نشریه آموزه های فلسفه اسلامی
سال هشتم شماره 1 (پیاپی 12، بهار و تابستان 1392)

Semantic studding in Mulla Sadra’s works, the concept of faith has a vast network relation to other concepts. One of the most important concepts is knowledge. Mulla has divided the knowledge to legal and rational, adventitious and hereditary, and apocalyptic and the transactional forms. In his view, the real knowledge is the legal rational, hereditary and apocalyptic knowledge. This knowledge has been considered equivalent of faith in many positions in Mulla Sadra works. He has advanced traditional, rational and literal evidences for this claim. However, in his statement we can see sometimes that the knowledge is regarded as a condition of faith and sometimes as its part. Sometimes faith is the condition of the knowledge and sometimes they are quite opposite of each other. Some believe that the cognition different from the knowledge, but Mulla Sadra regards it as equivalent of the knowledge. Thus, the concepts of disbelief and ignorance are used in his works as opposite of the faith. The infidelity is sometimes equivalent of ignorance and sometimes is its toughest degree. This conceptual network can be explained according to the view of Mulla Sadra about the role of intellectual faculty in faith. The strengths of intellectuality is the cause of the faith, knowledge and cognition, and the weakness of intellectuality is the cause of ignorance and unbelief. In his view, other human faculties such as faculty of estimation have also some role in faith and unbelief.

John Hick (English philosopher of religion) is the first theorist who invalidated the theory of exclusivism and believes in pluralism of truth and salvation in all religions. On the other hand, although Sadr al-Din Shirazi are not among pluralists, he thinks that the most of the people will be saved and just stubborn deniers and blamed ignorant, that are a few, won’t be saved. In this study, the relevance and relationship of the truth and salvation from the view of these two intellectuals have been explained and considered.

Husserl and Mulla Sadra are two philosophers who, despite their ideological differences, have dealt with the problem of certainty and its nature. Propounding “reductions” and “epoche” by Husserl and the question of “union of intellect, intelligent and intelligible” by Mulla Sadra, they have described the way to achieve certainty and its quality. In this paper, we have dealt with the similarities of these two philosophers epistemologically. Propounding the theory of the union of intellect, intelligent and intelligible and also showing the importance of human agency in understanding; regarding knowledge and soul as non-corporal things and all of the non-corporals are present for each other; Mulla Sadra has offered a special meaning from certainty that has no precedent. Of course, it should not be forgotten the place of intuitive knowledge and dependence of conceptual knowledge on it in this meaning of certainty. This meaning of certainty can be seen in Husserl, too. He corresponds the act of consciousness, ego, and object of consciousness to the intellect, intelligent and intelligible. Husserl like Mulla Sadra accepts the role of knowing agent as the focal point and refers to it as “transcendent ego”.

Divine Names and His Attributes are an important part of theology. Mulla Sadra also emphasize on these discussions based on his ontological and epistemological foundations in transcendent philosophy. He has considered a special place for the name Sovereignty in his works. Discussing the meaning of this Name and its form, he has dealt with its relation to essence of God and other Divine Names. Sovereignty is introduced as the origin of the relative attributes and with life is the detail of the Greatest Name of God. Contemplating on this name based on his transcendent foundation, Mulla Sadra achieves great results. Explaining the relation of the existents to God in the light of Sovereignty, eternal co-existence of the Truth with things, sovereign encompass over all things, unity of divine acts, divine designing, and many divine teachings are the results of sovereign attribute that Mulla Sadra has used them in adjusting the components of the system of his especial philosophy.

This paper is a research on accuracy and inaccuracy of the claim of the dominant that whether the epistemic system of Avicenna is merely intellectual. Considering the works of Ibn Sina, the writer claims that, contrary to what the scientific community regards Ibn Sina as a merely intellectual and demonstrative philosopher, he relies on intellect and proof simply as a real method, but in terms of epistemology and cognitive value, not only he does not disapprove the Sharia and mysticism but regards an important place for it and always refers to it and shows its importance from these two aspects. Therefore, the speaking of the dominant on the purely rational philosophical system of Sheikh Al-rais can be confirmed only from the aspect of methodology but from the aspect of epistemology and cognitive value we cannot confirm at all that he does not emphasize on the practical and gnostic discussions and also on Sharia and revealed teachings. Again, contrary to what some believe that Ibn Sina, late in life, goes in to the path of mysticism and practical wisdom, the writer claims that he has paid attention to the practical mystic discussions from the beginning and his writings that have been written much earlier from Isharat are the evidences of this claim.

Man is a being that has spiritual characteristics which are derived from his immaterial soul as well as having physical ones. One of the consequences of human abstractive degree of human being is the emerging of supernatural phenomena. How is it possible that people are aware of future events and do things that the tools and the field of their emergence are beyond the matter and its laws? Although the Muslim philosopher: Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra and some of their followers have presented similar views in the analysis of such phenomena and all of them think that the issuance these effects are possible only from immaterial soul, Mulla Sadra based on his own principles, including “abstraction of imagination faculty” has determined a proper criterion for production of these phenomena.

The problem of evil has been discussed in the works of Muslim philosophers mainly in order to repel the doubts concerning the unity of the Divine essence and in particular against the doubt of dualism. This situation has led to this question so that it be formulated largely based upon pure goodness of the first origin, even though the omnipotence and omniscience of God are assumed in these cases. The question of evil in the works of the mentioned philosophers in comparison to its today’s questions has had no logical, rigorous, clear and distinct formulizing. This situation, in turn, has been derived from theological, philosophical presuppositions of the Muslim philosophers about the best world-order and their cultural ideological concerns, especially against the doubt of dualism. Despite this shortcoming in the formulations of the problem of evil by Muslim philosophers, today we can use the more precise formulations of this problem in the current discussions of philosophy of religion in order to contribute to the updating of Islamic philosophy as well as using from the answers of Islamic philosophers to offer a coherent theory of divine justice.