Metaphysics The Ontology of time in Mulla Sadra's metaphysics

Musa Akrami, Iran Abstract. Mulla Sadra, combining the mainstreams of theological doctrines, mystical teachings, and philosophical schools inherited to him, founded the philosophical school called al-hikmat almutaaliyyah (Transcendent Theosophy), as the most famous school in Islamic philosophy of Modern Iran. Sadra, making existence central to his philosophy, tried to explain the main topics of the tradition of philosophical thinking (of both Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophy) and solve the most controversial problems of theology such as the creation of the world and the relation of the temporal creature to the eternal creator. Sadra accounted for motion and time to establish an intimate connection between physics and metaphysics. His efforts led to some innovations in both the fundamentals and conclusions amongst which the explanation of time has important implications for science and philosophy. In this paper, showing the difference between Sadrian and Aristotlean-Avicennian philosophical foundations of analyzing the concepts and proving the existence of their possible references, we explain Sadra's conception of time as an essential feature of all physical entities that are in eternal substantial motion. Keywords. transcendent theosophy, existence, quiddity, the primacy of existence, the unity of existence, the gradation of existence, the substantial motion, time Keywords. transcendent theosophy, existence, quiddity, the primacy of existence, the unity of existence, the gradation of existence, the substantial motion, time