program`. As the condition in the lower system is conditioned by the environmental condition. When the environment changes, then its previous balance is disordered and it passes to a new condition. In this case chaos itself is seen as `a balance`. That is to say, the system -`the lower system` is established such that all its internal elements share the equal rights, to wit, they become identical. This internal `balance` is possible just because the external environment also does not show the initiative to disorder it and furthermore it provides the opportunity for this to happen. 147

Phenomenology and Science The mentality that has been formed within nature study is so that further energy is needed only for establishing order. In the rest cases, the processes are intended to disorder any order and to the transition to dynamic `balance`. It is known in physics as ` the law of increasing entropy`. The increase of entropy, in turn, means the decrease of information. That is to say, further energy is needed for giving further information to the system as well as for increasing the information that it has preserved. Every substance and event, as well as the information that the system has preserved within itself is first of all either its primary program or its genetic formation. The information that has been added to the system as a result of outside interference, usually appear at the level of macrostructure. For example, a household good is put only in a room which is filled with air. And the information about this room now will be connected to that household good. Air acts here only as a background and those who want to describe the room do not refer to the air in here and its parameters. The molecular content absolutely is not of concern here. If the second or third thing is put in the room, then their correlations to one another as well as the distance between them become the subjects of a new macrostructure and so of new information. The problem of design appears here. However, this design does not include the structure of these things, their internal structure and the information that they have preserved in themselves. In one sense they have been left aside from the structure. What is of concern here is the structure of the model created by the designer. The internal structures of things are not taken into account, that is, they are included in the background-`chaos`. The information here is, in 148

Synergetics as a Positivistic Trick for Philosophy fact, what we have included. The information that have been preserved by these things and their separate elements is an unshown and `secret` information. As a general rule, the secret information that `chaos` has preserved in itself is not taken into consideration. As well as the fact that there is no such thing as absolute chaos is not taken into account. The elements, in turn, are not wholly identical. Furthermore, the possibility of differing the elements, which have previously acted as identical, from each other with the change of the external environment is sunk into oblivion. To sum up, synergetics appears at the crossroads of the cognitive way, which rises from the bottom, and the cognitive way that begins from the top. Though the fact that inorganic systems also preserve a program in themselves and they are in fact potential organic beings has newly accepted in nature study, it was investigated in philosophy long ago. In this respect, endeavors of evaluating synergetics like a new methodology and attempts of pushing the philosophy out of the agenda by transferring the methodological function of philosophy to synergetics bring to mind the traditional characteristics of positivism and neo-positivism. However, in spite of the fact that science develops continually it can study the universe only by adapting it (the universe) to the finite models.

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On the Idea of Circular Development of the Philosophy of Science

Up until Aristotle`s time, there were either the naive materialistic views that considered the world merely as a sensory perceivable reality, as a system based on the same material basis, or there were absolute idealist views that by connecting the real being only with idea and mind, accepted the sensory world as a shadow and illusion and considered the knowledge that were taken from the sensory experiment not as truth and knowledge but as a judgement. Aristotle preferred to unite form and matter. Unlike Plato, he sought ideas not above things but in things themselves and replaced idea-eidos with form which determined the essence of the thing and its function. This `replacement` was not at all merely an alternative view, but was the basis of a different view on the world that played an important role in the later development of the history of the philosophical thought. Sometimes the foundation of logic is considered as one of Aristotle`s contributions to the sphere of founding a number of new scientific fields. However, `logic` is the natural result of his thought system. That is to say, there is no need for logic within the idealistic teachings that are not based on the sensory experiment. The appearance of the truth in the intuitive form and in the form of revelation does not 150

Circular Development of the Philosophy of Science leave any space for logic. Logic mostly takes into consideration generalizing the knowledge that are taken from the sensory experiment, and outlining the exact counters and boundaries of these `commons`-notions and `correctly` connecting them to each other and forming the patterns of thought. Neither the Pythagorean dialectic nor that of Heraclitus is compatible with formal logic and nor is the philosophy of Plato. For the reason that logic frames thought it is generally in contradiction with the spirit of the dialectical philosophy. From this stantpoint, as the founder of logic, Aristotle stimulated the development of scientific knowledge rather than philosophy. Formal logic begins from the denial of the dialectical philosophy by considering that any object or event could be both good and evil, hot and cold, active and still. We would even say that it begins from the denial of philosophy and thus lays down the foundations of the scientification of thought. Logic in its essence belongs to the patterns of thought, dialectics, however, to thought itself. Thought no longer exists as living thought after it has entered into hearts. At the first glance, we encounter here a point that may seem paradoxical. According to Marxism dialectics belongs to nature and, for Hegel`s teaching, to the sphere of thought. For Marxism, the `living` processes of nature overstep the limits of formal logic. The human being merely uses logic as local and limited method when he perceives the world and reflects it in consciousness and thought. Hegel, in turn, considers mind and thought in motion and development. Formal logic belongs neither to `living nature` nor to living thought; it somehow appears in materializing and `naturalizing` thought. In fact, neither pure idea nor pure mate151

