Quarterly of the History of Philosophy

Volume 44

Outline of Ḥakīm Rajab'alī Tabrīzī's Works and Transition to the Neo-Peripatetic School (An Analytic Introduction to his Writings or Teachings)

Mahmud Hedayatafza

Rajab'alī Tabrīzī became involved in religious wayfaring and purification of the soul after his preliminary studies and, finally, joined the classes of Ḥakīm Mīr Fendereski. Most biographers acknowledge Tabrīzī's inward purification and mastery over physics, logic, and philosophy, and only a few of them, such as the writer of Riyāḍ al-'ulamā and some of his students, have accused him of not having mastery over Arabic literature. Ḥakīm Tabrīzī, who lived about 30 years after Mullā Ṣadrā, was one of the serious critics of Sadrian thought. In doing so, he expanded the Peripatetic literature, reinterpreted some of its principles, and introduced a number of new terminology so that a cradle could be provided for the analysis of new problems within the framework of Neo-Peripateticism. However, he did not try to record all his teachings in writing and spent most of his time on individual wayfaring, teaching intellectual sciences, and training his students. Therefore, some of his knowledgeable students, particularly Pirzādeh, Qawām al-Dīn Rāzī, and Muḥammad Sa'īd Ḥakīm, transcribed his teachings and scientific notes. The treatise of Ithbāt al-wājib, al-Uṣūl al-aṣfīyah, al-M'arīf al-ilāhīyyah, Muṣannafāt-i Qawām al-Din Rāzī, and Sharḥ-i Tawḥīd Ṣadūq by Qāzī S'aīd comprise the most important research sources on Ḥakim Tabrīzī's neo-Peripatetic school of philosophy. The reports of translators and the ideas and theories of some contemporary editors and researchers have also been evaluated in this paper.

Key Terms: Neo-Peripatetic philosophy, class notes of Rajab'alī Tabrīzī, Ithbāt al-wājib,  al-Uṣūl al-aṣfīyah, al-M'arīf al-ilāhīyyah, Muṣannafāt-i Qawām al-Din Rāzī, Sharḥ-i Tawḥīd Ṣadūq

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Analytic Philosophy and the Charge of Anti-Historicity

Mohammad Saeid Abdollahi

Mohammad Ali Abdollahi

According to some philosophers, not heeding historicity is one of the characteristics of analytic philosophy in comparison to other philosophical schools. That is why analytic philosophers are always being accused of ignoring historicity and blamed for this charge. Continental and traditionalist philosophers are unanimous in this regard. However, the question is whether the critics of analytic philosophy can support this accusation with sufficient and convincing arguments, or whether not taking heed of history is a baseless claim rooted in an incorrect perception and insufficient knowledge of this philosophical movement. This paper is intended to explain the critic's claims, arguments, and proofs as to historical ignorance in analytic philosophy, on the one hand, and to describe the attention and accuracy invested in analytic philosophers' view of history of philosophy and their arguments. The authors emphasize that, firstly, one must distinguish between essential, instrumental, and weak types of historicity. Analytic philosophers might reject essential historicity but accept a kind of weak historicity. Secondly, an emphasis on the distinction of the history of philosophical problems from history of philosophy should not be understood in the sense of anti-historicity or equating the past and presence.

Key Terms: analytic philosophy, history of philosophy, continental philosophy,     metaphysics, anti-historicity

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A Historical-Analytic Deliberation over the Logical Meaning and Concomitants of the Principle of Possibility of the Nobler

Seyyed Mohammad Musawy

Seyyed Abbas Hakimzadeh Kherad

Mohammad Reza Gorgin

According to the principle of the possibility of the nobler, which is accepted by all Islamic philosophers, the priority of superior possible over lower possible in the system of making is necessary. Given the existing evidence in the history of the evolution of philosophical thought in the world of Islam, Suhrawardi was the first Islamic philosopher who explained and demonstrated this principle and paid attention to its dimensions and concomitants, although there are some traces of the content of this principle in Aristotle's words. After Suhrawardī, some other philosophers such as Mīr Dāmād and Mullā Ṣadrā in the philosophical school of Isfahan and 'Allamāh Ṭabāṭabā'ī in the contemporary period presented some arguments to prove this principle and referred to several of its consequences. Here, the authors initially report the philosophers' arguments for demonstrating this principle and then discuss its historical development. The noteworthy point of this analysis is that, although the main content of this principle has been correctly phrased and clearly corresponds with other philosophical principles, it cannot be considered a new principle in philosophy. It is, rather, another form of the principle of the commensurability of the cause and effect.

