(Illusion according to philosophers, “selected models”)

Abstract

Illusion: Linguistically, it is corrupt suspicion, sensory deception, and everything that does not correspond to reality.

It is known in the book of definitions that it is the perception of the partial meaning related to the tangible meaning, and that it is a physical power of the human being located at the end of the middle cavity of the brain, which is capable of understanding the partial meanings related to the tangible things, such as Zaid’s courage and generosity, and this power is the one by which the sheep decides that the wolf has escaped from him, and that the boy is plucked. Accordingly, this force rules over all the physical faculties, using them as the mind uses all the mental faculties. As for the imagined imaginary, it is the image that the imaginary invents by using the illusion of it, such as the image of a fang or claw in a death similar to a seven. As for imaginary matters, they are false propositions by which the illusion rules in matters that are not perceptible. Such as the ruling that what is beyond the world is an infinite space, and the analogy composed of it is called sophistry (Al-Jurjani, Al-Sharif Ali bin Muhammad, 1306, Chapter Al-Waw).

In the most correct expression, we find that the first to invent the concept of illusion was among the Muslim philosophers Al-Farabi, who defined it by saying, “One of the inner powers is a power called illusion, which is what perceives from the senses what is not sensed, like the power that is in a sheep. If the image of a wolf appears in the sheep’s sense, its enmity and badness appear in it.” “Since the senses do not perceive it,” Ibn Sina also defined it by saying, “A power that perceives the partial meanings found in tangible objects” (Najati, 1980, p. 181).

As for Bacon, he uses the word “idola” in the literal meaning that the Greeks used for the corresponding Greek word (eidolon), which refers to a kind of illusion or false appearance, and not in the sense of an idol or idol that is worshiped. (Bacon, 2013, p. 28)

From this standpoint, we studied illusion among philosophers through selected models in particular, starting with Greek philosophy represented by the philosophers Plato and Aristotle, passing through Islamic philosophy represented by Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, and modern philosophy represented by its philosophers Francis Bacon, and we will work to follow the inductive and comparative approach in studying this research