![]() ![]() This is followed by the motive to obtain the pleasure or to avoid the pain. The cognitive nature of man and animal is such that when they perceive and conceive an object there arises a desire and appetite for it as pleasure in attaining it and of pain in the failure to attain it. The mind is however directed to achieving a series of ends which are supposed to be different from the ends of nature and one imagines that the harmony between the two is accidental. That is why they employ their mental and cognitive faculties to achieve their ends and in fact there emerges a kind of harmony between physical nature (which is unconscious) and the mind which functions in a manner enabling nature to achieve its ends. ![]() But in their case, in most of their activities, the means of nature do not suffice to direct animals towards their goals. ![]() ![]() Animals also, in respect of their physical and natural being (not as beings possessing cognition and mind), like plants move directly towards their end in the natural world. Nature, in the course of its normal movement, is equipped with means through which it moves inexorably towards its goal. Such is Allamah Tabataba’i s notion of the mind's capacity to formulate and invent concepts by supposing-not arbitrarily but in accordance with a certain basis-one thing as an instance of another thing.Īnother observation that he makes (though I do not agree with its generalization) is that the difference between animals on the one hand and plants and inanimate things on the other is that the latter move towards their end in one predetermined direction alone. He would say that when we say, “I saw a lion shooting', this statement is actually composed of the two following statements: “I saw Zayd shooting,” and “Zayd is like a lion.” lie agreed with Sakkaki's conception of the metaphor. The late Ayatullah Burujerdi would make an interesting remark in this relation. This is a kind of innovation of the mind. A metaphor involves a change in meaning not a change in word.Īctually what we do is that we see, for instance, Zayd as an instance of the meaning of `lion,' then we apply the word `lion' to him. the word `lion,' after divesting of its meaning, to a person with a similar quality. In technical and literary terms, it invents metaphors.Ī metaphor, especially in accordance with Sakkald's view, is not simply the use of a word in some other meaning It does not simply involve applying, for instance. He begins by asserting that one of the functions of the mind is that it abstracts certain ideas from external objects (an operation that does not involve any innovation) then applies them to another reality, that is, it applies the definition of one thing to another thing. However, here I will give a brief summary of his ideas relating to this discussion. There he has discussed the origin and character of the development of normative ideas, and this topic deserves to studied in greater depth and thoroughness. However, the greater part of this discussion relates to jurisprudence (`ilm al-usul). In the sixth chapter of his book Usul-e falsafeh wa ravishe realism, he has discussed profoundly this issue, which is related partly to philosophy in that it explains the process of development of ideas by the mind. Among philosophers Allamah Tabataba’i has treated this issue more thoroughly than anyone else. ![]()
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