فصلنامه حکمت اسلامی
پیاپی 30 (پاییز 1400)

In their article, the authors have tried to show that Sadra’s theory of mind is a developed form of Suhrawardi’s. In his explanation of body-and-mind relation, Suhrawardi has broken with the peripatetic philosophy; he has taken the primary steps duly, but failed to accomplish it. He failed to come up with Sadra’s theory of body-and-mind identical unity; however, as per his system of light and real ties in the graded spectrum of light, Suhrawardi paved the way for Mulla Sadra to propose the rule “the soul in its unity is identical with its faculties”, celebrated as “unity within multiplicity and multiplicity within unity”. Mind is a graded entity which in the grade of corporeality is identical with the body and in the grade of incorporeality is higher than the body.  The entity of mind is not confined within the grade of body, rather, it encompasses all grades from corporeal matter to incorporeal spirit..

Mystics have their own particular interpretation of death, life after death, resurrection, and in general coming into being and dying. They consider all beings as the particular or universal manifestations of divine names; they also hold that the appearance of one name in an event demands the disappearance of another in the same event. Thus, they construe coming into being and dying as the appearance and disappearance of divine names in one event. As per such mystical interpretation of life and death or being and none-being, resurrection and afterlife are the return of one name or its manifestation from the stage of lower worlds to their origin in the higher worlds, i.e. the inner reality. Mystics hold at least five forms of such return some of which belong to all other than God and some are specific to only some people. These five are: moment-by-moment resurrection, objective minor resurrection, subjective minor resurrection, objective major resurrection, subjective major resurrection. In Islamic sari’ah, only objective resurrections are explicitly specified as Qiyamah (the Rise). There, Muslim mystics say, are traditional evidence for other kinds of resurrection under other titles than Qiyamah and not as much as objective resurrections, though. This article deals with all five kinds of resurrection and their conclusive evidence.

Self-knowledge is one of the most strategic Islamic doctrine for man’s exaltation and man’s position of “servitude to God” and “knowing God”. Researchers on religion have proposed different and sometimes contrary accounts of self-knowledge. One account comes from Mulla Sadra whose high position in the study of religion calls for due consideration. Accordingly, the authors have tried to explain Sadra’s account within a comprehensive and interconnected set of conceptual constituents such as, “the foundations of the issue”, “what, why, and how of self-knowledge” and “its cognitive and practical implications”, thus they have hope to offer a systematic analysis of his account.  According to the findings, Mulla Sadra’s account of “self-knowledge” (i.e. inspection in the essence, attributes and practices of the mind) can be suggested as a standard account to have both a conceptual knowledge of God and intuitive knowledge of Him through the fact that the mind is the very dependence on God and the very relation to Him, rather than something dependent on or related to Him. The advantages of his account are: that it is comprehensive, that it enjoys well-grounded foundations in epistemology, methodology and religious study, that it is practical and that it methodologically considers related traditions such as “He who has known himself has known his Lord Almighty”. The article ends in a few considerations and complementary comments.

Spirituality is an inner impulse and impressive factor with the Islamic lifestyle. Due to the rise of deviated movements of mysticism and the spread of their misleading lifestyle, it is necessary to explain well-grounded and rational spirituality as per Imamiyyah doctrines and its tie to some of those doctrines such as Ahlulbeit’s authority over creation. Spirituality may come out of one’s belief in the authority over creation, since it has its roots in the proximity to Allah as the zenith and outcome of genuine spirituality. One’s belief in the authority over creation is the starting point of one’s movement towards spirituality and its criterion for assessment. The indexes of such spirituality are: that it is comprehensive, that it has its source from divine revelation, that it produces movement, and the like. Impressive samples of Ahlulbeit’s lifestyle in various aspects are: being mindful of God, sincerity, imploring for assistance, morality, justice and equity, coming together over the sovereignty, and paying attention to the causes of social spirituality.    The method of collecting data is library references and of their processing is description, analysis, and examination.

