فصلنامه معرفت فلسفی
سال هفدهم شماره 3 (پیاپی 67، بهار 1399)

Among Mulla Sadra’s most important concerns was creating coordination between philosophy and religion. His statement “curse on the philosophy whose laws oppose the Book and the Sunnah” is a familiar statement for all students of transcendental philosophy. On the origination of the soul, however, Mulla Sadra has adopted a way other than paying attention to the appearance of the religious texts (i.e. texts speaking of origination of the soul before the body), believing in the corporeal origination of the soul. Mulla Sadra, who has intelligently noticed the conflict between his own theory and the appearance of the religious texts, offers two way of reconciliation to escape that conflict and create a harmony between his own theory and the religious texts. The first is distinguishing between the soul and the spirit as well as the souls of the perfect men and the non-perfect men; and the second is maintaining a rational existence for the soul.
Here, we seek to use a descriptive-analytical method with a critical approach to investigate and review Mulla Sadra’s solutions to reveal his failure in this task.

 The scholars have mentioned three things as the criteria for distinguishing sciences: the subject matter, the method, and the purpose. The present study, conducted through an analytical-descriptive method, aims at finding the distinction between the philosophy and other sciences. The important finding of the study is that, firstly, the criterion for distinguishing philosophy from other sciences is the subject matter, not the method. Secondly, we found nothing in the statements of early philosophers to the effect that the feature and the criterion of the philosophy is the rational method. Thirdly, the Islamic philosophy is the philosophy nourished by revelation in its foundations and explanation of its subject matter.

In the present article, we have enumerated, after an introduction on the nature of terminology and its meaning for us here, about 50 terms and expressions related to the philosophical concept of “science” or close to its meaning through induction. We have then selected the following terms as appropriate to the philosophical discussions of studying sciences: “consciousness”, “perception”, “knowledge”, “science”, “intellect”, and “reasoning”. In the next step, we have studied the literal meaning of those terms to mention their philosophical conception and their difference from one another by adducing the works of philosophers. In the next step, we have dealt with studying the usage of those terms in philosophical works; and finally, we have suggested the best and most appropriate terms for various aspects of philosophical study of science, such as the epistemological aspect and the ontological aspect of science.

Philosophy of rights as one of the branches of philosophy is a new discipline dealing with a real phenomenon called “right” and the related issues including the conceptual content, existential structure, various types of rights and the right-holders. The study method in this branch of philosophy is making use of rational study regarding the universal precepts of right. “Genetic right” is one of the most important types of right whose holders, include all beings. In the present article, we have investigated the “right” from the viewpoint of the principles of transcendental philosophy from different aspects including the analysis of conceptual structure, existential structure, and the relationship with existence to clarify that the right is equal to the existence. To clarify the main structure of the discussion, we have then dealt with the nature of genetic right and mentioned its existential orders and features, such as concomitance with existence, to fix the status of genetic right as one of the essential accidents of existence to be discussed in philosophy.

The dispositional factors of the subject for fulfilling natural needs posit perceptions between the subject and his/ her volitional action to incite “volition” and move the agentive faculty to lead the subject to his/ her desirable perfection. These types of perceptions are known as I’tebariyat (conventional or mentally-posited things) dealt with by Allama Tabatabaie in his al-Mizan and other works. The origin of such perceptions goes back to the “nature” of the subject and the type of his/ her creation in the hierarchal orders of the emotional and dispositional faculties. The most important features for I’tebariyat are as follows: imposition of true effects on a conventional subject, being conventional while being rooted in reality, being posited according to material and spiritual benefits, being relied on one’s choice and determining volitional behaviors.
Dispositional, insight, reactive and revelational factors are those factors playing role in emergence of I’tebariyat. In one respect, I’tebariyat are divided into “fixed” and “changeable”, and in another respect, into “before convergence” and “after convergence”. The relationship between these two is ‘generality and particularity in some respect’. I’tebariyat are conceivable both as ‘relative’ and ‘absolute’, and are meaningful just in  propositions. Thus, the term ‘conventional conceptions’ must be  explained in Allama’s words. According to Allam’s view, I’tebariyat are always false propositions, because in I’tebariyat, the  definition of something is attributed to something else.

The philosophy for children (P4C) program can be investigated from various angles such as the level of effect of philosophy on children in life skills as well as the comparative study of philosophy for children, and children’s psychology and their social life. The present study aims at investigating the critiques on P4C program using the philosophical, educational and psychological sources with a look at teachings of Islamic philosophy. Here, after mentioning the views of the contemporary philosopher, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, regarding the P4C program, we have attempted to deal with the philosophical and educational critiques on this program form the viewpoints presented by Islamic philosophers such as Farabi, Avicenna, Meskawayh, Ghazali, Mulla Sadra, and Allama Tabatabaie. We then attempted to reinforce the critiques on the philosophical foundations of that program in the theological, ontological, anthropological, self-knowledge, epistemological, axiological, methodological, and teleological dimensions. Existence of some inconsistencies in the Lipman’s theory has doubled those critiques. In the path to naturalize that program, we must pay attention to the content challenges facing the program.

In his third critique, Kant sees universal validity possible in aesthetic judgment in two quite different ways. One is requesting the other party to agree, and the second leads to a form of individual freedom and finally collective freedom. These two different paths have made interpreters to reach different opinions. Some, such as Rogerson, claim that Kant’s request is moral. Some others, including Guyer, have maintained that it is a cognitive claim. In the present study, we have attempted to present a proper solution for the problem of universal validity of aesthetic judgment, a solution wherein both the beauty in Kant’s theory and morality are considered with a reliance on the subjectivity theory.

One of the issues posed in logic since long ago, an issue once arisen in epistemology and now in philosophy of science, is the relationship between the researchers’ observations and the general empirical law. Each of those sciences, however, has viewed that issue from a different angle and presented it in a different form. In the philosophy of science, three views are offered in response to that issue: positivism, falsificationism, and confirmationsim. In the present article, firstly, we review the first two views, and then, we will discuss the third one, i.e. confirmationism, in a more detailed manner. Later, we will investigate the paradox produced from that view, and finally, we will deal with some solutions for getting free from the paradox of confirmation. This is because if the paradox is not resolved, the question of the relationship between the observations and discovery of the scientific law, not answered by the two former views, will be left unanswered by the confirmationist view as well.