A Comparative Study of Ibn Sina's and Mulla Sadra's Approaches to the Problem of Correspondence

In this paper we will study the problem of correspondence of the mental subject to the existent object from Ibn Sina's and Mulla Sadra's viewpoints. Following peripatetic principles, Ibn Sina believed in a kind of abstraction and correspondence in quiddity but in the last chapter of his Isharat, accepting a kind of intuitive perception, he considers the soul as a dynamic and evolutionary entity. So he acknowledges that the theory of abstraction is inefficient in justifying intuitive perception. He says that the soul by ontological and epistemological evolution can reduce its doubtfulness and acquire some true knowledge without abstracting it from objective reality. This problem finds a better discipline in Mulla Sadra's approach. He explicitly acknowledged the ineffectiveness of the abstraction process. Based on the thery of corporeal formation of the soul, he considers doubtfulness and indistinction of perceptions as a result of ontological defect of the soul. Having a different view on knowledge and its nature, he considers essential evolution of soul as the ladder of its improvement in knowledge. He believes that to the extent that the soul improves in essential evolution it acquires clearer conceptions.