Knowledge by presence may be divided into kinds...

Knowledge by presence may be divided into kinds, about some of which all of the Islamic philosophers are in agreement, and there is disagreement about others. To explain, the known in presentational knowledge is sometimes the essence of the knower himself, such as self-knowledge in the case of souls and complete immaterial existents.

In these cases the knower and the known do not have numerically different existences, and the difference between being the knower and being the known is respectival ( i‘tibarī ) and will depend on mental respect. This is the kind of knowledge by presence about which there is general agreement among philosophers, including the Peripatetics and the Illuminationists.

Sometimes the knower and known have numerically distinct existences, but not in the sense that one of them is completely separate and independent of the other, but is the very dependence and relation to the other, such as the knowledge of the existence-giving cause for its effect and vice versa. In this way two other kinds of presentational knowledge are obtained, one is the knowledge of the emanating cause for its effect and the other is the knowledge of the effect for the cause.

These two kinds are accepted by the Illuminationists and by Ṣadr al-Muta’allihīn and his followers. All of them agree that the effect’s presentational knowledge of its cause is specific to immaterial effects, for material existence is diffusion itself in the realm of space and time, and has no presence by which to perceive the essence of its cause.

However, with regard to the cause’s presentational knowledge of its effect, Ṣadr al-Muta’allihīn and some of his followers believed that in this case as well, the effect must be immaterial, and that basically knowledge about material existence insofar as it is material is not obtained, for particulars diffused in time and space have no presence that the essence of the knower might perceive. However, others such as Muḥaqqiq Sabzavārī, do not accept this condition for this kind of knowledge.

They hold that the absence of material particulars from one another is not incompatible with their having a presence in relation to an existent which existentially encompasses them, as the diffusion of temporal existents in the realm of time is not incompatible with their collection in relation to the realm of perpetuity ( dahr ) and the existents encompassing time, and this is the correct position.