فصلنامه تاریخ فلسفه
سال چهارم شماره 2 (پیاپی 14، پاییز 1392)

The purpose of this paper is to determine the nature of Ibn Sina’s idea concerning the ethical epistemology of oriental works entitled “intellectual intuition”. In the study of the nature of intellectual intuition, the focus is placed on its component parts. In other words, we will pay attention to elements which Ibn Sina considers as the sources of the acquisition of ethical knowledge under the title of intellectual intuition, and it appears that this kind of intuition results from a combination of these elements. Therefore, here the writers initially introduce the epistemological elements of intellectual intuition following a modern approach and maintain that intellectual intuition consists of three epistemological elements of intuition, introversion, and intellect. Then they clarify the role of each of these elements in the epistemological functions of intellectual intuition in Ibn Sina’s view. Next, through explaining the role of intuition in the ethical epistemology of contemporary intuitionists, they try to explore the particular functions of this epistemological layout in the eyes of contemporary thinkers. Finally, through a comparison of their ideas with those of Ibn Sina, the writers provide a more accurate picture of the whatness of intuition and its constituent elements in Ibn Sina’s philosophy.

In Tabari sources, Hermes is one of the grandchildren of Sheth, the son of Adam. After these two people, he was the first to become a prophet. In Suhrawardi’s view, the history of philosophy and thought begins with Hermes. The Sufis have been truly called the most important heirs to Hermetic tradition among Muslims. In many sources, the names of such figures as Hallaj and Suhrawardi have been placed among the names of the followers of this tradition. Moreover, Hermetic ideas have penetrated into the world of Islam through some sciences such as medicine, astronomy, alchemy, and the like. As a result, a group of Muslim writers, historians, gnostics, and philosophers have considered Hermes to be a pioneer in the field of wisdom and various sciences. Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, the founder of Illuminationist philosophy in the world of Islam, is one of the representatives of this Iranian symbolic and esoteric, interpretive tradition, which, in addition to honoring Hermes’ character, tries to connect him with Iranian mythology. He attributes some names derived from his own philosophical terms to Hermes, such as tiba‘ tam (perfect natures). Suhrawardi considers himself an heir to Hermetic wisdom. Through a study of Hermes in Greek mythology and later sources, this paper intends to show how he entered the domain of Islamic prophethood.

Unlike the prevailing idea, Ibn Sina is neither a loyal advocate of Aristotle nor a mere commentator of his ideas. He is an independent, distinguished, and Muslim Iranian philosopher. In the light of the criticisms targeted at Greek philosophy and Aristotle’s ideas, Ibn Sina intended to develop a new form of epistemology and lay the foundations of oriental philosophy.One of the controversial issues among thinkers is the problem of the soul and its trans-substantiality, immateriality, and immortality. Ibn Sina considers Aristotle’s ideas in this regard to be inadequate and contaminated with defects, mistakes, and confusion. Through criticizing Aristotle’s definition of the soul, Ibn Sina tries to introduce a novel approach to the problem of the soul, while rejecting the arguments of survival and finally devising a new theory concerning the immortality of the soul.The purpose of the present paper is to explore Aristotle’s ideas and Ibn Sina’s objections to them and also reveal the latter philosopher’s innovative ideas concerning the problem of the soul. The writer tries to demonstrate that Ibn Sina’s achievement regarding the issue of the soul and body is, in fact, a new solution to this problem. He also aims to show that it is a mistake to assume that Islamic philosophers still continue to follow Aristotle’s ideas. Ibn Sina must be considered as a pioneer in fundamental arguments on the subject of the soul and its immateriality.

