Proof of Power and Action from the Perspective of Peripatetic Philosophy

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 PhD in Transcendent Wisdom

2 Associate professor at the University of Tehran

Abstract

During the written history of philosophy, various views on movement have emerged, among these, it was only Aristotle’s theory of “power” that became most popular with the philosophers after him, especially Muslim philosophers. He considered the hyle to be a complete essence which, together with the physical form, constitutes the body and receives its transformations. Islamic philosophers, especially Ibn Sina, while accepting this, presented several proofs on it, and since then these proofs have been reviewed by philosophers and sometimes -especially in the contemporary period- have been viewed with such denial by some thinkers which has been reduced to something completely mental. Due to the important role of this idea in explaining the changes in the universe and that one of the most important of these proofs is the proof of “power and action”. This study also tries to show that most of the criticisms of this proof are fundamental and this proof has a high degree of unity in Peripatetic philosophy and also tries to analyze its capacity to accept Ṣadra’s editorial. The importance of this issue in strengthening the position of the origin system of Islamic philosophy, i.e. peripatetic philosophy, in one of the most important philosophical teachings; i.e. “power and action” that itself lays the groundwork for a more accurate explanation of the great doctrine of substantive motion (movement-in-substance) and its determination of area.

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