Journal Of Religious Thought
Year:2011 | Volume:- | Issue:37|Papers Count:13

Mulla Sadrā has discussed many philosophical and theological problems among which prophets' sinlessness is. Most of his consideration of this subject has come in his exegesis of Holy Quran. Different definitions of sinlessness can be found in his works that despite of their apparent differences can be unified in one definition. It should be noted that he didn’t define sinlessness separately but among argumentation of sinlessness and interpretation of Quarnic verses. He believes that prophets are sinless before and after their prophecy. In his view, prophets are inerrant from unbelief, associationism (shirk) and those sins in conflict with prophecy whether inadvertently (sahvī) or intentionally (' amdī). He says that evidence for proving prophets' preservation from inadvertent big sins (kabīra) before prophecy and intentional small abominating (munaffirah) sins and also impossibility of oblivion are insufficient, and explains the reason of inadequacy in some of them. He gives us ten arguments to show the necessity of prophets' sinlessness. In introducing these arguments which are based on religious premises, he is influenced by Fakhr al- dīn al-Razī. Mullā Sadrā considers sinlessness as a divine gift which human beings can obtain only by His aid and His affirmation. In facing with those verses used by the opponents of sinlessness as premises of their arguments, Mullā Sadrā's method is carrying them as lapse.

What is required for a belief to be justified? How are we justified in holding belief about external world? Contrary to externalism, the internalist foundationalism believes that, there are epistemic or intellectual duties or obligations to be fulfilled before one assent to justified propositional beliefs. The purpose of this paper is to criticize Chisholm’s internalism.Though internalist theory is more plausible than its rivals, it is not sufficient for justification of beliefs, and needs some complementary account to be sufficient for a belief to be rationally justified. I will show that there are some problems in Chisholm's approach to justification of beliefs. Since the majority of our knowledge is knowledge by representaion, we need to have a connective bridge between subject and objects.From Sadra’s philosophy, I will offer a connective bridge between subject and external object trough the mental form theory. By conforming to knowledge by presence we may have a straightforward account of justification of beliefs about the physical world, in particular sensory experience.

Howard Sankey has argued that scientific realism is compatible with contingency of scientific theories and does not entail their inevitability. He adds that if scientific realism is strengthened by the reliability of scientific methods, it entails a kind of (trivial) inevitability of scientific theories. In this paper, we first introduce Sankey's account of scientific realism and his defense of it.Secondly, we will consider the relationship between scientific realism and the inevitability thesis from his viewpoint. We will present two critical points regarding Sankey's position. First, we shall argue that Sankey's definitions of contingency and inevitability are not proper, for he tried to develop Hacking' s definitions but he failed. Next, it will be shown that scientific realism entails the reliability theory and therefore these two cannot be separated. In the final section of this paper, a comprehensive framework will be presented to categorize different approaches to the debate of contingency/inevitability in the philosophy of science. In the next step, the relationship between scientific realism and inevitabilism within this framework will be discussed. It will be argued that scientific realism entails a non-trivial version of inevitabilism. The kind and strength of this entailment depends on whether one accepts methodological pluralism or not.

In the history of philosophy and theology, the existence of evils has been considered as a challenging evident against divine justice, but some contemporary scholars consider it as challenging evident against the existence of God. In this paper we first discuss some theological and philosophical approaches to solve this problem regarding evils as negative or relative entities. Then we explain Mowlana's theory of mutual love between God and man. Man as a lover sees all the acts of God beautiful. In his view nothing from God is an evil. God, also as a lover imposes nothing bad on man and everything considered as evil is in fact necessary for man' s completeness.

The principlility of existence is one of the most fundamental innovations of Mulla Sadra, which in turn influenced lots of philosophical subjects.Although it is clear and articulated for the metaphysicians of Hikmat al-Mutaalia, sometimes there are some obscure interpretations of the principally of existence according to which the quiddity varies from "pure mirage" to "real thing".According to the obscure interpretation of the principality of existence, quiddity is as real as existence, but quddity is not "existence" by itself, but by existence and they both exist as a single instance of being. Those who believe in this interpretation, ascribe it to Mulla Sadra.In this paper by articulating the discussion I am going to explain and clarify the exact intention of Mulla Sadra and criticize the arguments and proofs of the dominant interpretation.

Ibn Sina considers faculty of rationality as an abstract faculty which in performing its duty does not depend on any organ of body.Justifying his view, he uses several arguments concerning immateriality of human soul. Meanwhile he refers to the need of this faculty to three other faculties namely: sense, imagination and thinking which all have bodily organs. Moreover, in some cases, he says that disorder in faculty of rationality results from a weakness, fatigue or corruption in brain. Furthermore, as a physician, he regards head's and brain's disease as some causes which may disorder or stop rational thinking and he prescribes necessary medicines to cure them.In this paper first we will discuss Ibn Sina's philosophical and medical viewpoints concerning the faculty of rationality, then we will explain the relation between brain and faculty of rationality and analyse the positive or negative role of body organs – especially brain – in the act or this faculty. Finaly we will discuss how Ibn Sina's apparently different views in this relation, can be summed up.

The study of nature and importance of interpretation and hermeneutic in history, distinguishes different historic researches and shows that the science of history is a relative science and indicates to the flowing characteristics of this science. It also aids historians in a better understanding of historic subjects and the continual structure of human societies.This paper is trying to investigate and analyze the term, expression and concept of historic evolution of Hermeneutic, mutual relations between hermeneutic and the science of history and hermeneutic approaches based on opinions and comments of the most famous thinkers of the field of hermeneutic.