{"id":60244,"date":"2024-10-02T21:54:55","date_gmt":"2024-10-02T19:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/?p=60244"},"modified":"2024-10-03T21:38:08","modified_gmt":"2024-10-03T19:38:08","slug":"thinking-is-presence-in-the-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/thinking-is-presence-in-the-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking Is Presence in the Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mehdi Ha\u2019iri Yazdi investigated the \u2018I\u2019 and created a bridge between philosophy and religion through his thinking.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What is thinking? What is its purpose? What does thinking mean in the totality of human nature and in the whole plan of creation? Mehdi Ha\u2019iri Yazdi (1923\u20131999) pursues these questions in a profound and independent way, distinct from what developed in the Western world since Descartes, mainly in discursive thinking. He was born in Iran and grew up in a family of highly educated academics and religious scholars, who were teachers of Shiite philosophy and theology. He received a classical education in philosophy, theology, and \u201cIrfan\u201d [\u201cIslamic gnosis\u201d] at the University of Qom, the most important center for this field of study. Later, he studied at the University of Tehran, where he obtained his doctorate in theology in 1952. He was likewise interested in Western epistemology and methods of science. For many years, he immersed himself in the work of Avicenna (980\u20131037), an all-around genius and polymath who was familiar with the Neoplatonic school, was himself a peripatetic, and wrote a \u201cSumma\u201d in the spirit of Aristotle\u2019s metaphysics. Mehdi Yazdi studied texts by the mathematician and astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201\u20131274) and by the inaugurator of the Persian philosophical Renaissance, Mullah Sadra (1571\/2\u20131635\/40). But Yazdi\u2019s most important teacher, repeatedly encountered in all his writings, was Shihab al-Din Yahya ibn Habash Suhrawardi (1154\u20131191).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the teachings of Zarathustra and the works of the Neoplatonic school, including the Peripatetics and Avicenna\u2019s world of thought, Suhrawardi initiated a completely new beginning of Iranian thought, which he described as a sunrise. This was not a metaphor but rather a real experience: it is the light of thought that rises in the soul and not only illuminates it but also endows the soul with the creative faculty of knowledge. It is the presence of the spirit in the soul: thinking in the light of the spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his stay in Canada (Toronto) and the US (Michigan), Yazdi studied the works of Kant, Hegel, James, Russell, Wittgenstein, and others with the same passion as he did with those of the Persian philosophers in Iran. From this deep-rooted connection with Iran\u2019s ancient tradition of thought, he immersed himself in the problems that were being discussed in Western epistemology at the time, in the hope that this would enable him to make a contribution to Islamic philosophy as a whole. In 1979, he returned to Iran, where he taught mainly at the University of Tehran until his death. In his work The Principles of Epistemology in Islamic Philosophy: Knowledge by Presence<\/em> (1992), Yazdi developed the theme of \u201cknowledge by presence\u201d (al-\u2018ilm al-huduri<\/em>). This concept did not originate with Yazdi, however, but rather with Suhrawardi, who was the first to use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mehdi Yazdi was not the only Iranian philosopher of the twentieth century who continued his studies in the West or who was open to what was developing in the philosophy of the Western world. But, he was unique in making Western thought his own, to test it against the philosophical discourse that had developed in the Islamic world, and reciprocally, to make the thinking of the spirit visible to the light of discursive thought that has become so prevalent in the West in recent decades. Yazdi\u2019s great theme was \u201cknowledge in and by presence,\u201d which presupposes a quite specific state of consciousness\u2014namely, the rising of the light of thought in the soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two Paths to Knowledge<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yazdi distinguishes between two forms of cognition: knowledge by correspondence and knowledge by presence. In order to establish the difference, Yazdi describes the thinking processes for these two forms phenomenologically. He was interested in the question of whether a form of thought exists in which the classical dichotomy of subject and object is no longer relevant. Yazdi\u2019s first step in this direction was to describe what happens when someone says, \u201cI think.\u201d The \u2018I\u2019 that says, \u201cI think,\u201d and the \u2018I\u2019 that thinks are not two different entities; they are one and the same. I know from direct inner experience that this is so. One need not insert a proxy in this case, as if I first had to make a proxy for myself in order to come to the conclusion that I think. It is important to realize that we are dealing with a well-defined situation here, namely that of thinking!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This immediate inner knowledge (intuition) in the transparency of the act of knowledge itself is what Yazdi, without contradicting Suhrawardi, called \u201cknowledge by presence.