Ma`rifat Farhangi Ejtemaei

Long ago man, in addition to making objective and practical use of the animate and inanimate beings in his environment including solid bodies, plants and animals, assumed imaginary and symbolic relations according to his environmental, climatic and social context. Culture and cultural institutions prepare the ground for all types of systematization and conceptualization. The temperament-based view based on the multiple temperaments and relationship of man with inanimate beings ,animals and plants are found in a more fundamental framework of "human- nature" which turn, over time, from concrete implications into abstract and metaphorical implications. These metaphors have a major role in Ibn Khaldun's epistemical imagination and discourse. Using a documentive method, this paper discusses the use of naturalist metaphors in the epistemical principles of Ibn Khaldun's discourse. Today, although social thinkers and scholars regard naturalist and temperament- based metaphors as dead and obsolete, these metaphors have formulated the epistemical principles and presumptions of Ibn Khaldun’s thoughts. He also uses the temperament –based metaphors to explain both the world of the senses and social world.