Phenomenology and Science ria possesses the concreteness of time and space. Appearing only during the contact of idea with materia, the notions of time and space are also the indicators of sensory objects. `Two objects cannot exist at the same time in the same space`, this is an example to the law of contradiction in logic. In fact, other laws of logic also appear under the condition of the concretness of time and space. Logic is merely the result of the initiative of creating time and space concreteness both in the sensory world and in the world of thought, it is a result of the initiative of packing and shaping thought. For bringing any idea to the notice of others, man is firstly obliged to verbalize and symbolize it. Only in this case the concreteness of thought in terms of time and space is needed. All the laws and principles of logic are obtained here. It is interesting that Kant was the first who attempted to prove that time, space and causality do not objectively exist in nature, but belong to thought. However, he did not continue this thesis towards uncovering the essence of formal logic. `The other side of the medal` will appear if we look at the problem symmetrically. Kant emphasizes that the categories of time, space and causality are necessary when the events in the sensory world are explained, that is, when they are transferred to the sphere of thought. If we look at the contrary process- at the problem of transferring intellectual matters to the sensory world, then again we will need the notions of time, space and causality. Under the very circumstances of the concreteness of time and space thought becomes shaped within the patterns of formal logic. What is the pattern then? It is the concreteness of time and space. The notion of `space` has specific meaning 152

Circular Development of the Philosophy of Science here. What is of concern here is the demarcation of thoughts and the concreteness of the borders of idea. We should take into consideration the historically known fact that Pythagoras and Plato, who were representatives of dialectical thought, entered into history also as representatives of mathematics and mathematical thought. Certainly Plato was not mathematician. However, with his way of thinking he contributed to bringing mathematics to the forefront and Aristotle, in turn, served the development of science (nature study). Indeed, unlike the thinking line of Aristotle, which is based on intending to learn nature as it is, as well as on the sensory experiment and thus on quality conditions, the line of Plato, which gives the prominence to the idealization of the world or to the ideal world, leaves more place to quantity conditions. We confront here with a seeming paradox; on the one hand we face here with mathematical exactness, which reminds us of formalism, but on the other hand with the disappearance of the boundaries and outlines of quality concreteness (mathematical regularity). What is needed here is probably to unveil the close relationship of mathematics with dialectics. Setting size limits for the concreteness of quality provides the opportunity for the transition to a new quality outside the size; and this is, namely the dialectics. This regularity, which would be formulated after several thousand years by Hegel as one of the main principles of dialectics, in fact, also expressed the relationship-correlation between formal logic and mathematics. It should also be taken into consideration that formal logic was not limited only to excluding sophistry and dialectics, but also was indifferent to mathematics and avoided it. 153

Phenomenology and Science As a universal talent Aristotle himself, of course, did not stay out of mathematics, but the line that he referred to and developed was mostly based on quality divisions and quantity in some sense receded into back stage. Considering the definiteness of `the thing is what it is`, formal logic does not pay attention to quantity change and the possibility of its transformation into something else. It is not a coincidence that when the great mathematician and philosopher of our time A.Whitehead analyzed the teaching of Aristotle, he mentioned that formal logic damaged not only philosophy but also science. He writes: `But the Platonic doctrine of the interweaving of Harmony with mathematical relation has been triumphantly vindicated. The Aristotelian classifications based upon qualitative predicates have a very restricted application apart from the introduction of mathematical formulae. Indeed, Aristotelian Logic, by its neglect of mathematical notions, has done almost as much harm as good for the advancement of science`. 106 On the other hand it appears that, besides its damage, his staying out of mathematics had also good effects. The great historian of science and philosophy in the Modern Time A. Koyr writes: `The teaching of Aristotle is not mathematical teaching and this is the weak aspect of it; however, it is the strong aspect of it too. This teaching is a metaphysical teaching. Though the Aristotelian world is not geometrically curved, if it is possible to say, it is metaphysically curved`.107

106 107

.N. Whitehead. Adventures of Ideas. London, 1933, p.157. . . . ., 1985, p.17.

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Circular Development of the Philosophy of Science Abu Turkhan, in turn, emphasizes the third incurvation event incurvation of intellectual space. For his hypothesis, both the geometric and metaphysic incurvations are related to the locality and limitation of the rational potential of the human being. As if, thought itself (human thought-science) has circular motion like celestial bodies, atoms, electrons, etc. 108 According to the Koran, God has given the human being limited knowledge; thought can go until a certain border and the more it approaches the border, the more the difficulties. The thought intensifies and is screened, and then turns back (and we absolutely are not aware of our return). The motion of advance is replaced by rotary motion. It is probably better to say that it is a spiral motion. That is to say, there are both the components of advance and return here (Perhaps the Sun itself, atoms, etc. move spirally, but we can only observe the rotary component. Does not the effect of `the expansion of the universe` inform us about the components of advance?) Now, Aristotelian physics, which was falsified long time ago, is replaced by Galilei-Newton`s Mechanics and the conception of absolute space and time becomes the main scientific principle. However, then Einstein comes and once again time and space become relative. Does not the actuality of Leibnitz in the 21st century, who `did not understand` the principles of Newton and related the continuum of space and time to substances, as well as the return of thought to Aristotle lay the foundation of a new circular motion? Or, the other example:
bu Turxann fikir fzas tlimi (Abu Turkhan`s teaching of `intellectual space`) // Flsf v sosial-siyasi elmlr jurnal, 2008, 4, pp. 159-160.
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Phenomenology and Science The idea of `the source of the motion should be sought within the substance itself` is rejected by the principle of `outside influence`. However, several centuries later, it is unveiled that electrons have a will and thus once again the necessity to study the nature of the substance appears. Modern genetics, in turn, indicates that all the way to the next development of organism is founded when it is in embryo. Is not it the return to Medieval Islamic philosophical teachings and from there once again to ancient philosophy? Or, does not Modern Phenomenology return to Cartesian teaching and Cartesian teaching, in turn, to Ishraqism (The Philosophy of Illumination), Ishraqism to Manichaeism, the teaching of Mani to Zoroastrianism, and thus does not everything begin over again. Do not the returns from Existentialism to Sufism and from Sufism to Zen-Buddhism notify that in one sense philosophical thought has circular motion (in fact, spiral)? All that have been said above show that the facts, which indicate that in some day or other the progressive thought turns back `in an uninformed way`, and the hypotheses, which claim that intellectual space is not rectilinear but curvilinear, are not accidental.

