The Explanation of How Suhrawardi Considers Existence Mentally-constructed as a Philosophically Secondary Concept and that He Negates the Primacy of Quiddity

The Illumination philosophy is an undeniably celebrated name in the minds of the cultivated in philosophy and mysticism. Nonetheless, they have not dealt with this school of philosophy duly. The reason for such negligence might be due to Mulla Sadra’s account of the Illumination philosophy; he has introduced Suhrawardi as one advocate of the primacy of quiddity theory. Such an ascription goes to the fact that Mulla Sadra equated Suhrawardi’s theory of existence as a mentally-constructed concept with logically secondary concept. This is while a closer look into several contexts of the issue in Suhrawardi’s philosophy proves that his meaning of existence as a mentally-constructed concept is different from logically secondary concept and thus he does not believe in the primacy of quiddity. Rather, his meaning of mentally-constructed concept is that it is philosophically secondary concept. Accordingly, as he considers existence a mentally-constructed and philosophically secondary concept, he regards quiddity mentally-constructed, too.  As a result, the ascription of primacy of quiddity to Suhrawardi is a great mistake made in his philosophy. In their essay and through both internal and external contexts, the authors have tried to demonstrate that by mentally-construction, Suhrawardi means philosophically secondary concepts. Thus the ascription of primacy of quiddity to him is wrong.