Ma`rifat Falsafi

The realization of the concept of the "universal" and how to evaluate it is one of the issues addressed by Mulla Sadra. It is commonly known that he considers understanding the particulars to arise from the subsistence of the soul, while understanding the universals to result from a kind of union with the Active Intellect. However, based on the definition of the "universals" in logic and its difference from that provided in philosophy, another type of concepts can be discovered, whose foundations and implications have often been overlooked. Mulla Sadra has proposed multiple methods for understanding the universals, including union with the Active Intellect or the observation of the archetypes. While he acknowledges the abstraction of the particulars in order to understand universals, he critiques this method in some of his works., Having summarized these methods and viewing the types of universals and particulars as well as the influence of the soul’s faculties in their formation, this paper explores the ontic and foundations of a different type of "universal" as the concept of the "ambiguous." The concept of the "ambiguous" arises from the interference of the active faculty in particular concepts and the removal of the determining confines, thus it lacks the philosophical property of inclusiveness of certainty. Therefore, after an epistemic evaluation, the various applications and methods for evaluating it are discussed.