PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION RESEARCH (NAMAH-I HIKMAT)
Year:2016 | Volume:14 | Issue:1 (27)|Papers Count:12

This article tries to show that there is a religious understanding of “Subjectivity” in all writings of Soren Kierkegaard, especially, Concluding Unscientific Postscript and other works. He uses key concepts such as Christianity, truth, passion, God, faith for describing and explanation of “subjectivity”. For Kierkegaard, Christian faith is not a matter of regurgitating church dogma. It is a matter of individual subjective passion, which cannot be mediated by the clergy or by human artefacts. For example, he criticizes the current attitude to Christianity, mainly based on objective and historical attitude. In addition, it can be said that, by means of these concepts, he wants to introduce existentialistic subjectivity instead of modern philosophical subjectivity (Cartesian and Kantian one). It seems that most of thinkers tend to confuse Kierkegaard's discussion of subjectivity with subjectivism. Kierkegaard stresses the former, and need not be seen as advocating the latter. Kierkegaard is not particularly interested in epistemological theories of objective truth. He is simply not all that concerned with the status of ordinary empirical or scientific truths. Rather, as a primarily ethico-religious thinker, his concern is with truth as it pertains to the existing individual.

According to al-Ghazali, prophets exert a profound effect on bringing other people to the highest degree of knowledge. In addition to teaching people the truths, prophets have a training role that brings knowledge to the level of certainty through changing the emotional-volitional realms. I shall show analytically that the prophets' training role leads to a "journey" to the truth that one takes in his soul, in order to achieve "the ability" of comprehending the truth. Achieving this ability requires a "settlement", "moderation" and "consistency of the self", so that one notices the truth "entirely". People faced with the prophet, receive his revelation in a lingual form. Obeying the Shari' a and following the prophets' commands and deeds accompanies people on an epistemic journey which ends with the highest level of knowledge. In this level, the people looking for the truth can achieve the "understanding" of theBātin (the hidden meaning) of the Shari' a, as well as the knowledge of the spiritual realities, including spiritual beings as well as the relationship between them and the meaning of their existence.

Among the different kinds of prayers, petitionary prayer faces most philosophical challenges. One of them is about the efficacy of this sort of prayer in a world having inclusive laws. The problem has two presumptions. First, the divine answer to petitionary prayer is granted, and secondly, there is no violation in natural laws. To consider this problem, we have examined two philosophers’ views, Mortaza Mutahhari and Eleonore Stump. Although Mutahhari does not address the problem explicitly, we can find the bases for coping with it in his works. Stump, however, considers the problem explicitly. First, she proves the possibility of prayer in such a world. Secondly, by appealing to some notions in modern physics, she offers an explanation of how this possibility can be actualized. On the other hand, Mutahhari's answers are focused on the compatibility of prayers with the other laws of nature. So, he believes that the petitionary prayer is a law among the other laws in the cosmos.

There are attributes in the ordinary language that have been commonly attributed to God and His creatures. Ascribing these attributes to God and His creatures univocally or equivocally leads respectively to anthropomorphism and agnosticism. To solve this problem, some Islamic thinkers have appealed to the gradational meaning of these attributes. Mulla Sadra has presented a theory for this problem thatbased on his philosophical principles and can be called “gradational theology”. St. Tomas Aquinas has tried to cope with the problem by appealing to the doctrine of Analogy. This theory has been criticized both by Islamic and Christian thinkers. By the semantic analysis of the key words of Aquinas’s theory, it can be said that his theory is similar to the gradational theology with some slight differences. Besides, it can be said that, concerning this problem, he was influenced by Avicenna. This article seeks to explain this claim in an analytic-descriptive way along with comparing the theories of Mulla Sadra and Thomas Aquinas.

