An Analysis of the Concept of “Truth” in Heidegger and Mulla Sadra

Mohammad Bidhendi

Abstract

The common and traditional concept of truth is that to consider it as the correspondence between mental meaning and the fact in a way that the mental meaning (concept or judgement) represents that fact.

This meaning of truth started with Aristotle and has found its way in Islamic philosophy and has been adopted by a large number of philosophers.

While illustrating Mulla Sadra and Heidegger’s standpoints regarding truth in this article, the writer of the present article explicates how these two philosophers take the Aristotelian meaning of truth as incomplete and have paid attention to pre-Aristotelian philosophers. For, in those thinkers’ ideas, truth had been defined within the framework of intuitive knowledge and had been taken as the unveiling of being and its levels.

In Mulla Sadra and Heidegger’s ontology, truth has been criticized as long as it is the description of a proposition while it has not been negated. In other words, from this perspective, truth in its common meaning is regarded only as a level of “truth”, known as “logical truth” and not all of it.

Keywords: truth of truths; truth; non-truth; proposition

Introduction

What is truth and where does it reside? Is truth a description of a proposition or is it the description of the things themselves? Does truth reside in the subject or in the agent? Or in the relationship between them? Or somewhere else? What is the relation between existence and truth and what is the relation between man and truth?

The common and traditional concept of truth is to consider it as the correspondence between mental meaning and fact in a way that mental meaning (conception judgement) represents that fact. Many philosophers, including Aristotle and Islamic philosophers and theologians, have explicitly adhered to this meaning of truth.

Mulla Sadra and Heidegger (1889-1976) do not accept this concept of truth and, in fact, they have defied this current tradition and instead of taking truth as a characteristic of a proposition or an idea, they regard it as the description of the things themselves in the world.

In Mulla Sadra and Heidegger’s ontology, truth has been criticized as long as it is the description of a proposition. At the same time, it has not been negated either. In other words, from this perspective, truth in its current meaning is regarded only as a level of “truth”, known as “logical truth” and not all of it.

Besides the common concept of truth as already referred to, there are other theories such as the ‘Coherence Theory’ and ‘Pragmatic Theory’, in all of which truth has been regarded as the description of a proposition. Reality meaning the correspondence between ideas and objects and, in other words, the correspondence between mind and object, started with Aristotle. It found its way into Islamic philosophy and was accepted by many Islamic philosophers, particularly the Peripatetics.

The present article aims to explicate how philosophers such as Mulla Sadra and Heidegger take the Aristotelian meaning of truth as incomplete referred to pre-Aristotelian philosophers for they defined truth in terms of intuitive knowledge and considered it as the unveiling of being and its levels. Based on this, in fact, the Greek word of aletheia, (i.e. truth) essentially meant ‘unveiled’ and ‘unveiling of the veiled’. This meaning of truth, which has an ontological base, has been in line with the ontological perspective of these two philosophers.[1]

In Islamic tradition, along with the common concept and popular definition of truth as was prevalent among philosophers, Islamic mysticism, which has been affected by religious principles, has never neglected reality in the sense of ‘unveiling of existence’. In the Western metaphysics, the dominant approach has been nothing but the very common concept, but philosophers such as Nietzsche and Heidegger noted the incompleteness of this meaning for the first time.

The other meaning of truth which gained popularity after Descartes did not agree with Mulla Sadra and Heidegger’s ontology. In modern age, truth was based on man’s perception in a way that human perception became the center for everything, the foundation for any knowledge, and the criterion for the reality of things. In this approach, modern man has taken himself as the base of everything and, according to Descartes, I as a thinking subject which is the same as the thinking reason is the first and the most certain truth.

It can, therefore, be said that there are three approaches regarding truth which should be discussed in detail so that Mulla Sadra and Heidegger’s ontological standpoint can be clarified.

‘Truth’ as Correspondence and Co-ordinance

Truth in this sense is mainly the description of a proposition which is true and described with the attribute of truth. Here truth is taken as synonymous with truthfulness.

Such idea of truth can be attributed to other things as well. At times, we may talk of someone’s real feelings or behavior or may take something as real. For example, we may talk of the real love of a mother or a genuine coin as opposed to a forged one. In all these cases the correspondence between two categories are taken into account. In other words, correspondence is always meaningful between one object and another one or between an item and another one. On the other hand, this meaning of correspondence can be understood in two ways: first, the correspondence between a thing and its idea as was expressed in a proposition or a statement and second, the correspondence between what is given by a proposition and the thing itself.

