Comparative study of generality issue in Philosophies of Mulla Sadra and John Locke

The generality issue is one of the old philosophical matters that is discussed, in all times and eras, by considering the time’s requirements by philosophers. The main issue of these discussions, generally, is about the general ontology, in the world, and if the generality is in the world? There are three general views to respond this question, that are realism, imagination and naming. From the realist point of view, the generality is externally existing in the world. Realism, itself, is also divided into two general Platonic and Socratic trends, which the Platonists believe that in the external world, world of ideas, and world of wisdom, there is generality as a tangible matter or sample. And from the Socrates’s point of view, the generality is not in the world of wisdom but also exists in external in general samples. As the issue of generality is an extended issue, this paper attempts to examine this issue from the perspective of two prominent philosophers,i.e Mulla Sadra, an existential Muslim philosopher and John Locke, an empirical English philosopher. Both of these two philosophers believe in general existence in the world, both of which can be called realistic. From Mulla Sadra’s point of view, the soul, because of its ascension and uprising, can observe generalities in the wisdom closely or far, for this he could be called Platonic dialectal followers. And, from John Locke’s point of view, there are generalities not in the world of wisdom but also in general samples, and the human’s wisdom imagines the generalities with respect to the similarities and commons of the general samples.