فصلنامه پژوهش های فلسفی - کلامی
سال دوازدهم شماره 3 (پیاپی 47، بهار 1390)

Pascal’s Wager is one of the most important and challenging arguments for the existence of God and the rationality of religious believes. According to this argument, where the rational and theoretical arguments for the existence of God are not satisfying, still in practice and decision-making, living on the basis of belief in God and other religious doctrines like life after death, is the most prudential and rational option and the best bet; although these believes are not rationally and certainly provable; Avoiding the probable loss of atheism, namely eternal and infinite damnation in afterlife – that is more important than certain utility and restricted and finite pleasure of life in this world, is the ground of rationality of this decisionmaking.The psychological use of this argument is very effective, but
the justificatory use of ithave many difficulties; This article is concerned with the most important criticisms of thisargument in terms of plurality of religions, rationalism, evidentialism, ethics of belief,voluntarism and probabilities calculus.

Avicenna and Spinoza defend the necessity of causality. In some cases, Avicenna, takes itevident and in other cases argues for it. Spinoza takes it evident, decisively. All theAvicenna’s arguments beg the question. On the other hand, not only the necessity of causality is not evident, but also non-necessity is intuitive and evident.
The author believes that the discussion of the necessity of causality originates from the separation between necessity and possibility, and the insistence on the justification of the generation of entities only by these two concepts, while these two concepts can only explain the difference between entities, and we need another concept to explain createdness.

Aristotelian logic, as a part of Islamic philosophy, from the very beginning has been attacked by some opponents amongst Muslims. So, some of Muslim philosophers have tried to defend it against the criticisms raised by these opponents and strengthen its validity. Beside the old criticisms, recently some Shiite scholars under the name of Maktebe Tafkik, (The Separation School) have raised new criticisms against Aristotelian logic, claiming that this system of logic has been refuted and abandoned in the Academic circles of the West and has been replaced by the scientific method introduced by Francis Bacon. Therefore, based on some faulty arguments, they call for letting Aristotelian logic aside. This article tries to evaluate these claims and show its falsehood.

Utilitarianism is one of the most powerful and persuasive approaches to normative ethics inthe history of philosophy, holding that the right course of action are the one that maximizes the overall "good" consequences of the action. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its resulting outcome.
The theory in the early nineteenth century was put forward and the most influential contributors to utilitarianism are considered to be Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.
In this paper, we review, evaluate and critique the claims, the principles and the features of this teleological view, focusing on the classic exposition Jeremy Bentham (the founding father of utilitarianism).

In this article, Rorty’s theory of philosophical paradigm is considered in two stages: at firstwe describe and analyze his historical view about philosophical problems. In this stage, Rorty shows that philosophical history consists of three paradigms; metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of mind, each of which has its own special problems. Rorty pointed with his therapeutic method to the errors of philosophers in applying philosophical problems that related to one paradigm to another one, and he criticized representationalism. After that, his original view about knowledge was considered; he finally comes to this conclusion that philosophical problems should be set aside rather than solved. In the second phase of examining his view, we express some important criticisms including those of Habermas and Tailor. The latter disagrees with Rorty about discontinuity of philosophical paradigm. In the conclusion, Rorty’s view about philosophical paradigms is examined and criticized.

This article is an attempt to prove that from the viewpoint of Kant, the true religion is theethics based on pure practical reason. Considering origin and content, this religion differsfrom divine religion; the ontological role of God also is different. Moral law which isemanated from practical reason determinates the will. According to the pure practical reason, the supreme good is object of moral law; and the condition for its realization is that it must presupposed the existence of Gog who has suitable attributes. In Kant’s view, religion consists in confirming all moral duties as divine commands of wise and free will but not as dogmatic will of Supreme Being.

Nser Khosrow, a poet of the fifth century (AH), in Zd-Al-Mosaferin deals with deepphilosophical themes, trying to investigate into the ideas of cults such as Dahriyeh, AhleTabye, Ashbe Hayoul. He considers the views of Dahriye about the eternity of the world and its material being, the views of Ahle Tabye about the pre-existence of the world and the Hayoul precedence over from and the views of Ashbe Hayoul, especially Zakariaye Razi about eternity of the material and the eternity of Hayoul, space and time. In this article, we try to study these views and Nser Khosrow’s criticism which are about them.