Jalal Peykani

Discussing the scope of religious experience has been one of the most important topics since the eighteenth century, and from that period until now, thinkers in various fields of study such as philosophy of religion, modern theology, theology and psychology of religion and... Has drawn various opinions in these periods about its nature and nature, the scope of its studies, its function in human life and the essence of religion or its truth or falsity. Among other things, the phenomenologists and philosophers of religion have drawn dimensions and characteristics for religion, one of which is the empirical dimension of religion. Moral, legal, and ideological precepts may contribute to the emergence of certain emotions, such as astonishment, fear, and humility, and give rise to a wonderful and exhilarating experience, such as the presence of God or the transcendent, or the glorification of mystical beings and mystical and inner experiences. Become another, to be "quite distinct" from external experiences. Because people in many different religious traditions claim to experience God, Nirvana, or Brahman, and feel that such experiences give meaning and direction to their lives. It can be acknowledged that religious experience is one of the most important issues in the psychology of religion and the philosophy of religion. In the thought of constructivists such as Pradfoot and Katz, who mostly emphasize the explanation of religious experience in its mystical dimension, they believe that the nature of religious experience is influenced by the network of beliefs and mental concepts of the subject and there are no empty experiences of beliefs and concepts. On the other hand, in Phillips's approach, religious claims, although they do not have a cognitive and narrative aspect, but to explain the statements, one can look at their application in one's social life; In other words, in order to understand religious claims, we must know the areas of life forms and pay attention to the rules of the game of religion, which is a correct belief related to a person's way of life. In the present study, while examining the methodology of these views, we try to explain and examine the views of Katz and Phillips on religious experience.

As we know, one of the most important theories concerning the relation between religion and Morality belongs to Immanuel Kant. In this paper, after presenting some of the outstanding ideas on the relation between religion and morality, we introduce Kant’s theory. In first stage, his distinction between revealed religion and historical religion and his interpretation of religion makes it difficult to find his own creative view. Finally it will be known that the relation between Kantian morality and revealed religion is a non-historical one; they are two distinguished things and have no same origin. But through rational interpretation of revealed religion they could be compatible. But if his morality examined by the religion of they would be dual, each one has a separate origin and finally, the religion of practical reason would be depended on morality. In kants opus postumum, God is the same as practical reason and moral perfection and real happiness which is the prefect manifestation of practical reason in phenomenal realm, could be achieved in the moral commonwealth society.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is unsecular and follows religious interpretations from Shia Islam in deciding the laws of the land. In recent decades, the strengthening of civil society in the country has shaped various political debates on human rights among secular intellectuals and reflected in the discourse of some religious figures as well. While the regime has officially adopted the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) since 1990, different views on the Islamic human rights and its social implications still exist among the conservative and reformist Shia clergy within the country. This paper examines the view of an influential conservative pro-regime clergy, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who has been concerned about the Western interpretation of human rights and engaged in its theorization based on his interpretation of Shia Islam. He has criticized the theoretical and philosophical foundations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and its each single item and has also proposed his own version of the Islamic Declaration of Human Rights and Obligations. While Islamic fundamentalists have no concrete theoretical support for their negative view of the Western conceptions regarding human rights, Mesbah Yazdi’s approach is based on a reading of Shia theology and Sadraean ontology. He engages in a dialogue with the Western ideologies and rejects UDHR after philosophical and theological reasoning. His stance can be viewed as a reflection of the unsecular political Shia Islam as the main characteristic of the conservative faction within the Islamic Republic of Iran which results in serious policy and social implications on the rights of the people living in the country.

During the history of philosophy, morals and beauty, and finding a diagnostic criterion for them, was a very important problem for philosophers. Most of the philosophers maintained that such criterion rooted in reason, but Hume presented a noble idea and said that moral sense based on feeling and sentiment. Everything which through its utility or beauty, leads to pleaser is virtuous. Sometimes directly and sometimes through the beauty and appearing beautiful, the utility leads to pleaser. Also, according to Hume, beauty is a subjective thing measured by the criterion of the pleaser. Thus, pleaser and pain are the criteria of taste and sentiment to the diagnosis of virtue and vice, as well as, the beauty and value of art. In this paper, after comparing and monitoring morals and beauty from four aspects, through brief surveying of certain commentators of Hume, we attempt to explain the relationship between beauty, utility, and pleaser. Finally, we assert that the beauty is very important components in Hume’s explain of Morals, but at the same time aesthetics has no superiority to morals; and thus, we defend the originality of morals to aesthetics.

