Established Realities, Distinct Respects and Radical Skepticism

1. What affirming reality means

حَقَائِقُ الْأَشْيَاءِ ثَابِتَةٌ
The realities of things are established.

This is not the empty formula “whatever is established is established.” The point is that our descriptions and beliefs concern things with determinate natures, and their reality is not automatically altered by our beliefs.

Calling a tree a stone does not change what the object is. A sound description must conform to the thing described.

The affirmation of reality is foundational to theology and the ensuing examination of whether the existence and knowability of things can be denied.

2. Belief and the state of affairs

Nafs al-amr here denotes how things stand independently of an individual's mere opinion. Belief is a mental state; its correctness is tested by correspondence with the subject matter.

“This water is cold” is true if that water is in fact cold. An observer's confident but mistaken opinion cannot change its temperature.

Three questions must be kept apart: what is the actual situation, what does a person believe about it, and does that belief correspond to the situation? Human error does not entail that there is no determinate truth.

3. Why an apparently repetitive statement can matter

وَاجِبُ الْوُجُودِ مَوْجُودٌ
The Necessary Existent exists.

This may initially look circular, because existence appears in the expression “Necessary Existent.” Yet understanding a concept and establishing the reality to which it refers are distinct matters.

The predicate can make an intended affirmation explicit and invite examination of its grounds. The wording itself, however, is not a substitute for a proof of the reality claimed.

A predicate already connected with a subject's conceptual content can therefore have a legitimate explanatory or emphatic role.

4. Tautology and informative predication

الثَّابِتُ ثَابِتٌ
What is established is established.

If subject and predicate are understood in precisely the same respect, no additional claim is communicated. In “the realities of things are established,” however, the speaker is defending a contested thesis: the objects of cognition have realities not dependent on subjective preference.

The difference lies in the respect in which a statement is made. A repeated definition may be empty; affirming the reality of something whose status is contested can be informative.

A claim must be interpreted through its purpose and logical context, not solely through superficial repetition of words.

5. Repetition used for emphasis

أَنَا أَبُو النَّجْمِ وَشِعْرِي شِعْرِي
I am Abu al-Najm, and my poetry is indeed my poetry.

The repeated phrase “my poetry is my poetry” can have a rhetorical force beyond repetition: in context it emphasizes the distinctive character or excellence of the speaker's verse.

This illustrates that repetition is not necessarily idle in eloquent speech. It does not, however, make the poetic example identical to the theological argument for objective realities.

One form of repetition may intensify an assertion; another may clarify what is genuinely disputed.

6. First explanation: the claim needs clarification

هَذَا كَلَامٌ مُفِيدٌ رُبَّمَا يَحْتَاجُ إِلَى الْبَيَانِ
This is a meaningful statement that may require explanation.

On one interpretation, the affirmation of established realities conveys a genuine claim but needs clarification of terms such as reality, establishment, and the state of affairs. Without clarification, a reader might mistake it for a tautology.

“Explanation” can mean unpacking a phrase, removing an ambiguity, or providing evidence. A short foundational thesis may need further development without thereby becoming meaningless.

7. Second explanation: distinct linguistic purposes

A second interpretation looks at distinct purposes of expression. The statement may be meaningful because it identifies the dispute, while clarification is needed concerning the wording or its supporting argument.

“Established” may refer to the objective state of affairs in one respect and to our acceptance of that state in another. These answer different questions: what is real, and whether our belief accords with it.

The meaning of a predication depends partly on the respect under which subject and predicate are considered. Similar wording does not automatically mean that the same claim has been repeated without purpose.

8. Third explanation: explanation as proof

Here bayān may also mean furnishing an argument. A proposition can be linguistically clear while its truth remains disputed; in that case the needed explanation is evidential rather than lexical.

Someone may understand the words “the world exists” yet demand a justification for affirming objective reality.

Three stages should be distinguished: recognizing the words' meanings, understanding what is asserted, and judging the grounds for the assertion sufficient. Different debates require different forms of clarification.

9. Different respects of one thing

أَنَّ لِلشَّيْءِ قَدْ يَكُونُ لَهُ اعْتِبَارَاتٌ مُخْتَلِفَةٌ
A thing may be considered under different respects.

An iʿtibār is a way of considering a subject, not necessarily an additional object in the external world. The same individual can be discussed as a body, as a living being, or as rational.

Statements about the same individual may therefore answer distinct questions. “This body is living” and “this human is rational” select different aspects for discussion.

Attending to these respects can resolve objections produced by treating a term as though it always referred to one and the same aspect.

