PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION RESEARCH (NAMAH-I HIKMAT)
Year:2020 | Volume:18 | Issue:1 (35)|Papers Count:12

With the revival of virtue ethics in 1958, new philosophical debates in the field of friendship emerged. Nowadays, the Neo-Aristotelians are reviving and modifying the ancient Aristotelian concepts. They are also reflecting on post-Aristotelian schools of antiquity. According to them, the most crucial demand in virtue ethics for achieving good interior life is the rational formation of internal feelings, emotions, and excitement. Some scholars have accused their theory of being egotistic, because of their emphasis on the interior part of human life. This article shows the role of other-concern and friendship in happiness and their importance in Aristotelian, post-Aristotelian, Neo-Aristotelian, and virtue ethics theories. We also explain how Julia Annas, as a Neo-Aristotelian philosopher, does not accept that the ancient theories of happiness are egotistic. Also, we describe what boundaries she puts for friendship and other-concern.

Divine aspect of Aristotelian Philosophy and especially the divine aspect of his teleology is one of the most difficult and controversial problems. This difficulty leads to rejection of any divine aspect in his teleology, because the contemporary defenses of teleology, on the one hand have interpreted divine teleology as an explanation of world as an intentional act of a wise creator, and on the other hand, have regarded Aristotle’ s teleology as a methodological approach to explain the functions of natural substances and human actions. So, Aristotle’ s teleology has no divine significance. In contrast to this prevailing approach, this article investigates the divine aspect of Aristotle’ s teleology. Even though he does not explicitly refer to intelligent design to explain the order of natural and human world, but the ultimate functions of these substances are explained with reference to god as a paradigm of teleology. In natural substances, the kind as an eternal entity is a real telos and the ultimate telos of human being lies in intellect as a divine element. So, the god is regarded as an ideal of intellectual eternal life and the purposiveness of natural and human worlds, is due to their participation of divine life. Therefore, the Aristotle’ s teleology has explicit theological implications and has become to an ontological framework for intellectual interpretation of happiness in Abrahamic religions.

In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hume seeks to refute the teleological argument on the basis of the existence of evil in the world. This paper addresses this main objection of Hume’ s. I will discuss whether a skeptical theist, in particular, is in a position to answer Hume’ s objection. The problem for skeptical theists is that Hume’ s objection to the design argument is structurally symmetrical to their solution to the problem of evil. I will argue that this structural symmetry can be specified in two ways, which I will call “ unknown reasons for the design” and “ ignorance of God’ s reasons” . I will argue that while the first symmetry is not threatening to the design argument, the second symmetry poses a serious problem for the design argument. Nevertheless, I will argue that a theist may be able to respond to the problem, provided that she weakens her conclusion sufficiently, and that she takes onboard certain assumptions.

The theory of 'Death of God' is Nietzsche's most famous theory. In this article, we will attempt to analyze Nietzsche's idea of the functions of ‘ Death of God’ at three levels. The first level (the level of belief) is the primary level of ontological and ideological discussion about the existence or non-existence of God; the second level (humanistic encounter with the death of God) is the atheistic happiness of the absence of God, and the third level (the critical encounter with the world after God) is about the legacy of the Killers. Finally, we will discuss the question that whether Nietzsche is happy or sad about the death of God. Given that Nietzsche has adopted different approaches to the issue of "death of God" in his various works, it will be attempted to provide an interpretation of Nietzsche's position as "a whole" without regard to the temporal primacy of these works. Meantime, there are three key passages from the three books that guide our interpretation: first, Human All Too Human, second, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and third, The Gay Science. From a critical perspective, it will be shown that 'Death of God' in Nitsche's philosophy should not be regarded as an ontological or creedal theory, but it depicts a cultural situation.

As a philosophical theory, 'Itibariyyat is one of the innovations of Allameh Tabatabaie. Because of the cruciality of this theory in the framework of Tabatabai's thought, it has influenced his views in various fields including the interpretation of possession as an attribute of God. Using quantitative content analysis, the aim of this article is to explore Tabatabaie’ s interpretation of God’ s possession, and the extent to which it is influenced by his theory of 'Itibariyyat. Besides, it investigates how his interpretation is different from that of other scholars. It will be argued that, in contrast to other beings, God’ s possession is absolute, actual, ontological, imperishable, and pertains to both essence and effect. By contrast, other beings’ possession is limited, metaphorical, revealed, perishable, and pertains to effect alone. One will recognize the relevance of the theory of 'Itibariyyat in his interpretation if one knows that Tabatabaie’ s view of God’ s possession would not be different from that of others without adopting this theory.

The necessity of consideration and usage of the modern sciences is the core of John Polkinginghorn's approach to theological problems. Although he is generally committed to a personal, sublime, and distinct conception of God, which can be ascertained in Thomistic well-known conception of God, he criticizes this Thomistic conception. The main focus of his critiques is God's active relationship with the world and creatures, especially human beings. In this article, after citing Pokinghorn's critique of the Thomistic model, his new model has been introduced. Being stemmed from the capacities of modern physics, especially information causality, this model stays far from the problems of the Thomistic model. His model, in addition to allowing the role of God's eternal creation, leaves room for the Lordship and the influence of God's Will in the universe. In the end, we will evaluate Palkinghorne's view, which has three aspects: scientific, religious, and philosophical.

