Shahrur’s Distinction
The passage attributed to Shahrur draws a distinction between instincts and desires: instincts are «غير واعية وفسيولوجية», whereas desires are «واعية ومكتسبة تاريخيًا ومعرفيًا». This distinction neither equates the two terms nor reduces one to the other.
What Does This Distinction Establish?
In the atlas’s explanation, this statement establishes a conceptual boundary: desire here is not understood as merely an unconscious physiological drive, because the passage describes it as conscious and as historically and epistemically acquired. The available evidence does not explain the detailed process or stages of this acquisition.
Nearby Context
Elsewhere, Shahrur includes “love of development and renewal in things” among desires, and says that the principal human desires have branches that ramify from them. This helps connect the atom to his broader reading of desires, without replacing the direct passage on the difference between them and instincts.
Reading Links
- Muhammad Shahrur the Book and the Qur’an
- History, Evolution, and Sunnas
- History
- Lewdness and desires are interpreted within the distinction between the self and history
Lewdness and desires are interpreted within the distinction between the self and history