فصلنامه حکمت معاصر
پیاپی 1 (بهار و تابستان 1389)

The Siddiqin proof as presented by Avicenna for the first time to express the proof from contingency and necessity, entred into the works of Thomas Acquinas through Arerroes and Maimonides in the middle ages. The concept related to this proof was not conveyed in the works of the above-mentioned authors and this led to a kind of ambiguity in that proof in philosophy after the western Renaissance. This article deals with the proof from contingency and necessity as reflected in western philosophy since the 17th century. The present article claims that Leibniz and Wolff appealed to this proof on the basis of possible Contingency rather than essential Contingency and also the criticisms aimed at its Thomistic account by Hume and Kant is not devoid of some strength and validity. In the final part of the article, the validity and strength of Avicennan account of the proof are cited and emphasized, so as to reject the criticisms aimed at it since the 17th century onward.

The views on the science of Ethics are as diverse and different as the views on understanding man and his nature. In the present article, at first the preliminary points of the discussion are presented. Then, the different views on the abstract or material nature of man are cited and their differences are enumerated. In the second premise of the present study, the highest and the most perfect attributes of Allāh are cited and it becomes evident that these attributes are not different from the essence of God and the unification of God with these attributes are cited, although God and his attributes are different. In the third premise, it is stated that for the divine religion, there exists only an initiator which acts as the doer and only one receiver. In the fourth premise, it is stated that the main body and structure of religion and moral principles and all religious rules, are produced by God and are issued from God. Based on these four premises, it is stated that man is a God-seeking being. Therefore, any true knowledge, any sublime morality and any righteous action which makes man similar to God, are important for man and give him a kind of real life and any belief or attribute or deed which would make him approach atheism, will lead to his death. In this case, man is a dead being with only the features of a living thing because the life of spirit becomes possible only with true understanding and perfect and pure faith, and the death of the spirit comes from ignorance in views and lack of reasoning in actions.

A number of Muslim mystics believe that knowledge consists of the truths which man’s soul has learned or acquired before being trapped by man’s body and becoming a prisoner in the veils of this material world. This was called the remembrance theory in the philosophy of Plato, and it was based on the acceptance of the immateriality of the soul, a certain relationship between soul and body and the priority of the soul to body. The prophets and the divine saints have come to notify the people and to make them remember those truths in man’s life which he has forgotten because of the veils covering his soul. The reason for the revelation of the Qurān which is called “remembrance” is also emphasizing this fact. The mystic, who moves in the path of Allāh, when coming out of the veils of his body, attains Self- knowledge, a kind of knowledge which is the knowledge of all truths and knowledge about God himself. The present article deals with the differences between Muslim mystics on this issue according to their theoretical and tasting foundations; also the explanation and analysis of “the resemblance theory” in Sufism are examined. Before explaining this theory, we have given a brief explanation of the founfations of this theory such as “the reality of the soul”, “the relation between the soul and the body” and “the priority of the soul to body".

The principles of the mysticism of Ibn Arabi, the founder of the Image theory, had a great influence upon the Transcendent Theosophy of Mullā Sadra. This influence is so great that the theory of the immateriality of image and the mediation of the imaginal world can be described as the basic causes for the formation of the Transcendent Theosophy of Mullā Sadra. In other words, it is possible to treat the immateriality of the imaginal world and imaginal forms and their materiality in Peripatetic and Illuminationistic philosophies in the Transcendent Theosophy as the distinguishing feature which might separate “Transcendent Theosophy” from “Peripatetic philosophy” and “Illuminationstic philosophy”. In the present article, the theory of Image is treated as the most pivotal element in the mystical theory of Ibn Arabi and the Transcendent Theosophy of Mullā Sadra, and the nature and quality of the imaginal world and the faculty of imagination have been analyzed and examined.

The relation between tradition and modernity and providing solutions to the challenges created by modernity are among the major intellectual concerns of Dr. Nasr. In his view, one cannot make any assertions on this relationship, without understanding the foundations of modernity and understanding man is one of the crucial foundations of modernity, which has a basic conflict with tradition. The present article investigates the approach of Dr.Nasr to metaphysical anthropology with regard to Traditionalism. The importance of this discussion lies in the fact that the modern and postmodern anthropology have very unpleasant and harmful consequences. Some of these consequences such as the environmental crisis have affected the life of the whole humanity in the world. Dr.Nasr investigates and crticizes Humanism, not the Christian anthropology, and attempts to analyze the shift from Theocentrism to Homocentrism in the history of the western thought. By citing the main characteristics of the modern man and contrasting them with the main characteristics of the traditional man, he attempts to show the contranst between these two types of anthropology. He finally analyzes the evil and harmful consequences of the modern anthropology and shows that the way to overcome the challenges in this domain is a basic return to traditional anthropology.

Contingency is one the key concepts in Islamic Philosophy, and inquiring in it, how much it be, developes the philosophical knowledge. Considering this point, in this article we intend to investigate in one of the important debates on Contingency, which has been neglected in all the previous studies. Our problem is “the equivocality or univocality of Contingency”. If we say that the previous thinkers have not dealt with this problem, we mean that they have not investigated in the implications and consequences of the problem, and have limited themselves in saying that the Contingency is equivocal. In this article, the Univocality of Contingency has been proved. There are many reasons for this; the correctness of the division of Contingency, the unity of the meaning of its contradictory, and the inducibility of Contingencies are among the reasons for the Univocality of Contingency. At the end, it has been proved by two accurate analyses that the Contingency, what kind it be, belongs to the Existence.

The present article deals with man’s concerns and his crises on the basis of Corbin’s views. Corbin began his philosophy and thought on the basis of asking questions about the condition of man and his crisis; then, he sought solutions to these problems on the basis of the basic principles of philosophy and theosophy. He believed that the main cause of the problems and crises in contemporary western world must be sought in the western philosophers’ ontology and epistemology.He sought the main solution in appealing to the imaginal world. The present article, states the main crises of contemporary man according to Corbin, such as the belief in dualism in the whole existence and knowledge, secularization (the separation of theology from philosophy), the disappearance of escatology, secularization of art, the one-dimensional approach to religion, and the loss of true principles for bringing the religions closer to each other. Finally, the solutions offered by Henry Corbin on the basis of Islamic theosophy are stated and briefly criticized in the views of some Iranian sages such as Avicenna, Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra by emphasizing on the Iranian feature of the imaginal world.