فصلنامه تاریخ فلسفه
سال نهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 33، تابستان 1397)

Given its emphasis upon the text of the Holy Scripture, Thomas Aquinas’s theory of analogical theology is one of the most influential and multi-faceted theories regarding the knowledge of God and analysis of His names and attributes. Aquinas’s main purpose in discussing this issue in both of his great works, Summa Theologia and Summa Contra Gentiles, was to predicate the perfectional attributes of all creatures, including human beings as the most perfect of them, on God. He believed that this is possible by employing an analogical method of predication as opposed to equivocation and unequivocation. In this way, he attained a knowledge of the names and attributes of the Truth that enabled him to leave the negative theology of the Middle Ages behind and, in this way, avoid the trap of assimilating the Truth to the created. The essential element of Aquinas’s analogical theology is the “principle of the perfections of cause and effect”. The perfections of effect have an apriori supreme presence in the cause. There are two other principles in his works called the “argument of degrees of perfection” and the “principle of the priority of cause to effect”. He insists on attributing all these three principles to Aristotle and Ibn Rushd in order to introduce his own analogical predication as being rooted in Aristotle’s philosophy. However, the truth is that Aristotle never made any explicit reference to any of the claims made by Aquinas. Rather, the idea of God’s being above perfection and pure good, in the sense that Pure Perfection embodies all perfections of finite things, is among Ibn Sina’s achievements and innovations in theological discussions. In fact, Ibn Rushd’s words in this regard explain Ibn Sina’s theories although he wrote them in his commentaries on Aristotle’s words.

The issue of ontology and the problem of authentic and unauthentic types of being have always been debated by philosophers since the time of ancient Greece until now. Among Greek philosophers, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Plato enjoy particular significance because of their particular theories. Heraclitus believed in flux and everlasting change of things and denied stability in being. By contrast, Parmenides denied change and believed in stability and unchangability in being. These two opposite theories were later reformulated in Plato’s theory of Ideas. He developed his particular theory by benefitting from these two theories and employed Heraclitus’ continuous flux in the world of sensibles and Parmenides’ stability of being in the world of Ideas. The present paper comparatively examines the problem of existence from the viewpoint of these three philosophers in order to clarify Plato’s agreement with his two predecessors. A comparison of the ontological views of these three Greek philosophers revealed that Parmenides’ theory of stability (way of truth) and Heraclitus’ theory of unity can be matched with Plato’s world of Ideas. Moreover, the writers conclude that Heraclitus’ theory of flux and Parmenides’ ways of inquiry are compatible with Plato’s world of sensibles.

Investigating the history of philosophy and philosophers’ views of it are of great significance because the most important source of philosophy and philosophizing is the same field of the history of philosophy. The trend of modern philosophy, whether in the mould of rationalism or empiricism, has generally been developed without acknowledging the need for history of philosophy, without making it the center of discussion, and without having a particular historical perspective in this respect. For example, in order to develop his philosophy, Descartes merely focused on the thinker’s capacity and the endless world. Empiricists have also tried to have a share of the knowledge of human nature and the world of qualities and quantities through experimentation. However, when it comes to Kant, at the beginning of his book, Critique of Pure Reason, he focuses on the possibilities of human knowledge, while he finishes this work with a section entitled “History of Pure Reason”. Even the opening section and some of his words in his Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics reflect certain perspectives and points concerning the history of philosophy. Therefore, it can be said that he was, to some extent, interested in the history of philosophy and even believed that he owed the development and consolidation of his philosophy to perceiving the nature and history of metaphysics and the related sciences and teachings. Kant found out that it would be impossible to understand the nature of philosophy or conduct philosophical inquiries and discoveries without first studying the history of metaphysics and other philosophical and empirical sciences. The rise of subject and its transcendental nature would have also been impossible without considering the history of philosophy and sciences and following a historical approach regarding systematic human sciences. However, Kant did not deal with the history of philosophy by itself; rather, he focused on the history of philosophical studies. Moreover, even at this point, the relation of the history of philosophical studies or a historical approach to the definition, restriction, and specification of subject is not of a constitutive knowledge-producing type; rather, it can be of a regulatory functional type. The history of philosophical studies could function as a guiding principle for philosophical understanding and work and highlight the signs and traces of the subject. Nevertheless, it cannot, by itself, define or create the subject, for Kantian subject has a historical aspect but is not a historical entity. In other words, the subject is a historian, perspectivist, and history-bound but is not of a historical nature. The history of philosophy is the occurrence condition of the subject and not its transcendental condition. The transcendental conditions of the subject are internal and included in its definition rather than being external, historical, and accidental. The present paper examines Kantian views of the history of philosophy in order to reveal this neglected and hidden aspect of his philosophy. In doing so, it explores some problems such as the meaning and definition of history of philosophy, history of interest in philosophy, end of history of philosophy, difference and similarity between history of philosophy and history of science, classification of history of philosophy, the relationship between philosophy and history of philosophy, the relationship between the philosophy of history and history of philosophy, and the like from Kant’s point of view.

