ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Critique of Marxist Philosophy (part 1) Part One: the Theory of Knowledge (chapter I) Concepts The first chapter in this section is devoted to the epistemological problem of the source of concepts and judgements. First the author examines the Platonic doctrine of Recollection, then the rationalist theory, and following that the empirical theory.

The Platonic theory is false because soul does not exist in an abstract form prior to the existence of the body, being the result of substantial motion in matter. It is by means of this movement that it acquires an immaterial existence not characterized by material qualities and free from the laws of matter. The rationalist theory that some concepts are innate or a priori is not refutable if interpreted to mean that innate ideas exist in the soul potentially, becoming actual as the soul develops.

The empirical theory, first propounded by John Locke, holds that there are no innate ideas; all our ideas without exception are derived from experience. It was adopted by Marxism. However, the empirical theory as admitted by Hume fails to explain how we form such concepts as that of causality; for that which is derived from the senses is succession, not causality.

The rejection of the principle of causality by empiricists does not solve the difficulty, because the fact remains that we do conceive causality, which is not given in sense perception. Al-Sadr then goes on to the Abstraction theory (nazariyyat al-'intiza') favoured by the Islamic philosophers in general. According to this theory, concepts are of two kinds: primary and secondary. The primary ones are products of sense-perception.

The secondary ones are produced from the primary concepts by the mind through the means of 'abstraction.' The secondary concepts although derived from the primary ones transcend them and are the inventions of the mind. Judgements Moving from concepts to judgements, al-Sadr selects here the rational and empirical theses about the source of judgements for discussion. According to the rationalists, knowledge (in the form of judgements or propositions) consists of two kinds.

The first kind is primary, self-evident, and intuitive. It includes such propositions as the principle of contradiction, and such statements as 'The whole is greater than the part', 'One is half of two', 'A thing cannot have contradictory attributes at the same time', and so on.