Ma`rifat Falsafi

Having adopted a descriptive-analytical method and relied on library-based research, this paper examine the substantial motion (ḥarakat jawharīyah) of the soul and its relation to the stability of human personality. The central focus of this study is the challenge of affirming the unity and continuity of the subject throughout the process of substantial motion. This issue had been seriously addressed in pre-Sadrian philosophies, where many philosophers, due to their failure to prove the persistence of the subject during substantial motion, denied the possibility of gradual transformation within the substance. Drawing on Sadrian philosophy, the article demonstrates that the substantial motion of the soul -understood as a gradual transformation in human existence- is not incompatible with the stability of human personality. By advancing the doctrines of the 'primacy of existence' (aṣālat al-wujūd) and the 'conceptual nature of quiddity' (i‘tibāriyyat al-māhiyyah), Ṣadr al-Mutā’allihīn argues that motion occurs within the fabric of existence itself, without undermining the unity of identity or the stability of human personality. One of the key contributions of this study is the elucidation of the role of the vertical hierarchy of existence (marātib ṭūlī-yi wujūd) in preserving the unified human identity amid gradual transformation. The article also demonstrates that while the lower grades of human existence undergo change, the higher grades remain stable and intact.