This paper presents a small part
of a comprehensive and comparative study (by the writer) of the principles of
the theories of knowledge introduced by Mulla Sadra and Whitehead. At the
outset, the reader might consider such a comparison as being unlikely and
unnecessary. Or some might say that a comparative study of any two theories is,
in a sense, a kind of correspondence with each other, which is not feasible in
this case. They might also say that there is no use in trying to compare two
theories that are based on relatively different foundations. However, the
writer does not have any of the above presuppositions; rather, he intends to
show how these two dynamic philosophies, i.e. those of Whitehead and Mulla
Sadra, have solved the intricacies of the problem of knowledge, particularly,
the knowledge of the changing world of matter and removed all the obstacles in
this regard as the center of all philosophical discussions. Both Mulla Sadra
and Whitehead believe that the world of possible including the material and
immaterial worlds are in process and related to each other and their
differences concerning certain issues such as Mulla Sadra’s ideas of the
trans-substantial motion, the flux of the material world, and inhering
existence and Whitehead’s ideas of the process of events and their essential
relativity and correlation do not bring about any hindrance. These two
philosophers, one from the East and the other from the West, both believe in
the non-individuation of the phenomena of the world of matter and the mortality
and essential change and fluidity of the world of possibility concerning the
issue of knowledge, particularly, the knowledge of the world of matter. The
present research was conducted to see which method they have adopted to gain
the knowledge of a known that we have always been seeking for, is dynamic, and
does not rest even for a single moment. Another purpose beyond this research
was to discover whether there are any traces of stability in knowledge, and how
it can establish a rational and meaningful relation with its material object
which is essentially restless and unindividuated; a relation than can satisfy
our scientific and perceptive needs, provide some convincing answers to our
questions concerning the permanent and restless world, and remove some of the
ambiguities embedded in our knowledge of the phenomena of the world to some
extent. This knowledge is obtained in the light of concepts and meanings, as
well as in the light of scientific principles and propositions. In other words,
the purpose here is to see how it is possible to establish a meaningful
relation between the relative stability of the subject, on the one hand, and
the inner-essential change of the material object, on the other hand. In sum,
we intend to see which method these two philosophers have followed to obtain
knowledge, and to what extent they have been successful in achieving their
goal. In other words, we wish to know what novel strategies we can develop on
the basis of their criteria and worldview, and which new plans we can devise
concerning the main focus of this paper without ignoring our predecessors’
achievements and efforts.
A.
Mechanism of the Unity of Multiples in Whitehead
In each cognition, at least, two
aspects can be taken into consideration: stability and change. The stability of
knowledge of the mind, and the aspect of change (in the perception of the
material world) by the dynamic and ever changing world, which is apparently the
object of knowledge. Here, the question is which factor or factors can create a
true unity between the stable and changing aspects and, as a result, found the
process of the development of knowledge on the basis of such unity.
Both philosophers believe that the
transient material world alone is not enough, and that we must attribute
stability to factors beyond matter and time in the realm of knowledge.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to perceive stability (although in relative
terms) from the change inherent in the essence of matter. Thus these two
dynamist philosophers in general sense, despite their difference in their,
metaphysical foundations, have employed some methods to analyze this
complicated issue on the basis of their shared views of the changing nature
of the world of possibility, particularly, the world of matter. A
comparison of the different angles to these two philosophers’ thoughts and
their philosophical methods of dealing with this issue, as well as a comparison
of their innovations regarding new philosophical structures could be of great
help in solving the problem of knowledge and revealing the different aspects of
the discussion to interested readers.
This paper is limited only to a study
and analysis of the material world from the perspective of these two prominent
philosophers. The other comparative issues should be discussed aptly elsewhere.
If man pays attention to the stability
and continuity of his presence as an observing individual, he will face a
number of varieties and changes in these durations. Whitehead, finally, relates
the theory of ‘actual occasions’ to an organic unity. Such occasions
continually appear, i.e., they come into being and disappear without requiring
a duration more than a moment in continuity. They loom and disappear in the
light of a momentary and short-living epiphany.[1]
Whitehead refers to concepts that are
prerequisites for the appearance of phenomena in consciousness as eternal
objects. Any concept involves an organic unit which is considered the important
and basic aspect of cognition and, naturally, epistemology.
