ali asghar yazdanbakhsh; jahangir masoudi; Abbas Javareshkyan
Abstract
Introduction There have always been two viewpoints on the human rights in the history of Western philosophy: some philosophers adhere to Natural Law, while the others follow Positive Law. Among modern philosophers, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, and among the contemporary ones, Lon L. Fuller and John ...
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Introduction There have always been two viewpoints on the human rights in the history of Western philosophy: some philosophers adhere to Natural Law, while the others follow Positive Law. Among modern philosophers, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, and among the contemporary ones, Lon L. Fuller and John Finnis, are known to be followers of natural law. Positive law refers to the rights established by the legislator and recognized through interpersonal conventions and contracts; people and states may establish or lift them. As a matter of fact, this kind of law is focused on a set of rules and regulations which gains force through guarantee and acceptance of social institutions and governs a certain community during a specified time frame. Natural law, with its characteristics, i.e. universality, necessity, and stability, began to popularize in the West in the third century AD, but it is rather newly-established among Islamic scholar. It constitutes the origin of many governing rules in communities, so this topic deserves considerable debate and discussion by Islamic scholars. Rights, observance, setting up justice, and preventing injustice are of utmost importance in Islamic teachings; they also influence many religious acts, and Islamic doctrines strongly enjoin it and emphasize its moral, legal, and ideological necessity. Undoubtedly, the concept of human rights is one of the modern challenges facing Islam in comparison with the West, and it is going to take a more serious form in the future. The current paper did not search for strong and weak points of the theory of rational decency and obscenity and natural human rights and did not pass any judgment thereof; this paper aimed to analyze the ideas of Sadr al-Din Shirazi (Mulla Sadra) as the founder of transcendental philosophy/theosophy, esp. the theory of decency and obscenity, and sought to answer the following question from his viewpoint: In Mulla Sadra’s opinion, are decency and obscenity rational and inherent? If so, is it possible to attribute the belief in natural human rights to him? The Study of these items from the viewpoint of Mulla Sadra and the analysis and evaluation of them will provide answers to above questions. The current paper focused on proving the following line of argument based on its multiple premises: - Premise 1: Duties/obligations bring rights with them. - Premise 2: Duties are congeneric with their rights. For instance, if a duty is conventional, its interrelated right will be conventional too, and if it is religious, i.e. originating in a divine command, the interrelated right will be religious too, having its roots in a divine command and providence. - From Mulla Sadra’s perspective, duties, decencies, and obscenities are inherent. Conclusion: Mulla Sadra believes that rights accompanying duties are inherent, incorporated in the center of reality. Apophatic interpretation of the duty as it is necessary to respect the freedom/ liberties of humans (It is decent to respect the freedom of humans.) consists in: “Humans should not be deprived of freedom.” (It is obscene to deprive humans of the freedom.) This duty is interrelated with a human right: humans enjoy the right to freedom. 2. Methods and Material we did this within the framework of Mulla Sadra’s perspective on ethical values. The data were gathered through library research and the conclusions were reached using a logical, deductive method. 3. Results and Discussion Although the discussion of rights is apparently different from the discussion of ethical values, these two topics can be linked according to some views; the foundations raised in one area can be extended to another, and we may conclude that although Mulla Sadra did not expressly state his acceptance of natural human rights, his ideas were in conformity with Inherent Natural Rights based on evidence and rational reasoning taken from his moral views. 4. Conclusion This paper used sufficient evidence to show that the theory of Mulla Sadra chosen in this regard was rational and inherent decency and obscenity. Regarding the question of Mulla Sadra belief in rational or inherent decency and obscenity, this paper answered that he believed in inherent, and not divine, decency and obscenity, in terms of ontology (real/outside world and universe of permanent positiveness) and believed in rational decency and obscenity in terms of epistemology (understanding and proving), not religious decency and obscenity. Ash’aris supported divine and religious decency and obscenity, but Mulla Sadra said this view would dispel wisdom, reason, and religion. In relation to understanding decency and obscenity and the intellectual ability of humans, Mull Sadra maintained that only a perfect human was able to grasp the inherent properties of acts not all people. In addition, different views on the contradiction and interrelation of rights and duties were covered, and it was proved that most scholars approved the existence of a relationship between natural human rights and belief in inherent and rational decency and obscenity. Only those who accept inherent decency and obscenity may support natural, innate rights, because the duties are congeneric with their interrelated rights. Thus Mulla Sadra who was a moral realist and believed in inherent decency and obscenity and considered all duties, decencies, and obscenities inherent would adhere to inherence or naturalness of rights. In summary, Mulla Sadra believed that humans, qua humans, enjoy universal, necessary, fixed rights which result from their nature and character, unaffected by time and space. These rights which are in total coordination with creation and universe are called Natural, Inherent, or Innate rights. Although Mulla Sadra did not mention explicitly the inherent decency and obscenity of duties and the inherence and naturalness of humans rights, it is possible to deduce these two points from his theoretical foundations and some views plus supporting premises.
