فصلنامه قبسات
پیاپی 65 (پاییز 1391)

Some questions have been posed regarding the use of reason in understanding and inferring religion, its method, the amount of its validity, and its consequences; such as the following questions: is it possible for reason to understand religious facts and discover the purpose of God and are its understandings in this regard valid and are they as an argument? Is the validity of reason in understanding religion restricted to understanding religious texts or is it an independent source beside Quran and the narrations? What are the consequences of the validity of reason in understanding religion? This article will first explain the verbal and terminological meaning of reason and will then discuss its position and use in understanding religion considering the mentioned points.

One of the important and challenging discussions mentioned nowadays is the discussion of religious science. There are different approaches regarding the possibility of its production, how it can be accomplished, its necessity or un-necessity, the criterion of being religious, and etc. The pros and cons of religious science have each presented various reasons. Accepting the possibility of religious science and also the necessity of its production in this article, its rationality and the criterion of justifying it will be considered. The rationality of religious science is based on the fact that it is possible to produce religious science through the general rules of discovering science. The religious science such produced may have cognitive validity; therefore its rationality and validity can be examined based on these rules. The theory of coherency and its similar theories and the theory of maximal reason-based foundationalism are emphasized among the criteria of justification. The process of justification dominant in this theory is called the process of Ibtina'.

The other-worldly universe does not have any passive faculty and matter from the perspective of philosophy; but Molla-Sadra speaks of the other-worldly faculty and matter. This article will try to discover the meaning of these words of Molla-Sadra regarding the other world. Thus his words in this regard are investigated and it is clarified that the remote matter of the other world is human's soul and its proximate matters are human's faculty of imagination and his good or bad habits which are united with the soul. Indeed this matter is essentially different from the worldly matter. But this question arises: why does Molla-Sadra call the soul or the faculty of imagination as 'the other-worldly faculty'? Molla-Sadra's answer to this question clarifies his general outlook to the other world and its system. It is also explained that the meaning of faculty in the other-world, in his words, is existential power and ability which not only is not passive, rather it is not accompanied with any potentiality as well.

We will try to solve the following problem in this article: although Thomas Aquinas has accepted many of Ibn-Sina's metaphysical bases in his philosophy, why he has not presented a demonstration similar to the 'Seddiqin demonstration'? To solve this problem, I have first investigated Ibn-Sina's metaphysical bases of the 'Seddiqin demonstration' such as the distinction between existence and essence, occurrence of being on essence, analogical gradation of the concept of existence, the meaning of necessity and possibility and also causality; then the different accounts of this demonstration in his different writings is analyzed. In the second part of this article, the metaphysical bases needed to propose a demonstration such as the 'Seddiqin demonstration' in the philosophy of Thomas, are investigated; such as the following bases: the distinction between existence and essence, occurrence of being on essence, similarity of the concept of existence, the meaning of necessity and possibility and also causality. Then I have investigated the different analysis of the researchers who study Thomas from the third method and have also studied the accounts close to the third method in his writings. Finally it is proved that Thoma's third method is not the 'Seddiqin demonstration'; and analyzing the theory of similarity, I will show that based on some analyzers of Thoma's theory of similarity and also based on his denial of the general resemblance of the cause and the caused between God and the creatures, it is not possible to pose the 'Seddiqin demonstration' in the philosophy of Thomas; although some other analysis of analyzers of Thoma's theory show the possibility of posing such a demonstration in his philosophy.

Muslim philosophers believe human's desirable goal and felicity is divided into different parts and does not have one specific meaning and referent; therefore they have divided it from different perspectives and dimension and from various respects. This article will try to investigate and criticize the most basic divisions of human's felicity and farthest perfection posed in Islamic philosophy; it will criticize the methods used in these divisions, their content, comprehensiveness and comperhemirenem inclusirenell. A study and research of the different aspects of this subject and the words and statements of the theosophists shows that the most important divisions of felicity are questionable and doubtable; such as the following divisions: sensible and rational felicity, individual and collective felicity, human and rational felicity, this worldly and the other worldly, and also the division of felicity based on the belief. This is because some deny sensible felicity which is resulted from sensible understandings, and also believe innate felicity, which definitely exists, is the only homogeneaus of rational felicity; the human felicity, emphasized by some philosophers, may not be accomplished without rational felicity and is in fact one of its degrees; the collective felicity, despite its great effect on achieving personal felicity, is not sufficiently noticed; and the different aspects of the other worldly felicity is not noted as is expected from the theosophical discussions. These points make it necessary to have a second critical look at this subject.

A new perspective to the human, the world and the reality has been formed in the period of enlightenment, which is – in other words – the result of the previous modernity. Although this perspective is not in accordance with the dominant spirit and characteristics of this period of the West's history, but many of its educational factors are the constitutive of the modern human's culture and the aspects of his life in the present century. A great number of the philosophical expressions and discussions, used in the writings of the authors and researchers of philosophy of religion and history and art and ethics, are rooted in this new perspective. I will mention some of the general characteristics of this period in this article, will speak of the perspective of the intelligentsia regarding religion and reason, and will investigate Hegel and Haman's criticisms from two completely different perspectives (one based on reason and the other contrary to reason). The purpose of this article is to show that secularism is based on rationalism and finally on nihilism. I believe all of this is based on the Western Imanent thought which has appeared in the form of metaphysics.

Humanities is responsible for research human's internal conditions, his spiritual, social and behavioral life as a subject. The purpose of this science is to understand and comprehend and its method is interpretation. The explication of humanities depends on our perspective regarding human and his position in the universe. Therefore it may be called a guiding and civilizing science. Thus, due to its role, it is significant to investigate its position in the curriculum as the center of educational activities. The purpose of this article is to investigate the position of humanities in the curriculum in the existential and Islamic mechanism of training and education, with a comparative approach. The method of this investigation is to analyze the content. In this research the ontological, anthropological, epistemological and axiological bases of the two perspectives are discussed as well. After studying the philosophical bases of the two systems, two representatives from each view are chosen, to make the article coherent: the Martyred Motahhari from the Islamic approach and Karl Jaspers from the existential approach; and the perspectives of the two philosophers are investigated. Then the purpose, mechanism and approaches of teaching and learning regarding the activities of the teacher and the student, are investigated.

The claim of the author of Naqd Al-Khetab Al-Dini is not quite different from his claim in his other books especially 'Mafhoom Al-Nas'; the same claims are particularly and sometimes more clearly mentioned here. Thus the mentioned criticisms of that book are valid in this book as well. Therefore it has radical problems in the first chapter of the book in which the bases are presented and also in the last chapter in which he has, in fact, expressed his theory regarding religious texts (the Holy Quran and the narrations). The most important problems among his intrareligious reasoning are as follows: non-comprehensiveness, not paying attention to exertion, and also not paying attention to the treatment of other religions, such as Shiite, to religious texts; and among his extrareligious studies he has not paid attention to the basic difference between human's terms and the Divine terms. Human's words are restricted to time and place and they are sometimes affected by the circumstances of the time which may be mistake; but God's terms have arisen from his comprehensive knowledge to all things including the future. Although his terms are related with the realities of society, but it does not have any fault or mistake; otherwise the philosophy of religion and sending of the Prophets would be pointless. The above points with an investigation of Abu-zaid's book 'Naqd Ghofteman Dini' are investigated in this article.