In all the theories related to
cognition, including those of Mulla Sadra and Whitehead, the role of the
faculty of perception and reasoning in gaining the knowledge of the unity of
multiples and multiplicity of the unified has been taken into consideration in
different words. Like Mulla Sadra, Whitehead refers his theory of perception to
the perceiver i.e. the creative mind and views the perceiving object
differently from the perceived entity. He distinguishes five issues from each
other in relation to the variety and multiplicity of existents in nature: 1)
events (occasions), 2) perceivers, 3) sensible objects, 4) perceived facts, and
5) scientific facts.[2]
Perceiving facts, in a sense, refer to the recognizable continuity and
stability of an occasion, in the same way that a sensible object is a special
kind of the continuity and stability of an occasion. The facts about the
perceiver include the unity of consciousness whose knowledge will lead to the
classification of the set of occasions, in the same way that natural life is
concomitant with consciousness and intelligence. The status and conditions of
physical objects enjoy unity and continuity, while facts and physical objects
are associated with non-individuation and ambiguity.[3]
In contrast to Atomists and advocates of classic physics, Whitehead believes
that objects lack constituent parts. Knowledge consist of our awareness of
identity and likeness.[4]
Our different types of knowledge represent the ultimate realities of nature for
sciences, and all scientific theories are nothing but a series of attempts to
formulate our knowledge of the events and occasions in which this knowledge is
attained.[5]
According to Whitehead, “Theoretical philosophy is an attempt at creating a
system of general ideas in the light of which every element of our experience
can be interpreted”. Concerning the aforementioned quotation, it is worth a
mention that knowledge is neither an analysis nor a classification.
Accordingly, ‘interpreting’ is not the same as explaining. Scientific
description consists of discovering the reason for the unity and solidarity
among separate and independent elements. The philosophy of knowledge is an
attempt to reveal the main reason for the existence of the nature of objects
and formulating the content of human mind so that, in this way, he can grant
meaning to scattered component parts. The unifying act of thought synthesizes
these particular aspects through introspection, intuition and assistance of
imaginative generalization and, then, turns them into universal metaphysical
principles.[6]
We are capable of discovering the continuous, permanent, and stable necessities
that have been ignored in “the method of difference” through imaginative
generalization. We are not directly aware of the moving world. The most basic
problem of knowledge is to present a method that can explain the relation
between this changing world and our feelings of its actual experience.[7]
The task of knowledge is the discovery of the relations that exist in the
course of perceptions, feelings, and emotions and form our experience of life.[8]
Perception consists of thought-objects
and the objects of knowledge that are abstracted from sensible things possess
hypothetical aspects and the reality of knowledge cannot be perceived without
the mediation of the senses. In Whitehead’s view, what we perceive directly
consists of duration and extension rather than parts, moments, and atoms. He
regards the parts of nature as occasions or entities to avoid any act of
analyzing and dividing nature in any way. Sense data do not exist in the form
of discrete particles, and that is why they are called as occasions in
Whitehead’s philosophy. We do not view separate and single objects with
independent and separate attributes; rather, we view them as parts of a system.
We perceive a whole consisting of different parts which are interrelated and
depend on each other in any empirical act.[9]
No real phenomenon shares exactly the same experiences with another, and each
has its own features. Our thought must begin its work with these scattered
issues or sense data and then they must be synthesized and create an extension
and duration. Whitehead has, in a way, acknowledged the union of the knower and
the known and denied the presumed distinction between thoughts and realities.
He says that in natural sciences realities are the same as thoughts, and vice
versa.[10]
The mental realities of science such as
molecules, electrons, and atoms are not in such froms that we can have a direct
sensory image of them in our consciousness.[11]
He maintains that material phenomena are momentary and lack duration.
Therefore, such changing and destructible parts cannot be considered as
fundamental realities of the world. Moreover, he views the space-time relation
the same as the relations among occasions and claims that in the process of
perception, occasions must not be considered as a number of timeless and
spatial temporal parts; rather, they must be viewed in form of condensed and
accumulated masses. Extension is an ultimate and fundamental attribute of
nature that provides the basis for the time-space relation and a great number
of other scientific concepts and portrays them in our mind. Whitehead considers
flow, time, space, and duration as synonymous terms. He manages to free himself
from the bounds of ancient philosophy of nature in the light of employing the
term ‘occasions’ instead of terms such as particles and objects in his words.
