302 Anke von Kügelgen
estimative propositions (wahmiyyāt) and widespread propositions
(mashhūrāt) among the premises that can lead to certainty.^214 Ibn
Taymiyya explains these different ways to gain knowledge in al-Radd
ʿalā al-manṭiqiyyīn and Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wal-naql and thereby uses
several distinct philosophical terms and concepts.
11. Traces of the Rationalists’ “Poison” in Ibn Taymiyya’s
Theory of Knowledge
11.1. Perception of the Senses, Estimations, Multiply Transmitted
Reports, and Widespread PropositionsIn accordance with early and also “later” kalām theologians and phi-
losophers, Ibn Taymiyya divides the perceptions of the senses between
those that can form immediate concepts of the outside world, such as
“taste,” “color,” “odor” and “bodies that possess these attributes,” on
the one hand, and those that can form immediate concepts of one’s
own physical and psychological states, like “hunger,” “satiety,” “love,”
“hate,” “joy,” and “sadness.”^215
He further makes a distinction between individual sense perceptions
and those apprehensions shared by all or some people, such as the sight
of the sun and the moon or the sight of a local mountain or mosque.^216
According to his statement in al-Radd ʿalā al-manṭiqiyyīn, the sense
perceptions include the apprehension of the primary arithmetic, geo-
metric, and logical principles (see chapter 10.1). Ibn Taymiyya does not
discuss the question of “errors of the senses” or false judgments about
right perceptions.^217
214 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, pp. 206, 396–437. This chapter is not summarized by
al-Suyūṭī (Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya, p. 167, n. 307.1).
215 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, pp. 11 (in respect to the inner senses, he speaks also
of “feelings,” mashāʿir), 55–56, 92, 96. Here he states that, of the five pow-
ers, sight and hearing are the basis for the knowledge that separates man from
animal; shortened or omitted by al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa, p. 205; Hallaq, Ibn
Taymiyya, p. 10; Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql, vol. 6, p. 108. Concerning
the development of the classification of sense perceptions in kalām and falsafa,
see van Ess, Die Erkenntnislehre, pp. 164–166.
216 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, p. 92; Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya, pp. 32–33 n. 43.4.
217 This question was much disputed by several of the authors Ibn Taymiyya had
read. Aristotle’s view that the senses cannot err, but that the judgment rea-
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