فصلنامه فلسفه دین
سال نوزدهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 55، تابستان 1401)

Contrary to the traditional reading of the evolution theory that has a bottom-up view and introduces the human actions – including religious belief – as dominated by genes and memes, the new reading has a top-down viewpoint and gives in mechanisms in which the working manner of genes is controlled by the highest levels of life. One of these mechanisms is neuroplasticity. This study aimed at exploring and explaining the factors of the gradual intensification of volitional faith within the neurobiological conceptual framework and its comparison with the factors contributing to worshiping rituals – especially prayers – that come from the Quranic teachings. This comparative study is done through the descriptive-analytical method. The findings show that the existence of the three factors common in the worshipping rituals (as recommended by the Quran) and neurobiological learning, i.e., repetition, attention, and emotion, lead to neuroplasticity and gradual intensification of faith. This justifies the mental causality and supports a level of voluntarism in faith.

One of the main issues of the philosophy of religion is the universality and quality of the responses of Islam and the Quran – as the most important source of Islamic knowledge – to novel issues despite the fact that the revelation of the Quran has occurred in certain historical conditions. In the theory of transhistoricity of the Quran, which has been developed in Arabic countries and has been affected by the philosophical hermeneutic discussions and orientalists’ infusions, the Quranic messages are deemed as temporally limited. This issue has been criticized extensively in other works and the reasons to prove the transtemporality of the Quran have been explained in detail in other sources. However, what is important here and in need of explanation regards the mechanisms used in the Quranic expression style that can guarantee its transhistoricity. To this end, the study at hand adopted a descriptive-analytical method. First, the reasons against the historicity of the Quran – such as solving the seeming paradox of the expression of eternal messages following a certain cause of revelation as well as the proving the non-historicity of the human writings and conventions and the subsequent generalization of this reasonable method to the Quran – are given. Then, the reasons that prove the transhistoricity of the Quran – such as the installation of infallible exegetes of the Quran as a mechanism to respond to all new issues, the significations of the general Quranic words, and the intense fight against Jahiliyyah – are provided. Finally, the article argues that the Iltifat rhetorical device (grammatical shift for rhetorical purposes), general conclusions made based on small incidents, abstraction of historical events from details, inclusion of general messages while narrating the events, and the superiority of the guidance aspect of the historical reports of the Quran over their historical aspects are the mechanisms foreseen to preserve the transtemporality and transcendence of the Quranic messages.

Emphasizing an already unattended part of the free will question and in the past two decades, Ishtiyaque Haji has argued that causal determinism challenges not only moral responsibility but also moral obligations. To this end, he tries to defend the incompatibility of moral obligations with causal determinism by proving that moral obligations have alternative possibilities and then showing its conflict with causal determinism. The article at hand examines his viewpoint to proving the possibility of strong alternatives for moral obligations – as an important factor for the preservation of the validity of his argument – and tries to show that his claim about the moral obligations’ lack of need to ultimate origination is an incorrect or at least unreasonable factor. It is noteworthy that this criticism only questions his argument method; therefore, it not only does not pose a problem for his main claim about the incompatibility of moral obligations and causal determinism, but also strengthens it.

The relationship between the human reality and gender has been among the most challenging problems in the past few decades, solving which paves the way to answer many questions related to the women. With the advent of feminist activists to philosophical and theosophical discussions, this question got even more importance. Some people (such as liberal feminists) denied the feminine identity and opted for the equality of genders, while another group of feminists recognized the gender differences. Although this question has not been discussed in the egologistic and humanistic discussions of the theosophists and theologians of Isfahan Theological School, an analysis of their deep discussions on egologism can provide a negative or positive answer to this question. Adopting the descriptive-analytical method and inquiring about the most important egologistic discussions of Mir Damad, Mulla Sadra, Fayz Kashani, and Allameh Majlesi such as the contingency of ego, the relationship between ego and body, and the way ego manages body, this article aims at examining the status of gender in ego. It finally concludes that in the light of these scholars’ egologistic principles, the “genderedness of ego” is closer to reality. Moreover, it is found that ego cannot be free from gender attributes in its contingency, individuation, actualization, and manner of practice in this world.

One of the attributes that in many divine traditions is ascribed to God is infiniteness. Philosophers and theologians often take God infinite in His both Essence and Attributes. In other words, they interpret the individuation of God to His infiniteness or essential absoluteness. Spinoza, the rationalist philosopher of the 17th century, is also a scholar who introduces God as the Unique Substance, and deems the infiniteness attribute necessary for God and so takes His Essence and Attributes to be infinite. From Spinoza’s viewpoint, describing God as infinite has some requirements, including being the Former Whole, being the Internal Cause, and not being Supernatural. Thus, Spinoza asserts that in the divine traditions common in Abrahamic religions, God’s infiniteness attribute has not been correctly analyzed and so the relationship between God and non-God has been misinterpreted. In this study, using the valid sources in the realm of Spinoza studies and adopting the descriptive-analytical method, Spinoza’s opinions in this regard are investigated.

So far, there have been different and sometimes paradoxical theories about near-death experiences. Nonetheless, each of these theories has been unsuccessful in justifying some components of these experiences. This article suggests that Suhrawardi’s Imaginal World theory can provide a more reasonable explanation of these experiences. In the Imaginal World theory, a world is depicted whose qualities have many similarities to the qualities of near-death experiences. Thus, based on this theory and sometimes through getting help from other theories of Sheikh al-Ishraq – such as Illuminative Knowledge, Dominant Lights, and World of Memorial– we can give in an acceptable explanation of the near-death experiences.