The Form as a Barzakh (Isthmus) between Quiddity and Existence in Mulla Sadra

By: Mohammed Mesbahi

     Introduction

The form is one of the fields where Mulla Sadra has overcome the horizon of Islamic philosophy, even if he continues to  use most of the meanings that Islamic philosophy has applied to the concept of form.

The form is omnipresent in the whole corpus of Sadra, i.e. in all the domains of Islamic philosophy that Sadra has contributed to. The Form is present in all sciences of metaphysics, physics, logic, and also in the Qur’anic exegesis; it is also present in the theories of existence, unity, quiddity, knowledge, dream, and in the Afterlife.

 This situation has consequently multiplied the meanings and types of forms. We have in the Sadrian corpus the material, the natural, the extending, the continuing, the substantial, the specific, the absolute and the individual forms. Then the form is applied equivocally to different kinds of forms. We can distinguish at least three great types of form that can not have the same meaning: 1) Separated or metaphysical forms that do not need the matter to exist; 2) Material forms, which are physical or substantial forms that need a receptacle, i.e. the matter in order to exist; 3) Mental forms, which are the cognitive ones, like the sensitive, imaginative and intellectual forms (genera, species and differentia) that have a universal nature. The two first forms are not predicable, whereas the third one is predicable to other subjects. Our concern in this paper will not go to metaphysics and epistemological forms, but only to substantial ones, i.e. natural forms. Our objective here is to clarify whether the Sadrian theory concerning forms is more attached to quiddity or to existence, i.e. does his theory of form strengthen the existential character of his philosophy or will his theory take him back to an essential philosophy?

1) Methods of approaching the form

The diversity of the meanings of form will be reflected on the different methods or approaches that can be adopted to study it. Thus we can consider the form from the angle of philosophy, science, demonstration, rhetoric, poetry, theology, and mysticism. And as the form is involved in a number of relations, it is then possible for us to consider it from both its relation with existence and movement, change and immutability, essence and accident, identity and difference, contradiction and contrariety, etc.

In general, we can say that there are four specific methods to approach the Form: 1) The critic approach which requires confronting the idea of separation of the substantial form with its synonyms like definition, genus, specie, differentia and quiddity, in order to protect the Form from the contradiction that the Platonic theory of forms generates; 2) The ontological approach which considers the form as a constitutive substance of the truth of the thing; 3) The physical and genetic approach which regard the form as a generative act of the thing, and as the perfection (kamal) of the existent; 4) The logic and knowledge approach which deals with the form as  a specific differentia which takes part with genus to compose the quiddity.

On the other side, anyone who reads the book of Asfar would be astonished towards the diversity of the doctrines from which Sadra has drawn his doctrine of the form. In short, he found himself at least in front of four doctrines, and he had to choose among these his own doctrinal way. These doctrines are: 1) Platonic theory of forms, which says that the substantial forms are separated from the physical beings, although they are associated to them; 2) Aristotelian theory of forms, which is adopted by the Aristotelian school of Islamic philosophy (al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Fakhr al-Din Razi…). This theory transfers the forms inside the existents, in as much as it is their intern quiddity; 3) Suhrawardi theory, which divides the forms in two kinds: illuminated and intellectual forms, and imaginative forms; 4) Ibn ‘Arabi theory of forms which gives a predominance to imaginative forms over the physical and the ontological forms, and which mentions the idea of transformation of the forms. 

2) Definition of the form

When we look back at the meanings or kinds of forms, we notice Sadra has done the same as other Muslim philosophers, particularly Ibn Sina, when referring to the meanings of the form. He has repeated the five meanings that Ibn Sina, and after him al-Ghazali, have mentioned: 1) Form as a specific quiddity, 2) Form as a particular quiddity, 3) Form in the meaning of the particular truth attached to matter, 4) Form in the meaning of the specific truth, 5) Form in the meaning of the separate perfection.

We notice that Sadra uses three terms to define these five kinds of form: quiddity, truth and perfection. But when he wants to reduce these five meanings to one meaning, he uses the term act to define the form. He writes: “If you contemplate the roots of all the utilizations of the form, you’ll find that they meet essentially in one meaning, that is by which the thing is, is what it is in act. Then, philosophers were right when they asserted that the form of the thing is its quiddity, by which the thing is, is what it is” (al-hkmat al-muta‘aliya fi al-asfar al-‘aqliyya al-‘arba‘a, Beirut, 1990, t. 2, p 32).

