KHERADNAME-YE SADRA
Year:2006 | Volume:11 | Issue:43|Papers Count:13

We must confess that mulla sadra and his students went through very hard times at least for a century. If we bring our hearts together with such true philosophers and Gnostics and try to think like them and share their suffering, we will be able ti see difficulties they endured and the dark atmosphere of the society of that time by the eyes of our hearts. They lived in a period in which one could not survive and stand the hardships unless through having steadfastness and a strong wil power, desiring almighty gods statisfaction and scarficing one self for the human society.

The theme of this Congress is political philosophy, or philosophy, in the transcendent Philosophy; i.e. in Mulla Sadra's view. Here, I do not intend to discuss politics in Mulla Sadra's philosophy. This will be done by the distinguished scholars and speakers taking part in this congress, and we hope that similar studies continue in future in other forms. My main intention here is to pave the way for beginning of this discussion and to encourage all the people dealing with philosophy to study and analyze this topic. Such issues have always existed in philosophy during the last several centuries of its life, and if we explore the depth of the history of philosophy, we learn that they were always the focus of attention of related gatherings. For some reasons they were studied first in Greece and later in other places in an academic fashion.

Khwaja Nasir al-Din Tusi wrote Akhlaq-e Naseri to comply with a demand made by Naser al-Din "Abdulrahim, the ruler of Qohestan, when he was in Isma" iliah castle. This book contains some discussions concerning ethics, economics, and political philosophy. The writer of this paper believes that no other book on practical wisdom in the field of Islamic, culture can compete with this book in terms of comprehensiveness and accuracy. Mohaqqeq Tusi exercised the same meticulousness concerning the issues in practical wisdom that he did regarding the writing of his scientific books, such as Almagest's Euclid, and those on logic or theoretical wisdom. The writer believes that Akhlaq-e Naseri is an invaluable book and should be taught to students of philosophy and theology at universities.

Sometimes, various issues in political philosophy are studied following a political approach or other approaches. However, political philosophy should sometimes be studied from a divine perspective such as the Transcendent Philosophy, which is a superb example in this regard. In this paper, it has been tried to discover the meaning of political philosophy in this school.Political philosophy has always been a very important issue for philosophers. This is, in fact, an honor for philosophy to have focused on this discipline as a principal principle in the history of philosophy. A great number of prominent philosophers have not only studied this topic but also made it the focus of their basic debates.

The focus of this paper is the necessity of developing a political philosophy based on Sadrian views. This requires a more intensive study of Sadrian political thought so that we can believe in it and present it to others. The important point here is to learn about the principles of the basic political thoughts of our society. Then we should see whether these principles lend themselves to criticism and conform to our social standards.

Mulla Sadra's philosophical approach and the originality of his philosophical thought have always beer under scrutiny. Judging the epistemological determination of this philosophy depends on the different aspects of the methodology of the Transcendent Philosophy. Basically, a systematic criticism and understanding of Sadrian philosophy is only possible in the light of methodology.Moreover, Mulla Sadra himself claimed that his philosophy is a superior one and introduced the Transcendent Philosophy as his most important work. The claim to a transcendent philosophy was made several centuries before Mulla Sadra by other philosophers such as Ibn Sina. However, the Transcendent Philosophy is a title that is commonly applied to Mulla Sadra's philosophy, as well as to those of his followers. Now, one might ask, why Sadrian Philosophy is called the superior wisdom.Some contemporary thinkers have posed the above question, and the writer of this paper believes that it can be answered relying on the methodology of Mulla Sadra's philosophy. He has tried to reveal the secret of the superiority of Mulla Sadra's philosophy based on a review of the ideas of his critics and Sadriologists.

God has recognized man to be qualified for attaining a perfectional form of the rational soul due to his piety and balanced constitution. This soul, which is a spiritual faculty, enables man to have universal and particular perceptions and influence meanings and forms.This rational soul has two faculties. He perceives the universals with one of them and act upon his ideas with the other. The former is called theoretical intellect. According to the common Peripatetic theory, universal knowledge is attained through connection to the Active Intellect, which contains all universal perceptual forms. In this way, in order to perceive the universals, the soul turns to its superior world, i.e., the world of separate intelligences. The faculty by which the rational soul becomes involved in though-related activities is called the practical intellect. Such activities are performed through developing particular ideas concerning practical affairs.

