Iqbal posits three sources of human knowledge:
nature, history, and inner experience. The human mind is endowed with the
ability to conceptualize all that it observes. And, contrary to what many
philosophers have asserted, Iqbal finds this conceptualization to be in
congruence with the reality outside the self.
Therefore, the environment of
the self—i.e. nature—is a legitimate source of knowledge. But by ‘nature’ Iqbal does not simply mean the natural world; rather, he means all reality
outside the self. Thus, by making ‘nature’ a legitimate source of action,
Iqbal is not merely affirming the worth of the scientific endeavor. He is
also making the knowledge and meanings embodied in communal institutions,
mores, religion, etc., as relevant sources of knowledge for the individual
ego. However, he singles out History as a separate source of knowledge.
This
is so because even though historical knowledge is also contained within the
world outside the self, its content is different. While residing in the
world now, History conveys to
the individual a sense of all that has gone
before, thus providing a sense of continuity with the past.
However, these two modes of acquiring knowledge—Nature and History—are both
contained outside the self; the flow of information, therefore, is from
outside the self towards the self. And this flow makes the self a passive
recipient of knowledge—and passivity, as we have seen, is anathema for
Iqbal’s concept of the personality. It is the third source of knowledge,
then, which is crucial to Iqbal: inner experience. Iqbal call this inner
experience ‘intuition,’ and makes it a ‘higher form of intellect.’ It is
‘intellectual’ because the products of this experience have a definite
cognitive content; it is a ‘higher form’ because while normal discursive or
analytical intellect approaches Reality piecemeal in serial time, intuition
apprehends Reality in its wholeness in non-serial time. This inner
experience, for Iqbal, plays multifarious roles—in ascertaining the
spiritual nature of all reality, especially of the human self; for
corroborating the validity of the knowledge derived from History and Nature;
and, most importantly, for providing an independent content of knowledge for
the individual, as well synthesizing the knowledge derived from the other
sources into a unique product. This, then, is for Iqbal, the creative
process that preserves the individuality of the self, and rather than making
it a passive recipient of knowledge, makes it the active creator of unique
knowledge. The individual ego thus acquires knowledge through Nature,
History, and inner experience.
The relationship between knowledge and the human personality can now be
elaborated.