In his three-fold meanings of truth Avicenna has referred to these two concepts of truth. Moreover, in his commentary on Avicenna’s al-Isharat, Khwajah Nasir al-Din Tusi distinguishes between truthfulness (sidq) and truth. He takes the correspondence between a proposition and a fact as ‘truthfulness’ and the correspondence between a fact and a proposition as ‘truth’.[2]

Avicenna gives three meanings for truth, the third of which refers to truth as correspondence. In the following sections of the present article, more explications will be offered regarding the first and the second meanings of truth.

While referring to the point that truth here is an infinitive noun and by truth means ‘possessing truth’, Tusi talks of truth as correspondence.[3]

Truth as correspondence, also known as logical and conceptual truth, is rooted in Aristotle’s logic which can be regarded as one of the meanings of truth. Logical truth is built up of words and letters. In fact, it is the lowest level of the meanings of truth which has descended to the level of truthfulness (sidq).

The other two meanings of truth presented by Avicenna are: a) truth as an eternal being which belongs exclusively to the Necessary Being and b) truth as the objective and real existence of things.

These two meanings of truth have naturally attracted existential philosophers more although the meaning pertained to logical truth has mistakenly gained more importance in a way that it has been regarded as the dominant aspect of truth. However, as will be explicated in the subsequent parts of the present argument, truth is more sublime than that which can be restricted within the patterns of words and propositions. This is the very delicate point which people such as Mulla Sadra and Heidegger have perceived and emphasised in their ontology.

Not only the meaning of truth as correspondence has not been sufficiently clarified in this meaning of reality, and not only has reality been confused with truthfulness, but also the relationship between ‘truth’ and ‘existence’ as well as ‘man’ has been neglected. In this way, it totally lacks ontological support.

Truth in the Modern Age

The new Western thought which started with Descartes left the treasure of ‘truth’ within man and introduced man as the base and foundation of everything. This evolution in the meaning of truth is the result of the revolution in modern times regarding man’s reading of himself, existence, the world, and the relation between man and the world.

Descartes believed that by investigating a truth, that is, “I think, therefore I exist”, a base or criterion concerning all truths can be obtained because this truth possesses enough clarity and distinction. In Descartes’ view, clarity and distinction are the signs of truth and it is through these two attributes that truth can be identified. He believed that whenever our judgment surpasses clear and distinctive ideas, it has distanced itself from truth and we have made a mistake.

It is by demonstrating this meaning of truth that Descartes attains identification and knowledge of other truths such as the truth of self, God and the truth of the body.

This notion of truth to which the Descartes’ successors, including the rationalists, empiricists and others, contribute, created an immense evolution in human thought and questioned the claims of philosophy regarding the knowledge of objective and external truth. It paved the way for Kant to reject explicitly the possibility of man’s knowledge the objective and external truths of things (i.e. noumena) and to limiting man’s knowledge to phenomena.

Kant’s argument as well as his special transcendental method regarding truth and the knowledge of truth is not only different from Aristotelian logic, it is also totally distinct from Cartesian philosophy. According to Kant, ‘truth’ is the correspondence between sense data and a priori categories of understanding. Whenever categories such as existence, unity, causality, substance, and other items of the twelve categories, contain sense perceptions, they can lead to reliable knowledge otherwise they fait to give reliable knowledge. Based on this, in Kant’s view, what is referred to as an insensible idea in the mind lacks truth. It is according to this theory that Kant stands against dogmatic philosophers who do not accept any limit for human intellect and used to take real things as identifiable and regard talking about fixed realities such as Ideas as imaginative and unreal.[4]

Hegel who regards his philosophy as the synthesis of the philosophies before him has taken truth as the manifestation of the absolute spirit in nature and history in such a way that this manifestation has preserved its evolutional trend from deficiency to perfection and from finite to infinite. In Hegel’s perspective, each level of the absolute manifestation is truth, a limited and confined truth, of course, that does not negate itself due to its inner contradictions and reaches higher levels. Based on this, he believes that his philosophical system is the greatest one in which all truth has been incorporated.

Kierkegaard, who is a religious thinker, criticizes the philosophers’ conceptions of truth from Aristotle to Hegel.[5] He takes truth as ‘subjective’.[6] In Kierkegaard’s opinion, ‘truth’ necessitates being internalized. Truth is not an objective thing to be incorporated in propositions (as he believed in the case of truth as correspondence). It is, however, a thing we set off to possess from inside.[7] This, of course, does not mean that Kierkegaard negates the existence of impersonal objective truth. He repeats that the eternal truth is not in its self a paradox. It is, however, in relation to us that it becomes a paradox.[8]

Kierkegaard never downgraded truth to the level of truthfulness in such a way as to consider it as a description of a proposition. He bluntly explicates that ‘truth’ is so spiritually delicate that it cannot reside in logical rules and words. He maintains that truth is not confined within any logical and intellectual system and it is impossible for reason to bring truth under its control. The desire to get to truth itself and the reality of things using the reason will certainly lead to superstitions and overgeneralization.[9] Accordingly, Kierkegaard believed that truth encompasses man and governs us and it should be actualized in man in such a way that man can become selfless.

