A History of Secondary Intelligibles in the Thought of Muslim Philosophers

While sciences pertaining to the sensory and particular realm are in some ways valuable, the true worth of knowledge not only depends upon the intelligible and intellectual order, but it can be said that the very identity and perfection of man issues from his intellectual understanding. Man, in his arc of ascent, perfection and transcendence, and by way of trans-substantial motion, moves from the world of sensible and imaginal particulars to the realm of the intellects, the universals and the primary intelligibles. In this manner, and by an existential culmination, he reaches the origin of his human reality—the active intellect—and thereby finds access to the secondary intelligibles. The cognitive content of the experimental sciences is acquired by way of the intelligibles in general, while that of metaphysics is indebted to the secondary intelligibles in particular. Similarly, logic is founded upon the secondary logical intelligibles while philosophy subsists by way of the secondary philosophical intelligibles. Hence understanding the reality and modality of existence of secondary intelligibles—both from an ontological and an epistemological perspective—becomes quintessential. This article goes over the history and follows the development of this important subject in the thought of Muslim philosophers. It begins by presenting the conceptual foundations of the discussion in hand and continues by outlining the types and divisions of secondary intelligibles. It looks at how the subject was handled by Islamic philosophy by surveying the views of the Peripatetics, the Illuminationists, and the Transcendent Philosophers. The paper presents the intermediate and advanced opinions of MullÁ ÑadrÁ and ends with an introspective analysis of the modality of existence of the secondary philosophical intelligibles from the perspective of Transcendent Philosophy.