فهرست مطالب حسن قنبری

In this article we are concentrating on this question : is religious experience cognitive? In responding to the question, at first we point to nature of religious experience according to some thinkers, who believe in it. In definition of religious experience we rely on Schleiermacher, Alston and Swinburne's views. Then we say that their arguments are summarized in three main titles: (1) uniformity of religious experience whit sense experience(Alston) (2)appealing to principles of Credibility, Testimony and Authority(Swinburne) (3) uniformity in accepting conditions of religious experience and sense experience(Alston, ). About first argument we say when religious experience is privet and unrepeatable, how it can be same as sense experience that every one can test it and can transmit to others with evident propositions? About second argument we say that these three principles are applied just in sense experience and such is the third argument. About second argument we say that these three principles are applied just in sense experience and such is the third. Finally about the third argument we say there is deference between condition for accepting religious experience and accepting sense experience.

The question examined in this article is one of the most important issues in the contemporary philosophy of religion: If the sentences and propositions used in the scriptures of religions and denominations have the same meaning of the common language or entail a specific, novel meaning.  With the advent of positivistic thought in the modern era, a new perception appeared in this regard, which came to be known as the meaninglessness of religion language. Richard Swinburne is a contemporary religion philosopher who believes that the meanings of theological propositions are the same as common language. In addition to criticizing the positivist view, Swinburne bases his view on logical coherence. In this article, we examine and criticize Swinburne’s logical coherence theory. Our results show that the discussion on the meaningfulness/meaninglessness of the religion language – especially from a positivistic view – revolves around understanding/lack of understanding rather than logical coherence. In other words, in the positivistic view, the claim is that we cannot have a true understanding of the content of religious propositions, and without understanding, we cannot discuss coherence. Of course, we do not intend to defend the positivist approach here, but rather we maintain that the meaninglessness theory cannot be responded via the logical coherence theory.

This article is an effort to show that during the history of philosophy – both in the epistemology and ethics domains – evidentialism based on extreme rationalism has tremendously influenced the true mechanism of the formation of faith in God. In the light of a kind of determinism, it has averted attentions from the role of other functions such as emotions, passions, and especially volition in the formation of faith in theists within the common understanding framework. Among the contemporary thinkers, William James and Plantinga have tried to modify this deterministic approach and revive those practical aspects of the formation of faith that are always forgotten. The salient common point in the theories of these two thinkers are the attention to the practical aspects of faith within the common understanding framework and the emphasis on the significant role of volition – in line with reason – in the formation of faith. This way, it can be observed that the opinions of William James and Plantinga about the way the mechanism of faith in God is formed complete each other.

Max Scheler’s philosophy of religion is, in fact, the essential phenomenology of religion. The core of his discussion of religion is the concept of "Religious Act," which Scheler introduced as a "givenness" in which the divine/holy is given. He believes that "Person" communicates with God in the religious act, and the experience of this communication is unique and irreducible. This action is self-evident, but its self-evidence differs from self-evidence in logic and derives from the phenomenological intuition. According to Scheler, the religious act is fundamental to human existential dimensions. He describes three intrinsic specific features of religious act, which we review in this article. At first, we look at the intuitive understanding and the role of emotion in it. Then, after explaining the concept of the religious act and its characteristics, we examine and evaluate Scheler’s formulation of these characteristics. We argue that the relationship between Scheler’s conception of the religious act and the Divine (whether understood monotheistically or not) is not clear. Besides, speaking of “transcendence” implies an a priori “trans-world.” Finally, Scheler’s method in recognizing the fundamental dimension of the human being is in contrast with the task of phenomenology.

