Theory of the Living World and its Reflection in the Transcendent Philosophy

 Dr. Maqsud Mohammedi

 

Man became involved in philosophical thought only when he succeeded in providing the necessities of life for himself. In the light welfare and a peaceful life he gained, he began to have leisure and go beyond trivial problems and daily events and study about more important issues in order to predict, understand, and explain future events.[1]

However, from a historical point of view, it is not quite clear when, where, and by whom philosophical thought started, and we might never be able to give an accurate response to this question. Nevertheless, the civilization that has been dominated the world by the Europeans', undoubtedly, is the extension of that which was founded by ancient Greeks who themselves had learnt their basic philosophical principles from the ancient nations of the East, including Egypt, Syria, Chaldea, Iran, and India.[2]

In fact, the Greek were the first civilized people who created the word 'philosophy', defined it, and devised its content. The word falsafa is the Arabicized version of Greek term 'philosophia', meaning 'love of wisdom'. Thus we must consider the ancient Greece the birthplace and cradle of Western philosophical thought and other sciences that have revealed to human beings the ways leading to rational knowledge of the world since 25 centuries ago. Undoubtedly, some other forms of philosophical thought and, more or less, rational knowledge of the world also existed among other peoples and nations in ancient Eastern civilizations before the rise of historical Greece. However, what distinguishes Greek philosophy from similar thoughts is its peculiar characteristics and features.[3]

Apparently, for Ionian thinkers, who were among the first ancient Greek philosophers, the most important issue was about the structure of the world. Accordingly, their first question was 'what constitutes the world?' Perhaps, they thought that, firstly, beyond the apparently chaotic pluralities and changes in the world, there is a hidden stability and unity which can be perceived by the reason if not by the senses; secondly, this stability can be found in a substance which constitutes the world.[4]

These thinkers through experience gradually found that nothing in the world is stable and fixed; everything is continually in a state of change and flux. Of course, it is possible for natural growth to continue, but there is no guarantee for this since it might be stopped by external factors at any moment. All in all, everything is perishable and nothing subsists for ever, yet, life is renewed and continues at all times. In other words, such changes occur in a generative form, and there is a kind of kinship among all existents of the world, as if all of them descended from the same ancestor. Accordingly, they believed that the essence and source of the material world is a single substance in which everything is rooted.

Nevertheless, one might ask another question here: 'If the essence and origin of the material world is a single substance, why has it not remained in its original form, i.e. a lifeless and stagnant body of water, air, or something else?' Another related question is: 'what was the first mover?' This question is posed because we are well aware that lifeless and fixed matter needs an external mover. That is why Aristotle criticizes the thinkers who ignore the necessity of existence of an external mover and says:

From this account it might be supposed that the only cause is of the kind called "material". But as men proceeded in this way, the very circumstances of the case led them on and compelled them to seek further; because if it is really true that all generation and destruction is out of some one entity or even more than one, why does this happen, and what is the cause? It is surely not the substrate itself which causes itself to change. I mean, e.g. that neither wood nor bronze is responsible for changing itself; wood does not make a bed, nor bronze a statue, but something else is the cause of the change. Now to investigate this is to investigate the second type of cause: the source of motion, as we should say.[5]

However, early philosophers, themselves, seem to have been aware of this point. Perhaps, that is why none of them considered 'earth' as the substratum of the world; rather, they referred to certain substances such as water, fire, air, or matter in this regard. Their reason was that such substances explain their motion. For example, in their view, the endless movement and roaring of sea waves, the unyielding flames or fire, or the ongoing blowing of the wind indicate their immortality, and that is why they are always in motion.[6]

Nevertheless, since man is a thinking existent, he always tries to learn more about his environment. In doing so, there is only one method to follow, and that is the scientific method: a method directly inquires into nature through observation and experimentation. The first response to the above questions is that the intellect underlies the movement of the world. The events and accidents occurring in the world are not random or haphazard but follow certain laws. There is a network or succession of events or plan of occurrences according to which everything is organized.[7]

Therefore, in the light of the discovery and description of this network or plan, which can be achieved by sciences of physics and mathematics, we can predict the events to some extent. However, as human beings, we cannot only suffice to predicting them but try to understand and explain them. Hence, we can say that if there is a network or succession of events in the world, there must be an administrator planning and organizing everything that happens there inside. Now, we wish to know what the nature of this workshop is, and why it works in this way and not otherwise. At this point, we must go beyond the scope of science and resort to philosophy. In fact, 'philosophy begins where science comes to a halt'.

