Suhrawardi on Existence: A Critical Study

In peripatetic philosophy Existence is the subject matter and it is the basis of the Peripatetic’s philosophical system, including theology, cosmology and ontology. Suhrawardi analyzes the view of Peripatetic philosophers about existence in the light of its relation to essence. In his view, existence as a general concept is only in the mind But peripatetic philosophers consider it an objective matter and have confused the rules of mental concepts with objective matters. Hence, Suhrawardi believes that the Peripatetic philosophers in the discussion of existence have been confronted with the fallacy of mind and object, which leads to internal incompatibility in the Peripatetic philosophical system. By expressing this confusion, he concludes that existence is a consideration of mind and therefore, changes the problems of philosophy from ontology to theory of light. In this article, by analytical and critical method, first discuss Suhrawardi's understanding of existence and its relation to essence, and then, relying on the views of Peripatetic philosophers, we express Suhrawardi's misunderstanding from his point of view, and in the last stage, Suhrawardi's opinion is criticized in detail. Among Suhrawardi's fallacies in understanding the views of peripatetic philosophers about existence, we can state the Epistemological fallacies in understanding of existence, confusion of accident with accidental, confusion of nonconditioned essence with the conditioned with something essence, confusion of reason with mind, confusion of kinds of distinctions between existence and essence, and confusion of secondary philosophical ineligibles with logical.