SADRĀ’I Wisdom
Year:2019 | Volume:7 | Issue:2 (14)|Papers Count:14

In discussing about motion, the possibility or impossibility of motion in abstract beings is one of the central problems. This problem has a strong relation to the problem of reality of chaos and first matter. Peripatetic philosophers, in one hand, through arguments, such as “ argument by potentiality and actuality” and “ separation-connection proof’ have assert that the chaos is a real corporeal being. Because abstract beings are, according to them, devoid of matter, they have founded the reality of motion on the material reality of the chaos. So, they rejected the existence of motion in abstract beings. By contrast, many contemporary philosophers rejected the arguments about real existence of the chaos, and denied the correlation between real chaos and existence of motion, and, so, they have asset the possibility of motion in abstract beings. The other essential problem, that its solution come after the problem of ‘ possibility of motion in the abstract beings’ is the problem of ‘ substantial motion in the soul’ and the problem of ‘ evolution of soul in isthmus life and resurrection’ .

Best system of creation means the best and most perfect system that God created. The question is that whether this actual creation system is the most perfect possible world or not. Whether with the science, power and benevolence of God there is no possibility to create a world more perfect than it. The creation which has no evils and badness in it. Mulla Sadra with regard to God's perfection attributes, such as science, power, divine consent, existence of fit and lack of obstacle, through expressing and intellectual analyzing confirms that more perfect than this world can’ t be imagined. Hence, present creation system is the most perfect one that God created. And if more perfect than it be possible, God created it with existence of fit and lack of obstacle. Hence the present world with little evil is the possible most perfect world that God created. Which will be said in this research consists in the bases and intellectual and essential reasons of transcendent philosophy in confirming the perfectness of the world regardless of evils existence and analyzing it with considering to interpretive and philosophical works of Sadr-al-Mota’ allehin and some of transcendent philosophy's followers.

Human fall is one of the key issues of anthropological concern in religious studies and philosophical investigations; it not only accounts for the nature of human soul rather it refers to the latter’ s origin and its emergence. Although fall has been discussed in some prophetic traditions and sayings; for Mulla Sadra it is of philosophical interest and has been discussed along with the issues of soul’ s origination. Thus this essay seeks to study the issue of human soul’ s fall in the context of Mull Sadra’ s philosophical discussions of soul as a whole and in view of a set of certain prophetic traditions. It aims at providing a picture of fall from a religious and philosophical point of view. Taking a problem-oriented approach, this research struggles to explain the bodily emergence and spiritual eternity of human soul and demonstrate that origination and fall are not of a contradictive or differentiated nature in Sadra’ s view rather they are totally coherent; it also studies the philosophical, mystical and exegetical attitudes of Sadra on the existential status of human soul and its knowledge. Finally it seeks to offer a rational interpretation of ontological aspects of the fall of human soul drawing upon Sadra’ s ideas concerning human realization.

The problem of evil has a long history in philosophical thinking, and is one of the most important and challenging issues among philosophers and theologians, which in the most pessimistic case, leads to deny God, and in the most optimistic case, claims that there has been a violation of certain attributes of God. For example, evil, and especially the excessive evil, rejects absolute power of God and God's merciful benevolence. The purpose of this writing is to study the logical problem of evil and to solve it from the perspective of the two Islamic and Western thinkers, Morteza Motahari and John Hick. Marteza Motahhari believes that the wisdom and interest of God is dominant over the system of being and that evil is “ relative and non-existent” and concludes at the end that evil is based on good and leads to good. The two are "inseparable", and of course, there are benefits to evil. John Hick also believes in the mighty creator who created the best possible universe, while Hick's view is that he is evil and develops the theory of "cultivating the soul, " and the purpose of God is to create evil, to uplift human beings and He introduces his spiritual growth and makes it an agent of perfection. But, for him, talking about an unsolved problem and an “ unknotted knot” in the name of evil is vain; and finally, for him, the reasons of the existence of evil is "mysterious", in other words, unconscious and beyond comprehension.

Ontological discussions of knowledge and perception are one of the important issues that philosophers and scientists have commented on. Among the Muslim Philosophers, Ibn-e Sina and Mulla Sadra have discussed the issue of knowledge and perception in detail. According to these two philosophers, knowledge by acquisition is divided into sensual, imaginative, hallucinatory and intellectual. From the viewpoint of Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra, intellectual knowledge is abstract, but they differ about the nature of perceptions (sensual, imaginative, hallucinatory), that is, whether they are abstract or material in nature. Ibn-e Sina believes that perceptions are impressive in the brain and matter, whereas, Mulla Sadra believes in the abstraction of all perceptions irrespectively. This article, first, provides an explanation about the definition of science and the levels of knowledge; then, it critically looks at Ibn-e Sina's argument about the materiality of perceptions. The article points out that the arguments of Ibn-e Sina is controversial and his view of the materiality of the perceptions is not acceptable. The article then investigates the arguments of Mulla Sadra about the abstract nature of perceptions.