A fundamental question here is whether the essence and ultimate substance of the world of being is matter, something separate from it, or both of them. If it is both, we want to know which of them is more principial: the material aspect or the disengaged one. In other words, 'is the ultimate truth limited to this very world that we perceive in place and time, or is there a more profound reality beyond it?'

According to materialism, this material world, space, and time involves the entire reality. The followers of this idea consider self-awareness a trivial event or exceptional trend in the history of the material world that has occurred due to the completely random disorder rooted in the haphazard motions of photons, electrons, and, generally, of matter. The holders of this idea interpret thought and excitement to a series of mechanical motions in the brain and body, respectively, and consider them the products of completely material interactions.

Once, since self-awareness had never been said to exist without matter, it appeared that science supported this idea seriously,. Moreover, it was known for certain that different kinds of food, drinks, and drugs affected man's mental state. Hence, a great number thinkers believed that all mental activities could be justified in the light of various processes (physical-mental) in the body.[8]

Modern science, however, does not confirm the above claim. Modern physics states that, beyond matter and radiation, which might be displayed in ordinary space and time, there must be some other constituents invisible to eyes. Such constituents are as real as material ones. However, they do not attract our senses to themselves directly, and thus we can say that the material world is the entire world of manifestation but not the entire world of occurrence. In other words, the material world is just a section or profile of the world of occurrence rather than all of it.[9]

We might be able to consider Plato's cosmological philosophy in contrast to materialism. Plato believes that only intelligibles and rational forms, which are known as 'Platonic Ideas', comprise the total reality and views the material and sensible world as the image and shadow of the world. In his eyes, the sensible world is the world of appearances and manifestations, and the reality and existence of the world are the very rational forms, which enjoy an objective and external existence.[10]

Explanation of the world of being from the perspective of the Transcendent Philosophy

However, the significance of Mulla Sadra in his view of the living world lies in the fact that he managed to explain and demonstrate it on the basis of philosophical principles and grant it a specific place in his philosophical system. In fact, this theory is rooted in the laws and principles of Mulla Sadra's philosophy, namely, the principiality of existence and the graded unity of its truth. According to the former, the only principial reality is existence, which permeates in all particles and pillars as a common reality. According to the latter, the specific existences of things are distinguished from each other by their levels of perfection and imperfection. On the other hand, awareness and life are not only among ontological perfections but are also the same as existence. Thus, like existence, they permeate in all particles of the world. Even inanimate bodies are alive and aware existents.[13]

However, it is not only Mulla Sadra who believes that the world is alive. Before him, a great number of philosophers and gnostics considered the entire world as a single living existent and called it 'macrocosm'. For example, Plotinus said,

As every organ of a living thing feels the influence of another organ and is influenced by it, the constituents of the world, due to their connection and combination with each other, affect one another. Like the body organs of a living thing, they feel these effects. According to Plotinus, from one aspect, the world is comparable to the accord in the strings of a lyre (a musical instrument). When the lyre is strung, a certain condition is produced upon the strings, and this is known as accord. From another aspect, it is like a single string of the lyre; when they one end of it is strung, the other end is also affected All constituents of the world are controlled by a single system, and the world is like a single individual.[11]

Concerning the world (macrocosm), Ikhwan al-Safa says:

When we say the world is the macrocosm, we mean that the density of the entire world, that is, all galaxies, solar systems, heavenly bodies, and terrestrial existents, is like the body of a human individual that is called the 'universal body', and all the different bodies of the world are like the organs of that body. This universal body enjoys a 'universal soul', and the faculties of the universal soul flow in all the species, individuals, and objects of the world in the form of a 'universal nature' exactly in the same way that the faculties of the particular soul flow in all the organs of human body. The universal soul controls its faculties, i.e. different natures of bodies, and make the bodies move through these faculties.[12]

