NAQD VA NAZAR
Year:2020 | Volume:25 | Issue:2 (98)|Papers Count:7

There is no one who has never face the question of life after death. Since the prophets and their successors have communicated the divine message of posthumous life to people, in this paper I seek to show that every human being innately apprehends the necessity of this communication, and its recognition is just in need of a closure. Thus, it will be clarified, through a rational method and conceptual analysis, that the optimal order (al-niẓām al-aḥsan) is apprehended when none of its constitutive parts is ignored. If reason grasps the natural world without the afterlife, then it will encounter explanatory gaps when facing the questions of theoretical reason. The explanatory gap has a different story when it comes to practical reason. Not only does practical reason lead and oblige one to moral actions, but also puts the moral world along with the natural world in order to complete its rationality. Reason cannot fully support the rationality of moral actions without a moral world and moral life after the natural life. In this paper, I will draw on moral concepts to argue for the necessity of the existence of another world. The argument deploys premises graspable by everyone in order to turn into a proof. The departing point of the argument is the general notion of the moral concept of “ duty. ”

The main problem in this paper is a comparison between the two notions of happiness and immortality in the views of Ibn ‘Arabī and Kierkegaard as Muslim and Christian intellectuals, respectively. The comparison, made with a descriptive-analytic method, is meant to identify the foundations and consequences of the views along with a recognition of what is shared and distinct in their formulations of this-worldly and afterlife functions of morality. We find that, in Ibn ‘Arabī’s view, happiness is to assume the divine characters and to instantiate the divine names; that is, it is conceptually equivalent to, and coextensive with immortality. In this way, in its ascending arc, the human being makes a loving move toward moral happiness and hence toward immortality. In Kierkegaard’s view, however, morality is the acquisition of this-worldly virtues conceptually and extensionally distinct from acting upon divine commands and immortality with faithful individuation. Relying on faith, Kierkegaard sees morality as the degree of those who fail the divine test. Therefore, he believes that the mortal moral hero is lower than the immortal chivalry of faith. Given the foundations and assumptions of the two intellectuals, Ibn ‘Arabī’s account in which religious and moral lives are identified with each other seems preferable to Kierkegaard’s view in which morality is deemed a lower degree of faithful life.

Maturidiyya is an Islamic theological school attributed to Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad Māturīdī Samarqandī (d. 333 AH/944). It is an old and widely advocated Sunni theological school, particularly supported by Hanafi Muslims. Just like other Islamic sects, Maturidiyya believe in human immortality and posthumous life, which is a fundamental theological problem. An issue concerning afterlife is the problem of immortality and its arguments. In this paper, I deploy a descriptive-analytic method and consult the theological and exegetical work of Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī, as the founder of the Maturidiyya school, to consider his picture of the human immortality and his arguments. Māturīdī believes in human immortality as a soul-body composite in the afterlife, and in addition to transmitted evidence, he presents rational arguments for his position, although in the theological system of Maturidiyya as a rationalist school evidence for the human immortality tends to be transmitted, rather than rational, and indeed, certain Maturidis have subsumed issues concerning afterlife under the category of “what is heard” (sam‘iyyāt). Notwithstanding this, Abū Manṣūr Māturīdī deploys a general rationalist approach in his explication and interpretation of the transmitted evidence, providing certain rational arguments or at least rationalist accounts of the transmitted evidence.

In Kant’ s view, there is no proof in the proper sense of the term as far as philosophical knowledge is concerned; proof applies only to mathematical knowledge, indeed. This is because, Kant believes, mathematical proofs are intuitive and a certainty-conferring argument counts as a proof insofar as it is intuitive. We should therefore see what intuition is for Kant and what the relation is between intuitions and proofs in his philosophy. Drawing on a descriptive-analytic method, this paper seeks first to clarify what Kant means by the intuition in virtue of which a certainty-conferring argument becomes a proof, and then what relation holds between such an intuition and proofs. Is the intuition in question associated with the structure of the proof or is it just associated with preliminaries of the proof? In this paper, I argue that, first of all, the intuition Kant has in mind in his discussion of argument is pure intuition, which, he believes, is exemplified in space and time that are connecting factors of empirical intuitions in understanding— indeed, it is in these two intuitions that all demonstrative and necessary mathematical knowledge is grounded. Secondly, in Kant’ s view, the only axioms and preliminaries of proofs are intuitive, which implies that the distinction between proofs and philosophical arguments does not lie in their natures or structures; it lies, instead, in the fact that the premises of a syllogistical arguments are intuitive.

Anselm’ s has been one of the most controversial ontological arguments and the origin of other versions of such arguments. According to Graham Oppy, the argument can be subsumed under modal, Meinongian, or conceptual arguments. He believes that one source of Anselm’ s ontological argument was Avicenna’ s modal ontological argument. In this paper, I seek to answer the following questions: Can we see Avicenna’ s argument of the sincere (burhān al-ṣiddiqīn) as a version of ontological argument? And is Anselm’ s argument one argument with two different interpretations or was he after devising two separate arguments? The research seeks to compare Anselm’ s argument with Avicenna’ s argument of the sincere, drawing on a descriptive-analytic method. I conclude that, for Oppy, Anselm has just provided one argument for God’ s existence in his Proslogion. While the argument bears similarities to the argument of the sincere in being a priori, being based on the holy text, and the path from God to God, the natures of the two arguments are to an extent that those similarities can be plainly ignored. The ontological argument begins from the “ very concept of existence, ” whereas Avicenna’ s argument is grounded in the “ very reality of existence” and this is the origin of major differences between the two arguments.

In the three sciences of mysticism, divine wisdom (philosophy), and kalā m (theology), “ existence” is said to server as the subject-matter. Given the majority view that sciences are distinguished from one another in virtue of their subjectmatters, the question arises of how these three sciences are distinguished given that they have the same subject-matter. This research seeks to answer this question, drawing on a descriptive-analytic method. It will turn out that the subjectmatter of mysticism is pure existence or reality and the exemplification of existence and that of divine philosophy and kalā m is absolute existence or the concept of existence. Thus, contrary to the majority view, divine philosophy and kalā m do not differ over their subject-matters, their difference boiling down to sources of their assent preliminaries. Assent sources of philosophy are derived from intellect without being constrained by conformity to appearances of the religion, while kalā m derives its preliminaries from appearances of the religion, and if religious appearances are acquired with sufficient care, then they will lead to conclusions consonant with intellectual preliminaries without a need for exotic interpretations.

In Kant’s view, there is no proof in the proper sense of the term as far as philosophical knowledge is concerned; proof applies only to mathematical knowledge, indeed. This is because, Kant believes, mathematical proofs are intuitive and a certainty-conferring argument counts as a proof insofar as it is intuitive. We should therefore see what intuition is for Kant and what the relation is between intuitions and proofs in his philosophy. Drawing on a descriptive-analytic method, this paper seeks first to clarify what Kant means by the intuition in virtue of which a certainty-conferring argument becomes a proof, and then what relation holds between such an intuition and proofs. Is the intuition in question associated with the structure of the proof or is it just associated with preliminaries of the proof? In this paper, I argue that, first of all, the intuition Kant has in mind in his discussion of argument is pure intuition, which, he believes, is exemplified in space and time that are connecting factors of empirical intuitions in understanding—indeed, it is in these two intuitions that all demonstrative and necessary mathematical knowledge is grounded. Secondly, in Kant’s view, the only axioms and preliminaries of proofs are intuitive, which implies that the distinction between proofs and philosophical arguments does not lie in their natures or structures; it lies, instead, in the fact that the premises of a syllogistical arguments are intuitive.