نشریه خردنامه صدرا
پیاپی 110 (زمستان 1401)

The present paper investigates the necessity of the development of social life in the view of Mullā Ṣadrā and Ibn Miskawayh in the domain of religion’s response to human needs following a comparative approach. Mullā Ṣadrā believes that the necessity of fulfilling human needs warrants the existence of law and Shar‘ as well as an individual as a prophet. Following a philosophical approach, he explains that the concept of human species is realized in their “collective identity” outside their mind and in their social schematism. Ibn Miskawayh’s standpoint, which is worth more deliberation and is perhaps unique, indicates that man’s main need for collective life is due to the necessity of responding to their intrinsic need for mutual “love and affection”, while he refers to satisfying material needs at a later level. In his view, love provides the basis for life and formation of human collective society. Mullā Ṣadrā’s view enjoys a rational and philosophical essence, whereas Ibn Miskawayh’s explanation is merely based on the presence of love and affection among human beings. However, both thinkers acknowledge that the revealed religious theorems can respond to all human worldly and other-worldly needs. Nevertheless, none of them directly and clearly emphasizes the necessity of the purification of the soul for the prophet and the divine perfect Man.

Suhrawardī has leveled five criticisms in order to demonstrate the inefficiency of the Peripatetic theory of definition and, in return, has suggested another method for defining things. This method, which is known as the “conceptual definition”, is based on a common sense understanding of the meanings of words. According to this method, words are defined through providing their conceptual bases in the view of linguists or the people of language. Here, the author firstly explains Suhrawardī’s method of defining things and then examines it critically. The critical analysis of his view reveals that the logical conclusion of his criticism of the Peripatetic theory of definition is the correction of this theory through employing intuition rather than leaving the definition of things based on their quiddity aside and advocating the theory of conceptual definition. Moreover, Suhrawardī’s theory of definition, as a replacement for its Peripatetic counterpart, suffers from several problems. Therefore, even if Suhrawardī’s objections to the Peripatetics’ theory of definition are accepted, his own method in this regard is not acceptable by itself. At the end of this paper, the author explains and criticizes the views of a contemporary researcher of Suhrawardī’s ideas who believes that the relationship between Ibn Sīnā’s and Suhrawardī’s logic of definition is one of completion rather than difference.

Following a descriptive-analytic approach, the present study investigates Mullā Ṣadrā’s view of moral motivation. He has provided two types of explanation, quiddative and graded, for man’s source of motivation for doing acts in his works. In his quiddative explanation, in line with his preceding philosophers, he attributes motivation to the first loop of the origins of emanation of act, that is, cognition and imagination. However, in most cases, he believes that the main source of motivation is related to the second loop or desire. The desire emerging after perception (concept and judgement) and before free will (consensus and resolution) motivates the doer. Accordingly, the doer might perceive and affirm the goodness of the act but not feel enthusiastic about it. However, it is also possible that they do not put their mind to doing the act they feel enthusiastic about. Hence, a contingent relation develops among the three stages. Based on the ontological and graded explanation, there is a profoundly essential unity among perception, desire, and free will, which can be interpreted as “graded introversion”. Mullā Ṣadrā’s belief in three factors, including the flow of knowledge, desire, and free will all through existence; the single identity of the soul and the unity of potentials and acts, and the dual cognitive-motivational role of practical reason, are the reasons that can contribute to explaining this type of introversion in his approach.

There is an inseparable connection between practical and theoretical wisdom. The five crafts, as a part of theoretical wisdom, can play a role in practical wisdom, which is used sometimes as knowledge and sometimes as temperament or virtue. The present study was conducted to answer the question of the extent and quality of the role that the five crafts play, firstly, in producing the cognitive elements of practical wisdom and, secondly, in the origins of the emanation of act. It also aims to identify the factors and variables in relation to the five crafts that construct the practical wisdom. The significance of explaining the relationship between the two types of wisdom lies in the fact that mental habits determine the human identity, and that the five crafts are mental habits that can play a role in determining the human life by influencing the origins of emanation of acts. As a result, they can affect all aspects of human life, such as academic, social, or political ones. In this paper, the author initially introduces the five crafts and, particularly, their common features based on logical books. Then, following a descriptive-analytic approach, he examines their effects on the elements of cognitive and temperamental practical wisdom. The first section discusses an epistemological turn of erroneous concepts and judgements, the efficiency of the methodology of practical wisdom, formation of mentally-posited concepts at the level of act, and attainment of the intellection of practical wisdom by different human beings. The second section explains the regulation of the particular task of practical wisdom, the development of the skill of matching cognitive affairs with administrative ones, affecting the cognitive origins of emanation of acts, and the formation of human acts as the results of the study.

