ANA'IYAH -スフラワルディーにおける「自我」の概念-

抄録

Suhrawardi, Shaykh al-Ishrdq (d. 587/1191), distinguishes two opposing ideas of ego: ego which is substantial and incorruptible and ego which is unreal and has to be annihilated. First, I have elucidated these ideas respectively. Concerning the first idea, on the basis of Ibn Sind's arguments of soul, he establishes its substantiality and the theory of self-consciousness as its essential element. As for the second, however, he follows the sufis' ethical approach to ego as a source of ego-centric behaviors in created beings and describes its total annihilation (fana') and its unification (ittihad) with the Absolute Being through many stages of spiritual experience.
In the concluding part of this paper, I have analyzed the concepts of ‘annihilation’ and ‘unification’ in order to interpret his concept of ego harmoniously. By ‘annihilation’ he does not intend the annihilation of ego as substance, but the extinction of such consciousness of ego as estimates itself valuable and self-sufficient. Similarly, he does not mean by ‘unification’ the corruption of ego and the continuation of the Absolute Being, but the mode of being which enjoy the purely immaterial substances. Namely, in the same way as those substances, ego, when it separates its body and becomes purely immaterial, joints the immaterial world and becomes indistinguishable from each other spatially. Through these two stages, ego comes very near to the Absolute Being and enjoys the eternal and intellectual life.