ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Critique of Marxist Philosophy (part 1) The Value of Knowledge (chapter 2) The Possibility of Knowledge: In this chapter Martyr al-Sadr is concerned not with the 'value' of knowledge but rather with the possibility of knowledge as such. To what extent does 'knowledge' (i.e. that which is considered to be knowledge) capture the essence of reality and the secrets of the external world?

Marxism believes in the possibility of knowledge of objective realities and rejects skepticism and sophistry. The world does not contain anything that cannot be known. But is it appropriate for Marxism to claim that definite knowledge is possible? Can it escape skepticism in the ultimate analysis? In order to understand the Marxist and Islamic positions on this issue, the author considers it essential to review important doctrines formulated by philosophers, beginning with the Sophists.

Greek Philosophy: In the fifth century B.C. a class of teachers emerged in Greece that devoted itself to teaching of rhetoric and giving professional advice to their clients in matters of law, court procedure and politics. Protagoras (b.c. 500 B.C.) and Gorgias (fl.c. 427 B.C.), two major skeptics, were the products of this class. Gorgias, for instance, taught that the Real, about which the pre-Socratic philosophers had argued, does not exist.

If a world-stuff existed we could never know what it was like; it is not what it appears, since the senses lie. Even if Reality could be known, knowledge is incommunicable; for, language, being mere noise, cannot convey the knowledge of reality to other minds. The Sophists rejected the possibility of knowledge and made truth a purely subjective and relative affair. Hence metaphysics is idle speculation and its results are worthless.

There is no reality that reason can know except the ever-changing flux of sensible experience. Sophistry wished to destroy what philosophy had built hitherto. They were opposed by Socrates (d.399 B.C.), Plato (428-347 B.C.) and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), who tried to maintain reason on its throne. Aristotelian epistemology validated reason and recognized the value of experience, and posited the possibility of certain knowledge.

The skepticism that reemerged after Aristotle was a compromise in that it did not deny reality but denied the possibility of certain knowledge.