\u201d The thinking process must, therefore, be described. Due to the deep intimacy he\u2019d acquired over many years with the representatives of Western philosophy (Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, and also Heidegger, Russell, Wittgenstein, Popper, and Habermas, with whom he entered into dialog in his work), Yazdi was able to lay open the characteristics of logical-discursive thinking in general and the separation of subject and object in particular, with great precision. On the other hand, as far as knowledge by presence is concerned, Yazdi could boast of being part of a centuries-old tradition in Iranian philosophy in which Avicenna, Suhrawardi, and Mullah Sadra not only laid the foundation stone for thinking in the light of the spirit but\u2014and this is far more important\u2014created a language that could be used as an instrument to express the individual moments of this thinking in its nature as a process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Triad of the Thinking Process<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It is important to note that when Yazdi, following in the footsteps of his predecessors, described the thinking process, he always used the concept of a triad: the knower, the object of knowledge, and the thinking that, as an activity, builds a bridge between the two. In analytical knowledge (as in discursive thinking), the object of knowledge is external to the one who knows. Thinking must make use of representations that are already available. Truth arises when a correspondence is able to be shown between the representation and the object outside. This kind of knowledge has raised all kinds of questions about methodological certainty. Different points of view (Habermas, Popper, Russell) still define Western philosophy today in terms of a duality and separation of the knowing subject and the known object.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cknowledge by presence,\u201d the object of knowledge does not appear in a field other than that of the knower\u2014in other words, that towards which the activity of thinking is directed appears in the same realm as that which performs the act of thinking. This process points to self-knowledge; however, this must not be confused with insight, in which the self is handled as an external element before the knower\u2019s gaze and representations of the self must be made. Nor does the thinking human being become, so to speak, subject and object. It is not unio mystica<\/em>! Yazdi has described the mystical experience and its translation (again, we see the great significance of language and its use) as a special form of \u201cknowledge by presence.\u201d But, in this second form of knowledge, the foundational pattern of the triad remains the preeminent characteristic. It is the dynamic between the three elements that makes knowledge into \u201cknowledge by presence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making the role of thinking transparent remains a necessary condition: neither self-analysis nor fusion but a fully awakened presence in the act of one\u2019s self-thinking\u2014which comes down to being present in oneself. It is a thinking that carries itself through the process of the act of thinking. Yazdi considers all other forms of knowledge, such as knowledge in which the object is an external factor, to be derived from this self-sustained thinking. And, while in \u201cthinking by correspondence,\u201d there always remains a factor of uncertainty that must be overcome by Cartesian doubt, Yazdi regards \u201cknowledge by presence\u201d as \u201cliving in the immediacy of truth.\u201d Between the knower and the object of knowledge, there is no representation that must function as a bridge between subject and object. The knower and the object of knowledge are both of an identical \u201cnature.\u201d In the dynamics of the process of knowledge, this is reciprocally perceived, and it becomes an experience of \u201cwholeness,\u201d which can be compared to an experience of happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Mehdi Haeri Yazdi, Historic Collection \/ Alamy Stock Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Liberation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For discursive thinking, the division into subject and object is a prerequisite. It is this dualism between the knower and the object of knowledge that constitutes this thinking. That which I know (the subjective pole of the thinking process) and that which is known (the objective pole) must coincide, thereby offering certainty and leading to truth. Knowing by presence takes place outside of this dualism. It is beyond the partitioning into subject and object.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yazdi describes this as liberation from the compulsion to generate proof, for this form of knowledge does not need proof in the nature of consensus. Proof is needed when the object of knowledge lies outside of me. Then, one needs a representation in order to internalize the object of knowledge. The principle of consensus then prevails as a criterion of truth or untruth. However, this principle cannot be applied in the case of knowledge by presence. Yazdi did not reject the truth criterion of concurrence\u2014he showed that this is only applicable in the case of logical-discursive thinking and of knowledge by consensus on the basis of the partitioning into subject and object.