Majid Zamani's Article 'Phenomenal Conceptions of Two Epistemic Subjects: Heydari-Vakili'

Vakili's inattention to the difference between the certitude (qat‘) intended by Heydari and the certainty (yaqīn) that Vakili refers to in his statements. The certitude intended by Heydari is neither logical certitude nor jurisprudential (uṣūlī) certitude with the conditions commonly upheld by the uṣūlīs; rather, it is a certitude that concerns the process of belief formation, governed by epistemic norms based on the ethics of belief that rule over this process. (See the analysis and examination of the fifth part of Vakili's statements) Vakili's failure to distinguish between jurisprudential and legal obligation (wujūb) and epistemic obligation (See the analysis and examination of the second part of Vakili's statements) The incorrect explication of the epistemic norm intended by Heydari/evidentialism that governs the process of belief formation. (See the analysis and examination of the fifth part of Vakili's statements) In his explication, Vakili has, firstly, taken certitude (qat‘) and certainty (yaqīn) to have the same meaning (See the analysis and examination of the fifth part of Vakili's statements); and secondly, by 'reason' (dalīl) he has intended the conventional meaning, whereas Heydari's intended meaning of reason is that justified, defensible reason which governs the process of belief formation—that is, it can be considered equivalent to the very evidence (qarīna) spoken of in the ethics of belief; and thirdly, Vakili has imagined that the reason emphasized by Heydari is the path to attaining certainty, saying: "because he has acted based on his certitude and followed his certainty, a certainty he arrived at through reason." That is, Vakili has an interpretation oriented towards the resulting product and has understood that this product must be certainty based on reason, whereas Heydari's discourse concerns the process of belief formation, and along this process, he considers reason/evidence to govern the process of belief, not that the belief is based on reason. In other words, in the process-oriented interpretation, reason is not the premise and path to attaining certainty (as Vakili has intended), but rather governs the stages of belief formation. Vakili says that Heydari's theory of the permissibility of devotional adherence (jawāz-i ta‘abbud) is based on an epistemological view regarding religious knowledge, namely that no human being can consider any issue as absolute, one-hundred-percent truth, and whatever we point to might be false. This claim of Vakili's is completely wrong. The epistemic theory of the permissibility of devotional adherence pertains to the realm of demonstration (ithbāt), not the realm of reality (thubūt), and absolutely no mention is made in this theory of truth and falsehood. (See the analysis and examination of the fifth part of Vakili's statements)

Now the time has come to briefly allude, in several interconnected paragraphs, to my own understanding and interpretation of the epistemic theory of the permissibility of devotional adherence to all nations and sects. It is necessary to mention that this is a new formulation of the theory, presented for the first time based on the virtue-epistemological foundations that Kamāl Heydari believes in:

What is important in this epistemic theory of Heydari's is the process of belief formation. Heydari is a virtue epistemologist who looks at the process rather than the product of belief. Heydari does not consider the process of belief formation to be absolute; rather, he holds that a specific epistemic norm governs it. The governing epistemic norm intended by Heydari in the process of belief formation is justified, defensible reason. In the ethics of belief, proponents of this epistemic norm are classified under evidentialism (6). Whoever follows this norm will have a belief formed within them, a belief that originates from a specific psychological attribute (ṣifa-yi nafsānī) which Heydari calls certitude (qat‘). (Although it resembles jurisprudential certitude, it differs from it; see the analysis and examination of the fifth part of Vakili's statements) By traversing this process, the human being's belief is obtained from the desired epistemic norm, and this belief is, firstly, rational and, secondly, ethical; and in the rationality and ethicality of such a belief, it makes no difference what the object of that belief is. The product resulting from such a process is unimportant. A human being who follows this process is a rational, morally-disposed human being who has regulated their character (manish) on the axis of rationality and ethics. The image of the Lawgiver in Heydari's thought is a Lawgiver who: firstly, is committed to the epistemic norms of rationality; secondly, adheres to ethical standards; and thirdly, is virtuous and virtue-oriented. (The rational, ethical, virtuous, virtue-oriented Lawgiver) Therefore: it is impossible for such a Lawgiver not to consider the human being who follows this process as excused and rewarded; and fundamentally, this Lawgiver must (an ethical and rational must) consider the condition for excuse and reward to be adherence to this process.