The result of such a view of truth is that achieving truth through concepts and acquired knowledge is impossible and man can understand it only through intuitive knowledge and direct contact with it. Through his severe criticism of the traditional meaning of truth, Kierkegaard made the ground suitable for Nietzsche and later on Heidegger, which will be further explicated in the present article.

After Kierkegaard, Nietzsche raised serious criticisms against the current conception of truth and by offering a new meaning of ‘truth’ showed a new path to the coming generations. Nietzsche said, “truths are all myths and myths are interpretations and interpretations are perspectives.”[10] According to him, what has been introduced as truth is nothing but what philosophers have imagined in their minds. “Even when Nietzsche says that if there were no art, truth would destroy us is in line with Aristotle’s opinion. Nietzsche’s idea is that the logical and abstract truth is suffocating us.”[11]

Therefore, after Nietzsche, and in a final analysis after Kant, logical truth as a correspondence between a proposition and fact lost its value. Although the dominance of metaphysical thought was still continuing, it is after this phase that Heidegger stepped forward on this already paved route and challenged and questioned the dominant metaphysical thought with more seriousness than ever before so that he could find a way through in approximating the meaning of the reality of existence and understand truth without any barrier and not confined within the limited web of logical and intellectual words and concepts.

So far, it has been observed how thinkers like Hegel, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, each in his own way, tried to expand the domain of human experience as well as its previous bases by destroying the rigid and abstract system made by Aristotle and, eventually, Kant. Now, the main problem in philosophical thought is not confined to knowing a number of abstract concepts adopted from Aristotelian logic and truth is no longer synonymous with correspondence. Truth, however, has found a permanent link with existence and the path to attaining truth is not peculiar to logic and logical concepts.[12]

The essence of truth according to Heidegger

Being and truth are Heidegger’s most important concerns. It is so in such a way that discussing and pondering upon any problem is related to investigating its relation to the issue of being and truth. In his ontology, Heidegger starts with the phenomenological hermeneutics of man’s special existence (Da-sein) in order to get to the meanings of being and truth. He does so in such a way that he sets Da-sein as a mirror in which he can observe existence. According to him, the question of the existence of truth is also indebted to the way man’s existence and status is among other creatures.

The point which has received much focus in Heidegger’s fundamental ontology is the relation between truth and being: the point which, he thinks, has been neglected from the time of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle onwards. In Western metaphysics, truth is taken as ‘logical truth’ and being or existence has been rendered into a concept, and the most general concept. A mistake has occurred between existence and existent and man has only stuck to existent. However, in Heidegger’s perspective, logic, which is thought to be the means for actualization of truth, can veil it more because it confines truth to the correspondence between thought and fact.[13] In his Time and Being, Heidegger is looking for a way out of the misunderstandings which have occurred in the meanings of being and the concept of truth.[14] According to Heidegger, the concepts ‘being’ and ‘truth’ which have been transmitted to us from the metaphysical tradition are incomplete and therefore unacceptable.[15]

Heidegger held that pre-Socratic philosophers regarded truth as the unveiling of veils. It was Plato who for the first time changed the concept of truth with his well-known allegory of the cave. In this allegory, man should leave the prison of the cave and enter the world of light so that he can witness the reality of things. Such a reality merely belongs to perception, observation and the expression of what has been seen. According to Plato, ‘truth’ is rendered into eternal, fixed, and unchangeable ideas pertaining to upper levels to which we are required only to adapt our presuppositions so that they can become real. In this way, Plato’s ideas provided the grounds for changing the previous concept of truth in a way that in Aristotle’s ideas, ultimately, truth became the correspondence between mind and object and the genuine concept of truth was totally forgotten. In his treatise entitled The Essence of Truth,[16] Heidegger starts his discussion of truth by analyzing the common meaning of the word ‘truth’, i.e. logical correspondence. Although he analyzes this kind of truth, which is the outcome of the correspondence between a judgment and the fact, he never totally negates it. As will be explicated further, Heidegger does his best to provide an ontological foundation for this definition.

Heidegger emphasizes that his main argument in this treatise is ”the essence of truth” and the issue of the essence of truth is in no way related to the fact that truth is a practical experience, an economic calculation, political knowledge, or a scientific or artistic truth. Instead, Heidegger ponders upon the essence of truth, disregards all of these and peculiarly studies truth as such.

