نشریه کتاب نقد
پیاپی 72-73 (پاییز و زمستان 1393)

The first condition for the materialization of religious science is to perceive it correctly. The present article tries to offer a correct explication of religious science and to describe its external instances. On the basis of this study, the theist worldview is present in the presuppositions of religious science’s different phases, and the very worldview determines its orientation and applications, and sets the scene for the development of a civilization consistent with it. Not only is religious science a necessity for the future of Islamic world, but also one can easily observe its real materialization throughout the history.

The theorists believing in the possibility of religious science have offered some different approaches regarding how it may be materialized, one of which is the one offered by Mehdi Golshani under the title of “religious worldview’s domination on science”. According to this viewpoint, all of the empirical sciences have two main parts: the first part is experiment, experience and observation, which is the same in all countries; and the second part is data generalization, which is under the influence of metaphysical foundations. Thus, science is not acquired solely by the experience, but rather, the metaphysical foundations play an important role in science development, and no neutral science exists. There are different identities and sorts of metaphysical foundations, as they may be under the influence of theist or atheist philosophies. Therefore, if the metaphysical foundations of science are derived from religion, it would be religious, and if they are derived from non-religion - including secular worldview and atheist philosophies - it would be secular. This viewpoint, meanwhile, is encountered with some such objections and criticisms as indefiniteness of the different kinds of presupposition, what kind of presuppositions are effective in data gathering and judgment situations, lack of criterion as to how much of these presuppositions affect the theories by cause or by reason, and relativism in the empirical insights.

Some different viewpoints and perceptions regarding “religious science” have been presented. Some theorists, relying on a special view about science and religion, have basically rejected the religious science, and some, on the contrary, in addition to accepting the principle of religious science’s possibility and its objective materialization, believe in its necessity, one ofwhom is Professor Mehdi Golshani. In his viewpoint, the worldview and metaphysical foundations dominating on the science and scientist are the factors rendering science religious. On the basis of this viewpoint, the religiosity of science is a matter of science’s foundations and goals. Religious science is a knowledge based on theist worldview. The religiosity of science’s goal is considered in theoretical and practical dimensions. In the theoretical dimension, the goal is to discover God’s signs and get familiar with the creation design and perceive God’s power and greatness. In the practical dimension, the goal is to dominate the natural world in order to meet the human’s legitimate needs and use the capacities God has provided humans with. The present article, first, presents religious science’s foundations and nature in the viewpoint of Dr. Golshani, and then, examines and criticizes his theory.

Thinkers have presented different viewpoints regarding what the religious science means and is. On the basis of degree of enjoying religiosity elements and components, one can categorize these viewpoints into three macroapproaches: minimal, medial, and maximal. Professor Golshani is one of those thinkers whose answer to the aforementioned question can be categorized in the medial approach. In his opinion, science gets religious via the effect of presuppositions on two macro levels of knowledge generation and its orientation and application. In his viewpoint, this effect on the first level gets materialized in these phases: 1) choosing the research problem, 2) scientific activities management, 3) theorizing and adding up the scientific experiences’ results, 4) presenting, developing and promoting the scientific theories, and 5) interpreting or assessing the scientific theories. Thus, he notonly believes in the effect of the presuppositions in the position of beliefdiscovery, but also poses this effect in the positions of theory-making and judgment. The present article tries to explicate and examine Golshani’s viewpoint from three perspectives of assumptions, verification foundations and the main theory. The result regarding foundations is ambiguity over the definition of religion, the relation between science and religion, and epistemological and methodological foundations. Also, regarding the main theory, three ambiguities about authorization, the sort of using foundations, and how to use them in human sciences have been presented.

What is briefly presented in this article has been stated in detail in the following works: “The Identity of Religious Science” (2003), “Religious Science; Possibility, Necessity, and Nature” (1983), “An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education in Islamic Republic of Iran: Goals, Foundations, and Principles”, “Religious Science; Some Debates” (2012), and “Religious Science Calculus in Religious Knowledge Geometry: An Examination of Jawadi Amoli’e Idea” (2014). It must be said that the content of the book “The Identity of Religious Science” has been registered as a theory in 2006, and the debates of the meetings with the critics has been published in 2012 in the book “Religious Empirical Science Theory: The Relation between Religion and Human Sciences from an Epistemological Perspective”. Some additional points have been added in the present article. The main goal here is that the theories’ different parts be represented in a brief scheme and in connection with each other, so that its better understanding and assessment becomes possible. The present article is structured under the following titles: unjustified sorts of religious science, the possibility of religious science, the process of religious science materialization and resolving the problems, and the assumptions of empirical human science on the basis of Islamic teachings.

Assessing Dr. Khosrow Bagheri’s criticism of religious science theories can illuminate his own theory. He regards one of those theories the encyclopedia, religion’s comprehensive based theory, and so, arguing against religion’s comprehensiveness, rejects it. Scrutinizing his rejection shows that, first, the theories he regards as based on religion’s comprehensiveness don’t have such a basis; second, his argument against religion’s comprehensiveness is deficient, and third, his main objection to these theories is their being inferred and the issue of religion’s comprehensiveness is a subordinate one. This paper mainly tries to criticize his objections to religion’s comprehensiveness, and in the meantime, fist, religion’s comprehensiveness in the inference theories of religious science will be shown, and second, the main question in assessing the inference theory will be determined.

Professor Khosrow Bagheri is one of the few thinkers who have presented theoretical arguments about “religious science” and have fulfilled some measures for its being materialized, as well. My main goal here is to examine his treatment of the relevant theoretical arguments. I had previously presented an explication of his theory in a logical-philosophical manner and made some criticisms of it. In the present article, after briefly reviewing that explication and logical-philosophical criticism, I examine his arguments focusing on his method of interacting with the other thinkers, or in other words, I present a historical-sociological analysis of his position. It seems that although his theory has been presented more than ten years ago, the most important criticisms posed about the theory are still creditable, and the reason, I believe, is that Professor Bagheri has situated himself in a dilemma - “either my viewpoint or the other three rejected ones” - and examines each and every opinion from such a viewpoint, and so his opinion is no more vivid and has lost the opportunity to rest on the others’ analyses in order to mend its weaknesses.