However, the significance of Mulla Sadra in his view of the living world lies in the fact that he managed to explain and demonstrate it on the basis of philosophical principles and grant it a specific place in his philosophical system. In fact, this theory is rooted in the laws and principles of Mulla Sadra's philosophy, namely, the principiality of existence and the graded unity of its truth. According to the former, the only principial reality is existence, which permeates in all particles and pillars as a common reality. According to the latter, the specific existences of things are distinguished from each other by their levels of perfection and imperfection. On the other hand, awareness and life are not only among ontological perfections but are also the same as existence. Thus, like existence, they permeate in all particles of the world. Even inanimate bodies are alive and aware existents.[13]

Nevertheless, we must pay attention that awareness and life are gradational that is, every existent enjoy exactly in the same way that 'existence' is life and intelligence in terms of their ontological status. The reason for the lack of perfect manifestation of awareness and life in material existents is that they have a weak and imperfect existence. In Mulla Sadra's words:

Their existence involves non-existence and their manifestation is drowned in secrecy. Their presence is realize through their absence; they subsist through renewal and annihilation, and their continuity is established through the successive arrival and motion of the images. There are two reasons for this first, they are scattered in place, and so are their constituents in terms of their position, which is, in face, the mode of their existence … Second, their ontological nature is continually in change and renewal. It is also is flux like flowing water; it annihilates in every moment and is originated at the same moment time in another way … Therefore, bodily matter cannot enjoy continuous awareness, eternal life, and a stable will.[14]

In Mulla Sadra's philosophy, pure existence is the same as pure life and awareness. Accordingly, if existence is free from defects and imperfections, it can enjoy perfect awareness. However, the existence of material things is mixed with darkness and veils and accompanied by privation and imperfections, and thus has a trivial share of life and awareness.[15] The love of perfection has been entrusted to the essence of all existents of the world and the innermost of all particles of existence. The love of reaching the final perfection permeates in all constituents and pillars of the world. All the restlessness and motion existing in all the particles of the world originates from the power of love of pure perfection. On the other hand, love is concomitant with life and awareness and is meaningless and unconceivable without them. Thus the power of life and awareness flows in all existents and particles of existence.[16]

Mulla Sadra criticizes Ibn Sina on the grounds that he believes in the permeation of love in all existents without acknowledging their enjoying life and awareness. Sadra says:

When explaining the quality of existents' love, Shaykh [Ibn Sina] has merely sufficed to their having various forms and being dressed in one of them at all times. Moreover, when discussing the quality of love in all simple and composite elements, he has sufficed to their natural tendency for place. Concerning love in vegetables, he says that the desire for nutrition and growth is enough for quantity and reproduction. However, he does not believe in their having life and awareness. Clearly, demonstrating the existence of love in a lifeless and unconscious existent has no meaning and is merely a kind of denomination.[17]

Finally, we must say that, in the Transcendent Philosophy the material world is a living and, at the same time, single collection whose entire constituents are related to each other according to a well-organized connecting network. This network, which is called the universal soul, is the governor and ruler of all constituents. It forms matter, grants meaning to the life of the living system, guards it, and is the factor underlying its survival. Meanwhile, each of the constituents of this material world, even inanimate bodies, possess a king of life and awareness proportionate to their ontological breadth which can be interpreted as the source of the power of love for pure perfection. This power flows in the essence of all constituents and pillars of the world.

Apparently, modern scientific research findings (theories of Quantum Physics and Relativity) confirm this theory. Of course, we do not claim that Mulla Sadra's view is exactly the same as what is inferred from such research studies. Rather, we believe that it is in conformity with them. In the Newtonian physics, the structure of the world was merely determined by the arrangement of atoms, and space, time, and the material world comprised the entire reality. However, new research findings do not confirm this theory; rather, they indicate that the world is a single living system possessing a specific kind of awareness. They also denote that all the constituents of this world are, in their own turn, independent living systems, and that man is only one of them. Moreover, there is a connecting network in the world of being granting form to matter, setting its fundamental particles, and constructing the world. This connecting network can be called 'awareness or conscience'.[18]

 

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