Abstract In the first half of the nineteenth century the dispute over the compatibility of the Christian faith with the new scientific discoveries was one of the hottest debates in the Western theologians' thoughts, especially in Germany. Most of the Protestant theologians, who were known as "liberal", believed that in the light of the new scientific discoveries, the Christian faith and theology alike needed reconstruction. These theologians came to this conclusion that religion and culture were, in practice, one and the same. Tillich's work, in between, was a continuation of such a view about religion and culture. One can say that, indeed, all his endeavors are to show a kind of coherent and logical compatibility between Christianity and the new culture. He does this in his most important book Systematic Theology.  In this article, along presenting and analyzing his work in this book, his success in this regard is evaluated. He believes the relation between theology and situation, which is the relation between religion and culture, is in fact the relation between "asking" and "answering". Religion and culture always constitute a unified whole, the form of which is culture and the content and essence of which is religion. The book Systematic Theology is, indeed, based on this very fact. The work consists of five parts: In the first part, he correlates the religious symbol of Logos with this question of modern culture as how one can reach to the important human truth. In the second part, the religious symbol of the creator God is correlated with this modern culture's question of the infinite as how one can resist the destructive powers that threaten one's life. In the third part, he correlates the religious symbol of Jesus Christ with this question of the modern culture as how we can cure the disease of estrangement in us and in our neighbors. In the fourth part, the religious symbol of the Holy Spirit is correlated with this modern culture's question as how one can possess the genuine life, while the ethics, religious experiences and the new culture are all obscure. And finally, in the fifth part, the religious symbol of the Kingdom of God is correlated with this question as whether the history has any sense. In order to answer the first question, Tillich seeks to analyze the structure of human reason. Therefore, Tillich, in the first part of his theological system, comes to the conclusion that the major reason for doubt and skepticism in the modern time is, in fact, the finitude of the human reason. In the second part of his book, Tillich talks about the religious symbol of God and wants to answer this question of the modern culture as what threatens our being by non-being, and what the way is to avoid it. This topic is ontological – as the previous topic was epistemological. In this part he discusses about many detailed issues on the structure of existence. According to him, being and nonbeing are interrelated. In the third part of his book, Tillich deals with one of the major issues of the modern culture, that is the estrangement and the reasons leading to it, and analyzes its relationship to Christianity's most significant symbol, i.e. Jesus Christ. In order to achieve this goal he first analyzes existence. According to him, each reality, including man's reality, has two levels: the essential level – or the essential being – and the existential level. The essential being is the potential being and the existential being is “to stand out of potentiality” (Tillich,1975, vol. 2, p. 22). Therefore, ʻexistenceʼ is the transition from potentiality to actuality which, according to Tillich, is in fact “falling away from what man essentially is” (Ibid). In the fourth part of the book, Tillich seek to find a response to this modern question: While the new culture rendered the meaning of life ambiguous, how can one recognize the genuine life? Based on that, he first studies the ambiguities of the meaning of life in the modern age and tries to look for the unambiguous life. Based on his view, life is the actualization of being and unites the two characteristics of being, i.e. the essential and the existential dimensions (Tillich,1975, vol. 3, p. 12). Thus, the concept of life gets an ontological dimension and is not just exclusively applicable to animate beings. Different beings have different levels and dimensions, but amongst them all, only man possesses ʻspiritʼ.And finally by resorting to the symbol of the Kingdome of God, he deals with this principle question of the modern age that “Is history meaningful?” Through the three processes of life – which were mentioned earlier – namely: self-integration, self-creativity and self-transcendence, history moves towards the ultimate, which is in fact its fulfilment. But history, like life in general, is under the ambiguities in all the three existential dimensions; the ambiguities “which have always been felt and powerfully expressed in myth, religious and secular literature, and art” (Ibid, p. 332). The ambiguity of history in the dimension of self-integration is expressed through the terms ʻempireʼ and ʻcentralizationʼ. This ambiguity is present in all phases of the church history and in all the secular movements. In the end we have some points about his principles and conclude  that his views about relation between Religion and culture in modern time  dose not resolve problems of  our age. The readers must see our point in detail.

The issue of the permissibility of togetherness of command and forbiddance is considered among the most complex and oldest issues in the knowledge of oṣūl which has jurisprudential and practical benefits such as the truth or wrongness of saying prayers in a usurped place. Having investigated the lexicon and clarifying the subject matter, the researchers have proposed three opinions in this regards such permissibility, refusal, and intellectual permissibility and customary refusal. In the next phase, the researchers have raised the most important issue of negating and confirming reasons and the issue of compulsion due to the lack of freewill. There are to six opinions and principles about the person who have doomed himself obliged due to lack of freewill among which the absolute command wavier, taking the obligation, affirming the forbiddance of act, and lack of obligation could be mentioned. Having explained and expanded these opinions, the researchers have investigated the weaknesses of these opinions using the Qur'an verses and the Imam's traditions and have proved that proposing the issue of compulsion by the shariah legislator from the viewpoint of ruling the society is narrowed; therefore, any kind of compulsion cannot remove the illegality. Ultimately, they have proved the opinion to the permissibility of gathering the command and forbiddance using other jurisprudential chapters.

The well-known contemporary philosopher John Hick is known with familiar theory of religious pluralism. But the essential element of pluralistic theory based on his analysis of validity and authenticity of various religious experiences. In fact, he makes a bridge among the plurality of religious experiences and plurality in religious beliefs. In fact he brings together the various elements(from witgenestein's theory that known as "seeing as" to epistemology of perception in kant and critical realism) to conclude variety of religious experiences and more indifferent originality of them. But the most important principles he used to prove the epistemological validity of religious experiences are: permitted the beliefs of religious experience as basic beliefs, principle of critical trust, principle of testimony, and ultimately the pragmatic principle of desirable outcomes in the life of the owners of the moral and spiritual religious experiences. In this article we analysis these principles. in the meantime of this review we discuss in detail about Hick's epistemic foundations of pluralism. Finally, we conclude that although attention to the Effects of religious experiences can be encouraged, it does not by any means derive from it the indisputable logical proof in the style of the traditional proofs of the existence of God.

