Analysis of Knowledge: The Epistemic Theories in View of Avicenna and Mulla Sadra

This paper focuses on the epistemological approach conveyed from Avicenna’s philosophy to Sadra’s transcendent theosophy. As elucidating epistemological framework in each theory helps us to clarify dark angles of that theory, this paper focuses on the epistemological approach conveyed from Avicenna’s philosophy to Sadra’s transcendent theosophy. Under the influence of Avicenna’s and Mulla Sadra’s different ontological approaches, i.e., essentialism and existentialism, their epistemic theories are transformed from the theory of abstraction into the unity of the known-object and the knower-subject. The two scholars relying on a common base stone, realism, present two different theories to interpret the relationship between human mind and the external world. As the border between the mind and external world determines the degree of realism in each theory, the paper examines their epistemic theories, which explain the relationship between the mind as the knower-subject and the external world as the known-object. However, as their epistemology and ontology are two sides of a coin, such a research is bound to fail without considering this cohesion. Hence, the present article is to focus on two fundamental issues as the problem statements of research: first, how their epistemological theories are influenced by their ontologies, and, second, what weak and strong points imply the limitations of the two thinkers realistic attitudes.