SADRĀ’I Wisdom
Year:2013 | Volume:1 | Issue:2|Papers Count:9

Mulla Sadra emphasizes in limitation of human knowledge realistically and constantly and in different phrases calls his readers attention to accepting this fact. One of the most important limitations that Mulla Sadra believes for human knowledge is limitation in knowing high and low ranks of existence. This limitation is formed in the basis of Sadra ontological and epistemological foundations and is based completely on his main doctrines. One of these doctrines is existential gradation. That existence has high and low ranks is one of the branches and requisites of this doctrine. God, immaterial intellects and abstract existence is in the high ranks and material, physique, motion, time, potency and so on is in the low ranks. Sadra according to his existential definition of knowledge considers the knowing of these as impossible. Of course, Mulla Sadra concentrates greatly in limitation in knowing God when he discusses about the limitation of high ranks, and in discussion about the limitation of low ranks, he pays attention to material greatly. He presents vast arguments and discussions for justifying and proving the limitation in knowing high and low ranks of existence and explains these in the basis of his epistemic foundations.

Avicenna suggests the theory of “imprinted forms” for solving the problem of divine foreknowledge of corporal beings. he believes that this theory can successfully explain divine detailed knowledge of corporal beings. Although Mulla Sadra agrees with some of Avicenna's claims about the issue such as affirming divine foreknowledge of corporal beings, presence of beings' intellectual forms to God and that the intellectual forms are requisite for the essence of the Necessary Being, He disagrees with his other assertions about the issue. For instance, he rejects intelligible forms to be accidents, instead, he counts them requisites for the essence of the Real Being. Besides, intelligible forms in his view are not merely subjective. In this article, I shall depict Avicenna's theory and describe Mulla Sadra's agreements and disagreements with Avicenna. Finally, I will portray Mulla Sadra's final view about the issue.

The theory of over abstraction- intellectuality of the soul, according to Molla Sadra, is the abstraction of the soul from the essence in addition to its abstraction from matter. Accordingly, the characteristics of the soul in this rank are that it is never stable and is an integrated  gem, a shadow of existence, a pure existence over the category, which is neither substance nor accident, neither genus nor differentia and not even intellectually notable. The structure and formation of this theory is also the result of the principality of existence and a consideration of other Sadraian principles such as the unity of existence, degrees in the stages of existence, the unity of intellect and intellectual, and trans-substance motion. Also, for the first time, the present study refers to the interaction between the theory of over abstraction- intellectuality and Molla Sadra's firm belief in the rejection of the principality of quiddity and his return to the principality of existence theory, and in taking this position, Molla Sadra talks about noticing a divine proof and revelation which is maybe the same as Sheikh Eshragh's rejection of the credibility of existence over the mere identically  and pure existence of the soul in over abstraction. Therefore, the proposition of the theory of over abstraction in transcendent wisdom without admitting these principles is impossible and incomplete and does not lead us to a precise understanding and correct knowledge of the issue.

In Mulla Sadra's philosophy one can find evidences tend him to believe that mental existence surpasses external existence of a quiddity and also one can find evidences tend him to believe that external existence surpasses the mental existence of a quiddity. On this battleground first evidences are advantageous due to the fact that they can either completely prove or disprove the correspondence of mind and reality from an ontological point of view. It seems that giving special attention to ontological or epistemological aspects of "tele-perception" has the capacity that at the same time can consistently explain and also justify evidences of both sides and can solve the inconsistency problem.

The domain of ‘perceptions’ and ‘philosophy of action’ is a new and significant issue in Islamic philosophy. Our goal is to provide a consistent analysis of the place of two internal faculties - namely imagination and fancy - in the domain of human perceptions and actions. Regarding imagination as the place of particular forms, Mulla Sadra explains the function of these two faculties in multiple relations with other internal faculties. Seeing the imagination as a significant basis of action, Mulla Sadra explains the role of imagination as a link between sensible and intelligible world and like a habitus in keeping forms. This faculty is the source of arbitrary, habitual, natural and temperamental actions. Also fancy - as a perceiver of particular concepts - is the faculty of perception, With a expansion approach, we can promote the place of this faculty from ‘An intellective faculty along with other internal intellective faculties' to a ‘dominant faculty on all animal faculties' and  even finally take the fancy equal to ‘animal soul’. And also fancy has a basic role in the intellective/ perceptive mistakes and its subsequent actions.

This paper aims to study differences between the theosophie and philosophy. Theosophie is beyond philosophy. Theosophie is theophanic philosophy of human soul, spirit, deed and act and is the result of a kind of revelation and intuition and is beyond mere theoretical and controversial issues. Theosophie is a blessing knowledge and is the result of divine grace, however philosophy for every wise man is obtained after learning preliminaries and a little practice in rational issues. Therefore, obtaining theosophie is not feasible for anyone and requires some preparations and conditions in which some of them are scientific and theoretical and part of them are practical and moral. They are in fact moral of theosophie seekers and theologian is a person who is endowed with good morals and he himself is the embodiment of practical theosophie. Sadra based on the Koran's and traditions' emphasis on the theosophie term, prefers theosophie term to philosophy term, however, his defined theosophie is transcendental, it means a religious and Koranic theosophie which is taken from Koran and traditions. Sadra's theosophie corresponds to Koran and all of the Sadra's works is the field of this correspondence. Therefore, because of his great efforts and careful considerations to Koran and exoteric interpretation, the obtained theosophie is transcendental and is more superior to the other philosophies.

It is alleged by several Quranic verses that the universe has been created by God in six days. In the exegeses of these verses, there are a number of different opinions about the meaning of “Six Days” and there are different explanations of the gradual creation of the universe and its inconsistency with the notion of divine omnipotence. According to Mulla Sadra, “Six Days” means six “divine days” which is equal to 1000 mundane years. His idea about this issue, which is one of his innovations, is founded on the theory of the Substantial Motion. In this article, after reviewing Shiite and Sunni exegeses of aforesaid verses, I shall describe Mulla Sadra's idea about the issue.

Transcendental philosophers due to a number of reasons have defended “principality of existence”. Moreover aforementioned theory is grounded on some pre-assumptions. Hence critical encounter with this theory may be formulated in two main ways involving (i) scrutiny of pre-assumptions and (ii) checking the reasons which are presented for the theory. For a critical survey of pre-assumptions of “principality of existence”, “semantic synonymy of being” seems to be a semantic assumption which is quite wrong or at best, heavily under doubt. Also a specific understanding of words “ideationality” ('i'tibariyyat) and “quiddity” are among those concepts behind the theory which are quite vague. In order to give critical survey of arguments held for “principality of being”, it seems that the reason raised from “driving quiddity out from equivalence state by existence” which is assumed to be the best reason held for the theory, to be invalid. Beside these faults which one may call them “super structure” faults, there are some “infra structure” faults, among them are: the dominant duality naming “principality of existence” or “principality of quiddity”  restricts the reality in existence or quiddity without mentioning any sufficient reason supporting that claim.