فصلنامه نقد و نظر
سال چهاردهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 54، تابستان 1388)

Considering practical theology of Shi‛ite tradition and status of existential suffering in it, this article attempts to suggest a model of religious common identity and social solidarity based on remembrance of liberative existential suffering in Abrahamic and even non-Abrahamic religions. liberative existential suffering which is exemplified historically in the suffering of the Prophet Muhammad (mpbuh) and his Household (as) is that of last and perfected suffering in view of its four dimensions of being social, rational, emotional and existential. Remembrance of such a suffering which took place in the past could be a common ground in both attaining social and interreligious coexistence in present time and in liberating from present human sufferings as well as avoiding those to come, contributing to convergence of horizons of life and philosophy and its significance.

The present article dealing with possibilities of Islamic philosophy in the domain of politics is to focus on the question whether Islamic philosophy has a capacity and possibility of entering political domain and of dealing with themes of political philosophy. In this way in addition to explaining concept of Islamic political philosophy and status of Islamic philosophy among the Islamic sciences this article is to discuss the relation of Islamic philosophy with history of Islamic civilization especially in Iran. Then it attempts to have a generic reference to history of Islamic politics and examine various viewpoints and approaches of contemporary thinkers on Islamic political philosophy and its possibilities as those who maintain such different views as political degeneration, impossibility, and possibility of Islamic philosophy and finally it takes a brief glance at conditions, logic and method of doing political philosophy in modern age.

While the ontological arguments of Anselm and Descartes continue to be the source of controversy among philosophers and theologians in the West, scant attention has been paid to the ontological argument first formulated by Ibn Sina (370/980 - 429/1037), and thereafter reformulated by various Muslim philosophers throughout the centuries up to the present day. Here several versions of the argument will be presented in historical sequence, and some of the most important recent discussions of the argument by contemporary Muslim philosophers will be mentioned. Some reflections on the argument and the discussions of it will then be presented along with comments of a comparative nature regarding contemporary Islamic philosophy and Western philosophy of religion.

“Contents” are what mental states are about. There are many philosophical issues about contents, e.g., the problem of whether mental contents are explainable in physical terms or not, and the problem of how particular contents are associated with particular mental states, or in other words, how a particular content of a mental state is determined. I will introduce teleological and neurological theories of content after briefly introducing causal, conceptual-role, and double-factor theories in order to see how successful teleosemantics and neurosemantics are in comparison with those theories. Teleosemantics is the view that mental states are determined with teleological functions and neurosemantics is the view that mental states are determined with neuronal states.

The principle of substantial motion is a categorical epoch-making philosophical theory that despite much dispute it arouse is finally accepted widely by Islamic and particularly Shi‛ite philosophers. Einstein’s theory of relativity, likewise, is an important epoch-forming scientific theory that in spite of many disagreements it arouse among physicists is eventually established in the world of mathematical physics. The reverend author of this short article attempts to work out a seemingly ambitious plan in which he is to generalize the principle of substantial motion and accordingly attempts a criticism of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Here we ask the author to elaborate the details of his view and publish it in coming issue of Naqd va Nazar. We also invite scholars particularly those of deep knowledge in either Mulla Sadra’s substantial motion theory or Einstein’s theory of relativity to have a critical review on this article and send their scholarly views to be published in Naqd va Nazr. It seems that generalization of substantial motion theory of Mulla Sadra and critique of Einstein’s theory of relativity are both problematic.

Although Mulla Sadra is influenced by the views of Avecinnan philosophy in science of logic, he has innovations in this field that makes his logic distinct and thus rightly be called Sadraean logic. He is not only of original views in definition and argumentation, but also in respect with the relation of logic as a body of knowledge along with other sciences as well as in preliminary discussions he is of independent thought. On the basis of division of real sciences into theoretical and practical philosophy, Mulla Sadra include logic in the former and considers it as the branch of first philosophy, though according to his view from different angle with different criterion in mind and considering the object of science, logic belongs to practical sciences rather than practical philosophy. Mulla Sadra held propositional knowledge to be a concept that is identical to judgment and yet he believed that in the mental analysis judgment is composed of components. Prior to analysis the reality of judgment, therefore, is neither simple which requires conception of subject, predicate and propositional relation as philosophers said, nor a compound of three components (subject, predicate and propositional relation) as Fakhr Razi and his followers claimed.

Denying causal necessity is one of the topics over which an Ashari-minded like al-Ghazaali takes issue with philosophers. In the seventeenth problem of Tahafut al-Falasifa (Incoherence of Philosophers), he relies on two implausible implications of causal necessity (denial of both miracles and the absolute power of God) to attack the conception of causation as understood by philosophers from various aspects. In Tahfut at Tahafut (Incoherence of the Incoherence), Ibn Rush, as an Aristotelian and Muslim philosopher, encounters al-Ghazali’s challenges. In this paper, after an exact disposition and analysis of al-Ghazali’s view and Ibn Rushd’s replies, it will be tried to explain their pre-suppositions and consequences as well as their success or failure regarding their contentions.