فصلنامه معرفت فلسفی
سال هشتم شماره 1 (پیاپی 29، پاییز 1389)

Gradation in existence is one of the pillars of Mullā Sadrā’s Transcendental Philosophy. According to this principle, the essence of existence is a unique and united reality with different levels and stages, in which what makes them different is no different from what is in common between them. The author in this article tries to show that this theory, despite its privileges over the Peripatetic theory, suffers from weakness in its basic idea as well as shortcomings in its proofs. He discusses six issues that he considers to be weak points in the basic idea of this theory which make it unacceptable.

Allamah Tabataba’i considers ethical imperatives as conventionals which are human constructs for making an action obligatory. As for ethical evaluative concepts such as good and bad, he has two ideas, suggested in his different works: A) good and bad are conventional concepts conveying the appropriateness of an action with one’s temper or otherwise. Since people’s tempers differ, good and bad also can differ from one person to another. B) Good and bad shows the congruence or incongruence of an action with favorable end.The authors in this article suggest that the second meaning shows that Allamah considers the concepts of good and bad to be secondary intelligibles, although he has not made it explicit. They think that it is important to draw the line between the two meanings in Allamah; a point which is ignored by others. The authors try to do this by juxtaposing Allamah’s ideas from his treatise on conventionals and those in his Qur’anic exegesis, Al-Mizān to show the difference between his view and that of relativists and agnosticists.

Historians of philosophy, theologians, and many sages have pointed out that one of the objectives of the theory of emanation is to explain the relation between God and the creatures, and the process of the emanation of multitude from unity. From among Muslim philosophers it was Farabi, and then Ibn Sina, who first theorized about this issue. Sohrawardi criticized the peripatetic approach, and came up with a new model of the theory of emanation in which he accepted the core structure of Ibn Sina’s theory while adding new elements and basing it on a different footings. This new plan has influenced Mulla Sadra.The author in this article tries to show that Mulla Sadra has been influenced by the Illumationist theory of emanation in at least four areas: a) taking objective aspects into consideration in explaining the emanation of multiplicity from unity; b) rejecting the delimitation of intellects in ten; c) accepting latitudinal intellects; d) employing the principle of the possibility of the nobler in explaining the emanation system.

Muslim epistemologists have suggested three theories about the problem of “designation”. Most of them think of designation as being in actu and “intrinsic” (pertaining to demonstration) to mental forms. But professor Fayyāḍi believes that designation is “essential” (pertaining to Isagogue) to knowledge by representation. He thinks of the nafs of the knowing subject as the real designator, and of mental forms as the mental existence of the ones which are designated. On the other hand, professor Mesbah believes that the process of designation is an innate process in which human mind relates mental forms to their designated entities. He considers the act of designation in potentia, the actuality of which depends on true affirmation.In this article, the authors argue that the difference between the three ideas stems from their different analysis of “designation”. So they try to put forward an analysis of designation to criticize the common view as well as that of professor Fayyāḍi. They also refer to the negligence of these views of the role of the knowing subject’s intention in the process of designation.

Mulla Sadra as a comprehensive thinker, reviews various philosophical, theological, and mystical approaches to the problem of revelation and its essence, and tries to assimilate all the different elements in his predecessors’ interpretations into his own epistemological view in this regard. This is why one encounters three approaches in Sadr al-Muta’allihin’s various works that he works toward their unification and solving their inconsistencies.The authors in this article try to show that Mullah Sadra connects different approaches with diverse foundations into the geometry of his Transcendental Philosophy in order to argue for the idea that the essence of revelation is an existential fact, rather than a quiddity. As a result, it has a gradational character which begins with the Imperative Qur’an (Qur’an Amri) and ends with the Created Furqān (Furqān Khalqi). Such an understanding of revelation brings with it a special understanding of the Qur’an with an existential flavor. His attention to diverse levels and dimensions of revelation has prevented him from falling prey to reductionism by reducing revelation to one of its features, such as its verbal discourse or rational understanding.

In the field of the philosophy of science, the process of knowledge development is based on three approaches, i.e. inductive, falsificationist, and paradigmatic. Despite their differences in their ontology, epistemology, and methodology, they all share in their relativistic approach to human understanding and knowledge. The authors in this article begin with introducing the three aforementioned approaches and their foundations. Then they turn to an Islamic approach towards the development of knowledge. The authors suggest a methodology they call “intermediate ijtihād” in which all four causes (efficient, material, formal, and final causes) are taken into account, and therefore culminate in rational certainty and religious authority. In this approach, the acquaintance with reality is possible through reason and authentic religious narratives, reality is not considered relative, and the basic principles of understanding will not change during time and in different places. It is also based on Divine worldview, and a cooperation of philosophy and science serves as an instrument, compensating for the shortcomings of modern sciences.

Kant’s theory of truth is of great import because of his influence on the developments in the field of theory of knowledge in the last three centuries. He wrote his Critique of Pure Reason to answer the question of the relation between the object and the subject of knowledge. The correspondence theory was the single official theory about the nature of truth before Kant. That is why both rationalists and empiricists –despite their main differences— shared the idea of subject-object dualism. Barkley was an exception who walked over the boundaries of realism into the realm of idealism. Kant has no firm position in this regard. In his Prolegomena, he accepts noumena-phenomena dualism, while in his Critique of Pure Reason, he does not acknowledge an independent status for phenomena in the mind. However, he insists on the lack of knowledge of noumena and on epistemic priority of subject over object. In this way, Kant does not believe in the correspondence theory of truth, and is considered the founder of the coherence theory of truth. The author in this article tries to shed light of different aspects of Kant’s theory of truth and to criticize its claim as well as Kant’s arguments for it.