Journal Of Religious Thought
Year:2009 | Volume:- | Issue:32|Papers Count:9

The gap between moral judgment and moral action, or in other words, "weakness of moral will" is a topic to which different ethical schools have paid attention. In Aristotle's ethics, this topic developed under the title "Akrasia", which is correspondent with Plato's "Unity of Knowledge and Virtue". In Aristotle's ethical view, one can find a number of factors involved in the realization of the acts. While accepting the considerable impact of knowledge on moral action, Aristotle held that human beings, in spite of their clear knowledge, may act against their moral obligation; such a failure to act according to a sense of moral obligation originates from going after the desires provoked by the imagination of the soul susceptible to impiety. In such a case, the person who behaves immorally does so out of ignorance. Thus, the origin of moral weakness is the desire, which should be opposed so that the moral action could be fulfilled.

The main question of this paper is: what are the epistemic functions of PNC (Principle of non-contradiction) in Aristotle's philosophy? To appreciate the epistemic functions of PNC we must be clear, first, about its meaning. Although Aristotle has stated its meaning in different ways, we can classify them into three different formulations; (a) logical; those expressions which - consists of concepts such as "statement" and "assertions", (b) ontological; the expressions which refers to PNC as a principle about "thing" or "being", and (c) psychological; that expressions which include the. Concept of "believe". According to him it is the ontological formulation which is fundamental formulation of PNC. This principle has characteristics as being non-hypothetical, improvable, the most certain, not being deceivable and being the best known of all. Such a principle with these characteristics has three important epistemic function some of which has been ignored even by Aristotle's famous interpreters. These functions are justification dependency which comes in relation to the role of PNC in justifying other beliefs, intentionality dependency, which comes from the role of PNC in relation to the meaningfulness of any word, whatsoever, as well as Practical dependency; which according to Aristotle any action requires the acceptance of PNC. It means that no one can do anything without accepting PNC

In his early work, Wittgenstein does not refer to aesthetics very much. However, his few statements on aesthetics suggest a certain theory of aesthetics he believed in. A theory which thinks that art-object requires some attitude or way of looking for being seen as art; whereas as far as ordinary objects are concerned, it is not the case. He explains his attitude by introducing the idea of 'sub specie eterni' and tries to place the concept within his philosophical framework. In this paper, we try to elaborate the concept 'sub specie eterni' and its relationship with ethics and aesthetics in the Tractatus and evaluate its logical implications in Wittgenstein's early work.

The transmission from the traditional society to modern one and the decline of the position of religion in modern period Cause to the formation of theoretical and sociological challenges in relation with the position of religion and its relationship with Science.In this investigation we have tried to study some of the classical and contemporary ideas about the relation of these two knowledge spheres (epistemic fields) through an approach of tripartite categorization (conflict, distinction and interaction) to the relation of science and religion.The investigation results show that the classical approaches based on conflict, change to new approach based on the interaction between science and religion in the social science theories that lead to a kind of friendly coexistence between modernity and science, on one hand, and religion in a pluralistic framework, on the other. This new approach, in its turn, is important in the revision of the theories of secularization.

This paper attempts to explain the status of woman and her position in the creation order from the Qur'anic viewpoint. The main questions of this paper are these: Is discussing the creation of woman different from discussing the creation of human being in general? Is there any difference between man and woman in creation? Are they equal in humanity or man is the major and woman is the minor? In this relation, we will first discuss the creation of the human being in general from the Qur'anic viewpoint, and then we will return to Adam and Eve. Next we will have a comparative study between Sunni and Shi'at commentaries in this relation. Finally we will conclude that according to the Qur'an the two different genders, man and woman, do not differ in humanity and only differ in minor aspects.

The relation between Faith and knowledge has been an old challenge among the religious thinkers. It has been sometime entitled the relation between Faith and reason, and sometimes the relation between religion and wisdom.Among Christian theologians three approaches can be recognized in this relation: maximum rationalism, fideism, and critical rationalism. Muslim scholars have had approaches which are somehow similar to that of Christians.In this paper we will discuss the relation between Faith and philosophical knowledge from the viewpoint of Muslim scholars and we will defend the primordial knowledge theory in defining the nature of knowledge related to religious faith. So we will first divide knowledge with two kinds: philosophical and primordial. Secondly we will discuss critically the theory of philosophical knowledge in relation to faith and finally we will justify the theory of primordial knowledge based on the Qur'an and the tradition.

There are a variety of methods in the Qur'anic studies and specially in the recent century we can find new methods. In this paper we will discuss an interdisciplinary method in a scientific subject having natural sciences or humanities in one side and Qur'anic interpretation in another.We will discuss the process, the fundamentals and the weakness of this method by adding suitable examples.