Homa Ranjbar; Davood Hosseini
Volume 17, Issue 1 , September 2019, , Pages 105-120
Abstract
Within the contemporary literature, there is a common ground about the history of the problem of primacy of existence. According to this notorious story, the prominent roles are those ...
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Within the contemporary literature, there is a common ground about the history of the problem of primacy of existence. According to this notorious story, the prominent roles are those played by Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi and Sadra; and Mirdamad plays a complementary role: Ibn Sina, in contrary to Ashari Mutakallemun, claims that existence is something added to essence in mind; Surawardi denies that this distinction is in reality; Mirdamad articulates the problem as a disjunction of primacy of existence or essence; at the end, Sadra presents the thesis of primacy of existence. It is argued that all these historical information are incorrect. Firstly, there is a controversy on whether Ibn Sina believes in the distinction of existence and essence in mind or in reality. Secondly, there was a vast debate on the distinction among philosophers after Ibn Sina. Thirdly, Suhrawardi is one of many who come in the debate and argue against the Followers of Peripatetic Philosophers. Fourthly, the text based upon which the articulation of the problem is ascribed to MIrdamad is mistakenly thought to be among his writings. Fifthly, Mirdamad and Sadra come into this traditional controversy, but have different views.
