From Our Philosophy (I) - Theory of Knowledge

Theory of Knowledge is known as Epistemology or Shenakht Shenasi (in Farsi). The basic questions in this branch of philosophy are: What is the nature of knowledge? How do we know what we know? How can we be sure about the things that we know? How do we prove the connection between what we know in our mind and what is out there in reality?

For example, how do you know that you are not dreaming all what you are experiencing now? How do you know for sure that right now you not are dreaming about reading from a computer screen?!

Our brains only receive signals through our five/six senses; they are not in direct touch with the essence of reality that is out there. How do we know that reality does exist out there and it's not a creation of my mind, or of some evil genius (as Descartes described in his elaboration of the problem). Think about the movie Matrix, which uses a similar idea!

Shaheed Sadr has discussed these questions in Our Philosophy in various sections. Although, he does not devote much time on expounding the theory of knowledge as developed in the Islamic tradition, his criticism of western philosophy gives us some idea of what an alternative epistemology would be like. His brief introduction to the "Dispossession Theory" as developed in the tradition of Islamic philosophy could be seen in Part I, chapter one of Our Philosophy. Readers of Farsi and Arabic should find more material about this theory in Allama Tabatabai's The Principles of Philosophy and the Method of Realism, which I quoted in the previous post.


In the next few posts, I will share some critical passages from Our Philosophy on specific philosophical thoughts.