In his search for the essence of truth, Heidegger deems it necessary to pursue the common and generally known definition of truth to its latest origin, that is, its medieval one. According to him, in all the cases given so far regarding truth, from what there is in Christian theology in which it is taken as the correspondence between a thing and a form in God’s knowledge to what Kant maintains as the correspondence between the real objects and our knowledge. In all these cases truth involves correspondence and agreement.[17]

In his critique of this meaning of truth which is completely independent of the interpretation of the essence of being, Heidegger ponders upon the meaning of correspondence and says that it is used in a number of meanings. Sometimes we talk of the correspondence between two objects such as that between two five-mark coins which are on the table; they correspond in some ways. Sometimes, we talk of the correspondence between an object and a proposition. For example, we say ‘This coin is round’. Heidegger expresses doubt about correspondence in this case in which correspondence is not between two objects; it is, rather, between an object and a proposition. He questions correspondence between an object and a proposition while the two parts of this correspondence are totally different in their outward manifestations. A coin is made of metal and is an object; it is round and is usually paid for the price of something bought. While, on the other hand, a proposition has basically no place and form and is not a thing. Heidegger asks how something which is completely dissimilar, i.e. a proposition, can be corresponds with to a coin. Is it the case that for this correspondence to become true a proposition should take the form of a coin? A proposition can never do so. For, in that sense, it can no longer correspond to a coin. Therefore, a proposition should necessarily remain what it is. Heidegger further insists on the question of how a proposition can correspond with an object (here a coin) while it preserves exactly its essence. In other words, how is this correspondence existentially possible?

To answer this question, Heidegger refers to the relation existing between a thing and a proposition (what the proposition says about that thing) and holds that determining the essence of this correspondence is left to this relation. By the same token, he maintains that as long as this relation is unclear, any argument regarding the possibility and impossibility of the correspondence between the essence and its degree is incomplete.[18]  However, what kind of relation is this? Heidegger talks of this relation as the one in which a proposition relates itself to a thing in such a way that it unveils and proposes that thing and expresses how the proposed thing manifests itself according to the particular perspective it has been guided towards. Manifestation, here, means giving the opportunity to an object to present itself as what it really is. In order for a thing to present and reveal itself the way it is, we should allow it to be what it is.

In his Being and Time, Heidegger also points out that if we want to use the term truth to a proposition or judgement, we have to interpret in terms of to unveiling. In this regard, a proposition is true when it does not conceal the existence of a thing and allows it to reveal and unveil itself.[19]

A more important point Heidegger raises is that a thing is an object when it presents itself as an object before us while it preserves its position as a thing and maintains its identity as fixed item. Thus, in order to issue a verdict about a thing, that thing should unveil itself and in order for that thing to do so, it should enter a realm called the ‘unveiling’. Now the question is when a thing presents and unveils itself in an open space, where does a proposition bring the necessary rules from so that it can correspond with it belongs to?

As an answer to this question, Heidegger asserts that the unveiling of things is due to the position man holds. Man’s existence, as it is essentially outward, gives the opportunity to other beings to encounter him and reveal themselves.[20] Therefore, the unveiling is bilateral. That is to say, as objects unveil and present themselves before man, man is also open and unveiled towards them and pays attention to them. What Heidegger is saying reminds us of the phenomenological principle introduced by Husserl known as intentionality.

Truth and Freedom

Da-sein is free against what is revealed in the open space. It is free and therefore it can have a relation with it and judges it. According to Heidegger, man possesses truth to the extent that he is free. Man is free to the extent that he is open and unveiled towards things. Man is open and unveiled towards things to the extent that he allows things to be what they are, that is he does not bother them and contributes to their revealing and unveiling.[21] Heidegger explicates that the essence of truth is freedom. It means that we should be free in expressing something and even in a thing’s being similar or dissimilar to truth.

Concerning the fact that Heidegger has made freedom the essence of truth, he confesses that this might seem odd at first glance. He calls for the unattended dimension of truth which needs to be recaptured and asserts that the resistance against the fact that the essence of truth is freedom stems from the existing presuppositions which should be corrected.

What does Heidegger mean by the relation between truth and freedom and their implication? Does making freedom the essence of truth mean truth depends on man’s whims? Does freedom, here, mean that offering any judgment is subordinated to our freewill in the sense that we can state a proposition or refrain from stating it? Heidegger proposes a negative answer to this question and maintains that in order to uproot truth, there is no other more effective means than giving its harness to such an unstable instrument. However, what is the base of the very freedom and what makes it possible?

