Cases are acceptable to them if and only if they are cases...

Cases are acceptable to them if and only if they are cases in which sensory experience is obtained (without paying heed to difficulties which arise due to the fallibility of sense perception which applies to all cases of it). That whereof sensory experience cannot be obtained, one must be silent, and one must absolutely withhold one’s affirmation and denial.

The most important dead end down which positivists have been led is the subject of mathematics, which is explained and solved by intellectual concepts, that is, the same concepts which are meaningless in their view, as though they had been disgraced, while no sage would dare to consider the propositions of mathematics meaningless or unscientific.

Hence, a group of new positivists had no choice but to accept a kind of mental knowledge for logical concepts, and have sought to join mathematical concepts to them. This is an example of confusing logical concepts with other concepts. It is sufficient to show the invalidity of their view to point out that mathematical concepts have instances in the external world, i.e., in technical terms, their characterization ( ittiṣāf ) is in the external world.

The characteristic of logical concepts is that they do not correspond to any but mental concepts. The Priority of Sensation or Intellect Among Western scholars there are other forms of empiricism than positivism, which are more moderate and less fraught with difficulties. Most of them accept intellectual perception, but they still believe in some kind of priority for sense perception. Opposing them, there are other groups which believe in the priority of intellectual perception.

The subjects which are presented under the heading of ‘the priority of sensation or intellect’ are divided into two groups: one group is related to the evaluation of sensory and intellectual knowledge, and the preference of one over the other, and must be discussed in the lesson on the value of knowledge; the other group relates to their relative dependence or independence from one another.

Are sensation and intellect separate and independent, or is intellectual perception integrally related to sensation? The second group of subjects may also be divided into two parts: one is related to ideas and the other to affirmations. The first subject which is discussed here is the priority of sensation or intellect with respect to ideas.