Suhrawardı’s Criticism of Avicenna’s Epistemology With a Special Emphasis on the Theory of Essential Definition

Abstract

This paper is intended to compare the epistemologies of two major schools of classical Islamic philosophy, namely, the Mashāshāīyya and the Ishrāqiyya. The term Mashāshāiyya is the literal Arabic translation of Peripateticism that refers to the Islamic philosophical school that is largely characterized by Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism and is represented by Alpharabius, Avicenna, and Averroes. As for the Arabic term Ishrāqiyya, meaning literally illuminationism, designates the philosophical school, founded by Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī, which is composed of such a broad range of elements as Platonism, Neoplatonism, Pythagorianism as well as Islamic mysticism, pre-Islamic Persian angelology and symbolism. One, however, can reduce Suhrawardī’s illuminationism to a twofold structure: theoretical and philosophical on one hand and intuitional and mystical on the other. The latter consists largely of Suhrawardī’s extensive critique of Avicenna’s views in the fields of epistemology, physics, and metaphysics. The present study aims at elaborating on his critique of Avicenna’s epistemology with a special emphasis on the latter’s theory of definition.