Heidegger considers the essential relation between truth and freedom as pertaining to pursuing man’s essence. He takes freedom as man’s very openness in the sense that as man is standing in an open position, he can express what there is in this unveiled space and allows things to be what they are.

Heidegger further explicates that “allowing things to be” does not mean not paying attention to and negating them. On the contrary, however, it means paying attention and being involved in this open space, the space in which any being stands and it is as if it brings with itself that openness and unveiling. Heidegger holds that Western thought in its beginning called this open space ‘aletheia’.[22]

The other point is that allowing things and leaving them by themselves is not man’s doing. However, the stability of his essence is related to it because man is distinct from other creatures due to the relation he has with the open space. That is why he relates himself to ‘what exists’. This is the main issue Heidegger points out in his treatise The Essence of Truth. That is to say it is not the case that man possesses freedom as an attribute, rather, on the contrary, man is possessed by freedom.

Heidegger calls freedom Ek-Sistent and in his treatise The Essence of Truth elucidates that freedom manifests itself as an entity which allows things to be. In other words, freedom means getting involved in the openness of things in the way they are. Heidegger asserts that freedom means giving permission to things to be and is the completion of the essence of truth in the sense of the unveiling of beings.[23]

Truth and non-Truth

As far as truth is, in fact, the same as freedom and freedom is allowing things to be, as they really are, Heidegger holds that this characteristic creates the opportunity for the historic man not to allow what exists (in the way it does) to manifest itself. In this way things are covered and perverted and instead of ‘beings’, ‘manifestations’ gain power. According to Heidegger, this pertains to the characteristic of Da-sein so it attends to one aspect of existence, this attention, at the same time, leads to concealing the totality of other beings.

It is worth mentioning that as freedom is not an attribute of man, instead, man belongs to freedom, non-truth cannot merely emerge because of man’s inability and unmindfulness. However, non-truth should derive from the essence of truth. Truth and non-truth essentially belong to one another and it is because of this reason that it becomes possible for a true proposition to oppose a false proposition. Therefore, if the essence of truth does not terminate with the correctness of propositions, the essence of non-truth also cannot be equated with the incorrectness of a proposition.

Heidegger has discussed in detail the relation between truth and non-truth in his The Essence of Truth. According to him the ‘non’ in the beginning of non-truth pertains to a realm of the truth of the existence which has not yet been experienced. Reality accompanies concealment and covering in the sense that non-truth and concealment are preludes to unveiling and openness because what is concealed can be revealed.[24]  In his treatise The Origin of the Artistic Work, while confessing that our knowledge about truth is so limited, Heidegger emphasizes that non-truth is essential to truth[25] because wherever something is concealed there is unveiling of meaning. He says that when we encounter beings, while they are manifestations of truth, they are veils of it, too, and truth hides behind them.[26] Based on this analysis, Heidegger criticizes Plato in that he makes truth resemble light because he supposes that this light is permanently and constantly behind the head of the prisoner in the cave leaves no room for concealment.

In the rest of the present argument, we will show that Muslim philosophers and theosophists, such as Mulla Sadra, have paid total attention to two opposing aspects of truth and have been aware of the importance of concealment of truth and its unveiling.

So far, it has been observed that in defining truth, Heidegger takes both the correspondence between mind and object which is in Aristotelian logic and that between mind and object which is claimed in Kant’s Copernican revolution as incomplete. By establishing an ontological foundation in his approach, he believes in the meaning of truth. Even the aforementioned correspondence is possible when all beings reveal themselves as beings. Therefore, in discussing truth, all Heidegger’s focus is on the priority of manifestation of the existence of a thing[27] and transferring the core of the discussion from mind of the agent of knowing to the existence of the very thing.

Heidegger relates the issue of truth to the issue of being and the relation between man and being and considers truth as nothing but unveiling. Accordingly, we say that in ‘Heidegger’s fundamental ontology’, the necessary condition for reaching truth is attending to the hidden aspect of existence.

Truth in Mulla Sadra’s Ontology

In Mulla Sadra’s ontology, truth is defined in relation to being and the logical truth which has been incorporated in words and expressions is an outer shell of the ‘genuine truth’ and is regarded as the lowest truth.[28] By establishing an ontological foundation in his approach to truth, he attempts to explicate the relation between man, the universe and truth.

According to Mulla Sadra, which was of course under the influence of Muhy al-Din Arabi, the world which we experience with our senses is not a self-subsistent truth. It is, rather, a code or an example. It means that the world and worldly things refer to a truth beyond them called the “Truth of Truths” and are similar to the dreams a sleeping person has which render into a reality in a complex and vague way beyond them. The sensible things which have been interpreted in this way are the accidental forms of the Truth of Truths and by the same token they all possess truth in a particular way.[29] This metaphysical truth which exists beyond all truths and to which all truths return cannot be understood clearly by anyone except those who know how to interpret the infinite forms and features as the manifestations of the Truth of Truths.

