Philosophy
Abstract
Abstract: Mullasadra in Asfar attributes to Suhrawardi an argument against the existence of existence as follows: To exist means to have existence; now, if existence exists, it has existence, and by repeating this argument a vicious regress arises; then existence does not exist. The followers of transcendent ...
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Abstract: Mullasadra in Asfar attributes to Suhrawardi an argument against the existence of existence as follows: To exist means to have existence; now, if existence exists, it has existence, and by repeating this argument a vicious regress arises; then existence does not exist. The followers of transcendent philosophy after Mullasadra and almost all contemporary researchers attribute such an argument to him. I give some reasons against this attribution. Suhrawardi himself attributes versions of this argument to the opponents of the followers of the Peripatetics, namely Ibn Sahlan. Moreover, he claims that the followers of the Peripatetics have their own response to this argument. I provide some evidence for his claim. I then analyze his real regress arguments and show that none of them rests on a semantic premise about 'to exist'. Instead, they have metaphysical assumptions, as they should. I conclude that the said regress argument is a misinterpretation of his texts in Hihmat al-Ishragh. This misinterpretation goes back at least to Qutb al-Din Shirazi's commentary. Finally, I present a proper interpretation of Suhrawardi's real regress argument in Hihmat al-Ishragh. I argue that the struggle with this argument is harder than it seems: there is no easy way out of the argument other than to admit the unity of existence.
