خلاصة:
To solve the problem of mental existence, Avicenna emphasized that the definition of substance is that its external existence (fi al-aʿyān) does not need a subject. The mentioned definition applies to both mental and external substances. He concluded by adding ‘its external existence is not in a subject’ to the definition of substance that, on the one hand, the same meaning is reflected in the mental existence of the substance and, on the other hand, the same mental substance is a quality of the soul, that is an accident; so that the problem of ‘single essence under two categories’ will not occur. Mulla Sadra put forward two responses to the problem of mental existence. The first one was based on the theory of the earliest philosophers and the acceptance of incarnate dependence, because of which it would be consistent with Avicenna’s opinion. However, Mulla Sadra said that Avicenna, by adding the ‘fi al-aʿyān’ to the definition of substance, had confined the substantiality to individual substances, which requires the opposition between reality and mentality. Mulla Sadra’s second response is based on the emanative dependence in which the mental existence is considered a product of the soul, in which case, the problem of single essence under two categories will not occur in the first place. This view cannot be reconciled with Avicenna’s solution which is based on incarnate dependence. A Careful look at Avicenna’s statements, however, will show that Mulla Sadra’s criticism of him may be defended by making some qualifications and explanations so that we find out that Avicenna’s analysis had prepared the ground for Mulla Sadra’s first response to the problem by distinguishing tautological predication and common technical predication.
ملخص الجهاز:
In fact, Mulla Sadra considers the difference between his work and Ibn Sina's to be in this analysis that he has achieved: solving the problem of mental existence within the context of the natural universal and emphasizing the intensity of the ambiguity of essence (due to its excessive ambiguity and lack of attainability); he also explains the form alongside the concept and combines them together; of course, not in the sense that it is merely a mental concept; but rather the essential meanings that sometimes exist only in the mind and sometimes in the external world, and in the external world, they are without effect (Sadr al-Din Shirazi, 1981, Vol. 1, p.
According to him, the human soul creates and produces a scientific form in the manner of an external existence, and this scientific form is the imaginal form of that very category; in this sense that mental existence is one of the levels of being; meaning, the levels of being include intellectual existence, imaginal existence, and external existence, and mental existence will be part of the level of imaginal existence; consequently, the identity of the mind and the object is preserved here, and exactly that same essence exists in the mind; therefore, the two main pillars of mental existence will be realized: one is psychic establishment; the other is the preservation of essences between mental existence and external existence; while according to Mulla Sadra, the theory of the sages which is based on immanent subsistence, it lacks the second pillar, and the identity between the mind and the object will not be established; therefore, such a view does not differ much from the saying of the phantomists (shabhyun) (Sadr al-Din Shirazi, 1981, Vol. 8, p.
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