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and, second, because he argues that even if Being may be part of the concept of God, the supreme Being, that still would not necessarily prove his real existence.
To understand Kant‟s line of argument let me first briefly introduce the so called ontological proof, which goes back to Anselm of Canterbury. It is an attempt to prove God‟s existence out of the concept of God alone. Put simply, the argument runs as follows: if God is defined as the most perfect entity that one can imagine, then he has to be existent, because if he would not be existent, he would no longer be the most perfect entity, since he would be lacking an important attri- bute, namely existence, which would contradict his definition. This argument, which has a long history of modifications and refutations, I do not want to discuss any further.24 The point here is Kant‟s reaction to this kind of arguments. He says, Being can never be a real predicate, since Being does by no means extend or broaden the concept of a thing.25 For the concept of something it makes no difference whether it is existent or not, since there would be no contra- diction concerning the concept of a thing if you deprive it of Being. If we talk, for instance, about a red chair and then say that it exists or does not exist, we will still be talking about a specific red chair, but if we say it is not red, we will not be talking about the same chair anymore. Because of this, Kant argues, Being cannot be a real predicate, and, therefore, not be an attribute that defines God. Someone who says “God is” does not add a new predicate to the concept of God, but he simply claims a relation of the entirety of possible predicates for God to an object. This kind of relation between concept and object can only be proven by experience. But experience is bound to the world of senses (intuition/ Anschauung). As far as the meaning of Being is concerned, Kant says that it plays the role of the Copula – and it may seem that he means it exclusively –

24. 24  The literature on the ontological argument is immense. For an overview of the issue, see for example RÖD, 1992.
    
25. 25  Kant discusses this argument in the context of his refutation of the ontological proof, the respective passage is this KANT, 1998: KrV A597/B625 – A602/B632, especially A598f./ B626f. For Ḥā‟erī‟s Persian version of this passage, see ḤĀ‟ERĪ YAZDĪ, 1347/1969a: 203f. Ḥā‟erī‟s source of Kants Critique of Pure Reason was the translation of Norman Kempt Smith, see Immanuel Kant, Norman Kempt SMITH (trans.), Critique of Pure Reason, Lon- don 1958: 504f. (Online version: <http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Kant/cpr/ cpr-open.html#cpr-toc-B>, last access 2010-05-09.)
    Ḥā‟erī was also aware of the Arabic version of the Critique of pure reason translated by Aḥmad aš-Šībānī, which he considerd to be inaccurate. See ḤĀ‟ERĪ 1347/1969a: 40-42. For a most interesting account of Arabic translations of Kant see the article “Kant auf Arabisch” by Michael Frey and Aysun Aly in this issue. I 
    
    
    
    
    
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    which connects subject and predicate. The central role as a philosophical concept, which the notion of Being used to have, thereby seemed to be abolished and ontology as first philosophy to be dismissed.
    For Ḥā‟erī, to whom Being is the central philosophical concept, this kind of a claim could not be left unanswered. So how does he react to Kant‟s statements concerning Being? First of all, he associates the above-mentioned relation be- tween concept and object with the relation between Essence (māhīya) and Being (wuǧūd). Within this highly important discussion in the context of Islamic philo- sophy, he follows those who argue that Quiddity cannot include Being, since it is Being as the all-embracing reality that grants the reality of all Quiddities. Adher- ing to that doctrine, Ḥā‟erī follows Kant when he states that Being cannot be a predicate in the sense that it broadens the concept of something, because, Ḥā‟erī argues, a certain concept or Quiddity would indeed not be broadened by its Existence.26 But in another sense, he further argues, an extension takes place, though not for the concept, but for the knowledge about the concept. It is the knowledge that there really is a corresponding object to the concept or Quiddity. In reality, it makes a fundamental difference whether something is existent only as a concept in one‟s mind or also as an object outside the mind. The knowledge about the concept‟s real existence is not part of the concept itself but, like the concept, it is a mental phenomenon or – as Ḥā‟erī puts it referring to Mullā Ṣadrā – a mental being (woǧūd-e ẕehnī).27
    The corresponding object is, as Ḥā‟erī states, yet nothing other than the pre- dicative being of the concept. Therefore, according to Ḥā‟erī, it is misleading to represent a judgement like “a certain thing is”, in which Being is, as even Kant admitted, logically and grammatically the predicate, in the form “a certain thing is this object”. To transform the judgement in that way would obviously serve only the purpose of showing that Being is not a real predicate but merely a Copula. But in fact, as Ḥā‟erī says, not only in the first form of the judgement but also in the second, predicative Being has to be presupposed, since the Copula would not make sense, if one would not, at least, assume the existence of the subject and the predicate. Ḥā‟erī is therefore convinced that Being has to be more than merely a Copula.28
    I shall not attempt to delve further into the discussion of predication here. The example should simply display some of Ḥā‟erī‟s strategies to re-establish
    

    26. 26  ḤĀ‟ERĪ YAZDĪ, 1360/1981b: 17f., 34f., 159; ḤĀ‟ERĪ YAZDĪ, 1347/1969a: 333f.
        
