Abdolrasoul Kashfi

As science focuses exclusively on the physical, it seems to assume that the brain has a key role in the origin if not also the constitution of our consciousness; and thus the destruction of the brain, the nervous system, and the body makes it pointless or even absurd to think of any personal consciousness after death. But one need not be convinced by this. However, any effort to investigate a possible post-mortem life depends on forming a coherent conception of what such a life could be. Can we speak, without incoherence or contradiction, of a person continuing to exist after death in a disembodied state? Our concern in this study lies here. Based on Lund’s view, we will present and defend an argument that one can conceive of a self who is fully embedded in the natural world and deeply embodied in a physical organism, and yet could have a rich variety of experiences in an afterworld encountered after death. In this theory, the close association of the mental and the physical is due to a causal connection - a connection that fails to establish that the physical brings the mental into existence and is compatible with theories that the source of consciousness is not in the brain.

“Parent analogy” is one of the important arguments that was suggested by Stephen Wykstra, one of the prominent philosopher of Skeptical Theism. By formulating this argument, Wykstra shows that like infant who doesn’t understand reasons of her parent who permit suffering for her, Human being also cannot understand reasons of God who permits suffering. According to this we cannot infer from not seeing the reasons of God to there is no reason for God. Therefore, evidential argument from evil fails. Bruce Russell, William Rowe and Trent Dougherty challenge “parent analogy”. They offer “loving parent analogy” instead. “Loving parent” never leave their child alone in suffering or at least they make clear that there is reason. In their view, if theism is true, it`s expecting that this world be a transparent one and we can understand God`s reasons. In this article we show that parent analogy confront limitations which shows that it can be used neither for Skeptical Theism nor against it. But we show that there are other ways to justify cognitive limitations of human being. For example Alston instead of appeal to parent analogy, offer other analogies and enumerate at least six limitations for human beings. Accordingly, we can say that the claim of cognitive limitation form the view of Skeptical Theism is justified.

Mullā Sadrā interprets “correspondence” in the correspondence theory of truth as the identity of quiddity (ʿayniyyat-e māhūwī) between mental existence (wujūd-i dhihnī) and external existence (wujūd-i khārijī) of a known object. However, this view conflicts with his principle of the primacy of existence (aṣālat al-wujūd), which posits that mental and external existences occupy distinct existential ranks, making identical quiddities impossible. To resolve this, Sadrā proposes the theory of correspondence of existential realms (tatābuq-i ʿawālim-i wujūdī), arguing that the quiddity of external existence is identical to that of mental existence, and their correspondence arises from the identity of their higher and specific existences. This article argues that while Sadrā clearly explains the identity of quiddity, his theory of existential correspondence fails to resolve the inconsistency. For true knowledge of an external object, the mental form must distinguish it from other objects in a conditioned (bi sharṭ-i lā) manner, not merely through indeterminate, unconditioned (lā bi sharṭ) knowledge of its qualities. Thus, knowing an object’s qualities abstractly does not equate to knowing the object itself, as distinguishing it requires specific, conditioned knowledge, undermining Sadrā’s resolution of the conflict between his theories.

Asking from the truth of Cogito as the basis of knowledge, this paper tries to analyze all possible answers in Descartes’ philosophy. Inductively, four possible answers are open to consideration: either Cogito is true 1) based on argumentation, 2) because it is clear and distinct, 3) because of being innate, or, lastly, 4) because of intuition. All of these explanations either entail accepting some prior knowledge to Cogito or fall in a vicious circle. A proper way to explain Cogito’s truth is a new perspective to the meaning of intuition in Descartes’ philosophy. Through this perspective Cogito is a presential experience. Lack of any gap, separation, and disjunction in this presential experience is the reason for the truth of Cogito because this lack is the lack of error’s cause.

What this essay is to discuss is Mullā Ṣadrā and John Hick’s viewpoint about the "nature of the soul". Mullā Ṣadrā considers the real nature of human beings to be "the immaterial soul" based on his own principles in the science of the soul. He explains the nature of the soul with respect to substantial motion that the human being is corporeal in coming into being and the immateriality of the human soul in survival and afterlife. John Hick considers the consciousness as the most basic characteristic of mind, which is identical with the soul. He considers the nature of the soul as “human self” which forms his truth. Most of the viewpoints of both thinkers are similar or close to each other such as belief in the existence of the soul and being two-dimensional, quality of Genesis, substantiality, incorporeity, and corporeality of coming into the soul.

Avicenna has aimed to establisha harmonized philosophical system that incorporates logic, epistemology, metaphysics, natural philosophy, and other types of knowledge. Although he has not directly written anything about the metaphysical foundations of science, we believe that there are some implications in his philosophy that could be considered astruthmakers of scientific propositions. As natural law is significantly correlated to “experiment”, we will first discuss the epistemological aspect of experiments in Avicennian philosophy. He believes that the observation of a repeated event could lead us to a causal relationship due to the fact that accidental events are neither permanent nor frequent. Following that, the logical approach which corresponds to this epistemology will be introduced. As Avicenna’s logic does not directly consider such an approach, we are to derive it from apparently disconnected chapters and then formulate them. It will be indicated that Avicenna has been aware of the differences between propositions that merely refer to existent instances and ones that consider the nature of instances. The latter obviously could refer to both existent instances and hypothetical instances. Finally, we present some points in his metaphysics that could establisha metaphysical basis for propositions concerning natural law. In addition, we will indicate that Avicenna’s system is able to justify the counterfactual conditionals that relate to laws of nature.

Physicalists and dualists have been unable to give a convincing answer to the mind-body problem, because they sacrifice, respectively, the mental causation and the close relationship between mind and body. Consequently, some recent philosophers, like Timothy O’Connor and Jonathan Jacobs, have turned to the idea of strong emergentism considereing the mind as an emergent but physical substance that has independent causal powers. If this answer is defensible, it will be a promising approach to solve the mind-body problem. However, there are significant challenges facing the idea of strong emergentism. In this article, we have two objectives: firstly, to address these challenges and to show that even the most serious one, the Collapse Problem, cannot threaten a particular understanding of strong emergentism. Secondly, we argue that O’Connor and Jacobs’s proposal, although thought-provoking, is not comprehensible and can only be understood clearly when we consider the emergent substance to be not merely physical.

The way God intervenes in the natural world is considered a major and long-standing issue in the realm of theology and philosophy of religion where efforts to resolve it has led to proposing various and, at times, opposing views, spanning from determinism to delegation. By employing a novel criterion to distinguish between various divine actions in the world, the current paper attempts to present and assess Allamah Tabatabaei’s approach as an Islamic determinist philosopher in regard to the topic and seeks to lay the groundwork for offering solutions in both deterministic and indeterministic models by revisiting the causal homogeneity principle in order to find a way out of dominant intellectual impediments. To that end, the paper serves to show that by extending the concept of causal homogeneity within a deterministic framework, one can attest to the direct interference of immaterial entities in the material world, whereas by resting upon the ‘principle of causal necessity’ and a particular attitude towards the principle of homogeneity within an indeterministic framework, one can defend the interference of immaterial causes in order to realize one of the possible probabilities.