The Function of Abstractness of the Imagination Faculty in Physical Resurrection from Viewpoint of Mulla Sadra

Abstract

In the section of soul of the Islamic philosophy, imagination faculty is one of the inner faculties of human beings; this faculty is preserver and preceptor of the imaginative forms, and has epistemological, anthropological and eschatological functions. Contrary to former philosophers, Mulla Sadra by proving the abstractness of imagination faculty, setting it as a fundamental principle for demonstrating the physical resurrection. In this essay, by collecting the philosophical foundations for demonstration abstractness of imagination faculty, we shall express its arguments, and the effects of the abstractness of this faculty. In the works of Mulla Sadra, there are no traces of the effects and branches of the abstractness of imagination faculty explicitly, and the function of them didn’t express for explanation of physical resurrection. The achieved effects of abstractness of imagination faculty and its branches, show that theory of mulla sadra in explanation of physical resurrection enjoys of coherence more than other theories. Some of the results about the next world that achieved by demonstration of abstractness of imagination faculty are as fallowing: philosophical explanation for entrance of imperfect souls into the next world, occurrence of reword and punishment in the grave world occurrence of pleasures and sufferings in the next world, demonstrating that heaven and hell are perceptive forms, and they exist in the soul world proving that blessing in the next world are permanent, establishing that there is no contradiction between created forms, and there is no material complications for blessings of the next world.

Keywords

• imagination faculty
• abstractness
• physical resurrection
• mulla sadra