فصلنامه آیین حکمت
پیاپی 16 (تابستان 1392)

The main question of the present article is how sacred understanding and secular of rationality reflect in three dimensions of world-view, world-government and world-ornamentation. Using comparative method and a pattern centered on knowledge in distinguishing two versions of rationality in the thoughts of two social thinkers of the East and West the author believes that Max Weber as the exponent of secular rationality introduces effectiveness, i.e. choosing the best means to obtain the aim as its criterion. This sort of rationality found expression in terms of formal rationality in the western civilization and appeared as result of particular world-view of modern man who stripped the natural and social world from sacred meaning and decorated it with secularism and democracy. Allame Tabatabae, by contrast, as the exponent of sacred version of rationality identifies the coherence with innate and sound nature of human being as its criterion. Innate (fitri) rationality holds the world of being to be meaningful and man to be obliged to govern the world and ornament it on the basis his innate and primordial nature (fitra).

The present paper is an attempt to review on solution of foundationalists in dealing with the criterion for truth of theoretical propositions providing a pattern for epistemic reference on the chosen foundationalism. By epistemic reference is meant to justify theoretical propositions by reference to self-evident propositions, which is referred to in logical jargon as "analysis". In contrast with this mental activity there is epistemic activity in which one starts from self-evident to the theoretical which is named "synthesis or combination". The pattern concerned is as follows: a philosophical system or structure consisting of analytic propositions is possible. This pattern can be presented in philosophy before science. For instance, one can analyze the arguments for the existence of God into self-evident propositions and reduced to a few limited principles. This philosophical system consists of analytic propositions that are real but in themselves do not indicate the realization of and correspondence to their external instances. Both the realization and correspondence are in need of argument. The most important problem one faces in this solution is how such analytic propositions and statements can be related to external world. The paper continues to provide a solution for the above-mentioned problem.

Grace rule is among the important Kalam rules applied for the proof of some fundamental doctrinal principles by various schools of theology in Islam. Imamiyya theologians used the Grace rule to prove the principle of Imamate as Mutazilites theologians did for the promise and warning as two basic principles of them. Asharites and some Mutazilites from Baghdad, however, have denied the rule, arguing to discredit it. In view of the importance or the Grace rule in Islamic theology, the present paper is intended to examine the views of Muslim theologians who argued for the necessity of Grace on behalf of God. The critical survey of opposite view and counter-arguments by Sunni theologians who deny the necessity of Divine Grace is among other important discussions of the paper.

On the assumption that science and religion, as well as reason and mysticism, are incompatible, Walter Steis in Time and Eternity made an attempt to remove the incompatibility and reconcile them in one way or another. According to Steis the statements of science and reason as well as those of religion and mysticism cannot be regarded as relating to and true of the same wolrld, since their contents are incompatible. If each of these two statements, however, is taken as looking to a world different from each other, the conflict is resolved. Accordingly, scientific propositions and rational laws are related to the world of nature or spacio-temporal world while those of faith and mysticism are concerned with supernatural world that is eternal. The realm of science and, in general, any rational knowledge is the world of nature with no access to world of eternity which is only accessible through faith and intuition. Now if we are going to obtain knowledge of eternal world, the result will be statements incompatible with experience and logic and as result they cannot be literally true. These statements as mythical and symbolic ones can refer to a truth deeper than what they apparently indicate. But this attempt by Steis is in vein and inclusive. For it implies an ontological dichotomy and discontinuity as well as an epistemological gap, which is incoherent with the demands of reason and heart of faithand mysticism that consistently put stress on unity of existence and coherence of knowledge.

What is the true nature of meaning? What is its status? What are differences between meaning, concept, referent and fact? Is meaning mental or extra-mental or neither? These are fundamental questions on the nature and ontology of meaning.Meaning is identified with concept by some, confused with referent by others. Some scholars have not distinguished meaning from referent and fact. Still another group of scholars regard it as relation between word and fact. There are also those who deem meaning and its usages to be identical. Our main concern in this article is to distinguish meaning from three things, namely concept, referent and fact. Meaning is the same thing signified by concept, qualified by referent and materialized by fact. Word is also coined to somehow indicate the meaning.Meaning is main and thus of hierarchic priority to concept, referent and fact which are considered as subordinate to the meaning.

On the nature of God's knowledge of the materials and whether it is by representation or by presence there are two different positions taken in the words of Mulla Sadra. In some words he speaks in a way as if he upheld the view of representational knowledge, his other words however indicate his having adopted the view of knowledge by presence which seems to be his real position in this regard, not in a way Suhrawardi believed, but on the ground of Supreme Being of God who is the Cause of all materials. Again, some principles of Mulla Sadra like that of co-extensiveness of being and knowledge allow him to explain Divine Knowledge in the way of Illuminationist philosophers.

The problem of unity or duality of soul and spirit is one of issues dealt with in discussions on soul in philosophy and Sharia scriptures; is human rational soul the same as spirit referred to in the Book and Hadith or they are different? This article attempts to review the terminology of soul and spirit and provide evidences for their identity. In Islamic hadiths there are references to the material spirit as spirit of life and spirit of the animal. This spirit lies in human body and comes to be with the actuality of the body. According to these hadiths human being is of two souls or spirits: a spirit which actualizes human body without which the body lose its vegetative life; another spirit referred to as spirit of intellect which is blown to corpus of human being and hence his life is formed. Philosophers, on the other hand, hold human rational soul to be distinctive factor which distinguishes him from other animals in a way that it forms human life. On these two points it can be clearly inferred that the "Qurānic blown spirit" referred to in hadiths as "spirit of intellect" is identical to human rational soul in the word of philosophy.