Existence and Essence in Mulla Sadra’s Ontology

This paper examines the relationship between existence and essence in Mulla Sadra’s ontology. It analyses his arguments against the possibility of a real distinction between existence and essence of the existing entities in the world, which is advocated by Ibn Sina, and then explicates how Mulla Sadra after rejecting Ibn Sina’s notion of the real distinction interprets the ontological difference between reality and the possible world by reflecting on his doctrines of the principality of existence (asālat al-wujūd) and the gradation of the reality of existence (tashkīk al-wujūd), rather than existence-essence dichotomy