حمید خدابخشیان

Islamic philosophy is a knowledge that is associated with the Islamic religion, and the reasons behind this association have sparked numerous debates. One of the methods used to prove the Islamic nature of this philosophy is to assess its alignment with the scientific principles of Islam. Understanding a field of knowledge involves examining its scientific principles, such as its subject matter, definition, and issues, and the ‘purpose’ or objective of the field is one of these principles. Assessing the alignment of the purpose of philosophy with the Islamic faith assists us in comprehending the reasons for associating this philosophy with Islam. Islamic philosophers have mentioned various goals for philosophy either within the context of defining philosophy or as independent objectives. This study collects these goals through library research and then applies a descriptive-analytical method to assess their relationship with the objectives outlined by the religion for creation, the mission of prophets, or the revelation of heavenly books. The goals of philosophy can be categorized into five categories: knowing the truth of things, knowing Almighty Allah, completing souls, attaining similarity to Allah, and transforming into a rational world. Among these goals, ‘knowing the truth of things’ is considered the most important goal. These goals are in line with or at least influenced by the teachings of Islam. This analysis demonstrates that Islamic philosophers have taken into account the ultimate and goals set forth in the Islamic faith for human life and have enumerated the same goals using philosophical language.

Religious science is a science influenced by religion. The effect of religion on knowledge depends on the existence of features in religion such as valid religious source, knowable content, and comprehensiveness and perfection of religion, which are called the theological foundations of religious science. Opposing these principles means opposing the possibility of religious science. Although the theory of religious experience was proposed with the motive of defending religious belief and in favor of the existence of God, it conflicted with some religious foundations. Religious empiricists, focusing on the dimension of human tendency towards religion, consider the essence of religion to be a kind of religious feeling and experience. They consider revelation to be the prophet's religious experience, and the prophet's message is a personal interpretation of that experience and is influenced by human characteristics. These positions are incompatible with theological foundations of religious science and oppose the possibility of religious science. Explaining the relationship between the theory of religious experience and the theological foundations of religious science and, accordingly, with the possibility of religious science, is the problem of this research, which was conducted with an analytical and comparative method, and at the end, the incompatibility of this theory with religious science was concluded.

“Islamic Humanities” as a branch of “Religious Science” has two foundations; foundations of “the Knowledge of the Nature of Science” and foundations of “Knowledge of Religion”. Discussion about foundations of “the Knowledge of the Nature of Science” is more often by type of issues in the “Philosophy of Science”, and topics that related to foundations of “Knowledge of Religion” has worth to plan among the discussion of “Philosophy of Religion”. Foundations of “Knowledge of Religion” related to “Religious Science” are group of principles and features that make it possible for religion to enter in science realm, by having those qualifications. The language of Islam is among these principles. This language gave this ability to Islam in order to play in “Humanities”, because of having these features: being meaningful and narrating the reality; but, there are some views in current topics that block the way to entrance religion to this realm, by damaging these features in “Language of Religion”. Positivists by planning challenge of being meaningful, Wittgenstein by “Language Games” idea, and Functionalism by following functionalist theory of meaning are mastermind of opposing views. In this writing, after explaining the realization of possibility of “Islamic Humanities” on basis of linguistic features of Islam, we will engage in opposing views and each of their difficulties.

This article tries to elaborate on the issue of the methodology of Islamic philosophy in the light of the theories of three main currents in Islamic philosophy, namely, peripatetic, illuminative, and transcendental. In the first part, it examines demonstrative method, its premises, and its primary criteria. This section studies the type of demonstration used in philosophy, and concludes the possibility of employing another premise in demonstrations on the basis of analyzing ideas presented by philosophers and logicians.In the second part, the authors deal with the illuminative method, the idea of different philosophers, and the way they have treated it in their systems. The role of illuminative method plays in Islamic philosophy, and its effects on philosophy in general, are discussed too. In the third section, the possibility of employing narrative methodology in philosophy and its framework in Islamic philosophy is appraised. The article comes to an end with a set of suggestions for a more sophisticated philosophical system.

What is philosophy of interpretation? What are we looking for in this knowledge? What are the key topics and discussions of philosophy of interpretation? What knowledge is related to interpretation(?)? Why do we have various interpretations? These questions and some others are the main goals of the writers of this article and it will try to answer them.