فصلنامه آینه معرفت
پیاپی 35 (تابستان 1392)

The conceptual being and its relation with the external world is one the important issues in philosophy. The common view of conceptual being is based on its essence and its correspondence with the external world. The present paper is concerned with the specific view of Allameh Tabatabai, the delineation of its fundamental philosophical bases and its difference with the views of the former philosophers. Contrary to the former philosophers who have used essence in their explanation of knowledge, Allameh Tabatabai’s expressed view on reality, being, and essence is based on the primacy of immediate knowledge and the truth criterion. An attempt has been made to show the effect of the origins of this view on its relevant derivatives including the principles of truth.

The present paper is concerned with the study of a controversy over the application of the term theosophy to Islamic philosophy. From the point of view of Corbin and his followers, the application of the term philosophy in its current secular meaning to the Islamic philosophy is misleading and in contradiction with some significant elements of this philosophy and its teachings. They prefer the term theosophy due to its meaning and application since the beginning of the Hellenic philosophy. On the other hand, Ha’iri considers Islamic philosophy similar to Hellenic philosophy and from his point of view Islamic philosophers have provided commentaries on and interpretations of Aristotle’s philosophy along with Quranic references and narratives. On this basis, for him the term philosophy rather than theosophy is applicable to the Islamic tradition in philosophy. The present paper argues for the insufficiency of Ha’iri’s reasoning and Corbin’s reasoning for distinguishing between Hellenic philosophy and Islamic philosophy. The conclusion is that the Islamic philosophy is substantially based on the Hellenic philosophy but it includes a lot of innovatory additions. For this reason it is more appropriate to use the transliterated form of ‘Al-Hikmah al-Ilahiyyah’ or ‘Islamic Hikmah’ to refer to Islamic philosophy.

In ancient logic, the deductibility of a possible proposition from two possible ones is an enduring controversy confirmed by Aristotle, Ibn-Sina, Fakhr-Al-Din-Al-Razi, Nasir-Al-Din-Al-Toosi and Qutb-Al-Din Al-Razi and disconfirmed by Khunaji, Abhari, Urmavi and Katibi. It is surprising that Modern Logic supports the latter group. On the other hand, it has recently been revealed that the ancient logicians had unconsciously applied the verity- and actuality-propositions equivocally in two meanings, in one of which, the criterion of the division was the relation between the subject and predicate, and in the other, the domain of the universe. By the former criterion, verity-propositions were interpreted by the modal connectives of necessity and possibility; whereas, by the latter criterion, verity-propositions were interpreted by no modal connectives, and actuality propositions were analyzed by the existence predicate. After reporting the related controversies, the present paper translates the opinions, the objections and the defenses into the language of modern logic and shows that the two sides of the controversy do not share the same ideas about the verity- and actuality-propositions. The first group had in mind the first interpretation and the second group the second interpretation.

The present paper is concerned with the semantic meaning of ‘reason’ and ‘contemplation’ and their relationship with ‘the self’ and ‘human nature’. Although the term reason has been frequently used in its two philosophic meanings of ‘extended essence’ and ‘judicial self’, the Quranic and lexical meanings of the term that is ‘modesty’ and ‘keeping’ needs to be taken into consideration. The Quran’s constant appeal to reason does not just refer to the quest for wisdom and knowledge; it further manifests an adherence to truth and the innate knowledge and their application in practice. The basic meaning of contemplation is the internally generated movement of the self to make a distinction between the wrong knowledge and the true one. The Arabic term for contemplation contains the meanings of ‘obedience’ and ‘hard work’. These meanings refer to the innate attempt of the self to investigate, discover and identify the indigenous knowledge with the aim of regaining the innate insights and the knowledge of the self. In this process of returning to the true nature, the self is to face the orientation obstacles and the resistance of its natural dimension. This confrontation is usually referred to as ‘jihad with the self’. The conclusion is that contemplation with the above-mentioned conditions can be the first step toward the jihad with the self.

Masnavi is a valuable piece of work. Through contemplating its content, a thoughtful individual can get access to a rich source of civilized human wisdom, philosophy and insight in addition to the deep philosophical concepts. One of the hidden aspects of Molavi’s thought is his careful attention to methodology which is one of the major branches of epistemology. The focus of the present paper is on the issue of methodology in Molavi’s thought which is assumed to have been a neglected issue. To this aim, the first narrative of Masnavi in the first book is analyzed adopting a new approach. The results of the analysis are as follows: first, from Molavi’s point of view religious epistemology is methodologically comprehensive as it confirms all the different methods of knowledge acquisition; second, what is now called scientific method is accurately described in Masnavi; third, restricting the validity of research methods in humanities to the experimental method is not justified and it is more appropriate to use a general and a mixed method; fourth, observing the scientific ethical codes including honesty and loyalty as the most important ones is a necessity; fifth, although wisdom and experience are the two powerful tools of recognition and both approaches are of a high position they suffer from significant limitations in studying the man and the world.

In his quest for truth, Ghazali embraced Sufism, after his involvement with theology, philosophy and Batinism. He elevates Sufis’ position to such a degree that reason fails to grasp its meaning. He treats the whole of Sufis’ praxis as something inferred from prophecy light. A study of Ghazali’s ideas shows that other factors and motives apart from is quest for truth influenced his preference for Sufism, and his tendency to introduce the group as a salvaged sect and to give precedence over other sects of the time. Ghazali is not considered one of the great mystics, he lacks their experiences and his works are of a lower status compared with those of the great mystics. Although he was raised in an environment influenced by Sufism, he is not reported to have had a mentor as a necessary element of the mystical journey as acknowledged by Ghazali himself. Such tendencies and the factors mentioned above cast doubt on his identification with Sufis.

The path of God’s servants toward His truth is of two types: the lover path and the beloved path. Consistent with this classification, there are two types of recollection: virtual and real. Contrary to virtual recollection which is dependent on the servant’s arbitrary soul, the real recollection which belongs to the beloved innocents (peace be upon them) there is no duality between the recollector and the recollected as duality can only be attributed to the innocents and not the incompetents. Therefore, the truth of the perfect man’s existence is the truth of the integration of recollection, recollector and recollected. The truth of this unity is realized in different levels through the recollections of exaltation, adornment, praising and glorification using the language of genesis and legislation. The present paper is concerned with the study of the levels of recollection among the beloved innocents and the incompetents. To achieve this goal, it delineates the permeation of the encompassing recollection in different levels of existence.