نشریه حکمت صدرایی
سال سوم شماره 2 (پیاپی 6، بهار و تابستان 1394)

«Tawil» (hermeneutic) is a very common and influential keyword in theological، philosophical، mystical، and religious epistemological literature. Transcendent philosophers and mystics believe that «Tawil» is also related to ontology and that the roots of the esoteric meanings of terms and concepts are laid in this field. Exposing the relation between these two fields is one of the most important goals of transcendent philosophers which also removes doubts beforehand. Magnifying the intention of these scholars by appropriate «Tawil» and its foundations، the necessity of using the esoteric meaning to unearth facts of the book of «TADWIN» and the book of «TAKWIN» (existence)، unique effect of monistic attitude about the universe، and prioritizing religious thoughts، like esoteric and exoteric meaning، are the main goals of this article in clarifying the process of «Tawil». Another result of this article is to prove that the claims of exoterisits in the denial of «Tawil» and the accusation of extremist esotericism against their rivals is a fallacy. Exoterists have faced the application of intellectual and intuitive rules to get the profound meaning of religious literature with fanatical disputes and attacks. In this regard، the Transcendent Philosophers are targets of accusation. Therefore، it requires to address the process of using «Tawil» to explain the religious literature with a comprehensive consideration of terms and concepts، and of the book of «TADWIN» and the book of «TAKWIN». In this article، I shall demonstrate the novelty of innovative approaches of Transcendent Philosophy، a way to obtain esoteric meaning while the exoteric meaning is kept unchanged، in facing to religious literature، and the fruitfulness of these approaches for reaching profound meanings of enlightening religious doctrines.

Belief in the walāya and the necessity of its continuity at all times has been considered as one of the principal and significant doctrines of Muslims in general and Shi’ā in particular without which religion is meaningless. The present paper aims to depict a reasonable framework based on the philosophical basis of Mulla Sadra in order to explain the above mentioned doctrine. Imams are exemplars of walāya and they were responsible to lead creatures after the prophecy. Relying on the opinions and works of Mulla Sadra, the author attempts to explain the distinguished place of the doctrine of walāya, the possibility of achieving it and continuous human need for it.

The relationship between religion and philosophy as knowledge systems and study of their interactions has always been an important issue in religious and philosophical thought that has a large influence in clarifying the meaning of religious philosophy. Islamic philosophers’ views on this issue can be investigated in a uniform pattern. Based on this pattern, each philosopher studies the relationship between religion and philosophy in two stages: creation and understanding. Each philosopher, according to his views about the relationship between religion and philosophy in the creation stage, describes how to transmit the religious doctrines into philosophy. Mulla Sadra's view about the relationship between religion and philosophy can be considered in two stages: creation and understanding. The relationship between religion and philosophy in the creation stage have different sections: origins, methods, problems, language, time and the relationship between prophet and philosopher. In this theory, religion and philosophy are united in method and problems, but these are different in degrees. The result of this difference appears in language and temporal relationship between religion and philosophy. The language of religion Includes argument and a logical method that is a weakened version of argumentative methods. To access the truth, philosophers should adopt the teachings of the prophets. Thus the philosophy should be founded later than religion. The relationship between religion and philosophy in the understanding stage includes the language and esoteric methods for obtaining the valid meaning of religious texts that are stating the truth. Accordingly, methods of interpretation can be employed to achieve religious philosophy.

Estimation is an important faculty in the faculties of the soul. It has an important role in psychology and other research areas including epistemology, ethics and mysticism. Estimation causes errors of mind in understanding the universal notions and helps reason to understand the particular notions. According to Mulla Sadra, estimation is an immaterial faculty which is not independent. Mulla Sadra believes that estimation is the reason which descends to a lower level. The role of estimation in errors of mind is more significant for philosophers than other thinkers. Thus, Mulla Sadra held it to be the source of faults of the mind and gateway of Satan to deceive human. From his point of view, estimation, in tandem with satanic temptations, is the source of some human behaviors. In addition, it causes obstacles in mystical seeking. In this paper, we shall analyze Mulla Sadra’s account of the nature of estimation and its relationship with reason. Then we will attempt to analyze the Estimation's role in ethics and mysticism.

