A Critical Revision into Lahiji’s Views on Knowledge, the Criteria of Being Knower and Known and that the Knower Cannot Know Others through Intuition

Instituting the culture of critical examination of the treasured scientific legacy of the past, this essay goes to attain novel achievements. Using library reference, rational study, and comparison among the views of Shiekh Ishraq Khwaja Nasir and Mulla Sadra, the author tries to explain and study Lahiji’s views on “What is knowledge?”, “What is the criterion of it?”, “What is the criteria of knowing and being known?”, “What is the criteria and instances of knowledge through concepts and those of knowledge by intuition?”, “That conceptual knowledge is fundamental and primary”, and “That it is impossible for the knower to know things other than him through intuition”.
Through well-founded reasoning, the author has called into question Lahiji’s ideas such as, “That knowledge is accident”, “The difference between knowledge and perception”, “That knowledge is not concomitant with existence”, “That knowledge is exclusive to the rational one”, “That incorporeal being is exclusive to independent ones”, “That incorporeal beings are exclusive to the immaterial intellects”, “That incorporeity and independent existence is necessary for intellection”, and “That mental forms must be incorporeal and free from matter in the process of intellection”.
The author then proceeds to demonstrate that intuitive knowledge is primary and prior to the conceptual knowledge since all cases of knowledge are primarily of intuition in themselves though they might be regarded as conceptual ones only in comparison to other things (those things known through something else). Still contrary to his view, we are of the view that it is possible to know things other than the knower by intuition like the creative cause that intuitively knows its effect.