Through mathematical expressions, he also tries to use relations as the basis
for perception and knowledge instead of particles and objects. In Greek
cosmology, nature consisted of parts and components; however, Whitehead and,
before him, Mulla Sadra viewed the time-space extension a good substitute for
discrete parts as the basis of nature.
In his view, natural phenomena depend
on each other, and their reality must be sought in the system governing them. A
logical harmony dominates the world like a legal necessity. He poses the
principiality of mathematics, because on the basis of which certain interrelations
among different issues and affairs are discovered. Such interrelations cannot
be known unless through the intellect. This is because mathematical concepts
cannot be perceived through the senses. Thus God must be beyond time and space
to realize the clarity of the realities of the world and its unity in view of
values and pave the way for us to obtain the ideals beyond the realized
reality.
In Whitehead’s point of view, we
experience our relation with the outside world through a divine source that is
already present in our ongoing experiences. The perception of the historical
significance of the perception of the world as an eternal and indestructible
process lies in the divine unity of ideals. Therefore, there is a fundamental
relation between divinity and historical process.
B.
Mechanism of the unity of multiple beings in Mulla Sadra
In Mulla Sadra’s view,
philosophers have spoken very differently and scatteredly concerning knowledge,
the intellect and the intelligible. For example, Ibn-Sina considers
intellection sometimes as a negative issue, sometimes as certain forms
imprinted on the substance of the intellect, sometimes as pure relation,
sometimes as the undifferentiated simple intellect, sometimes as a quality of
the relative essence, and sometimes as soulish qualities. Shaykh al-Ishraq
views knowledge as manifestation. If an object has the knowledge of its own
self, it is light for itself. An object’s knowledge of other than itself
consists of the relation between the two luminous objects along with their
Ishraqi (illuminative) correlation.[12]
However, none of the above theories is
enough for Mulla Sadra to justify the reality of knowledge. In fact, he
questions every single of them relying on certain reasons. Unlike his preceding
philosophers, he does not view knowledge as an acquired form or as the very
concept or the disengaged form of an object in the mind. He defines knowledge
as the mode of the abstract existence of matter in the abstract (the mind).
This is because the idea of the core of existence is realized only through
presential knowledge rather than through mental image. Accordingly, knowledge
is neither negative in nature, that is, abstracted from matter nor a
correlative one. It is an existential matter, but not of any kind of existence;
it is an actual rather than potential existence. However, not all and every
kind of actual existence is intended here. Rather, he is referring to a pure
existence that is not combined with non-existence. Knowledge obtains more
intensity and strength in terms of its purity and freedom from non-existential
issues and multiplicity. Material substance and its accidents are not the
objects of knowledge directly, because the necessary condition for the
perceiver’s perception of something is to have a complete knowledge of the
perceived. The body and material phenomena lack an existence that is free from
non-existence due to their essential motion. This is because if we consider any
part of it, its changing existence necessitates the non-existence of its other
parts. In fact, the existence of any part requires the non-existence of all
other parts. Thus one cannot actually conceive of all of its related parts at
the same time.
Existence is the same as and
concomitant with unity, and anything lacking in unity will be lacking in
existence. Predication and identity are among the concomitants of unity in the
sense that no judgment can be passed without unity and identity concerning any
object. In the body, which is a single conjunctive thing, no part, even in the
sense of estimation, is predicated on the body. Neither is the body predicated
on any of the parts. The realization of the ipseity of the body lies in the
conjunction of its parts, and the more their conjunction, continuity, and
extension, the more perfect the body. Union is valid only in existences among
whose parts there are no positional differences, while it is not so in case of
existences whose parts are conjunctive. The extension of the parts of material
bodies is, by itself, the reason for their destruction, thus how could they
have an independent existence? The reality of matter and body is a dissociative
one, since its existence functions as the potential for their non-existence,
and its non-existence is the potential for its existence. For example, the
existence of a yardstick is the same as the non-existence of another one or its
opposite. Therefore, the matter embodies the potential and preparedness of its
destruction. This level of existence is the weakest one possible. At this
level, the existence of something necessitates its non-existence, and, at all
times, the appearance of a part, which depends on non-existence, demands the
existence of another part and welcomes it through its own non-existence. The
realized matter of existence is tainted with non-existence, and if an existence
is so, it is not realized in the outside in its perfect form at a given moment.