Contrary to peripateticism, in transcendent theosophy mystical doctrines are interconnected with those of philosophical ones. Nonetheless, in his return to the method of peripatetic philosophy, Allamah Tabatabaei stopped making use of mystical doctrines in his philosophy. In their descriptive-analytic method of studying Ayatullah Javadi Amuli’s views, the authors have inspected Allamah Tabatabaei’s reasons for changing his method. Firstly, it becomes clear that so far as mystical visions are present in the spirit of an unveiler as an inner experience and intuitive knowledge, it has not been conceptualized yet, and thus might not be used in the course of philosophical definitions and argumentations. Secondly, intuitive knowledge is merely some psychological certainty for whose data there is no logical criterion to prove. So, it will not work in philosophy which turns on the pivot of rational argumentation. Thirdly, did an unveiler render his mystical doctrines into the form of proposition, they would still remain in need of rational proving and true certainty in order to be used in philosophy. This is because mystical certainty is personal and thus open to error. Were they proved rationally, one could merely rely on them as philosophical knowledge, rather than intuitive knowledge.

In what follows, the authors have dealt with William James on the meaning of life. Their approach is philosophical and their method is descriptive-analytic based on library references. By the meaning of life, they mean the aim of life i.e. happiness and good ending. Findings of the research show that James approach, from among many, is humanistic; namely, in his view, happiness is taken into consideration as a fundamental aim carrying the meaning of life for man. According to the principles of relativity, utility, will to believe, and the right of belief, James goes to hold that meaning and happiness are two things none-concrete, relative, and might be made. Everybody, he says, can define and produce this meaning as per his own will and belief and makes it real in his life. The article ends with the examination of James’s view, the ill-founded principles and lack of logical coherence in his theory of the meaning of life.

Explanation along with interpretive and critical approaches are three methods used in humanities and social sciences. Out of these three, explanation as a means to discover the causes of something is the most significant and most used in those disciplines of science. Because those disciplines are preceded by the definition and description of man’s actions on which the predictions and action-control depend. Rational choice theory is one of the most important and most celebrated methods introduced by Karl Popper as a master key to open all human sciences.
In this article, the authors are seeking for a substitute for that theory as per the strong principles of transcendent theosophy through a descriptive-analytic method. They have thus hope to take a step forward in the course of Islamicization of humanities. Noting direct factors of actions (conception, assent, longing, and intense longing) and indirect factors (such as body, education, social institutes and structures), they want to show that in the light of transcendent theosophy, transcendental voluntary choice theory is precise and comprehensive for the explanation of man’s actions..

Knowing different  aspects of holy Prophet Muhammad is one of the foremost duties in the Islamic doctrines. One of those aspect is his presence prior to the creation of nature. In their research, the authors have tried to explain the issue in the light of traditions mentioned the point directly or indirectly. They have made use of descriptive-analytic method and of general principles of philosophy, too. The outcome is that Muhammadian true and inner entity is identical with the First Intellect. The particular relation between the body of holy Prophet and the First Intellect is similar to that between natural body of ordinary people to their rational soul. Then in later stages, come the inner entities of holy Ahlulbeit in a hierarchical line with holy Prophet. There are exclusive ties among those inner entities and Ahlulbeit’s physical bodies.

The concept of “imitation” in the works of Muslim philosophers is traced back to Greek philosophy; at least, it can be spotted in the works of logics since Farabi’s time. Muslim logicians have analyzed this concept in the framework of poems of logic. This essay aims to inquire into different dimensions of imitation in the works of Muslim logicians. The method adopted for this research is library reference and the method for processing data is descriptive-analytic. Imitation, in the viewpoint of Muslim logicians, is to present something similar to something else through imaginative creation or mental illustration. In poems of logic, imitation first takes form in the mind of a speaker and after the presentation of words of poem to the listeners it develops in their minds mostly evokes subjective emotions. In other arts such as painting, sculpture, photography, theater and filming, there is a third kind of imitation within the works of art, along with the above two.