Part Two (Audio Two): Vakili's statements concern the word jawāz (permission/license) used in the title Jawāz-i Taʿabbud bi Jamīʿ-i Milal wa Niḥal (The Permissibility of Devotion to All Religious and Non-Religious Traditions). He poses his question as follows: What is the meaning of this jawāz and wujūb (obligation) employed in this theory? This part of Vakili's statements is based on several unproven and unsubstantiated presuppositions: One: Vakili has interpreted the jawāz intended by Heydari as jurisprudential (fiqhī) and legal permissibility, failing to distinguish between permissibility in epistemological discussions and jurisprudential permissibility. He has fundamentally misidentified the nature of the discussion, and the dominance of the prevalent jurisprudential discourse over his thought has caused jurisprudential obligation (wujūb-i fiqhī) to immediately come to his mind, leading the discussion toward the various meanings of jawāz and wujūb in jurisprudence. (See Epistemological Note Thirteen) Two: Vakili has conjoined jurisprudential and legal obligation, and has also failed to distinguish between jurisprudential obligation and legal requirements as discussed in the philosophy of law. This conjunction is an indication of the emergence of his belief regarding the scope of Sharia in his thought, which he considers responsible for articulating the legal requirements of societies. That is, firstly, a confusion has occurred between jurisprudential obligation and legal requirements in the sense discussed in the philosophy of law—meaning that in his thought, discussions raised in the philosophy of law have no place as epistemological prerequisites for juristic inference (istinbāṭ). Secondly, no evidence has been provided for the second part of his claim, namely the entry and competence of jurisprudence in the realm of legal requirements. The fundamental question is essentially this: Does the use of the achievements of the philosophy of law as a prerequisite for jurisprudential inferences have any place in Vakili's epistemological system or not? Until the relationship between jurisprudence and law in his thought is clarified, he cannot logically raise the discussion of legal requirements. (See Epistemological Note Twelve) Three: Vakili has assumed that the origin of Heydari's theory of Jawāz-i Taʿabbud is a personal rational reception, whereas Heydari's approach to this issue is, firstly, based on the process of belief formation, not the product/object of belief, and Heydari is considered among virtue epistemologists (7). (See Note Eleven) Secondly, when the issue is the process, there is no longer any room to raise the matter of personal rational reception and the product that reason presents; rather, the process of the formation of any belief is what is considered. Four: From Vakili's perspective, this discussion is the same as the discussion of maʿdhūriyyat al-qāṭiʿ (the excusability of the certain believer) that our scholars of legal theory (uṣūliyyūn) have raised, and this is not a new statement. However, Heydari, firstly, considers the followers of other religious and non-religious (humanistic) traditions, if they have followed the epistemic, moral, and prudential norms governing the ethics of belief in their belief-forming process, not only excused (maʿdhūr) but also rewarded (maʾjūr) (See Epistemological Note Eleven). Secondly, the scope that Heydari posits for salvation and being deserving of reward for the subject of his theory is far wider than the breadth and limitation of non-punishment and the excusability of the certain believer (qāṭiʿ) that the uṣūliyyūn maintain. Part Three (Audio Three): Vakili's statements: In this part, Vakili, perhaps again due to unfamiliarity with discussions of modern epistemology and the dominance of the prevalent jurisprudential discourse, has steered the discussion toward jurisprudential obligation and imagined that jurists, just as they can declare religious rulings in the form of jurisprudential edicts (fatwā), must also rule on epistemological issues in the same manner. Apparently, his epistemic disagreement with Heydari goes back to Note Twelve of the epistemological prerequisites, according to which he, unlike Heydari, does not consider epistemological issues as prerequisites for jurisprudential inferences and does not consider the jurist's familiarity with epistemology as part of the sciences required for ijtihād (8), and seeks to answer contentious epistemological discussions by seeking help from religious texts (nuṣūṣ). That is, the root of the disagreement goes back to this: Epistemic Subject Number One / Kamāl Heydari considers the adoption of a specific epistemological approach to be prior to jurisprudential inference, but Epistemic Subject Number Two / Muḥammad Ḥasan Vakili wants to extract his intended epistemic discussions from within the texts using the common method of jurisprudential inference. Vakili then, with his same previous presupposition that wujūb is jurisprudential (See Epistemological Note Thirteen), raises the objection of this epistemic ruling being futile (laghw) and invalid, and says it is futile because that individual is either committed to a religion other than Islam and has certainty (qaṭʿ) in that specific religion, in which case your ruling to follow his own religion is a tautology (taḥṣīl-i ḥāṣil) and is futile. Both refutational (naqḍī) and solution-oriented (ḥallī) responses can be given to this objection.

