فصلنامه آینه معرفت
پیاپی 21 (زمستان 1388)

Jalal al-Din Dawani is one of the prominent Islamic scholars of the school of Shiraz whose thoughts can greatly help our acquaintance with this school and its impact on Islamic philosophy. No doubt Dawani’s most important thoughts can be sought out in his anthological theories. He sets forth two approaches in this respect which are as follows:1.With regard to the unity of being, he ascribes existence to the essence of God and believes that all other beings acquire existence through ascription to that particular existence. On this basis, he considers communion of beings as relative communion which means communion in entity. With regard to the mental being, his belief is that the scientific form is different from the true being and with regard to causality he defines effect as dignity and manifestation of the cause.2.With regard to outside beings, he bases his philosophy on contingent beings whose existence cannot be distinguished from their essence. On this basis, he rejects the applicability of the incidental rule to the relation between existence and essence.

Plato divides the real world into two categories: the world of forms and the world of obvious things. It can be said with certainty that, with presenting the theory of forms, Plato was trying to explain the world of obvious things considering its instability and the lack of its understanding with certainty. The criticisms against the theory of forms have come mainly from the Peripatetians. Aristotle, Plato’s student and his contemporary, in his reaction to this theory asserts that accepting this theory leads to illogical conclusions. In his negative assessment of this theory, Avicenna also considers it as the product of the era of immaturity of Platonic thought. The present article intends to delineate the inefficacy of this theory in explaining the world of obvious things drawing upon views of Aristotle and Avicenna and by making references to the arguments which confirm the theory of forms show the degree to which the views of Aristotle and Avicenna are justifiable.

The present article compares views of Avicenna and modern epistemology on the elements and sources of propositional knowledge. For this purpose, first views of Avicenna and modern epistemology are analyzed and then compared. The conclusion is that while the views of the two sides show similarities in certain respects, there are also differences between them.

Ethics and politics belong to practical wisdom which aims at providing felicity and happiness among human beings. Happiness is the central concept in the Aristotelian ethics wherein he seeks something which is desired for its own sake not for the sake of something else, that is, the supreme good which is the same as happiness. The society should also seek supreme good because it is through the society’s happiness that individual happiness is achieved and vice versa. Ethics has to do with the personal characteristics of human beings for the basic reason that individuals live in the society. The philosophy of politics is also about the social life, behaviour and performance of human beings. The present article intends to explain the relationship between ethics and politics.

Muslim philosophers preceding Mullâ Sadrâ unanimously believed that the soul, like immortal intellect, is in essence free from matter. The difference, however, is that unlike intellects, the soul is in need of a body to perform its actions. These actions, carried out under the auspices of the soul, give rise to the development of the soul. Accordingly, they held that the definitions presented for the soul were drawing on I-ness, that is, its dependence on the body and as a result they do not show the reality of the soul.But in the light of the principles of his transcendental theosophy – the fundamentality of being, the gradational nature of being and the substantial motion of the soul – Mullâ Sadrâ offers a new perspective which has become the basis for his philosophical psychology. Refuting the idea of the previous philosophers who believed that the relation of the immaterial soul to the material body is something extrinsic and beyond the essence of the soul, he argues that the interdependence of the soul and the body is intrinsic to the soul itself. Stated differently, the To substantiate his claim, Mullâ Sadrâ firstly argues that if the soul was essentially free from matter, as is generally believed, it would be impossible for it to be related to the material body. Secondly, if the soul was immaterial intellect, it would be impossible that a single natural species called ‘man’ comes out of the synthesis of an immaterial substance and a material body.Based on the essentiality of the dependence of the soul on the body, Mullâ Sadrâ resolves the rest of issues in philosophical psychology. By considering the temporal soul as being material, he offers various expositions on the relationship between the soul and body and the cause of natural death. He further formulates new arguments to disprove the doctrine of metempsychosis.

The concept of God has been marginalized in the sociology of religion for a long time. But with the new approaches in the sociology of religion, it has regained its importance. The present article, with an emphasis on the concept of God as one of the most fundamental concepts of sociology of religion and with a sociological extrinsic approach, intends to examine the origin, dynamics and social effects of the concept of God. The concept of God is not the same as the transcendental existence of God and the two should not be confused, because it is our concept and image of God which changes and evolves not the transcendental existence of God which is free from change and evolvement. The results of the study indicate that, in addition to thepsychological and anthropological origins, the sociological concept of God, in a dialectical relationship, is both the product of various social structures and conditions and at the same time the causes of great changes in it. Throughout the history of human social life, this concept has changed and evolved and the changes can be seen in the enlightenment, modern and postmodern eras. Advocates of the reconstruction of the concept of God have emphasized the appropriate new understanding of God consistent with new conditions of human beings, the society and the world.

It is an obvious fact that there are religions with different beliefs and origins in the world. In their reaction to other religions, the believers of each specific religion raise fundamental questions about the legitimacy of other religions, the destiny of their believers, and the way to interact with them. There are four well known approaches to answering these questions: nullificationism, exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. Pluralism is a major topic in contemporary philosophy which has extended to other fields including religion, politics, culture, sociology, ethics, etc. Among all these, religious pluralism which was first introduced by John Hick, the contemporary philosopher, is of prime importance. The normative theory of religious pluralism is an answer to the question of how to coexist with the followers of other religions. According to this theory, believers should treat the followers of other religions with respect and tolerance. In Islam, there is no compulsion for accepting this religion and good coexistence with the followers of other religions and even with non-believers is realistically and extensively accepted and strongly recommended. If non-believers and polytheists have no animosity against Moslems and do not violate their rights, Muslims should not ill-treat them. Even if the non-believers and the polytheists decide to fight against Moslems, the holy Quran orders them not to go to the extremes.