In this approach, the only truth, in its real sense, is the Supreme Truth[30] that manifests Himself in sensible form.[31] By referring to the verse “And these examples we set them forth for men, and none understand them except the learned” (al-‘Ankabut: 43), he maintains that most of the verses in the holy Qur’an are examples for people the outward aspect of which talk of truths.[32]

The Truth (Haqq) and its meanings

Following Avicenna, Mulla Sadra has given four meanings for the Truth: 1) the Truth meaning absolute being, 2) the Truth meaning permanent existence like the existence of intellect, 3) the Truth meaning the Exalted God[33], and 4) the Truth meaning the correspondence between words and fact.[34] Mulla Sadra does not regard the acceptance of these four meanings of the Truth as the contradiction to its unity and as stated earlier, even truth in the sense of correspondence is taken as a level of truth which has been down-graded and is expressed by words and expressions.[35]

According to Mulla Sadra, being is more liable than anything else to possess truth because everything has gained truth due to its being and owes its manifestation to being.

In Mulla Sadra’s thought, people’s different understandings of truth build up the base for their various perspectives and this is in line with belief in the Single Truth. It is on these grounds that we can say he has synthesized various intellectual traditions including philosophical, theological, mystical, etc. and has developed his Transcendent Philosophy.

He holds that the different perspectives and disagreements among them concerning the knowledge of God refers back to the way they observe God’s manifestations. Their refutation, criticism, and negation of one another is related to the dominance of the judgments of some levels over some others and concealment of some loci of manifestations from others.[36]

Mulla Sadra then explicates that only the Perfect Man can possess a complete knowledge of the truth because he can contemplate all the manifestations of the Truth. [37]

In Sadraian thought, truth can be known only just to the extent that ordinary people (not the Perfect Man) have grasped it.[38] That is why knowledge of the Divine Essence as an ultimate reality is not possible for mankind, because God is above all can be said about Him: “Verily Allah is covered from the intellects as He is veiled for the eyes.”[39] In Mulla Sadra’s ontology, the Truth of Truths is One and His unity is existential openness rather than numerical unity. Thus anything has a truth and each truth has a truth until the Truth of Truths which is the base of everything.[40]

According to Mulla Sadra, knowledge of the essence of truth, or in other words, the Truth of Truths, has three dimensions. Firstly, conceiving the Essence of the Truth through intellectual reasoning and argumentation; secondly, knowing the Truth through purification and sanctification; and thirdly, through contemplation and mysticism.

Mulla Sadra believes that knowing the Truth through the first and the second ways is impossible and following the third path is conditional and difficult. Speculative intellect using argumentation and reasoning cannot know the Essence of the Truth because the Essence of the Truth has no cause, matter, and form and thus it cannot have genus and differentia. Therefore, as truth in itself is being and necessity “there is argumentation against it and no limitation for it”. Moreover, as the essence of the Truth has no attributes and there is nothing more known than it, and on the other hand, as it is a universal and infinite essence, there is no form in the mind by means of which to be known, therefore, absolute knowledge through this approach is impossible. 

Knowing the Essence of the Truth through the second path is also impossible because in this method, firstly the existence of the Truth should be achieved through the existence of things and then, through purification and sanctification, all the shortcomings and limitations are to be eradicated from Him. As the created is neither essentially equal to the Essence of the Truth so that he can be like Him nor is he similar to Him in attributes. Therefore, knowing the essence of the Truth through this path is also impossible.

The third way which is through contemplation and mysticism is impossible as long as man’s soul belongs to his worldly body. This path is open to just a very limited number of people in whom the next world has dominance over the present world. Accordingly, as long as the identity of the servant lasts[41] the existence and subsistence of his ipseity hinders knowing of the essence of the Truth. However, when the essence of the servant vanishes and the constitusion of his ipseity is immersed in the Truth, he can know the Truth through the Truth.[42]

Based on the above explanations, it is clear that, firstly, in Mulla Sadra’s ontology, truth is defined with an emphasis on its ontological aspect, and secondly, truth has been considered as having a single entity with hierarchies[43] in such a way that the origin of all realities of existence is God Almighty (referred to as the Truth of Existence by Mulla Sadra). In order to demonstrate that the ultimate reality cannot be known and God is superior and more sublime than anything that is said about Him, Mulla Sadra refers to the first Muslim philosopher, Abu Ishaq Kindi. Kindi believed that the Essence of the Truth (the Prime Cause) is related to us through his effusion, but we human beings are related to Him only from one direction. In this way, our knowledge of the Divine Essence is confined to the extent that we have taken Him into account. The domain of His compass over man is limitless, but man’s knowledge of Him is very limited and these two cannot be considered equal.

