NAQD VA NAZAR
Year:2021 | Volume:26 | Issue:2 (102)|Papers Count:7

Foundationalism is a major early theory concerning epistemic justification, which has the capacity to resist against many rival approaches which lead to skepticism and relativism. Given his principles such as primacy of existence and the relation between epistemology and ontology in his view, Mullā Ṣadrā’s brand of foundationalism has many advantages. In this research, we adopt a descriptive-analytic method to offer a comprehensive consideration and analysis of foundationalism in the views of this prominent philosopher. We conclude that, firstly, Mullā Ṣadrā’s epistemology is quite influenced by his ontology; secondly, the process of knowledge acquisition and justification can be explained only by distinguishing different stages of knowledge given the arcs of ascent and descent; thirdly, knowledge by acquisition is an act and thus a manifestation of the subject’s immaterial soul. Hence, knowledge by acquisition goes back to knowledge by acquaintance; and finally, epistemic justification which solely applies to assents (taṣdīqāt) is accounted for by reducing theoretical assents to self-evident assents and the latter to knowledge by presence.

The liar paradox involves a self-referring sentence which claims its own falsity. A host of solutions have been offered for the paradox, some of which take the dismissal of the natural language and deployment of formal languages as the fundamental solution, while others try to solve the paradox in terms of natural languages. The problem of this paper is why Paul Horwich’s solution for the paradox in terms of the minimalist theory of truth-which falls in the second category of solutions-is flawed. Drawing on the descriptive-analytic method, this research aims to show the inadequacy of Horwich’s claim that it is possible to explain all uses of the concept of truth by making recourse to our intrinsic and linguistic tendency to endorse all instances of equivalence schema. His solution to the liar paradox is to dismiss the instances of equivalence schema related to self-referring sentences. I conclude that this answer not only fails to be a proper answer to the paradox, but also amounts to a flaw in the explanation provided by the minimalist theory of the concept of truth.

In the traditional jurisprudence, it is said that there is a presumption in favor of the unreliability of conjectures (ẓ unû n), and only certain conjectures, buttressed with reliable evidence, are reliable or authoritative. Some contemporary intellectuals have challenged the unreliability of rational conjectures, believing that evidence adduced for the above claim in the traditional jurisprudence does not go through. In volumes 92 and 96 of Naqd va Nazar, an article was published by Hossein Kamkar in critique of Abolqasem Fanaei’s claim and in defense of the principle of the unreliability of rational conjectures. The critic tries to establish the principle of the unreliability of rational conjectures (the claim in traditional jurisprudence), responds to Abolqasem Fanaei’s objections, and raises objections against his arguments. In my view, the critic’s attempt to undermine Fanaei ’s arguments and defend the traditional jurisprudence fails, and the principle of reliability of rational conjectures (Fanaei’s claim) is flawless. Drawing on a rational-analytic method, the paper seeks to show the implausibility of the claim by the traditional jurisprudence to the effect that conjectures are unreliable, and indeed the contrary is plausible and reasonable; that is, the idea that the presumption is in favor of the reliability of all conjectures except in cases where there is conclusive evidence for their unreliability. The conclusion I draw from my consideration of the two papers by Hossein Kamkar is that his objections against Fanaei’s claim involve negligence of chains of transmissions and implications of hadiths and of the priority of rational evidence over transmitted evidence. I believe that the religious legislator could not rule out the reliability of rational conjectures, arguments adduced by Muslim jurists and scholars of principles of jurisprudence are not sufficiently cogent, and rational conjectures are like certitudes essentially reliable.

The issue of philosophical secondary intelligibles is an essential prelude to a rediscovery of Qâḍî Sa.îd Qumî.s philosophical system, particularly his rejection of the primacy of existence (iṣâlat al-wujûd). With a careful study of those of his work which are attributed to him beyond any doubts and drawing on the descriptive- analytic method, we seek to analyze Qâḍî.s views of philosophical secondary intelligibles and their laws. It turns out that he never uses the term .secondary intelligibles,. instead referring to them as .general things,. in which he includes concepts such as existence, object, possibility, and necessity. He describes these as general, self-evidence concepts, and .infinitive. notions occurring to, and predicated of, all things, taking them to be the weakest things in terms of existence with a trace of existence in the fact itself (nafs al-amr). Some of his statements refer to a kind of metaphysical occurrence of philosophical concepts. In his discussion of generation (ja.l), however, he takes the .quiddity. to be essentially created and other accidents and implications of a thing as accidentally created. His emphasis on simple generation sheds light on certain confusions. From Qâḍî.s words two distinct levels of externality of philosophical concepts can be derived: first, these concepts have a faint trace of realization and objectivity; and second, they have no realization and objectivity over and above the essence.

Some Muslim and Christian intellectuals adopt a monistic position about the human being, and thus, provide a merely bodily portrayal of resurrection. Bodily accounts of resurrection in Islamic and Christian contexts imply that the intellectuals in both religions have gone the same path. Points of similarity and difference between these thinkers are brought out by contexts of monism and bodily accounts of resurrection in Islamic and Christian contexts. In this paper, by a consideration of the work of Muslim and Christian corporealists, we highlight their motivations, concluding that the grounds for the formation of physicalism in Islamic and Christian contexts are dissimilar. Given the abundant textual evidence for bodily resurrection, Muslim intellectuals have taken it for granted, and in order to prove bodily resurrection, they reduced the human nature to the body and the bodily things, while in the Christian realm, because of the development of empirical sciences and a physicalist outlook of phenomena in the world, dualism about the human nature was called into questions. For this reason, Western intellectuals turned to bodily accounts of resurrection to prove the doctrine of resurrection. In the Islamic context, the growth of philosophical thoughts and rational sciences led to the establishment of dualism and rejection of bodily account, whereas in the Christian context, the growth of rational and philosophical schools led to the rejection of dualism and tendency toward materialistic accounts of the human nature, and hence, of resurrection.

Muslim Sufis and mystics have uttered controversial and problematic words in that they appeared to be conflict with the religion and beyond the human comprehension. In his Sharḥ Shaṭḥiyyât, Rûzbahân Baqlî Shîrâzî sought to interpret away the extremely notorious Sufi words. In this paper, we address the notion and history of .shaṭḥ. and then consider ecstatic utterances by two Sufis: Abu-l-Ḥusayn Muzayyan and Abu-l-Qâsim Naṣrâbâdî because of the significance of their contents, which include issues of servitude, Lordship, and seeking forgiveness as the most challenging issues in mysticism and Sufism. We have consider these cases in terms of Quranic verses and hadiths from the Infallibles in a descriptive and library method, seeking to determine how they relate to the practice of the Household of Prophet Muhammad. We conclude by showing that these ecstatic utterances are immensely in conflict.

The law of reflection in Interuniversal Mysticism states how reflections of human good and bad deeds, after being measured by the criterion of human capacity, is reflected in higher worlds (God), and how they prepare the ground for human guidance and misguidance and human enjoyment of positive and negative consciousness through positive and negative networks. A study of the background of this law reveals that there has been no scientific examination of it. Drawing on the descriptive, analytic, and critical method, and in order to provide a critical analysis of the law of reflection, we relied on .Allâma Ṭabâṭabâ.î.s theological mystical views to examine the law. Although we note the upsides of the law, we level objections against it such as its equal treatment of the reflection of good and bad deeds, its incompatibility with the framework of justice, and its negligence of the embodiment of actions in the afterlife. Moreover, we raise objections such as its ambiguous and problematic account of the place and parameters of the individual.s capacity in reflection, and why and how the emergence of the reflection stops.