Mulla Sadra's Life, works, and Philosophy

Prof.S.M.Khamenei

One of the other reasons for the descendants of Mulla Sadra to remain unknown could be their personal characteristics. It is said that all or most of them were unpretentious and isolated people who did not write much. What is more, they did not show their interest in Transendent Philosophy and theoretical gnosis, and this might have been due to their trying to keep away from their enemies' idle talk.

Public opinion is developed over time, dies out in the same way, and is replaced by new ideas and attitudes. In every society people advocate and praise something every once in a while and after some time turn their back to it and go after something else. Once in Islamic societies, the science of hadith and Quranic literature and speaking in theological terms brought fame for scholars. Later, philosophy and logic replaced them, and then gnosis in its mystic sense attracted people's attention for some centuries. However, in the Safavid era a movement was developed in advocating the sunna and hadith, originating from the Hanbali school of thought in Hedjaz, and particularly the traditionists (muhaddithun) of the holy cities of Mecca and Madina. The missionaries and representatives of this school of thought were Mulla Muhammad Amin Astarabadi and Shaykh Muhammad Astarabadi, who had lived in these holy cities for years.

This movement was not only in contrast with rational sciences, theology, philosophy and gnostic sciences, but also stood against ijtihadi jurisprudence. The pioneers of this movement founded and publicized the school of traditionalism (akhbariyyun) against the principles of jurisprudence. The publicity and demagogy of this newly developed school of thought was so extensive that it created a big generation gap and even Majlesi II, i.e. Mulla Muhammad Baqir, who was the son of a great philosopher, jurisprudent and mystic (arif) suchas Mulla Muhammad Taqi Majlisi (Majlisi I), followed traditionists as a real enemy of philosophy and philosophers, mysticysm and mystics, and gnosis and gnostics, claimed his heroic defence of tradition, and provided the basis for ostracizing and excommunicating the people of intellect and reason.

A thorough study of the biographies of people living after Mulla Sadra and even during his time and Mir Damad's lifetime, and the books and works written in these periods reveals the depth of the influence of this culture on public opinion, young people and seminary students. It also shows how the thinkers of that period did not dare to speak of philosophy and gnosis before the downfall of Safavids, and in order to preserve their dignity and even protect their life, pretended to keeping away from philosophy, rational sciences, knowledge, and gnosis. This is the reason why such a knowledable gnostic as Fayd finds refuge in studying hadith and ethics, and seeks shelter in a corner somewhere around Kashan. It is also why a philosopher such as Mulla Abdullah Lahiji writes books on theology and pretends to believing in the principiality of quiddity, or Mulla Sadra's son writes a commentary on Sharh-i lama'a and keeps so much away from philosophy and gnosis or even expresses such disgust for them that deviators from the sciences of the Prophet's Family (ahl-al bayt) write يخرج الحی من الميت.(He bringeth forth the living from the dead) about him.

Such seclusion and precautionary dissimulation even affects their children and descendants and, as mentioned before, Mulla Hassan, the son of Fayyad Lahiji and Mulla Sadra's grandson, in spite of all his knowledge of rational sciences, follows the same trend in Qum.

 

Abstracts

The Possibility of a dialogue between Islamic Philosophy and Western Phenomenology

By : Dr.Davari

In this article the author aims to reveal the common grounds between Islamic philosophy and phenomenology. The focus of the paper is on comparing Mirib Sadra's views with those of Edmond Husserl and revealing their commonalities. The writer believes that the issues which can provide the yiiBMl for having this dialogue consist of the following:

1. The rational soul in Islamic Philosophy and the intentionality of the mind in western phenomenology;

2. Transition from the first disposition to the second in Islamic philosophy and Epoche and transcendental reduction in western phenomenology;

3. Man's pre-eternal promise (ahdi alast) and its renewal with the help of prophets in Islamic philosophy and "bracketing" the existence of things in western phenomenology;

4. The simple and composite types of knowledge in Islamic philosophy and the suspension and ceasing of judgment in western phenomenology.

5. The Sophia Prennis in Islamic philosophy and the revival of philosophy in western phenomenology.

 

The Theory of the Principiality and Vision of Existence in Mulla Sadra

By : Maghsoud Mohammadi

The thingness of contingent existents is of two types:

1. The thingness of existence: the appearance of the contingent at one of the levels of existence.

2. The thingness of quiddity: the visibility and appearance of quiddity in the intellect. This means that the existence of things is witnessed and their quiddity is intelligible.

In Mulla Sadra's view, the witnessed existence is genuine, that is, it is realized essentially and without an intermediary, while quiddity is mentally-posited and is realized because of existence.

 

Wttayah and Wali in Shaykh Najm al-Din Kubra and

Rumi's Mysticism

By :Mahmud Yazdi Motlaq(Fazel)

This paper is devoted to a study of the place of wilayah and wait in the mystical ideas of Shaykh Najm al-Din Kubra. The writer has also provided a short comparison of Shaykh's ideas in this regard with those of Rumi. The paper begins with an extensive report on Shaykh's status among mystics, his biography, and his works. Considering his religion, two views are presented here. According to the first he is Shafiiand according to the second, with which the writer seems to be more in agreement and has presented some evidence in this regard, he is Shiite. The rest of the article deals with probing into, expounding, and clarifying the place of wilayah and wait in Shaykh Najma al-Din Kubra's mysticism.

