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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Philosophical Instructions Lesson Fifty-Eight: Motion in Accidents Introduction The motion which is familiar to ordinary people is motion in space and position, such as the motions of the earth’s revolution about the sun and its rotation about its axis.

However, philosophers have expanded the concept of motion to include any kind of gradual change, and they have established two other kinds of motion: one is qualitative motion, such as the gradual change of states and qualities of the soul, and the changes in color and shape of bodies. The other is quantitative motion, such as the gradual growth of a tree and the increase in its height. As a result, motion has been divided into four groups in accordance with the related category.

All of these are related to accidental categories: motion in space, motion in position, qualitative motion and quantitative motion. The ancient philosophers did not allow motion in substance. There are only a few ancient Greek philosophers from whom some claims have been reported which are comparable to substantial motion. Among the Islamic philosophers, Ṣadr al-Muta’allihīn developed and gave numerous reasons in support of the existence of substantial motion.

From this time, the problem of substantial motion became famous among Islamic philosophers. Here, we shall first review the four types of accidental motion, then we will discuss substantial motion independently. Spatial Motion As was indicated, the most sensible type of motion is spatial motion, whose channel is the space of bodies. Philosophers have introduced the category of where ( ’ayn ) as pertaining to its distance.

However, as was previously mentioned, the category of where, like the other relative categories, is not a whatness of species or genus. Instead, it is a relational and relative concept, which is abstracted from the relation between a thing and its location. Space is also an analytic accident of bodies which does not have a entified object.

In reality, the location of every thing is a part of the volume of the whole material universe which is considered separately, though it does not possess a separate existence. Anyway, motion in space is either intentional, as when a man transfers himself from one place to another of his own will, or non-intentional, like the spatial movements of non-living bodies.