The Historical Background of the Fourth Dimension before Sadrā's Philosophy

Although the fourth dimension has gone beyond the boundaries of philosophy and is now a major concern in physics, the exact origins and history remain a mystery. Therefore, it should be investigated in the context of which philosophical problems of the Islamic world the fourth dimension was formed and then, how it developed. We will see that in the philosophical society of Iran, it has been traced back to Mullā Sadrā; we will show that, however, in the Islamic world prior to him, there are quite explicit statements in the works of Naṣīr al–Dīn Ṭūsī, Ibn Kammūna, Quṭb al–Dīn Shīrāzī, Mīrak Bukhārī, Qūshchī, Mīr Dāmād and others. In Western philosophy, the fourth dimension has been arguably traced back to the opinions of some medieval thinkers such as Anselm; but some western thinkers have correctly shown that there is no explicit statement about this in their works. In short, in this article, we will collect the views of the mentioned thinkers in a historical way and analyze them rationally. In the end, we will take a glance at the history of Ibn ʿArafa’s relevant opinion about reductional four–dimensionalism.