    27. 27  ḤĀ‟ERĪ YAZDĪ, 1360/1981b: 18f., 35f.; ḤĀ‟ERĪ YAZDĪ, 1347/1969a: 211f; 334f.
        
    28. 28  ḤĀ‟ERĪ YAZDĪ, 1360/1981b: 68; 159f.
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        the fundamental role of Being by criticizing Kant‟s line of argument in his chapter on the ontological proof.
        It is true that Ḥā‟erī may in some respects not have done justice to Kant‟s understanding of Being. For instance, to discuss it almost exclusively in the con- text of Kant‟s critique of the ontological proof means to neglect other passages in which he deals with the question of Being in a more constructive manner. Furthermore, Kant did not really argue that Being is to be understood as a Copu- la only, although he has often been misinterpreted in that way. Kant argued in the respective passage to which Ḥā‟erī is referring that Being can be either a Copula or Being as a position, meaning the relation between a certain concept, with all its predicates, and a certain object.29 But it is also true that in the chapter on the ontological proof, the positive meaning of Being as position is not further developed. It is therefore not surprising that one may read it as a definitive attempt to overcome the central role of Being. But still, Ḥā‟erī‟s critical assessment in which he argues against Kant can also be used in order to support another reading of Kant‟s ontology. Let me only point out one interesting aspect: Ḥā‟erī‟s argument that predicative Being has at least to be assumed and the knowledge about a certain concept as a mental Being will be broadened as soon as one knows about its real existence, may be read in the context of Kant‟s trans- cendental doctrine of epistemology. Put simply, Kant argues that an object can only be known as an object by the representation (Vorstellung) of it in the knower‟s mind. Only through this representation is the knower capable of understanding the perceived sense-data as a single unity, i.e. a single object.30 Something similar applies to Ḥā‟erī‟s notion of mental existence, which he links to Mollā Ṣadrā.31 To what extent Ḥā‟erī really is close to Kant‟s transcendental doctrine of knowledge has to be further investigated, but at least one similarity can be claimed: Being as a mental representation makes the knowledge of external Being possible.
        I will refer only briefly to Ḥā‟erī‟s reaction to Kant‟s second argument against the ontological proof of God‟s existence. Kant argued that even if we consider Being to be part of the concept of God that could not prove God‟s real existence. Because as a part of the concept, the judgement “God is existent” would be an analytical judgement. But an analytical judgement is by definition
        

        29. 29  “Es [Sein, R.S.] ist bloß die Position eines Dinges, oder gewisser Bestimmungen an sich selbst. Im logischen Gebrauche ist es lediglich die Copula eines Urteils.“ KANT, 1998: KrV A598/B626.
            
        30. 30  KANT, 1998: KrV A92/B124–A94/B126; NEUMANN, 2006: 306–312.
            
        31. 31  ḤĀ‟ERĪ YAZDĪ, 1347/1969a: 219–297.
            

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        32. 32  KANT, 1998: KrV B621–B626.
            
        33. 33  ḤĀ‟ERĪ YAZDĪ, 1347/1969a: 331f.
            
        34. 34  ḤĀ‟ERĪ YAZDĪ, 1347/1969a: 215–217.
            

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        restricted to the conceptual level. If one wants to prove its existence in reality, a proof by experience would be necessary. In the respective context, one could argue that the existence of God is part of the concept of God, but still his real existence could only be proven under the condition of his existence, which has to be proven by experience. That, Kant argued, cannot be considered a proof but is a tautology. An existential judgement is always a synthetic one. And as in each synthetic judgement, you can negate the predicate without causing a contra- diction in the subject.32
        Ḥā‟erī follows Kant in his argument that one can never infer from an ana- lytic judgement the necessity of the subject‟s existence and that each existential judgement has to be a synthetic one.33 But he opposes Kant‟s conviction that existence can be proven only a posteriori, i.e. by experience, since he denies the consequence that only the existence of sensual objects can be known. Further- more, he criticizes that the manner in which Kant displayed the attempt of a proof of God‟s existence is not correct, since he described it as if it were the proof of a contingent being, namely by trying to relate an object of the sensual world to a concept. That must fail, because God obviously does not belong to the sensual sphere. Furthermore, in the case of God as the supreme Being, relating the concept to an object, i.e. relating Quiddity to Being, is not feasible, since in the case of the supreme Being they are one and the same. Ḥā‟erī argues that Kant is finally restricting Existence to the sensual world, which contradicts the idea of Being representing a comprehensive concept and the totality of reality at the same time.34
        This is not an exhaustive discussion of Ḥā‟erī‟s reaction to Kant‟s argument against the ontological proof of God‟s existence, and it is not about who is right and who wrong. Its aim is rather to indicate how knowledge of the intellectual background of a thinker can be helpful in order to understand his reception of someone else‟s thought. In this case, it constitutes an example for a transaction between modern Western and Islamic thought.
        Let me evaluate this account of Ḥā‟erī‟s positions: first of all, it has become clear that both thinkers have a different understanding of the meaning of Being. Whereas for Kant Being – or at least the knowledge of it – necessarily cor- responds with objects of the sensual world, for Ḥā‟erī, following his meta-
        

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