فصلنامه اندیشه دینی
پیاپی 76 (پاییز 1399)

The cognitive science of religion is a "scientific" approach to the study of religion, which seeks to provide the causal explanations for religious beliefs and behaviors. The defenders of the cognitive sciences of religion attempt to explain the process of formation, strengthening, and prevalence of religious beliefs with the help of natural features of human mind and explaining its mode of operation. In their view, human mental tools have developed in such a way that they, in a particular way, are supportive of the concept of "God" (and other basic concepts of religion). These mental tools have significant processing inclinations in accepting religious beliefs, ultimately leading to their formation, strengthening, and promotion. Thus, this study was conducted to explain the natural process of the formation and strengthening of religious beliefs within the perspective of the cognitive sciences of religion, extracting the explanatory limitations of this approach. The findings of the present study showed that the cognitive sciences of religion face two basic explanatory constraints: The first type results from the lack of attention to the supernatural and social dimensions of religious phenomena, and the second type is due to the explanatory limitations of cognitive mechanisms.

In theological studies, religion is sometimes regarded as supernatural and transcendental, and sometimes in the form of ontology, functionalism, naturalism, and phenomenology, religion is considered artificial or terrestrial. The search for the origin of religion and the causes of its emergence and tendency towards it has been prominent in the West since the eighteenth century. According to this, religion is a human and social phenomenon and it is necessary to see when and where and based on which imaginary need man has invented religion or from what inner traits (ignorance, fear, sexual complexes, capitalism, alienation, and aspiration) religion has emanated. These attitudes are often atheistic, and the lack of distinction between different aspects of religion has led them to epistemic fallacies and methodological slippages. The truth and falsehood of religions are not related to the right or wrong origin of the inclination towards it and the truth of religion is very different from the affirmation of religion (religiosity). In assessing the truth of religion and religious propositions, only philosophical components are involved, not sociological and psychological components and criteria. Reliance on historical narratives, the interplay of atheistic presuppositions, the unification of all religions, the magnification of believers’ slips in religious orientation tend to be among the other errors in the approach that reduces the affirmation of religion to the factors of primary tendency to religion. Of course, the emergence of superstitions and innovations in religion and historical deviations in human religiosity cannot be denied. However, both religious texts and leaders have denunciated these deviations. In addition, these deviations are not linked to the principle of religion from a logical point of view. Using an analytic method, this research, with no recourse to critical narratives, elaborates on the general challenges of such an approach, including the inadequacy of the aforementioned knowledge types to validate religious beliefs, and reveals the inherent fallacies in them.

Attributive proposition has been an important subject since the inception of philosophical thoughts. During the Qajar Dynasty, upon the arrival of western thoughts to the country and the beginning of comparative philosophy in Iran, Tehran metaphysical school in contrast with Immanuel Kant’s views, developed more comprehensive divisions of attributive proposition. Although Kant’s divisions in attributive proposition seriously affected all western sciences and knowledge, they had their own defects, too. However, a different path was taken by Tehran metaphysical school and Aqa Ali Zunuzi’s thoughts, and the attributive proposition was tied to such subjects as epistemology, ontology, and theology in its particular sense. Therefore, attributive proposition integrity was counted as the result of principality of existence. Despite these two philosophers’ commonalities and their inevitability in dividing the propositions, their classifications had consequences that both philosophers had to accept. This paper intends to provide a critique of these two philosophers’ views about attributive proposition through an analytical method.

In Allameh Tabatabai's epistemology, human knowledge is based on beliefs that are certain, fixed, and compatible with reality. Since he considers the basis of human knowledge to be axioms, he is considered to be a maximal proponent of foundationalism and bases his theology on it. In his theology, God and His attributes are objective and real, and the human mind, by using the techniques of reasoning, can realize the truth of the divine realm to its fullest extent with certainty. Without resorting to figurative language, human language also has the ability to speak of the truth of God by using the literal meaning of words (denotation). In contrast, Brummer is considered a minimalist foundationalist and considers any proposition to be questionable. In his view, human knowledge of God is limited to His manifestations, and the human perceptual system is not able to discover the truth of the divine realm. To speak of God, the language of religion is more a figurative and prescriptive language than a real and narrative one, which does not reflect the truth but seeks meaning to life and expresses the devoutly religious lifestyles and the appropriate behavior of believers in relation to God. Therefore, Allameh Tabatabai's theology is based on certainty while Brummer's is intermingled with relativity.

Mirdamad, by rendering incomplete the philosophical systems of his predecessors (Sinai and Ishraghi), initiated the establishment of a new system called the wisdom of Yamaniyeh (Hekamt-e Yamaniyeh), and according to Mirdamad himself, one of the important pillars of this system is “VeaaDahr”. He used this theory in the discussions of cosmology and theology, such as how the universe came into being, temporal and spatial beings, as well as how the previous detailed knowledge of the necessity of existence approached to explaining the beings. Despite the importance that Mirdamad attached to “VeaaDahr”, even his successor and disciple, Mulla Sadra, did not welcome this theory. In this article, by examining and analyzing Mirdamad's works and comparing them with Mulla Sadra's views, we have explained why “VeaaDahr” was raised in Mirdamad's views and then elaborated on Mulla Sadra's objections to it, so that while comparing the views of these two thinkers, we might as well clarify the reasons why Mullah Sadra repudiated “VeaaDahr”.

In such fields as phenomenology and cognition, the effect of the body and its conditions on the process of cognition have been demonstrated and studied philosophically and empirically. In Islamic philosophy, Sadr al-Muta'allihin’s particular view on the relationship between the soul and the body can have significant implications for the effect of the physical body on the process of acquiring knowledge and cognition. Analyzing the status of physical body in acquiring cognition within Mulla Sadra’s perspective, this study attempts to gain insights into the philosophical implications of embodied cognition (body-dependent) in the intellectual system of this thinker. This paper, which analyzes the status of the body and its relation to the soul with an ontological approach, is to prove the direct influence of different bodies and their conditions on how to acquire knowledge (despite believing in the abstraction of cognition in transcendental wisdom) and demonstrate that the difference between bodies and their characteristics causes differences in cognition. In the light of this conclusion, the philosophical implications of the embodiment of cognition have also been explored.