In this explanation, contrary to his earlier positions in the preceding sections, Vakili offers an interpretation of the logicians' statements based on the internalist approach (see the third point of the epistemological remarks). He must clarify his epistemological basis beforehand: does he ultimately subscribe to the internalist approach or the externalist approach?! If he subscribes to the internalist approach—as he has, by relocating truth, falsehood, and veridicality into the interior of the decisive subject and reducing them to matters of immediate intuition, thereby presenting an epistemological interpretation with an internalist approach—then he can no longer, as in the earlier parts of his lecture, examine Heydari's statements with an externalist approach, disregarding the inner states and experiences Heydari has undergone. Nor can he, as in parts one through ten of his lecture, view correspondence or non-correspondence with reality solely through an externalist lens and seek to evaluate it from that perspective! Vakili must note that the internalist approach is a phenomenological approach, and if Vakili intends to interpret epistemological foundations based on the internalist approach, he must adhere to the method and procedure of phenomenological analysis. By proposing internal veridicality for the decisive subject, Vakili holds two unsubstantiated, unjustified epistemological presuppositions: firstly, he has conceived of truth as exceedingly simple! And secondly, he has imagined the human mind as a passive mirror that reflects that simple truth he has in mind (see the sixth and seventh points of the epistemological remarks). Even supposing that the correct interpretation of the logical certainty intended by Aristotle and Avicenna is precisely what Vakili has presented, he must specify what criterion or standard he considers in accepting the views of others? Is adherence to reason, proof, and evidence his criterion, or does he accept something merely because the predecessors among our scholars have said it? (These predecessors could also be predecessors among the logicians). Are Heydari or you, sir, a follower of Aristotle or Avicenna? And fundamentally, is the certainty that Heydari presents in his epistemological theory of the permissibility of devotional acceptance even logical certainty, such that he has offered discussions concerning the correct interpretation of logical certainty? (See the analysis and examination of the fifth part of Vakili's statements).