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Native and Alien Knowledge and the Conditions of Their Compatibility

Summary The `placement` of new types of knowledge in certain theoretical systems is thought within the limits of the two side models: every new knowledge is added to previous knowledge when the principle of cumulativity is used as base. The main problem is how this `addition` is realized. However, there is a second way; the existing system of knowledge collapses and then is constructed once again. The real process usually happens between these two poles. It depends on the compatibility between new knowledge and the theory whether previous knowledge will be preserved or will be destroyed and constructed anew. Together with the methods of verification and falsification it is also possible to examine the accuracy of new theoretical proposals by means of theoretical trial-and-error method. The implementation of this method, which is widely spread in practice, to theory is realized by the way of entering any new idea and proposal directly to the structure of the theory without any control. It becomes a criterion of truth whether or not new knowledge is compatible with the known theoretical system, which has 157

Phenomenology and Science already been tested, and whether it is native or alien to this system. Introduction Types of knowledge are not always systematic, or more precisely, not all knowledge form a unit system. The knowledge on a certain area of specialization and on a certain problem is put in order on certain principles and theories. They are, in turn, included within a more fundamental principle and theory. However, sometimes the general panorama of an area of specialization, that is, the collision of the structure of a block with the examples of the structure of other blocks or with different unities causes the formation of more optimum or more pragmatic configurations. The need for a new knowledge arises from the need to fill in certain gaps. Namely, seeking a new knowledge within certain conditions is found, in fact, by the order of a known and established theory and in seeking the answers to the questions that arise from its analysis. New types of knowledge usually have two main sources. They express either a new empirical fact or, by being an integral part of other theories and even of the theories of other scientific fields, they `pay a visit` to the viewed field, or they are transferred. The second situation is observed mainly in the intersection of sciences. A new scientific fact is usually seen as an independent side which is not dependent on existing theoretical systems. However, it is nothing of the kind. Although a fact comes from nature, its description and representation is realized by means of well-known notions and terms. Any empirical fact enters the 158

About Native and Alien Knowledge scientific area together with a certain interpretation. If we go one step further, it could be said that leading standpoints and paradigms play leading roles in the establishment of instruments as well as in measuring process. Thus the relation between a scientific fact and theory is established still in the first step-at the beginning of experiment. It is not a coincidence that Ferdinand Gonseth and Gaston Bachelard emphasize that every experiment is realized due to the primary intellectual construction. 109 It can be understood so that as if an appropriate scientific knowledge has a genetic structure. Namely, it depends on that genetic structure, which lies behind the experiment, whether this knowledge corresponds to any theory or not and whether it is native or alien. Everything depends on the notion that the result of which necessity and search is the statement of experiment and what kind of thought is it based on and `the order` of what kind of theoretical system does it fulfil. The problem of placing new knowledge in previous theoretical system is, in fact, a specific condition of a more universal process. What is of concern here is that whether the thing, which is included within the existing environment, is native or alien in terms of idea and structure as well as genetic relationship and coordination possibility is of concern here. It is worth remembering a fact in physics: for re-crystallization of dissolved and amorphous water, firstly a piece of crystal is dropped inside it and the next crystallization process happens around this nucleus. That is to say, although there is a material in the amorphous environment, for the reason that its
109

Bachelard, c. 54 C. 156 (19)

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Phenomenology and Science memory does not have the structure of crystal, it cannot independently become crystallized. The idea of crystal must be given to the amorphous environment from outside. By repeating itself, the idea creates crystal on a certain scale; or more precisely, the next process is the reproduction process by growing or being copied and repeated. The essential difference is in the idea; a certain idea and structure is preserved in its smallest particle, `atom`, embryo and nucleus. Like in the living world, idea-structure is within the seed and it grows and develops in a fertile environment. Firstly the examination and recognition processes take place when a new knowledge and a new idea enter existing knowledge system. If new knowledge is not so new for this system, that is, if it is constructed from a certain structure and is only internally different, then it is not difficult to place it; it has already a place within the configuration of the system and it is not received as an alien element. However, if the new is a very new then no place is found for it within the existing configuration, that is, new one is an alien for the previous system. If the genetic structure is different then the key of knowledge must be carried with it, because the system does not recognize it and cannot open it. If it has come without the key then it will stay out of the system or will be a base for another system. Some other knowledge systems can recognize and accept it but if they `do not recognize` it they will not accept it. We are far from modernizing all the processes that happen in the world of knowledge and thought. Our aim is to emphasize the existence of substructure programs and self-reconstruction processes here like in nature as well as to emphasize 160