The present article is a survey on Aristotle’s view on reason in two spheres: theory of knowledge and theory of self. In the theory of knowledge, it is explained that, according to Aristotle, the mechanism of knowing has four phases: sense, recall, experience and idea. According to Aristotle, idea is rational knowledge that is derived from the three pervious phases. In this context, Aristotle’s famous saying which reads anyone who has no sense has no knowledge makes sense. In the sphere of self, first the meaning of self from Aristotle’s point of view is explained. Then it is concluded that reason is a power of self which is in charge of the four phases of knowledge. In the end, the passive reason and active reason are discussed in detail and a critique of the well-known interpretation of active reason as reason separate from man is presented.

The aim of this essay is to study and review of Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein’s Fideism. We show that new fideism is based on keeping faith despite of limits of reason. In other words, one could have simultaneously objective arguments against something, but at the same time, have believed in it. For Kierkegaard, having faith is a free and deliberate act, and religious belief should be built on adventure and “leap of faith”. He thinks faith is worthwhile, only when it is a kind of taking risk. Wittgenstein, following Kierkegaard’s way of thinking, holds that it is possible to have faith without arguments; i.e., one could have faith in something, but have no any reason to prove it, because a collection of beliefs retraced at the end to some beliefs that are not proved. Thus, he says having faith is a kind of language game which is built on religious grounds. However, this needs practice and action.

Ṣadr al-Muta’allihīnShīrāzī seeks to show the immortality of the human soul on the basis of certain grounds, such as the principality of existence, gradation of existence, substantial motion, the physical incipience of the soul, and the division of the world into the world of matter, the world of barzakh, and the world of intellects. With these grounds at hand, MullāṢadrā shows that the human soul is created as a material entity early in its existence, and then it goes on a substantial motion. During the motion or change in its essence, the material soul turns into an immaterial entity, and then it finds an eternal life in the world of intellects. According to his view, the souls that could not achieve the degree of immateriality in this world will continue their substantial motion in the world of barzakh until they join the world of intellects. However, MullāṢadrā’s view is subject to objections. In this paper, we will examine and criticize some of the grounds for the immortality of the soul in MullāṢadrā’s view.

One of the rare comments about the intrinsic qualities of the natural or the God, the idea of ​​" unity of concept and meaning inherent traits" that the statement of diversity in the works of Ibn Sina and al Ehsaee, it is stipulated. These are based on some specific theoretical principles, including "whether the concept of the trait " and " refusing to different concepts of simple real abstraction " have insisted on the idea that once were analyzed in an independent article. Ibn Sina after the adoption of " existence " as the first necessary trait of excellence, more accurate understanding of the inherent characteristics depend on the existence of God with a concept " negative ", " surplus " or a combination of the two is known. His home Detailed knowledge of positive traits that God knows the truth Mohammedia carrier Flyە traits associated with inherent traits.

As we take it for granted, regardless of some taken presuppositions and with respect to bringing the “exclusive or” into play, three modes are perceivable for the philosophical question of “the principality of existence or quiddity”. Some Muslim thinkers have sorted out a theory in this regard and others have argued for their own adopted view; while the mode thinkers have taken to stride in the debate at hand shows their disagreement lied based on a priori principles. Naturally, the concept of “existence” and “quiddity” can be considered as the most fundamental conceptual origins of the debate in question. In this article, adopting the method related to history of philosophy and on the basis of ascriptions of “existence” –to which some thinkers have given meticulous thought-, some outstanding analyses and comparisons in terms of thinkers’ exchanges have been accomplished. This research findings are as follows: Firstly, the concept of “existence” should not be called the most known thing per se as it does possess various ascriptions.
Secondly, as the dispute concerning the principality or abstractedness of existence is not a matter of demonstration, one cannot argue merely for one theory so to simultaneously undermine other ones. However, this question entirely relies upon the primary perception each thinker has taken for “existence”.
Thirdly, since some ascriptions of “existence” imply its concrete composition with quiddity, it’s no longer intelligible to simultaneously speak of the abstractedness and principality of the two sides.