Eighth, Vakili says, “If you want to regard something as truth, you must rely on stable certainties”… In light of this statement, Vakili must answer: 1) Does he or does he not accept the distinction between reality and the conception of reality? (24). 2) Is he seeking to ascertain reality, or does he merely wish to express his own conceptions of reality? If he merely intends to state those propositions he has regarded as truth, then these conceptions of his will be subjective matters, and in subjective matters, there will be no possibility of scientific and philosophical evaluation and analysis. Thirteenth part of Vakili’s statements (thirteenth audio) In this part of his statements, Vakili again raises the issues of excess, moderation, and deficiency, which we examined in detail in the previous part of his statements. Raising repetitive content is a characteristic of those rhetorical statements that have no aim other than persuading the audience. What may seem new in this part of the statements are a few new claims from him, without providing any reason in favor of his assertions. But the new claims he presents in this part of his statements are: (the validity of all these new claims is also contingent upon providing justified reason in their favor). One: Stable certainties are self-founded and ride upon their own shoulders: In this claim, Vakili must specify whether, in evaluating an individual’s beliefs, he relies solely on the content of the beliefs themselves, or believes in a set of mentalities, emotions, feelings, attachments, various kinds of presuppositions, etc., in the formation of an individual’s beliefs? If he belongs to the second group, that is, he considers the set of mentalities, emotions, etc., effective in the formation of beliefs, he can no longer claim stable certainty, because this very claim of his is based on the presupposition that stable certainty exists! In the psychology of perception, the discussion is that if any of the mentalities, emotions, feelings, attachments, taboos, various kinds of presuppositions, etc., change, human beliefs will also undergo change, transformation, and alteration, and the possibility of transformation exists in all human beliefs (25). Now, Vakili must clarify his position: based on which psychological method has he arrived at stable certainties? Does he have any proof for the existence of stable certainties, or does he speak of it merely as a claim and a subjective conception? Can he specify the objects of these stable certainties and state their instances? Can he mention the method for identifying instances of stable certainties?! Two: The edifice of human knowledge is built upon these stable certainties. In analyzing this claim, one can point out that for the formation of knowledge in humans, the two conditions of clarity and distinctness must be considered. In this claim, it is unclear, firstly, what is meant by stable certainties? And secondly, even assuming the possibility of the existence of stable certainties, disagreement still persists in identifying the object and instance of these certainties, and these certainties cannot be considered as the foundation and basis of knowledge. Three: Not all stable certainties are shared, but they are shared among all humans in a particular affirmative manner. Vakili has also left this claim in a vague and ambiguous state. It is incumbent upon him, firstly, to state those stable certainties he has in mind that are shared among all humans; secondly, to prove the shared nature of these instances he has in mind among all humans; and thirdly, to clarify based on which justified scientific method he has discovered these shared instances among all humans?! Four: Dialogue among humans takes place based on these very shared certainties. This claim is also an instance of the fallacy of reductionism. He has claimed that either one must accept the existence of shared certainties, or the possibility of dialogue will be negated, whereas from the perspective of moral philosophers, dialogue is realized when the parties to the dialogue accept four presuppositions (26):

Adhering to the theory of the unconcealment of truth: that is, the parties to the dialogue do not consider the truth to be revealed, clear, and manifest, and they enter into dialogue with one another for the sake of searching, discovering, and drawing near to the truth. Otherwise, what need would someone who believes they have the truth in their pocket and holds to stable certainties have for dialogue?! Belief in the possibility of compound ignorance within oneself: that is, the parties allow for the possibility that they might not know something and might also be ignorant of this not-knowing, and they turn to dialogue with one another in order to avoid the cycle of ignorance. Allowing for the possibility that the other knows something more than they do: that is, granting the possibility of the other's epistemic superiority over oneself. The parties to the dialogue adhere to perspectivism, meaning they take into account that, firstly, every object has various aspects; secondly, every human being views a specific aspect of that object from a different perspective; and thirdly, they do not consider themselves without need of the perspectives of others.

Fifth: The truth or falsehood of any claim must be evaluated with these very shared certainties. Here, epistemology in this claim will enter a new phase. That is, among theories of truth, henceforth it is necessary for epistemologists to consider stable certainties as a new criterion for truth. Although it emerges from Vakili's statements that this reading of his regarding the criterion of truth is a specific interpretation and inference from the correspondence theory, meaning he adheres to the same correspondence theory of naive realist philosophers/simple-minded realists (as opposed to complex realism). To explain, in the correspondence theory we are faced with three pillars: 1) the corresponding thing, 2) the corresponded-to thing, and 3) the act of correspondence. The corresponding thing is that whose correspondence with reality must be ascertained. The corresponded-to thing is that upon which the corresponding thing is measured. And the act of measuring the corresponding thing against the corresponded-to thing is called correspondence. To answer the problem of "the ambiguity and unknown nature of the corresponded-to thing in the correspondence theory," Vakili has proposed stable certainties as that corresponded-to thing against which the correspondence of the corresponding thing is to be considered. However, this justificatory solution faces at least three serious crises:

Considering stable certainties as the corresponded-to thing is a confusion between the two approaches of the externalist approach and the internalist approach in epistemology. (See, firstly, the third of the epistemological points, and secondly, the examination and analysis of the eleventh and twelfth parts of Vakili's statements.) In this case, what Vakili considers the corresponded-to thing will be merely conceptions of reality, not reality itself, and in this case, declaring correspondence or non-correspondence will be merely a report of internal conceptions, and this report will not be capable of evaluation and verification because conceptions are solely dependent on the conceiver. The corresponded-to thing will thus become a subjective matter, and subjective matters cannot be subjected to philosophical and scientific analysis.

