فصلنامه تاریخ فلسفه
سال چهارم شماره 1 (پیاپی 13، تابستان 1392)

The present paper explores the mind-body problem in Homer, Plato, and Aristotle. Here, the writers claim that the opposing ideas of Plato and Aristotle concerning the ontology of body and soul is ultimately rooted in the dualist interpretation of the ontology of the soul in the mythical era, particularly in Homer’s period. In other words, the philosophical opposition between Plato and Aristotle concerning the ontology of the soul and body has its origin in Homerian dual and opposing interpretation of the concept of the soul. In addition, by substantiating this view, the writers have tried to take a small step towards understanding the relationship between the mythical legacy of ancient Greece and its period of humanistic philosophy, particularly that of Plato and Aristotle.

It has been narrated in a famous hadith from the Holy Prophet (s) that, before the creation of people, God was in “‘ama” (cloud). There have been several different and contradictory ideas concerning the content of this hadith. Muslim mutikallimun, gnostics, philosophers, and interpreters have studied this hadith based on their own principles and have benefitted from it in their own philosophical system. Mutikallimun have interpreted it based on their tanzihi (transcendent) and tashbihi (comparative) views and either confirmed or rejected it. Some Muslim gnostics assume that “‘ama” refers to God’s henas, and others believe that it represents the station of monas. They have matched this term with “merciful breath”, “truth of the creature”, “absolute imagination, and “substance of the world” and have granted it a sublime place. In his Transcendent Philosophy, Mulla Sadra equates ‘ama with “unfolded being”, “unity of bringing together” and “truth of truths” and, through the interpretation of hadith, reaches some conclusions about the dominance of divine existence over all places and times and attempts to reconcile tanzih with tashbih.

Ahmad Ibn Muhammed Razi known as Ibn Miskaway, the famous philosopher, historian, physician, and literary man of the fifth century, lived in Isfahan during the last years of his life. He passed away in the same city. His ideas regarding theoretical wisdom are gathered in his al-Fawz al-asghar, and those related to his practical wisdom are recorded in the book Tahdhib al-akhlaq.One of Ibn Miskaway’s philosophical ideas is rooted in his belief in the organic connection and unity among the natural existents of the world. He views the corporeal worlds, similar to the spiritual world, as a labyrinth with certain grades that encompass each other and are connected to each other. In fact, he draws a comprehensive map of all these grades. In his view, it seems as if the movement of each moving thing is intelligently directed towards its own totality and everything that agrees with its perfection. This motion is rooted in enthusiasm, in which the lover is the effect of its beloved. He believes that, in order to specify the stages of the prophets’ evolution, it is necessary to clarify the quality of the connection of existents to each other.He argues that God has divided each species into different groups and types through His certain wisdom and prudence. He has also established a vertical order among species so that each is more perfect comparing to the previous one until we come to the last type of the last species. It is at this point that the end of this species is connected to the beginning of the next species. By going through the various stages and levels in this direction, vegetation becomes animal, and animal turns into human being. According to Miskaway, after traversing the levels of biological perfection, man attains spiritual perfection and finally reaches the last level of human perfection, which is prophethood. The prophet, too, is promoted to the level of the next species, which is the intellect or angel.Given the situation of empirical sciences in Ibn Miskaway’s time and the prevailing philosophical school of that time, it seems that his philosophical system was not capable to clarify the theory of perfection from a philosophical standpoint. This was because philosophy did not have the required capacity for explaining such problems yet. This view had been posed before him by Ikhwan al-Safa and also by some of his contemporary thinkers such as Aburayhan Biruni and Ibn Sina with some changes. However, it was Ibn Miskaway’s thoughts that were transferred to later thinkers such as Mulla Sadra, so that he would be able to clarify it philosophically. Perhaps, if Ibn Miskaway had shared the same philosophical principles of Mulla Sadra, he would have been able to explain biologists’ theory of evolution from a philosophical point of view.

