O GRANICAMA RAZUMA: IBN HALDŪNOVA KRITIKA FILOZOFIJE
ABOUT LIMITATIONS OF INTELLECT: IBN KHALDŪN’S CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHY

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, the author presents the thoughts of Ibn Khaldūn (d. in 1406), a renowned scholar in the field of philosophy of history with regards to philosophy. In his study of history he relied primarily on intellect, whereas in his contemplation on philosophy, he underlined its cognitive limitations. Ibn Khaldūn’s division of philosophy is presented here in the first part of the article. The following is his brief historical review of the development of philosophy and its path toward the Islamic world. A major part of the article is dedicated to Ibn Khaldūn’s criticism of philosophy. The final part stresses that the main point of Ibn Khaldūn’s critique of philosophers is their lack of understanding that the being surpasses philosophical knowledge. However, he recognizes logic as the most plausible form of philosophical thinking. The fact that he underlined the limitations of reason does not mean he defied the reason, rather he pointed out that it should be employed critically. It was not philosophical thinking that Ibn Khaldūn challenged by using religious texts, he rather argued that the intellect cannot prove metaphysical reality, which, nonetheless, cannot be the argument to state that he objected to reason as the source of knowledge.

• Details
• Contents