Evident Concepts and the Challenge of the Source of their Self Evidence

Scholars of rational knowledge have long believed that theoretical concepts, such as theoretical affirmations, should lead to self-evident perceptions; otherwise, they will involve infinite regression and there would not be concepts. And then they were encountered with the question of the source of the self- evident concepts. There were several views in this regard. Some believed that cause of self-evidence is generality and others believed in simplicity; some agreed with intuitive knowledge and still some others believed in differentiation. Using a problem-solving approach, this paper firstly distinguishes between concepts and affirmations, and then argues that in theoretical affirmations, validity is considered an important issue and the validity of affirmations is dependent on evident affirmations. But in theoretical concepts, validity does not matter; rather, knowledge of concepts is considered and knowledge of theoretical concepts is dependent on the knowledge of evident concepts, otherwise they will end in infinite regression. Secondly, due to the self-evidence of evident concepts, the ideas of intuitive knowledge, generality, simplicity and differentiation cannot provide an accurate explanation of it. Therefore, the simplicity view, together with of the intuitive knowledge of the known is the only view that is able to present a rational justification for the mystery of the self-evidence of evident concepts