We can detect some confusion in what he claims, since he unifies the act with quiddity, as if it is this latter which does the act of actualizing. But this ambiguity will soon disappear when Sadra gives, in the same text, a definition of the form as “a definite or actual (muåassal) thing in opposition with the matter which is ‘a vague thing which is not absolutely definite’ (2: 33)”. This implies that the form is not attributed to the quiddity which is not actualized, but to the proper quiddity. In other words, it is the actual nature of the form which urges Sadra to attribute the composed truth of the thing to the form and not to the matter. The matter is considered by Sadra as a consumed thing in the form, in the same way as the consumption of the genus in the differentia. In this way “the consistency (taqawwum) of the truth is only by the form”. (2:34) Thus, the form is considered to be synonymous to the specie, the differentia, the act, the perfection, the finality (al-ghaya), the quiddity (al-mahiya), the essence (al-dhat), the consistency (al-qiwam), the nature (at-ìabi‘a) and the truth (al-åaqiqa).

We conclude from this variety of synonyms of the forms that the form has different functions, if not opposite ones. The form first has an essential function, which separates the thing from its genus and defines it as a specie. For that reason it is named a substantial form. The form also has a generative function, which is based on the principle of identity and similarity. The similar, in the biological field, creates his similar in form. The third function of the form occurs in the category of quality, and it is based on a contrariety principle. For example the transformation from cold to hot, or from illness to good health. This function of the form creates a difference, but not a specific difference as in the substantial function, but an oppositional difference. The form has a fourth function: the cause of the movement. In fact, since the contrariety is one of the causes of movement, and the form is attached in some way to the contrariety, we can infer that the form contributes to movement as well. The fifth function is the unification of all elements that constitute the thing. The cognitive function is the sixth one. Indeed, the scientific knowledge, regardless whether it is on the field of demonstration or on the field of definition, starts from definition, which is in the end a form, to reach the definition.

3) The nature of the form

The previous facts make the task of delimitating the field to which the form belongs very difficult, because we can not determine whether it belongs to the existential field or to the essential and substantial one.

To clarify this difficulty, we should first know that the properties of the form, can be put forth as five:

1) The form is a principle and a cause: The first characteristic of the form is the principality. In fact the form is a principle constituent and a cause of the quiddity of the thing. The difference between the form and shape (hay’a) is reduced to the difference between priority and posteriority. Whereas the form is first ontological and temporal, the shape is a result of the form: “the forms are elements, and the others exist from its mixture” (5. 192).

The form is a principle not only toward the thing, but also in relation to the matter. Consequently, the Form regarding its quiddity, does not need the matter, but regarding its individuality it necessitates the matter.[1] Hence the principality of the form has two meanings: the form is the principle as a constituent and as an efficient of things.[2]

 2) The Form is a substance: Sadra considers that the “natural forms are substances” (5. 175). He uses some arguments to demonstrate the substantiality of the form, which stands on its causality, i.e. on the ontological and temporal priority: “because the cause should be stronger and more confirmed than its existence and its effects” (5. 180). Hence, as the form is one of the two principles that makes the substance of the thing, the form itself must be a substance. In other words, since the form is one of the parts of the substance, i.e. the form is prior to the substance, the form must be a substance.

It is necessary to notify that the substance intended here is not a substance in the meaning of a subject of predication, but it is a substance in the meaning of quiddity or essence. Sadra uses many synonyms to refer to the substance-quiddity, like truth (åaqiqa), nature (ìabi‘a), consistency (qiwam) and essential differentia (fasl)[3] etc.

3) The form is an act: Sadra defines the form as a principle by which a thing is actualized from potency to act, whether it is substance or accident.[4] In this way, acts and effects emanate from the form of the substance and not from its matter, which does not do any act but reception.[5] It is obvious that the form has a capacity of actualization, i.e. of achievement of the thing.

