فصلنامه نقد و نظر
سال بیست و سوم شماره 4 (پیاپی 92، زمستان 1397)

Rational virtues should be acquired by jurisprudents (fuqahā’) and mujtahids in the process of inferring jurisprudential rulings and at the stage of the acquisition of beliefs and issuing fatwas. The lack of such virtues will indubitably amount to lack of reputation and invalidity of the jurisprudential process. We presuppose that scholars of the religion are, like other intellectuals, subject to moral vices and problems either overtly or covertly. There are a number of virtues that contribute to the validity of our knowledge, such as open-mindedness, intellectual diligence, meticulousness and concentration, intellectual modesty, intellectual courage, intellectual caution, intellectual openness, intellectual fairness, and intellectual independence. Since a mujtahid’s beliefs play a role in his ijtihad and inference of jurisprudential rulings, in this paper we examine the role of the rational virtue of intellectual modesty in the process of inferring jurisprudential rulings. In fact, modesty removes the veil of egoism from the mujtahid and from evidence of the rulings, and paves the path to arrive at a more ethical ruling.

In his reformist agenda, AbolqassemFanaei considers rational speculations (al-ẓunūn al-‘aqlīyya) to be reliable, and thus, he criticizes the standard ijtihadin Islamic seminaries. In this paper, I criticize his view with an analytic method. I claim that the stage of knowledge is different from the stage of judgment: the stage of knowledge is infinitely-valued, thresholdless, and not subject to laws, while the stage of judgment is two-valued, has a threshold, and is subject to laws. At the stage of judgment, non-epistemic aspects might make preferences. Evidence based on jurisprudential principles work at the stage of jurisprudential judgment, and since they are subject to laws, we need to consult transmitted evidence (naql) and look for further interventions of the legislator. After the search, we find that there are many texts in which the legislator bans acting upon rational speculations at the stage of issuing fatwas. One cannot ignore such texts without providing us with stronger evidence.

In this paper, we compare the use of a class of concepts in Clifford’s ethics of belief with their use in the ethics of beliefs provided by his intellectual rival, William James. The concepts include the moral justification of the norm of reason, epistemic justification of the norm of reason, credulity, the idea of acting upon probabilities, and acceptance of beliefs without reasons. We claim that although Clifford proposes the principle of maximal reasons – “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence” – as well as the criterion of verifiability, he does not himself act upon the principle, making use of concepts that push him towards the rival view. Thus, it can be said that we are faced with two Cliffords – extreme and modest – and two sorts of evidentialism – extreme and modest. We introduce the “principle of justice” as the internal feeling of fairness that has been formulated in terms of the Golden Rule – treat others as you wish to be treated and do not treat others as you do not wish to be treated –and then suggest that the system of the ethics of beliefs offered by the modest Clifford is a more just and fair ethics of beliefs.

This paper aims to investigate the requirement of the fore-conception of completeness as a necessary condition for understanding and misunderstanding inGadamer’s view. To do so, we deploy the analytic method. By the “fore-conception of completeness” Gadamer refers to the temporary assumption of an interpreter in reading a text, which consists of two elements: a formal (internal unity and consistency) and material (being a complete truth). He maintains that the understanding of a text begins with the projection of the initial meaning given to it by the interpreter. However, if the hermeneutic circle does not come to play with an appropriate fore-meaning, then the act of understanding will fail. For in this case the fit between the interpreter’s fore-meaning and the text will be doubtful. Thus, when a text is read, the first necessary assumption to correct, disaffirm, or confirm the interpreter’s initial fore-meaning will be that of the text’s unity and internal consistency. However, this assumption is not sufficient. It is necessary for the interpreter to temporarilyassume the complete truth of the text in order to test his or her fore-meaning and prejudices, because if the interpreter tries to understand the details of a text merely with an assumption of its coherence, then it will be impossible for those details to reveal the falsity of the limited and distorted initial meaning. The fore-conception of completeness is a “revocable” assumption of the authority of the text, which challenges the interpreter’s prejudices as well as arbitrary and personal lines of thought and is preparatory for their correction or affirmation. The fore-conception of completeness is a prerequisite of understanding, which is worthy of investigation, because every interpreter anticipates the completeness of the text in his or her attempt to understanding, in order to avoid inappropriate, arbitrary, and subjectivist interpretations by drawing upon the conflict between the anticipated meaning and the resistance of the text.

An important false presupposition in Gertler’s account is that since she thinks of Descartes’s theory, or at least Cartesianism, as an internalist theory as usually construed, our desired criterion for a property that is “intrinsic to the subject” should be devised in such a way that it counts Descartes’s theory or at least Cartesianism as an internalist view. I have doubts both about the accuracy of such a thought and about the putative requirement. The false presupposition led Gertler to fail to provide a general criterion in her first four proposed criteria because she restricts intrinsic properties to properties with particular spatial locations or a particular physical nature. Moreover, other lines of Gertler’s argument also seem problematic. In the final section, I propose and defend a new recursive criterion for the distinction between internalism and externalism. Even if the criterion is not accepted, Gertler’s problem will be resolved because of her false presupposition concerning the requirement of a criterion with an agreed-upon normative-descriptive definition as well as a variety of her methodological mistakes.

This essay deals with one of the most controversial issues in contemporary epistemology and philosophy of science, i.e. the relationship between ‘human interests’ and ‘knowledge,’ particularly ‘scientific knowledge’ (SK), and aims to present a tenable model of this relation. First, three different models will be discussed and criticized: the ‘transcendental’ relation between interests and knowledge (Habermas), the one-sided ‘constructive’ relation (Strong Program), and the two-sided ‘constructed’ relation (Actor-Network theory). In our view, each of them suffers from some serious shortcomings, which should be resolved in a satisfactory manner. Secondly, based on some useful achievements in contemporary philosophy of science, we will put forward a new model of the relationship between interests and SK within a general ‘decisionistic’ framework, which seems to be immune to the foregoing criticism, and explain more realistically the actual situations of scientific actions. In this theory, in a nutshell, as merely one of the key factors in a complex, contingent collection of ‘decision vectors,’ interests could contribute into the process of scientific decisions.

The theory of “God’s right for obedience” (ḥaqq al-ṭā’a) is a new theory in Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence (Uṣūl al-Fiqh) about one’s obligation in primitive dilemmas, which is contrary to the majority view. The theory was introduced by SayyidMuḥammadBāqir al-Ṣadrwhoch believes in rational caution and obligation in cases of possible obligations, as against the theory of the “wrongness of punishment without prior proclamation” and rational exemption (al-barā’at al-‘aqlīyya). The view was propounded by al-Ṣadr in his discussions of various issues of the Principles of Jurisprudence, such as the reliability of certainty, the wrongness of effrontery (al-tajarrī), and the permissibility of all horns of non-specific knowledge (al-‘ilm al-ijmālī). After al-Ṣadr, the theory was criticized and examined by scholars of the Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence. However, the theological origin of al-Ṣadr’s view, which he briefly cites in his formulation of the theory, has not been properly addressed. Thus, in this paper, we will investigate, compare, and logically analyze “divine attributes and names” and “obligation” as two theological variables in the structure of the theory of “God’s right for obedience” with a descriptive-analytic method, without going into issues about the theory in the Principles of the Islamic Jurisprudence.