The Materiality of Knowledge in the Epistemology of Islamic Theologians

Abstract

The process of self-awareness and awareness of the surrounding world for Muslim scholars has been categorized into divisions such as experiential and acquired awareness. However, the ontology of awareness, meaning the discussion of whether awareness is immaterial or material, as well as the material or immaterial nature of the origin and end of awareness, has been a particularly challenging topic among Muslim theologians. Some Muslim scholars, denying the existence of a factor beyond the human body for his movement and life, considered both awareness and the process of awareness-formation in humans and the factor-shaping awareness in humans to be within the same body. They engaged in critiquing the perspectives and foundations of philosophers, especially Avicenna on this matter and, utilizing specific principles in their philosophical physicalist psychology, regarded awareness as a material entity. In this discussion, after examining the foundations of this group of Muslim theologians regarding the material nature of awareness and their criticisms of considering awareness as immaterial, we