A Methodological Criticism of the Place of Religion in the Evaluation of the Philosophical Methodology of Mulla Sadra

A significant principle held by proponents of the philosophical methodology of Mulla Sadra is based on the distinction between contexts of justification and discovery. They hold that Mulla Sadra’s appeals to religion in his philosophy to be in the context of discovery, and thus, they are not, in their view, contrary to the philosophical method. In this paper, we claim that the prominent place of religion in Mulla Sadra’s view led to an encyclopedic conception of religion in his philosophy. Moreover, such a conception led to three significant methodological failures in his philosophy: (1) his final view not being clear as a result of including, and evaluating, the issues under the religious encyclopedia, (2) protecting the religion in his philosophical judgments, and (3) preferring certainty on the basis of divine revelation (or wahy) over rational certainty. This research concludes that, despite those people who believe in the distinction between contexts of justification and discovery, holding that Mulla Sadra relies only on discursive arguments in the former context and appeals to the religion only in the latter, the significant place of the religion in Mulla Sadra’s thought led him to draw upon the religion and its doctrines in the context of justification as well. Not only is this a counterexample for the proponents of the above view, but is also a methodological failure.