Ma`rifat Falsafi

All notions pertaining to quiddity are prone to re-interpretation after one accepts the idea of the principality of existence, because one has to interpret them on the bases on the attributes of existence. The authors in this article try to infer Mulla Sadra’s idea about “genius” based on his unique idea and ontological interpretation of “differentia”. They want to know that, according to him, with an intuitive knowledge of which level of existence one becomes capable of contemplating about genius. In fact, they want to apply the same approach Mulla Sadra has taken with regard to the real differentia to the problem of genius. Since he considers differentia as reflecting “individual being”, the authors take the real genius as reflecting the all-pervading existence. They also refer to the incompatibility of this idea with Ibn-Sina’s well-known idea of the abstraction of genius from matter.