Ma`rifat Falsafi

Regress is one of the oldest philosophical problems raised by Aristotle. The first serious research on the problem of declining infinite regress was carried out by Mirdamad. By declining infinite regress is meant setting the cause at the beginning of the chain without effects coming to the end. Defining particular conditions for disproving regress, Mirdamad does not consider declining regress impossible. He holds that the two conditions i.e. the intellectual agreement of the cause with the effect, and the sameness of the direction of successive order with that of the infinity of causes are missing in declining regress, thus the latter not being impossible. Relying on contingency with perpetual and eternal duration, posteriority of effect to its nonexistence in cause, and the foundations of priority in terms of cause, Mirdamad believes that this type of regress is not impossible. Giving the effect the role of relation in respect to the cause, and taking its dependence into consideration, Mulla Sadra holds that such a problem is not raised at all, and in case it is, regress will have an end. On the other hand, Sadrite philosophers have taken the objective agreement of existence into consideration criticizing Mirdamad׳s view.