From rational viewpoint, there are many questions concerning the permanency of hellions in the next world, which result in some controversies between philosophers. According to philosophers, God is Omnipotent, all Powerful, all Gracious, and at the same time, needless to people’ s obedience. Furthermore, nothing, including the sins of guilty of, can hurt Him. Thus, why God punishes guilty? Augustine says concerning the end of things which involved in permanent pain and argues that to believe that human beings involved in permanent corporeal pain is difficult than to believe that they enjoy permanent happiness. Therefore, he first argues about people who have been convicted to permanent punishment. It seems that, in this regard, Mulla Sadra’ s viewpoint is somehow inconsistent. On the one hand, based on Quranic verses, he believes in hellions permanency and on the other hand, based on philosophical principles, denies that conviction. This paper devoted to the viewpoints of these two Muslim and Christian thinkers concerning the permanency of hellions.

In Muslim peripatetic’ s thaught, Al-kindi and Avennasar had neoplatonic approaches to the relation between soul and body; and so they considered it as the relation between form and the matter. Though Avicenna confirms this approach to that relation in several assertions, but because he takes the intellectual soul of human as the locus of receiving abstract universal categories, thus he considers the soul an absolutely abstract substance. Therefore, concerning the relation between body and soul he believes that the body could not be a locus for the soul and the soul be depended to the body in its distinction (as it has been said about form and matter). The body, at most only serves as a means for realization certain acts of the soul. Before Mulla Sadra, that approach was common view between Muslim peripatetic about the relation between body and soul; and essentially Avicenna’ s view was prevalent. But in transcendent wisdom, which takes the relation between form and matter as a unitary relation, this view appears that the relation between body and soul is a unitary relation and not a concrete one. Mulla Sadra said nothing to explain the kind of this unitary relation and Hakim-e Zonouzi suggests that the body is the material manifestation of the soul and the soul is spiritual manifestation of the body, and both of them are two ends of a spectrum, because to be human is a gradational reality, whose material manifestation is the body and spiritual manifestation is the soul. Thus, the body is unconditioned soul and the soul is negativity conditioned body (as material defections).

Kant, the famous German philosopher, has tried in his Landmark book, Critique of Pure Reason, to give the conditions of possibility of universal and necessary knowledge and thereby specify bounds of understanding. Synthetic a priori judgment is possible, on Kant’ s viewpoint, only if the pure forms of time and space determine given representations. He tries to show that the pure forms of understanding or the categories must be applied to intuitions which determined by time and space, as a condition of the objective experimental judgment. On his viewpoint, all conditions of recognition are also conditioned by the transcendental unity of subjective perception. Kant’ s transcendental ego and his explanation for the conditions of possibility of knowledge give a reason to compare with the doctrine of intuitive knowledge and theory of the appearance of perceptual plurality in the philosophical system of Allameh Tabatabaei. He considers the condition for any knowledge to be present to subject, so that there is ontological unity and connection. He is the first philosopher in the Islamic Philosophy tradition who gives a creative explanation for the appearance. This article aims to describe and interpret the mechanism of possibility of knowledge in two philosophical systems of Allameh Tabatabaei and Kant.

Since God granted mankind the right to have free will, and the granting of any right requires performance of duty or duties, God obligated the human being to observe the order of performing religious, ritual and social duties. The question now is what is the philosophical origin of this necessity and commitment? In the process of answering this question, which placed in the practical field of wisdom, Mulla Sadra presented an special theory on the relation between theory and practice, which proves that the origin of the necessity of the practical requirements rooted in theoretical wisdom; and based on the Divine system or the science by favor, God, who is the only moderator, does not act without medium and without any rules. As Divine creation is systematic, decree system is also systematic and it is necessary to observe order in performing divine commands and doing worship. Therefore, the decree system is subordinate of the creation system, as the latter is also subordinated to the Divine system.

