the socio-political logic of suhrawardi: re-constructing illuminative metaphysics from a womanist perspective

The predominant narration of the history of metaphysics sketches a fundamental dualism between the theoretical reason and the practical realm. this distinction, mainly formulated in aristotelian metaphysics, became the pattern of a dualistic methodology in the mainstream history of philosophy. not only the traditional separations of reason from emotions, mind from body, and metaphysics from ethics based on this dualism, but also this dualism brought about the superiority of reason/rationality over other cognitive faculties of human beings. since the cliché of separation was accompanied by a kind of value system that gives metaphysics a superiority over ethics, the descriptive literature of metaphysics developed in terms of value-laden terminology in which the metaphysician/theologian is described as the master of other people. this apparent description, thus, conveys with it a hierarchical value system that distinguishes some people as men of reason who have rational authority over other classes of people with less share of reason. as some contemporary philosophers have explained, this value system has penetrated from the world of philosophical books into the real world of human lives. and the source of every violence and suppression in the real world should be traced to the dominance of rationality prescribed by traditional metaphysics. emmanuel levinas (1990: 63), for example, accuses traditional metaphysics as “the source of the bloody barbarism of national socialism.” a similar narration about the illuminative metaphysics and its following logic has been the dominant interpretation of suhrawardi’s philosophy: his formal logic is completely detached from the practical realm, and his metaphysical doctrines form a value-laden, hierarchical system that prescribes a kind of superiority for reason. this dominant narration, however, may be challenged through a different reading of suhrawardi’s logical and metaphysical texts (his treatises, books, and symbolic stories). putting the dualistic lenses away, one can read illuminative metaphysics in another line of narration in which there is an integral unity between the practical and the theoretical. as i have discussed in my previous articles on both aristotle and suhrawardi’s metaphysical systems, they construct their logic and metaphysics on an intersection of different emotions, rational faculties, and aesthetic elements. this integral view, wherein there is no separation between the practical and the theoretical, is mostly inspired by the critical views of feminist and womanist philosophers. in re-reading suhrawardi’s metaphysical and logical works, i would try to re-construct the logical structure of illuminative metaphysics in a way that logic is amalgamated with emotions, morality, and some socio-political elements. henceforth, i will discuss that illuminative logic and metaphysics essentially imply a critical view toward the hierarchical, suppressive approaches in the socio-political orders.