A Comparative Study of the Quiddity and Method of Attaining Certainty in the Thought of Descartes and Mullā Ṣadrā

Abstract

This article presents a comparative study of the quiddity, types, and methods of achieving "certainty" (yaqīn) from the perspective of two prominent philosophers of the Islamic and modern philosophical traditions: Mullā Ṣadrā and René Descartes. While they share commonalities—such as the search for an unshakeable foundation, the central role of the "self," and the exclusion of doubt from the definition of certainty—the divergence between their views is rooted in their fundamentally different metaphysical principles.Employing the method of methodical doubt, Descartes considers certainty to be a mental and epistemic state, whose criterion is the "clarity and distinctness" of a perception. His starting point is the "Cogito" (Cogito ergo sum) as the first indubitable truth, and ultimately, he introduces God as the extrinsic guarantor for the veracity of clear and distinct perceptions. In contrast, Mullā Ṣadrā, within the framework of Transcendent Philosophy (al-Ḥikmah al-Muta‘āliyah) and through foundational concepts such as "the Primacy of Existence" (aṣālat al-wujūd), "the Unity of the Intellector and the Intellected" (ittiḥād al-‘āqil wa’l-ma‘qūl), and "Substantial Motion" (al-ḥarakah al-jawhariyyah), regards certainty as an existential and presential (ḥuḍūrī) matter. It is attained through the existential wayfaring (sulūk) and perfection of the soul. In this view, God—as the Bestower of Forms (Wāhib al-ṣuwar)—is not an extrinsic guarantor but the direct, bestowing source of certainty itself. The findings of this study demonstrate that the principal distinction between these two theories stems from differences in ontology (knowledge as a "mode of existence" versus knowledge as "mental representation") and methodology (intuition and unveiling versus discursive reasoning and proof). This research thus delineates the contrast between the two intellectual paradigms of "existence-based epistemology" and "mind-based epistemology."