mahbobeh rajaei; seyd morteza hosseini shahroudi; Abbas Javareshkyan
Abstract
In Mulla Sadra’s work, we encounter two different meanings of the terms substance and accident. One is the well-known meaning according to which contingent beings divide into substances and accidents: like first philosophers Mulla Sadra defines substance as a being not in the subject, and accident ...
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In Mulla Sadra’s work, we encounter two different meanings of the terms substance and accident. One is the well-known meaning according to which contingent beings divide into substances and accidents: like first philosophers Mulla Sadra defines substance as a being not in the subject, and accident as a being in the subject. More precisely, substance is a quiddity which is not in the subject, not a property of something else, and accident is a quiddity in the subject, not needed by the subject, a property of something else. Thus, from this point of view both substance and accident are quiddities. God falls into neither of the two above defined categories, because in the division it is the quiddity which is divided; hence Mulla Sadra considers “non-substance” as a negative divine attribute, providing some arguments for his claim. He proposes another meaning for the duality of substance and accident founded upon components of his own philosophy such as the primacy of existence (asālat al-wūjūd), hypostatic unity of being (waḥdat shakhsī wūjūd), and ontological indigence (faqr wūjūdi). Based on the primacy of existence, he redefines quiddity as a shade (ẓīl) of existence. Therefore, quiddity is not divided into substance and accident, but the latter two are both existential. Next, invoking the principle of hypostatic unity of being, he states that it is only the true unified Being who deserves the title substance, describing as accidents other beings which are his manifestations. Through explaining ontological indigence he also proves that the realization of indigent existence depends on rich existence and compared to him everything in the universe is pure dependence (rabṭ) and mere indigence, and considered a mode and manifestation of him. The substance is he who is independent and essentially rich, and the rest which are the manifestation of dependence count as accidents. Mulla Sadra matches the two meanings together. Everything in the universe is a manifestation of a particular name of God. Thus, just as parts of the universe are divided into genus, species, individuals, and substances, so the division is found in the names of God; and just as the truth of substances is veiled by accidents, so the divine essence is veiled by its names and attributes; and just as attributes such as species - some of which are more general and some more particular as with close and distant species and their correlatives – together with which the substance is a particular genus or type, so some of divine attributes are more general and more permeating and some more particular and less permeating. Each of the innumerable beings in the universe which are its parts is a manifestation of a particular name among divine names; and just as parts of the universe divide into genus, species, individuals, substances, and accidents (including quantity, quality, relation, habitus, time, location, situation (or position), action, and passion ("being acted on)), so the names of God divide into genus, species, substantial, accidental, etc. names. Everything in the visible universe is a shade testifying to what is in the invisible the world of names, as the manifestation of the substantiality of the Creator, called Allah by Mulla Sadra, is “the perfect man” In the light of foundations specific to his philosophy, Mulla Sadra’s novel explanation demonstrates that the duality of substance and accident both make sense and have examples in the external world (although in his wisdom in accordance with the well-known meaning of the terms an immediate cognition of substance is not possible, and it is only accidents which are knowable). But also his analysis paves the way for the demonstration of dependent existence (i.e. the existence of beings which are not God). If considered in comparison to the Necessary, everything is dependent, or, accidental, as Mulla Sadra calls it. The impact of the concept of dependence (or accidentality) upon philosophical discussions is that it dispenses with the need for quiddities and linking quiddity-bound concepts to the concepts not bound by quiddity. Thanks to the analysis, the fact of God being together with names and attributes (called accidents by Mulla Sadra) takes on a novel interpretation: it is not like the coincidence of the accidental and essential; nor like the coincidence of substance and accident in the well-known sense of the terms; nor like the coincidence of quiddity and existence, because God is not a general quiddity at all. Instead, his truth is a pure, simple, sacred Being that has no names, shapes or limits, and for which no proof is invoked. Rather, he is the proof for everything, a witness to every manifestation. The main concern of this article is to compare, examine and match the two views, since despite the fact that there are numerous books and articles addressing the issue of substance and accident, there is not a discrete study of the two perspectives; hence the necessity of explaining Mulla Sadra’s view. Because this aim is fulfilled through studying and researching into his books, the present article’s research method is conceptual analysis written in an analytic-descriptive form.