However, Sadra attributes the act to the specific form with some reservation, because he assigns a transcendent Intellect or Angel to every specie, so that they can take care of it, under the order of God, the creator of all things. This means that the acts attributed to the specific forms do not emanate from them, but by partnership with a supreme principle.[6]

We can understand this ambivalence between the form as an active principle and as only a partner with high principles, when we get aware of the difference, that Sadra has made, between the intermediate cause and the direct cause, or between the constituent cause and the formal cause. Hence, the form is a constituent cause to the matter through the help of a high principle, but it is a formal cause without this metaphysical intermediate. In other words, the form is a constituent cause when it is an efficient cause, and a direct cause when it is a formal cause.[7]

It must be indicated that there are some differences between the expression “the form is by which a thing is what it is in act” and the expression “the form is by which a thing is actualized from potency to act”. The first expression is close to the essential meaning of the form, because it uses the term ‘is’, the second is near the doer character of the form, since it uses the term ‘actualization’. This ambivalence justifies that the Form is mentioned both in the chapter of the constituent causes of quiddity (muqawwimat al-mahiyya) and in the chapter of specific differentia (al-fasl al-naw‘i). Yes, we do not deny the contrast between the doctrine that believes that the form is an active substance, and the doctrine that considers it as a constituent of quiddity. But we can identify these two doctrines if we consider that the entrance of Form into the quiddity of a thing leads to the separation of the thing from its genus, to become an existent or an actualized thing.

4) The problematic of unification of the form with the quiddity

Sadra divides, as the other Islamic philosophers, the four causes into two types: two causes that are constitutive (muqawwimat) of the existence, the agent and the final causes; and the constitutive of the quiddity, the form and matter. In fact, Sadra does not give up saying that the form belongs to the domain of quiddity, that is “the form of a thing is its quiddity by which it is what it is” (5. 254). Equally, Sadra unifies the form, which belongs to a physical domain, with another notion that belongs to the field of logic, that is the notion of differentia. This unification makes the form or differentia an instrument of actualizing potency to act, and the form is “by which the thing is what it is in act”.

However, even though the natural form does not need the matter to exist, it is in reality a correlative principle (amr ièafi) to the matter, because a form can not exist nor act without matter. But this ‘correlation’ (ièafa) does not deny the priority of the form over matter in constructing the quiddity. Then the form is as the essence of the quiddity. Still, we should distinguish the general quiddity from the particular one. Whereas the general quiddity is only a project of existence, it exists only in potency, the particular quiddity, which is the form, is individual and defined (muåassal). This individuation enables the form to make the thing what it is.[8] Similarly, the specific differentia has the same function, it actualizes the genus to become a specie.

We have seen that Sadra recognizes that the form is capable to create, or more appropriately, to individualize the thing. But he asks this question “according to the principle of reason, how can an absolute nature create an individual existence, and how can a general unity cause numeric unity, given that the cause should be more existent and more individual than the effect?” (5. 154-155) To resolve this problem, Sadra distinguishes between two priorities (taqaddum): essential and individual priorities. The specific form is advanced over both the specific and the individual matter; but the individual form is posterior (muta’akhkhira) to the matter, since the individual form needs an individual matter to exist and to be personalized. The matter, then, is advanced over the form by the individual priority, nevertheless the priority of the matter is caused by the form. In a word, the individuation is reciprocal between the form and the matter, but in two different ways: The form is advanced by its quiddity and not by its individuality over the essential and the individual matter, whereas the individual form needs an individual matter which is individuated by essential form (5. 154).

Moreover, Sadra considers that “the form, as a truth, constitutes (tuqawwimu) the existence of its location, that is the matter” (5. 182). But at the same time Sadra wishes to bring out the limitation of power of the form, when he regarded it as a constituent the matter in association with a supreme principle, an intellect or an angel. This is the relation between the absolute form and the matter; regarding the relation of the natural form with the body, the form constitutes it in a different way: if the natural form changes from a specie to another, the body disappears, and another one replaces it.  

Concerning the need of the form to the matter, Sadra has offered an original idea. He believes that the form needs the matter so that it can be a vehicle (åamil) of the categories or the individuators (mushakhkhisat). This means that the matter individuates the form through the categories.[9] Then, the affirmation that “the truth can be built only by the form” means that the form in itself does not need the categories, because they are only effects, affections and concomitants. Moreover, for the form to exist individually, it must have a relation with categories, therefore the form can not be detached from them. For that reason, the matter has inevitably to play the role of an intermediary between the form and categories. So the matter is the recipient of the categories.