The knowledge of various aspects of man is the main concern of Ibn Sina’s philosophy. In his philosophical system, man is a created existent whose immaterial soul and material body, both, come into existence by the Active Intellect. From the very beginning, the soul is immaterial by essence and parallel to separate intellects. However, it is material in terms of acts and depends on bodily means. The soul-body relationship is unique: The soul is the administrator of the body and the main agent of all human acts. The body, as the unique instrument of the soul’s acts, enjoys worldly life and is the mediator of the actualization of faculties and their capabilities. Man has no life prior to his worldly life and is not pre-eternal; however, its immaterial soul is eternal and, unlike the body, which is destroyed after death, is not annihilated and is immortal. Three of Ibn Sina’s allegorical-gnostic works center around anthropology: in the treatises of al-Tayr, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, and Salaman wa Absal, he explains human life and the factors leading to or hindering his perfection in the language of stories, secrets, and symbols. Moreover, following an approach which is less philosophical and more gnostic and didactic, he tries to reveal the way of perfection and happiness to its seekers.The present paper intends to explore the appearance of philosophical anthropology of Ibn Sina in the anthropology embedded in his three-fold allegorical-gnostic treatises. In this way, it seeks to discover the differences and similarities between these two approaches to man from the viewpoint of this dexterous Peripatetic philosopher.

One of the important problems of Islamic philosophy is the demonstration of the substantiality of the soul. In spite of their agreement concerning the substantiality of the soul, Mulla Sadra and Ibn Sina have some basic disagreements in the interpretation and explanation of this principle. The extent of these disagreements has also stretched to some critical issues such the explanation of the soul, its changes, and its relationship with other faculties, which are the focus of this paper. According to Ibn Sina, possible beings consist of two analytic-rational components, that is, existence and quiddity. He also maintains that the source of the division of categories, under which substance and accident fall, is quiddity itself. The difference between substance and accident also lies in the fact that existence is substance by itself, and existence is accident through the other. Therefore, the soul is an immaterial substance that performs voluntary administrative acts and perceives universal affairs. It has some branches or faculties through which it carries out its acts. In this approach, the differences among human souls, from their highest to lowest levels, are rooted in accidents, and no change occurs in their substance. In Mulla Sadra’s view, too, accident has no independence before substance, thus it is a dependent truth enjoying an existence depending on the other. Nevertheless, based on the principle of the principiality of existence, the criterion for individuation is existence; an existence which underlies the individuation of a subject and is the referent for substance itself and a referent for all accidents. In other words, it is a single existence that is a referent for man with various accidents. The soul is a substance commensurate with existence and enjoys an essential and graded existence the accidents of which are considered to be the grades of this truth. The soul’s faculties are its modes and grades, and the perfections attained by the soul originate in its unity with perceptive forms.

The Sophists were the first ancient thinkers who considered the issue of man as the main subject of philosophy. They were the first to change the direction of philosophical research from phusis to nomos. Almost at the same time and a short while after the rise of the Sophists, in spite of their disagreements with and fundamental oppositions to these thinkers, Socrates, Plato, and also Aristotle introduced man as the primary concern of philosophical theories. This was the main commonality between the views of the Sophists and ancient philosophers. On the other hand, there is also a kind of formal proximity between Socrates and the Sophists in terms of their method of dialectics and discourse. However, since Socrates considers a fixed criterion for knowledge which is free from sense impressions, he criticizes Protagoras’ statement as to “Man is the measure of all things”, and argues that Protagoras focuses on individual man and considers the truth to be relative. In this way, a comparative study of the ideas of the Sophists and philosophers reveals that both groups followed the same subject and method but had different purposes. The Sophists’ purpose was teaching, while philosophers sought their end in knowing the truth. This paper aims to discover the differences and similarities between these two approaches. In doing so, it initially deliberates accurately over their distinctive ideas and then clearly explains that some of the philosophical findings of the Sophists, in spite of their historical notoriety, have exercised some lasting effects on contemporary philosophy. In other words, by changing the direction of philosophy’s attention to the problem of man, in a sense, they developed the basis for modern philosophy.

After graduation from Dar al-Funun and before going abroad, Dr. Khalil Khan Thaqafi translated and wrote two treatises on time and place. In the first treatise, which was introduced in the previous issue of History of Philosophy Journal, he discusses the idea of finite and infinite time and place. The second treatise, which is introduced in this issue, includes the translation of a short part of a huge philosophical book by Victor Cousin, the French philosopher of the 19th century, discussing whether time and place are substance or not.