Q24: 35 (known as the verse of the Light) is among the verses that have been interpreted by some philosophers, some of whom are Avicenna and Mulla Sadra. Avicenna suggests a purely philosophical interpretation and understands the analogies of the verse as the levels of theoretical reason. By contrast, based on the notions of principality and gradation of existence, Mulla Sadra tries to come up with a system of divine grace descent and adapts the analogies of the verse to this system. It is important that although Mulla Sadra tries to prove the existence of God as the Light through Peripatetic approaches, his exegesis of the verse preserves its mystical approach as well as its philosophical one.The difference in aims, attitudes, exegetical methods and the degree to which they consider the apparent meaning are the main factors which distinguish Avicenna from Mulla Sadra on the Exegesis of Q24: 35.

In this article, Mulla Sadra’s account of the problem of evil is considered. He is one of the philosophers who attempt to provide logical solutions for the problems which stem from divine attributes (omniscience, omnipotence and goodness) by appeal to the bases of Transcendent Philosophy and thus defend God’s omniscience, omnipotence, goodness, wisdom and defend this world to be the best possible one. The most basic factor in answering the doubts in this respect is principality of existence and his basic solutions in this respect, as in the case of some Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, follow the model of understanding evil to be nonexistent and accidentally made. Mulla Sadra’s innovation, however, is his use of the principle of principality of existence and its equivalence to goodness. Moreover, he makes use of a priori and a posteriori arguments to solve the problem. Therefore, by solving the problem of evil, he suggests solutions for the problem of dualism and gives way to monotheism. We provide this discussion in following article.

Mulla Sadra as a great Islamic philosopher has provided various expositions about God-knowledge and self-knowledge in his various works. These expositions have been counted and they exceed to ten, including: idea and form, the perfect man, the nucleus of the nucleus of the human crust, thralldom, immateriality of the soul, “There is no cause in Being but Allah”, the first intellect, the evolution of man, the universe-knowledge and the connective being, At first glance, it seems that these independent expositions are the interpretation of this tradition: "the person who knows himself knows his God". By examining whether the knowledge in these cases is acquired or intuitive and whether self-knowledge and God-knowledge are the same or different, these ten expositions trace back to "the connective being". Therefore, according to the studies, it seems that these expositions which sounded independent and irrelevant to each other, are actually the different aspects of a single one.

Mir Damad’s idea of essentially made is the theory of simple making of Quiddity. According to his description, because of essential need of possible being to creative cause, its essence and quiddity is the thing that becomes real in the process of making, not the accidental such as existence or qualification. Detailed studies of his theory depend on recognizing the meaning of "existence" and “quiddity" in his works and understanding two main properties of quiddity: being hypothetical (taqdir) and being real. According to Mir Damad, the process of making and creation is the action of going out from being hypothetical to being real and nothing is added to quiddity. When quiddity became real, “existence”, as a mental nature, is perceived. Thus, the ascription of existence to quiddity is a composite making. Because Mir Damad has regarded in his argument for the simple making of quiddity, the negative aspect of essential possibility as the same thing with real quiddity, he does not believe in principality of quiddity in the sense in which it is negated in the transcendental philosophy.

Suhrawardi believes that the visual perception is the greatest perception. He begins the illuminative epistemology with the vision (Ibṣār) and develops the illuminative principle of vision to the extent that it includes the higher-order perceptions. So, in order to understand the nature of intuitive knowledge in the illuminative epistemology, one should begin by exploring the notion of vision. On the other hand, Mulla Sadra, whose philosophy is based on the notion of principality and simplicity of existence, traces the soul vision back to its simplicity, detachment and existential encompassment. According to Mulla Sadra, what soul perceives is immaterial and of its natural affairs which is emanated by divine power. So, what soul perceives is its essential object of perception. In other words, self-knowledge is in fact the manifestation of soul’s internal objects of perception which manifests in the material world in the form of faculty perception which prepares soul perception. Thus, self-knowledge stems from its unity in the ascending arc and its creativity in the descending one.