‘Alī Qulī Khān Qarchoghāi Khān was one of the philosophers of the Safavid era, many of whose works have remained unknown. However, his book Revival of Wisdom, which contains many of his philosophical ideas, has been edited and published. Among the innovative accomplishm
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‘Alī Qulī Khān Qarchoghāi Khān was one of the philosophers of the Safavid era, many of whose works have remained unknown. However, his book Revival of Wisdom, which contains many of his philosophical ideas, has been edited and published. Among the innovative accomplishments of this philosopher, reference can be made to his novel classifications and interpretations of acquired and presential types of knowledge. When describing his approach in this regard, while presenting the views of early philosophers regarding the truth of knowledge, prior to explaining the two types of true knowledge – essential knowledge and accidental knowledge – he introduces acquired and presential types of knowledge as subcategories of accidental knowledge. On the one hand, some of his classifications of acquired knowledge and presential knowledge are unprecedented in the history of Islamic philosophy. On the other hand, he maintains that the truth of knowledge is an accidental affair that is added to the rational soul. In fact, through his analysis of the problem of the union of the intellect and intelligible, ‘Alī Qulī Khān views knowledge as a quality that has occurred to the qualified. Here, his approach has been studied at four stages: examining different types of acquired knowledge and presential knowledge, investigating the incompleteness of his first argument about the accidental nature of presential knowledge and acquired knowledge, revealing the shortcomings of the second and third arguments, and illustrating the insufficiency of his view regarding the union of the intellect and intelligent. In this paper, the author has initially tried to provide an accurate explanation of ‘Alī Qulī Khān’s innovative view on acquired and presential types of knowledge and, then, to examine and criticize this view following an analytic-descriptive method.
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