And the more imperfectly it is realized, the less it deserves to be known by
another existent and be available to it. In Mulla Sadra’s view, such an
existent is like multiplicity in the weakness of unity, since the unity of its
multiplicity is the same as its multiplicity.
Access and perception are among the
concomitants of knowledge. No one can obtain the knowledge of the body and its
accidents unless through a form beyond its material and positional one. The
reason is that considering the description given above concerning bodily and
material phenomena, a perfect form of the external body is unattainable, and
this is because its extensional parts never enjoy actual external existence
altogether and at the same time. Neither are they individuated in the outside.
According to Quantum physics, an aura of ambiguity rooted in non-individuation
dominates all parts of the material world. Thus, at every moment, it is only
possible to conceive only a small part of it indirectly and on the basis of
probabilities and statistical hunches.
Mulla Sadra believes that the object of
perception is the existence of things. However, by existence, he does not mean
one which is in a specific situation, state, and position in the outside. Rather,
he means an existence that is free from any taint of non-existence, position,
direction, and the like. This is because no unity can be found in the object in
such transitory and relative states of oneness. Moreover, the conception of
unity in the perceived object is, in a sense, a necessary condition for
perception. Therefore, a being that is the object of perception is not among
the beings to e hinted by the senses. Besides, a form that is perceived by the
senses is not among sensible qualities, which can be hinted by the senses. The
reason is that sensible qualities are so accidentally and secondarily rather
than essentially and primarily. A sensible existence is the same as the
existence of the sensor. Mulla Sadra considers this mode of existence as its
sensibility, as he views the existence of the intelligible as its
intelligibility in essence. One of the conditions for sense perception is the
actualization of a positional relation among the sensible organs of perception;
however, this relation is not established among the form, its similar, and what
is perceived from it in a stable manner. On the other hand, this is not a
necessary condition for perceptions other than sensory ones, such as imaginal,
estimative, and rational perceptions.
A very important point in Mulla Sadra’s
view of perception is that perceptive forms are in no way material qualities.
Any kind of rational perception is a kind of unity between the intellect and
the forms that are separate from matter and their accidents.
1.
Gradation of the levels of Perception and Knowledge
Unlike Islamic philosophers,
Mulla Sadra equates perception and knowledge with being that enjoy a kind of
gradation.[13]
Moreover, he believes that all levels and grades of existence, including
sensory, imaginal, and rational perceptions, are non-material. [14]
Verily man’s soul has three rational,
imaginal, and sensory modes and is in unity with the intellect, imagination,
and the sense. Thus the soul becomes the same as the senses in the perception
of sensibles, and the senses affect the sensibles as an instrument of
perception through participating in their situation. As a result, when sensing
something, two things are realized and affect the sensory instrument and the
soul’s perception. Such a need to participation in the situation is merely due
to a sensory effect that is called affection rather than due to soulish
perception, which consists of actualization of form.
It is worth to mention that at the
stage of sensation, Mulla Sadra believes that not only the effect of any
external sense through an individuated external object is one of the necessary
conditions, but also the truth of sense perception is related to the soul,
itself. Therefore, if the soul plays the main role at the weakest level of
perception, i.e., sensation, the matter, the object, and the effects of the
senses, all, function as the preparing causes for sense perception, not as a
perceiver. At higher levels of perception, such as imagination and
intellection, the soul plays a more important role, since at higher levels of
perception, the soul becomes needless of external factors and preparing causes
and becomes involved in the process of perception directly. Although the soul
is in union with the intellect, the senses, and images at all levels, its unity
with the intellect at the level of intellection is stronger than its union with
images at the level of imagination or its unity with the sense at the level of
sensation.[15]
Whenever the soul reflects upon
something, it becomes the same as its rational form.[16]
The intellect consists of all intelligible objects.[17]
This does not mean that they have attained unity in the mind relying on the
modes of external existents. Rather, it means that all quiddities that exist
through numerical multiplicity in the outside exist in the intellect through
intellectual multiplicity and have a single existence. This intellectual
existence, although simple and unified, embodies all those meanings in essence.