Part fourteen of Vakili's statements (Audio fourteen)
In this part, Vakili again says that the scriptural texts to which Heydari appeals are, in all fairness, weak arguments and do not indicate the claim.
This claim of Vakili's, as previously noted, is based on his unsubstantiated epistemological presupposition that from scriptural texts only one reading, one theory, one explanation, one understanding, and one inference can be presented, and that the method of understanding scriptural texts is also singular, and one cannot deviate from that particular traditional method we have in mind. (See the ninth point of the epistemological points)
Vakili continues, saying, "What is derived from the religious proofs is that the door of salvation is, in general, open for the followers of other religions and denominations, but one cannot make salvation solely and exclusively dependent on reason and hold that adherence to false religions is obligatory."
In this part of his statements, Vakili, besides repeatedly conflating epistemological obligation and jurisprudential obligation, explicitly indicates, firstly, that he places himself among those who believe that epistemic foundations must be derived from within the scriptural texts, not that these foundations precede our jurisprudential inferences; in other words, his disagreement with Heydari stems from a deep epistemological difference, which will also seriously affect their method of understanding the scriptural texts. (See the twelfth point of the epistemological points) And secondly, if Vakili wishes to take a precise and scientific position regarding his own understanding of the scriptural texts, he must say: "My understanding of the religious proofs is that the door of salvation is open for the followers of other religions." This second sentence indicates the distinction between religion and the jurists' understanding of religion, unless Vakili is among those who consider their own understanding of the scriptural texts to be identical with religion itself. (27) And thirdly, by rejecting adherence to reason, Vakili explicitly considers himself a product-oriented thinker, and this foundation of his stands completely opposed to Heydari's virtue-oriented epistemological foundation, which pays attention to the process of reasoning and, in this series of lessons, seeks to specify the epistemic norms governing this process. (See firstly the eleventh point of the epistemological points and secondly the analysis and examination of the seventh part of Vakili's statements)
In the last part of his statements (Audio fifteen), Vakili again points out that this theory is not a new theory at all, and brings up repetitive and rhetorical issues such as the discussion of legal obligation, the discussion of the culpable ignorant, and so on, which we have analyzed and examined philosophically and scientifically in detail in previous parts. What might seem new in this part is that he introduces himself as a critic who views this epistemic theory from an external perspective, which again raises the same epistemic issues we previously mentioned regarding the internal approach and the external approach. The phrase "external observer" indicates that he wants to approach the critique of the theory with an epistemological approach and, by adopting an external approach, view Heydari's epistemic theories merely as epistemic objects (See the second and third points of the epistemological points), whereas in the eleventh and twelfth parts of his statements, he acted completely contrary to his current position, and on the one hand, brought the discussion into the realm of phenomenology, and on the other hand, did not adhere to the phenomenological method. (See the analysis and examination of the eleventh and twelfth parts of Vakili's statements).
Final word: It can be said that we are faced with two specific types of epistemology. These two types can be called the Heydari type and the Vakili type. Heydari and Vakili represent these two types of epistemological types. These two epistemic types have many differences in their ontological, epistemological, existential, and phenomenological foundations.
In the present writing, during my examinations and analyses, I kept several points in mind:
One: I tried, as much as possible and commensurate with the scope of this article, to show the differences in the epistemological foundations of the two sides and to seek the root of every statement by Vakili and Heydari in the differences of their epistemological views. The most important thing I sought was the discovery and description of their differing epistemological foundations, and because these foundations do not necessarily correspond to reality, and correspondence or non-correspondence to reality is merely a contingent and accidental matter beyond human perceptual capacity, and truth is absent and unconcealed from us limited humans, I viewed the epistemic foundations of both (Heydari-Vakili) as conceptions of reality. Hence, I called the epistemic foundations of both phenomenal conceptions, although not all of their epistemic foundations are necessarily conceptions of reality, and I am aware of and affirm the distinction between reality and the conception of reality.