ASRA HIKMAT
Year:2014 | Volume:6 | Issue:1 (19)|Papers Count:7

Although apparently Allah's infinitude seems to be an obvious matter, some believe that the belief in the infinitude of Allah in all of the arenas, the divine Names and Attributes, is inconsistent with the analogical and revealed principles. The present paper seeks to demonstrate that the correct view of the infinitude of Allah is the "infinite existential interpretation", by examining and criticizing three different interpretations of infinitude, thus, proving that those who deny the infinitude of Allah are mistaken in their interpretations of concept of infinitude. Moreover, it seeks to answer the existing doubts in this regard by presenting the philosophical proofs that corroborate this superior view.

There are definite logical and traditional pieces of evidence indicating that the religion enjoys various outward and inward layers. Accordingly, the Prophet, and hence, the other infallible Imams also presented the religion based on the level of the people’s understanding, thus paving the way for everyone to gain from this knowledge based on their competence and intellectual capacity. Obviously all people do not have access to all levels of the religion, and only the special few, due to their capacity and competence, will have access to all these levels. Long before and more than anyone else, the one who brought and interpreted the religion, i.e. the great Prophet, had access to all outward and inward layers of the religion, and in the next level, other people whose nature is similar to his, who were the door and the heir to his knowledge, had access to the aforementioned areas. Another group, are the people who, though not being exactly like the second group, are similar to them and have special competencies for having access and links to the inward domains of the religion. A number of such people gained access to these domains in the era of the Infallible Imams and by their help, and, possibly, they themselves became the links that connected others with the infallible Imams and the various domains of the religion. Now, the question arises as to who are these people and what are their characteristics? This paper seeks to demonstrate, through a description of their character and an analysis of the historical data, that they were a group of the Infallible Imams’ companions and disciples, who had enjoyed high levels of intelligence, acuity and capacity for leaning the knowledge of the inward levels of the religion, and who had been chosen by the infallible Imams for this purpose. These individuals were called the secret-bearers.

In contrast to his predecessors, who considered a passive role for the perceptive power, Mulla Sadra moved towards considering a causal role for it. From his perspective, the soul is like an inventor while having sensual and fantastic perceptions, which makes perceptive figures in the domain of the soul. The prerequisite for Mulla Sadra's assertion is for knowledge to be taken out of the essential realm and to be transformed into an existential issue, because making a cause upon an effect is particular to existence. Still, believing in the causality of the soul regarding the forms that it does not possess, would lead to problems, such as the violation of the principle "The Giver of something must possess it", which aresolvable by drawing upon the issue of non-material being.

The transcendental theosophists believe that human soul is spiritual in respect to survival and contingence. In contrast to this theory, Mulla Sadra believes that the soul is corporeal in respect to contingence and spiritual in respect to survival. The main reason why Mulla Sadra has turned to this theory is the criticisms that he has leveled at the theory of the spiritual contingence. This paper seeks to explain the concept of corporeal contingence of the soul using Mulla Sadra's terms, and also demonstrate that Mulla Sadra's remarks in this regard are not always the same. It will, the, explain Mulla Sadra's critique of the spiritual contingence theory and will conclude its discussion by defending the stance of the Peripatetic school by answering the criticisms leveled at it by Mulla Sadra.

One of the branches of the philosophy of mysticism is the philosophy of theoretical mysticism, and among the issues discussed in the philosophy of theoretical mysticism arethe logics and the criterion for the theoretical mysticism. Such a logic is based on the assessability of the mystic propositions, which is based on the statements "there is a criterion for all knowledge" and "there is a criterion for all rulings" so as to pave the way for the criticism and the assessment of the propositions so as to realize their validity or invalidity. However, there are three rival theories for the assessability theory, i.e. the infallibility, inassessability, and indescribability theories. The infallibility theory emphasizes the infallibility of the mystic affectivities, the inassessability theory stresses the incomprehensibility and the indescribability theory emphasizes the meaningfulness, illogicality, and the realism and the meaninglessness of the mystic propositions. These three theories consider the assessability of the mystic propositions impossible, the foundations of the logics of the theoretical mysticism poor, and the validity of the assessments for the verification of the mystic propositions under question. Accordingly, the present research aims at demonstrating the possibility of assessability and criticizing these three rival theories so as to consolidate the foundations of the logics behind the theoretical mysticism.

The nature and the essence of knowledge are investigated like those of other entities. This paper is an attempt to investigate the nature of knowledge from the viewpoint of the prominent twentieth-century western philosopher, Edmund Husserl, who has had a profound influence on the philosophical thought of the twentieth century, as well as that of the renowned Muslim philosopher, and the founder of the transcendental theosophy, Sadreddin Mohammad Shirazi, known as Mulla Sadra. Husserl explains the nature of knowledge and science utilizing the concept of intentionality, and Mulla Sadra uncovers it through the concept of the construction of the ego. It is not merely sought in this paper to find the similarities and the differences between the views of these two philosophers; rather, an attempt has been made to find an answer to the original question regarding the nature of science and knowledge. The main hypothesis here is that, in addition to the intellectual similarities between the two philosophers with regard to the question itself, and considering their intellectual, cultural, social differences as well as their differing historical traditions, both have come up with a solution that leads to the consideration of man’s standing and stature from a concrete rather than an abstract perspective.