صدرالمتألهين

Open Access Article

1 - Transcendent Philosophy in Mulla Sadra
Mohammad Sadeq Alipoor

Perhaps few philosophical schools have been judged so differently or opposed as much as the Transcendent Philosophy in the course of history. The vast domain and influence of this school, as well as its strength and all-inclusiveness, have persuaded several thinkers wit More

Perhaps few philosophical schools have been judged so differently or opposed as much as the Transcendent Philosophy in the course of history. The vast domain and influence of this school, as well as its strength and all-inclusiveness, have persuaded several thinkers with different philosophical, gnostic, kalami, and even Qur’anic tendencies to take it into consideration, to describe it from their own point of view, and, consciously or unconsciously, interpret it to their own advantage. Such differences have resulted in the creation of some ambiguity with regard to the truth and nature of the Transcendent Philosophy. For example, the meaning and truth of the word “philosophy” (in Mulla Sadra’s view), which has been given the adjective of “transcendent” is one of such ambiguous cases. In the present paper, in order to clarify this ambiguity, the author has tried to describe Mulla Sadra’s philosophy by referring to his own words. In doing so, after determining the nature of wisdom and philosophy and conducting a comparative study of the common meaning of philosophy and the Transcendent Philosophy and specifying their similarities and differences, it is demonstrated that his philosophy is a particular philosophy with a prophetic and religious origin. It is indeed a divine blessing which is only bestowed upon His special servants; a kind of philosophy which safely brings gnosis and reasoning to the shore of harmony and cooperation in the light of the Qur’an. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

2 - Place of the Faculty of Imagination in the Emanation of Acts with a Reference to its Educational Consequences (with an Emphasis on Mulla Sadra’s Self-Knowledge)
Narges Movahedi Marzieh akhlaghi zohre Esmaiyli Alireza Parsa

The emanation of acts, according to Muslim philosophers, occurs at two stages: “perceptive principles” and “provoking principles”. The analyses of the place of the faculty of imagination in the perceptive principles of act are of the type of epistemological discussions More

The emanation of acts, according to Muslim philosophers, occurs at two stages: “perceptive principles” and “provoking principles”. The analyses of the place of the faculty of imagination in the perceptive principles of act are of the type of epistemological discussions which explore the effects of perceptive faculties, particularly the faculty of imagination, on the scientific principles of the emanation of acts. The main purpose of this study is to explain how the faculty of imagination affects the emanation of acts at its different stages of emanation. The approaches supporting Mulla Sadra’s views indicate that, firstly, this faculty holds an important place in the development of the principles underlying the perception, visualization, and affirmation of acts. Secondly, they argue that the effective sources of the visualizations of the faculty of imagination include the perceptions of the five-fold senses, ontological representations of Man, and, even beyond them, Man’s essence, so that, through the change, control, and transcendence of such sources, some positive educational outcomes arise in relation to human behavior. Thirdly, given the analysis of the stages of the emanation of act, “intention” can be considered compatible with the stage of concept and judgement in the process of emanation of act, which, considering Mulla Sadra’s meta-approach (stating that perception is emanated at the level of imagination) can directly affect the soul. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

3 - An Analytic Study of Mulla Sadra’s Final View on Divine Knowledge of Immaterial Things
Seyyed Ahmad Ghaffari Qarabagh

Mulla Sadra has adopted different standpoints regarding the acceptance of material forms as a level of divine knowledge in his various works. He has sometimes explicitly agreed with this idea, sometimes remained neutral, and sometimes denied it. This paper is intended t More

Mulla Sadra has adopted different standpoints regarding the acceptance of material forms as a level of divine knowledge in his various works. He has sometimes explicitly agreed with this idea, sometimes remained neutral, and sometimes denied it. This paper is intended to shed some light on Mulla Sadra’s final view in this regard based on his different standpoints in his works. In doing so, the author has investigated his various descriptions of God’s knowledge of material things and his justifications and arguments for each of them. One of the justifications for such a variety of ideas is rooted in his shift from the divine Ishraqi knowledge to transcendent knowledge, while another one sees the root of this diversity in separating the receptacles of perpetual duration and time from each other. Here, the author demonstrates that both of the justifications are defective and argues that the only acceptable explanation for Mulla Sadra’s final view of the knowledge of material things is the relative nature of the division of beings into material and immaterial ones. This solution conforms to the two fundamental approaches which Mulla Sadra has adopted regarding the necessity of gradation in existence and its perfections as well as the same-as-relation identity of possible things. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

