The Methodology of Illuminative Philosophy and Its Epistemological Validity

Reliance on intuition and illumination (Ishrāq) is one of the main pillars of the philosophy of Ishrāq. One important question about this method, however, concerns the place of intellect and its relation to illumination. This issue raises questions about the place of the philosophy of Illumination among similar schools.This article tries to answer these questions through an inquiry into the methodology of Ishrāq, by explaining this method and the situation of intellect in it. The author’s thesis is that intellect and illumination are two ways for discovering truth. However, when we are dealing with analyzing, explaining, and transforming those data into a system of thought, the only acting force is intellect. Since devotion to reasoning and argument is the salient feature of any philosophical school; therefore, Illuminative Philosophy should be regarded methodologically a type of philosophy.The final part of the article deals with an appraisal of the method of Shaykh Ishrāq. It suggests that intellect and illumination can disagree in some instances, and therefore, one cannot conclude the logic and validity of illuminative intuition through intellectual arguments, as intellect is no sufficient for exploring about the truth in all domains. This suggests the methodological superiority of illuminative philosophy over its rivals as well as ‘irfān.