Man in the Path of Being, Volumes 1 and 2

This book is a collection of Professor Seyyed Mohammed Khamenei's articles on various philosophical and epistemological themes. Each of these articles was written for a specific occasion.

The first volume of this collection consists of four chapters on epistemology, ontology, philosophy and religion, and psychology and anthropology. The papers included in Chapter One appear under the following topics: "The Issue of Knowledge in Islamic Philosophy" and "Sense Perception". Chapter Two includes the following titles: "Absolute Being", "Philosophy, Knowledge, and Love", "Religious and Sacred Art", "Dahri (Material) Origination", "Mulla Sadra's Transcendent Philosophy", "Muhaqqiq Naraqi and the Material Origination of the World", and "Time and the Temporal". Chapter Three includes the following articles: "Miracle and Grace", and "Prophethood and messengership". The articles in the final chapter are: "Discussions and Papers on Man's Soul", "Man's Creativity/Vicegerency", "Platonic Soul in Mulla Sadra's Philosophy", "Healthy Man in Practical Wisdom", and "The Nature and Metaphysics of Death".

The second volume of this book consists of four chapters including various articles as follows:

Chapter Five on the history of philosophy: " 'Allamah Tabataba'i and Majlisi and the Hadith of 'Aql wa Naql (the intellect and tradition)", "Aristotle", "Mulla Sadra's Transcendent Philosophy", "The Four-fold Journeys in the Transcendent Philosophy", and "Islamic Philosophy and Chinese Culture".

Chapter Six on philosophy: "Theology in Mulla Sadra and its Present Status", "The Role of Philosophy and the Philosopher's Mission", "The Backwardeness of Muslims", "The Philosophical Dialog between the East and West in the Period of Globalization", "The Philosophy of Criticism and Philosophical Criticism", and "The Sun will Rise again in the East".

Chapter Seven on practical wisdom: "The Place of Practical Wisdom in the Contemporary World", "Philosophers' Mission in the Contemporary World", "Political and Social Pluralism", and "Globalization and its Obstacles and Dilemmas".

Chapter Eight on interpretation and hermeneutics: "The Relationship between Language and Being", "The Qur'anic Interpretive and Hermeneutic Principles in Mulla Sadra", and "Perception of God's Words in Mulla Sadra's School".

In his Preface to this book, the writer says:

Being is a path for man, who, in all the stages of his worldly and other worldly life, steps on to it dynamically and experiences and views its levels one by one. Being, with all its glory, is like a stage whose actor is man, and everything, including the clouds, the wind, the moon, the sun, the heaven, and angel, are at work so that the roles of man and its hidden Director appear before our eyes. It is a stage all components of which are, more or less, in the realm of man's quest so that, by capturing them one by one in the course of a systematic process, he reaches its end and finishes his role.

Later, by referring to the whole world of being (and through implied references to the titles of the articles of this collection), the writer writes:

If in this whole we call Absolute Being, Who is the Origin of all origins, the peak of the pyramid, consider man as His primary manifestation, and view the spirit and soul as the end of the descent and beginning of the arc of ascent, a part of it will represent the two arcs of descent and ascent in the circle of Being. This is because man's soul is healthy, and his perception, which is the source of his spiritual motion, and vicegerency, which is the legacy of pre-eternity, will lead to miracles and grace and, finally, to prophethood and will be its culmination. As a result, we will have four rational journeys before us.

The first and second volumes of this collection have been published in 263 and 230 pages, respectively, with gold inlaid covers by the Sadra Islamic Philosophy Institute.