فصلنامه آینه معرفت
پیاپی 77 (زمستان 1402)

The assimilation of the Sensible to the Intelligible has been a technical and artistic effort throughout the history of Islamic philosophy. The Muslim philosophers have shown their skill in their circular metaphorical drawing the grades of existence, based on the two arcs of descent and ascent, and have enriched them with the revelatory teachings. In spite of all the basic and methodological differences in their views, the centrality of believing in the Origin and the Return has made an agreement between them on drawing this circle. The substantiality of the basic principle of believing in the Origin and the Return, taking use of the revealed texts; i.e. the Qur’anic verses, and some philosophical concepts such as the Gradedness of Existence, are some common principles in all schools of Islamic philosophy, and my explanation in this paper is based on these principles. In a paper entitled “A Critical Look at the ‘Fâyḍ’-oriented Approach to Islamic Philosophy and its Consequences for Education”, its author in a part of his objections to the ontological principles of Islamic philosophy, has criticized the circular order consisting of the arcs of descent and ascent, has described it as a “problematic and not very skilful plan”, and in the shadow of this description, has made some misplaced objections to the whole of the system of Islamic philosophy. In expressing the views of Muslim philosophers and examining the objections of that paper to the concepts of “the Gradedness of Existence” and “the Descent of God’s ‘Fâyḍ’”, I will follow the principles of criticism, which are based on my explanation.

The problem of sense perception in Mûllā Ṣâdrā’s philosophy has been drawn in such a way that makes possible two different approaches to it: idealistic and realistic. According to the first approach, considering the superiority and priority of the mind and its concepts to the external world, we can provide an idealistic interpretation of Mûllā Ṣâdrā’s epistemological system, and according to the second approach, there is a unity between man and the external world, according to which there is no preventer between man and the external world. The second approach implies avoiding from subjective idealism. But based on the first approach, the possibility of leaving the objective idealism becomes more complicated. In this paper, I have tried to explain the background of the formation of these two approaches by a descriptive-analytical method, and to analyze the different implications of both of those two approaches. For this reason, by appealing to an intra-structural solution, which is the ideality of the distinction between the world of objects and the world of the mind, I have stated the irrelevance of the challenges of objective idealism with the sense perception in Mûllā Ṣâdrā’s philosophical system.

The appeal to Divine Wisdom, either as a direct axiom or a framework for other principles, has been widely prevalent in Mûtâkâllimūn’s arguments. In the present paper, after presenting some cases of this trend and through logical analysis, the Mû’tâzilite Âbd al-Jâbbār’s arguments based on Divine Wisdom are scrutinized and criticized in particular. As a hypothesis, the authors believe that the Mû’tâzilite Âbd al-Jâbbār’s appeal to this divine attribute is, at least partly, inaccurate and thus, his arguments are logically inconclusive. Seemingly, this divine attribute is often used in a posterior method, and this method has been applied merely to rationalize the religious dogmas and the revelatory statements discursively. In addition, elaboration on this particular topic requires a comprehensive inner knowledge about all details of the universe and the ultimate purpose of the creation. Many other cases which, based on this very principle, must have been done or created, and yet are left unrealized, can be taken as serious counter-examples for this theological framework. It should be noted that the main theme of this paper doesn’t concern the objective reality per se, for based on decisive rational arguments and the explicit religious teachings, all Divine actions are carried out in the ultimate wisdom for the ultimate good; rather, this paper aims at questioning the possibility of a comprehensive understanding of such wisdom and the human intellect’s capacity - with all its limitations and failures - for discerning its cases.

