ماهنامه معرفت
سال بیستم شماره 7 (پیاپی 166، مهر 1390)

One of the attributes of the Most High God is that He is All- grateful. Therefore, we have to be grateful for the divine graces. The way of man's thanksgiving is different from that of God's thanksgiving. The expression God's thanksgiving is used figuratively for the purpose of motivating man. The Most High God has bestowed upon us boundless favours for which we have to be grateful. The greatest divine favour is good outcome and enjoying God's good pleasure in the hereafter. The degree of man's thanksgiving is ranked according to his knowledge about God.When God bestows good upon the creatures, He seeks no benefit for Himself; rather, He wants to direct people towards perfection through bestowing His boundless mercy on them.

Although the analogical gradation, referred to as the counterpoise and complementary element of the theory priority of existence has been profoundly and precisely expounded in Sadraian system of theosophy, it is unfair to ignore the scientific endeavors of the past philosophers who had provided him with rich sources. The Aristotelians (Peripatetics) have been attributed to consider the entities as heterogeneous realities and accordingly deny the analogical gradation in the reality of being. Suhrawardī, too, has put the analogical gradation outside the context through his wrong philosophical principles.Using a documentary–analytical method, the present paper tries to investigate the aforementioned attribution and expound Suhrawardī's standpoint. The research findings show that although Aristotle and his followers had initially accepted the analogical gradation in the realm of concepts (general analogical gradation), this acceptance was not his final view, and that reference to the particular analogical gradation can be found in Avicenna's works. Of course, unlike Suhrawardī (Master of Illumination), he was not able to conclude the ramifications and implications of analogical gradation to a develop them in a coherent system of philosophical ontology, taking into account that this question was not a topic of discussion in his time.

The present paper investigates the position of conceptualization and judgment in the perception of God according to 'Allameh Tabatabaii's view. If we review the course of development of the arguments concerning theology, we will see that most of the problems existing in the discussions about God originate from not achieving this claim and from misconceiving the subject, and this has influenced the criticism of the arguments concerning theology in the west. Having stressed this point and believing that the existence of God and His pre-eternal necessity is a prior axiom and beyond argument, Allameh Tabatabaii associates perception of God to the primordial nature and talks about the innateness of acquired knowledge and intuitive knowledge of God. This paper investigates the subject of fitrah (nature) both existentially and epistemologically in the light of 'Allameh Tabatabaii's viewpoint. "Rightfulness" and "rationality" of the belief in God have been analyzed and expounded on the basis of the epistemological view about nature. Among the main concerns of this paper are: exploring the causes of misconception of God, discussing the subject of nature both existentially and epistemologically, and epistemological separation of rightfulness and rationality of the belief in God.

Allameh Tabatabaii is one of the first Muslim philosophers who felt the necessity of delving into epistemology as a separate branch in philosophy. Therefore,knowing his innovative and influential epistemological views is of special significance. When we study his works we find that according to him scientific forms belong to incorporeal beings which are the agentive origin of corporeal beings and they possess all their perfect characteristics. Cognition, from Allameh Tabatabaii's viewpoint, concurs with intuitive knowledge. Relying on heartfelt intuition and reason, he proves that in addition to feelings and occurrence of every intuitive knowledge before acquired knowledge that none of the secondary ineligibles are illusory in order to be able to found metaphysics discuss the conformity of human thought with reality, achieve the truth and refute skepticism as the infrastructure of the discussions about non-relativity of religious knowledge.

In his expounding on the issue of resurrection, Suhrawardi maintains that after death, the souls of the prosperous and perfect people are attracted to the world of holy lights and exempted from the interrogations in the intermediate stage(barzakh). As far the souls of middle-ranking prosperous people they settle in the imaginal world or in the world of immaterial phantoms after death. He believes that the resurrection of bodies and lordly phantoms and all the promises of prophets are materialized in this way, but regarding the souls of the wretched he has some observations which seemingly suggest his inclination towards metempsychosis. Criticizing Suhrawardi's approach to the idea of resurrection and regarding his belief that immaterial forms causing some kind of images in the world of imagination, Mullā Ṣadrā considers it a source of agreeable and disagreeable effects. Mullā Ṣadrā believes that such declarations contradict the outward aspects of religious texts and thinks that the mere confirmation of the continuance can never prove the Quranic concept of resurrection – that is, the mustering of man after death in the very worldly form. On the basis of the principles of transcendent theosophy, he himself proves that what is to be resurrected in the Day of Judgment is the very visible body.

