فصلنامه حکمت اسلامی
پیاپی 33 (تابستان 1401)

In what follows, the nature of ethical good and its ontic characteristics are scrutinized. In philosophy generally and in Mulla Sadra's philosophy specifically, good is an ontic issue bearing close and inseparable ties to existence. As per the ontological approach in Mulla Sadra's ethical system, the issue of good stands on firm and strong bases. In Islamic theosophy, existence and existential perfection are mainly good and the primacy of existence theory gilds all our actions and practices with the color of existence and then adopts an ontic approach to the issue of good. Now the question is: how should we assess human and voluntary evils such as murder which ethically are not considered good? Are they acts of existence while being evils or they are both privative and evils? In other word, how can we resolve such a contradiction? For the explanation of the issue, we ought to reexamine the concept of ethical good. For the same reason, the authors have studied the nature of good, its constituents, and what there is in Mulla Sadra's system of ethics that would help us in our reexamination of ethical good.According to Mulla Sadra, a moral man/woman not only enjoys existential openness but also is characterized by divine ethics thus becomes godlike.

"Immanence" is an important and much used concept in Islamic philosophy. An inquiry into the evolution of "subsistence of immanence" suggests that the theory of immanence in a logical course from peripatetic, to illumination, and to transcendent theosophy, has passed through fundamental alterations. One influential concept in this context is that of "permeation" being the main constituent of immanence in the two peripatetic and illumination systems. Having dealt with issues such as that there are some indivisible things despite their being material and of immanence, that sense and imagined perceptions are incorporeal and void of permeation and immanence, and the challenges of the theory of immanence in divine knowledge, they have eliminated the concept of "permeation" from "immanence". Thus in transcendent theosophy, the definition of "immanence" evolved from "permeation" into the concept of "existence for other than itself" i.e. an immanent thing in a locus. It eventually paved the way for novel theories such as that accident is to be regarded as a grade of substance and that matter and form are of unified composition and the theory of subsistence of issuing.

The role of people in managing a society, since long time ago, has set up the main factor of creating a society as one important issue of political philosophy. This issue has a particular importance in Islam and Islamic philosophy. Accordingly, this essay goes to answer the question "what is the role of people and the position of acceptability in a government as per Mulla Sadra's viewpoint?"There are two different views as to this question. The first view considers Mulla Sadra's political philosophy undemocratic and authoritative. There is no room for the principle of acceptability; however, legitimacy is the main principle of a regime. Nonetheless, according to the second view -the preferred view of the essay-, Mulla Sadra believes in a religious democracy in which people play a major role in preferring the kind of government, electing a ruler and supporting him (hypothesis). In order to prove this claim, the authors have studied related parts of Mulla Sadra's political philosophy, some related verses of the Qur'an, and comments on his political views by the followers of transcendent theosophy (method).In their efforts to show the role of people in a religious democratic government (aim), the authors have come to the conclusion that, according to Mulla Sadra's view, in a religious government, the intellect is under the light of shari'ah (divine law) and acceptability falls under legitimacy, thus the society would be a utopia and an ideal city-state (findings).

Frege argues that, contrary to thoughts that are concrete entities and independent of all minds, the content of an individual's mind (sense impressions, feelings, imaginations and so on) -that he calls ideas- are incommunicable in linguistic contact. His argument is that ideas depend on the knower and thus are private. In his theory of speech acts, Searle proposes the principle of expressibility which seems to refute the possibility of incommunicability of ideas. According to the principle of expressibility, "whatever can be intended can be said". Searle claims that this principle by itself does not repudiate private language and thus does not negate the possibility of the incommunicable.In their essay, the authors try to study this principle in the light of linguistic turn, its results and epistemological implications. Searle's theory of meaning suggests that understanding of the absolute private and its being rendered into experience is not possible, and if possible, it cannot carry a meaningful expression. Accordingly, in Searle's view, even mental entities -contrary to what Frege has said- are not absolutely private and inexpressible.