The task of human soul is to perceive all realities, unite with them, and turn
into an intellectual world in which the form, the rational existent, and the
meaning of any corporeal existent are realized. However, the union of the soul
with all the rational forms that it has perceived, and its union with the
Active Intellect, in which all objects actually exist, do not lead to its
multiplicity. Each type of knowledge is a simple personal ipseity that cannot
be classified under any essential universal category. The reality of knowledge
is of the type of immaterial existence and lacks a universal, generic, or
specific nature. Neither is it qualified by other differentia, types, or
limits. On the basis of the unity of knowledge with the known, the division of
knowledge is the same as the division of the known. Accordingly, some types of
knowledge are necessary existents by essence, such as God’s knowledge of His
Essence, which is the same as His Essence, without assuming any quiddity.
However, some other types of knowledge are possible existents by essence,
including the knowledge of all possible beings.
Knowledge in nature is accidental and
acquired. In Mulla Sadra’s view, accidental knowledge is the product of the
presence of the forms of the attributes of knowledge and and their
representation rather than their indwelling in the mind.
Perceptive faculties create their forms
and objects through simple making. The imaginative faculty creates the imaginal
form and the rational faculty creates the universal form and meaning. The mind
is active rather than passive at different levels of perception.
Undoubtedly, the soul is the efficient
cause of the forms existing in the human soul’s faculties and tools of perception.
However, the soul functions primarily as a receptive origin at the level of the
material intellect in relation to the rational forms that have been perceived
by it. However, when the soul is connected to the active intellect, it develops
an active role in relation to those rational forms and protects and stores
them.[18]
Accordingly, Mulla Sadra believes that
any perception requires a kind of catharsis or disengagement (tajrid), and that
any of the levels of perception enjoys a level of disengagement in terms of its
importance. He views perception the same as knowledge[19]
in its general sense and considers knowledge as belong to the category of
existence. Therefore, he specifically believes that knowledge does not mean the
very concept of the disengaged form of anything so that, upon having the
concept of that thing, to claim the acquisition of its knowledge. Rather,
knowledge means the mode of the existence of something that is disengaged from
matter before a disengaged being.
The rational faculty exercises its
influences at all levels of perception, and its sign in any perception is its
active role in the oneness of multiples beings and multiplicity of the ones.
All levels of perception are, in a way, the cause of the oneness of multiple
beings, and no perception is realized without the act of oneness. This is the
most important point in relation to perception, knowledge and cognition, and
none of the eastern and western philosophers have ignored its significance in
cognition. Kant, who considers the domain of knowledge as being limited to
phenomena, views each perception as a kind of unity of multiple beings. The
soul’s conceptualizations at different levels of perception and passing
judgments and statements are the product of the act of oneness. What Mulla
Sadra refers to concerning the issue of cognition, in addition to the soul’s
act of oneness and unity, is the multiplicity of the one. This can grant corporeality
to rational issues through the imaginative faculty, limit them to moulds of
imaginal forms, differentiate the essential from the accidental and genus from
the differentia, so that an individual who is assumed one in the sensible world
is qualified by various attributes and manners in the realm of the intellect.
Sense perceptions are tainted with ignorance, and having access to them is
associated with privation. This is because the senses perceive nothing but the
phenomena and have access only to external forms of quiddities rather them to
their realities.
2.
Division of knowledge in terms of the worlds and the correlation between
epistemology and ontology
According to Mulla Sadra, the
reality of knowledge is reversible to formal existence. He divides existence
into perfect, sufficient, and imperfect ones. The perfect existence is the
world of pure intellects, which are also called separate forms. Such forms are
free from the extensions of bodies and matter. The sufficient existence is the
world of animal souls and is referred to as the world of imaginal beings and
disengaged apparition. The imperfect existence is the world of subsistent forms
belonging to substances that are also called sensory forms. The reality of the
sensible world is renewing and immersed in non-existence, possibility, and
darkness in every moment. Therefore, it does not deserve to be known and be
called existence in the real sense of the word. In this regard, we can refer to
time and motion, which have no existence unless in the realm of single
‘moment’. Moments are also potential, and the things that are individuated only
in a given moment consist of bodies and material phenomena, which are in a
state of destruction at every moment, and whose origination and appearance is
limited to a given moment, and whose annihilation is in other moments. The
application of existence to such bodies and phenomena is metaphorical, and the
mode of metaphor necessitates the negation of their existence.
