JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Year:2006 | Volume:7 | Issue:3 (27)|Papers Count:7

In the Islamic philosophy and Sufism there has. put forward different points of view on the unity and multiplicity of existence. This paper seeks to develop the above-mentioned subject in a comparative discussion. To achieve this, it first refers to the point of view ascribed to the Peripateticism, and next it indicates the viewpoint of the transcendent theosophy; then, it explains the viewpoint of Sufism and finally, comparing the two recent points of view, it attempts to show their similarities and differences.

The present article, which deals with Wittgenstein' s conception of truth, attempts to show that, contrary to the prevailing interpretation, the later and the former Wittgenstein' s view of truth was identical. Wittgenstein, as it will be mentioned, regarded truth as a redundant concept throughout his philosophical work, and as a result, he refused to provide a theory about truth. At the end, it is going to clarify that refusal to provide a theoretical formulation about truth does not mean logically being involved in antirealism, but rather he continued to have a realistic approach.

According to Donald Davidson's causal theory of actions, an action is an event that an agent performs for reasons, and thus explanation by appeal to the agent's reasons is a rational explanation as well as a causal explanation. Against Davidson's theory there have been raised a number of objections, one of which is called "normativity". The roots of this objection are that, on one hand, causal account is relative to things existing outside the mind but, on the other hand, normative things are things existing in the realm of mind; therefore we can not use causal explanation to mental things. The present article first refers the basic concepts of Davidson's theory; then, it accounts his theory of action; and finally it deals in detail with the objection "normativity".

God's relation to the world, a subject whose history is as lengthy as human thinking, is among the basic issues of philosophy and the Kalam in the Islamic world. Problems such as the why and how of emerging the order of creation and paradoxes such as unity and multiplicity, contingent and eternal, will and causal necessity, the First of the first things, and the Last of the last things, and so on are only a few questions of the numberless ones which have preoccupied thinkers during the history; consequently, there emerged -isms like sophism, naturalism, humanism, and theism as well as many other schools of thought, which show the continuous efforts of thinkers for explication of the relation between God and His creatures. Taking a look at the background of God's Providence (inayah), a divine attribute which necessitates 'the best order', this article indicates God's activity, describes the viewpoints of two famous philosophers in the Islamic world, i.e., Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra, , and shows the differences of their opinions in this regard.

Conceptual Arguments are among numerous attempts made to prove the existence of God. In this method, some thinkers has sought to prove the reality of God from a mental concept such as the concept of a Necessary Being, or a being than which nothing more perfect can be conceived, or a being than which nothing greater can be thought. Conceptual argument, which is a priori one, was first offered in the western by eleventh century theologian and archbishop of Canterbury St Anselm (1033-1109), and it became known as the ontological argument from Immanuel Kant's time. The presentation of such an argument has raised different criticisms, the most significant of which is confusion between - "primary predication" and "common predication", which has indicated by the Islamic thinkers. However, among the Islamic philosophers it was al-Farabi who first.-S represented the conceptual argument. Yet, the most compendious and the firmest version of the argument have been formulated by the late Muhaqqiq Isfah‎ānī Known as Kumpānī. Explaining his argument, the author compares it with Anselm's version and responses to some of the objections to Isfahani's version.

In view of the fact that philosophy and other intellectual sciences came in the Islamic civilization through translation of the Greek writings, there has always been a stain on the Islamic philosophy that it is no more than a mere translation of the Greek philosophy, and the Muslim philosophers have introduced no innovations in the form and content of it. Seeking to present the initiative in the field of social philosophy, the present article is going to compare the social opinions of Plato and Farabi, the two representatives of the Greek philosophy and the Islamic philosophy, and to show the resemblances and contrasts of their viewpoints. The respected reader will find out that although al-Farabi borrowed "the virtuous city" from Plato, the farmer's sketching and analysis as well as his way of reasoning are strikingly different from the latter's.