4 - From Wisdom to Functionalism: A New Analysis of the Nature of Mullā Ṣadrā’s Philosophical Paradigm
Hassan Rahbar Hamid Eskandari

The nature of Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophical paradigm as a comprehensive system of philosophy has always been investigated by researchers in related fields. So far, eight views have been proposed in this regard; some of them consider Mullā Ṣadrā’s school to be a philosophi More

The nature of Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophical paradigm as a comprehensive system of philosophy has always been investigated by researchers in related fields. So far, eight views have been proposed in this regard; some of them consider Mullā Ṣadrā’s school to be a philosophical one; some others view it as a gnostic one, while others attribute a kalāmī nature to it. Nevertheless, his words and writings contradict these views. He mainly prefers to call his system of thoughts “wisdom”, which means the knowledge of God and His attributes and acts based on a mixed kalāmī-gnostic method. However, the writer believes that wisdom has no independent identity distinguishing it from philosophy, kalām, and gnosis and cannot be deemed as an independent school. Accordingly, in order to provide an accurate explanation of his system of thoughts, in addition to internal and content-based analyses, one should observe the external features of the world Mullā Ṣadrā lived in. Hence, from an external perspective, it apparently follows “consensus-creating functionalism”; that is, his school seeks to create functional unity among the three systems of thought. From an external perspective, it follows an anthropological life-course approach; in other words, one should consider the various philosophical, social, and political conditions of his time in explaining the discussions, problems, and methods embedded in his system of thinking. Accordingly, the writer believes that three points should be considered in adopting an optimal approach to examining the Sadrian system of thought: the distinction between the truths about the intellect and the truths about faith, omission of what is inconsistent with philosophical method, and distinguishing the borderlines of intellect from those of narration and gnosis. In this paper, while presenting Mullā Ṣadrā’s view of his own school, it has been tried to clarify Sadrian thoughts based on their internal content and external conditions in order to provide a new analysis of his thought system. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

5 - Holistic Education Based on the Principles of the Transcendent Philosophy
Sude Yavari Tayebe Mahroozade Ali Sattari

Holistic education is one of the educational strategies of the 20th century in the West which challenges the existing defects in the modern educational system. Clearly, there are so many similarities between religious and Islamic education and holistic education that we More

Holistic education is one of the educational strategies of the 20th century in the West which challenges the existing defects in the modern educational system. Clearly, there are so many similarities between religious and Islamic education and holistic education that we can safely claim that the latter has always been the common method of education in our traditional educational system. The present study focuses on certain educational principles in the Transcendent Philosophy which can be categorized under the concept of holism. Some of these principles include the necessity of the gathering of matter and meaning, educating the body along with the soul, and moral and epistemological holism. Moreover, regarding epistemological holism, the authors elaborate on the particular place of reason in epistemology and derive a number of educational principles in conformity with rationality, among which reference can be made to the necessity of prudence and necessity of teaching intellection to the learner. Finally, they refer to some of the practical methods in conformity to the mentioned principles. Following the qualitative method of content analysis and philosophical inference, the authors have tried to derive a number of educational principles in line with holism through delving in Mullā Ṣadrā’s books on the Transcendent Philosophy and some of his commentators’ works. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

6 - A Study of the Theory of the Correspondence of Worlds and its Role in Explaining the Relationship Between Cognitive and Objective Existence of Possible Things in the Transcendent Philosophy
Ahmad Ghafari

20.1001.1.15600874.1400.26.4.2.1

Similar to most Muslim philosophers, Mullā Ṣadrā conceives of the divine essential knowledge of possible things as prior knowledge and maintains that it is of the type of active knowledge. However, the actuality of divine knowledge in the system of the Transcendent phil More

