The Effect’s Need for a Cause in Avicenna’s Viewpoint
Subject Areas : Epistemological researches
1 - *دانشیار گروه فلسفه دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی واحد تهران مرکزی
Keywords: effect, cause, inception, necessity by means of the others, non-existence,
Abstract :
From Avicenna’s viewpoint, the contingency is the cause of effect’s need for a cause. But he has not meant the contingency which is equally related to existence and non-existence. Instead, by the contingency he has meant the contingent whose existence becomes necessary upon the existence of its cause. So he believed that not only inception (huduth) is not able to justify effect’s need for a cause in the continuance, but it cannot make clear its need in coming to existence. Therefore, he insists on existence strictly as an essential factor of effect’s need for a cause, the existence which acquires its necessity through its cause. This expression is very close to Mulla Sadra’s viewpoint on existential contingency even both are the same.