Modern Islamic Philosophy and our Knowledge of the External World

Abstract

Since Descartes and the presentation of Skeptical arguments, our knowledge of the external world is one of the concerns of Western epistemic philosophers. This concern was not an issue in traditional Islamic philosophy and in recent times and after the Muslim philosophers became acquainted with modern Western philosophy, some contemporary Islamic philosophers sought to prove the existence of the external world in response to “skepticism regarding the physical world”. Their reflections regarding this topic resulted in two metaphysical strategies: they proved the external world wither through the principal of causality or through “the necessity of conformity between sensory perceptions and physical objects”. This article shows that neither of these arguments can prove their claim; apart from this, even if their arguments were successful in proving the results, the strong and famous argument “from ignorance” which is in favor of Skepticism, is resistant against these arguments.

Keywords

• physical object
• sensory perception
• causality
• necessary conformity
• argument from ignorance