Present paper seeks to offer a research showing that Qazi ‘Abd Aljabbar believes in some qualities in moral intuition which provide the basis to understand moral rules. The research method is library and documentary. He recognizes the essential meaning of evil from this point of view and proposes a legal definition for it. Hence, the article seeks to provide principles and bases of "evil" from the viewpoint of Qazi ‘Abd al-Jabbār.In this respect, absurdity and lying are presented as bases for evil manifestation, and God's status and His relation with evil are investigated and analyzed. ‘Abd al-Jabbār. considering the Subject-matter in question, has proposed three groups of reasons - philosophical, theological, and revealed – to prove that God can do evil, too.

Ibn Roshd is one of the Muslim philosophers who had great influence on western scholars, especially the Jewish through his translating and explaining of Aristotle's works and the relationship between reason and religion. Ibn Meymun is a Jewish thinker who was influenced by Ibn Rushd. In Judaism the preliminary steps on the relationship between reason and religion were of special interest to Philo of Alexandria. Later on, anti – Hellenistic thoughts and non- intellectual attempts to prove religious matters had developed. In twelfth century, the Jewish thought was deeply influenced by main trends of Islamic thought and Aristotelian and neo–Platonian schools, which was manifested in Musa b. Meymun's thought.Using a library survey method, the present paper investigates Ibn Rushd and Ibn Meymun's views about the interaction between reason and religion and the influence of Ibn Rushd's thoughts on Jewish philosophical thought and on Ibn Meymun's thought in particular.

Philosophical texts are full of extensive discussions on epistemology. The present paper tries to expound epistemology from Thomas Aquinas's viewpoint and show the position of God in this intellectual system. Therefore, the subject of the position of reason and faith is one of the main issues of this paper. Referring to the Aquinas's works and what has been written about him, it holds that in Aquinas's thought religious propositions have a higher degree of certainty than that which rational ones have. According to him, man cannot learn the truth without referring to revelation.It can be concluded that in Aquinas's thought the belief in God has significance from three aspects: 1.God as the main element of faith. 2. God as the object of knowledge. 3. God as the end of all fields of human knowledge.

The method used for finding out the meaning of a term or phrase is of great importance. The different views about the meaning of some philosophical terms, such as "analytical" and "synthetic", led linguists to concentrate on the "method of finding the meaning". In order to find out the meaning, linguists used different methods including conceptual method, extentional method, and pre-theoretical intuition method. The pre – theoretical intuitions method has been proposed by one of the philosophers of analytical philosophy based on a kind of introspection and two principles used in linguistics. These principles state that language acquisition is a matter of skill development and speech is a kind of systematic behavior. The studies show that, the pre-theoretical intuitions method is very close to the theory of "Tabador" (occurrence of meaning to someone) a theory about meanings proposed by scholars of methodology.

Kant is the first thinker who investigated the contradictions of reason at a higher level and tried to solve them. These contradictions led Kant to criticize reason. Kant believes that these contradictions cannot be overcome by the predecessor's dogmatic methods. On the other hand, he tries to emancipate reason from these contradictions. Therefore, he did his best to find a solution and finally found it in transcendental idealism. Using an analytical method, the present paper discusses the causes of the development of the contradictions of reason from Kant's viewpoint and solution he proposes for them in order to precisely identify how, according to his view, his method is successful. The research findings show that these contradictions result from reason's transgression beyond its legal limits. In order to be free from these contradictions, he developed transcendental idealism and reached a conclusion that the two extremes of math contradictions are incorrect and those of dynamic contradictions are correct. In doing so, Kant faced internal and external challenges which made his thoughts subject to serious criticism.