نشریه نسیم خرد
سال سوم شماره 2 (پیاپی 5، پاییز الی زمستان 1396)

God’s knowledge and how it covers the creatures is among the important discussions in Islamic philosophy. Muslim thinkers have found the value of this subject through rational and transmitted points, and have attempted to discuss it to achieve the best analysis in line with reason and transmitted ontological statements.
In Mulla Sadra’s view, the quality of God’s knowledge is such that it does not lead to the necessity of God’s agency and capability or plurality in God’s essence – one of the most difficult issues in philosophy.
Similarly, he believes that even Avicenna despite his unparalleled ingenuity, and Sheikh of illumination despite his vivid mind and philosophy as well as his high rank in intuition, have made mistakes, let alone others.
This study explains eight theories about God’s knowledge of things, and criticizes them in brief. Among them are Pre-eternity subsistents, Platonic Ideals, representative active knowledge, immutable objects, intuitive illuminative knowledge.

God’s quiddity is among the most important issues in Islamic philosophy. In discussions of theology in its particular sense, after proving the existence of the Necessary Being, philosophers discuss His affirmative and negative attributes. One of the negative attributes is God’s lack of quiddity, which is closely related to His simplicity. Philosophers believe that unlike possible beings that have quiddity, God has no quiddity (in particular sense), and present arguments for God’s lack of quiddity, among them one can refer to the followings ones: non-existence of action and acceptance simultaneously, essentiality or accidental existence of necessary being, causing the existence of God, accompaniment of quiddity and causation, succession in necessary beings, composition or need in necessary being, essential origination of God, …. The most important of these is the non-existence of composition in God the Exalted, whether the internal composition (simplicity of essence) or external composition (essential unity). In this article, while stating the reasons for negation of quiddity in particular sense in God, we investigate the reasons and some objections put forward by the opponents. Finally, we refer to the inability of some arguments in negation of quiddity in God to conclude that some arguments for negating quiddity in God are ultimate and perfect, and one may resort to them.

The ‘time’ plays a considerable role in understanding the existence and various philosophical issues. Thus, throughout history, the philosophers have always paid heed to it and regarded a different status for it, to the extent that some, among the philosophers, have regarded it as a necessary being and some other have regarded it as a merely mental concept.
This study is a brief report of the existence and the quiddity of ‘time’ in Avicenna’s view. In the first part, we deal with the following key question: can we consider the ‘time’ as invalid in the outer world or is it a mentally-founded concept having no reality or objectivity? Similarly, it is said that Avicenna accepts the ‘time’ as an objective and real being in his philosophical thought and, to prove that claim, gets help from the two arguments: naturalists’ argument and the metaphysicians’ argument. We will, then, investigate the functions of those arguments.
In the second part, the quiddity of the ‘time’ in Avicenna’s view has been studied and it is said, with a reference to the process of the aforementioned definitions and features in Avicenna’s works, that the quiddity of the ‘time’ in his philosophy is the amount of motion as having the irreconcilable prior and posterior parts.
In the third part, we will explain the fashion of moving in ‘time’ and antiquity of ‘time’, and will state motion is the preserver of the continuous and non-stop time, and thus, the ‘time’ lacks the beginning and the end.

Explanation of reality of ‘body’ is something that has occupied the minds of the divine philosophers since long ago, causing disagreements and plurality of views among them. In the early division, a group regarded the external reality of the body to be composed of the components having position and actualized, and another group regarded it connected and simple, free from such components; and of course, both groups had some offshoots and divergences.
Here, Democritus' view in the first group and Peripatetic view in the second group seem to be important views. Democritus regarded body as composed of minor solid and actualized components, and the Peripatetics regard it as composed of connected and simple, free from such components, considering for it two elements: the hyle and the form. Of course, Peripatetics acknowledge that they do not find the hyle directly in the outside world and that accept it because of the necessity of the argument. Illuminationists also agree to some extent with the first view, and – unlike the Peripatetics – deny the hyle as a component of the substance of body.
However, the Peripatetic view is the most well-known among all, for it has been used as the foundation of action for philosophers. Today, the scholars of the empirical sciences such as physics and chemistry have no doubt that the body is composed of actual components. It is, then, as if today the Peripatetic view, used as the foundation of action by philosophers, is challenged.
Some contemporary philosophers see the Peripatetic view unacceptable, and consider the body composed of components. Among them, Allama Hassan-zada Amoli has initiated a new view that has resolved the drawbacks of the previous views, while gathering all views together.

Dividing universal concepts into the primary and the secondary intelligibles is one of the initiatives of the Muslim philosophers. These divisions have had many fruitions in Islamic philosophy, and many fallacies of the western philosophy are resolvable through these discussions. The present article is attempting to state the reality of the secondary intelligibles and their difference from the primary intelligibles in Master Mutahhari’s view. Thus, to have a proper appreciation of the meaning of the philosophical secondary intelligible, first we have explained the meaning of intelligible, and then we have stated the difference between the philosophical primary and secondary intelligibles. Here, the terminologies of the philosophers in defining the primary and secondary intelligibles and the objections posed for this theory by Master Mutahhari have been mentioned. Besides, because of the relationship of the intelligibles with knowledge and cognition, we have mentioned the issues facing the western philosophers regarding cognition as well as the Muslim philosophers’ words in this regard. And finally, after mentioning Master Mutahhari’s words in brief and criticizing it, we have presented the final conclusion.

Just as affirming the existence of the “will” in the man is an axiomatic and conscientious fact, knowing the meaning and reality of the “will” is a complicated and difficult task. This is why despite the unanimous acceptance of the “will” among the thinkers, there is disagreement in interpretation and statement of its general nature.
Some Islamic philosophers maintain that the “will” is one of the mental qualities, and regard “disgust” as its opposite. Avicenna believes that willing something means imagining it. Indeed, he considers the “will” as the origin of action and believes that imagining incites a willingness in the imaginer. Mulla Sadra believes that the “will” is “strong eagerness for acquiring something favored, and it is the last part of the ‘adequate cause’”. Allama Tabatabai regards the “will” as a mental quality, but different from qualities such as knowledge and desire, believing that the ‘will’ accompanies action and cannot exist before or after it. The late Imam Khomeini considers the ‘will’ as one action among the actions of the soul.
The ‘will’ is a phenomenon that requires a ‘cause’. Mulla Sadra does not regard the cause of the ‘will’ to be the man’s will or his nature, for it leads to infinite regression or endless chaining. As Avicenna says: “The soul is a constrained being in the form of a free agent”. Thus, some have asserted that the cause of the ‘will’ is the external factors.