The particular gradation of the reality of being is one of the important bases of the Transcendent Philosophy. After proving it, Mulla Sadra demonstrated and explained some other problems such as the unity of being in its multiplicity, the trans-substantial motion, the
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The particular gradation of the reality of being is one of the important bases of the Transcendent Philosophy. After proving it, Mulla Sadra demonstrated and explained some other problems such as the unity of being in its multiplicity, the trans-substantial motion, the argument of the righteous, and some other peripheral problems based on this principle. Early logicians and philosophers had accepted the conceptual unity of being in the sense that the concept of being is predicated on dissimilar referents, and that the referents of being differ from each other in terms of priority and posteriority, strength and weakness, quantity, and precedence and succession. Mulla Sadra proved that the reality of being, in its unity and essence, is the origin of all effects including these graded differences. Accordingly, being is a graded reality one grade of which is the Necessary Being, and the other grades of which, from the first emanated to the hyle, are the individuals and grades of the same reality. The present paper explores the historical background of the discussion of gradation as viewed by Ibn Sina and Suhrawardi. In doing so, through a brief examination of the arguments of each of these two philosophers, it focuses on Mulla Sadra’s judgment between them and then inquires into the basic principles of the discussion of gradation, that is, univocality and principiality of existence, and examines Mulla Sadra’s arguments for the demonstration of gradation. Finally, based on a rational and analytic defense of the standpoint of the Transcendent Philosophy in this regard, the authors have tried to respond to some of the objections to Mulla Sadra’s principles and arguments in relation to the gradation of being.
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