Sadra and Hegel on the Relationship Between Essence/Existence and Subject/Object Kamal Abdulkarim Shlbei
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Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 2013 Sadra and Hegel on the Relationship between Essence/Existence and Subject/Object Kamal Abdulkarim Shlbei Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation Shlbei, K. (2013). Sadra and Hegel on the Relationship between Essence/Existence and Subject/Object (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1189 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SADRA AND HEGEL ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ESSENCE/EXISTENCE AND SUBJECT/OBJECT A Dissertation Submitted to McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Kamal Abdulkarim Shlbei May 2013 SADRA AND HEGEL ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ESSENCE/EXISTENCE AND SUBJECT/OBJECT By Kamal Abdulkarim Shlbei Approved March 26, 2013 _______________________________ _____________________________ Jennifer Bates, Ph.D. Therese Bonin, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Philosophy Associate Professor of Philosophy (Committee Chair) (Committee Member) ___________________________________ _____________________________ James Swindal, Ph.D. Roland Polansky, Ph.D. Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate Chair, Department of Philosophy School of Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy Professor of Philosophy iii ABSTRACT Sadra and Hegel on the Relationship between Essence/Existence and Subject/Object By Kamal Abdulkarim Shlbei May 2013 Dissertation supervised by Dr. Jennifer Bates This dissertation examines the problematic status of Truth within the intersection of the medieval ontological relationship of essence/existence and the modern epistemological relationship of subject/object. The main question that motivates this dissertation is this: does the modern distinction between subject and object find its roots in the medieval distinction between essence and existence? Rather than investigating the many medieval and modern philosophers in whom we could find answer to this question, this dissertation focuses only on two philosophers as study cases: One is the Islamic philosopher Mulla Sadra, and the other is the German philosopher George. W. F. Hegel. My chose of these two philosophers is not arbitrary. According to many scholars, whereas the medieval relationship of essence/existence finds its highest development in Sadra‘s Absolute Existentialism, the modern relationship of subject/object finds its iv highest summit in Hegel‘s Absolute Idealism. Sadra‘s Absolute Existentialism breaks with the metaphysical essentialism of both Greek philosophy and Arabic philosophy. However, Sadra‘s Absolute Existentialism is not explicitly mentioned by Hegel— neither in the historical development of the Philosophical Idea in the Lectures on The History of Philosophy, nor in the conceptual development of the Logical Idea in the Science of Logic. If the moment of the Absolute Existentialism is contained within Hegel‘s Absolute Idealism at all, it is so implicitly, as a moment within the Hegelian Idea‘s self-dialectical process of determining. In this dissertation, I unveil Sadra‘s moment of the Absolute Existentialism within Hegel‘s moment of the Absolute Idealism. I argue that, although Sadra‘s Absolute Existentialism and Hegel‘s Absolute Idealism are different, both challenge the traditional views of the metaphysical essentialism of Plato and Aristotle. That is to say, both Sadra and Hegel criticize and reject the view that abstract essence is the ultimate reality. I provide the logical connection between Sadra‘s and Hegel‘s critiques of metaphysical essentialism. I show that, within Hegel‘s Absolute Idealism, Sadra‘s Absolute Existentialism emerges in opposition to quality as affirmative reality in the metaphysical essentialism of the Aristotelian tradition. v DEDICATION To the memory of my father, AbdulKarim H. Shlbei vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful for the opportunity to thank those who have made this dissertation possible. Dr. Jenifer Bates deserves special thanks for following me through every stage of this process with great rigor and insight. Her energy and assistance are invaluable. I would also like to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Therese Bonin and Dr. James Swindal for their support and the great care with which they took in reading this dissertation. I would like to thank my wife Fatma and my children Kamila, Kyan, Sohel, Sehl, and my new baby Sarah for making my life better and more meaningful and for motivating me every day. Finally and most of all, I would like to thank my mother Kamila in Libya for her continues prayers for me. vii Table of Contents Page Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...iv Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...vi Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………vii Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….