About Native and Alien Knowledge the possibility of the implementation of the synergetic methodology here. The arrangement of new idea in the context of already formed scientific theories and knowledge systems and the conceptualization of new knowledge as well as examining it whether it is scientific or not and whether it fits into the frame of normal science or not as well as the formation of new scientific configurations and the use of certain mathematical apparatus and models, of course, are within the scope of scientific activety. However, the creative process should not be confused with the process of patterning and `normalization` of science. Unfortunately, scientific activity itself and the mechanism of scientific inventions remain in the background in the modern philosophy of science, and the problems of the rationalization and structuralization of science become prominent. It is not a coincidence that the vast majority of research studies are devoted to scientific criteria and to the problems of demarcation. Non-logical and uncertain cognitive processes can be viewed in two stages when approaching scientific creativity as a whole: firstly, the stage until the period of the obtainment of new knowledge and the rational end of the non- conscious `seeking` process, and secondly, expressing the obtained new knowledge with an adequate language by giving a logical shape to it. New idea enters the established science system the boundaries of `normal science` from outside as a product of creative thinking. Then, are `the sending` to outside and carrying a different idea from outside to inside realized as a process by means of the traditional methods of science? Certainly not! It is possible that the idea brought from outside may not 161

Phenomenology and Science correspond to scientific standards. If it is not aware of the normal scientific language then it will be accepted as alien. Then how does it assimilate the climate as well as the rules and methods of the new environment that it has been brought into? If the compatibility does not happen here then how is the new one expelled from the previous one? Just like it is sine qua non in the transplantation of the organs of the body as well as the analogical relation emerges between new knowledge and the viewed theory. In fact, the condition of the re-construction of the previous normal scientific system reminds us Kuhnian paradigm shifts. However, Kuhnian paradigm shifts belong to largerscale processes. Namely, what is of concern here is the change of the worlds scientific panorama and the change of terminology. We in turn talk about the current scientific innovation process, that is, about the freshness of science based on new ideas and about its operativeness and development and about the internal details of this development. This process, in fact, reminds us the trial-and-error method in empirical sciences. Every innovation here is empirically examined and if `the right` (in fact, expected) result is not gained it means that the idea does not justify itself. We direct the attention to the use of this traditional method in theory. Namely, every new empirical knowledge, which is ready to be examined in practice, can be examined by means of the trial-and-error method. However, it is possible to examine `the accuracy` of a theoretical proposition by giving it a place in the structure of the theory. M. Bunge emphasizes this possibility and calls this examination `an intertheoretical examination`: An intertheoretical exami162

About Native and Alien Knowledge nation will try to find out whether the given theory is compatible with other, previously accepted theories. 110 If a theory easily `digest` the innovation it means that it is not an incompatible innovation. Namely, that theory has secretly and potentially included this `innovation`; and if there is not a compatibility between them, then this new knowledge is either incomplete or it requires a new theoretical environment and infrastructure as well as an alternative conception and teaching. In situations such as this, new knowledge can live outside like a destitute step-child and one day it can seize the power. It seems as if every idea is reborn in a new context and lives a second and different life. Every theory is, on the one hand, included in the structure of a larger theory, and on the other hand, it attempts to increase its capacity on account of new ideas and new types of knowledge. There can be also certain gaps in large scientific-conceptual systems and theories. Every theory goes through a certain formation phase. Its most perfect state is to rise to the stage of self-consciousness. In this case, theory shows its incompleteness and insufficiency. As K. Popper noted, sometimes the author of a theory himself cannot well perceive it. 111 After a theory has been established it passes a long-lasting improvement and is explained in different ways. This is the stage of
Mario Bunge, Philosophy of Phisics, Dordricht-Holland/Boston USA, 1973, p. 212. 111 Karl R. Popper, Objective Knowledge. An Evolutionary Approach, Oxford, 1979 // ... . . ., , 2002, p. 284.
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Phenomenology and Science interpretation. In this stage, a lot of logical results, which have been gained from the theory, are interpreted and subjected to `the examination procedure`. There is a need to some additions and details for making theoretical configurations better and ensuring its integrity. We seek for that detail that we need in the syncretic, patterned `wild` idea which come to us from outside. In other words, we try to `domesticate` it. One way of it is that the idea is placed in the gap and the reaction of the system and configuration is awaited. If the system accepts it and if a normal feedback is formed between it and other elements of the new theory, it means that this is what we have sought. If there is not compatibility then the seeking must be continued. By using new idea as base, a researcher can build a new configuration and system on it. Then a competition arises between theories and the better working theory is considered as accurate. Now we would like to approach the advent of a new idea not from the standpoint of the trial-and-error method, but from a slightly different context. Firstly, it would be appropriate to look at where and which environment and context a new idea has been chosen from. It is possible to encounter a new idea, which has been placed long ago and even hundred or thousand years ago in the structure of life itself or in poetry and philosophical teachings or in the structure of other sciences and arts when going beyond a scientific problem and even beyond a specific science, that is, when thinking completely in a different direction. However, it is as if we suddenly perceive that this idea is in search of a problem within a scientific field. This is what is called `the illumination`. Not every scientific create164

About Native and Alien Knowledge vity and discovery of new knowledge can be gained only by sensory experience and logical analysis. It must be there an absolute recognition opportunity and its condition is compatibility and relationship.