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when it is a case of knowledge by presence, one needs a different criterion. This criterion is given in the activity of the act of thinking. The activity of thinking creates a unified field in which the knower and the known appear as part of one and the same field. In this case, the object of knowledge is immanent and does not require any representation. One is, therefore, liberated from the necessity of showing correspondence. This does not mean that the knower and the known coincide. Yazdi speaks here of a correlation in the same field of existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018I\u2019 is Not a Thing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For Yazdi, the self-knowledge that arises during this process is a clear example of knowledge by presence. This is not (yet) the self-knowledge that can be developed in the course of a steadily increasing intensity of the capacity for knowledge, but it is a kind of prelude. Nor is it self-knowledge by psychology, which works with representations similar to mental pictures that only grasp the outer side. It is self-knowledge in the sense of becoming inwardly completely transparent to oneself as reality. In other words: Not knowledge regarding oneself, but rather becoming present in and towards oneself. Not a represented \u2018I\u2019 that remains a \u201cthing,\u201d but rather an \u2018I\u2019 that is revealed in presence. In the simplest case, when, for example, I say: \u201cI know that my neighbor is at home,\u201d there is a piece of knowledge (object of knowing) with which I naturally connect via the \u2018I\u2019 that knows this (the knowing one). Even if I leave out the \u201cI know\u201d and say solely, \u201cMy neighbor is at home,\u201d I still connect the knowledge with the knower, namely with myself. There can be no knowledge if it cannot simultaneously be connected with someone who knows. When we look at a statement like \u201cI know myself,\u201d it is evident that I connect the \u201cmyself\u201d as the object of knowledge with the \u201cI\u201d who knows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The underlying motive for Yazdi\u2019s argument was a subliminal contradiction with Russell and his analytic school. The reality of the \u2018I\u2019, whether it appears on the side of the knower or on the side of the object of knowledge, can only be known with knowledge by presence. If it is possible to know it as representation (knowledge by correspondence), it is reduced to an \u201cit.\u201d But then it loses all reality. It\u2019s then a word that can be used arbitrarily in the play of language. In the case of the \u2018I\u2019, however, this nominalist game does not work. Yazdi wrote in his commentary on a passage in Suhrawardi that only the statement \u2018I\u2019 is radically different from all other statements and that the paradox of the subjective and the objective, that is: I or It, is abolished in this case.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The \u2018I\u2019 that Yazdi means, in line with his great predecessors, is the \u2018I\u2019 that reveals itself in its perfect reality through the act of knowledge. The reality of my \u2018I\u2019 is experienced immediately\u2014that is, without any mediation!\u2014in the act of my thinking process. It should be pointed out that he used the logical reasoning of Suhrawardi to demonstrate this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a thousand years between Suhrawardi and Bertrand Russell, but that does not mean that a comparison of their different paths to knowledge is not of current interest. Among all possible objects, there is one and only one that does not derive its existence from another object, and that is the \u2018I\u2019. The \u2018I\u2019 arises and exists from the self-observation that takes place in the act of knowledge. \u201cThis sort of \u2018I\u2019 can never be converted under any circumstances into \u2018it\u2019 or the like.\u201d<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Yazdi spoke of an \u2018I\u2019 that has become unique and singular, in which every split has been overcome. Moreover, this \u2018I\u2019 is, as it were, the locus manifestationis<\/em> (place of revelation) of the being of the human being and is this being itself. Thinkers, like Avicenna and Mullah Sadra, recognized this in the ayat an-nur<\/em>, the verse of light from the Koran (Sura 24:35), in which the expression \u201cnurun \u2018ala nur<\/em>,\u201d \u201clight upon light,\u201d is used. For Yazdi this meant \u201cpresence.\u201d A modern example of how knowledge and religion can intertwine with one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This article first appeared in Stil: Goetheanismus in Kunst und Wissenschaft<\/em> [Style: Goetheanism in Art and Science] 45, no. 2 (St. John\u2019s, 2023). Reprinted here with the kind permission of the editors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translation <\/strong>Joshua Kelberman
Title Image<\/strong> Shihab al-Din Abu al-Futuh Ahmad bin Habbash (Ya\u2019ish) bin Amirak al-Suhrawardi al-Maqtuli, \u201cHikmat al-Ishraq\u201d [Wisdom of Illumination] copied by Shams bin Jamal al-Hatani (post-Seljuq Iran), dated Tuesday, 14 Shaban AH 617 \/ October 13, 1220 AD. Arabic manuscript on paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mehdi Ha\u2019iri Yazdi investigated the \u2018I\u2019 and created a bridge between philosophy and religion through his thinking. What is thinking? What is its purpose? What does thinking mean in the totality of human nature and in the whole plan of creation? Mehdi Ha\u2019iri Yazdi (1923\u20131999) pursues these questions in a profound and independent way, distinct from what developed in the Western world since Descartes, mainly in discursive thinking. He was born in Iran and grew up in a family of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9155,"featured_media":59450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8788,8793],"tags":[11545,8798,11559],"class_list":["post-60244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay-en","category-philosophy","tag-ausgabe-31-32-2024-en","tag-deepening","tag-english-issue-40-2024"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}