Similar to most Muslim philosophers, Mullā Ṣadrā conceives of the divine essential knowledge of possible things as prior knowledge and maintains that it is of the type of active knowledge. However, the actuality of divine knowledge in the system of the Transcendent philosophy has a different meaning from its well-known interpretation. The understanding of this different meaning demands paying attention to Mullā Ṣadrā’s particular perception of the theory of the correspondence of worlds, where he emphasizes the objective correspondence of cognitive and objective worlds instead of their categorical correspondence. Following a descriptive-analytic method, this paper aims to present an accurate explanation of Mullā Ṣadrā’s perception of the theory of the correspondence of worlds. It is worth mentioning that several philosophical principles, such as “the truth in its simplicity contains all things” and “identity of collective and detailed knowledge” in the Transcendent Philosophy have been developed under the influence of this theory. Mullā Ṣadrā’s concern regarding the ontological all-inclusiveness of particular existences is the portrayal of the ontological inclusion of collective existence through some truths, each of which embodies all the behaviors and evolutions of the inferior existence similar to an all-inclusive jewel. In such conditions, the knowledge of this ontological jewel, which is considered to be the truth of the inferior existence, is the same as the knowledge of all the states and aspects of the particular existence. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

7 - Myth of Peripatetic Hyle in the Transcendent Philosophy
Mohammad Reza Noornohammadi

20.1001.1.15600874.1401.28.1.4.7

The philosophical analysis of the changes in natural bodies led Peripatetic philosophers to the notion of hyle, which is a substance that essentially lacks actuality and remains fixed in the process of change. Peripatetic philosophers have employed this notion in many p More

The philosophical analysis of the changes in natural bodies led Peripatetic philosophers to the notion of hyle, which is a substance that essentially lacks actuality and remains fixed in the process of change. Peripatetic philosophers have employed this notion in many philosophical debates, including the famous division of existents into material and immaterial groups. Nevertheless, despite their emphasis upon this notion, Suhrawardī denied the existence of the Peripatetic hyle. Mullā Ṣadrā has not explicitly explained his views of hyle in any of his works; however, a careful study of his works and, particularly, philosophical principles indicates that the peripatetic hyle is not acceptable in the Transcendent Philosophy. In fact, some contemporary philosophers have even found the idea of the Peripatetic hyle to be self-contradictory within the framework of the Transcendent Philosophy. At the same time, the words hyle and matter are frequently used in Mullā Ṣadrā’s works because, apart from cases in which he explains the views of earlier philosophers, he also believes in a kind of hyle that should be called the “analytic hyle”. This kind of hyle is a secondary philosophical intelligible that is abstracted from the analysis of the trans-substantial motion. It bears a unity with from and can be used as a basis for the division of existence into fixed and fluid categories. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

8 - Trans-Substantial Motion of the Soul and its Consequences in the Sadrian Study of the Soul
Rouhollah Souri Hamed Komijani

20.1001.1.15600874.1401.28.1.5.8

The soul goes through elemental, natural, mineral, vegetative, animal (Ideal immateriality), and rational (intellectual immateriality) stages in the cradle of its fluid existence. Therefore, the soul’s belonging to the body is a part of its identity and, thus, it can be More

The soul goes through elemental, natural, mineral, vegetative, animal (Ideal immateriality), and rational (intellectual immateriality) stages in the cradle of its fluid existence. Therefore, the soul’s belonging to the body is a part of its identity and, thus, it can be said that the soul is a material-immaterial substance. Given the existential fluidity of the soul, Mullā Ṣadrā has reinterpreted its various characteristics. Accordingly, the soul’s faculties are levels of its continuous truth that flourish one after each other. Moreover, natural death is the result of the soul’s ontological gradedness and losing interest in elemental body. At some stages of this ontological becoming, the soul attains immateriality and, hence, its survival after death become necessary. Because gradedness and, as a result, attaining immateriality are essential to the soul, its incarnation and return to elemental body is unjustifiable. Therefore, after death, the soul begins its purgatorial life in an Ideal body that is created based on its moral habits, and the natural form that is created in the matter of elemental body opens the path towards purgatorial perfection before it. One of the most important consequences of the soul’s trans-substantial motion is its entrance into divine worlds and annihilation in active, attributive, and essential oneness. Interestingly enough, based on the trans-substantial motion, this significant achievement is possible at the moment of the soul’s belonging to elemental body and is not necessarily limited to the moment of occurrence of natural death. Manuscript profile

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