An epistemological approach to the theoretical comprehensiveness of genius based on divine, mystical, and transcendental teachings

Authors

1 Professor, Faculty of Economics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Entrepreneurship, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

The main issue in this research was the human being in its conceptual comprehensiveness and since every research seeks to find the truth, sometimes this goal is entrusted to the sensory affairs and the world of the senses, and the description and explanation of the phenomena is done based on causal relationships and according to natural laws, which is called Demonstration. A method that spread based on the tradition of empiricism, and following the discovery of natural laws governing material phenomena, man gained a high degree of control over natural events, leading to enormous transformations and changes in the scientific, technological, and welfare life of mankind. In this intellectual tradition, where the method of inference is based on the nature and type of the subject under study, induction accompanied by sparks of inspiration and intuition, the starting point of cognition is sensory perception through the five senses, followed by conceptualization through the power of imagination and understanding. In the final step, it is through the mediation of the power of recursive reason that perception or cognition takes place completely at the level of appearances. But for phenomena such as genius, which has a different nature and is of a super-mental and super-sensory nature, and no science is capable of teaching it, and no effort, however difficult and arduous, will make it possible to reach its truth or even learn it, only presenting a coherent whole of it is sufficient. Since genius has supernatural power and is capable of creation due to radiation and illumination, it is therefore irradiative. On the path of creation, the imagination is placed in free play with the intellect, and free from any concern or attachment to the world of the senses, it experiences a kind of separation; freedom of an ideal type, in a supramental totality that is cognate with the soul and is capable of flowing the genius that belongs to the metaphysical realm into the world of the senses in the form of diverse and plural seeds or pure thoughts. A genius that is characterized by originality, exemplarity, and naturalness, and that bestows upon him the characteristic of pure aesthetics and the power of creation from an eternal and immortal principle, in line with the philosophy of human creation.
Therefore, our main issue in this research is not to mention examples and descriptions of unique myths, ideas, and artistic masterpieces, rather, it is about achieving a mechanism that removes creation and creativity from being random, chance, and unintentional, and can identify people like Kamal-ol-Molk, Hafez, and Rumi who possessed potentially brilliant talents, and bring forth the manifestation of the best seeds of the existence of such people. It is always true that the seeds of the best existence are unique to everyone, like a fingerprint, and everyone possesses them, but only a few individuals have succeeded in manifesting their capacities, talents, and genius. Therefore, deciphering a phenomenon such as genius will only be possible within a coherent comprehensiveness of theorizing, and reliance on examples will not yield any results. Just as Kant considered experience without theory to be blind, and theory without experience to be a mere intellectual game. Therefore, we must seek a comprehensiveness that can connect all concepts and elements related to this phenomenon based on a common, consistent, and universal principle and in a continuous chain, so that all components can serve the entire system in a living, independent, and spontaneous manner and not that they act as independent components. 
Therefore, this article is expected to depict such comprehensiveness, a comprehensiveness that, in Kant's language, is a schema, a model, and a body of thoughts and behaviors in an a priori form, which has crossed the boundary of opinion and belief and has become knowledge.  An opinion that generally has no specific validity, and an opinion or belief whose validity is only for the individual and subjectively. But knowledge is an innovative blend that has universal validity places judgment in a position of absolute necessity, and is synthetic and a priori. The schema intended by Kant is the same framework as Elinor Ostrom, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, which is the cornerstone for building theories and is based on philosophical foundations. However, the desired comprehensiveness relies on a methodology or method of inference that is based on the principle of comparative analysis. An analysis that considers the similarities and differences between the three divinely chosen teachings of the Quran, Plotinus' mysticism, and Kant's transcendentalism, and their analysis shows that all of these comprehensive-nesses are organized around a unifying principle and genius in its comprehensiveness is the focal point of all of these comprehensive-nesses.  The reliance on the divine nature of man in the Quranic verses, the unity of the soul among creatures in Plotinus' mystical doctrine, and freedom in its trans-subjective conceptual comprehensiveness in Kant's transcendental doctrine indicate that all of these principles express a single truth in different languages. And what is known as the energy of creation and creativity in humans is the same spirit that carries genius, and genius also needs freedom to flow.

Keywords


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