درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The concept of "freedom" is one of the most fundamental issues in various philosophical traditions; however, its perception differs fundamentally in modern Western philosophy and Islamic wisdom. In modern philosophy, freedom is primarily understood in relation to the subject, will, and the right to choose, whereas in Mulla Sadra's Transcendent Wisdom as well as in Martin Heidegger's ontological thought, freedom has an ontological status rather than being a psychological or political matter. Relying on the principles of "primacy of existence", "gradation of existence" , and "substantial motion" , Mulla Sadra interprets freedom as the process of human existential transcendence and his gradual liberation from the lower levels of being; a process that ultimately leads to abstraction, intensity of existence, and divine proximity. In contrast, Heidegger understands freedom not as voluntary agency, but as a mode of Dasein’s openness to the truth of Being; an openness that liberates man from falling into everydayness and the reification of beings. The present study, using an analytical-comparative method, seeks to re-read the relationship between the "primacy of existence" in Sadrian wisdom and "authentic freedom" in Heideggerian philosophy, and to demonstrate that despite fundamental metaphysical and theological differences, both thinkers interpret freedom in connection with the human mode of relation to the truth of Being. The innovation of this article lies in analyzing freedom as an ontological structure in two different philosophical traditions and demonstrating the capacity for dialogue between Islamic wisdom and contemporary Western philosophy. Keywords Existential Freedom, Mulla Sadra, Heidegger, Primacy of Existence, Ontology, Substantial Motion, Openness to Being.  

This study, drawing on Aristotelian essentialism the view that every being possesses an essence with intrinsic properties argues that the development and actualization of the human being, as one being among others in the world, are grounded in his essential nature, namely rationality. This essential nature inclines human beings toward the pursuit of the good, which is recognized as the final cause (telos) of the actualization of their essence. Moreover, human choices are not detached from the beings of the world. Rather, the objects of moral good and evil are the very entities and essences that exist in reality. Moral judgments, therefore, concern these concrete and real beings; they shape human actualization and take part in the causal order of the world. Therefore, since the actualization of beings is inseparable from their essences, the creator of the essences of the world and the legislator of moral laws must be one and the same. In the course of this study, we arrive at the conclusion that every doctrine other than religious moral realism ultimately confronts some form of relativism. Even moral relativism, insofar as it claims to endorse realism, is incapable of providing a foundation for an absolute and objective higher good. Accordingly, through rational inquiry and on the basis of Aristotelian essentialism, the possibility of discovering reality for human beings is established, along with the justification of moral realism and, ultimately, the compatibility of moral realism with the foundations of theistic monotheism.

The dilemma of the soul’s origination or pre‑eternity represents one of the most enduring problems in Islamic philosophy. Each side of this dilemma faces serious difficulties: proponents of the soul’s pre‑eternity struggle to explain its relation to the body, while advocates of origination confront the problem of the soul’s enduring subsistence after bodily death. In addressing this dilemma, Mullā Ṣadrā adopts a distinctive methodological approach. He first reconstructs and critically examines the views of earlier philosophers and theologians, distinguishing defensible insights from elements that generate theoretical difficulties within their own frameworks. He then reinterprets selected elements within a new metaphysical perspective grounded in the principles of the primacy of existence, gradation of existence, and substantial motion. Through this process, he formulates the theory of the soul’s “corporeal origination and spiritual subsistence.” This study argues that Ṣadrā’s procedure reflects a form of methodological pluralism without eclecticism and shows notable affinity with the integrative model of interdisciplinary inquiry. Using a conceptual‑analytical approach, the article offers a systematic reconstruction and critical evaluation of this methodological framework in Ṣadrā’s treatment of the problem of the soul.