ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Philosophical Instructions Lesson Twenty-Six: Introduction to the Fundamentality of Existence A Brief Look at the History of the Problem As was previously mentioned, prior to Fārābī almost all philosophical discussions were centered about whatnesses, or at least were unconsciously based on the fundamentality of whatness, and in statements reported from the Greek philosophers, no clear indications are to be found of any tendency toward the fundamentality of existence.

But among the Islamic philosophers, such as Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā, Bahmanyār and Mīr Dāmād, not only is this tendency to found, but there are also declarations of position on the topic.

On the other hand, Shaykh al-Ishrāq [Suhravardī], who paid particular attention to intellectual concepts ( i‘tibārāt ‘aqlī ), took up a position against the tendency toward the fundamentality of existence, and he sought by proofs for the respectival nature of the concept of existence to invalidate this tendency, although in his own statements points may be found which are more compatible with the fundamentality of existence, and which do not properly justify the doctrine of the fundamentality of whatness.

In any case, Ṣadr al-Muta’ allihīn was the first to place this topic at the head of discussions of ontology, and he suggested solutions to other problems on this basis. He says: “At first I myself was a proponent of the fundamentality of whatness and I defended it vigorously until, by the grace of God, I found the truth of the matter.”1 He attributed the doctrine of the fundamentality of existence to the peripatetics and the doctrine of the fundamentality of whatness to the illuminationists.

However, since the topic of the fundamentality of existence had not previously been presented as an independent topic and the concept of it had not been previously explained, philosophers cannot easily be grouped specifically and definitively in relation to it, so as to characterize the peripatetics in terms of the doctrine of the fundamentality of existence and to consider the doctrine of the fundamentality of whatness as a feature of the illuminationists.

Supposing, however, that this classification is correct, one must not forget that the fundamentality of existence was not presented by the followers of the peripatetics in such a way that it could take its proper place among the problems of philosophy to shed light on the solution of other philosophical problems.