ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Philosophical Instructions Lesson Forty-Five: Continuation of the Discussion of the Kinds of Substance Intellectual Substance The ancient philosophers took quite tortuous routes to establish the existence of intellectual substance.

For example, they all resorted to the ‘principle of the unit’ (i.e., the unity of the effect given the unity of its direct cause) in order to prove the existence of the first intellect which is the most simple and most perfect of the contingent existents.

On the other hand, they introduced the active intellect as the proximate agent of the elemental world (i.e., the sublunary world), and they also presented it as that which emanates the intellectual concepts to man and to his treasury of intelligibles, and they mentioned various different ways to prove its existence. Also, to prove the existence of the tenfold vertical intellects they sought the assistance of the hypothesis of nine celestial spheres.

They imagined that the nine intellects were to be obtained as the proximate causes for the nine celestial spheres, and they also imagined these intellects to be the ends of the motions subject to the volitions of the souls of the spheres. These nine intellects together with the active intellect were taken to compose the ten intellects.

Likewise, the philosophers, in order for to establish the existence of the world of the intellects, and especially the Illuminationists ( Ishrāqiyyīn ), in order to establish the existence of the horizontal intellects (i.e., the Platonic Forms), relied upon the ‘Doctrine of the Nobler Contingent’ and they formulated various reasons for the validity of this doctrine. But, this is not the occasion for a review and criticism of their explanations and arguments.

However, by focusing on the fundamentality of existence, the graduated levels of existence and the reality of the causal relation, which are established in the philosophy of Ṣadr al-Muta’allihīn, there emerges a simpler and at the same time more certain way to prove that there is a world of intellects which can be considered to be a new explanation of the doctrine of the nobler contingent.

Hence, first we will explain something about the above-mentioned doctrine, and then we shall describe the conclusions for the present discussion which may be drawn from it.