The Paradigmatic Significance of Perception In Mullā Ṣadrā’s Philosophy of Being

Ṣadrā presents the usefulness of the faculties of perception governed by the intellect as the most fitting paradigm for understanding man’s being in the world. Perception raises challenging questions which, while peripheral to philosophy proper, have contributed to the debate on knowing and being. Dating back to the Presocratics, this debate came to a head in Islamicate civilization, where perception played a paradigmatic role that also put human civilization at the forefront of the philosophical enterprise. Contemporary historians of thought obscure this role when their interpretations of past traditions are too heavily colored by a positivist conception of perception.