Realism/anti-realism controversy has always been crucial in the history of philosophy, so that it has affected all philosophical areas, including religious belief, in which admitting realistic/anti-realistic approach has a wide range of influences in all religious concepts. After shedding some lights on preliminary issues concerning the nature and kinds of formulation of realism/anti-realism controversy, the present study is aimed at analyzing and comparing two kinds of Anti-realism: DonCupitt’s one which relies on his reading of modern philosophy (especially Nietzsche’s), and D. Z. Phillips’s one which uses Wittgenstein’s later philosophy of language. Based on these foundations, they end with elimination of metaphysics and lead to one kind of relativism. So, application of these views on religious belief leads their attention to practical aspects rather than conceptual and theoretical ones. At this very point, Paul Badham, on the contrary, believes as a realist that performing rituals and prayers, in the absence of religious notions would be impossible, and having a realistic approach to the one who is worshiped (namely God), is an inherent part of religious practices. Finally, we show that these kinds of Anti-realism face with the problems which are insurmountable. Also, we will show that Badham’s Realism is not strong enough to cope with Ani-realism.

Invention and discovery of the meaning are two rival theories of the meaning of life. With explanation of being for itself and being in itself, Sartre, first of all, empties world from all the meanings and then, for the sake of self-transcendence and avoiding passiveness, is in search of invention of the meaning. So, Sartre can be called a subjectivist and non-cognitivist. Therefore, the defects of these schools can also be attributed to Sartre’s theory. One of the most important criticisms is the impossibility of epistemic judgment. According to Sartre, if the meaning is absolutely personal and subjective, then no epistemic judgment about truth or falsity of beliefs would be possible. But, according to the epistemic principles of non-cognitivists and subjectivists, it seems that we can decrease the power of criticism. The insistence of Sartre and existentialists on the subjectivity of meaning implies that the cognitivist criticisms have nothing to do with Sartre.

Theories of the meaning of life can be classified into naturalistic and not-naturalistic ones. One of the most popular objections to the naturalistic ones is that they have no way to escape from the problem of the Absurd. But the optimistic naturalism as an idea that can be claimed on the basis of scientific progress and technological achievements, and also with commitment to naturalism, was to get rid of the problem of the Absurd. In this paper, with respect to Leo Tolstoy’s and Thomas Nagel’s views about the Absurd, optimistic naturalism, as Dan Weijers has theorized, is explained in an argumentative form. Also for evaluating Optimistic Naturalism in solving the problem of the Absurd, I have analyzed the sematic, epistemological and anthropological bases of the theory and shown that, contrary to Weijers, it cannot solve the problem of the Absurd. Rather, it can be counted as an evidence for verifying that Naturalism is incapable of coping with the problem.

The relationship between religious language and reality is an important issue in the debate on religious language. Ideas and theories which have been raised on this issue can be divided into two categories of "religious realism" and "religious non-realism". In this study, we shall explore the ideas of Mulla Sadra on "the relationship between religious language and reality" and "how religious language narrates reality". In addition, this study aims at offering a completely new and modern explanation of these issues based on the ontological and epistemological principles of Transcendental Philosophy of Mulla Sadra.

Since 1970, when Gödel tried to provide a new articulation of the so called ontological argument, many considerable discussions has been emerged due to assessment of his argument's validity and soundness. For example, Sobel tries to show some defects of Gödel's argument. Petr Hájek, the eminent logician and mathematician, tries to save this argument from Sobel's critiques by some small amendments. According to him, if we articulate this argument in S5 system of modal logic with a few changes, we can have a safe argument. Besides, Hájek believes that this argument is of little interest from theological perspective. In this article, after a survey of Hájek’s work, we shall try to put this later claim under scrutiny and show the theological relevance of the argument. Finally, we show that despite the fact that Hájek and many other logicians consider Gödel's argument just as a "formal model" of an ancient argument, this argument seems a bona fide and justified argument for God’s existence.

Happiness according to Thomas Aquinas is the perfect good which is obtained upon seeing God in after life. The happiness which Aquinas refers to is the perfect happiness against imperfect happiness. Imperfect happiness is obtained by depending on intellectual and moral virtues and is the pre-requisite to perfect happiness which flourishes by the mercy of God, theological virtues, charity, hope and faith. In order to explain the subject of happiness, he rejects other possible subjects of happiness such as wealth, fame, glory, power, mundane good and proceeds by pointing that happiness is a perfect good whose path is implanted in the soul of human being. He believes that delight and rectitude of the will are the necessary means of happiness; yet human body is necessary for reaching happiness both in the corporeal life and the afterlife. External good and the companionship of the friends are not required for perfect happiness; nevertheless, they are needed to achieve imperfect happiness which is a per-requisite to the perfect happiness.