A Sadrian Reading of the Role of the Imaginative Faculty as an “Intermediary Reality” in Addressing the Subject - Object Rupture and the Crisis of Meaning from Descartes to Nietzsche

Document Type : Research Article / Original Article

Authors

1 Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

2 Professor of Sociology, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

3 PhD Student in Social Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

The fundamental rupture between subject and object, inaugurated by Descartes and perpetuated throughout modern philosophy, led to the marginalization or reduction of the imaginative faculty as an “intermediary reality.” Although this reduction was partially challenged in German Idealism, particularly in Kant’s attempt to revive the transcendental imagination, it ultimately failed due to its confinement within a subject-centered epistemology and its retention of metaphysical dualism. This trajectory culminated in Nietzsche’s revolt of the imagination and will against reason, thereby intensifying the crisis of nihilism and existential meaning in the modern world. Drawing on a directed content analysis and a comparative study of primary texts, this article proposes a Sadrian reinterpretation aimed at overcoming this crisis. The novelty of this study lies in elucidating the ontological potential of the imaginative faculty in Transcendent Theosophy, in contrast to its reduction within modern subjectivism. Mulla Sadra, by demonstrating the dual structure of the “connected imagination” and the “separated imagination” (Mundus Imaginalis), reconceptualizes the imagination as a barzakhi (intermediary) and semi-abstract reality. This reality mediates not only between sense and intellect but also between the intelligible world (‘ālam al-‘aql) and the material world (‘ālam al-mādda). Within this framework, the soul (nafs), described as “corporeal in origination and spiritual in subsistence” (jismāniyyat al-ḥudūth wa rūḥāniyyat al-baqā’), is understood as inherently imaginative and ontologically intermediate. Contemplation (tafakkur) is thus interpreted as the culminating act of the imaginative soul. This ontological structure enables the intensification (ḥarakat ishtidādī) of the soul’s movement from material immersion toward intellectual transcendence, thereby re-establishing a transcendent (rather than merely transcendental) grounding of meaning. In this way, the subject–object rupture is transformed into a synthetic unity oriented toward perfection, offering a monotheistic horizon for confronting modern nihilism.

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Social Theories of Muslim Thinkers
Volume 16, Issue 1
March 2026
Pages 11-31

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History

  • Receive Date: 19 October 2025
  • Revise Date: 23 January 2026
  • Accept Date: 07 March 2026
  • Publish Date: 21 March 2026

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