“Windows To Spirituality”
Muslim Philosophy Muslim philosophy or Islamic philosophy is a development in philosophy that is characterised by coming from an Islamic tradition. Two terms traditionally used in the Islamic world are sometimes translated as philosophy—falsafa (literally: “philosophy”), which refers to philosophy as well as logic, mathematics, and physics; and Kalam (literally “speech”), which refers to a rationalist form of Islamic theology. Philosophy...
The Socratic Problem In studying Socrates as an educator, we must first come to grips with the sources of our information about Socrates and their methodological complexities, which are known as the “Socratic problem.” Because we have no writing whatsoever by Socrates himself, we must rely on the extant literature...
Positivism And Rationalism This article covers Positivism and Rationalism. What should be Our Attitude against Positivism and Rationalism? How much Truth is in them? Much has been said on the issue of information sources. Some of the people who have commented on this issue have sometimes been restricted by their...
What Is Positivism? Positivism is a philosophical theory stating that certain (“positive”) knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and relations. Thus, information derived from sensory experience, interpreted through reason and logic, forms the exclusive source of all certain knowledge. Positivism holds that valid knowledge (certitude or truth) is found only...
What Is Intuition? Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different writers give the word “intuition” a great variety of different meanings, ranging from direct access to unconscious knowledge, unconscious cognition, inner sensing, inner insight to unconscious pattern-recognition and the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for...
What Is Rationalism? In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that “regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge” or “any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification”. More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory “in which the criterion of the...
Who Is Immanuel Kant? Immanuel Kant (22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was an influential Prussian German philosopher in the Age of Enlightenment. In his doctrine of transcendental idealism, he argued that space, time, and causation are mere sensibilities; “things-in-themselves” exist, but their nature is unknowable. In his view, the mind shapes and structures experience, with all human...
Speech Speech is human vocal communication using language. Each language uses phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if they are the same word, e.g., “role” or “hotel”), and using those words in...
What Is Kalam? Ilm al-Kalam (عِلْم الكَلام, literally “science of discourse”), usually foreshortened to Kalam and sometimes called “Islamic scholastic theology”, is the study of Islamic doctrine (‘aqa’id). It was born out of the need to establish and defend the tenets of Islamic faith against doubters and detractors. A scholar of Kalam is referred to as...
Who Is Baruch Spinoza? Baruch Spinoza (Benedito de Espinosa, Benedict de Spinoza; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Sephardi origin. One of the early thinkers of the Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism, including modern conceptions of the self and the universe, he came to be considered one...
What Is Scholasticism? Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy that employed a critical method of philosophical analysis presupposed upon a Latin Christian theistic paradigm which dominated teaching in the medieval universities in Europe from about 1100 to 1700. It originated within the Christian monastic schools that were the basis of the earliest European universities. The rise of scholasticism was...
Just War Theory Just war theory (jus bellum justum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics studied by military leaders, theologians, ethicists and policy makers. The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure war is morally justifiable through a series of criteria, all of which must...
Who Is Augustine Of Hippo? Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430 AD) was a Roman African, early Christian theologian and Neoplatonic philosopher from Numidia whose writings influenced the development of the Western Church and Western philosophy, and indirectly all of Western Christianity. He was the bishop of...
Who Is Niccolò Machiavelli? Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was an Italian diplomat, politician, historian, philosopher, writer, playwright and poet of the Renaissance period. He has often been called the father of modern political philosophy and political science. For many years he served as a...
Problem Of Religious Language The problem of religious language considers whether it is possible to talk about God meaningfully if the traditional conceptions of God as being incorporeal, infinite, and timeless, are accepted. Because these traditional conceptions of God make it difficult to describe God, religious language has the potential to be meaningless. Theories...
Who Is Muhammad Iqbal? Sir Muhammad Iqbal (محمد اِقبال; 9 November 1877 – 21 April 1938), widely known as Allama Iqbal, was a poet, philosopher and politician, as well as an academic, barrister and scholar in British India who is widely regarded as having inspired the Pakistan Movement. He is called the “Spiritual Father of Pakistan.” He...
Women In Philosophy Women have engaged in philosophy throughout the field’s history. While there were women philosophers since ancient times, and a relatively small number were accepted as philosophers during the ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary eras, particularly during the 20th and 21st century, almost no woman philosophers have entered...
Philosophy Of Religion Philosophy of religion is “the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions.” These sorts of philosophical discussion are ancient, and can be found in the earliest known manuscripts concerning philosophy. The field is related to many other branches of philosophy, including metaphysics,...
Philosophy Of Science Philosophy of science is a sub-field of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultimate purpose of science. This discipline overlaps with metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, for example, when it explores the relationship between...
What Is Logic? Logic, originally meaning “the word” or “what is spoken“, but coming to mean “thought” or “reason“, is a subject concerned with the most general laws of truth, and is now generally held to consist of the systematic study of the form of valid inference. A valid inference is one where there is...
