پژوهشنامه فلسفه دین (نامه حکمت)
پیاپی 1 (بهار و تابستان 1382)

Over history, defending from rationality of religious belief has had different types, regarding to the kind of ruling philosophical and epistemic approach over human thought. Externalism expression in contemporary epistemology has caused some religious thinkers having externalist view to religious believes in a new way and prove its rationality through externalist perspective. In this externalist perspective, argument's role in justification of religious belief is weakened and argument-oriented ruling over natural theology and Locke and Descarte's evidentialism are refused. In this view, religious belief could be rational and justified without any argument. In other word, religious belief is included in basic believes. Both Alston's empiricism and Plantinga's claim that religious belief is properly basic stems from their externalist view on knowledge problem. Generally speaking, emergence of the school of reformed epistemology in religious thought is concurrent with emergence or revival of externalism in contemporary epistemology and profoundly owes that.

Comparative studies in "philosophical thought" enjoy the greatest important. Because, on the one hand deep and exact recognition of any thing, entails its comparison with others. Through this kind of study, externalism way on philosophy itself is paved. On the other hand, despite fertile fields in philosophy and wide scope for comparative studies in this discipline, in particular in our country, this kind of study has not been properly done. Explaining the possibility and necessity of comparative philosophical studies, the author, tries to contrive. In this regard he first and foremost clarifies concepts of "comparison" and "philosophy". Opponents of comparative studies, whether in sphere of philosophy or other spheres, consider a certain meaning of comparison which, does not matter here. In the other part of the essay, the author expressing that comparison is only possible in the case of diversity, emphasizing on criteria of diversity, discusses in details wide scope of philosophy in which comparison is possible. In second part of this article, which is to be offered in next volume, methods of comparison, its scope, aim and benefit in philosophy is examined.

Globalization's threat or profit owes global programs, which attempts to achieve this global ethic, is an example of those programs. Hans Küng and Swidler offered global declarations from religious stance to explain global ethic. These declarations in moral pyramid start from fundamental principles, not ultimate criteria, and then end up to basic and middle principles. Efficiency, coherency, adaptation with religions, compatibility with cultures and ethnicity are main topics to be discussed. Global ethic dose not owe to naturalistic theories, morality and essential merit and demerit but requires a theory that can achieve consensus that is reductionist absolutism which according to ultimate criteria of ethic, is achievable.

Quine's article entitled "Epistemology Naturalized", published in 1969 had great influence on epistemological studie's trend. Classic epistemology has great emphasis on skepticism and justification and requires epistemic obligations for attaining knowledge. For example, requiring epistemic obligations in Descartes and Carnap's thoughts is seen. This normative view to epistemology in Quine's thought is inefficient; instead he suggests replacement of descriptive view to epistemology. In his view, epistemology is not prior to science, but vice versa. Criticizing this Quine's view, Kim believes and argues that eliminating normative dimension of epistemology is impossible. Kim's argument is challenged by others like Campbell. In this article, Quine's view is examined and concluded that although, in a sense Quine's claim is acceptable, but it could not be accepted as true theory as a whole.

During his philosophical activity, Wittgenstein, offered two absolutely different theories about language and its nature and structure. Of the main contrarity in his philosophy is the one which is evident in his two eminent books, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and philosophical investigations, both on language analysis. It could be considered as contrarity between picture theory of language and use theory of language. Wittgenstein, accepting logical atomism, formal language approach (affected by Russell), dividing propositions to analytic and synthetic (affected by Hume), considering analytic propositions as meaningless, accepting elementary and compound propositions in language world and elementary and compound facts in external world, in his first philosophical phase, explained picture theory of language in Tractatus. Wittgenstein's main problems in Tractatus are nature of language, nature of thought and reality. The crux of the Tractatus is that language presents a logical picture of the world. Language has a common nature and its function is merely presenting a picture of facts and can not touch beyond reality. Concepts such as metaphysics, problem of life, morality, aesthetics, and religion are all beyond the language and mystical. Grasping these issues entails getting intuitionally related to them.

In this short essay, the place of these two concepts has been studied in analytic philosophy of history. Then, has been mentioned the attitudes of two outstanding philosophers of history who belong to idealist school. Differentiating among three meaning of cause in empirical sciences, practical life and history, Collingwood believes that the meaning of cause in history is reason. He argues that explanation of historical events depends on understanding of its subject's thoughts through subjective rethinking and reconstructing of those events by historian. Emphasizing on unique dimension of historical events, Oakeshott, sees their explanation not by generalizing but by mentioning more details in a way that in series of dependent events, remains no vacuum. Because of that, he recognizes cause as unnecessary, vain concept and expels it from field of historical studies.

Foundationalism is one of the important theories about justification of propositional knowledge. Foundationalists divide propositions into two self-evident or basic and non self-evident or derived categories, and found knowledge on the first one i.e. self-evident. The main characteristic of these propositions is that they neednt being argued, and are self-justified and self-evident. Classic foundationalism is the accepted view among Muslim philosophers on justification. Theyve attempted to explain the secret of self-evidency of some concepts and propositions. Author concluded that conceptual simplicity as a criterion of self-evidency of concepts was expressed in the works of old philosophers. Then, criterion of self-evidency of propositions, classic foundationalism and reformed epistemology approach, along with some critical tips are discussed.

Davoud-ibn-Muhabber is one of the scholars of the second century (A.H), whose only narrative book entitled Al-Aql (intellect) had arisen a lot of controversy among narrators for centuries. This article attempt to answer questions such as: what kind of "intellect" does Davoud narratively support? What theme and motive lie behind this book? Analyzing book of Al-Aql's contexts, the author studies the following issues: intellect as divine's gift, intellect as knowledge' instrument, intellect and faith, intellect and practice interrelations, intellect's virtue and valuing practice.

Richard Fumerton is professor of philosophy at the University of Iowa. In this essay he argues that fundamental difficulties face any attempt to define justified belief in terms of coherence among beliefs. To be plausible, a coherence theory must embrace internalism, but a coherentist cannot give a reasonable account of our access to our own beliefs. Moreover, even rather strong coherence seems at once neither sufficient nor necessary for the justification of our beliefs.

In this article, two empiricist's approach towards important challenge of a priori and independent of experience knowledge is mentioned. The first stance is that, a priori knowledge is dependent on truths and analytic propositions i.e. propositions that according to the meaning of existing words are true. Author, critically gives several examples and believes that truths are synthetic not analytic and our knowledge of them is a priori. Second stance is Quines. He refuses the difference between empirical and a priori truths and recognizes all truths to some degree as empirical and therefore revisable. Examining Quine's stance and reflecting more about nature of a priori knowledge, first, author discuses Kant's presuppositions; if the a priori truths must be universal and necessary? Applying Kripke theories, the author, contrary to Kant, attempts to explain that particular truths could also be understood as a priori. Quine's view about revisability of some truths, like non-contradiction law, is not defendable. To sum up, in this essay, two foundationalistic views towards problem of justification and a priori knowledge has been mentioned. Finally, different explanations of necessary truth and a priori knowledge in coherentist theory are explained.