Since the dichotomy of humans/nature paves the way for human beings' supremacy to treat nature as they desire, this dichotomy has obtained a primary role in environmental ethics. Discerning the entanglement of human beings and nature, the deep ecology movement by criticizing this dichotomy, provided some useful results for environmental ethics, worth to mention the uprising against the humans' aggressive dominance in culture and civilization in Western countries, true humane self-realization through self-transcendence, and the consideration of the rehabilitation of missing rights of nonhuman beings. Despite these valuable points, this movement has some deficiencies which can be cured by the reformation of its ideas through a religious-theological perspective. Having no coherence philosophy that results in vague and general claims about ecological issues, the absence of a comprehensive program as a ground for a specific life hierarchy, neglecting the high status of humanity, and its ineffectiveness in undeveloped countries are among the deficiencies of this movement. This article explains these issues analytically.

In recent decades, analytical philosophers have argued for the ‘ meaning of life’ as a normative, independent category and hence have criticized the reductionist approaches based on two normative categories of ethics and happiness. Presenting the subjective and objective conditions, Susan Wolf attempts to offer a novel theory of ‘ meaning of life’ that dismantles the simplified relationship between this concept and two notions of ethics and happiness. She claims that to theorize the ‘ meaning of life’ we require to establish a set of particular values that allow a given individual human to go beyond her own narrow values and therefore generate a sense of satisfaction for herself. According to her, this establishment of empowering values is a necessary condition for a theory of ‘ meaning of life’ to be autonomous from existing theories of ethics and happiness. She subsequently reviews and brings into question some of the criteria developed to capture and identify the objective, meaningful values, such as subject-independence, judgment from the third person’ s perspective, developing a person's abilities, and a competent judge. Thus, she concludes that there is no definitive standard to assess such values. Instead of having a specific theory, she alternatively seeks a direct and active engagement with personal experiences to distinguish between meaningful actions and ethical, joyful ones. While Wolf’ s conception of a meaningful life has some deficiencies, such as the impossibility of recognizing the meaning-giving actions in the absence of any theory, her conceptual development of ‘ meaning of life’ has been influential in liberating this concept from notions of ethics and happiness.

Abū al-Barakā t al-Baghdā dī ’ is one of the philosophers who have denied God’ s foreknowledge. His view is influenced by his thoughts about Divine Knowledge, changes in Divine Will, and attribution of temporality to Him. Open theism as a new theological school, by proposing the dynamic Omniscience view and attributing the experience of time to God, believes in the openness of the future, and denies Divine foreknowledge. By examining the views of Abu al-Barakat al-Baghdadi and open theists, it can be seen that the attribution of temporality and passive knowledge to God are among the necessary grounds for rejecting divine foreknowledge by both of them, which led them to accept the causal and epistemic openness of the future. This article surveys analytically and critically the similarities between their views.

"Unity in multiplicity and multiplicity in unity" is an effectual doctrine in explaining the purposes of transcendental wisdom, particularly the unification (tawhid) of existence. Transcendental theosophers like mystics have emphasized this doctrine. For clarifying the different features of this issue, they have put the explanation of the monistic worldview in variegated expressions. Individual unity of existence utilizes justification, explanation, and argumentation to emphasize both unity and multiplicity in the same way. Each of These justifications is illuminating in divine wisdom under abbreviations or fundamental principles. Provided good explanations, essence (haqiqah) and thinness (raqiqah), apparent (Zahir) and manifester (Muzhir), and Simple Essence (Basit al-haqiqah) are those doctrines which are very illuminating in transcendental wisdom. Besides, the principle of "unity in multiplicity and multiplicity in unity" with distinct formulation, has been developed and led the audience to individual unity of existence. Picking some passages from Aqa Ali Modarres' writings and abrading them together, some amateurs in transcendental wisdom expressed that this doctrine in his philosophy is restricted to the gradation of existence and is in contrast to individual unity of existence. Reviewing the claims in these articles and finding the explanation of this doctrine among explicit sayings of Aqa Ali Modarres will pave the way for the sound understanding of transcendental theology.

The Reliability Argument and the Purpose-Refutation Argument are the two most important logical arguments that have been alleged by Islamic theologians, and Shia in particular, for proving divine prophets’ infallibility. According to the Purpose-Refutation Argument, if prophets were not infallible, God’ s purpose in sending them for guiding people would be unattainable, because in this case, people by following the examples of prophets, would be led astray and consequently commit sins. Based on the Reliability Argument, if prophets commit sins, have mistakes, and fade into oblivion, people would lose their confidence in them. For that reason, prophets must be completely infallible and incapable of sinning (minor or major). This paper argues that there are some serious objections to these two arguments: People can rely on prophets without any need of their absolute infallibility; God can attain His goal by sending fallible prophets; The arguments involve is/ought fallacy, and the conclusion is more restricted than the claim of prophets’ complete infallibility.

Having the intention of improving philosophers' theory about voluntary action, the proponents of Na'ini's school introduced two concepts of seeking (Talab) and sovereignty (Saltanah). One can see disagreement between philosophers and Na'ini's school on their theories about the origin of humans' will. According to Na'ini's school, the analysis of humans' free will, reveals that its root is their soul's sovereignty. Meanwhile, the examination of Allamah Jafari's thought shows that his theory about this problem differs from both philosophers and Na'ini's school. Based on his anthropological principles, he starts talking about determination and free will from humans' self-love and considers free will as the action and effect of the soul. Different souls mean different free will and personalities. Introducing a new definition for free will as an "I" who oversees the positive and negative aspects of an action, he discusses the role of "I" in originating free will and fulfilling a voluntary act.