The life and its issues don’ t separate from philosophy at all. From the beginning of philosophical investigations in ancient times, attention to life and finding the right way to live was one of the most important issues of philosophical thought of philosophers. This process continued with ups and downs in the history of philosophy and nowadays has been restored. Philosophical investigation about these matters is called wisdom of life. Some philosophers would have put these matters as main theme of their philosophical meditations. But Mulla sadra doesn’ t. Such issues can not explicitly found in his metaphysics centered philosophy. But it does not mean that we cannot use his thoughts in wisdom of life. Our claim in this paper is that his ontological principles and foundations can use in the wisdom of life; foundations and principles such as originality of existence, simplicity of existence, Individuation of Existence, Similarity and Unity of Perfections, Gradation of Existence. These principles and foundations have important implications and significations about the wisdom of life and they can guide the human beings to their right and good life.

A prayer is a plan by the religious law in order to remove sensuous impurities and is considered as a purification of the lesser and the greater sensual impurities and defilements. The corporal prayer is a bodily outward prayer and the spiritual prayer is a genuine inward prayer. The spiritual prayer is the gnosis and knowledge of God and the recognition of His deeds and attributes and is of the kind of wisdom and knowledge. The corporal prayer is devoutness and humility of the body and similarity to humanity truth and his separation from animals and the wild beats. These two types of the prayer is a sign of the relationship between the visible and invisible world and also the angel and the Divine nature and is the manifestation of the relationship between body and soul. The bodily or corporal prayer is effective in enlightening heart, as the lights shining from the heart towards the human appearance. The command of the Islamic legislator in corporal prayer is the coordination between the body and heart or outward and inward in order to cause no inconvenience for the inward action by appearance and as a result it fulfills its deed.

Science-ology or the philosophy of sciences developed by Muslim philosophers has had many different aspects. The most important of which is the problem of "the more particular accidents" or "accidents by the more particular". Although such difficulty had been just one of the problems for knowing science for the predecessors, it has been gradually changed to the most important problem and then to the only problem for some. The product and result of this problem is that based on rules for knowing science, it is not authorized in sciences to discuss about the attributes and accidents which are predicated on subject through a medium. At the same time, we see that in many sciences, such advice is not observed, and mostly in various sciences, the discussion involves the modes and accidents specific to all kinds of subjects of sciences, all of which are with mediums. So far as the time of Sadra, four solutions have been presented by Ibn-e Sina, Qutb-al-din-e Razi, Jorjani, and Mohaghegh Davaani. First we report the predecessors' solutions for solving this problem, and then we study the criticisms made by Sadra against each one of them. He believes that none of the predecessors have managed to solve the problem and all have become perplexed concerning it. Sadra maintains that the problem is originated from the intermingle of two groups of accidents, i. e. the more particular accidents and the accidents by the more particular; so by distinguishing between them, the problem shall be settled. Stating Sadra's view, this paper treats its assessment showing that although the solution tends to open up some of the ambiguities, the difficulty in another area shall still be remained unsettled. In the last it is stated that the newer assertions of Jorjani's view, so called "the theory of convention", shall be more efficient for solving the problem.

This paper-in order to make a comparative study between Sadra’ s theory and a new western theory about soul’ s occurrence-first focuses on studying and explaining a new theory in philosophy of mind; called “ Emergentism” by contemporary philosophers. The author distinguishes between two version of Emergentism: strong and weak, and describes two challenges against the strong version which have adduced by physicalists. He, then, makes a brief review of Sadra’ s theory about soul’ s occurrence and its ranks, and thus considers the similarities and differences between Sadra’ s view and strong emergentism. This paper, by referring to the common aspects of these two theories, believes that most challenges which have made against strong emergentism are reformable versus Sadra’ s theory. He, finally, implicates some explications of Sadraian philosophers about mind – body connection, and shows their inefficiency to meet the objections and ambiguities of physicalist philosophers. He believes that Sadra’ s philosophy of mind needs further completion to satisfy this requirement. The main contribution of this paper is explaining the intersections and dissociations of these two theory, and some deficiencies and ambiguities of Sadra’ s view before physicalism.

In transcendence wisdom, the essence of the knowledge and the mechanism of its grasping to human soul passed from epistemology and entered to ontology. Mulla Sadra has innovations in intellectual and universal conceptions and imaginary perceptions, which have not been in previous philosophies. In the perspective of Mulla Sadra, immediate perceptions are created by the soul. Some commentators in Mulla Sadra's philosophy have not accepted this view. In this paper, it is proved that the human soul does not always produce immediate perceptions, but accepts them from an abstract existence. Also, in this article, the critical look of some commentators on Mulla Sadra's philosophy about his point of view is examined and evaluated. Based on the view that the soul accepts imaginary perceptions, it is concluded that all humans, when they perceive material and perceptive objects, are in the realm of Ideals (al-Alam al-Mesal), but they do not pay much attention to the connection with this world.