Mullā Sadrā's Theory of the Gradation of Existence under Debate

Gradation in existence is one of the pillars of Mullā Sadrā’s Transcendental Philosophy. According to this principle, the essence of existence is a unique and united reality with different levels and stages, in which what makes them different is no different from what is in common between them. The author in this article tries to show that this theory, despite its privileges over the Peripatetic theory, suffers from weakness in its basic idea as well as shortcomings in its proofs. He discusses six issues that he considers to be weak points in the basic idea of this theory which make it unacceptable.