Conceptual Metaphors based on Core-Surface Orientation in Mulla Sadra's Philosophy

Unlike linguistic metaphors, conceptual metaphors make a systematic connection between two conceptual domains. In this way, an abstract concept is understood through an objective and tangible concept. Understanding abstract concepts is possible for humans through conceptual metaphors. Therefore, conceptual metaphors have a significant presence both in everyday language and in scientific literature. These metaphors do not only have an aesthetic role and cannot be simply removed from the thought. One of the most important daily human experiences is encountering different geographical directions in the concrete world. These directions are also used metaphorically to understand abstract concepts. One of these directions is the core-surface orientation . Core literally means the depth of an object, which is contrasted with "surface" meaning the face and appearance of the object. Because the objects of the concrete world have three dimensions, they have core and surface. The use of this direction in everyday and common language, as well as in scientific and philosophical texts, is not limited to the same literal meaning. Mulla Sadra used this direction in a metaphorical way to describe many abstract matters. Metaphors based on this direction can be divided into two categories; epistemological metaphors and ontological metaphors In epistemological metaphors, the direction plays a significant role in explaining and solving an epistemological problem. Of course, this does not mean that these types of metaphors do not have any ontological role for the mentioned direction. Rather, a part of reality is described by this metaphor. But the mentioned description also has an epistemological function. Ontological metaphors are used only to describe and explain reality .

By referring to Mulla Sadra's works, the cases of using the core-surface direction are extracted from the text and then its content analysis is done. Then conceptual metaphors are regularly identified and introduced.

The epistemological metaphors found in Mulla Sadra's texts are: "Existence as thing that has core and surface", " God as thing that has core and surface", "divine attributes as things that have core and surface, " quiddity as thing that has core and surface", "simple concept as thing that has core and surface" , " intelligible and sensible as core and surface,Ontological metaphors also include: form as thing that has core and surface" , "cause of thing as core of thing" and " Maximum possible amount of thing as core of thing". Since the collection of the above items was done in an inductive way, it is probable that there are other metaphors based on this direction in Mullah Sadra's works .

The mentioned conceptual metaphors have all benefited from the conventional human experience in facing the coresurface direction in the objective and sensible world. In this way, many of the rules governing the direction of core-surface in the concrete world have been transferred to abstract rules governing metaphysical matters. Epistemological metaphors all stem from the conventional experience that knowledge of the depth of an object is more difficult than knowledge of the surface of an object.