Fakhr al-Din Razi on Epistemology of Human Being from a Religious Viewpoint

Abstract

Philosophical study of human being can be undertaken both ontologically and epistemologically. By analyzing religious texts about anthropological issues, al-Razi has reflected upon the situation of human knowledge. He has addressed multiple topics in human epistemology in his works. Some of his views on human epistemology are as follows: (1) Despite their limitations, human faculties are capable of gaining knowledge; (2) Human knowledge can be both theoretical and practical; (3) Non-epistemic factors such as virtue and sin has influence on human knowledge; (4) With respect to their level of knowledge, human beings can be categorized as incomplete, complete and perfect complement (al-kamil al-mukammil); God's saints knowledge is complete and that of the prophets is perfect complement so that their task is to guide incomplete persons towards perfection; (5) It is necessary for incomplete persons to have epistemic trust in the prophets. In this article, by using a descriptive and analytic method we shall show that, according to al-Razi, though human beings are capable of gaining knowledge, they have to trust in the prophets epistemologically to achieve the true knowledge.

Keywords

• fakhr al-din razi
• epistemology of human being
• anthropology
• prophets
• epistemic levels