Existential and Epistemological Explanation of Faculty of Memory in Islamic Philosophy

One of the most important inner faculties of soul is the faculty of memory. The present article deals with this faculty in existential and epistemological realms both. In the existential realm, the general tendency of Muslim philosophers towards reductive approach concerning inner faculties of soul is reasonable. However, because of the distinctive attitude of contemporary philosophers towards this faculty and its functions, existential autonomy is the most likely idea. In the epistemological approach, considering the analogous approach of Mulla Sadra and contemporary Muslim philosophers, the functions of memorizing and retrieving meanings both are dealt with in the context of presence and abstraction. In this realm, the probability of labeling the process of retrieving as fallible due to the imperfection and lack of intensification of certain souls is being explained. On the issue of the quality of the correspondence of the meanings of memory, the article has taken into consideration Mulla Sadra’s approach and particularly Ayatollah Mesbah’s one concerning gradation of intuitive perceptions and the theory of the unity of the intelligent and the intelligible as the platform of the transcendence of soul in terms of degrees of intuitive knowledge and achieving the final goal of affection.