فصلنامه فلسفه دین
سال ششم شماره 4 (پیاپی 8، زمستان 1388)

This research article is concerned with the conceptual clarification of story and the wisdom of knowledge, considering their relationship with history, thought, philosophy, old knowledge and modern knowledge. It also explains the reason why "story and wisdom of knowledge" rather than other expressions such as "history of knowledge" is adopted as the title of the paper. The Land of Iran during the history has been a place of birth, improvement, and growth of knowledge; and Iranian knowledge has had its own story, history, narration and wisdom. The story and wisdom of knowledge have been genuinely related in such different aspects as ontological, epistemological, historical and ethnic; they have always been intertwined. Wisdom has been the existence of story and, in turn, story has been the appearance of the Iranian wisdom of Knowledge. Philosophers and scholars of this land were the symbols of story and wisdom of knowledge. In the shining period of Iranian knowledge, i.e. ancient and Islamic times, the views of Iranian philosophers were manifested in their scientific enterprises. The story and wisdom of knowledge in Iran have made a real and concrete unity, having their manifestation in the very being of Iranian scholars.

Wittgenstein is one of the most prominent philosophers in the twentieth century; his views in both periods of his thinking have influenced many issues, including religion. His view on religion is expressed in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In terms of the picture theory of meaning and the distinction between the meaningless and meaningful propositions, he has made an attempt to show that the religious propositions are not meaningful as such. He holds that one should keep silent with regard to such propositions; and they express meaning only in our behavior and art and practice.

In Shiite school, Imamate is one of the self-evident doctrinal principles, which is on the same level as prophethood. During the history of Shiism, many thinkers and intellectuals have considered this principle in philosophical and theological terms. They have comprehensively elaborated on the characteristics of those, who hold this position. Thus, the transcendental theosophy, as one of the major philosophical schools in the Islamic word, tries to explain and analyze the aspects and the status of Imamate. Mulla Sadra, along with the exponents of this school, has considered many significant issues concerned with Imamate, some of which are as follows: the demonstration of Imamate as one of the doctrinal foundations, the objectivity of the status of Imamate, Imam and the rational necessity of his existence, the method of choosing and ordaining someone as Imam, the philosophical basis of Imam's characteristics and their relationship between Imam himself, and the impossibility of not having.

The world of pre-existence has always been one of the most controversial Quranic and Islamic issues; and theologians, hilosophers and mystics have always argued about it. The holy Quran and the Islamic Hadiths (traditions) indicate that every human being has had a real individual existence in the world of pre-existence (in the first phase in a form of soul alone, and in the next one with a certain body called " particulate body") before he is born. Some of the Muslim thinkers have not accepted this interpretation of the Quran and Islamic traditions and have criticized it. This paper deals with some of the most important criticisms leveled at the world of pre-existence and their responses.

رAverroes does not accept Avicenna’s argument for the existence of the Necessary Bing. Some maintain that Averroes disagreed with Avicenna, since he could not understand the relationship between essence and existence and could not make sense of the essential possibility and that he did not distinguish between potential possibility and essential possibility. In this paper, we argue that Averroes knew essential possibility as well as the relationship between essence and existence, but philosophy in that age failed to present and resolve the problem of the fundamental reality of existence and the problem of making existence. So, essential possibility could not be a basis for this argument. To judge between Avicenna and Averroes, we must not concentrate on matters that were resolved then, because these foundations had not been examined and the argument was based on these foundations.

Sacred art belongs to the transcendent realm; hence, definition of it firstly depends on distinguishing between "Sacred" and "Profane", and then perceiving their relationship with religion. The artistic work, besides its physical reality, is the manifestation of the "other world". Art always has been a part of human life from the very beginning of the history up to now; so it is obvious that the detachment of religion from art is not possible. However, attitudes towards art in different religions are not the same. The most notable views of art are iconic, non-iconic and iconoclastic. However, one can see that the role of art in the manifestation of the religious teachings in undeniable.

The theology of the Holy Quran primarily emphasizes the Unity of God; and its first message is "there is no God beside Allah"; this message has been repeated more than sixty times in the Holy Quran. The prophet's first words are monotheism and sincerity. "Ahad" (the One) refers to the unity of the Most High God from the viewpoint of Ontology. "Tohid" (monotheism) is considered as the borderline between faith and disbelief; and a person is considered "Movahed" (monotheist) only if he believes in it. The present article is an attempt to analyze and clarify these concepts.