10. Distinguishing the respects of subject and predicate

In a proposition, the subject is what is spoken about and the predicate is what is affirmed of it. When a subject is considered in a particular respect, the predicate must be assessed in that same context.

“Human beings are bodies” concerns bodily nature; “the human being is a rational animal” addresses the classical account of human essence.

If the predicate simply repeats the subject's meaning in the same respect, the charge of redundancy arises. If it highlights another respect or settles a real dispute, it may provide information.

This distinction is basic to the subsequent analysis.

11. A body versus a rational animal

كَالْإِنْسَانِ إِذَا أُخِذَ مِنْ حَيْثُ إِنَّهُ جِسْمٌ
For example, a human considered insofar as he is a body.

Affirming a relevant property may be informative when the person is considered under one respect. But when “human” is already taken under the complete classical definition “rational animal,” merely restating that definition adds little.

In traditional logic, “rational” points to the faculty of reason, not simply to vocal speech.

The lesson is to distinguish predicating a genuinely additional feature from restating what has already been stipulated.

12. The scope of knowledge of realities

وَالْعِلْمُ بِهَا مُتَحَقِّقٌ
And knowledge of these realities is attainable or actual.

This does not claim that every person already knows every particular fact about the universe, nor that every human judgment is infallible. It affirms the reality of knowledge as a kind: at least some truths can genuinely be known.

We may recognize a flower's color by perception, learn a fact through reliable reports, or establish a conclusion through reasoning. Ignorance of some matters does not annul all knowledge.

The proposition must not be wrongly interpreted as a universal claim about every possible object of knowledge.

13. Conception, assent, and the objection from universality

وَالْعِلْمُ بِهَا أَيْ بِالْحَقَائِقِ مِنْ تَصَوُّرِهَا وَالتَّصْدِيقِ بِهَا
Knowledge of realities includes conceiving them and assenting to propositions about them.

Conception grasps a meaning; assent affirms a judgment. Their mention helps prevent a mistaken reading of “knowledge of realities” as total knowledge of every individual and every species.

No human being comprehends all particulars. Yet that limitation does not imply that no reality can be known.

A universal denial of knowledge can be resisted by establishing genuine knowledge of some things; omniscience is not required.

14. Affirming a kind rather than every instance

أَنَّ الْمُرَادَ الْجِنْسُ
The intended reference is to the kind or genus.

“Knowledge of realities is possible” affirms that genuine knowledge occurs, not that every knower knows all aspects of every fact. A kind can be affirmed without distributing an assertion over each member.

“Human beings can acquire knowledge” does not mean that every human knows every language, science, or event.

This logical distinction avoids turning a defensible claim about the existence of knowledge into an impossible claim of universal human omniscience.

15. Why a universal denial of knowledge matters

The issue is not simply that some beliefs turn out to be mistaken. The deeper question is whether objective reality and the possibility of certain knowledge can be denied altogether.

One mistaken witness does not demonstrate that all testimony is worthless. Likewise, perceptual errors do not establish the universal claim that every perception must be false; that sweeping conclusion needs its own justification.

Three positions must be distinguished carefully: doubting knowledge, denying reality, and making reality dependent upon belief. They are different philosophical claims and require different replies.

16. The skeptical positions under discussion

خِلَافًا لِلسُّوفَسْطَائِيَّةِ
In opposition to the sophistical positions.

The term “sophists” here serves as an umbrella for several strongly skeptical theses concerning reality and knowledge. Those theses are not identical.

One denies determinate realities, another treats their status as dependent on belief, and a third questions knowledge of both existence and nonexistence.

These are categories used in the theological discussion, not a warrant to assign one uniform doctrine to every historical philosopher or everyone who asks skeptical questions.

17. The ʿInādiyyah: denying determinate realities

وَهُمُ الْعِنَادِيَّةُ
These are the ʿInādiyyah.

In the text's classification, this position denies that things possess determinate realities. It goes much further than ordinary intellectual caution.

Saying “I do not know whether that report is correct” acknowledges a limit to one's knowledge; it does not deny that there is a fact of the matter. Claiming that nothing has an established reality attacks the possibility of truth itself.

Keeping these claims separate prevents the legitimate admission of uncertainty from being confused with a universal metaphysical denial.

18. The ʿIndiyyah: reality made relative to belief

وَيَزْعُمُ أَنَّهَا تَابِعَةٌ لِلِاعْتِقَادِ
They claim that realities depend upon belief.

