A comparative study of Donald Davidson's and Sadr al-Mutalahin's stance on the duality of essences

Document Type : Research Article

Author

Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran

Abstract

In the theory of duality of attributes, Davidson abandons the distinction between material and immaterial essences and arrives at a kind of duality in attributes as an intermediate between physicalist essential monism and maximal dualism. To overcome some of the problems, he has considered "substitution" to mean the placement of one attribute over another. He accepts psychophysical laws but does not consider them to be precise laws that can be identified in a precise manner. The combination of these laws with the physical is almost impossible. One of the problems of the theory of substitution is how the mental affects the physical.

One of the problems of the theory of substitution is how the mental affects the physical. In transcendental wisdom, in accordance with the principles of the constitutive unity of substantial existence and movement, the duality between body and mind is resolved; because all faculties are assumed to be in the entity of the same primary matter, that is, the body, which is the prerequisite for the realization of the soul, and materiality is considered to mean having a waiting state and has different levels, and therefore abstraction also has levels. Unlike Davidson's theory, the relationship between the soul and the body is something stronger than the concept of objectivity. Although Sadra's interpretation of the soul shares a certain concept of objectivity and novelty with Davidson's theory, in Sadra's interpretation the body loses its material meaning, and although it is the same in physicality, the physical characteristics are transformed and varied in an intense movement to reach characteristics devoid of the description of the conventional body. The special type of essentialism of Sadra al-Mutalahin, which is also approved by science, can be considered the meeting point of the two theories of Davidson and Sadra in solving a single problem.

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References

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  • Receive Date: 23 December 2024
  • Revise Date: 20 December 2025
  • Accept Date: 23 December 2025

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