فصلنامه معرفت فلسفی
سال ششم شماره 1 (پیاپی 21، پاییز 1387)

The question of efficient means and sources for religious knowledge is a pressing issue in the realm of religious epistemology. Prior to this problem is the more fundamental question, as to whether there is a way to knowledge at all. Any answer to these questions depends on one’s stand on the theory of knowledge. If one rejects the role of reason in religious knowledge, one may introduce religious experiment, intuition, narration of revelation, or testimony to the content of revelation as ways of attaining religious knowledge. On the contrary, if one accepts the capability of reason for unveiling religious truth, one will consider reason a powerful means for establishing fundamental religious beliefs, and therefore, reason will serve as the most important source for religious knowledge. The author in this article is to prove the possibility of rational knowledge in the realm of religion, and tries to review and criticize the opposing views.

All theist philosophers and theologians believe in resurrection; however, they engage in debates over its nature and quality. According to Mullā Ṣadrā, those who think that it is impossible for human body to resurrect after it is perished, and only soul will be present in the hereafter, they are ignorant of the nature of the next world, and such an idea requires an esoteric interpretation of those verses in the Qur’an which explicitly indicate the physicality of resurrection.Ṣadr al-Muta’alihīn argues that every person, who enjoys a sound and healthy psych, and looks into the premises of bodily resurrection, would certainly come to the conclusion that the same human body will revive in the hereafter. Shaykh Ishrāq emphasizes the idea of bodily resurrection with an imaginal form. Still other philosophers such as Ibn Sīnā establish bodily resurrection through narrations from the Noble Prophet (peace be upon him and his progeny), and Muḥaqiq Ṭūsi considers it as an essential part of Islam.

Muslim philosophers preceding Mullā Ṣadrā, generally denied substantial motion. Mullā Ṣadrā in his Transcendent philosophy, however, developed a sophisticated analysis of substantial motion. His view of this issue is unique, in which he employs some of the requisites of movement to establish substantial motion. This kind of motion plays a pivotal role in Mullā Ṣadrā’s system of philosophy.The author in this article tries to provide a clear picture of substantial motion by explaining some requisites of movement such as “distance”, and by analyzing the flowing unit in the category of substance. Criticizing arguments revolving around the idea that motion needs a subject, he rejects such a need. At the end, the article puts the arguments for substantial motion in a new classification.

Ibn Sina and his followers deny cutting movement. The denial of cutting movement first requires the denial of movement in the sense of a gradual emergence from potentiality into actuality, and secondly, it entails the acceptance of idea that time is illusory. This is while Ibn Sina acknowledges both. Mīr Dāmād and Mullā Ṣadrā have accepted cutting movement in order to dispose such a contradiction, and consequently, had to interpret Ibn Sina’s words in a way that matches such an effort.This article tries to evaluate the classic interpretation of cutting and mediating movements, and to explore their reasons and causes. By enumerating their problems, the author wants to show the congruity of denying cutting movement with accepting the existence of time. In this way, he wants to dispose of the contradiction in Ibn Sina’s theory without any need for its re-interpretation.

Recourse to “sample space” or “attribute space” is a requisite for probability calculation in some belief-related philosophical interpretations of probability such as classic, logical, and epistemological interpretations. On the basis of the principle of indifference, the probability of original elements is assumed equal in such calculations. There are, however, two questions about this principle to be discussed in philosophical debates about probability. First, what is the epistemological validity of this principle, and second, how to resolve paradoxes resulting from applying this principle? None of the questions have met sufficient answers till now.The author, in this article, reviews various interpretations of probability in order to show which one of them is in need of this principle. Then he justifies the principle of indifference based on the principle of causality and with reference to knowledge by presence both in epistemological probability and in general. The main part of the article deals with eight paradoxes along with different suggestions for their resolution. The author finds all of them flawed, and suggests a new answer on the basis of an epistemological interpretation of probability.

The expressions of non-existence are discussed in philosophy and linguistics since antiquity in both the West and the East. The main question in this debate pertains to how we can understand such expressions as “Rostam” in Farsi or “Superman” in English, and use them in sentences with different arrangements, while they do not refer to anything in the objective world. Different philosophers have tried to answer this question in various ways. The author of this article tries to find an answer through semantic means, and to suggest criteria for classifying such expressions.

Contemporary analytic philosophers do not consider ontology a distinct branch of knowledge. For this same reason, they do not see any legitimacy, or even any meaning, in discussing metaphysical realism. The author in this article takes sides with the meaningfulness of an inquiry about metaphysical realism. He takes a soft version of realism as his point of departure. The article points out to some historical backgrounds for the emergence of anti-realism, and suggests that all arguments supporting the idea of meaninglessness of realism are based on anti-realist suppositions, and therefore are self-destructive.