فصلنامه آیین حکمت
پیاپی 3 (بهار 1389)

One of the innovations of Islamic philosophers is the way the divided the intelligibles and universals into different categories. The recognition of these various sorts of intelligibles could resolve many problems in philosophical and epistemological discussions and any failure to distinguish them from one another could lead to a large number of errors. Identification of types of universal concepts is based on an epistemological principle (standard) in which they could be included. This article is an attempt to find such a principle from the perspective of great Muslim philosophers.

Étienne Gilson (1884-1978), a scholar of Medieval ages who shows much interest in Medieval philosophers, especially in Thomas Aquinas, in his famous work, Being and Some Philosophers, gives an account of the views of Ibn Sina as a philosopher whose thoughts were highly influential in Middle Ages and and criticized several problems of his philosophy including unconditioned quiddity, addition of existence to quiddity, essential contingency and principle of causality. According to Gilson unconditioned quiddity is inconceivable. The problem of existence as additional to quiddty is also more a matter of religion than that of philosophy. Essential contingency is a contradictory assumption and the principle of causality leads to unfree-will of God Almighty.The present article is to give first an account of what Gilson understands to be Ibn Sina's views in each problem and then deals with criticisms of Gilson which in his view challenge the ontology of Ibn Sina. Finally a critical analysis of Gilson's views as well as his critiques will be given.

Each academic discipline has its own logic and language through knowledge of which its reader can understand that science. Islamic theosophy and philosophy has its own logic and language which should be correctly learned by those interested in this domain of thought. The most fundamental issue in the principle of noncontradiction. It seems, at first glance, that some philosophical rules are inconsistent with this principle. For instance, how is it possible to claim that both being and nonbeing are negated at level of quiddity or how is it that an existing essentially contingent being is still described as possible to be and not to be and so how this can be consistent with the impossibility of contradiction. There are cases of apparent inconsistency like the rule of presupposition of subject in predication with priority of essentials and its application to the simple propositions in which the concept of being is predicated of a given subject. What about nonbeings and abstract entities and what is the mode of their realization. Why should we consider only one of two concepts of existence and quiddity to be fundamentally real and regard the other to be the mere construction of mind while both concepts are true of external entity. If only being is real how can multiple things be justified? How can being be considered concomitant with extramentality and efficacy on one hand be divided into mental and extramental on the other. Similar objection can be raised about division of being into one and many or potential and actual since it is affirmed that being is concomitant with unity and actuality. These seemingly incompatible philosophical problems seem to be difficult to understand. To see there is no real contradiction one should know properly the logic and language of theosophy which is the core message of this article.

In addition to the brief explanation of three modalities (the true and real ways in which a subject is related to the predicate), this article emphasizes on the view that they are philosophical sort of secondary intelligibles. In so far as he looks to reality, philosopher pays serious attention to the treatment of three modalities and for philosophy, as opposed to logic which deals the verbal modalities as such (literal ways in which a subject is related to predicate), any treatment of jihat (i. e. verbal modality) is marginal and secondary.

The main theme of this article is the statement of the proof of the Sincere by Ibn Sina. In order to determine his crucial part one should raise such questions as: what is the origin of the demonstration and who for the first time offered it? What is the nature of this proof formulation by Ibn Sina as one, or rather, the most prominent among Islamic philosophers and what is the distinctive feature of his statement of this demonstration? What objections are so far raised or can be made to this argument? Can these objections and doubts be removed and so his statement of it be tenable? In answering these questions we come to the conclusion that Al-Farabi is the first philosopher to have presented the Proof of the Sincere in his fusus al-Hikam (Bezels of Wisdom) and that Avicina was the first who developed a statement of it on the basis of the Sincere's method in five of his works. It is worth noting that none of the objections raised could undermine Ibn Sina's statement of this proof.

philosophy of religion is an enterprise of philosophical and rational reflection on religion in the sense that it attempts to explain the religious beliefs and statements, raise arguments and evidence for or against and deal with truth or otherwise of its claims. Philosophy of usul (principles of fiqh) too deals with conceptual as well as propositional principles of the science of usul such as ijtihad (independent reasoning in legal matters), judgment, reason, value and its various types, certainty and its different sorts, and linguistic and exegetical problems. There are common aspects and interactions between these two fields of study in discussions of religious language, hermeneutics, interpretation of reason and religion and the role of reason in understanding religion, human expectations of religion and its domain.

Faith in the perfect and infinite existence is one of leading beliefs of all monotheists particularly Muslims. The formulas of remembrance "sobhanallah, alhamdolellah, ya sobbuh ya quddus" designates the perfect Essence of God. Theistic philosophers especially Islamic theosophers attempted to demonstrate this fundamental belief which resulted in formulation of several philosophical and rational arguments for the existence of absolute perfect Being. This article is an attempt to critical analysis of these arguments on on hand, and to present other types of argument which have not been clearly dealt with in philosophical works.