Abbas Javareshkian; Ali Ghaffarpour; Alireza Kohansal
Abstract
Sadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī (Mullā Sadra, 1569-1640), composed philosophical commentaries on the Qur’ānic concept of the ‘transformation of the Earth’ through epistemological and ontological approaches. In fact, Sadr al-Dīn composed a rich, multi-faceted commentary, dealing with relevant ...
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Sadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī (Mullā Sadra, 1569-1640), composed philosophical commentaries on the Qur’ānic concept of the ‘transformation of the Earth’ through epistemological and ontological approaches. In fact, Sadr al-Dīn composed a rich, multi-faceted commentary, dealing with relevant philosophical issues, on the following Qur’ānic verse about the transformation of Heavens and the Earth: ‘One day the Earth will be transformed into a different Earth, and so will be the Heavens, and (men) will be marshalled forth, before Allah, the One, the Irresistible’ (Q 14:48). In certain parts of his work, Sadr al-Dīn makes use of the principle of ‘substantial motion’ (al-harakat al-jawhariyya) to explain the transformation of the Heavens and the Earth (referred to in Q 14:48), but in some other passages, he considers the same transformation as a result of the final return of all existing things to their divine origins. Besides that, Sadr al-Dīn regarded the possibility of the occurrence of this transformation in the sight of the ‘Universal Man’ (al-insān al-kāmil), when the ‘eternal Ideas’ of the Heavens and the Earth come to be manifested in the ‘imaginal realm’ of both the soul and the universe.
Aziz Jashan Nezhad; Abbas Javareshkyan
Volume 6, Issue 2 , July 2015, , Pages 15-41
Abstract
In Mulla Sadra’s and Ibn-e Arabi’s thought, the unity of existence could be proved in ontological, epistemological and anthropological aspects and we can say that the three aspects are integrated, and are the faces of one thing. The gist of Ibn-e Arabi’s thought is nothing but pantheism; ...
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In Mulla Sadra’s and Ibn-e Arabi’s thought, the unity of existence could be proved in ontological, epistemological and anthropological aspects and we can say that the three aspects are integrated, and are the faces of one thing. The gist of Ibn-e Arabi’s thought is nothing but pantheism; a kind of pantheism that is based on realism or the priority and originality of discovery, intuition, and experience.
Mulla Sadra also through priority of existence pave the way for the unity of creatures and considers creatures, except God, as the rays and the beams of true light or the reality of existence (eternal nature of God). Only the existence or the nature of God is original and unique. Sadra unlike Ibn-e Arabi, who thinks that the rational method in theology is neither sufficient nor necessary, has done efforts to rationalize what is beyond the mind, for public understanding. In this article, it is tried to review and compare the principles and styles of these two divine sages in the formation of the theory of pantheism, from three mentioned aspects, i.e. epistemology, ontology and anthropology.
