A Comparative Study of Iranian Models of Education and other Schools of Education

The concept of education and man are concomitant concepts. That is to say, wherever man begins to live, the issue of education came into being. The necessary role of education in human life is an inevitable and evident fact. The authors of the present article intend to explain the views of the two Iranian-Islamic philosophers, namely Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra concerning the models of education. Philosophical anthropology in Suhrawardi’s philosophy enjoys an important place, and it is impossible to provide education without sufficient knowledge of man. Accordingly, in his view the first step is to attain self-knowledge. Subject gives meaning to any kind of knowledge that enters the mind. Thus knowledge is determined on the bases of certain internal intuitions and man is brought up through his rational faculty following which one can form certain pattern to contain his knowledge. Suhrawardi seeks to connect reason and gnosis so that in the light of which man can get proper education and attain the station of lordliness. But Mulla Sadra maintains that perceptual activity of the soul- directly or indirectly- begins through the senses. Soul by nature lacks any kind of knowledge. On the one hand, man can earn knowledge through confronting with objective and sensible things. On the other hand, by means of his faculty of imagination can attain the reality of the matters. It is provided that the faculty of imagination follows the right path in the light of the growth of reason and thought. Apart from his common ground with Suhrawardi, Mulla Sadra refers to his doctrine of the substantial motion according to which the soul can ascend from the lowest level to his highest substantial level. Suhrawardi’s intuitionism and Mulla Sadra’s belief in substantial motion of the soul constitutes the most important distinction between the views of these two great philosophers.