A Comparative Study of Molla Sadra’s ‘Existence’ and ‘Essence’ and Kant’s ‘Noumenon’ and ‘Phenomenon’

It is commonly accepted that most influential philosophers of recent centuries in the east and the west are Molla Sadra-ye-Shirazi, and Kant, the renowned German philosopher, respectively. The evidence for this claim comes from the fact that, in any field, all succeeding philosophers have either made descriptive annotations or critical commentaries on their works. Each of these two philosophers have their own special principles and terminology of which some are comparable. The present article is an attempt to compare and contrast Sadra’s “existence” and “essence” with Kant’s “noumenon” and “phenomenon”. To this end, first three interpretations of the corresponding pair of conceprts are presented, followed by a discussion on their similarities and differences. In interpeting Sadra’s existence and essence, special attention is paid to “aspects” and from among the numerous interpetion of Kant’s nouemenon and phenomenon, the psychological and epistemological interpations are emphasized.