A Transcendental Systematic Theosophy in Knowing the Environment: A Case Study of the Earth

From the twentieth century onwards, the systemic thought has been focused by the intellectuals as a holistic and efficient one in studying complex systems with emphasis on understanding important principles such as “togetherness and interaction between parts”, “meaningfulness”, and “evolutionism”. Meanwhile in this case, the point which has been less paid attention to is the philosophical elaboration of such a thought. Utilizing a descriptive-analytical method, the authors of the present paper is to study the systematic thought in transcendental theosophy as a comprehensive philosophical monotheistic system and its reflection on knowing the environment, namely the Earth which is considered to be the origin and evolution of beings. Investigating the principles of transcendental theosophy ontology such as fundamentality of existence, gradation of being, transcendent unity of being, relative existence, and the motion in the category of substance show that Mullah Sadrā’s view to natural phenomena such as the Earth is based on a systemic thought and the basic principles of such a thought and its merits are reflected in his viewpoint.  In such an approach, the being is a whole with integrated parts whose integrated elements are consequential and network-fashioned, which depicts a compound one of this immense complex. As one of the most important part of a comprehensive and meaningful system (the being), the earth is evolving transcendentally toward the celestial source. Undoubtedly, such a thought opens up a new horizon to a new naturalism for those in charge of environmental issues.