مجله تاملات فلسفی
پیاپی 13 (پاییز و زمستان 1393)

Al-Ghazali lived in an era of Islamic thought and history in which many thinkers exchanged various philosophical perspectives in their kalami approaches. In those days, many thinkers attempted to establish their kalami arguments and thoughts by applying words, concepts, and methods from philosophy; nevertheless, in establishing the bases of their arguments they endeavored to maintain their distance from philosophy as much as possible. Al-Ghazali also shared the same demeanor as his contemporaries. Unlike former Asharites who did not believe in incorporeity, he believed in the concept. This study is an attempt to first demonstrate how Ashari thinkers and philosophers who lived before Al-Ghazali believed in incorporeity and what were their ways of thinking. Second, Al-Ghazali's methodology and identical conceptions with philosophers such as Ibn Sina and Al-Farabi are presented to show how Al-Ghazali was indebted to previous philosophers in his believing in incorporeity.

Kant’s discussions in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and Critique of Practical Reason (1788) has led the vast majority of his readers to recognize him as a philosopher who denies the view that “anthropology and empirical study of human nature plays an important role in morality.” Therefore, dwelling upon lack of Kant’s attention to empirical facts, they criticize his moral philosophy as having formal or pure characteristics. But can it be seriously argued that Kant’s moral arguments assign no role for experience? A close examination of Kant’s works shows that, after all, his moral philosophy is not pure, since in some of his works including The Metaphysics of Morals (1797), Anthropology from Pragmatic Point of View (1798) and Lectures on Ethics (1795) he speaks of the need for empirical basis in morality and refers to it as moral anthropology. Thus, Kant’s moral anthropology demonstrates empirical strategies needed to attain freedom and good being. In this paper, introducing this obscured part of Kant’s moral philosophy, we have established that Kant’s moral philosophy is not quite formal as it also enjoys the empirical basis.

Nietzsche's encounter with modern ethics and education is rather hostile. From his point of view, the ethics of education has been long involved in a disease raised from its history and the Socratic-Christian tradition. Nietzsche aspires for eliminating this culture, which he believes has its roots in exploitive evaluations. He wants to replace it with a mastery morality in society and particularly in the classroom. But could this substitution guarantee the health of ethics in education? This article aims to analyze Nietzsche's debate on the subject, and critiques and evaluates his ideas by proposing some questions. Ironically, the paper demonstrates, it is Nietzsche's anti-democratic views that dominate the ethics of education in the contemporary capitalist societies. In fact, Nietzsche's own influence inspires the situation that he regarded as most unfavorable.

Motahari's various perspectives on ethics have been widely presented in his works. This article elaborates on his account of two significant ethical problems. The first problem is the criteria of ethical act. By assessing some ideas on this subject, i.e. emotive theory, conscious theory and the theory of will, he tries to introduce the theory of dignity as the basis of Islamic ethics. The second problem is the relationship between religion and ethics, and whether is it necessary for ethics to be based on a religion. In his answer to this question, Motahari argues that religion is the only grounds for ethics and that ethics without religion is like an expired banknote. On the other hand, he regards moral act of an atheist as a valuable act. By appealing to the broad meaning of religion and the distinction between individual ethics and social ethics, this article tries to eliminate the apparent contradiction from Motahari's statements.

Although Sheikh E Eshraq is not a political philosopher in common sense, he has attracted the attention of many researches in the field of political thoughts thanks to his serious efforts to describe and clarify savant position on apex of religious and mundane pyramid presidency, as well as his tragic excommunication and murder, which strengths fault of his political activity. Sheikh E Eshraq was affected by “Fahlavion`s arbitrator thoughts”, “Persian philosophers” and “Platonic Eshraqi wisdom”, and he believed that sovereignty and presidency shall be devoted to one who is deifier and who is skilled in wisdom, owns greatness, dignity and is able to conduct weird habit (walking on water, Alienating the spirit from the body, visiting angels, etc) he denied owning. He denies divine savant to get presidency and sovereignty by force, dominance and violence and he introduces his residency era as divine and luminous one.

Muhammad Ibn Zakariyya Razi (4th century AH/ 313 H.G.) is one of the most prominent philosophers of Iran and the Islamic world; however, he has been accused of atheism by some of his opponents who have compromised his religious beliefs. The current study aims to analyze two questions in this regard: Has Zakariyya truly rejected prophecy? What are the logical grounds and the rationale of his opponents to accuse him of being an atheist? Some of the reasons proposed by his opponents include: his belief in reincarnation and five ancients; his emphasis on independence of mind; and his books Mahariq al anbiya (The Book of Subterfuges of the Prophets) and Rejection of Religions; on the other hand, some evidence exists which rejects the argument of his opponents, or at least challenges their accusations. For example, attributing these two books to him seems groundless, since the scripts of these books are not available; only few historians have confirmed Razi as the writer of the books. Furthermore, some other pieces of evidence such as Muslim rulers’ respect to Muhammad Ibn Zakariyya as well as some of Razi’s books written on Imamat and resurrection can clear him of these accusations. In addition, some phrases in his works indicate his belief in Islam’s prophet and his book the Quran. Finally, having examined the reasons of both groups, we argue that Zakariyya Razi, having new thoughts and ideas which were sometimes different from the intellectual current of his time, was falsely accused and judged by some extremist intellectual movements such as Ismailiyah.