The result is that knowing the Essence of the Truth in its totality is impossible for mankind. Therefore, according to Mulla Sadra, the absolute truth is within no one is reach. Although parts of it can be bestowed on man and above all on those firmly rooted in knowledge, not all of it can ever be achieved.

Mulla Sadra stipulates that knowing God and His real Essence is beyond the man’s perception. The human intellect is handicapped in knowing the depth of Divine Essence although this does not negate the knowledge of truth because each man has knowledge of truth to the extent that rays of the light from the Truth are benefited from on him. Man’s duty is also depended on his knowledge of truth.[44]

In this viewpoint, therefore, the legitimacy of various understandings and the acceptance of different meanings and hierarchies of being are related to how we conceive the “Sacred Essence” and the “Absolute Truth”. Accordingly, it is necessary to ponder further upon the relation between man and truth and to investigate Mulla Sadra’s viewpoint in this regard.

The relation between Man and truth

Mulla Sadra’s ontological conception of “truth” as “manifestation and unveiling” and “moving from the outward to inward” is based on the type of knowledge he has of man. In his ontology, it is only man for whom outward and inward aspects has meaning. Since only the outward aspect of things is meaningful for lower beings and, therefore, it is natural that they do not attend the inward aspect of things. For those who are superior to man, such as angels, even God Almighty Himself, there is no distinction between the outward and inward and everything is outward because abstract beings are beyond time, space, matter and form thus there is no veil for them for knowing.

The discussion here is not about man and the dimensions of his existence. It is the degree and the quality of man’s access to truth and the inward aspect of things that has necessitated contemplating about the essence of man.

According to Mulla Sadra, man is the only creature who has no determined quiddity. Man is not a species in having a number of individuals; however, each individual is exclusive.[45] The logical boundaries have in a way been violated in this astonishing creature. It is true that man is defined as a quiddative being and in logic as a rational animal; however, the quiddity judgments have been undermined in him in such a way that he shows himself off in the balance of existence. Referring to the verses of the Holy Qur’an, Mulla Sadra concludes that man is not a finished creature and is not restricted to his species. In his reference to the first verse of Dahr which reads “There surely came over man a period of time when he was a thing not worth mentioning”, Mulla Sadra says that contrary to other creatures man has not been a definite and determined being.[46]

Man’s reality is beyond his actualities. It is rather infinite possibilities. “Therefore, in Mulla Sadra’s viewpoint, man has no limit and no determined quiddity and in the end he tends to become exactly what he has actualized through his thoughts and deeds. In other words, it can be said that man is a form for whatever forces exist in this world and he can be considered as a matter for all the forms in the world of meaning and the hereafter. He believes that man is a creature who does not freeze in himself, he, instead, creates himself by his thoughts and deeds.”[47]

Based on the Trans-substantial Motion, man is constantly moving towards evolution and perfection and he keeps on moving from one world to the other, from one level to the other, from an outward aspect to an inward one up to the ultimate reality (the Reality of realities or truth of truths).

By referring to the principle of the union of the intellect and intelligible, Mulla Sadra has demonstrated the union of man and each one of the levels of being. Based on the same principle, he takes the end of philosophy as moving the man towards the intellectual world similar to the objective world.

In Mulla Sadra’s ontology, man’s movement from the outward to the inward and from that inward to another inward and his union with any level causes the actualization of that level of existence in him and ultimately that level of existence will be unveiled for him (i.e. he gains reality). In his Mafatih al-ghayb, Mulla Sadra clearly refers to this issue.[48]

The point worth mentioning here is that in his mystical journey which ends at any level, man can interpret the lower levels and that is why not all interpretations are of the same caliber. This is the justification for various conceptions existing of the one reality. According to Mulla Sadra, the interpretation of all levels is “the Truth of Truths” being the ultimate interpretation and no one deserves to attain it except with death and the emergence of the Day of Judgement in which the interpretation and reality of everything will be clarified and unveiled, “On the day when its final sequel comes about” (al-A‘araf: 53).

The final point which should be talked about here is that Mulla Sadra holds that creating the sense of interpretation for unveiling the existence and reaching truth is not a thing to be achieved through acquired sciences. One should reach a level of being through the purification of one’s soul and inner self so that he can develop intimacy with the reality of existence and can observe the truth of things through esoteric knowledge.[49]

Clarifying the truth through symbols

It has become known that according to Mulla Sadra, truth has various levels and has a gradational ipseity. In Mulla Sadra’s philosophy, the relation between truth and being is such that principally knowing of truth is merely possible through knowledge of being. Accordingly, as being has outward and inward aspects, truth will therefore possess two apparent and hidden (outward and inward) aspects.

