فصلنامه پژوهش های فلسفی - کلامی
سال سیزدهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 52، تابستان 1391)

Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, the contentious Egyptian thinker, has proposed different ideas about the revelation and the Quran and encountered with different reactions. He made endeavor to provide some natural and non metaphysical explanations for the Islamic phenomena. In this regard he went through the miraculous feature of the Quran differently and reduced it to a cultural-literary phenomenon that everyone who knows Arabic takes it as a fundamental cultural text. Analyzing the literature and the linguistic mechanism of the Quran from the viewpoint of the current literary criticism will show its role in the creation of history and culture. This view is radically different from the viewpoint of faithful people because it reduces the religious attitude to a cultural atmosphere in which the Quran is like the other masterpieces which may be literary criticized. The content of the Quran, in this kind of criticism, is ignored while in the currentliterary criticism the content is heeded too.

Some theologians in the process of explaining the creation of contingent world, in addition to non-existence in time, have denied the causal relationship between the creator and the created and explained their relation in terms of creative agent. On the contrary, many philosophers believe in the pre-existence of created beings and emphasize on the principle of causality and on the necessary creation and some of them believe that there must be a kind of cognation (ontological homogeneity) between the creator and the creatures. So in explaining the relation between the creatures and the creator three ideas have been offered in general: total difference, sameness, and cognation. The purpose of this article is to 4 examine the necessity of cognation between the cause and the effect in Islamic philosophy. After analyzing and explaining the theory of cognation and examining its objections, the author has come to the conclusion that the necessity of cognation, according to philosophical ontology, is selfevident.

In this paper the most important arguments of Muslim philosophers in supporting the createdness of the human soul are examined. We will criticize five arguments by some new objections and show that none of them is reliable and unquestionable. Then we go through the most important views of exegetes on the nature of the world of pre-existence (the world of Zarr) and criticize them. Two of these views are criticized by some new objections and two other views, one of which is the idea of Tabtabai, are rejected by a new method as well. Rejecting all four views,the author has offered a new initiative theory. Since his theory, like many others, doesn’t entail the createdness of the human soul, we can believe in the world of pre-existence even if the createdness of the human soul is rejected.

Divine decree, one of the levels of God's knowledge, is examined in this article. Most of the philosophers identify the Divine decree with the knowledge of immaterial intellects to contingent beings and hence the Divine decree is out of the Divine Essence. But it seems that Mulla Sadra has identified the Divine decree with God's essential knowledge. After criticizing these views, Tabatabai comes to this conclusion that there are two kinds of Divine decree: essential and actual; one of them is identical with essential knowledge and the other with actual knowledge. After examining the idea of Tabatabai, we will show that the idea of Mulla Sadra in this regard is the same as other philosophers. Then we criticize and reject the idea of Tabatabai's and offer our chosen view about the Divine decree.

Analyzing the basic structure of man is generally the most important concern of existential thinkers and Kierkegaard in particular. Since the philosophy of Kierkegaard is not systematic and his works are disorganized it is difficult to understand his ideas about existential dimensions of man. So for offering a logical analysis of man's existential structure we have to contemplate deeply on his works, a task undertaken by this paper. According to his works man is constituted of five existential elements each of which is constitute of two parts: one part shows his concrete reality and his facticity aspect and the other reflects his numerous facilities, possibilities, and abilities. Man, by realizing them freely during his lifetime, will form and constitute his essence.

Al-Ghazali, one of the most influential Muslim theologians, in his well known book, Tahafut al-Falasafeh, (the problem no. 13) deals with the incoherent statements of philosophers about the problem of God's knowledge of particulars. His accusation goes directly to Avicenna's view about the way God knows particulars. Ghazali thinks that this kind of attitude toward the knowledge of God of particulars practically implies the denial of God's knowledge and ends to infidelity. Explaining the views of Imam Muhammad al-Gazali and Avicenna (Ibn Sina) in this regard, we try to make a comparison between their views and show that this accusation is originated from a misunderstanding by a person who claims that his religious concerns cause him to take up this position against the philosophers. Ghazali had imagined that Peripatetic philosophers,especially Avicenna, fearing from penetration of change in the divine essence, have denied God's knowledge of particulars; while they themselves believe in a changing eternal being. So it was better for them to accept God's knowledge of particulars without any concern about the change. But Ghazali didn’t notice that from Peripatetic's viewpoint God cannot be the same as the changing eternal being. Finally we come to this conclusion that the motive of Peripatetics and Avicenna in explaining the manner of God's knowledge of particulars is more sacred to be accused of infidelity.