The question of how to determine ethical good or bad made philosophers propose three general approaches: consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics. From among the most celebrated deontological theories, Kant's theory is known as the maximal one. In contrast, there are theories of deontology that take consequences into special consideration, as well. Shahid Sadr's view is an example of such theories that not only introduces practical reason as a faculty to determine duties like Kant, but also as per his world-view considers divine pleasure as an aim and criterion for values.  Since many studies have been carried out about Kant's theory, the main aim of this comparative research is to bring out strong and weak points of Shahid Sadr's view whose findings are as the following: a) to suggest a more precise analysis of the role of intention in ethical values; b) to propose a criterion of consequentialism free from objections raised against Kant's theory; c) to well analyze and answer the counter-examples that demonstrate Kant's view contrary to the commonsense.In contrast, Kant's strategy in his analysis of the moral law -contrary to Sadr's deontology- has the characteristic of coming out of internal orientation and thus can be presented in the frame of other concepts

There are many controversies among theologians, philosophers and exegetes of the Qur'an on how revelation comes down. One of such efforts is Mulla Sadra's view in which he makes use of demonstrative reasoning, religious texts, and mysticism as a general method in order to present an explanation compatible with the apparent meaning of religious texts. He considers five phases for revelation: immediate, intellectual, imagined, sensory, and natural revelation for holy prophet, and sensory and natural for people. In his view, when the angel of revelation comes down to the prophet it does not mean that he abandons his place, rather he manifests himself while the prophet is elevated high, as well. There are a few objections raised to Mulla Sara's view and explanation answered by the authors after the meaning and phases of revelation have been explained.

As one foremost philosophical issue, causality has been open to discussion by the philosophers since the beginning of philosophical thinking. The prima facie meaning of causality amidst those discussions might occur to the mind is external causation. In external causality, the existence of a cause is separate from that of effect. However, in another account of causation known as analytical causality, cause and effect have one identical instance i.e. the causal relation is between two different aspects of one identical thing. One main question as to analytical causality is that how and by what criterion we can distinguish one aspect as the cause and the other as the effect. Principally, how we can discern the causal priority and posteriority? Were this question not answered duly, one might confuse the instance of the cause with that of the effect. In the course of his effort, the author goes to analytically examine the criterion for causality in analytical causation. For this matter, he proposes two ways for discovering such a criterion: mutual implication and semantic comprehensiveness. He then goes on to study a few samples to show that his mechanism works well and in the end by proposing an incorrect sample demonstrates the root of error in the preceding literature when their authors came to determine instances of cause and effect.

According to the primacy of existence and the mental abstraction of quiddity, quiddity is a concept abstracted by the mind from the determination of existence of things outside i.e. from the ends or limits of existing things. There thus is a controversy among thinkers whether quiddity has an outside reality -although this reality might be in the shadow of and subordinate to existence- or it has no reality outside whatsoever? Some scholars hold that quiddity has no reality outside and it thus merely exists in the mind. The outside world is an abode for existence, alone. Nonetheless, we can truly and literally apply the concept of quiddity on existing things outside for quiddity represents them in the mind literally, rather than figuratively. Now a question inevitably occurs how a mental concept without outside reality might represent an outside thing. There are two different and unrelated things with two separate abodes -neither this is that nor that is this. This implies representation without something to be represented (referent) i.e. quiddity is representing something in the world outside without its being the referent and instance of the said quiddity; this is absurd.In their essay, the authors have tried to analytically examine the issue. The result is that correspondence between the mind and outside reality is not of quiddity but of existence. That is to say there is correspondence between two grades of existence. However, such correspondence is not between one specific existing thing to another specific, but between one superior grade of existence to another inferior one.

Philosophy for children is a modern curriculum in the course of the betterment of philosophizing and thinking for the children; this effort claims a new approach in moral education called "ethical inquiry". Liza's plan has good educational capacities for creating a sphere of caretaking creative and critical thinking, some of its principles do not match up with those of Islamic education, though. It is thus necessary to take into consideration the axiological principles of her plan in order to make use of its positive capacities. To do so, after their analytical survey of Liza's story (the story of ethical values of the plan) and its guide (ethical inquiry), the authors have brought out its axiological principles and then compared them to those of transcendent theosophy. The results show that moral education of transcendent theosophy stands on absolutism, realism in moral values, and meaningfulness of divine values. Such a moral system would determine a sphere different from that of Liza's plan of ethical inquiry with relativism in moral values, conventionalism in ethics, and meaninglessness of divine values. Of course, having maintained the principles of transcendent theosophy we can enjoy the positive capacities of Liza's plan remedying its deficiencies in the light of the comprehensive education of people who are perfect moral and God-seekers.