Each of the levels of knowledge, due to
its ontological status, possesses its specific cognitive forms. Accordingly,
possible perceptions can be divided into four types:
1)
Perfect existence and knowledge, including the intellects and actual
intelligibles. Such perceptions, due to their intensity of existence ad
essential glow are free from corporeal effects, apparitions and numbers. They
exist in a single and collective existence while being multiple. There is no
difference among such realities, since all of them are immersed in the ocean of
divinity.
2)
The world of heavenly souls in Peripatetics’ words and the world of disengaged
apparitions and quantitative images in Illuminationists’ words. This group of
perceptions is to some extent sufficient by essence and relies on their
rational bases. Moreover, through their connection to the forms of the perfect
divine existence, they compensate for their imperfection and mix with them.
3)
The specific world of the sense and the lowest dominion, whose objects are the
actual sensible forms that are perceived by intelligence and the senses. As
long as they exist in this realm, their existence is imperfect, unless they
free themselves from the world of apparitions and manage to promote themselves
to the higher world in the light of the perfection of the human soul.
4)
The world of corporeal substance, whose known forms are changing and
destructible. The existence of such forms is always in fluctuation between
potentiality and actuality, on the one hand, and stability and annihilation, on
the other. Their stability is the same as their annihilation, and their unity
and collection is the same as their separation.
Conclusion
1.
In Mulla Sadra’s view, perception and knowledge have the same meaning, and
perception is divided into rational, imaginal and sensory ones. Whitehead, too,
equates perception and knowledge with each other.
2.
Mulla Sadra considers knowledge as belonging to the category of existence, and
since existence is graded, knowledge will also enjoy the same feature.
3.
Material phenomena are in process and changing state, thus a true known cannot
be the same as them. Accordingly, concerning the issue of knowledge, both
philosophers consider unity a necessary condition for any kind of perception
and emphasize the mind’s creativity in the production of multiple and
multiplicity of the ones in different ways and on the basis of their own
philosophical principles.
4.
The parts of the material world are not dispersed, distinct, and independent
from each other. They are considered as connected, interwoven, and dependent
collections through the interference and activities of the mind. Whitehead
believes in the unity of these parts on the basis of mathematical
interpretations, probability theories and relativity. In Mulla Sadra’s view,
the world of possibility, in general, and the world of matter, in particular,
cannot be conceived unless in the light of inhering existence. Therefore,
considering the hierarchy of existence, he regards the inhering existence of
the world of possibility as being finally connected to the existence of the
Truth through ontological horizontal and vertical grades and tools. Whitehead,
too, relates the dependence of phenomena to the world of metaphysics in his
process philosophy. He also views the stable aspect of laws as being beyond time.
[20] Mulla Sadra believes that this aspect of
the existence of phenomena is related to the Truth’s Emanation, while the
stability of the known is related to soulish, imaginal, and rational forms. By
considering the knowledge of existence as being gradational, Mulla Sadra takes
both the relativity of knowledge in relation to the subject and the levels of
the unity of the knower and the known in terms of the degree of the perfection
of the soul and the subject. He ignores the oneness of the perceived and its
relative unity with the perceiver at no level of perception. He emphasizes this
issue firmly from both ontological and epistemological standpoints. In addition
to introducing his philosophy an organismic one in relation to this issue,
Whitehead, in a way, emphasizes the organic unity of the phenomena of the world
of being and interprets it as a prerequisite for the appearance of phenomena in
the mind and awareness of pre-eternal realities. Each concept involves a kind
of organic unity, which is the most important and fundamental aspect of
knowledge and principle of epistemology. In his eyes, a scientific description
consists of the unity and togetherness among independent and separate elements.
5.
Whitehead considers introspection, which is, in a sense, a kind of intuition, a
mental creative element.
6.
According to Whitehead, what we directly perceive consists of continuity and
extension rather than parts, moments, and atomic particles. Neither in Mulla
Sadra’s philosophy based on inhering existence, the hierarchy of existence, and
the trans-substantial motion nor in Whitehead’s philosophy based on the process
of the world and relativity, are there any individual objects enjoying separate
and independent attributes. Rather, in the light of unity, we view the parts as
being connected, dependent on each other, in form of inhering existence (in
Mulla Sadra’s view), and as a part of a system (in Whitehead’s view).
7.
No real phenomenon shares similar experiences with other phenomena (Whitehead).