There are two basic viewpoints about the metaphorical words of the Quran such as: tablet, pen, throne, stool etc. These words, according to one viewpoint, are literally used in their sensible meanings but metaphorically in the philosophical meanings. According to the other viewpoint, however,they are literally and really used even in their philosophical meanings. According to this view that we have called it, inspired by Ghazali, the "theory of the kernel of meaning, words are coined for the universal meanings and, in other words, for the kernel of meaning, not only for the sensible instances. This idea is proposed for the first time by Ghazali and then many philosophers and mystics agreed with his idea. This view has three readings one of which is elaborated in Al-Mizan.

Muslim theologians have presented a full description of the multiplicity of God's existence proofs and the ways of His rational knowledge in the Islamic tradition. They also explained the secret of this plurality in different ways as follows: 1. the plurality of ways is based on the plurality of wayfarer's talents; 2. the plurality of ways is based on cognitive powers of wayfarers; 3. The plurality of ways is the result of the various concepts abstracted from the essence of God; 4. The plurality of ways is based on the plurality of Divine Names and Attributes. The first and the second explanations are subjective explanations seeking the secret of plurality in the side of knower but the third and forth ones are objectives. Exploring them deeply, this paper shows that, individually observed, each one of these ways is involved in an impermissible reductionism and the fallacy of one-sided assessment. So a comprehensive approach, i.e. a combination of both subjective and objective ways, is the only accurate approach in this regard. Therefore these four explanations are collectively the secret of plurality of ways of proving and knowing God.

Muhammad Inb Ebrahim, well known as Mulla Sadra, is among thinkers whose simple and fluent and yet expressive style of writing carries his deep and transcendent thoughts. The depth and width of his teachings and his elegant style of writing, alongside the exalted and glorious philosophical and mystical thoughts, is the secret of the stability and perpetuity of his works. Choosing of words carefully, beauty of exordium, beauty of conclusion,symmetry and harmony and synergy between words, enjoyment of fantasy literature in the forms of: simile, metaphor, irony, and also enjoyment of argumentative and intuitive methods and benefiting from the Quran and traditions are some features of his style of writing. Also, covering all aspects of the subject in figures of speech such as: Ighal (to add some extra explanations in the end of discussion), Tawshih (to interpret a dual word with two single words), Tazyeel (to repeat the meaning of a sentence in other words), Itiraz (to add a parenthetical sentence), Taqsim (to mention appropriate divisions) etc, are some other features of his beautiful style of writing. Also a musical atmosphere and melodies rhythm gained by using some other figures of speech such as: rhythm, balance, tibagh (to mention a word ant its contrary like light and dark), pun, symmetry, Muraaat al-Nazir (to mention related words In a situation), using tow forms of a word in the top and end of a sentence, Tashabuh al-'Atraf (to repeat in the heed of a sentencethe word used in the end of the previous one) added to the beauty of his works.

The Arguments in favor of the necessity of Imamat (religious leadership) are generally divided to two types: traditional and rational. Some rational arguments are more important than the others; like: the verdict of reason upon the necessity of the guidance of people, explaining and preserving the religion, and the continuance of the Divine grace. After a brief theological explanation of these reasons, we will offer their mystical origins. From the mystical point of view the problem of Imamat ant its necessity is basically a mystical problem and its philosophical explanation is also backed by mystical teachings. In Islamic tradition, the knowledge of Tawhid (unity of God) is bound to the knowledge of Muwahhid (monotheist), a perfect man that by a kind of closeness to God gained by spontaneous acts of devotion has reached to the stage of annihilation in the Divine unity and hence God has become his eyes, ears, and all his existence; and by a kind of closeness to God gained by doing obligations has reached to the stage of survival 8 after annihilation and spiritual sobriety after self-effacement/obliteration and under the direct sovereignty of God he has possessed the place of velayat (guardianship) and absolute lordship by which he can govern over visible and invisible worlds. Such a person as the caliph of God and the mediator of God's grace in the descending arc has to undertake the governance and leadership of people in the ascending arc constantly.

Muslim's theologians are unanimous in the divinity of revelation; they have only disputed about the nature of divine words: whether they are eternal or temporal created. Shaykh Mufid believes in the divinity of revelation.According to him, in the process of revelation, God creates the words and the prophet receives them directly or indirectly and then proclaims them to the people. Mufid, however, denies the collective descent of the revelation. His belief in the infallibility of the prophets, the miraculousness of the Quran, and Seal of the Prophethood show his view about the divinity of revelation.

Scientific disciplines divide the particulars they study into kinds and theorize about them, but it is difficult to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions for a particular to be classified under a certain kind.What is a natural kind? Scientists normally assume that in the process of studding the nature they discover some real independent kinds; not that they invent them subjectively. Are they true? If natural kinds really exist and they are distinguishable from non-natural kinds, then what is the standard of this distinction? In this paper we first go through natural kinds and their related issues. Then, while explaining the difference between naturalism and Conventionalism, we offer a description of the causal theory of reference and its suggested solutions for distinguishing natural from non-natural. Finally we show that the difference between naturalism and conventionalism can be more accurately explained through the rule of the "explanatory value".