The demonstration of the absolute simplicity and real oneness of the Necessary Being, on the one hand, and the presentation of an explanation for the possible beings that are consistent with this oneness are among the most important challenges that Islamic philosophy has to deal with. By restricting the reality of being to the Essence of the Necessary, Gnostics have solved this problem successfully; however, philosophers' confirmations of an independent and original existence for possible beings based on the principles of causality is inconsistent with the absolute simplicity of the Necessary. All the efforts of Muslim philosophers for solving this problem were unsuccessful until Mulla Sadra's time. By posing the philosophical principle of the Truth in its simplicity contains all things, he solved this riddle and demonstrated the individual oneness of being in the light of a new explanation of the principle of causality. In this way, he paved the way for philosophy to have access to the individual oneness of being. This paper aims to explain Mulla Sadra's significant efforts in this regard.

Farabi and Mulla Sadra discussed politics in their works because they considered it to be a branch of practical wisdom. They paid particular attention to the features and characteristics of the leader of a religious society so that he could take control of the affairs and lead people in accordance with a revealed religion and pave the way for the realization of an ideal society. Therefore, for these two philosophers, unlike the common ruling systems of the world, politics is formed on the basis of spirituality and religious guidance. The six-fold conditions of the first leader are different from his twelve-fold characteristics because the former are acquired while the latter are natural and intrinsic. Mulla Sadra agrees with Farabi almost completely and grants an Ishraqi flavor to Farabi's condition of wisdom, which he poses according to the Peripatetic method.The characteristics of the first leader of the religious society in their totality can only be found in the Prophet (pbuh). After him, the only person who deserves this position is the Infallible Imam (a). In his absence, a qualified jurisprudent (mujtahid) becomes the leader. Both philosophers agree with these three stages. However, after these three people, Farabi believes that leadership belongs to a two-person council and, then, a sixperson council whose members, in addition to the necessary characteristics, enjoy one of the six-fold conditions, particularly wisdom. The leader must have these features at their highest level and is appointed to this post.

One of the most important issues which has long attracted the attention of most thinkers is the relation of man's voluntary acts to Almighty God. The belief in the Unity of Divine Acts indicates that the world of being has only a single real agent and the effusion of existence and independent influence are restricted to the Holy Essence of the Almighty Truth. Various theories have been propounded in this regard. On the one hand, a group of theologians (Ash'arites), by acknowledging the Unity of Divine Acts, totally denied the influence of intermediary causes and, by negating causality, introduced the Almighty God as the direct agent of each phenomenon. On the other hand, another group of theologians (Mu'tazilites) accepted some kind of independence in influence (at the level of delegation), particularly, concerning the above-mentioned voluntary agents and rejected the attribution of man's voluntary acts to the Almighty. They denied the Unity of Divine Acts.There were also some philosophers who agreed with the indirect (through an intermediary) dependence of all phenomena, even man's voluntary acts, on vertical activity. Finally, Mulla Sadra explained and analyzed causality as self manifestation or self-disclosure. He also explained creative activity and, on the basis of the principle of basilal-haqiqah (the truth in its simplicity contains all things), demonstrated that Almighty God is always with His Manifestations. He also stipulated that intermediary causes are the self-manifestations of the Almighty. Accordingly, the effusion of existence in its real sense of the word is limited to God, and the other causes, which enjoy different levels, function as the channels of effusion of existence. In fact, this analysis entails the same content as that of the famous statement, There is no influence in existence but God. In other words, independent influence and effusion of existence are specifically for Almighty God.

The issue of bida' is of particular importance and value to the Holy Qur'an and the Infallible Imams. That is why it has been extensively explained and analyzed in the Shi'i rational school of thought. This paper is devoted to an analysis of bada' in Shi'i traditions and Qur'anic verses. It also deals with some topics such as abrogation, the domain of bada the reason for denying it, its relation to the issue of predestination, and its explanation in the Transcendent Philosophy.

In Plotinus Philosophical system of the world we can see three hypostases which result from each other vertically. They include: the One, the intellect, and the soul.There are various views concerning the genesis of the world, such as the theory of creation, which is suggested by holy books, the theory of theophany and manifestation, which belongs to gnostics, and the theory of emanation, in which most philosophers believe.Concerning the genesis of the world, Plotinus believed in emanation.This word is derived from the Latin word "emanatio", meaning eruption from somewhere. According to Plotinus, the One is not the creator of the world so that He could create voluntarily. The world is the overflow of Divine springing. The One cannot create the world according to His free will because creation is a kind of activity, and attributing an act to God disrupts His Stability and is, therefore, a mistake. Thus Plotinus resorted to the metaphor of "emanation". He believed that God does not decrease by being emanated. He tried to follow a middle way between monotheistic creation, on the one hand, and pantheism, on the other.