Research Paper
seyed mostafa shahraeini; Maziyar Raissi
Abstract
Introduction
Jansenism was a theological sect reviving two important Augustinan doctrines: the corruption of all of human cognitive and volitional capacities due to the Original Sin, and recognizing God’s grace as its one and only redeemer with no role for human deeds, which was a kind of thoroughgoing ...
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Introduction
Jansenism was a theological sect reviving two important Augustinan doctrines: the corruption of all of human cognitive and volitional capacities due to the Original Sin, and recognizing God’s grace as its one and only redeemer with no role for human deeds, which was a kind of thoroughgoing determinism. Blaise Pascal who was completely adhere to this specific theological background, tried to use his ingenuity in order to write an apological work in defense of this interpretation of Christianity in a posthumously published book called “Pensées”. In an important and famous fragment of the work, known as “The Wager”, Pascal asks his readers things that seem to require free will, for example, he wants them to gamble in favor of the existence of God, to weaken their passions and to act and live as if God exists. The same difficulty, of course, may be raised against the very act of writing an apology itself. It made so many researchers believe that this fragment entails a kind of argument in favor of the existence of God that we may call it, “The Wager Argument”. But if we bear in mind the theological background of Pascal, we will find that although we can definitely have a separate “Wager argument”, but “Pascal’s Wager” is not the case and cannot be. Hence, in order to distinguish “Pascal’s Wager” from “the Wager Argument”, we should reread the former Wager” in its own theological context.
Methodology
Our methodology involves not just an abstract and conceptual analysis of the subject-matter but also entails a careful and precise rereading of the “Pascal’s Wager” in the original text with its relation to the other fragments of the “Pensées”. Again, we bear the Augustine and Jansen’s theological doctrines in mind, which are the key to the best way of grasping appropriate knowledge of what “Pascal’s Wager” means in its context.
Findings
By studying the fragment which in known as “The Wager”, in the same manner as done by other researchers, what we find is nothing but a series of inner inconsistencies and contradictions. The fragment persuades us, by using our free will, to gamble in favor of the existence of God whereas at the same time faith is only through God’s grace achieved and is not up to us at all. The fragment asks us to weaken our passions but we cannot do so because we lack the proper control over our passions and desires even if we wanted to do. It, having presupposed our free will, advises us to take a religious way of life and act as if we believe in God but this presupposition of our agency over life and actions is not justifiable with regard to the Pascal’s theological devotions. These inconsistencies and contradictions can even get more clear when we consider that the very act of writing apologetic work by Pascal in order to defend the religious faith and persuade people to initiate into the religious community, contradicts with total determinism with regard to the religious faith only because of the divine grace. If Pascal is going to defend an Augustinian-Jansenistian version of Christian faith, then he cannot invoke the free will in his account, a Jesuit approach to the faith to which Pascal definitely opposes. However, by scrutinizing the Wager fragment, we will find that a few prefaces precede it one of which deals with the way our cognitive faculty works that leads us to our principal cognitive faculty i.e. “the Heart”. Pascal uses this principal faculty in all three sides of cognitive, volitional and affective areas with special emphasis on its dual function, to say, the heart is in a continuous oscillation between the two extremities of the spectrum, e.g. determination and freewill. The heart cannot find a fixed point or side with one of the extremities (e.g. freedom/determinism or, certainty/skepticism) and otherwise if it could, we should call it “reason” not “heart”. The dual function of heart demands the same continuous oscillation; the feature of humankind which implies lack of unity which can be counted as a punishment of the Original Sin. Pascal used this faculty deliberately to point out the human dual character its best explanation of which he believed is the Augustinian-Jansenistian account of Christianity.
Conclusion
“Pascal’s Wager”, in contrast to “The Wager Argument”, is not a call for free choice in favor of the existence of God and Pascal’s Augustinian-Jansenistian theological background doesn’t allow it either. Apparent inconsistencies and contradictions in “Pascal’s Wager” are completely and deliberately used by Pascal with his reference to faculty of “Heart” in connection with its dual function.
Research Paper
malek shojaei
Abstract
1-Introduction
Hans Diebreder "Bibliography of Islamic Philosophy" deals with the historiography of Islamic philosophy, from the time of publication of the first work by De Boer until our time. He has analyzed the assumptions of Orientalists in the historiography of Islamic philosophy and outlined the ...
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1-Introduction
Hans Diebreder "Bibliography of Islamic Philosophy" deals with the historiography of Islamic philosophy, from the time of publication of the first work by De Boer until our time. He has analyzed the assumptions of Orientalists in the historiography of Islamic philosophy and outlined the history of Orientalist writings about Islamic philosophy and expressed its strengths and weaknesses. Daiber considers the most important features of the Orientalist approach (such as De Boer, Goldziher, Max Horton, etc.) in the historiography of Islamic philosophy to be neglecting the interaction of philosophy with Islamic words, emphasizing Platonic elements over Aristotelian elements, and paying little attention to the religious context. Islamic philosophy and exaggeration about the role of ethnic (Semitic) elements in the development of Islamic philosophy. Sharif, Nasr, Mehdi Khan, Tawfiq Ebrahim and others) believes that these works are more descriptive than critical and historical and in those historical-comparative studies about the Greek background of Islamic philosophy are generally ignored and exaggerated emphasis is placed on the originality of Islamic philosophy. considers it to be the reaction of Muslim scholars to the European-centered historiographical approach to Islamic philosophy. (ibid., xxviii).