In his search for the essence of being, following an aprioristic approach, Razi believed in the five-fold substances of Necessary Being (Creator), rational soul, hyle (matter), absolute time (perpetual duration), and absolute place (vacuum). When explaining the process of creation through the four pre-eternal things alongside God, he justified the role of God’s Will in the process of creation by highlighting the role of the soul’s ignorance in its tendency for matter. He also demonstrated that the world was created at God’s will and not by nature. In his view, it is only Man who can liberate the soul from the pains and calamities of matter through the mediation of the intellect and lead it towards happiness and salvation. However, the difference is that the soul will not have any desire for matter. Razi believed in the possibility of corruption and change in bodies and, as a result, in the world of creation, even if the bodies are of an earthly or heavenly nature. He maintained that bodies consist of hyle and vacuum and emphasized that substances enjoy volume and are pre-eternal. Accordingly, he agreed that particles are infinite in number and composite in nature and disagreed with creation out of nothing. In his view, the qualities of four-fold elements and heavenly spheres, such as lightness and heaviness, brightness and darkness, and softness and hardness, depend on the mass and number of the vacuum-like components that penetrated the substances of hyle. At the same time, Razi acknowledged the centrality and immobility of the Earth and believed that heaven and, following it, the Sun, and other stars have a spinning motion through the balance of the components of the hyle and the vacuum within them. He considered the world to have been originated and agreed with the possibility of existence of other worlds. Finally, Razi explained vacuum and plenum in the mould of the concept of an infinite universal place which is independent of the world and also introduced beyond this place as space.

Man’s behaviors and acts in each period are directly influenced by the ontological views and philosophical and religious principles of that period. Therefore, in order to understand the nature of such behaviors and acts, one might initially learn about the dominant ontological and epistemological principles of the time. One of such principles which is necessary for understanding human behavior and acts in each period pertains to the prevailing view of being and God, which directly affects one’s conduct in society. Given the necessity of cross-cultural knowledge in the contemporary era, the profound relationship between the Greeks and Iranians, and its effects on different aspects of their thoughts, the knowledge of the Greeks’ philosophical and behavioral principles could play a key role in the study of this cultural relationship. Accordingly, the present paper investigates the ontological views of the Greeks, their philosophical principles and, particularly, their views of God and the soul and the effect of such views on their behaviors and acts. In doing so, the authors have examined the ideas of three thinkers of the Greek era, namely, Homer, Socrates, and Plato, following an interpretive method. The results of this study indicate that the Greeks’ view of God in each period changed under the influence of the views of the thinkers of the time. In fact, Homer, Socrates, and Plato held distinct ideas in this regard. In Homer’s mythical view, Gods are like human heroes with human attributes and in transaction with human beings. However, in Socrates’s eye, God is a being who guides human beings and communicates with them through demons. Finally, in Plato’s philosophy, where polytheism moves toward monotheism, God, as the Idea of Good, is a transcendent Being who determines Man’s destiny and promulgates laws for their individual and social lives.

The relationship between “philosophical rationality” and “revelation-oriented religiosity” or, in a sense, the domain and functions of reason in comparison to revelation and its role in guiding human beings and leading them toward happiness has always been one of the most important issues occupying the minds of Muslim thinkers. Following a problem-centered and descriptive-analytic method, the present paper examines two different methods of philosophical and religious rationalities practiced by two Iranian philosophers, Muhammad Ibn Zakariya al-Razi (died in 313 AH) and Abu Hatam Abdul Rahman Razi (died in 322 AH). It also explains the quality of the confluence of the two philosophical and kalami trends of thinking with each other in the 4th Hijri century. The significance of this study lies in the fact that it clearly infers the relationship between reason, revelation, and mutual needs of philosophy and religion for each other from the confrontational debates between these two methods of rationality. The most important findings of this study are related to the typology of the rationality of these two thinkers and their standpoints regarding the problem of reason and revelation, equality and inequality of reason among people, and the role of rationality in their views of happiness.

The Greeks were familiar with Egyptian culture long before Thales in the 6th century BC and greatly benefitted from their teachings particularly in the field of mathematics. Recent studies in the realm of philosophy also indicate that Thales had a thorough knowledge of ancient Egyptian philosophy and was influenced by it in developing his own philosophical views. In ancient Egyptian philosophy, in spite of resorting to myths in order to analyze and explain the truths of the world, there are also some traces of philosophical thought in its particular sense. For example, there are some traces of pure philosophical thought in the realms of ontology, politics, sociology, and anthropology. This kind of philosophical thought is formed based on the profound and multi-dimensional concept of ma’at. This word means order in the field of ontology, justice in the field of politics and sociology, and honesty in the field of anthropology. Within the domain of anthropology, ancient Egyptians specifically believed that Man’s existence has nine grades and dimensions which enjoy a kind of unity among themselves. What has led to the final emergence of such grades, particularly the last grade called thought, and, thus, Man’s eternity, is following ma’at or the laws governing the order of being. Accordingly, they establish a tight relationship between their ontology and anthropology.