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Two Mathematical Models of the World

Summary The biggest insufficiency of the present mathematics is that it consists, in fact, of the eclectic mixture of two different models. In the first model, the world is taken as infinity and what is chosen as an element here is the unit. Everything is measured with the multiples of the unit. The teachings of atomism are also based on this very idea. It means that there is a smallest final bound of this world which has been not yet broken; and this bound is also finite. The most adequate expression of it in the sphere of numbers is the unit. The atom of natural numbers is also the unit. All numbers consist of the different multiples of this atom - this unit. According to the second model, this world is in unity and its mathematical manifestation is the unit. It is possible to approach the unit, whereas it is not possible to reach it. The world is between zero and one. Everything here is measured with fraction. All changes are made in the denominator of fraction, but not in the numerator. Numbers, in turn, serves to show into how many parts the unit is divided: every element is 1/ N and N is the set of all natural numbers: 0 < N < The simplified variants of the mathematical model of the 166

Two Mathematical Models of the World world paves the way for the comparative analyse of its alternative philosophical interpretations. Introduction The leading principle in the majority of scientific teachings is cumulativity. It is acted from the naive faith that by gathering knowledge about the separate events and things of the world, we can get knowledge about the world as a whole. In fact, it should be moved not from parts to the whole, but from the whole to parts. When the world is accepted as unit then its mathematical model also changes. That is to say, our approach to the world could be understood not as an approach to infinite, but as an approach to the unit. In this case, all other events (and knowledge about them) are expressed as the parts of the unit, that is, as fractional numbers. Depending on how to explain the unit and zero, it is also possible to establish two different models of the world. The alternative mathematical models of the world The teachings and mathematical models, which take the world as infinity, choose the unit as element. Everything is measured with the multiples of the unit. The atomistic teachings are also based on this very idea. Namely, there is a smallest final bound of this world which has been not yet broken; and this bound is also finite. The most adequate expression of it in the sphere of numbers is the unit. The atom of natural numbers is also the unit. All numbers consist of the different multiples of this atom-this unit. It is true that, in parallel to it, the notion of fraction is also used in mathematics. Na167

Phenomenology and Science mely, it turned out that beside natural numbers there were also fractions. However, this kind of approach arose from mixing two mathematical systems and two different models as well as from their eclectic unity. This, in fact, is the biggest insufficiency of the present mathematics. Due to this turmoil and confusion, it has not yet been possible to create a simple mathematical image of the world. Namely, if the atom of the physical reality is accepted as an adequate to the notion of the unit in mathematics, then the existence of fractions becomes impossible; because the atom is indivisible according to its definition. One of the two ends of the world becomes finite and another infinite when this type of model is established. That is to say, this model includes the infinitude, but it does not however include the infinitesimal; because there is not a smaller one than the unit. However, it is possible that there can be a completely opposite model to it. The world itself is finite according to this model, in other words, it is the unit; and infinity is within it. In this case, what exists is the infinitesimal, not the infinitude. What is paradoxical here is that the infinitudeness finds room in the finite, that is, in the unit, or it is placed within it. It is not indeed so easy to give its philosophico-ontological explanation. This mathematical model of the world is very simple in turn; the world is between zero and one. Everything in this world (the world of multiplicity in philosophy) is measured with fraction. The change is made not in the numerator of fraction but in its denominator. Numbers, in turn, serves to show into how many pieces the unit is divided: every element is 1/ N and N is the set of all natural numbers: 0 < N < . The main point is the differentiation between the parti168