Before Aristotle, some of the topics in the science of logic had appeared in a scattered form in the words of the great Zeno, Plato, Socrates, and some Sophists. However, Aristotle was the first scholar to compile theoretical logic and classify its topics into related parts and chapters in a book. Based on his own epistemological principles, he propounded predicative logic. From among his most important logical ideas, we can refer to predicative reasoning and categorical syllogism.After Aristotle, another school of logic entitled Stoic-Megarian was developed in Greece by other logicians such as Philo, Diodorus, Megari, Zeno, and Chrysippus. Unlike Aristotelian logic, this new school dealt with conditional logic. Megarians’ detection of compound conditional syllogisms and Stoics’ detection of other compound syllogisms, such as conjunctive and disjunctive propositions and the forms of connected and disconnected syllogisms, created conditional logic. Therefore, the logical legacy of Greece consists of two Aristotelian and Stoic-Megarian Schools.Muslim Peripatetics, who were well-aware of Greeks’ logical legacy, diverted from the method of Greek philosophers in devising the science of logic. In addition to reducing some logical problems, such as the problem of categories, the differentiated discussion of poetry, rhetoric, and dialectics, as well as some changes in other areas such as conversion, and descriptive definitions, they played an influential role in the development and advancement of the science of logic. In this paper, some of these changes have been discussed.

Doctor Khalil Khan Thaqafi (A‘lam al-Dawlah), a physician, writer, and translator of the Qajar period and one of the first graduates of modern medicine in Iran, translated and wrote two treatises about time and place after he graduated from Dar al-Funun and before he went abroad. In the treatise that he wrote himself, Mirza Khalil Khan discusses the quality of the development of the idea of space, the distinction between the idea of environmental space and infinite space, the quality of the formation of the idea of infinite space, the idea of space as substance, the infinity of space with respect to its breadth and continuity, the development of the idea of time, and the idea of time as a predicate of space. In this treatise, he briefly explains and criticizes the ideas of such philosophers as Victor Cousin, Stewart Mill, and Spinoza. In the second treatise, which is a translation, he discusses whether time and place are substance or not.

The development and consequences of self-knowledge is one of the important discussions in Islamic philosophy. One of the most noteworthy of these consequences, according to the hadith of “One who has self-knowledge verily knows God”, is to know the Creator. The explanation and interpretation of this hadith was not taken seriously in earlier schools of Islamic philosophy. In fact, it was not until the early periods of the Schools of Shiraz and Isfahan up to the period of the dominance of the Transcendent Philosophy among contemporary thinkers that great attention was devoted to clarifying and interpreting it. This paper is intended to discuss the background of these explanations and analyses in two of the early schools of Islamic philosophy, Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophies, and even in those preceding them. The interpretation of the hadiths on self-knowledge in Islamic philosophy is united with psychology. That is why its background is traceable to Greek philosophy. In books on Islamic philosophy, some ideas and words have been attributed in this regard to Greek early philosophers, who are considered to mark the beginning of writing the history of this issue.The narration of these hadiths and similar words began during the first periods of Islamic philosophy with Ikhwan al-Safa (Brethren of Purity). They mainly focused on the importance of self-knowledge and the immateriality of the soul, which is more prominent in the Peripatetic philosophy considering the significance of psychology and self-knowledge in this school. Through relying on these hadiths, Ibn Sina demonstrated the most important problem of self-knowledge, that is, the immateriality of the soul, and uses it as a religious confirmation of this point versus the view of mutikallimun as to the corporeality of the soul. In Illuminationist philosophy, given the fundamental status of the dimension of the epistemology of the soul, a more basic approach to the relationship between self-knowledge and the knowledge of God is observed. This approach is introduced as an argument in order to demonstrate the existence of God and His attributes; it is an argument which is indeed superior to other arguments. What is clearly witnessed in this historical process is an interpretation referring to the possibility of self-knowledge and the possibility of the move from that knowledge to the knowledge of God, which is considered to be gradational in its most Illuminationist explanation.

Muslim’s relationships with China have a very long background. These relationships have been established through Muslims’ journeys to that region for various commercial, economic, political, and religious motives. Available evidence suggests that Muslims travelled to this land when the first signs of cultural and political life appeared there. As a result of these journeys, Muslim geographers have accumulated some valuable information in various areas such as natural geography, including the geographical realm of China, its cities, and the distances between them, and economic, cultural, and educational fields, including artistic, scientific, social, and industrial achievements. This paper intends to explore and analyze the picture of China as portrayed and described by Muslims from the first century AH until the time of Hafiz Abru in the eighth century. As a result, it can function as an introduction to and an analysis of Islamic orientalism in which the reports of scientists and travelers of a great political and cultural power in the Far East form the basis of journeys, relationships, and wars between countries and the transfer of philosophical and cultural legacies from one place to another. The writer believes that the importance of these reports and descriptions lies in the fact that they have been at the service of expanding Islamic culture and religion.