Between Physics and Metaphysics: Mulla Sadra on Nature and Motion‪.‬

Mulla Sadra's concept of nature and substantial motion treats many aspects of traditional philosophy and cosmology in a new light. By allowing change in the category of substance (jawhar), Sadra goes beyond the Aristotelian framework followed by the Peripatetics and Suhrawardi, turning substance into a 'structure of events' and motion into a 'process of change'. Sadra's reworking of classical cosmology through his elaborate ontology and natural philosophy leads to a new vocabulary of 'relations' and fluid structures as opposed to 'things' and solidified entities. In his attempt to make change an intrinsic quality of the substantial transformation of things, Sadra posits nature (tabi'ah) as the principle of both change and permanence, thus granting it relative autonomy as a self-subsisting reality. What underlies Sadra's considerations of change and nature, however, is his concept of being (al-wujud) and its modalities. Change as a mode of being and the de-solidification of the physical world goes beyond locomotive and positional movement, and underscores the dynamism of the world-picture envisaged by Sadra's gradational ontology. Keywords: Sadra; nature; change; substance; ontology; being; actuality; potentiality; matter; permanence; form; motion/movement.