Abstract

Expressions such as 'mode of causation' and 'mode of delimitation', which suggest the external and ontological relation between the principial existence and quiddity and its essential judgments, as well as the same relation between the Necessary Being and possible existents, hold a specific place in the graded and cause-effect based system of Sadrian philosophy and perform a fundamental role in clarifying the problem of principiality of existence. Pre-Sadrian philosophers' view of these two expressions was merely a demonstrative one, restricted to explaining the mode of the relation between the subject and predicate in propositions. Nevertheless, some philosophers such as Mir Damad and Mulla Sadra, following an affirmative approach, tried to clarify the relation between the referents of the subject and predicate in the outside.