In fact, there is no gnosis in the West. During the last four hundred years, philosophy in the West has focused on the actually existing reality (mowjud). In fact, you can not find any question about "existence" [vojud] in the nineteenth century, and all discussion were centered on mowjud." - Meaning and context.">
Quoted from: Ali Mirsepassi, Transnationalism in Iranian Political Thought: The Life and Times of Ahmad Fardid, Cambridge University Press (2017), p. 249.
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Mysticism's one eye has been blinded by wahdat al-vojud ("Unity of Being'), and the other one has been blinded by Bergson. According to Bergson, there is turbulence in the world. Where is presence? Where is God? I hope the human dies of the unrest. This intrinsic (natural) wisdom [esnokherad], which is like darkness, appears like lightness for Bergson. Bergson's gnosis is one of the examples of Westoxification. In fact, there is no gnosis in the West. During the last four hundred years, philosophy in the West has focused on the actually existing reality (mowjud). In fact, you can not find any question about "existence" [vojud] in the nineteenth century, and all discussion were centered on mowjud.

— Ahmad Fardid

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Mysticism's one eye has been blinded by wahdat al-vojud ("Unity of Being'), and the other one has been blinded by Bergson. According to Bergson, there is turbulence in the world. Where is presence? Where is God? I hope the human dies of the unrest. This intrinsic (natural) wisdom [esnokherad], which is like darkness, appears like lightness for Bergson. Bergson's gnosis is one of the examples of Westoxification. In fact, there is no gnosis in the West. During the last four hundred years, philosophy in the West has focused on the actually existing reality (mowjud). In fact, you can not find any question about "existence" [vojud] in the nineteenth century, and all discussion were centered on mowjud." in the context of "Quoted from: Ali Mirsepassi, Transnationalism in Iranian Political Thought: The Life and Times of Ahmad Fardid, Cambridge University Press (2017), p. 249." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Ahmad Fardid" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 19, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Ahmad Fardid

About Ahmad Fardid

Seyyed Ahmad Fardid (Persian: سید احمد فردید) (born Ahmad Mahini Yazdi; 1910, Yazd – 16 August 1994, Tehran) was a prominent Iranian philosopher and a professor of Tehran University. He is considered to be among the philosophical ideologues of the Islamic government of Iran which came to power in 1979. Fardid was under the influence of Martin Heidegger, the influential German philosopher, whom he considered "the only Western philosopher who understood the world and the only philosopher whose insights were congruent with the principles of the Islamic Republic. These two figures, Khomeini and Heidegger, helped Fardid argue his position." What he decried was the anthropocentrism and rationalism brought by classical Greece, replacing the authority of God and faith with human reason, and in that regard he also criticized Islamic philosophers like al-Farabi and Mulla Sadra for having absorbed Greek philosophy.