نشریه خردنامه صدرا
پیاپی 72 (تابستان 1392)

Technically speaking, politics means the wise management and administration of society and has appeared in various forms. Some of these forms are close to the real meaning of politics and some of them are far from it. The best pattern for a political system is one with the most comprehensive program and law in order to provide for man’s happiness in every aspect of life. That is why the patterns and systems rooted in human convenience, since man is not capable of dominating everything, are imperfect and are abolished one after the other. Therefore, the best political pattern belongs to the system which has been designed by an ultra-human source (God) and has been analyzed and legislated for human beings by His Prophets.The historical development of the divine political system is divided into two general periods: The period of “prophethood”, which covers the period of the presence of the Prophets, and the period of “guardianship”, covering the period of the dominance of the heirs and representatives of the Prophets. In most philosophical schools and works reference has been made to these periods, their necessity, and features. In the field of Islamic philosophy, either explicitly or implicitly, philosophers have referred to the construction of political systems. As the most sublime and comprehensive of all philosophical schools in Islamic tradition, the Transcendent Philosophy sees itself needless of dealing with political discussions directly and extensively for several reasons. However, when necessary, it has touched this issue in the middle of many other discussions.Mulla Sadra’s political view, although similar to that of Farabi and Ibn Sina regarding its basic principles, is closer to a true philosophical view of politics because of being based on the specific principles of the Transcendent Philosophy. By “Utopia”, he means society at the national level; by “virtuous people”, he means regional communities, and by “inhabited land”, he means the world society. Accordingly, his view is closer to the Islamic teaching of the “one people”. The ruler of this society is a wayfarer who is united with God, has returned from the third mystic journey, and is now among the creatures of God.The writer believes that, in addition to the two common methods in Mulla Sadra’s works for the demonstration of the philosophical necessity of politics and the features of a divine ruler, we can adduce an ontological argument for it. This paper presents different interpretations of this argument.

The most important concern of the thinking man, after providing for his bare necessities in life, has always been to know the laws of the system of being. In this way, he can, firstly, predict future events and, secondly, understand and explain them. What initially seems to be taken for granted and presupposed is that the world is moved by the intellect. In other words, worldly events occur based on rational laws rather than by accident. More clearly, there exists in the world something called the network of the sequence of events or plan of happenings according to which all incidents are organized. Through discovering this plan with the help of the sciences of physics and mathematics, one can predict future events to some extent. However, man cannot be content merely with the prediction of future events; rather, he wishes to understand and explain them. He wants to know about the whatness of this workshop which is called the world. He also wishes to know why it works in this way and not in another way. It is at this point that man goes beyond the borderline of science and resorts to philosophy (where science leaves off and philosophy picks up). Based on his philosophical principles (principiality of existence, the graded unity of the reality of existence, the trans-substantial motion, etc), Mulla Sadra maintains that the essence of the system of being is the love of the Origin and the enthusiasm for perfection. He believes that the love of the Origin of the truth exists in the essence of all particles of existents. He also asserts that, in addition to this love, the passion for attaining perfection has also been placed in all material existents. The love of reaching ultimate perfection flows in all the constituent parts and pillars of the world. All the uproar and turmoil in the world originates in the power of love for pure perfection; a love that is accompanied with life and awareness. This love, on the one hand, protects the system of being and, on the other, is the cause of motion towards perfection.

The principle of “truth in its simplicity” is one of the fundamental principles of the Transcendent Philosophy which has been very useful in solving some complicated philosophical problems. Mulla Sadra employed it in solving certain problems such as divine knowledge, Almighty Necessary as the Source of all things, and the soul as the whole faculty. Inquiring into these principles and their applications in Sadrain philosophy plays a very important role in scrutinizing and examining the Transcendent Philosophy. A real referent of this principle is Almighty Necessary; however, its application to other cases is relative. In other words, other cases are not truly simple but are, rather, simple in comparison to cases lower than themselves. Therefore, they are not true referents of the principle of truth in its simplicity. In this paper, after referring to the historical background of this principle and analyzing it, the writers have dealt with its applications in Sadrian philosophy. Finally, they have provided a new interpretation of this principle based on the individual unity of existence.