Avicenna believes human soul has an immortal life. While believing immateriality of soul he denies eternity of soul and believes human soul was created as incorporeal being. He made some argument in most of his books on justifying the problem. Some of his bases in this problem are; immateriality of soul that the human soul need to immaterial eternal Wisdom, that the eternal Wisdom don’t destroys human soul and other bases. Avicenna justifies immortality of soul. What is core of all of his argument and seen directly or implicitly is simplicity and immateriality of human soul. Aristotle’s thought effect on Avicenna’s idea in this problem. While some successful of Avicenna’s argument in immortality of soul, It has defects one of them is; week explanation of developments process of soul. This defect was considered in Molla-Sadra’s thought.

In this paper at first we point to importance of Schleirmacher as father of modern Christian Theology and then to kant’s effect on him. In continuance we will deal with definition of Religion according to him. On this subject will say that the independence of Religion from Ethics is the most important thing; in fact the independence of Religion from all aspects of human experiences . Accordingly, will be stressed that there is no casual relation between Religion and Ethics as collection of human commands. And reduction of Religion to Ethics, like Kant’s view, in Schleirmacher thought is not correct.

In this article the rationality of faith in Plantinga's three major works is studied – the three works in which the author, while responding to the critiques, presents his viewpoints. In this contribution, Plantinga's line of argumentation in these books is sought and then, having explained his views, they are being analyzed. Hence, first his analogical argument is criticized and then it will be discussed that there is incoherence in his critiques of the evidentialism and foundationalism. It will be mentioned also, in the end, that his idea that the belief in God needs no evidence is a kind of fideism.

This article examines three approaches regarding the legitimacy of religions. The first approach considers it meaningless to discuss religions legitimacy, maintaining no positive function for religion; while the second one does it only through two intra religious criteria including individual transfiguration or incarnation of God and revelatory origin of the teachings of a specific religion, criticized in the article as well. The third approach takes the most part of this paper, s discussion, criticizing interreligious criteria. At first, theories considering the founders of religions as the criterion of their legitimacy are mentioned and then it is discussed that what aspect of the founders, characters could be regarded as a criterion of religions legitimacy. The next criterion evaluated is that of religions, teachings to examine whether they are of positive function, rational, coherent, approvable, comprehensive and compatible with the reality. Finally we conclude that if someone does not believe in the divine source of religions, considering them totally humane issues, as a matter of fact, utilizes functionalist criteria to discuss the characters of religions, founders, while someone who believes in their divinity, naturally emphasizes on revelatory criteria and religious experience of the founders. However it should be noted that these criteria are not mutually exclusive to one another, in the other words any religion, being evaluated, that could response to more criteria is of more legitimacy

Rationality of Faith is one of the most important issues in contemporary philosophy of Religion that most philosophers of religion have discussed it. Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne with theistic approach have discussed this subject. Swinburne with evidentialist approach concludes that religious belief like every another belief can be rational only if it has evidence and of cource theists have evidence for their belives so they are justified and rational. But Plantinga criticizes evidentialism and classical foundationalism. Instead of justification، He uses concept of Warrant and finally concludes that Christian believes have proper warrant so Christians are rational in their believes. In this project I want to survey and compare this two great thinkers ’views. My questions in this project are: 1)what criticisms Plantinga can has to Swinburne approach? 2) Is not Plantinga’s analogy argument a Kind of evidentialism? 3) Way does Plantinga use concept of Warrant instead of Justification? 4) What is difference between Warrant and Justification? 5)Are Christian believes properly warranted? 6

The article, at first, deals with Eliade’s phenomenology that is in contrast with reductionist methods. Then, it explains the key concept in Eliade work, namly, Sacred. In relation to this, author concentrates on concepts of time and place in Archaic Religion. He says that archaic people with their belief in sacred place imitate works of gods and regulate the world. Then, it deals with ontology of archaic people which is different from modern’s people. In this ontology, all productions and acts as long as contribute in transcendental Reality, they have meaning. In archaic people, Supreme realities have priority over normal realities. Then, the question of source of religion is explained in article and said that this question is not important for Eliade.

Here, first, we are to define knowledge by presence and then have a brief look at its history in Plato and Aristotles’s works. We also discuss its importance in Descarte’s philosophy besides the instances in his philosophy. Finally, we conclude knowledge by presence is actually the main subject of Descarte’s philosophy as though we might claim Descarte’s philosophy is established on Knowledge by Presence.

In this Article, we state briefly at first, some Descartes’ discussions on epistemology, including stages of his doubt, his way to arrive to fondumental certinity and characteristics of this certinity. Then, Descartes’ view about reason is discussed. With refrence to Descartes’ works, his veiw about faith especially about God is survived. In continue, descartes’ veiw about relationship between reason and faith is compared with veiw of Augustine and Aquinas. Then it is maintained that Descartes’ view is smilar to Aquinas. At the end, this veiw is criticized.