Knowledge and Understanding, and the Way They are Shaped

This article is an attempt at explaining the phases of understanding, and it takes the following points as for granted: a) entities of the world are real and objective entities; b) every individual unit has its unique particularity; c) what we understand corresponds to what is there in the objective world. The author, in this article, suggests five stages for understanding the reality, two of which are non-cognitive stages and precede any mental activity to employ words and adjectives for explaining general characteristics of realities. He argues that the first thing understood is mere existence of a phenomenon, and the identity of what is perceived through knowledge by presence with the objective reality. Such a presence before soul (nafs) resembles one’s understanding of reality before being able to use any language except body language. Further steps include classification, language and logic which facilitate retrieval.