Kokab Darabi; Hamed Ailzadeh
Abstract
This study analyzes the impact of Mulla Sadra's gradual and fuzzy view of human truth on his final perspective regarding theoretical and practical intellect. Using a descriptive-analytical ...
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This study analyzes the impact of Mulla Sadra's gradual and fuzzy view of human truth on his final perspective regarding theoretical and practical intellect. Using a descriptive-analytical method and primary sources, the findings indicate that Sadra's philosophy is founded on the "primacy of existence" as a gradual and hierarchical reality. From this perspective, human being is also a single, hierarchical, and fuzzy truth called "soul" in one respect and "body" in another. The soul emerges from the substantial motion of the body, and their relationship is not dualistic but rather one of "union" and ultimately "unity"—the body is the lower, corporeal level of the soul, and the soul is the higher, spiritual level of the body.Based on this and the principle that "the soul is, in its unity, all faculties," the paper argues that a fuzzy view of human being prevents absolute boundaries between the soul's faculties. Consequently, the common distinction between theoretical intellect ( cognitive faculty) and practical intellect ( motivational faculty) is transformed in Sadra's thought. They are two dimensions or levels of a single reality called "intellect," just as soul and body are two levels of a single truth. Thus, theory is considered the higher level of practice, and practice the lower level of theory. The ultimate end of both is the same: attaining existential perfection and divine proximity. This research demonstrates that Sadra's fuzzy anthropology leads to an ontological unity of soul and body, and consequently, to aIdentity Unity of theoretical and practical intellect.