Key Terms: immaterial lights, causality, commensurability, possibility of the nobler, inferior possibility,

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Fārābī and the Question of the Truth of Perception: A Critical Review of Mullā Ṣadrā's View

Ghasem Pourhasan

Ali Piri

One of the most important and accurate problems in Fārābī's epistemological philosophy is the question of perception and its relationship with the soul, reason, and ontological promotion. In sharp contrast to Aristotle, Fārābī challenges the theory of the passivity of the soul in perception, considers the soul to be the creator of perception and, in this way, founds the theory of the soul as an active agent. This theory has influenced the ideas of all the philosophers after him in the field of Islamic philosophy, from Ibn Sīnā to 'Allamāh Ṭabāṭabā'ī. Fārābī connects perception with manifestation and presence, which are mainly discussed in the philosophical schools of Suhrawardī and Mullā Ṣadrā and defends it from the view point of ontology. Some of Fārābī's innovations include acknowledging the creativity of the soul in perception, granting a graded nature to perception and knowledge, paying attention to the emergent and ontological mode of knowledge, understanding the generous and giving nature of knowledge alongside attaching fundamental importance to sense perception, criticizing non-certain types of knowledge and presenting a fundamental view regarding certain knowledge and, finally, introducing perception as a process. Following a comparative approach, the present study examines the problem of perception and its nature in Fārābī's philosophy, while considering the views of other Muslim philosophers, and portrays the significance of his theory of perception.

Key Terms: Fārābī, perception, presence and manifestation, abstraction and gradedness, perception and being, certainty

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Value of Philosophia Prima in Kant and 'Allāmah Ṭabāṭabā'ī

Armin Mansouri

Abbas Yazdani

The present study investigates the scientific value of philosophia prima from the epistemological perspectives of Kant and 'Allāmah Ṭabāṭabā'ī. As a philosopher whose standpoints were under the influence of other sciences and, due to the conditions of his time, he sided with both empiricism and rationalism, Kant tried to solve the conflicts between these two schools relying on apriori synthetic propositions. Finally, he argued that, firstly, knowledge is acquired through sense perception and, secondly, it is limited to phenomena. Hence, he concluded that, while metaphysics cannot be denied, the existence of scientific propositions of philosophia prima are not epistemologically possible. Nevertheless, based on the ideas that, apart from sensible knowledge, pure rational knowledge can also be demonstrated, and that knowledge includes not only phenomenon but also essence, 'Allāmah Ṭabāṭabā'ī believed that philosophia prima enjoys epistemological value in terms of its demonstrative method, subject, and problems. He places it on the top of all human sciences and considers all of its propositions and achievement to be certain and scientific.

Key Terms: philosophia prima, epistemology, rational knowledge, experience, Kant, 'Allāmah Ṭabāṭabā'ī

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Ontological Analysis of Different Types of Resurrection and their Relationship with Death in the View of Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī

Fatemeh Kookaram

Abdollah Salavati

Einollah Khademi

Resurrection commonly refers to objective resurrection, the details of which have been explained in divine religions. However, some gnostics such as Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī have presented and elucidated different types of resurrection based on spiritual and subjective interpretations of this concept. He refers to some resurrections which are mostly connected with voluntary death. This study mainly focuses on the question of what the relationships between death and different types of resurrection are. The findings of the investigation indicate that Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī divides resurrection into objective and subjective types and then divides each into two formal and spiritual categories. Later he classifies each formal and spiritual form into minor, middle, and major types and; hence, refers to 12 types of resurrection. In other, words, in his view, resurrection is of various types, most of which are related to voluntary death. He maintains that Man should die a voluntary death in order to witness different forms of resurrection. The findings of this study also show that the death Āmulī discusses leads to Man's continuity; frees them from the limits of this-worldly life; expands their worldview; opens new horizons before them, and grants depth to their life, their selves, and their insight. A human being who does not seek a voluntary death and lives a worldly life is, in a sense, a dwarf or insignificant person.

Key Terms: Resurrection, types of resurrection, ontological analysis, voluntary death, Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī

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An Evaluation of Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī's Criticisms of Ibn Sīnā's Argument Regarding the Finitude of Dimensions

Mahmud Seidy

The finitude of dimensions is one of the oldest problems of natural philosophy, the consequences of which have entered the realm of divine philosophy. The question is whether the dimensions of the world and each natural body is finite and limited or infinite and limitless. Aristotle was the first philosopher who studied this problem in the history of philosophy and ruled out the infinity of the dimensions of bodies and the natural world. In the same view, Ibn Sīnā maintained that the dimensions of body are finite and presented the three-fold arguments of correspondence, parallelism, and hierarchy in order to demonstrate this theory. Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī, who is the most important critic of Ibn Sīnā in the history of philosophy, advanced some criticisms against this theory of Ibn Sīnā. This study proves that most of Fakhr al-Rāzī's misconceptions in this regard originate in mixing the mind with the outside and the principles of the nine-fold categories with the category of quantity.

Key Terms: Finitude, infinitude, Dimensions, Ibn Sīnā, Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī