فصلنامه آینه معرفت
پیاپی 36 (پاییز 1392)

Every thing that has a consistent and rational structure, it will inevitably have a logical system and structure. The holy Quran with the status of a holy book that has come down to Prophet Mohammad has a logical system and structure. In view of the fact that Quran has come down to human beings to take them out from darkness to luminescence, it must have a structure consistent with human perception. The mental and perceptual structure of human beings is consonant with Aristotelian logic which is nothing more than the perceptual and mental structure of the human race. Accordingly, the structure of the holy Quran, as it is addressed to human beings should necessarily be based on the structure of Aristotelian logic. This structure includes proof, rhetoric, dialectic, poetics and fallacy. The expectation is that the structure of the holy Quran should follow the same structure but as it is intended to take the human race from darkness to luminescence it avoids poetic and false constructions and limits itself to proof, rhetoric and dialectic.

In today’s world, traditionalism is considered as a critical attitude toward modernism. The present paper aims at addressing the major themes of traditionalism as an introduction to the traditionalists’ views. To this end, it bases the analysis of the nature of tradition as the core element of the traditionalist discourse on the views of Seyyed Hosein Nasr, as the mostly cited contemporary traditional philosopher. Nasr is one of the perennial philosophy thinkers who is a critic of modern world and the one who seeks to substitute sacred knowledge for modernism. Based on his views, traditionalism is a belief in sacredness which is not only the source of authority of the minds of human beings but it also has its realization in their behavior.

Mulla Sadra considered human soul as the main source of vital and powerful reality beyond time and place that is like a sign of divine aspect that has been entrusted to human beings. From his point of view, this abstract fact that has been actualized immaterially comes down to the material universe and resides in the human body. So it occurs materially although in its survival will reach celibacy. The Islamic teaching of the theory of self or the former self of the body included in the Islamic religious texts (Quran and Hadith) appears to be in conflict with this theory. Mulla Sadra believes that the theory of “the occurrence of the self corporality and its spirituality in survival” is not in conflict with the religious teaching of the emergence of the self, rather it confirms this theory. The present study is an attempt to explain and provide proof of this theory in the light of the confirming views of other congenial philosophers such as Mulla Hadi Sabzevari and Alameh Tabatabai.

Referring to Khunaji’s categorization of modal propositions, we can find a set of 34 members. Though Fifteen members of the set had been proposed by logicians before Khunaji, he added nineteen categories of his own. Probing the manner of the formation of these categories by Khunaji, one can realize that two categories are missing and the rest are divided into a main group with 13 members and a secondary group with 19 members. The present article first describes and comments on the propositions. Facing with the modal propositions, the new logicians tried to formalize the propositions through giving a symbolic direction to them. The efforts made include those of Nicolas Rescher which were to some extent successful. The reason we say “to some extent” is because there are some missing elements in the formalization. For example in the modal proposition set, direction is not the sole variable; there is another variable which has not been dealt with adequately. We have called it time temporal variable. The present paper is an attempt to overcome this deficiency by introducing the time temporal variable in a way that has led to a more appropriate formalization of the modal propositions.

Rational theology (Kalam) in the sense of providing arguments on revealed verses and their interpretation was not popular for some reasons during the Rashidin Caliphs period. However, due to the rationalistic feature of Islam and the availability of well-educated scholars, Islamic theology was developed as to oppose the non-monotheistic thoughts and led to the emergence of the three theological sects; Ashaereh, Motazeleh and Imamieh. From among the three sects, Asaereh became predominant for some reasons and its dominance in Persian literature has continued in some forms up to the present time. A survey of Ashaereh’s thoughts reveals similarities with Iranshahri’s thoughts. It can be claimed that some aspects of the Ashaereh’s thoughts as realized in Moulavi, Saadi, Hafez and Nezami have been affected by the Iranshahri’s thoughts. The present paper is an attempt to examine the degree of the impact of Asheri’s thoughts on Saadi’s Golestan though it is considered as less affected by these thoughts. The reason is that Golestan lacks attention to issues such as vision of God, the contingency or pre-existence of Quran and the world, committing of deadly sins and the like. Golestan is not the outcome of thoughts of a dogmatic theologian jurist but it is rather the reflection of Ashaeri’s thoughts on education and morality. The hypothesis made in the present paper can be supported by the samples taken from the book itself.

The explanation of virtue and its significance from Farabi’s point of view can pave the way to a better understanding of the key issues of his philosophy like civil society, utopia, practical wisdom, scholar community and habitus. Farabi’s views on virtue are influenced by his felicity-oriented perspective toward ethics and perfectionism of mankind. He believes that human beings are perfectionist and felicitous in nature and to achieve this sublime and sacred goal specific means are required. Acquiring various virtues (theoretical, intellectual, ethical and practical) is the means through which human beings can accomplish the perfection of virtues and their practice which is only achievable through education provided for the members of the society. Therefore, Farabi sets the aim of education as the acquisition of theoretical and moral virtues. As the present paper aims at an understanding of Farabi’s works very few references are made to the works of other scholars.

The present paper is concerned with the explanation of the stages of education based on Avicenna’s views on the “soul”. The method adopted is qualitative case study with an analytic descriptive orientation. The results indocate three stages of preparation, moderation and uplift, and the heavenly stage consistent with the stages of the evolution of the soul. The preparation stage, which consists of the vegetal soul, animal soul and potential human (material to actual intelligence) phases, begins before birth and continues to the ostensible puberty. The second stage including the potential human (intelligence in habitus to actual intellect) and actual human (attainment of all second actualities) begins at age 15 and due to an increase in reason at age 50 onwards no end point is assumed for this stage. The heavenly stage which is the actual human stage in its proper sense and is synonymous with the attainment of the intelligible acquired intelligence is considered as the final stage of education corresponding to the ultimate goal of Avicenna’s philosophical system which is the attainment of true blissing. The results also show that Avicenna was the founder of lifelong education including both formal and informal systems of education by directing attention to the start of education before birth, moral upbringing and discipline since the age of two and so on.