The Transcendent Encounter between Immanuel Kant and Mullā Ṣadrā
Kant (adjusting his cuffs): Herr Ṣadrā, I admire your eloquence. But I must insist: all knowledge begins with experience. We cannot know things as they are in themselves—only as they appear through the faculties of our minds. This is the limit of reason, and reason must recognize its bounds.
Ṣadrā (smiling softly): O son of Königsberg, your respect for reason is noble, yet your fortress is built on a fog. You say we know only appearances—yet who ordained that decree? I see not a boundary of reason, but of trust. Reason, when illumined by the soul’s ascent, reaches beyond the veil. Existence itself is the key, not your phenomena.
Kant: Your 'existence' is too generous, too metaphysically indulgent. You speak of Being as if we can observe it apart from its appearances. But existence is not a predicate—it adds nothing to a concept. A hundred real coins do not differ in concept from a hundred imagined ones.
Ṣadrā: Ah, but Existence is no mere predicate—it is the very radiance that makes coins, concepts, and consciousness alike real. You treat Being as a shadow behind experience. I see it as the sunlight within it. From the rock to the angel, Being flows in degrees—this is tashkīk al-wujūd, the modulation of existence. Your denial is not modesty, but amnesia.
Kant (firmly): You conflate intellectual intuition with mysticism. My critique aims to prevent dogma and illusion. What you call ascent may simply be delusion. You speak with certainty of the Absolute, but how can you prove it without stepping beyond the conditions of human cognition?
Ṣadrā (voice calm but piercing): I have stepped beyond—not by blind faith, but by the soul’s own transformation. The soul journeys through substance, through becoming, until it perceives the Real with no veil. God is not postulated—It is witnessed. Your reason is noble, but half-awake. Mine is ablaze.
Kant (glancing aside): Then I am content to remain half-awake if the other half means floating in metaphysical dreams. I need universality, necessity, and verifiability—not the esoteric revelations of sages.
Ṣadrā (leaning forward): And yet your ethics require what your reason denies: God, freedom, immortality. You postulate what I contemplate. You hope where I know. Reason that denies its own transcendence is like an eye refusing to see the sky for fear of blindness.
Kant (slowly): Better to limit knowledge to save freedom than to inflate being and lose all measure.
Ṣadrā: Better to transcend limitation and behold the Real than to wall oneself in illusions called “limits.”
Kant waxes crimson and walks away in a huff...
