Self-awareness in Avicenna, Suhrawardi and Mulla sadra: A synoptic account

This article sketches the development of a particular concept ofself-awareness in Avicenna, Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra.Avicenna uses the concept in a very specific sense to refer to thefact that all human experience is given in a first-personalperspective. In his psychology self-awareness amounts to theexistence of individual human souls, which he takes to beimmaterial substances. Suhrawardl inherits the concept fromAvicenna but uses it for different theoretical purposes. Theconcept figures in a crucial role in the defini tion of the conceptof light or appearance with which Suhrawardi intends to replacethe Peripatetic concept of substance as the foundation of allexistence. Finally, the concept resurfaces in Mulla Sadra, whodoes not differ from his predecessors regarding its applications,but does revise the related concept of self because of hiscommitment to the theories of cognitive identity and substantialmotion.