Hussein Niazbakhsh; Asghar Vaezi
Abstract
The connection between ethics and metaphysics has always been an important problem in Neoplatonism. This question is also raised in the philosophy of Ibn Gabirol (the Jewish Neo-Platonist philosopher). Ibn Gabirol tries to connect ethics and metaphysics by the concept of ‘desire’. For him, ...
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The connection between ethics and metaphysics has always been an important problem in Neoplatonism. This question is also raised in the philosophy of Ibn Gabirol (the Jewish Neo-Platonist philosopher). Ibn Gabirol tries to connect ethics and metaphysics by the concept of ‘desire’. For him, the world consists of two movements: procession and reversion, i.e. the transformation of unity into multiplicity and the return of multiplicity into unity. Desire is both the cause of procession and the cause of reversion. “Human being” is the level from which the reversion begins. For this reason, he must turn “descending desire” (procession) into “ascending desire” (reversion). It is ethics that helps an individual, in his movement towards happiness, to make the ascending desire dominate the descending desire, that is, the ‘the pure indeterminate’ or ‘First unity’. But how can ethics do it? Ethics leads man towards his ascending desire through adjusting the natural dispositions. Man, because of his animal soul and his descending desire, confuses the determined things for the pure indeterminate as the object of his happiness. This causes the soul to go out of balance and tends to move toward multiple natural dispositions. These natural dispositions themselves cause a person to move further away from happiness. Ethics puts a person on the path of happiness through balancing natural dispositions.
ٍEsamil Ghaedi; asghar vaezi
Volume 18, Issue 3 , January 0, , Pages 109-138
Abstract
This paper studies three contemporary Iranian thinkers’ hermeneutic approaches to the Qur’an and their orientations to modern hermeneutic trends. Allameh Tabataba’i argues that the Qur’an contains several meanings each of which determined by God’s intention. Accordingly, ...
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This paper studies three contemporary Iranian thinkers’ hermeneutic approaches to the Qur’an and their orientations to modern hermeneutic trends. Allameh Tabataba’i argues that the Qur’an contains several meanings each of which determined by God’s intention. Accordingly, Allameh is close to romantic hermeneutics. Soroush argues that the meaning of the Qur’an, like any other text, is independent from the author’s intention, therefore he is consistent with philosophical hermeneutics. Finally, Mojtahed Shabestari, in some of his writings, argues for the original meaning of the Qur’an. Nevertheless, he accepts the possibility of different valid interpretations and borrows some aspects of romantic hermeneutics and some of philosophical hermeneutics.