فصلنامه آینه معرفت
پیاپی 26 (بهار 1390)

The highest level of theorization and the exaltation of worldview and the wonderful deep image of the unity of creation can be seen in the way the concept of ‘haqiqah and raqiqah’ or the graded unity of being has been used in transcendental wisdom. This was Sadra’s initiative which was introduced and made the competing schools of philosophy lag behind. This concept has been used extensively in philosophical explanations. The followers of the transcendental wisdom, based on their common logic, have interpreted it as the predication of ‘hiqiqah and raqiqah’ and have used it in explaining the unity of apparently incompatible predicates. This concept has been very useful in dealing with a large number of philosophical issues and has played a major role in depicting the truth of the unity of existence and in explaining multiplicity and apparent inconsistency. Since this concept has not been studied as an independent topic, the present article intends to examine its position and importance in the area of worldview and to delineate its uses by drawing on transcendentalist philosophers. The secondary purpose is to deal with its conceptualization with an emphasis on its uses.

Sohravardi’s illuminative theosophy includes innovative principles that one cannot find in the Peripatetic theosophy. It has become the basis for the subsequent generations of thinkers and has emerged as a turning point in the history of philosophy. The doctrine of Izafeye Ishraqiyyeh (illumiationist relation), which has been introduced as an explanation for the relation between cause and its effect, is one of the foundational principles of this philosophy. Since the causal relation necessarily leads to the relation between the creator and creature, Moslem philosophers before Sohravardi tried to prove a deep relation between the two. As an example, Avicenna, by holding that the contingent is a composite of existence and quiddity and that the essential possibility of quiddity is the criterion of the dependency of entity to its cause considered the contingent as dependent on its cause for its existence. By rejecting some of the Peripatetic principles on the basis of Izafeye Ishraqiyyeh, Sohravari held that the effect has an illuminational relation with its cause and in this way he replaced contingency with luminous need. With such an interpretation, a deeper relation between the cause and its effect was established. Davani and Mirdamad are among the followers of this theory who, despite giving a new interpretation of his theory to evade its defects, preferred Sohravardi’s views to Avicenna’s.

According to Mulla Sadra, the right path that prophets have walked through is the true monotheism, which is based on the two principles of ‘unity in plurality’ and ‘plurality in unity’. For monotheists at that level of monotheism, people are not the veil of God and God is not the veil of people. In his works, Mulla Sadra tries to explain this right path with the maxim: ‘The ultimately simple is all things and is not any one of them’; the theme whose origins can be traced back to Plotinus and Ibn Arabi and his followers who have discussed it by interpretations such as ‘the plurality in unity’. In Ibn Arabi’s mysticism, God is the absolute being and the absolute being does not leave any space for the other, even in a dependent or related form of existence. This issue that is known as ‘personal unity of being’ has had the opportunity to be explained by Mulla Sadra. By expressing the well known saying that understanding the personal unity of being necessitates a level of understanding which exceeds the level of intellect, Mulla Sadra claims that he has been subjected to divine grace and that he has understood the personal unity of being at the level of intellect and has brought forward arguments for his claim in his works. The present article aims at stating the base of the ultimately simple and explaining it through two statements of ‘analogical unity’ and ‘personal unity of existence’. An effort is made to adjust this maxim to the Sufis’ sayings and to find the similarities and differences.

The concept of explanation is among the major concepts of the philosophy of science whose relation with the principle of causality has been the center of a large number of discussions. Until the time positivism appeared, the common view was that the explanation of a phenomenon was synonymous with the statement of its causes. However, some of the positivists tried to define the concept of explanation through translating the explanatory relation to a an inferential logical relation. By drawing on the views of contemporary followers of the principle of causality and examining the problems identified with positivism, the present article intends to clarify the point that the separation of the concept of explanation from the concept of causality is the underlying reason for the doubt raised on the totality and necessity of scientific laws and the baselessness of scientific predictions. The main argument is that due to central role of the concept of the necessity of causality in the description and explanation of scientific research, it is vital to both physics and metaphysics.

Space is the place for an object and empty space is the place devoid of any physical matter. Nowadays, these two concepts are taken for granted. However, based on the current state of knowledge, the two concepts of place and space are not considered the same; the former refers to the object and the latter to its environment. In general, there are two views about place. One considers it as the outer surface of object and the second views it as the three dimensions of space which encloses the object. Aristotle viewed place as the inner surface of the enclosing object or the outer surface of the enclosed one. Avicenna tried to support the view that the place of matter is neither the surface of dimension nor empty space; therefore, it is the ultimate border of the mentioned surface. To establish this concept, Avicenna tried to reject empty space with different arguments.According to Abulbarakat Baghdadi for the same reasons that place can be surface it can also be space; therefore, place refers to the whole space occupied by the object. It seems that Avicenna and Abulbarakat are each representative of one of the two views expressed about space. With regard to empty space which is considered an impossibility by Avicenna, Abulbarakat rejects this view in detail and tries to prove the possibility of empty space.

In Aristotle’s explanation and definition of ‘time’, two aspects can be found which are apparently inconsistent. On the one hand, Aristotle defines time as ‘number of motion with respect to the before and the after’. On the other hand, none of his works evidence a continuous definition of number. Thus, it seems that he has considered time both continuous and discontinuous. The present article is an attempt to remove the ambiguity from his definition. Inspired by Aristotle himself and drawing on his commentator’s suggested solutions, the article has tried to present a better more comprehensive solution for the inconsistency. The gist of the argument is that, first, number in the definition of time is not the so called ‘counting number’ (e.g. 2 and 3) but it is the ‘countable number’ (e.g. 2 meters or 3 hours); and second, it is by the interference of the soul as the agent of the recognition of the before and after of the movement that time assumes an enumerative state. The emphasis on the role of the soul as the agent of the recognition can be regarded as the innovative aspect of the present article in disambiguating Aristotle’s definition of time.

Imamiyah, Ash’ariyyah and Mu’tazila theologians have expressed their views in their works with reference to Quranic verses, and they have done so even when trying to condemn one another for the expressed views. The question raised is whether the followers of different theological schools have paid enough attention to the context of the verses they have referred to and whether the context of use can be the source of different interpretations. Alamah Shushtari in Ehghagh-Al Hagh has drawn on Allameh Helli for Shiite theology and to Roozbehan for Ash’ari theology to provide support for the Shiite theological views and a critique of Ash’ari theological views. In their discussions, there are references to Quranic verses. The present article intends to explore the three theologians’ references to Quranic verses from the perspective of their context of use. The exploration will clarify the point that Roozbehan, in his reference to verse No. 143/Araf in his discussion of the vision of God, has misinterpreted the verse by using it in a physical sense and by doing so has imposed his theological view on its interpretation. Due to their efforts to reject Roozbehani’s views and in effect the Ash’ari theological views Alameh Helli and Ghazi Shushtari, have, to some extent, ignored the verse’s content of use.