Two Mathematical Models of the World cular and the general as well as between matter and form. Aristotle mainly used the term of species. That is to say, in spite of their specificity, each type is expressed with the notion of the unit (it also reminds us Russell's logical atomism 112 ). What is chosen as a species, or what is specially differentiated as general? - All these depend on in what level of structure the worlds map, which is drawn by men, is viewed. Every structure level, in fact, corresponds to a sphere of the world. There is not an uninterrupted transition between these spheres; there is only a discrete transition. Just like electron covers in N. Bohr`s atomic model, which, each of them being one sphere and one layer, can only discretely pass to the next layer, and although the world is uninterrupted at a certain level of structure, it becomes possible at another level of structure Thus, there is one general idea and the unit on the basis of each type. However, due to a higher generalization, these units themselves, in the higher stages of hierarchy, are transformed into manifestations, into the particular states of a more general and into the copies of the unit which stands in a higher layer. Then it is not important what type is of concern as ell as the manifestations of an idea or an essence are no longer compared with each other by quality, on the contrary, they are compared by quantity; as well as it is elucidated that how many manifestations, events and things are of concern, or how many multiples of its unit it corresponds to. Here it becomes necessary to explain the measurement unit of the physical parameter and it is also necessary to elucidate what part of this unit the
Russell , The Philosophy of Logical Atomism. Open Court, La Salle, 1993.
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Phenomenology and Science concrete physical object keeps; and only in this case mathematics steps in. Or, when the relation between two events, properties and physical quantities is determined, each of them are represented with their appropriate multiples or they are represented in a form that has been changed as the result of a mathematical operation. Mathematical attitude, equation and formula cannot belong to a concrete manifestation and to a relation between material objects. First of all, it is necessary for this to idealize, model and symbolize those material objects, or in other words, it is important here to precisely discover the ideas that they carry. It is possible to measure different properties and characteristics of any material object. However, the constant attitude and regularity, which can be expressed as formulae, can belong not to a specific material object, but to this or other general and idea that it carry, or more precisely, to the relation between ideas and to their structure. What carries the meaning is not multiples and numbers but units; because the unit is the symbol of species (types) and essence. It becomes necessary here to differentiate between `the unit` and the notion of `one`. It is not a coincidence that for elucidating whether the unit has quality characteristics or not, Gottlob Frege also suggests distinguishing between the unit and the notion of one. 113 Zero and the unit. The internal dynamics of zero Leibnitz, still at that time with a great sagacity, noted that
. , // . p. 175.
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Two Mathematical Models of the World numbers are expressed by means of the Unit (1) and Nothingness (0). He explained the problem of Existence and Non-existence, in a certain meaning, by means of mathematical language. U. Eco uses these ideas of Leibniz as examples to explain linguistic structuralism. 114 Is the beginning however unit? Or, does everything start from zero? As the unit has its opposite, but zero does not have an opposite or it is equal to itself. That is to say, it is possible to accept zero as emptiness and as a notion that has not any content as well as it could be viewed as a joining of positive and negative unities (opposites). From this standpoint zero seems to be more fundamental than the unit. Modern scientific studies show that next to matter there is also antimatter and the annihilation process happens when they contact each other, that is, both of them `disappear`. The contrary process however is also possible, that is, the creation of two positive and negative tagged particles (for example, electron and positron) from this non-existence and zero, in a certain condition, is also possible. This, in turn, shows that the form of existence, which is accepted as nothingness, non-existence and zero, is in fact a more complex being. Just as atoms, which are neutral (because positive and negative charges balance each other), the positive and negative directed stepouts in the social life, for example, good and evil, also neutralize each other. The normal state, which include both good and evil, does not arrest attention and what arrests attention is only the good or the evil, which comes to the forefront in a certain situation and which breaks the balan , . , , 1998, p. 13.
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Phenomenology and Science ce. Mathematically expressed, 1 and -1 have a certain value, but 0 and its multiples have no value. Whereas when 0 becomes broken to pieces, it becomes equal to the sum total of 1 and -1, that is, it turns out that it includes in both of them. The results of our study and the Modern Thinking in general require the changing of the attitude towards zero. Zero is not only a symbol of emptiness, but it is also a symbol of completeness, balance and neutrality. In this case, zero competes even with the unit. For the reason that the traditional standpoint considers the unit as a symbol of unity and completeness, it has captured one of the shades of meaning of zero. It is worth here reminding that zero also means silence and quietness. Silence in fact is the absence of sound and quietness, in turn, is the absence of motion. However, the absences of other qualities like mercy, love, generosity, etc. are mostly expressed not with the zero point and with the neutral situation, but with the existence of opposite qualities, for example, with cruelty, hatred, stinginess, etc. These are however the other poles of those qualities. Then how is the zero point defined? It is mostly accepted as a beginning or transition point, that is, it is accepted neither as mercy nor as cruelty, neither as love nor as hatred, and neither as generosity nor as stinginess. Nevertheless, it becomes possible only when the model that we have established is the one-dimensional space. Namely, the change happens between -1 and +1 and 0 is only a transition point here. However, even within this model we can accept zero not only as the absence of positive and negative qualities, but as the unity and sum of their states which are equal in value but opposite in direction. It is called as dynamic balance. Even sometimes not some love or some hatred but the culmination of both of 172

Two Mathematical Models of the World them can be together. It is true that balance can often be disordered in this case as well as the leaps from one pole to another can also be possible. However the entire panorama can only be expressed by means of the dynamic zero. We can also describe events with two-dimensional and three-dimensional spaces. In this case, any state of quality should be taken as a vectoral quantity. Then together with the opposite diametric positions of these qualities to each other, their states under different angles could also be taken into consideration. The state of zero of this quality can become possible only when the substitute vector is equal to zero. That is to say, the state of zero rarely becomes possible in reality or it is only an idealization. For us, it is possible to describe the real situation as the fluctuations around zero and to give its mathematical expression. We have cited a number of examples from spiritual life. The application of mathematics in this field is still next to nothing. Mathematics is mainly used in the explanations of physical events. For this reason, it is worth here paying attention to the more comprehensive states like warmth and coldness, and positive and negative electrical charges. For the reason that warmth is the final indicator of statistical event, it is slightly difficult to apply the vectoral quantity model to this area. If we finally move on to the motion trajectory of separate particles and try to determine the final temperature by means of the substitute of the vectors that indicate the motion of these particles, then the problem will become more complicated. Statistical methods are applied to escape from this very complication. Here a very important philosophical conviction appears; it turns out that the quietness point is pithier and more complex 173

Phenomenology and Science than the motion point. Namely, motion only covers the stepouts from the state of balance and from the neutral situation, and these, in turn, the issues which are mainly concrete and their calculation is possible; because the state of balance (chaos, homogeneous environment and the equality of substitutive vector to 0) is accepted as a calculation system or as a beginning, or, expressing it with mathematical symbolism, as zero condition. However the internal structure of the state of balance is more complex and the internal processes are either the only reasons for these motions or together with outside impacts. Conclusion The present mathematics is established not on the first or second model of the world, but on the mixed form. That is to say, it is intended here that the world is situated not between 0 and 1 or 1 and , but between 0 and or even between - and +. The idea of the discrete structure of the world has been instinctly (blindly) abandoned and mathematics has developed on the idea of continuity for a long period of time. By moving out from its philosophico-ontological meaning, the unit in mathematics acts as an element of all possible structural variants. Unlike the first model, the unit here does not express the entire world and the wholeness of this world; on the contrary, it acts as an element and indivisible basis of all things and types. Each type of wholeness and each relatively completed system can be accepted as an element when it moves on to another scale and another level of structure. For this reason, every type has its own unit. 174

