فصلنامه آیین حکمت
پیاپی 12 (تابستان 1391)

Soul and related issues are important in philosophy about which most of philosophers made remarks but the plurality of soul and spirit received less attention which as a result gave rise to a big gap in views and ideas among men of thought. It seems that arguments over such problems as immateriality or otherwise of soul, temporal creation of soul and its motion result from failure to distinguish between these two i.e. soul and spirit. Of especial importance is to survey the works of ancient Greek philosophers on this problem for their thoughts is considered almost as the ground and base for later philosophers. Of ancient Greek philosophers Aristotle is of special prominence for his particular argument on soul.This article is to study particular views of Aristotle on soul and its constituent parts, active intellect and its relation with passive intellect. Also the views of Aristotle commentators on these two intellects as well as historical evidences for the idea that the Aristotelian active intellect can be identified with spirit are discussed.

The nature of animal soul is strange and obsolete problem less discussed by Islamic thinkers. No single treatise is devoted to its treatment. Thinks have shown no interest to exploring and writing about it. There are peculiar views and ideas amidst works that prompted the authors to deal with the problem in the present article.In the first step, it is necessary to make distinction between animal soul and soul of animal. The eschatology of animal soul is the second point for treatment. In treating the latter problem one should study imagination faculty, and its immateriality, imaginal world and its reality, incorporeality of animal souls and the proof of personal identity. It is worth noting that in studying this problem the ideas and views of such great philosophers as Ibn Sina and Suhrawardi are to be scrutinized in reference with those of Mulla Sadra whose thoughts are unrivaled.

Logicians divided the quantified predicative propositions into factual and actual ones. Factual proposition is one in which the subject is criterion for attributing the predicate. Subjects of factual sort of propositions are of four divisions. In one group the subject is existent so the predicate can be ascribed to all individuals without any assumption or hypothesis. In three others there is no true judgment unless the existence of subject is first assumed. Factual proposition is not reduced to conjunctive conditional proposition though it is coextensive with it for in factual the judgment is not suspended while in conditional it is.

Having distinguished between corrigible foundationalism and incorrigible one, Keith Lehrer made three main objections to incorrigible traditional foundationalism. In the first objection he holds that there are only a very few basic beliefs and these limited basic beliefs cannot stand as foundation for the system of human knowledge. In the second objection he calls to question the way in which non-basic beliefs are based on basic ones. Finally in his third objection he criticized the most important argument of foundationalists in favor of their position in justification of knowledge i.e. argument from vicious circle and infinite regress. He tries to invalidate the argument with the clam that the justificatory chain need not go on ad infinitum or in circular way be justified on any previous knot but if justificatory process is made in a social context and when a belief is matter of agreement on both sides, the chain will come to halt.All three objections of Lehrer seem to be flawed. To begin with, in discussing basic beliefs he totally neglected the role of rational self-evident propositions. Secondly the progressive epistemic transfer from self-evident to theoretical (derivative) proposition is made through argument and finally the mere agreement of rival sides on a given belief does not mean that it is justified.

Humanism or anthropocentrism is a movement that originated from thought of intellectuals in middle ages. Abandoning theocentrism and welcoming humanism in modern world can perhaps be regarded as a reaction to extremism and exploitations of the Church and men of the church in medieval centuries. Thus man is deified and occupied a unique place in modern thought.This article is an attempt to explain the Islamic view on human being who is bestowed a unique status in the creation but still is a servant of Allah and hence has no ownership of his own and in his own right. Impact of Western learning in the sort of cultural attack of the West on Islam is another problem covered in the article. Adequacy of reason, scientism, unqualified freedom, tolerance and forbearance which are components of humanism are of striking importance since each of them has played a part preparing the ground for cultural assault. To the author defense of faith and religious beliefs and true status of man cannot be fulfilled without scrutinizing the subject and destructive role each of above-mentioned ingredients played.

Studying the nature of reason, its role and status in understanding and formulation of beliefs as well as the relation of reason with revelation and prophetic Tradition is one of the most important problems in theology (kalām) which gave rise to two competing views of literalism and rationalism among Islamic scholars. Fayḍ Kashani's view is always a matter of debate. For some he belongs to the rationalist current of thought in in virtue of such works of him as Ayn Al-yaqin (literally Fountain of certainty), Anwār Al Hikmah (Lights of Wisdom) and Usul al-Maārif (Principles of Doctrines) all of which were written in rationalist vein. For others, however, he was regarded as belonging to literalist tradition arguing his approach in other works by such as Al-Maārif, Wāfi, Shāfi, Nawādir Al-akhbār in harmony with literalism. The present article is an attempt to support his rationalistic position in the doctrinal domain on the basis of extant works of this eleventh century Muslim thinker.

The subject matter of this article is not to determine the priority of reason to heart or privacy of rationality to love, but find out the answers to these questions: what is role of reason and rational knowledge in attaining mystical intuitive visions? How far does the horizon of rational knowledge extend from perspective of Ibn Arabi? Given the fact that mysticism is arena for esoteric vision and disclosure, is there any room for reason to play active part? Last but not least, how do proponents and opponents of reason define the similarities and differences in the subject in question?It is worth noting that reason is clearly different from rational knowledge but in the present article it is used in the sense of the latter.