فصلنامه نقد و نظر
سال بیست و هشتم شماره 4 (پیاپی 112، زمستان 1402)

Alternative secularism is a version of secularism that does not seek to eliminate religion but rather embraces it as one among many alternatives. The diversity and plurality of religious, pseudo-religious, and non-religious options, both in theory and in individual and social life, give rise to a new form of secularism in today’s world and within the Islamic world. This version of secularism differs from the traditional concept, which aims to exclude religion from the social and political domains. Alternative secularism emerges through psychological and cultural processes, while classical secularism is rooted in philosophical and sometimes political processes. The question arises whether Charles Taylor’s analysis in A Secular Age can be applied to secularization developments within the Islamic world. In this article, I undertake a textual analysis of A Secular Age to explore the potential for alternative secularization in the cultural developments of the Islamic world. I highlight the distinctions between Islamic and Western approaches to secularization and enumerate the challenges facing secularization in the Islamic context. From this perspective, religion and religiosity in Islamic societies are not straightforward processes but rather complex, deeply rooted, and highly convoluted, making their secularization in individual and social dimensions exceedingly difficult and sometimes impossible.

The nature, scope, and conditions of moral responsibility are among the highly controversial issues in ethical studies. A significant portion of these controversies appears to arise from the ambiguity surrounding concepts like moral responsibility and free will. This research utilizes the descriptive-analytic method to analyze the concept of moral responsibility. The diverse semantic scope of the concept of moral responsibility prompts the following question: What notion of moral responsibility has led to so many disputes between compatibilists and incompatibilists? Have we not encountered the challenge where one party argues for the compatibility of causal necessity with responsibility based on the agent’s role and duty, while the other attempts to demonstrate the inconsistency and conflict between any causal predetermination and responsibility as accountability? While the initial focus of moral philosophers on issues of moral responsibility sometimes centers on three types of responsibility related to causation, duty, and moral requirement, recent works highlight two notions of responsibility concerning blameworthiness and accountability. It appears that the most precise concept of human moral responsibility towards moral requirements is "accountability."

The relationship between morality and religion has long been a contentious issue in philosophy and theology. In recent years, the notion of inconsistency between morality and religion has gained traction, with advocates on both sides. Some argue for morality over religion, while others dismiss morality in favor of reinforcing religious practice. This article critically examines the perspective of a proponent of the latter approach, which was reflected in IRIB and other major Iranian official media. The central idea is the substitution of morality with piety (taqwa or fear of God). After analyzing various aspects of this concept, we highlight some of its major flaws, including its reliance on an inadequate conception of morality, neglect of themes within the Quran and Shiite hadiths regarding the importance of morality in religion, and disregard for the logical implications of invalidating innate and pre-religious morality. I conclude that emphasizing the inconsistency between morality and religion and proposing to replace morality with piety is not only untenable from a religious standpoint but also detrimental to attracting youths to religion.

The primary focus of this research is to analyze and critique John Martin Fischer’s proposed solution to the problem of luck. Using a descriptive-analytic method, the study aims to highlight its shortcomings. The problem of luck arises from the belief that the absence of determinism in the formation of actions undermines the agent’s freedom and moral responsibility. Fischer addresses this issue by reimagining one of Frankfurt’s examples in an indeterminate world, presenting two scenarios: one where the world is determined (world 1) and another where it is indeterminate due to a random machine (world 2). According to Frankfurt's examples, the agent in the first possible world bears responsibility. However, in world 2, if the machine happens to be randomly inactive, both worlds become identical, and the agent is deemed responsible. This research demonstrates that (a) Fischer’s framing of the problem of luck aligns with the formulation based on the absence of causation, but his response falls short in addressing this formulation effectively, (b) the causation governing Fischer’s world 2 differs from the indeterministic causation proposed by libertarians advocating for event-based causation. According to them, actively incorporating indeterministic causation into the causal chain of an action is crucial in addressing the problem of luck. However, in Fischer’s world 2, there is no active indeterministic causation involved in the causal chain of action. Therefore, Fischer fails to confront the problem of luck posed to event-based causation, let alone resolving it.

Introspection is a method used to access the contents of the mind, relying on the thesis of the transparency of the mind. This notion constitutes part of Descartes’s philosophical paradigm regarding the mind, characterized by immediacy, infallibility, and first-person authority. Proponents of the transparency thesis argue that the mind resembles a transparent container, with all its contents, including constant entities like mental states and unstable ones like mental events, essentially known. However, empirical experiments and philosophical arguments reveal numerous apparent and hidden intermediaries in the mind, leading to errors in self-understanding, unawareness of external influences, and the presumption of authority over all judgments. This challenges Descartes’s claim that the mind is transparent to itself. Utilizing the analytic-critical method, this article scrutinizes these characteristics to assess the transparency thesis and dispel its self-evidence.

Larry Hickman approaches the philosophy of technology through a pragmatist lens. This article explores the relationship between Hickman’s philosophy of technology and John Dewey’s pragmatism, aiming to elucidate the implications of Dewey’s philosophy in the discourse on technology. Prior to Hickman's exposition, Dewey was not typically regarded as a philosopher of technology. However, Hickman contends that Dewey developed a comprehensive philosophy of technology that diverges from the traditional view of technology as self-sufficient, detached from human essence. Hickman distinguishes between technology and technique by emphasizing the role of knowledge, asserting that technology emerges from systematic research into technique. Dewey introduces the concept of naturalized technology, viewing it as an investigation into existing techniques to enhance adaptation to the environment and modify it according to human needs. In Dewey’s productive pragmatism, technology becomes a philosophical concern, allowing philosophers to employ philosophical methods and tools to enrich their understanding and society’s perception of the interplay among various aspects of technological culture, thereby shaping the evolving technological landscape. Hickman argues that Dewey’s philosophy can reconcile technological culture with democratic values without resorting to holistic systems or linguistic analyses. However, Dewey’s definition of technology tends to centralize it as a general concept, and his critique of realism hints at a resurgence of holistic metaphysics.

The Akhbarist and Usulist perspectives represent two distinct approaches to understanding religion based on original texts, as upheld by Shiite scholars. Over four centuries, intellectual disagreements between these perspectives have led to the emergence of various schools of thought among their advocates. This research examines how Fayḍ Kāshānī’s Usulist views are manifested in his book Muʿtaṣam al-Shīʿa (The Resort of the Shia). Through a descriptive-analytic analysis, it becomes apparent that Fayḍ Kāshānī, a Shiite scholar in the eleventh century AH, despite his apparently Akhbarist inclinations and heavy reliance on transmitted hadiths, maintains a moderate stance on the role of reason and transmitted evidence in practical applications within Muʿtaṣam al-Shīʿa, one of his major works on Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). Attribution of Akhbarism to him is primarily due to his influence from Akhbarist teachers, misinterpretation of some ambiguous jurisprudential verdicts or fatwas, and inconsistencies between certain views and his own arguments. However, it is evident that he predominantly adheres to a moderate perspective in this debate. This misattribution has fueled increasingly expanded disputes between Shiite Usulists and Akhbarists, despite his evident alignment with Usulist perspectives on various topics, such as consensus, the validity of apparent meanings of the Quran, the role of reason, reference to Usulist scholars' theories, flexibility in interpreting transmitted hadiths, and more. These factors strongly indicate his commitment to Usulism.