Ayeneh Ma‘refat
Year:2021 | Volume:20 | Issue:65|Papers Count:9

The purpose of this study is to investigate the function of religious experience in making sense of life from William James’ point of view along with the description and analysis of the critiques. He considers the religious experience as a necessary and sufficient condition for discovering meaning. He considers religion as something individual. With the evidence he provides for the subjectivity of emotions and the privacy of the mental life, we find out that James' views correspond with the new science and the specificity of religious experience and its meaning. Also, James' empirical explanations are uncertain and he does not see the need to prove it rationally. Empirical explanations such as search for meaning by all human beings and the falsification of meaning and the reduction of meaning to purpose indicate that the search for meaning is the most fundamental driving force in life and the reason for man’ s religious sense. James looks more at the sense of meaning than the meaning itself. James' view of religious experience and meaning is influenced by pragmatic thinking about utility.

One cannot ignore the importance of morality and its role in human happiness. It is because of its importance and the constructive role it plays in human life that both divine and materialistic schools of philosophy have some sort of moral style and philosophy of morality. The shared aspect of these schools of philosophy is that they consider ethics and the style of moral life as distinct and sometimes different from the spiritual and religious life. In some cases, the difference is so great that it has led to the separation of religion from morality, as is the case with Aristotelian ethics and Greek ethics as represented by western thinkers like Kant and Machiavelli. As all divine religions share the same essence and are originated from the same source, and if they vary, the difference is due to the divine law which is subject to temporal and spatial conditions. Moreover, life style is consistent with the divine law and rules of divine religions and there is no morality without religion. These are the reasons why we decided to study the moral principles of the divine religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). The outcomes of the study are very interesting as they evidence the closeness and alignment of moral precepts in all divine religions. It is hoped that other scholars would explore other ethical aspects of the Abrahamic religions. The present study adopted a descriptive analytical method using library resources.

Causation and its subsidiaries as causal necessity are among the issues considered by thinkers since antiquity till the present time. Despite its long history, it is still the center of attention and the source of controversies. A wide range of views (including absolutely positive or negative ones) on causal necessity shows its difficulty and importance which necessitate more accurate reflection. In Islamic philosophy, including transcendental wisdom, causal necessity has been accepted as one of the fundamental principles of philosophy. That is why, according to various analyses, its refutation or acceptance has no effect on the acceptance of causal necessity principle itself. On the contrary, some of Islamic Usuliyyin, such as Naeini and his followers take the view that the result of belief in human will and authority necessitates the denial of causal necessity in the case of free agents. While accepting causal necessity and the principle that “ al-Shay-u Ma Lam Yajib Lam Yujad” (the thing that is not obligatory is not existent), these thinkers have considered its allocation and specialization; and therefore, have reduced this rule to obligatory natural causes. The present article is an attempt to study these two opposing positions comparatively. The conclusion is that Mirza Naeini and his followers seem to be not aware of the principles of transcendental wisdom as they advance their discussion according to their non-Sadraian view of Causal necessity. This shows the dominance of customary view among Usuliyyin which is inconsistent with the transcendental wisdom in analyzing the issue, explaining their principles and thought system and in their type of analyses which are borrowed and not original. The paper is a critique of their claim that free agents are not subject to the necessity principle, and their claim that their views are similar to the views of transcendental wisdom. Finally, this paper shows that the various fundamental and structural objections to Mirza Naeini and his followers indicate the strength and comprehensiveness of the position of transcendental wisdom.