Mind and Sense as the Frame and Membrane of the Shrine of Life
Which ones role is more important, sensation or reason, in human life? How are they related to each other and what is their participation level and mutual relation in the entire life phenomenon? This problem has been studied very little in philosophy. Instead, the specific place of science and the arts and their mutual relationship in the structure of social life have been studied relatively more. For this reason, we will attempt to investigate the problem of the correlation of reason and sensation in the structure of personal life by analogy with the relation of science and the arts in social life. Although absolute equality and sameness are not of concern here, but nevertheless there are some similarities that could contribute to the clarification of the problem in question. The process of scientific creativity is no doubt possible due to the active role of subject. Just like in all creative processes, the author here is the soul too. However, we look at this process mostly from the standpoint of a scholar and researcher. Whereas, without being related to other souls or to the world of souls, the individual soul cannot produce any new idea with reference only to sensual knowledge that it gains by means of 175

Phenomenology and Science his personal experience, or more precisely, by means of its body that it rules. Epistemology still attempts to explain the development process of science and the discovery of new scientific knowledge without reference to the notion of the soul and only being limited to reason and sensory experience. For this reason, the models, which are used in this field, are deprived of opportunity to reflect the real course of the creativity process. The real process is more complex and is directly related to the activity of the soul. What is meant from reason and sense is mostly individual reason and the sensory experience of an individual. That is to say, each person gains all knowledge due to his personal experience. The knowledge that is the products of the experience and the reason of others, is transmitted to others after being verbalized, that is, after being put to a new objective form. Cumulativity, which is one of the main principles of Modern Epistemology, expresses the possibility of the gathering of this objectivised knowledge. Namely, the gathering of knowledge is an independent process that happens on the different plane apart from individual creativity processes, and has considerable social content. It means that the gathering of knowledge is no longer considered as a process that happens in the spiritual world but as a socio-historical event. The conception of Kuhn is one of the obvious examples of this approach. Karl Popper also considers the problem of the entry of new knowledge into the structure of theory apart from the discovery of that knowledge. Knowledge, in his theory, is separated from its author and enter to an independent existence world 176

Mind and Sense as the Frame and Membrane - to the world of `objective knowledge`. In this case, the spirit of the creative scholar is again left aside. It is interesting that the connection between different types of knowledge is sought after they become depotentiated. Whereas, according to Carl Jungs theory of collective unconsciousness, the sensual world of every person is not a result of only his personal sensory experience but also includes the sensory experiences of previous generations and counterparts. It is possible to ascribe this idea to the knowledge that is at the creative and initial stage. If this idea is applied to Epistemology, then it is possible to come to a conclusion that knowledge is discovered, in fact, not as a round and smooth thing, which has lost all its opportunities and connections, but it is discovered with all its connections and relations. Merely, for expressing it by words and known ideas, scholars mostly clip its wings, make it disconnected and depotentiate it. Then, once again they seek the new forms of connection to enter it to known theories. The whole problem is that, for expressing new and unknown ideas by means of known ones, it becomes often necessary `to pare it` and mould it into certain shapes. However, a new-born knowledge considerably loses its originality in this process and by being removed from its natural condition it is framed in the clothes that are not cut for it. New types of knowledge are pared off in accordance to the criteria and terminologies of the teachings and theories that have been known in advance. Whereas this knowledge would could be the embryo of an entirely new theory. The scholars, who approach the problem more fundamentally, instead of taking a position to hurriedly pare new knowledge and place it 177

Phenomenology and Science anywhere, attempt to keep it alive in its initial and natural condition and to cut out new clothes that fit it. Building the temple of science does not happen only due to Cumulaivity. If we only collect different types of knowledge, the wall will not be durable. For this reason, it is necessary to overlap them on each other as well as pack them and clothe them. However it is not the end of the matter. There ought to be the mutual transition probability between a theory and another one. After climbing to a certain floor and becoming too distant from land, it becomes difficult to go down and then climb up from another part for receiving news from the other side of the wall. Therefore, there should also be doors and windows between walls. For the moving of air, builders even make the middle of frameworks from non-hermetic material. The most important aspect, which differentiates science from poetry and the arts, is that it has rational frame. The reason why scientific knowledge could be collected, is, that these types of knowledge are closely related to each other with logical chain. In other words, we can compare the plants built from logic with reinforcing concrete constructions. This construction enables both neighbouring rooms and floors to be closely connected to each other. For this reason, this type of the framework is used for building multi-storey buildings. Sensation should not be added here for the durability of framework. The principle of cumulativity in science reminds us this framework. The types of knowledge could not only be collected. They ought to be included into the structure of larger constructions, theories and teachings. For this purpose, knowledge ought to be dependent on logical rules or it should be mathe178

