Gradation in Existence from Allameh Tabataba’i and Master Mesbah’s Viewpoints

One of the issues under the subject of principality of existence has been the pluralities of the universe for whose explanation the theory of gradation of existence was proposed. In the transcendental philosophy, in addition to the three types of plurality (part of essence, out of essence, and the whole essence), a fourth criterion was proposed for justification of some pluralities: difference in the whole essence while sharing the whole essence, or difference in strength and weakness. Sadraʾid thinkers (followers of Mulla Sadra) disagreed in explaining this criterion. Allameh Tabataba’i believes that some pluralities of the real universe is not justifiable with this criterion. By proposing the new criterion of ‘objectivity of distinguishing factor and common factor’, he believes if the difference of beings returns to the difference in their orders and their strength and weakness, the gradation is longitudinal; otherwise, it is transverse. Master Mesbah rejects Allameh’s statements and believes if instances of a concept have a cause-effect relationship, then that concept is attributed to them in gradational form; otherwise, there is no transverse gradation and such pluralities are different by all their existence.