Abstract:
Mulla Sadra and Heidegger, both of whom, by critiquing the dominant views within their respective philosophical cultures, sought to reinterpret and offer a fresh interpretation of the concept of causality, provide a compelling reason for comparative studies. Mulla Sadra, in three phases of his intellectual life, correlates causality with three concepts respectively: "being-inhering", "connective being", and "a dignity of being". Although in the first two phases, the conventional meaning of causality is somewhat preserved, in the third phase, and in light of the belief in the theory of pantheism, while negating the common dualism between cause and effect, the effect is considered a mode of the cause, and thus the conventional meaning of causality is lost. Heidegger, too, moving beyond the conventional understanding of Aristotle's four causes, links causality with being responsible and enabling something to be present. While criticizing the conventional meaning of causation and effect in causality, he correlates it with the two concepts of poiesis and aletheia. Like Mulla Sadra, Heidegger, by negating the conventional meaning of causality, understands it in the light of the immediate appearance and revelation of being. Despite the structural similarities in their confrontation with the principle of causality, the philosophical basis, intellectual concerns, and methodology of the two philosophers are distinct from each other.