Mind and Sense as the Frame and Membrane matized. However, new discovered knowledge still does not easily become independent from sensation, simile and figurative images. Therefore, for being entered into the framework, they should be moulded into patterns and be adapted to a certain pattern and clich on the basis of unit logical and mathematical principles. For some reason or other, when it is spoken about the role of senses in the epistemic process, only the cognitive senses are remembered. Then a question arises: how can these five independent senses form the whole image. The formation of the whole images of things in us does not happens due to those five cognitive senses but by means of a number of different, interactive senses. According to Husserl, every appearance of the thing in some way includes the whole thing. Then on account of what does it become possible? The cognitive senses are not capable of it. At the same time we cannot comprehend the different structural levels of the thing. In our daily life we observe things only by means of the senses which are the expressions of macrostructure. If we want to observe the internal processes by dividing the thing into different parts, then another complex of senses will appear. Things enter to our daily life only with their macrostructure and total functions. The apple, for instance, forms a certain image in our consciousness as an entire object. The image of a specific apple basically coincides with the general notion of the apple that existed in our consciousness in advance. However, for a pharmacist-doctor, who makes a certain medicine from its seed, the apple will be much associated with that medicine. This is, in turn, the evaluation of one object in different structural levels. 179

Phenomenology and Science The same object can be a basis, in our consciousness, for the formation of different phenomena. Time and space are not taken as a moment and point: both of them have a certain duration and interval, and for this reason the same thing could be expressed by different phenomena in different situations. If we comprehend a thing in a certain moment only as a phenomenon, it does not mean that the thing really consists of this phenomenon. For the reason that Husserl does not accept the material existence of the thing out of phenomenon, he ties to explain these possibilities of diversity as the potential possibility of the world of consciousness itself. Considering this, Levinas writes that the object is never fully comprehended. It means that the approach of Phenomenology, in fact, is closer to Kants agnosticism and his teaching of `the-thing-in-itself (das Ding an sich)`. Merely Husserl replaces the concrete existence of the thing with the active existence of consciousness and its potential possibilities. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka writes: In its search for understanding, the human mind oscillates between what is obvious and what is mysterious, what is hidden and what is manifest\ what is visible and what is invisible. It is itinerary, from Parmenides` goddess and Heraclitus` hidden, through the great Platonic and Aristotelian lines, the neo-Platonists, al-Farabi, Avicenna, Mulla Sadra, Leibniz, Kant, Husserl, and Heidegger, on to the present-day thinking, is that of the metaphysical quest for the key by which to open the seemingly locked access to the stable, generative factors animating the fluctua-

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Mind and Sense as the Frame and Membrane ting reality of life, the human soul, the world, the ultimate destiny of human beings. 115 The real life becomes possible due to the activation of consciousness. What we experience are the events (phenolmena) in the potential world that are drawn to our consciousness (Herausfassen in Husserl). The existence of a thing is determined by our drawing it to the sphere of active consciousness. Naturalism ascribes it directly to nature and to the objective world itself. Husserls phenomenology, in turn, ascribes it to the world of consciousness. As to us, we put emphasis on the contact of both of them with one another and their being experienced simultaneously. This idea, in fact, was put forward in 12th century by the establisher of the doctrine of Illuminationism (Israqiyya), Shahab al-Din al-Surawardi. Later on, it was developed further in the philosophies of Mulla Sadra and Abu Turkhan. Al-Suhrawardi calls the transition between two world `barzakh (the intermediate state)`. On the one hand, he applies the hierarchy of lights to the architectonics of human heart (soul), and on the other hand to the architectonics of the material world. At the point of illumination (Husserl uses the term of intuition), the connection between these two sides arises and this is the life that man experiences. Life includes both existence forms; it exists as the material being and as the event (phenomenon) of consciousness simultaneously. The bridge between these two edge states and poles is active consciousness, experience or life. Henry Corbin
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, The Unveiling and the Unveiled, in The Passions of the Soul in the Metmorphosis of Becoming, Edited by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Boston, 2003, p. XXIV.
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Phenomenology and Science was the first who tried to link Phenomenology with Illuminationism. Later on, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka discussed this problem in her works in detail. The school that she has established as well as the conferences of The World Phenomenology Institute and the books that have been published by this institute enable Illuminationism and Phenomenology to be compared with each other. I would say that this initiative paves the way, as a whole, for the approach between Eastern and Western philosophical doctrines. It is the result of these efforts that instead of speaking about building the temples of reason and sensation separately, today we can speak of building the entire temple of life, which includes both of them.

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Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................ 5 MAN AND THE WORLD ......................................................................... 13 Way to The Logos of Life ..................................................................... 15 The Esoteric Passion of Western Philosophy for the Eastern Basis ............................................................................................. 25 PHENOMENOLOGY OF LIFE: HISTORICAL PREMISES................ 36 The Effect of Illumination on the Way Back from Aristotle to Plato... 37 Al-Suhrawardis Doctrine and Phenomenology..................................... 57 Intentionality and Transcendentality...................................................... 80 SOUL AND BODY .................................................................................... 91 The Specificity of the Body: Two Ideas in one Thing ............................ 93 Soul and Body in the Phenomenological Context ................................ 104 About the Correlation of Memory and Remembrance in the Structure of the Soul .................................................................... 122 PHENOMENOLOGY AND SCIENCE .................................................. 131 Synergetics as a Positivistic Trick for Philosophy............................ 133 On the Idea of Circular Development of the Philosophy of Science ... 150 Native and Alien Knowledge and the Conditions of Their Compatibility .......................................................................................... 157 Two Mathematical Models of the World .............................................. 166 Mind and Sense as the Frame and Membrane of the Shrine of Life ...... 175

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