JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Year:2008 | Volume:9 | Issue:3 (35)|Papers Count:10

One of the key discussions in the Islamic philosophy is God's Knowledge, on which philosophers and scholars have presented different opinions. One of these views belongs to Sheikh al-Ishraq. On one hand, he describes the necessary existent as Infinite Light and Manifestation and considers Knowledge the same as manifestation. On the other hand, the reality of Necessary Being is Pure Existence, All-existence, All-rich, the Infinite and the Bestower of everything. So it can be said that he believed in God's priori and absolute Knowledge and proved it on the basis of his illurninationist philosophy. In addition, he regards God's Knowledge of real existences, whether incorporeal or corporeal beings, as illuminative presential knowledge. The present article is going to explain Sheikh al-Ishrq's viewpoint on Divine knowledge, to enumerate the later scholars' objections and to response them on the basis of Sohrawrdi's philosophical system.

In spite of using hadith-based approach in Islamic jurisprudence, Mulla Fayd Kashani is among the few Shiite scholars who hold a philosophical attitude based on transcendent theosophy, Mysticism and Sufism. Presenting his philosophical school, this research essay deals with the question how he could put together the tradition-oriented approach and such a philosophical attitude. Can we say he is a multi-dimensional scholar, or he has adopted a multi-disciplinary way so that to explain each disciplinary with the other, or he believes in the unity between the demonstration, the verses and intuition.Supposing that these are the case, what differences are there between Mulla Sadra's and Sohrawardi's viewpoints?

From a long time ago, thinkers' and philosophers' concern was justification of applying human concepts and attributes to infinite God. To justify such an application, William P. Alston, a prominent American philosopher of religion, offered a functionalist theory in the realm of philosophical psychology, and tried to demonstrate it in a series of articles. This research essay is an attempt to investigate into Alston's articles.

Modal Logic's theorems and rules are valid in possible worlds but Relevant Logic's theorems and rules are valid, respectively, in logical worlds and situations. Robert Meyer in 1974 removed this asymmetry between the theorems and the rules of Relevant Logic by establishing a logical system, whose theorems and rules are valid in all situations. Introducing a new kind of truth and falsity operators, the authors in this article sketch a logical system defined on the basis of Relevant Logic. Such a system can not only preserve symmetry, but also remove some inconsistency between Modern Classical Logic and Relevant Logic, because the latter, like the former, puts possible worlds as a criterion for validity.

One of the arguments of the realists to prove the existence of universals in the external world is "abstract reference". According to this argument, there are many true sentences in a language which apparently relates to universals.In the realists' view, truth of these sentences can be explicated only when universals exist in the external world. On the basis of his "degree of language" theory, Camap has criticized the above-mentioned argument and demonstrated that delusion of the existence of universals has resulted from the confusion in regard to different degrees of language. In his view, those sentences concerning to universals are in fact second-order sentences which assert properties with regard to some first-order sentences. But Carnap's theory suffers from two main objections: firstly, his theory is not successful in the elimination of reference to universals, because on the basis of his theory, only reference to non-linguistic universals would be eliminated but reference to linguistic universals continue to survive. Secondly, supposing that Camap's theory is true, translation of the sentences in question would be extremely difficult and complicate. So Wilfred Sellars attempts to response the two objections, and thus, to present a reformed version of Camap's theory. In the present article, the author first explains Carnap's theory; then, it presents the relevant objections; and finally, it offers Sellars' reformed -s version of Camap's theory.

Environmental law is a complex interlocking body of statutes, common law, treaties, conventions, regulations and policies which operate to regulate the interaction of humanity and the natural environment. And the philosophy of law is concerned with providing a general philosophical analysis of law and legal institutions. In the philosophy of law, two discussions may be more important. One is the basis of law and the other, its goals. So on one hand, there is a disagreement between scholars of law on whether the basis of law is revelation, reason or experience, and on the other hand, on whether the aim of law is individual-based or society-base or a synthesis of these two.Such a disagreement can practically cause different effects. Consequently, the contrasting effects can be seen in the philosophy of environmental law as well. Here, in theists' view, protection of environmental law is due to the motivation of fulfilling a religious obligation, whereas in materialists' opinion it is motivated by profiteering. Thus, a fundamental work prior to any discussions on the complex issues of environmental law is debate on the philosophy of environmental law and its dualistic effects, which the present paper attempts to deal with.

After the collapse of the Umayyad dynasty and the Abbasids' gaining power in the early years of the second century/eighth century, the Islamic community witnessed profound changes in all affairs, of which the most significant changes concerned people's beliefs. So the appearance of various sects and theological-philosophical trends are regarded as the main characteristics of this period. Accordingly, several branches of Humanities, especially literature and Arabic poetry, have been influenced by this torrential theological-philosophical trend, whose effects are observable in the variations of the literary themes. This paper is going to deal with various aspects of this effect as well as its overtones in Arabic poetry.

Among the great sages of Iran is Aziz ad-Din Nasafi, who is still unknown like other great Iranian philosophers. In epistemology and ontology, Nasafi has put forward discussions which enjoys logical coherence and theoretical strength so that they can satisfy any fair readers. In his discussions, Nasafi ties the epistemological matters to the ontological ones and explains the complicate philosophical issues in terms of mystical concepts. As a matter of fact, his doctrines were a proper capital for substantial motion viewed by Mullah Sadra who, like Nasafi, tried to integrate reason and intuition.

A pivotal concept in Kierkegaard's works is the concept of anxiety, which has made his thought quite unique. Considering the essential significance of this concept, Kierkegaard has discussed it in one of his major works called The Concept of Dread. The present paper attempts to explain the abovementioned concept, and to show how Kierkegaard has applied it in relation to other components of his thought, as well as to clarify its role as a beneficial factor in human's life.