One of the fundamental questions in the field of philosophical theology is whether God has the knowledge of particulars. Some philosophers have tried to either demonstrate or deny the divine knowledge of particulars regardless of the term “God”, which is a controversial issue. In a philosophical tradition that began with Plato and Aristotle and was advocated by Ibn Sīnā, the divine knowledge of particulars is denied. However, within the framework of the same philosophical school, Thomas Aquinas, as a theologian, demonstrates this knowledge for God. In Ibn Sīnā’s view, there is a fundamental difference between quiddity and existence as two different levels of being. The Necessary Being is the cause of granting existence to quiddities and, thus, cannot know them in terms of their particulars, as they lack “existence” in separation from Him. However, Ibn Sīnā does not deny the divine knowledge of particulars through their “existence”. In Aquinas’ theological concept of God, as a personal God, the denial of the divine knowledge of particulars defaces the divine power. Moreover, in case of denying this Knowledge, Man, who is created by God, will be placed at a higher level than their Creator because they can gain the knowledge of particulars. Aquinas, who speaks as a theologian here, ignores the borderline between philosophy and theology and objects to Ibn Sīnā by stating that some universals such as “animal” and “human” cannot function as the distinctive features of a particular such as “Socrates” in comparison to others. The present paper provides a comparative analysis of the views of these two philosophers regarding God’s knowledge of particulars.

Murtaḍā Muṭahharī, one of the prominent thinkers in the field of Islamic Philosophy, and Immanuel Kant, one of the great thinkers of Western philosophy, have presented some innovative theories in the realm of philosophy. The “theory of fiṭrah” is one of the most significant theories in Muṭahharī’s philosophical system. He maintains that Man possesses three levels of nature, instinct, and fiṭrah (primordial nature) and also divides fiṭrah itself into two parts: “fiṭrah of knowledge” and “fiṭrah of interest”. Most of Muṭahharī’s innovative ideas, particularly when explaining some topics “such as God, eternity of the soul, and ethics, have been presented in his discussions related to fiṭrah of interest.” On the other hand, as a distinguished and influential philosopher, Kant has criticized metaphysical issues, particularly problems in connection to God, immortality of the soul, and freedom, and transferred them to the realm of “practical reason” from theoretical reason. Muṭahharī’s theory of fiṭrah and, particularly, the discussion of fiṭrī interests and the related issues, such as demonstration of God, immortality of the soul, and ethics, are completely comparable to Kant’s theory of practical reason, specifically the discussion of the essential principles of practical reason, including freedom, eternity of the soul, and God. The purpose of this study is to compare Muṭahharī’s theory of fiṭrah and Kant’s theory of practical reason and to explain their common features, that is, the similarity of infinite perfection with supreme good, the similarity of their methods of demonstrating the eternity and God, and the similarity of their views as to status of philosophy of ethics. The author has followed a descriptive-analytic and comparative approach in order to conduct this study based on the data collected from these two thinkers’ works.

Heidegger has provided some innovative interpretations regarding several topics particularly in relation to human existence. His views about human beings are comparable to those of Mullā Ṣadrā in certain respects. One of them is their belief in man’s transcendence and existential width. Both thinkers maintain that man is not an entity imprisoned in itself; man, who is the source of many possibilities and is aware of them, is subject to “becoming” and can become what they are not at the present time. In other words, man can go beyond the existing situation and attain transcendence. Although there is a similarity in this regard between the thoughts of these two thinkers, it should be considered that in Mullā Ṣadrā’s ontological system, the human soul, owing to its essential immateriality, always enjoys a perception and understanding of its identity as connected to an unlimited being and infinite truth. The human soul, which entails the whole limits of being in itself, tries to grant meaning to its existence through gaining proximity and similarity to that infinite truth in the course of traversing its out-of-itself stages. The soul’s developmental journey for reaching the ultra-rational stage also continues after death. By contrast, in Heidegger’s ontological system, truth is based on Dasein, whose being real indicates that it is the only existence in the world. It also means that, without being connected to a mysterious and transcendent power, Dasein always possesses a pre-knowledge of everything that comprises the world and continually perceives things with no cover at highest levels of clarity. Therefore, Dasein relies on itself in transcendence, the continuation of which is motivated by actualizing its existential possibilities until it dies. Death is the last existential possibility of Dasein upon which it attains its end.