ABSTRACT

Avicenna's doctrine of the intellect has introduced us, even in ordinary cognitive experience, 1 to a form of knowledge where the soul begins to receive knowledge from above instead of looking for it to the ‘natural’ world below it, or rather, where the soul receives a power whereby it creates knowledge. This power or faculty which creates knowledge in the soul, is not a part of the soul itself, and is regarded as a form of knowledge since it is accompanied by a strong assurance and certainty and, further, as a higher and simpler mode of cognition, since it creates the detailed and discursive knowledge in the soul. 2