Philosophy Discusses Mental Concepts, Not Entities

Title: Philosophy Discusses Mental Concepts, Not Entities
Author: Dr Mohammad Akram Nadwi – Oxford
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
“Man has free will,” “Khalid is virtuous,” “The Taj Mahal is beautiful,” “The garden is unparalleled.”
In these examples, the terms man, Khalid, Taj Mahal, and garden are realities that exist externally; you can see them and point towards them. When you say these words, your listener also understands them as referring to real-world facts. This external reality is called the entity (dhāt). An entity is something definite.
In the first sentence, the term free will is mentioned. Will is a meaning that exists in the mind—it is not an external reality, meaning it is not an entity. It can apply to both humans and non-humans. Similarly, being virtuous, beautiful, or unparalleled are all meanings, not entities. They have no external existence; they only exist in the mind. These meanings are attributed to entities; in other words, they are applied to real-world realities.
Everything mentioned so far constitutes innate knowledge—this knowledge has always been possessed by every nation. Greek philosophy transformed this innate knowledge into a craft. Its explanation is as follows:
Philosophy is related to the intellect. It only deals with mental concepts, not with external realities or entities. However, it does benefit from them. When philosophy studies entities, it introduces two fundamental changes to them, and these two changes give the entities a new identity—one that differs from the familiar, common one.
These two new identities are:
Entities become meanings, i.e., mental concepts.
Entities, even if individual (like Zayd or Bakr), become general and shareable (kullī).
In the earlier examples—man, Khalid, Taj Mahal, and garden—these are, for the average person, external realities and entities. But in philosophy, all of these become general concepts (kullī), i.e., mental constructs. It is true that philosophy uses the term particular (juz’ī) as well, but for philosophers, the particular is only relative. That is, it is particular in relation to the general above it, but it is general in relation to the individuals below it. For example, if animal is considered in the mind, then man is a particular of it. But if we then consider individual men and women, man becomes general.
Some may be confused by the term real particular (juz’ī ḥaqīqī). In the previous examples, man, Khalid, Taj Mahal, and garden are all real particulars. This means that each of them has only one referent in the external world. However, in philosophy, they are still relative particulars—i.e., they are general mental concepts that can be shared and multiplied.
Generals (kulliyāt) and particulars (juz’iyāt) are both known as concepts. Every concept exists in the mind. For a concept to be correct, it must be defined, and definition is made from a combination of genus (jins) and differentia (faṣl), or genus and accident (‘araḍ, whether specific or general). What is produced from this combination is called the species (naw‘), and all five of these (concept, genus, differentia, accident, species) are general categories. As stated before, a general is a mental concept applied to more than one individual.
For example, the Qur’an is a specific and well-known book. But when the Qur’an becomes the subject of philosophy, it loses this identity and becomes a mental concept open to multiplicity and shared application—a concept. The same applies to Abraham, Nimrod, Moses, Pharaoh, etc. When they become subjects of philosophy, they turn into mental concepts, no longer remaining as external realities. Of course, they are still applied to real-world entities, just like general meanings are applied to realities and entities.
Similarly, species and genera in philosophy also become more general concepts than how we commonly use them. For example, we refer to Adam and his children as humans. But in philosophy, the human is not an entity but a mental concept—namely, a rational animal (ḥayawān nāṭiq).

According to this definition, being a child of Adam is not necessary. Any being that has both animality and rationality will be considered a human—even if it descends from a monkey.
In fact, this definition of human can also apply to angels because they possess life and speech. To avoid this problem, Imām al-Ghazālī and others added mortal (māyit) to the definition. According to them, a human is a mortal rational animal. Even with this, the problem was not fully resolved.
A more detailed discussion of definitions will be presented in another article.
Translated by AI.