The Truth’s Emanation is never repetitive, and at every moment, a specific mode
or emanation is manifested in the world (Mulla Sadra). Thus, due to the
perpetual creativity of the phenomena of being, mental perfection, and the
levels of the soul, an aura of relativity surrounds the issue of the
individual’s knowledge; however, this relativity originates in our ignorance
and imperfection of knowledge and is in no way related to the realities of the
world of being.
8.
Mulla Sadra considers the union of the perceiver, perception and the perceived
as the most basic principle of knowledge at all levels. Whitehead, too, denies
the distinction supposed to exist among thoughts and realities and considers
them the same in natural sciences.
9.
The stability of phenomena is revealed through the essential change of
phenomena and their continuous trans-substantial motion. In other words, a kind
of stability is resulted from the continuity of the succession of phenomena
(Mulla Sadra). Whitehead, too, regards the uniformity of nature due to the
perpetual flow and change of the phenomena related to the time-space extension.
10.
On the basis of their ontology, Mulla Sadra and Whitehead do not consider the
object of knowledge the same as a real and concrete issue. Both of them refer
to the soul’s creativity in terms of the object. Besides, they attend to
objective phenomena in the realm of their correlation and relativity.
11.
According to Mulla Sadra, any essence enjoys three ontological aspects at
different levels of intensity. Between the two intelligible and material
aspects of the world, there is a third world that the soul, itself, creates.
This is because the soul functions, in fact, as an image of the creator in
terms of its essence, attributes, and acts. This third world is the very
‘dominion of the soul’ or mental existence[21]
and imaginal manifestation. Whitehead does not ignore the role of imagination
in the formation of concepts and forms, either. In Mulla Sadra’s view, ‘the
dominion of the soul’ or imaginal manifestation is the cause of transmission
between the sensible and the intelligible, and vice versa.
12.
Mulla Sadra believes that all external corporeal faculties are the shadows and
effects of internal faculties which return to the essential center of the soul,
i.e., the soul, itself. The soul has an image of itself in an imaginal form
that is compatible with its mould and conforms to objects in the same way that
it perceives them. we can recognize a trend in Mulla Sadra’s philosophy that,
in a way, leads to a kind of metaphysical view of intuition and, in a way, to a
metaphysical view of active imagination and imaginal thing. The metaphysics of
presence leads in its extension to the metaphysics of intuition which comprises
the knowledge of the Imam (leader) and man’s self-knowledge in the horizons of
this knowledge. According to Whitehead, the role of intuition in knowledge is
to combine its specific aspects through imaginal generalization and transform
them into universal metaphysical principles. Through imaginal generalization,
we can discover permanent and continuous necessities.[22]
13.
The levels of the perfection of the soul under the influence of the
trans-substantial motion, from the time of its separation from matter until the
stages of its disengagement and reaching the threshold of dominion and its
transformation into the divine existence, are gradually obtained. The soul goes
higher in the process of intellection step by step until it finally reaches the
station of union with the Active Intellect and the Holy Spirit. The soul
reaches purgatorial and intellectual disengagement through its
trans-substantial motion, since the perception of the collection of the
realities of the intelligible world and becoming one with them is among the
ontological conditions of the soul, as its is the case with its turning into
its intellectual world; a world that contains the form of any intelligible
existent and the mental concept of any material one.
14.
Mulla Sadra believes that the level of existence is correlated with the level
of presence; that is, the more intensified the existence, the greater the
chance of presence before other worlds and absence before death and
non-existence.
Items 11 to 14 represent the features
of Sadrian epistemology, which have been detailed in the writer’s other
research papers and articles. However, it is worth to mention that in
Whitehead’s view, we experience our relation with the external world through a
divine source that is present now. The historical importance of perception of
the world as an eternal and indestructible process lies in the divine unity of
all ideals. Therefore, there is a fundamental relation between divinity and
historical process.
Notes:
[1].
Bham, Archie, J., 1995, Epistemology Theory of Knowledge, World books, p. 83.
[2]. Whitehead, Alfred North, 1925, An
Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge, Cambridge University
Press, p. 609.
[13]. Mulla Sadra, 1383 AS, al-Asfar, part
3, 1st journey, Glosses by Haj Mulla Hadi Sabziwari, Beirut, p. 287.
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