2-Materials & Methods
Dr. Davari's reading of Islamic philosophy and its position in contemporary history and culture, whose main paradigm is the modern and Europe-centered discourse, while paying attention to the status and nature of contemporary Western philosophy and culture, tries to explore the possibilities of Islamic philosophy in dialogue with issues and Think about contemporary culture. This attention to Islamic philosophy has existed in different intellectual periods of Dr. Davari, including in books such as Farabi, the founder of Islamic philosophy (1354, first edition) and Maqam of philosophy in the period of Islamic Iranian history (1st edition, 1356) and later in our book and the history of philosophy Islamic (1389). According to Dr. Davari's analysis in his book "Ma and the History of Islamic Philosophy" (2009).
3-Discussion & Result
The survey of Islamic philosophy was directed to the sky rather than to the earth. He quoted Cicero as saying that Socrates brought philosophy from heaven to earth, and that Socrates has two talents: one earthly and the other heavenward. The first talent realized the modernity system and the second talent achieved the return to the sky (p. 25). Philosophy in the west of the Islamic world took the first path with Ibn Rushd, and Asan was placed on the path of Spinoza, Hume and Kant, and the second talent was actualized in the east of the Islamic world, especially in Iran. But now that modernity has fallen into disrepair in its own land and experts are talking about the weakness of its principles, the modernists have taken modernity and its philosophy as their goal and blame the philosophies that did not lead to it. This criticism is caused by an abstract understanding of the wisdom of the Enlightenment period and the desire to achieve it. Every fruit on a tree and every tree has its roots in the land that provides the conditions for planting and harvesting that tree. Philosophy cannot be cut and separated from its own world and it can be taken anywhere and kept fresh there. New philosophy is from that world of modernity and Christian and Islamic philosophy is from that world of Christianity and Islam.The type of metaphilosophy (METAPHILOSOPHY) and the perception we have about "philosophy of philosophy" are decisive in the reading we present of the position of Islamic philosophy in the contemporary world. In Dr. Davari's metaphilosophy, philosophy is not a set of correct rules about the inherent symptoms of existence, but rather a historical thinking. If the philosophers of the Islamic world had interfered in philosophy due to considerations, their philosophy would not have balance, proportion, and order, and it would not find durability and historical validity, but it would be an incoherent set of discussions and issues, which, because it did not have a solid foundation, would be carried away by the smallest wind of opposition. Therefore, the work of philosophy in the Islamic world did not end with the transfer and translation of the works of the predecessor philosophers, but this historical approach to Greek thought with a new interpretation that started from the beginning led to the emergence of another form of philosophy. The philosophers of the Islamic world considered the problems of Greek philosophy with They interpreted new principles and established a philosophy that, like any other form of philosophy, was an absolute and universal philosophy in the eyes of its owners. The division of philosophy according to the Greek, Middle Ages, Islamic and New eras has been done in the new era. In addition to this division, the thousand-year-old philosophy of the Islamic world can be called the Islamic-Iranian philosophy. Islamic philosophy, like the Greek philosophy, which considered the consistency of the just (human) Medina, thought about the place of man and his life in a divine but rational system.
4-Conclusion
The philosophers of the Islamic world learned from the Greeks the concepts of existence, nature, cause, causality, step, essence, width, change, movement, stillness, civil system, and moral virtues from the Greeks, and to some opinions and thoughts of Alexandrians and in general The debates that took place in the history of philosophy in the five hundred years after Plotinus were more or less accessible. The result of his discussion is that, firstly: Greek philosophy observes the perfection of human existence in Medina and guides the education of the people of Medina. Second: Islamic philosophy. It did not emerge by manipulating the opinions of Plato, Aristotle and the Neo-Platonists, but it is the first great and important intersection between two cultures and philosophies that are connected with the spirit of the Iranian-Islamic world. and it has been with this talent and desire that he has tried and worked hard with philosophy in the field of religious thinking. Fourth: Philosophers of the Islamic world interpreted Greek philosophy with regard to the horizon that was opened with Islam, and of course, in this interpretation, they did not ignore the wisdom of their ancestors in Iran before Islam. Ibn Sina spoke of Eastern wisdom, and Suhravardi considered the essence of his philosophy to have been learned from Khosravani's wisdom, and finally, he was involved in the consistency of philosophy of the Islamic period of ancient Iran, Sufism and mysticism from the beginning, and this involvement and presence gradually reached its peak in Mulla Sadra and his followers. If it is possible to stand somewhere in the current history of the world and have a dialogue with the philosophers of the past, those philosophers no longer belong to the past but are contemporary. The difference between philosophies and science is that science depends on its history in any case. Ptolemy has known history and the world, and for this reason his book is no longer taught, but Plato can be a contemporary philosopher. This ruling is also true for Farabi, Suhrawardi, Ibn Sina, and Mulla Sadra. If we read and memorize the texts of these philosophers and teach them to others, they will repeat the learned words and expressions. It is obvious that the text belongs to the past, but if, as Leo Strauss said, we read the hieroglyphics or, to be more precise, the gaps between the statements and the contents between the lines, and by reading them we reflect on the text, that text comes alive in time and speaks to its reader. All philosophers have unsaid and unwritten things. The task of the successor philosopher is to search for the unsaid of the predecessor. In Islamic philosophy, how should one search for the unsaid when a philosophy has traveled a thousand-year path, what path has it not taken and which words are left unsaid?
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