Contemporary ethics and moral philosophy need a kind of revision due to their negligence in human moral capacities, ordinary life, and humans’ expectations of ethics. The assumptions and presuppositions of ethics result in their current unsatisfactory status. In this paper, we first explore and criticize those presuppositions. Then, instead of introducing ideal presuppositions of ethics, we introduce folk ethics and its components in order to show that contemporary ethics and moral philosophy should always begin with folk ethics. The most important advantage of folk ethics is its realistic foundation, which in turn will produce better results.

According to Plantinga’s reformed epistemology, as perceptual beliefs, religious beliefs are properly basic, and therefore need no additional justification. But as it has been said frequently, this idea may lead to relativism. In this paper, first, we argue that not only its relativistic aspect allows for religious extremism, but also it could be used to justify that kind of extremism. Then, reciting some historical testimonies, including John Calvin, Khawarij, Ibn Taymiyye and Seyyed Qutb, we suggest that in principle, for many centuries extremists have derived a benefit from an idea similar to reformed epistemology to justify committing violence and other unacceptable behaviors.

Both the positivist and negativist frameworks of explanation are common in this naturalist proposition that unlike the metaphysical philosophy, reality is embedded only in experimental level. Therefore, the scientific explanation of natural and social phenomenon should refer to this experimental level in order to be called meaningful, verifiable and scientific. But, the problem was always that the principle of causality as a necessary condition for every kind of scientific explanation is not logically deductible from induction in experimental level and remains as a metaphysical principle. The principle of experimental objectivity as a condition for the verifiability clause of scientific explanations could not be defended, because the experimentation was always embedded in subjectivity and theory. The Kantian idealists, in contrast, considering the scientific explanation as a mere representation of reality in subjective categories, could not justify the experimental knowledge of reality and the rationality for comparison among theories and paradigms. Critical Realism as an important approach in philosophy of science that relates to the works and thoughts of Roy Bhaskar tries to solve these problems by resorting to its principles of ontological realism, epistemological relativism, and judgmental rationality. Considering and analyzing the scientific explanation’s issues, we have focused here on the answers of the Critical Realism in this case. We will argue that how the Critical Realist interpretation of scientific explanation, the experimental phenomenon, and the subjective construction and ontological reality all reach to a logical coherence with each other.

In this paper, first we attempt to explain the concept of paternalism from the standpoint of political philosophy. Then, restricting debate to epistemology, we will show that paternalism is based on an epistemic claim. Also, we will distinguish certain kind of paternalism as epistemic paternalism, and then will study the manners of actualization and justification of this kind of paternalism. Finally, the view is defend that the epistemic paternalism because of its valuable epistemic consequences will be legitimate if it construct on some certain criterions without postulating epistemic superiority of some people, and if it is accomplished by experts. In this paper, first we attempt to explain the concept of paternalism from the standpoint of political philosophy. Then, restricting debate to epistemology, we will show that paternalism is based on an epistemic claim. Also, we will distinguish certain kind of paternalism as epistemic paternalism, and then will study the manners of actualization and justification of this kind of paternalism. Finally, the view is defend that the epistemic paternalism because of its valuable epistemic consequences will be legitimate if it construct on some certain criterions without postulating epistemic superiority of some people, and if it is accomplished by experts. In this paper, first we attempt to explain the concept of paternalism from the standpoint of political philosophy. Then, restricting debate to epistemology, we will show that paternalism is based on an epistemic claim. Also, we will distinguish certain kind of paternalism as epistemic paternalism, and then will study the manners of actualization and justification of this kind of paternalism. Finally, the view is defend that the epistemic paternalism because of its valuable epistemic consequences will be legitimate if it construct on some certain criterions without postulating epistemic superiority of some people, and if it is accomplished by experts.