 

Practical Wisdom in Mulla Sadra's Transcendent Philosophy

By : Dr.Reza Akbarian

Mulla Sadra evaluates and analyses practical wisdom within the framework of his own system of philosophy and maintains that it is an optional and rational attempt to improve the self and collective life and, at the same time, attain divine goals and happiness. The practical wisdom portrayed by Mulla Sadra is completely different from that of Greek philosophers; it is by no means a purely philosophical system, lacking any relationship to religion.

 

The Identity of Islamic Philosophy

By :Saeed Rahimian

The main question of this paper is whether there exists something called Islamic Philosophy, and whether it possesses a genuine identity and an independent reality.

In the first place, this question might appear surprising and almost irrelevant, since the abundance of books and writings on the history of philosophy and philosophical schools in the world of Islam makes such discussions unnecessary; however, if we return to the roots of the discussion, we will find such questions worthy of reflection and scrutiny.

The author's main purpose in writing this paper is to explicate the relationship between philosophy as metaphysics and the science of ontology (which is the dominant trend shared by Islamic philosophy, Christian philosophy, and a part of Greek philosophy) and Islam.

 

The Quantity and Quality of Continuous Conditional Propositions in Ibn Sina's Logic

By :Morteza Haj Hosseini

It was Ibn-Sina who, for the first time in the history of logic, discussed the quantity and quality of conditional propositions in detail and explained the authenticity of their generality and particularity in simple terms. He also determined the place of affirmation and negation in conditional propositions, and discovered a number of different points through his analyses of the issue. However, he mixed the ordinary logic of conditionals with their modal logic so that, due to some contradictions, no specific formal system about conditionals could be derived from the resulting logic.He was also the first person who started the discussion of conditional conjunctive syllogism, and it seems that he intended to base conditional logic on categorical logic through comparing conditional and predicative propositions with each other and pinpointing their similarities.

 

On the Teleology of Perception

By : William C.Chittich

Mulla Sadra's primary philosophical project is to map out the path of achieving the soul's perfection. His several well-known contributions to the philosophical vocabulary, such as the "systematic ambiguity" (tashkik) of existence and "substantial motion," were all developed to explain how the soul enters into this world through corporealization and departs from it by way of spiritualization. His remarkably detailed investigations of the modalities of afterworldly experience simply illustrate his desire to explain the full range of possibilities that are open to the h uman soul. In order to grasp the role of perception in his overall project, it is necessary to understand the end toward which perception is directed and the nature of its final fruition. The soul perceives by nature, so much so that perception enters into its very definition. In and of themselves, however, the varieties of perception possessed by the animal soul do not suffice for the achievement of human perfection, though perception remains an essential attribute of the soul. Human efforts to cleanse perception of distortion play a key role in the soul's unfolding. The most important concept here is probably tajrid, "disengagement", which designates the act of freeing perception from its entrancement by embodied and materialised forms and training it to focus on the forms in themselves, that is, the forms in their intellective existence, where they are innately disengaged and "separate" (mufariq) from every trace of material existence. The final goal is the transmutation of perception through the full development of the acquired intellect. Then the soul will be able to perceive the forms for what they truly are on all planes of existence, including the endless worlds of the afterlife.

 

The Religious Government in Mulla Sadra's Philosophy

By : Najaf Lak Zaei

The main theme of this paper, after confirming the principle of the necessity of the existence of government, is whether the government should be religious or non-religious. Another question here is: "what do religious governments do that non-religious ones do not?" The answers to these questions can be found by paying attention to the difference between the two interpretations of the concept of politics in Mulla Sadra's political thought:

1- Politics in the school of power

2- Politics in Transcendent Philosophy as the school of guidance The most basic expectation from a religious government and its most important responsibility is following the Divine laws. The law is a human issue in non-religious governments; however, it is a divine affair which is beyond man's control in religious governments. All affairs and activities in a religious government are programmed is such a way that no harm is done to the Divine laws, while it is not the case with non-religious governments.... Mulla Sadra later discusses the domain of the responsibilities of the government and emphasizes that in order to secure God's intention in creating man, the government should devote itself to providing for people's life to attain the ultimate goal which is resurrection.

What is nowadays recognized as "development" will bring about happiness for man, provided that he looks at the world as a preliminary to the Hereafter. Otherwise, it will result in different moral, environmental, and cultural threats for human beings.

 

The Philosophical Dimensions of the Theory of the Innateness of Language

By: M.Moradiyan

This paper presents a study of the philosophical dimensions of the innateness of language. In this regard, reference has been made to the ideas of Chomsky, De Saussaure, Descartes, Kant, Russell, Plato, and Aristotle. The writers of this article have paid special attention to understanding the relationships between the structure of language and the structure of mind, or the relationships between syntax and logic, and believe that they are inseparable from each other.

The article consists of two main parts. The first part is devoted to a study of a number of linguistic research activities which deal with the nature of mind, and the second part deals with topics such as the innateness of linguistic competence, the existence of innate grammar, and generative grammar through resorting to the traditional realistic philosophy.