Corbin's Reading of Comparative Philosophy

Henry Corbin is among the thinkers who endeavored to actualize the essence of comparative philosophy. Husserlian phenomenology was a source of inspiration for Corbin in order to explicate comparative philosophy. Applying the method of phenomenology in comparative philosophy requires a return to the essence of philosophical thoughts. Focusing on the motto, “return to the essence of things,” in his phenomenology, Husserl was looking for this essence not in the transcendental and heavenly world, but in the immediate consciousness of it, and making it to be of a quiddity. Borrowing the motto, here Corbin was looking for the essence in the heavenly and metaphysical world according to the esoteric ontology of the Iranian Muslim philosophers. Corbin has criticized Oursel’s historical thinking and stood completely in opposition to him by resorting to the method of Husserlian phenomenology. According to Corbin, the access to the intuitive perception of essence is the end of philosophy. Comparative philosophy with historical perspective and with acceptance of historiography is meaningless. Corbin propounds the heavenly or sacred history alongside the temporal and mundane one which is considered the only real history by modern attitude.