It was also known that man can understand some levels of being in line with the degree of his being. Mulla Sadra believes that as far as the sublime truth is incomprehensible by common people, God Almighty has expressed the reality of issues in a symbolic way and through examples in the Holy Qur’an.[50] By the same token, he has called the method of the prophets and philosophers symbolic and holds that they adopted such a method because they have felt obliged to talk to people in a way that they can understand.[51] Like many other Muslim philosophers, Mulla Sadra believed that talking of truth explicitly and without using a symbolic language will not only cause superficial people not to understand it, it also leads people to negate it or fight against it.[52]

Now the question is what is the characteristics of symbolic language that has made it a suitable one for clarifying truth. One of the most important features of symbolic language is that it is always dynamic and alive. It is not the case that it only refers to some certain meanings in a pre-packed format. Rather, it has in itself the potentiality for multiple meanings to flourish. Therefore, based on what has been discussed so far, as truth and its conceiver, i.e. man, is multifaceted and possesses varying degrees, it is self evident that symbolic language will be the best means for clarifying truth.

The other feature of symbolic language is that it can be a suitable language for expressing opposing attributes of truth. Truth always accompanies the hidden and unveiled, found and lost, closeness and farness, similarity and difference. Symbolic language can be a suitable language to clarifying truth with its aforementioned attributes.[53]

Conclusion and Review

Through the discussion in the present article, it has become clear that:

a)      The truth of anything is not just the outward manifestations of it. However, there is an inward aspect for any outward aspect and there is a truth for anything until it ends in the Truth of Truths. The interpretation of anything is nothing but moving from outward to inward (i.e. the truths of things).

b)      Truth is a single issue with hierarchies ordered in such a way that each level is inward in relation to the one inferior to it and is considered outward in relation to the one superior to it.

c)      Truth means unveiling of being and this unveiling and manifestation occurs by the sense of interpretation.

d)      Truth meaning correspondence which is derived from Aristotelian logic is equal to truthfulness being an attribute of a proposition and falls within the domain of words and concepts. This meaning is one of the meanings of truth and a lower meaning of the genuine truth. Heidegger and Mulla Sadra’s idea can be compared in this issue.

e)      Truth as a whole is not accessible because one of its characteristics is that while it shows itself, it hides itself, too. Heidegger’s criticism of Plato who resembles truth to an stable and unchanging light confirms this meaning.

f)        While accepting truth in terms of correspondence as a description of a true proposition within the framework of Aristotelian logic, Mulla Sadra gives the meanings of the Truth and at the same time illustrates that the truth of all things is God Almighty. No doubt this is the most important departure and distinguishing point between Mulla Sadra and Heidegger in that, contrary to Heidegger, Mulla Sadra accepts God Almighty as the reality of being and the discussion of God has been considered the highest level of philosophical investigations in his philosophy.

g)      Truth is an inward issue in such a way that truth without man has no actualized meaning. Mulla Sadra and Heidegger’s viewpoints regarding the unveiling of being and its levels and attaining truth can be understood in relation to man’s quiddity. In both viewpoints, man is the only creature who has no definite quiddity and is always open before “truth”.

h)      The element of historicity in the emergence of truth has been attended to by Heidegger; however, in Mulla Sadra’s thought not so much attention has been paid to history and historicity (in the Hegelian and Heideggerian sense) in the manifestation of truth. The issue of the manifestation of truth in each period of history and the relationship between periods of history and the manifestation of Divine Names has always been under consideration by Islamic gnostics and philosophers. This, of course, is not compatible with Heidegger’s theory.

i)        The unveiling of being and attaining truth through Aristotelian logic, and on the whole through concepts and acquired knowledge, is impossible. The language of poetry (according to Heidegger) and the language of mysticism and illumination (in Mulla Sadra’s view) are more suitable for expressing truth. In other words, the language of truth is the language of poetry and mysticism, not the language of logic and argumentation.

j)        There is a great difference between esotericism and subjectivism. In this viewpoint there are people who unveil truths through the purification of the soul which cannot be unveiled through other means. This paying attention to the inward does not mean introspectivism in which one is disconnected from the real world. Rather, it wants to develop a relationship with outer world in a deeper manner from another standpoint.

k)      Mulla Sadra’s viewpoint concerning the relation between man and truth is not compatible with mono-locution logic, that is, accepting merely a single logic.[54]

Notes