5) The problematic of unification of the form with the existence

After having dealt with the closer relationship of the form with the quiddity, I wonder if it is possible for us to hope to find any traces of the doctrine of existentiality of form in the corpus of Sadra.

First of all, we consider that the doctrine of primacy of existence will be in favor of the affirmation of the existentiality of the form, since that doctrine has inverted the roles and the hierarchy between existence and quiddity. This new situation allows us then to bring the form to existence.

Besides, we may find some of Sadra’s assertions which approve this thesis. For example, we can read that “the stature (taqwim) of the truth is nothing made but by form…the world is a world by the form of the worldness (al-‘alamiyya) not by its matter, a bed is a bed by its shape (hay’a) and not by its wood, a man is a man by his regent soul (al-nafs al-mudabbira) not by his body, and an existent (mawjêd) is existent by its existence (wujêd) and not by its quiddity” (2. 34-35). The last affirmation that “the existent is existent by its existence and not by its quiddity”, clarifies the idea of existentiality of the form. When Sadra makes a distinction, between the existent and the existence, and between the existence and quiddity, this means, in our opinion, that the existence is as a form of the existent, or rather the form is what dresses the quiddity by the existence. The other affirmations concerning the form of the ‘worldness’, the shape of a bed, and the form of the man, confirms also that the form is the existential side of the quiddity.

In general, the fact that the quiddity has returned to the level of genus and matter, as far as it represents only the possibility of existence, allows the form to play the role of the actualization of quiddity. In other words, because the form is “by which the thing is, is what it is”, and it is “by which the thing is, is what it is in act” or it is “by which a thing is actualized from potency to act”, we can deduce that the form is the existential side of quiddity. In this way, Sadra describes the forms as “entitical and actualized existences (al-wujêdat al-‘ayniyya wa al-muåassala) which actualize the species” (5: 181). Rather, we find Sadra saying explicitly that “the specific forms are the pure and particular existences of the corporal things” (id.). In the same meaning he describes the forms of the reality composed of animals and plants as existences and entities.[10]

However, Sadra does not completely consign the task of producing the difference between substances to the form. But this task is allocated sometimes to existence[11], sometimes to the separated principles,[12] and in the end to God[13]. So, on the level of the existence, Sadra has deprived the form from what he had already assigned to it on the level of quiddity, i.e. the role of creating differences.

Sadra does not content himself by denying the function of generation of the difference to the form, but he also denies the same task to the matter. According to him, the difference between the realities of the specific forms, is not due to the differences in their matter dispositions, but it is attributed to its separate principles. The reason is that it is not possible that the inferior can be the cause of the superior. Nevertheless, Sadra does not dispossess the matter of all actions. He should recognize that the matter produces the individual differences, not toward the specific forms, but toward the particular individualities.

*****

It might seem that Sadra has not been clear enough in his presentation of his theory of form, because he sometimes attributes it to the field of quiddity, and sometimes to the context of existence. So that he can avoid this confusion, Sadra has used several ways, such as the distinction between the act and potency, the substance and accident, the essential and the individual, and the quiddity and existence. But we can imagine that the best way that he has followed to escape this confusion is the stratagem of diversification of names and meanings of the form. The affirmations about the specific, individual, natural, substantial, material, effective Forms… could not have the same sense. However, we believe that all these different names and meanings have something in common, which is the form, in its truthful and right sense, can not be anything but an expression of reality, substance, quiddity, nature and existence of the thing.

So, we think that the barzakhi vision can offer us a way out of this dilemma concerning the problem of the nature of the form. We think that the form in Sadra is a barzakh with two faces: a face in the direction of the quiddity, and another one towards the existence. But I use here the term barzakh not in its first sense, i.e. not as a separator between two opposite things, but in a sense which means that the form brings together the two opposites. Then, we would not understand the truthful nature of the form if we could not see it as an encounter of two seas: the sea of existence and the sea of quiddity. 

Notes:

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