Ibn Sina made extra efforts to prove divine agency, as one of the most challenging issues in theology and philosophy. In his explanation, he is, on the one hand, in conflict with the Peripatetic philosophers considering the fact that he himself is a follower of the same philosophical school and on the other hand he is engaged in controversy and denial of the Shari'a law concerning this issue. He considers the issue of the world being "created or eternal", as one of the main foundations of this issue, "controversial” , implying that there are arguments for and against it. In his debate with the peripatetic philosophers, he refutes the primordiality of matter as believed by the Aristotelians and, consequently, proves the temporality of the universe. In his opposition to the theologians, he has tried to distinguish between the intrinsic occurrence of the universe and its temporal occurrence. He states that, like theologians, he believes that there is only one ancient intrinsic being, that is, God. Since eternal existents by virtue of time (different minds) are, in essence, possible beings and by necessity contingent. There should be no illusion that they are not free of an antecedent cause. To claim, like theologians, that there are eternal existents other than God is incompatible with divine unity. The present study adopted a descriptive analytical method with a focus on Ibn Sina’ s original texts.

The present article is aimed to support the instinctive nature of morality. To this end it is necessary to respond to the arguments made by the opponents. Jesse Prinz, a Professor of philosophy, has tried to deny the innateness of moral norms with the help of some arguments. Understanding Prinz's approach is based on an awareness of the way he looks at the truth and nature of the moral norms and their origins. He believes that the psychological phenotype of P is innate when it is achieved by P-specific psychological mechanisms. He also considers moral norms to be influenced by emotions. The present study seeks to defend the innate nature of morality by responding to Prinz’ s arguments through a brief explanation of his view on the true nature and the origin of moral norms and the denial of the instinctiveness of such norms and levelling some criticisms against them. The critique draws on Susan Dwyer and Chandra Srippada views on this issue. The conclusion is that the innate nature of most moral norms is more defendable, although some moral norms are not innate.

I examine the philosophical and historical merits of Avicenna’ s Dā neš nā meh-ye ʿ Alā yī . With this aim, I briefly discuss the structural characteristics of the Dā neš nā meh and situate it within Avicenna’ s oeuvre in respect to his other summae. I argue that in the Dā neš nā meh Avicenna takes serious steps towards the ideal order and pedagogical sequence of the philosophical sciences, the foundation of which he has laid in the Kitā b al-Š ifā ʾ . For supporting this claim, I concentrate on Dā neš nā meh’ s expositions of the two doctrines of the categories and body and show how the development of Avicenna’ s views on them reaches its climax in the Dā neš nā meh. Arguing for the significance of Dā neš nā meh as a comprehensive summa and its constructive role in the post-Avicennan tradition, I will draw attention to its neglect and marginalization by contemporary scholarship, and suggest reasons for this regrettable underestimation. I provide an overview of the editorial genealogy of the Dā neš nā meh, and then relying on the previous discussions, reason that Mawlā ’ s earnest edition of it is informed by a major structural error which has entirely ruined one of its most significant philosophical innovations, and is consequently unusable for research purposes. I conclude my piece by suggesting that the Dā neš nā meh still stands in need of a new critical edition based on sounder editing techniques, and informed by consideration of a wider range of manuscripts. If we are to gain a more comprehensive picture of the development of Avicenna’ s philosophy, I urge the scholarly community to pay this work the careful attention that it deserves.

The necessity of moving from derived propositions to basic ones and distinguishing them in the two fields of theoretical and practical intellect has been the subject of study since antiquity. Shahid Seyyed Mohammad Baqer Sadr (1934-1980), using the theological tradition and principles of his predecessors, made an appraisal of the different aspects of practical intellect which led to various innovations in the field, one of which, as the focus of the present study, is the basis of practical intellect propositions. Using a descriptive-analytic method, the present study demonstrates that Shahid Sadr does not approve of turning back from practical intellect propositions to the two propositions of "good nature of justice" and "ugliness of oppression". He believes that these two propositions are analytical and attributable to the issue of the right and authority of the master. Relying on the truth value of practical intellect propositions, Shahid Sadr considers their basis to be "the right of obedience" and considers it as the basis of the inherent devotion of the true master, including all possible ethical duties. This theory has some shortcomings that are being addressed in the present study. The innovation of the present study, on the one hand, is the inference and interpretation made of Shahid Sadr's point of view, and on the other hand, is the evaluation and explanation of its strengths and weaknesses.