Ayeneh Ma‘refat
Year:2011 | Volume:9 | Issue:27|Papers Count:8

Potentiality and action are types of existence and existence in this sense is susceptible to two interpretations in an intellectual analysis. The object by virtue of being itself has actualization and by virtue of being capable of becoming a different object has potentiality.The susceptibility mode is the mode by which the object is ready to receive.Acceptance on the basis of word commonality is used in the sense of passivity and qualification. Potentiality in the sense of qualification and agency in the sense of requirement are mutually inclusive in essence and in existence while the difference in modes would make them mutually exclusive.Therefore, the mode of action and conscience cannot come together with the mode of potentiality and absence. The present article is an attempt to analyze and explain the modes of potentiality and action in the recipient and agent.

Reason as a tool of human cognition and knowledge has acquired a high status among philosophers. But in mysticism, a lot of Sufis consider wisdom as the veil of cognition. The major theme of Ibne Arabi’s theoretical mysticism and Mulla Sadra’s mystical attitude is understanding the names, attributes and actions of God Almighty. Ibne Arabi, in spite of his high respect for the place wisdom, considers it as incapable of acquiring knowledge of God Almighty. He believes that wisdom in the recognition of God has two positions: one is the position of understanding and perceiving, and the other is the position of accepting. In his view, wisdom is incapable of understanding God and some of His manifestations and determinations while in the position of accepting it is capable of understanding God and there is no limit for it in this respect. Mulla Sadra also proposes limitations for wisdom in knowing and understanding God and Its names and attributes. He believes that the true knowledge of God can only be acquired through intuition.The point of similarity between Mulla Sadra and Ibne Arabi is that both consider sensory and intellectual methods flawed in understanding all aspects of reality, though both think these ways of acquiring cognition are God’s manifestations and one should be aware of their limitations and do not take them as the criterion for ultimate judgments about the unknowns. The present article first introduces the views of Iben Arabi and Mulla Sadra and then accounts their similarities and differences.

Agha Najafi is among those scholars who have commented on one of the most significant philosophical and Gnostic issues, i.e. human status in the universe and his relation with Allah. Since he was a follower of Plato and Molla Sadra, he believes in originality, unity and gradation of being. He ascribes theomorphic attributes to man except for majesty and pride which are specific to God. He believes in God as the ultimate representation of perfection for human beings and considers happiness and perfection inseparable from one another. He contends that man is superior to all creatures and angels (even in worship) and considers man as the Caliph and substitution of Allah on Earth.He regards the believers’ broken heart as the very abode of Allah. In fact, he believes that Allah is a perfect human being. Yet, he does not ignore the influence of environment and heredity. He attributes the chief role to instinct and will and considers human volition in the same direction as divine will. He maintains that knowledge consists of divine inspirations and inwardly blessings which emanate from exalted active intellect infusing the faithful hearts. He considers man as capable of promoting his faculty of contemplation through exploration and intuition. As a pacifist philosopher he advocates the application of religious beliefs in settling social issues in an active cultural domain within society.

Faith and its nature have attracted the attention of scholars in different fields who have expressed views which in some cases seem incompatible. Comparing and contrasting these views and their examination can shed light on the issue of faith. In this article, the nature of faith from the point of view of Ibne Arabi, the father of theoretical Gnosticism, from the Islamic tradition and Kierkegaard from the Christian tradition are compared and contrasted. With respect to faith, the perspectives of ‘faith as confirmation’, ‘faith as act’, and so on are expressed by Islamic scholars and the ‘propositional’and ‘phenomenological’ perspectives by western scholars. Ibne Arabi with his realistic views considers faith as knowledge and confirmation.For him, true faith is the one which comes before and after intuition.Kierkegaard, having bases in philosophical skepticism and considering the associations of faith as unreal, has an anti-epistemological and voluntary perspective to faith and maintains that volition, taking risks and enduring hardships are elements of faith.

The assumption is that modernity, due to its contribution to man’s progress, has increased his ability to choose. This assumption which is true in certain respects is exposed to two question in this article. Whose ability to choose has been increased by modernity and what choices are made available to man by modernity? The article tries to provide answers to these questions first by focusing on the distinctive constitutive features of modernity with an emphasis on its strengths and second by contemplating on the limitations modernity has imposed on man’s choices with an emphasis on delivery. Providing evidence for its claims, the article concludes that since modernity is a coherent whole and it is one of those very few macro ideas which has been actualized in man’s life and has turned into a hegemonic trend and an envious pattern for human beings it suffers from an orientation toward seeking entirety, ultimateness, exclusivity and domination. These accidental features in addition to some inherent features such as contempt for equity and lack of due attention to other man’s existential aspects has turned into an obstacle in the way of cotemporary man’s fundamental choices.

The nature of the divine self- and other-knowledge has been a complex controversial issue to philosophers to the extent that some peripatetic philosophers were accused of being unbelievers in the context of the divine knowledge of the variable and temporal particulars. The views of the peripatetic and illumination philosophers on the one hand and the effects of the mystical and Qur’anic verses on the other enriched the issue in the transcendental philosophy. The major question is whether one can present a different interpretation of God’s knowledge using the Copulative Existence Theory in such a way that it could not only solve the problematic aspects of the issue but it would also be devoid of the problems with the former approaches.The present article first presents a number of alternative views and then presents an analysis of Copulative Existence and its impact on clarifying God’s knowledge.

In reaction to the issue of absoluteness or relativity of ethics, the majority of researchers have tried to interpret and justify those verses which give the illusion of relativity of ethics (the negative aspect of the absoluteness of ethics) and have almost ignored the positive aspect of the absoluteness of ethics based on the perspective of the holy Quran. In addition, the researchers have not given due attention to the significance of the outcomes of such an approach to the analysis of the issues of ethics philosophy in resolving the issue of ethics relativity.These two issues are the focus of the present article. The article first introduces the positive aspect of the absoluteness of ethics drawing on direct analysis of the verses of the holy Quran in this respect and second discusses the implications of the outcomes of a Quranic look on some of the major issues in the philosophy of ethics in resolving the relativity of ethics.