Answering the Skeptics: Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī’s Epistemology and its Implications for his Philosophy of Mind

My research analyzes the al-Kitāb al-Muʿtabar of Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī, a key figure in the later development of Avicennism in the Islamic world. I explore how his theory of perception (idrāk) give us an alternative epistemology than Avicennan rationalism and the skepticism that is used to attack it. I look to Abū l-Barakāt’s criticism of Avicenna’s theory of intellect, where al-Baghdādī claims that knowledge consists not in intellectual grasping of forms via the Active Intellect, but in direct perception of the world, the scroll of existence (ṣaḥīfat al-wujūd). I explore whether and how Abū l-Barakāt’s epistemology therefore rejects the traditional contrast between immediate (badīhī) and acquired (iktisāb) knowledge, and so sets up a form of empiricism that does away with the epistemic paradigms of certainty put forward by al-Fārābī, kalām, and Avicennism.