A Critical Study of Ibn Sīnā’s Arguments on the Materialism of Particular Perceptive Experience with an Emphasis on the Problem of “Explanatory Gap”

By doubting the materiality of perceptions based on the problem of explanatory gap, a rational basis is provided for criticizing Ibn Sīnā’s arguments regarding the impossibility of the immateriality of particular perceptions, the demonstration of possibility, and also the necessity of the immateriality of different types of perception. The material interpretation of particular perceptions – whether sensory or imaginal – is among Ibn Sīnā’s views in the ontology of perception. Through providing some arguments on the impossibility of the immateriality of particular perceptive experiences, he believes that the only possible state with respect to such experiences is their immateriality. On the other hand, hypothesizing the existence of a possible world in which a metaphysical state such as pain can be imagined in the absence of a neural process makes the distinction between mental state and neural process possible. This explanatory gap between them makes the immateriality of perception possible through negating the identity of these two phenomena. Given the distinction between physical and metaphysical states and the necessity of the immateriality of perception based on various philosophical arguments, the materiality of particular perception is debatable. Therefore, Mullā Ṣadrā’s idea of the immateriality of sensory and imaginal perception, similar to rational perceptions, presents a more comprehensive explanation of perception and the soul. This paper focus on a study of the whatness and ontology of particular perceptions, the discussion of which is subcategorized under the problem of the soul-body relation in the process of perception.