Abstract

The purposefulness of the world of nature and its various existents is one of the basic issues in the domain of philosophical rationalization, and the adoption of any position in this regard plays a significant role in the development of man's world-view and the determination of the direction of his philosophical and scientific life. In this paper, the writer has evaluated the issue from the viewpoint of two philosophical schools of the Islamic world, i.e., Peripatetic philosophy and the Transcendent Philosophy.Peripatetic philosophy, on the basis of its particular principles and bases, views the world of nature, like the world of immaterial things, an image and reflection of the divine religion and the prior system of imprinted forms. It also emphasizes that the effects and motions of material things originate from their nature, and the ends following such acts are necessitated by those fixed and unintelligent natures! However, the Transcendent Philosophy, on the basis of the trans-substantial and innate motion of all the existents of the world of nature, the diffusion of perception, love, and enthusiasm in all its particles, and the essential poverty of what is other than God, such as the world of nature, proves the purposefulness of all the existents of this world.From the two above-mentioned approaches, the one followed by the Transcendent Philosophy, in the light of its cohesive principles and their related proofs, is rational and defensible. However, the approach followed by Peripatetic philosophy, due to its basic problems and defects and lack of necessary proofs, is refuted and unjustified.