…xi Chapter 1: Sadra on Metaphysical Essentialism…………………………………………..1 1-1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………1 1-2 The Ontological Difference between (Being/Essence) and (Existence) and its Epistemological Reflections……………………………………………..4 1-3 The Difference between Essence-in-itself and Essence-for-Existence……..8 1-4 Sadra‘s Triple Metaphysical View of Existence……………………….…15 1-5 The Substantial Motion of Existence……………………………………...02 1-6 The Ontological and Epistemological difference between The Concept of Existence /Mental Being and The Reality of Existence………………...…22 1-7 The Univocity of (The Concept of Existence and The Concept of Essence) and the Equivocity of (The Reality of Existence)………………………....30 1-8 Sadra and Kant on the Knowledge of the thing-in-itself…………………..31 1-9 The Philosophical Appropriation of the Theological Conception of Creation……………………………………………………………………36 1-10 Individuation as a Mode of Existence……………………………………38 1-11 From Sadra to Hegel: Short Transition…………………………..............43 Chapter 2: Hegel on Metaphysical Essentialism…………………………...……………45 viii 2-1 Introduction………………………………………………………………...45 2-2 Hegel‘s Method of Reading Plato…………………………………………47 2-3 The Three Dialectical Moments in Hegel‘s Platonic Dialectic……………51 2-4 The Hegelian Refreshment of the Platonic World of Essences……………59 2-5 The Hegelian Transition to Aristotle………………………………………67 2-6 Hegel‘s Strategy of Reading Aristotle……………………………………..70 2-7 From Substance to Subject…………………………………………………73 2-8 The Three Dialectical Moments of the Aristotelian Idea……………...…...79 2-9 The Sensuous Perceptible Substance or the Immediate Moment of Objectivity………………………………………………………………….81 2-10 The Human Understanding or The Moment of Abstract Subjectivity…...82 2-11 The Divine Thought or the Absolutely Differentiated Idea: The Speculative Subject………………………………………………………...83 Chapter 3: Sadra and Hegel on The Metaphysical Essentialism of Arabic Philosophy…87 3-1 Introduction………………………………………………………………...87 3-2 Hegel‘s Reading of Arabic Philosophy…………………………………….90 3-3 Hegel‘s Critique of The Speakers……………………………………….....92 3-4 Hegel‘s Logic and The Critique of the Speakers…………………………..99 3-5 Sadra‘s Critique of the Speakers………………………………………….103 3-6 Hegel‘s Logical Account of Ground……………………………………...108 3-7 Essence in Itself: Essence‘s Issuing From Being…………………………109 3-8 Essence‘s Emerging into Existence………………………………………114 ix 3-9 Sadra‘s Critique of the Philosophers‘ Account of Causality: From the Essential Contingency to the Existential Contingency…………………...122 3-10 Sadra‘s and Hegel‘s Critiques of The Formal Logic of Arabic Philosophers………………………………………………………………129 Chapter 4: Hegel, Sadra, and the Qualitative Determination of Truth…………………139 References………………………………………………………………………………170 x Introduction He makes the night enter into the day and makes the day to enter into the night and brings forth the living from the dead and brings forth the dead from the living—The Holy Qur'an (3: 27) For everyone there is a direction to which he turns his face. Strive, then, to excel each other in good deeds. Wherever you are, God will bring you all together. God is certainly powerful over everything—The Holy Qur'an (2: 48) Among the ontological relationships, which enriched philosophy in Middle Ages, the relationship of essence to existence seems to be the ontological relationship par excellence.1 In contrast, the relationship of the knowing subject to the known object imposed itself as the prominent epistemological relationship in modern philosophy.2 Modern philosophy‘s break with medieval philosophy makes these two relationships of essence/existence and subject/object look different; each has its own philosophical concerns. Nonetheless, if we look to the center around which both of these relationships revolve, the concept of ‗Truth‘ emerges as the promising one. Both of these relationships of essence/existence and subject/object aim to approach Truth. While the medieval approach of the relationship of essence/existence leads to ontological Truth claims, the modern approach of the relationship of subject/object leads to epistemological Truth claims. From the standpoint of the relationship of essence/existence we can pose this fundamental question: Does Truth have a substantial relation with essence and just an accidental relation with existence or 1 See: Etienne Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers (Toronto: PIMS, 2005), especially