Using a descriptive and analytic method, the present paper has analyzed the rejection of Mûtâkâllîmūn’s theory of the mere spiritual perfectibility of man in the world of Purgatory, based on the innovative principles of Mûllā Ṣâdrā’s Transcendent Philosophy in Al-Shâwāhîd al-Rûbūbîyyâh. In this paper, we have tried to examine and explain the concept of purgatory perfectibility and to emphasize on the realization of purgatory perfectibility from the perspective of the Qur’an and the Islamic traditions, based on the certain religious doctrines. Then, we have considered “the true perfection of the Soul”, which is an inner journey “from Self to the Self”, and on this basis, we have examined the conflict between the views of Mûtâkâllîmūn and the Ṣâdrāean Transcendent Philosophy about the definition of the true reality of man and its degrees. Finally, we have discussed on the rejection of Mûtâkâllîmūn’s restricting the perfectibility to “the intellectual and spiritual perfectibility”, based on Mûllā Ṣâdrā’s four ontological and epistemological principles about the possibility of practical and bodily purgatory perfectibility, which include “the agency of the rational soul and its essential sufficiency”, “the place of the souls in having the most subtle substantiality and the most intense spirituality”, “the perfections and the sovereignty of the faculty of imagination in the world of Purgatory”, and “the subtlety and lightness of the rational soul”.

Punishment” is a social institution and one of the main subjects in the realm of penal policy. Considering the institutional nature of punishment and the necessity of the institutions’ being just, the just social institutions are those institutions which impose their constitutive rules equally on the subjects. But giving opportunities to the underprivileged subjects can lead to the realization of a balanced order. So, the just social institutions can be described as having two criteria: equality and adjustment, which make the main bases of describing the just social institutions. Discrimination in punishment causes the harassment and the unjust restrictions to citizens and shakes the pillars of the legitimacy of the penal justice system. Therefore, avoiding the discriminative punishment has become one of the most important social concerns in the realm of penal policy and social assent, which can provide the strongest justification in the philosophy of punishment. Using a descriptive-analytical method, this paper intends to explain the philosophical roots of the justification of punishment and to draw some peculiarities of just punishment system. One of the findings of this paper is that if a just penal process is based on equality and adjustment, it can lead to the restoration of the social order impaired by delinquency. This process is guaranteed by principles such as the negation of indeterminism, the necessity of the rule of law, and the principle of the penal necessity. Considering the dependence of these peculiarities on the theory of social justice, which gives legitimacy to punishment, we will examine the philosophical foundations of just punishment.

One of the important viewpoints in philosophy, especially in moral philosophy, is “relativism”. The critical and rational examination of relativism can lead to the right moral decisions and, accordingly, the right action in different circumstances. Richard Mervyn Hare is one of the prominent moral philosophers, who in his moral philosophy, speaking of relativism and realism, has expressed the criteria for the relativity of moral judgments. By using the rule of “generalizability”, he has tried to justify the moral judgments. Also, considering the role of practicing in using the moral principles according to the circumstances, he has tried to lead the moral agent to a skill that leads to the right moral action. Besides, in explaining his moral theory, Hare considers knowing the circumstances and teaching the moral principles as effective in making moral judgments, and finally, he links the foundations of his viewpoint to intuitive and critical thinking in order to strengthen it and to make it coherent. In this paper, we have tried to examine Hare’s viewpoint about relativism from a theoretical perspective.

Using a descriptive-analytical method, this paper explains the psychological conditions of moral responsibility, analyzes Mûllā Ṣâdrā’s viewpoint in this regard, and expresses its similarities with the views of some contemporary compatibilists. The conditions of moral responsibility can be divided into two kins: 1. the cognitive conditions and 2. the controlling conditions, which include: a) the power and ability, and b) the will and freewill. In his emphasizing on the cognitive and controlling conditions of considering the agent as responsible, Mûllā Ṣâdrā uses both rational and philosophical principles and the religious texts such as the Qur’an and Hadith. By expressing the condition of mental maturity and health for the responsible agent, Mûllā Ṣâdrā has emphasized on the normative characteristics needed for responsibility, and his viewpoint is similar to Frankfurt’s view of “the true self” and Fischer’s and Wolff’s views of “normative desert”. Also, based on the foundations of Transcendent Philosophy, we should talk about the degrees of having normative desert, based on which responsibility will be a graded thing, and its scope, intensity and weakness will be different in human beings. Thus, the responsibility of human beings is not the same, and every human being has a moral responsibility according to his existential degree and his abilities and capacities.