The position is illustrated by saying that regarding something as a substance makes it a substance, and regarding it as an accident makes it an accident; similarly, calling it eternal or originated determines its status.

A belief certainly changes the believer's mental state. It does not follow that the object believed about changes its objective nature accordingly.

The coexistence of contradictory beliefs does not establish that incompatible propositions are simultaneously true in the same respect.

19. Substance, accident, eternal and originated

جَوْهَرًا فَجَوْهَرٌ، أَوْ عَرَضًا فَعَرَضٌ
If considered a substance, then a substance; if an accident, then an accident.

“Substance” (jawhar) and “accident” (ʿaraḍ) are technical categories in classical kalām. “Eternal” and “originated” concern questions of beginning and temporal existence.

Their role here is to expose a particular thesis: a thing's status is supposedly fixed by what the observer believes rather than by the reality being described.

Contradictory classifications of one object call for investigation; they do not themselves make contradictory realities coexist.

20. The Lā Adriyyah: doubt about doubt

وَيَزْعُمُ أَنَّهُ شَاكٌّ وَشَاكٌّ فِي أَنَّهُ شَاكٌّ
He claims to doubt, and even to doubt whether he doubts.

The Lā Adriyyah are portrayed as withholding or denying knowledge of both establishment and nonestablishment, extending doubt to the very fact of doubting.

This goes beyond a student's ordinary statement “I have not yet found the evidence.” Such uncertainty leaves room for inquiry and resolution; the radical position questions the foundations of knowledge themselves.

Asking questions is legitimate. Indiscriminately suspending every possible certainty produces a further challenge about the grounds of the suspension itself.

21. False imaginings versus actual realities

وَيَزْعُمُ أَنَّهَا أَوْهَامٌ وَخَيَالَاتٌ بَاطِلَةٌ
They claim these are baseless imaginings and illusions.

The mind can entertain fictional castles, impossible combinations, and mistaken reports. But the possibility of illusion does not prove that every object or every perception is illusory.

Dreaming of water and encountering water while awake need not have the same practical or epistemic status. Their difference invites criteria for testing claims; it does not eliminate the possibility of knowing anything.

From “some thoughts are false” one cannot validly infer “every cognition is false.”

22. The self-referential problem of total denial

فَالنَّفْيُ حَقِيقَةٌ مِنَ الْحَقَائِقِ
Negation, too, is a kind of reality or fact.

Someone who categorically asserts “no reality is established” has made a claim. If that claim is supposed to be true, the universal rejection of any truth faces a self-referential difficulty.

The reply addresses total denial. It does not establish the existence of every particular external object; it shows why a sweeping denial cannot straightforwardly rely on its own truth.

The fact that a negative judgment can be meaningful is distinct from proving that every external thing exists.

23. Certainty of some immediate knowledge

وَلَنَا تَحْقِيقًا أَنَّا نَجْزِمُ بِالضَّرُورَةِ
Our position, on examination, is that we are certain by necessity.

“Necessity” here concerns foundational cognition that does not always await a long chain of inferential reasoning. Some matters are evident through immediate awareness, while others are made clear by argument.

Perceiving an illuminated lamp or recognizing a basic contradiction provides examples of the kinds of starting points on which ordinary reasoning relies.

Examining particular errors differs from rejecting all possible certainty. This prepares the ground for evaluating skeptical arguments in the next section.

24. Direct observation and reasoned demonstration

بِثُبُوتِ بَعْضِ الْأَشْيَاءِ بِالْعِيَانِ، وَبَعْضِهَا بِالْبَيَانِ
Some things are established by direct observation and others by explanation or proof.

ʿIyān is immediate encounter or perception; bayān involves a reasoned account or supporting evidence. Not every knowable matter must be seen directly.

Seeing a book on a desk gives one kind of knowledge. Learning its authorship or a past historical event may depend on reliable evidence and reports.

Different routes to knowledge do not invalidate knowledge itself. The claim is modest but decisive: some realities genuinely can be known.

25. Putting the full argument together

1. The question of informativeness: “realities are established” appeared repetitive. The answer distinguished the objective state of affairs, belief, and different respects of predication.

2. The question of knowledge: “Does anyone know every reality?” The answer affirmed knowledge as a kind, without claiming total knowledge of every object or every possible judgment.

3. The question of denial: the ʿInādiyyah, ʿIndiyyah and Lā Adriyyah express different forms of rejection or radical doubt.

The result is a coherent foundation: some realities are established, and some may be known through observation or reasoned evidence. The next unit can examine the objections to this foundation in detail.