In the Transcendent Philosophy, the knowledge of the soul is the “mother of wisdom”, “principle of happiness”, and “luminous wisdom”. Mulla Sadra believes that the human soul lacks quiddity and argues that the knowledge of it is an important condition for the knowledge of the truth of objects. In order to attain this purpose, in addition to strengthening intellectual powers, practical purification is also necessary. Based on the principles of the trans-substantial motion, these two factors comprise man’s truth. Accordingly, a clear perception of universals has a direct relationship with the essential perfection and soulish immateriality of human beings. However, most of them remain at the level of purgatorial immateriality and fail to have a clear perception of universals. According to Mulla Sadra, these universals are the same Platonic Ideas, and universal concepts originate in observing them from a distance. Thus only a few people who have reached the supreme levels of immateriality succeed in perceiving universals. In this paper, the writer has explored the reality of the soul in Mulla Sadra’s view as well as the relationship between the soul and the perception of universals. At the end of his discussion, he concludes that the disagreements among philosophers in this regard are rooted in a sense of universals that Mulla Sadra calls “diffused universal” and is a common product of imagination and the intellect. This sense and level is lower than the level of the perception of the things firmly rooted in knowledge, which are known through the perception of Ideas.

One of the important issues in contemporary epistemology is the discussion of the sources of knowledge. According to most epistemologists, these sources consist of sense perception, intellect, introspection, testimony, and memory. Following a comparative approach, this paper intends to explore and discuss two important sources of knowledge, that is, sense perception and intellect, based on the epistemological principles of Sadrian and Cartesian philosophers. Both groups consider sense-perception and the intellect as the sources of knowledge. They view intellectual perception higher than sense perception and the intellect as the main source of attaining the truth. At the same time, there exist some disagreements among them. For example, some of them believe that sense perception is the source of all sciences, and some others deny the famous view of Scholastic philosophy as to “Whatever is in our intellect must have previously been in the senses.”

The theory of “creation out of nothing” is one of the central discussions in Mulla Sadra’s ontology. Based on the theory of the trans-substantial motion and through resorting to the Qur’an, he maintains that the world is temporally originated. However, in the Peripatetic philosophy, the world is temporally eternal and essentially originated. In Illuminationist philosophy, the world is considered to be the manifestation and epiphany of the light of all lights and essentially posterior to God. Moreover, in gnosis, through resorting to immutable entities, creation out of nothing is accepted and interpreted. In the Transcendent Philosophy, by criticizing and exploring the ideas of mutikallimun and philosophers based on the theory of continuous creation and through using intellectual reasoning and illuminationist intuition, it is proved that, no other existent, except the One God, is essentially and temporally pre-eternal. The followers of this school also argue that believing in pure oneness is only possible through believing in the theory of creation out of nothing and the essential and temporal creation of the world.

The “derivative” is one of concepts that has attracted the attention of thinkers in the field of Islamic sciences and made them inquire into its constituent parts. Since Mulla Sadra’s view of the derivative has influenced his philosophical system regarding several theoretical issues such as the principiality of existence, demonstration of the trans-substantial motion, and a new approach to causality, a study of the various aspects of this concept is of great importance. Here, the writers first present the common ideas of philosophers concerning the derivative including the following: 1. The derivative consists of essence, the source of derivation, and relation, 2. The derivative consists of the source of derivation and relation, and 3. The derivative is simple and the same as the source of derivation. Then they refer to the applications of Mulla Sadra’s view concerning the concept of derivative, including some issues such as the principiality of existence, a new approach to causality, the critique of the theory of dhawq ta’alluh (taste of being devout), unity of the annexation and the annexed, demonstration of the trans-substantial motion, negation of the subject in the trans-substantial motion, unity of knowledge, the knower, and the known, and denying synthesis to the essence of the Necessary.