فصلنامه اندیشه دینی
پیاپی 24 (پاییز 1386)

The Divine agency, the mode of creation and the appearance of plurality in the universe, are three synonymous words of an important philosophical question in Neoplatonism and Islamic philosophy. The rule of»Alvahed«(the rule about Divine agency) is one of the important elements of the Divine agency’s theory in the above mentioned schools. The root of this rule could be found in the works of Plotinus and Aristotle. There are more exact and more complete explanations in Farabi's and Ibn-Sina’s points of view. The important questions about this rule are: To what extent it can explain the mode of Divine agency and the plurality? How mach the Farabi-Ibn-Sina’s system rely on this rule? And how does Sohrawardi criticize this rule and what is his explanation about it? Shihab al-Din Sohrawardi (1155-1191), who was the reviewer and the revivalist of»Hekmat«(Islamic philosophy), reformed the rule and produced a new formula of it; he limited the rule to the relation between God (Alvahed) and first creature, but argued the direct relation between God and all creatures, and reject the astronomic propositions, and explained the procession of plurality from»Alvahed«.

The present paper is going to deal with the problem of existence and quiddity in Shaykh al-Ishraq Suhrawardi’s philosophy. Certainly, among philosophical problems few topics can be found which enjoys as much importance as the topic of existence and quiddity. Meanwhile, Shaykh al -Ishraq’s viewpoint on this topic is considered different from that of both Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra and has raised a hot debate. Whereas in Mulla Sadra’s outlook, existence is fundamentally real, in Shaykh al-Ishraq’s theory existence is something mentally-posited, and its three technical meanings are abstract ideas. It is noteworthy that in spite of the developments of philosophical and theological issues, the value of these two concepts not only has not decreased, but they are also regarded among the most basic concepts in the modern philosophy as much as the classical philosophy so that the understanding of these two basic terms assists in the solution of other philosophical problems. So explaining the origins of the discussion on this topic, and presenting the meanings and usages of the terms as well as bringing examples from Shaykh al–Ishraq’s phrases, the author attempts to response the question whether the quiddity, which Shaykh al–Ishraq considers as a made thing and luminous reality, is the same as the quiddity, about which Mulla Sadra says: “it has not smelled the fragrance of existence”, or whether there has been some confusion between concepts and their instances, and in fact controversies have been verbally rather than based upon content.

After proving God's existence the problem of ascribing some attributes to Him and it's rational permissibility is one of the most important problems in the old philosophy, specially in it's theological part. Some of the philosophers, who have theological attitude, ascribe some attributes to God, while others believe that we cannot ascribe such attributes to Him. Each group has some arguments for their attitudes.In this paper, comparing Ibn Sina's and Spinoza's attitudes, in spite of some superficial contrasts, we will show that one can find some basic principles common between them. The attributes that Ibn Sina ascribes to God, are Reason, Will and Freedom. The way that Spinoza ascribes Freedom to God is different from that of Ibn Sina. Nevertheless, we can find some common foundations in their perspectives and therefore we can make a comparison between them.

Felicity is related to the pleasure and happiness which a creature finds when it enjoys its ontological good and completeness. So felicity has a hierarchy according to different degrees of the lucky existents and unlucky ones. Explaining, felicity and adversity in the eternal life, Ibn Sina considers the rational soul as the highest degree of a human being after his death. A notable point in his attitude is that such eternity belongs to the souls who have reached the active intellect. But, Ibn Sina, believes that the soul can not enjoy particular pleasure or pains without having a body. In this paper we aim to see how Ibn Sina justifies his view about eternity by finding something which could play the role of the body for incomplete souls in order to enjoy pleasure and felicity after the death.

At the first glance, some of the verses of the Quran look like to have a negative attitude towards the poets and have criticized those poets who are not faithful and honest.We also find texts and reports from the tradition of the leaders of the religion which seem to contradict each other on this subject. Some of them have blamed poets and others have encouraged them. Reviewing these verses and traditions, this paper aims to show that no one of them blames poetry and poets in general. The apparently inconsistent traditions refer to different contents, situations and conditions of the poetries and the poets. So based on the different conditions, we can find different attitudes of the Quran and Sunna towards poetry and poets.

It is universally accepted that the presuppositions, thoughts, and mental foundations of a scholar influences his/her ideas continually. It is, therefore, useful to study the relationship between a thinker’s mentality and thoughts and his/her other academic ideas in order to have a better understanding of their options and discover the delicacies of those ideas. This article attempts to show that Mulla Sadra’s view about the soul has changed his approach towards perception and knowledge, and produced new results. The aim, here, is not to study the whole of Mulla Sadra’s psychology and epistemology, but to consider his specific views concerning knowledge of the soul and to evaluate his attitude about the soul and the effect of such an attitude on the great philosopher’s specific ideas concerning knowledge. In other words, it is attempted to explain and analyze the extent of the influence of Mulla Sadra’s psychological bases on his epistemology.The innovated outcome obtained from this research is Mulla Sadra’s epistemological methodology. A careful look at this methodology leads us to a coherent geometry which clearly shows the relationship between the two domains in a way that one can claim such psychological bases will inevitably result in his specific epistemology. Although epistemology, in its modern sense, was not in the mind of the philosopher, Sadrolmota’allehin, four centuries ago, and his attitude was basically different, it is possible to consider it from today’s point of view and examine it by focusing on his psychological and epistemological foundations. Thus, Mulla Sadra’s view towards knowledge is considered from this angle, too.