فصلنامه معرفت فلسفی
سال پنجم شماره 2 (پیاپی 18، زمستان 1386)

Sayed Ahmad Fardid is one of our country’s influential thinkers of the last decades. Benefiting from etymology, mystical ideas, Heidegger’s philosophy, and religious texts, he came up with new concepts and categories that challenge both modernists and traditionalists alike. For him, metaphysics, during the whole of its history, has always been neglectful of existence, muddling it up with the existent. He considers all oriental and occidental schools of philosophy guilty of disregarding presential knowledge and being trapped in representational knowledge, which has led them astray from the east of truth and caught in westoxication. Furthermore, in the modern era, after Descartes introduced “the principle of human subjectivity”, humanity has entered a phase of self-sufficiency, culminating in double-westoxication.Fardid believes that our situation in the east, whose history begins where the history of the west ends, is worse. The golden stage of history was the age of the “Single Ummah” (The day before yesterday), when human being had sheltered in the proximity of existence. Yesterday was the reign of metaphysics, today is the era of self-sufficiency, and tomorrow will be the time for human awareness of this situation and yearning for emancipation. He reserves, however, the final stage of human history for the day after tomorrow, the new age of the single ummah, full of light and appearance, the epoch in which human society will reach the zenith of perfection. The current article attempts to elicit, arrange, analyze, and briefly criticize this view.

The transmigration of the souls after death from one physical body to other physical ones, called “metempsychosis”, is an idea suggested by some philosophers to justify the perfection of human soul. Such a justification has had various reasons with very different sources and consequences. This article tries to evaluate some aspects of this issue. Going through definitions and divisions of “metempsychosis”, the author reviews and appraises the transmigration of the soul of perfect, average, and despicable people according to the principles of Transcendental Philosophy. Mullā Ṣadrā puts forward his own proofs to disprove all sorts of metempsychosis, after he shows that all proofs suggested by previous scholars are defective. The author finds some of Mullā Ṣadrā’s own proofs to be flawed as they are based on classic natural sciences.

This article deals with representational knowledge and its characteristics differentiating it from presentational knowledge. The author considers the division of knowledge into these two types to be deductive, and explores the question whether their differences are real or conventional. By investigating the epistemological traits of representational knowledge, he concludes that “designation” is constitutive of this type of knowledge and intrinsic to both conception and assertion. Reconciling this fact with the idea that concepts only potentially represent their signified is the next issue discussed.Different types of representational knowledge, its primary division into conception and assertion, and their realities are discovered. Another theme dealt with in this article is the difference between conception, notion, and meaning on the one hand, and between assertion and proposition, on the other, and between belief, trust, faith, acceptance, and other similar terms, on the third.

The nascence of the world is an important issue, occupying the mind of people from antiquity. Plato, as a great philosopher, deals with this question in his Timaeus and explains it in ten phases.For Plato, the nascence of the world is not a genesis from nothingness, but organizing the scattered and chaotic preexisting matter. Furthermore, he ascribes the planning and programming of the world to the highest god and maker, known as demiurge. Plato suggests a model for the nascence of the world, based on mathematical numbers and geometrical shapes. He does this without any experimental evidence, and merely on the basis of reasoning and comparison. Therefore, Plato’s model is considered an a priori explanation.

Some logicians, such as Shaikh al-ra’īs (Ibn Sina), Muḥaqiq Ṭūsi, Ṣadr al-Muta’allihīn, and ‘Allāmah Ṭabāṭabā’i, have discussed the principle of “the caused” (dhawāt al-asbāb) after they had divided demonstrations into “demonstration from cause to effect” (burhān limmi), “absolute demonstration from effect to cause” (burhān inni muṭlaq), and “proof” (dalīl). They have claimed that what has no cause has to be evident, otherwise it cannot be known through demonstration. The author argues that if this principle is accepted, it implies that the two other arguments, namely, “absolute demonstration from effect to cause”, and “proof” are invalid. The literal meaning of those logicians’ arguments is that theoretical certainties are either self-evident or should be known through their causes. On the other hand, Shaikh al-ra’īs and ‘Allāmah Ṭabāṭabā’i have considered some sort of demonstration from effect to be a source for certainty. The author thinks that what is raised in favor of the principle does not establish it. In addition, if it is accepted, it is self-defeating, because what is suggested to establish this principle is not an instance of “demonstration from cause to effect”! Therefore, we have to recognize that the principle of “the caused” is meant to restrict the validity of demonstrations from effect, not to render it invalid altogether.

From amongst classic and modern logicians, no one has seriously opposed the issue of “modality” or “the system of modal logic” except Quine. As we know, judgments qualified as “necessary” or “contingent” are discussed in modal logic. Contexts with the form of “necessarily…” or “contingently…” are called by Quine as “modal contexts”. He deems such contexts to be referentially vague. At the same time, he does not regard such contexts as “knows that…”, “says that…”, and “doubts that…” to be modal, though they are referentially vague too. In this article, “modal contexts” and “modal logic” mean those contexts and logic in which the notions of “necessary” and “contingent” are used.From Quine’s viewpoint, the main problems with modal logic are: 1) the language of modal logic is vague in referring to its instances; 2) this logic forces us to adhere essentialism, which is problematic in itself; 3) the most important problem with essentialism is that its acceptance leads to paradoxical conclusions; and 4) even if the dilemma of essentialism is resolved, still the difference between “necessary” and “contingent” is metaphysical and indistinct. Anyway, he concludes that we have to do without modal logic.

The relation of right to duty is one of the main issues in the philosophy of rights. Scholars and philosophers are divided over this question. Is there any connection between rights and duties, or they are completely independent of each other? If there is a relation, is it accidental or it springs out of their essential qualities? And in the case of the relation, is it a mutual implication, or an implication from one side? And finally, is it a conceptual implication or an objective one?The author in this article deals with these questions and tries to find answers to them, as well as other issues that come up in this regard during the discussion.