فهرست مطالب غلامرضا بنان

The unity of being, as the most fundamental pillar of mysticism and transcendent Wisdom, has been the locus of exchanging views among scholars in these two fields of sciences. The present study tries to investigate whether or not the individual unity of existence was reasonably proposed by philosophers before Mulla Sadra in philosophy. Shams al-Din Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Khafari is one of the philosophers of the ninth and tenth centuries AH who has raised this issue and presented an argument for it. Proposing two arguments from Khafri, including the analysis of the causality and the analysis of the unity of the concept of existence, we come to the conclusion that he has expressed the individual unity of existence in a reasoned manner during his philosophical discussions, through declaring subjects like principality of existence, particular gradation, copulative existence, and so on, long time before Mulla Sadra.

The well-known idea spread in philosophical assemblies is that transcendental philosophy has a large role on topic of existence, especially, on the principality of existence. The present essay aims at addressing the question whether the Principality of Existence has its roots in doctrines proposed by philosophers before Mulla Sadra or not? If yes, then what is their contribution to the subject?
Proposing eight arguments (drawn on Khfri’s views (9th-10th centuries H), including the impossibility of changing the state of possibility of quiddity without existence, the actualization of common technical predictions, the impossibility of concepts without tokens, the impossibility of deducing the concept of existence from quiddity, the impossibility of correspondence of the commonality of existence concept with quiddity, the existential gradation, the origin of quiddity being predicated by existence, and the cause of actualization of particular things, we come to the conclusion that he had arguably introduced the subject of Principality of existence in his works a long time before Mulla Sadra.

Since Molla Sadra’s era، various exegeses have been made of the principality of existence (isalat al-wujoud) and non-principality of quiddity which can be placed in three distinct groups: 1) common-sense exegeses، 2) philosophical exegeses، and 3) mystical exegeses. Common-sense exegesis is the one derived from a common sense viewpoint of the universe، which presupposes the quiddities external. Philosophical exegesis is due to a rational and exact viewpoint of the quiddity. In this view، quiddity is considered something that is derived from the limitation of the existence of the entities. Finally، mystical exegesis is one derived from the direct knowledge of the entities and in which quiddity is simply some mental appearance. The article shows that philosophical and mystical exegeses are correct exegeses of principality، whereas common-sense exegesis is an incorrect one that is the result of an inexact view of the quiddity.