A Study of the Dimensions of the Time-Motion Relation Based on the Views of Ibn Sīnā and Mullā Ṣadrā
Subject Areas : ملاصدراپژوهی و اندیشۀ حکمت متعالیه
1 - MA in Islamic Philosophy and Wisdom, Khorasan Seminary, Mashhad, Iran
Keywords: Time, motion, cutting motion, mediating motion,
Abstract :
Time is a quantity for the measurement of motion, and motion means the continuous move of a thing from potency to act, which is by itself divided into two types: mediating and cutting. Similar to time, cutting movement is unstable and adaptable to time. Ibn Sīnā and Mullā Ṣadrā share many of their views regarding time and motion. Both of them believe that the relationship between them is bilateral. On the one hand, time is ontologically dependent on motion and, on the other hand, it grants quantity to motion. Nevertheless, their final analyses of the truth of time are different from each other. Ibn Sīnā views time as a quantitative category and does not believe in the multiplicity of time based on the multiplicity of motions. He maintains that the origin of time is the rotational motion of the Earth and considers it as a criterion for the measurement of other motions. However, in Mullā Ṣadrā’s view, time is the analytic accident of motion in the sense that time and motion are ontologically united with each other but are different in terms of their whatness. He also adds that time occurs to motion in mind. Based on his own particular method, Mullā Ṣadrā provides a new analysis of time, motion, and the relationship between them. He acknowledges that motion and time are among ontological affairs and philosophical secondary intelligibles. Moreover, time does not occur to motion in the outside world but they are both the moving modes of the same single thing. He considers a time for any motion while attributing the general time that happens in nature to the trans-substantial motion of the firmament. The purpose of this paper is to explore the idea that the difference between the conclusions of these two philosophers originates in their different views of time, motion, and the relationship between them.