Abstrak: Di dalam filsafat teoretis Kant, status Tuhan bukan lagi transenden tetapi transendental. Perubahan status Tuhan menjadi transendental memiliki dampak ganda. Di satu sisi, Kant memberikan pendasaran rasionalitas konsep Tuhan. Akan tetapi di sisi lain, Kant menghindari penegasan terhadap eksistensi Tuhan. Menurut Kant, konsep Tuhan adalah sebuah ide regulatif. Ide regulatif tidak memiliki referensi di luar pikiran manusia. Kant hanya menegaskan urgensi logis konsep Tuhan bagi kesatuan pengetahuan. Akan tetapi, urgensi logis tidak cukup memadai sebagai argumen pembuktian eksistensi Tuhan. Kant (...) memisahkan antara keternalaran dan ada. Pemisahan ini terlihat jelas di dalam kritik Kant terhadap pembuktian ontologis. Menurut penulis, profil filsafat transendental menjadi transparan di dalam kritik Kant terhadap pembuktian ontologis. Pengadopsian secara parsial paham dasar rasionalisme dan empirisme melatarbelakangi filsafat transendental dan memicu pemisahan antara keternalaran dan ada yang tampak jelas di dalam kritik Kant terhadap pembuktian ontologis. Kata-kata Kunci: Konsep, transendental, keternalaran, ada, ide regulatif, pembuktian ontologis. Abstract: In Kant’s theoretical philosophy, the status of God is not transcendent anymore, but transcendental. The transcendental status of God has a double impact. On the one hand, the concept of God is conceivable. But on the other hand, Kant avoids the affirmation of the existence of God. The conceivability of God is not an argument for God’s existence because the concept of God is a regulative idea. A regulative idea has no reference outside the mind. Kant only affirms the logical necessity of the concept of God. However, the logical necessity is not an adequate argument for the existence of God. Kant separates between conceivability and being. The separation is obvious in his critique toward the ontological argument. In my opinion, the profile of the transcendental philosophy is transparent in Kant’s critique toward the ontological argument. The partial adoption of empirical and rational principles works behind the transcendental philosophy and leads to the separation between conceivability and being, which is visible in the Kant’s critique toward the ontological argument. Keywords: Concept, transcendental, conceivability, being, regulative idea, ontological argument. (shrink)

This paper critiques the standard translation of ariya-sacca as ‘Noble Truth’ and argues that the term refers to four saccas as ‘true realities’, rather than as verbalised ‘truths’ about these realities; the teachings about them are not, as such what the term ariya-sacca refers to. Moreover, only one of the ariya-saccas is itself ever described in the suttas as ‘noble’. The four are ‘true realities for the spiritually ennobled’: the fundamental, basic, most significant genuine realities that the (...) Buddha and other noble ones see in the flow of experience of themselves and/or others. The first of them is not best translated as ‘suffering’ but as ‘pain’ – in all its many senses – or indeed ‘the painful’: the up?d?na-kkhandhas as ‘bundles of grasping-fuel’ which are described, adjectivally, as ‘painful’. The paper includes a new translation of the Dhamma-cakka-ppavattana Sutta in line with this analysis. (shrink)

On modern philosophy, with reference to the ideology of Sir Muhammad Iqbal, 1877-1938.

On modern philosophy, with reference to the ideology of Sir Muhammad Iqbal, 1877-1938.

On the life, philosophy and thought of Avicenna, 980-1037, a Muslim scientist.

On the life, philosophy and theology of Averroës, 1126-1198, Arab philospher.

The subject of human acts has been one of the controversial topics of kalām since the first centuries of Islam. A lot of concerning human acts –from divine attributes to divine decree and destiny, from the issue of good and evil (ḥusn and Qubḥ) to the boundaries of the reasoning, from the accountability with impossible things to the rational accountability, from the topics of substance and accident to causality- has been said and written in the history of Islamic tought. In (...) this study, the subject was discussed especially within the scope of man’s on his own action in connection with the divine knowledge, will, and power. On this issue, the Muʻtazila argues that human beings are independent in doing their good and evil acts with the power that God has given to them because of His will and wisdom, and that the evil actions that they have done cannot be associated with the divine attributes in any way. Sunnī theologians assert that God creates human actions through man’s orginated power. They also arguethat evil acts are not independent of the Divine Creation although human beings are the reason of evil in terms of thier acquisition (kasb) and will (irāda). Nevertheless, the representetives of the Sunnī kalām (Asharites and Māturīdis) differ on their account of acquisition, which expresses man’s agency in his acts. In contrary to the Mātūrīdiya, the Ashʻariya holds that acquisition is a created act of God. On the other hand, the Mashshai (peripatetic) philosophers, who are opposed by teologians on some issues such as divine attributes and the working of activity/acts in nature, consider human’s actions part of the eternal chain of cause-effect that emanate (al fayḍ) from the First Principle. However, according to them, every link of this chain is formed by the divine providence (al-ināyah). They also attribute morally evil acts not to the First Principle which is complete (tām) and full good (hayr), but to agents in the cause-effect chain. In summary, according to both teologians and philosophers, the ultimate source of human acts is the divine will and power. The acts that are morally or religiously evil, are not independent of man’s will. Thus, human beings are accountable for their actions. Philosophers and teologians, who agree on these issues, have explained their views and build their opinions on different concepts and principles. They have shown a very different attitude in their discourse and secondary principles, while all of them basically try to express the same idea. This difference has revealed within the frame of the following questions: Is man’s accountability for his actions because of his created power or will? Can evil actions, which are willed by human beings and therefore created by God, attributed to Him? Does the fact that the world emanates from God, the First Principle, due to His knowledge and essence, necessitate Him to be a willless and ineffective agent, and therefore to be a cause cause that has no effect on man's actions?Although teologians and philosophers have put forward different views in the context of the answers to these questions, they agree on the issues we have mentioned above. As this study shows, there is actually a common purpose in this subject, man’s actions, which causes deep divisions between theologians and philosophers in Islamic history. Primary sources of the study are the basic texts of the schools mentioned above. Additionally, the study were limited to the subject the effect of human on acts. It consists of two parts: the main part and the conclusion part. In the main section, the approaches of schools were examined from two aspects, in in terms of divine attribute and human effectiveness, and in the conclusion section, the common purposes behind the discussions were determined. (shrink)

All Buddhists go to the Buddha, Dhamma and Sa?gha as the ‘three refuges’, but who exactly are the ‘the eight types of persons’ that are referred to in the standard passage on the nature and qualities of the third refuge? Four of these persons are clearly the stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner, and Arahat, but who are the others, especially the lowest of them, the one practising for the realization of the stream-entry-fruit? This article aims to develop greater clarity on these eight (...) persons and their relationship to each other, and especially to focus on the first, who comes in the forms of the faith-follower and Dhamma-follower. It aims to get at the original meaning of such terms, and trace how these changed. In particular, it questions the appropriateness of the developed Pali tradition’s mapping of him/her as existing only for one moment, immediately prior to stream-entry, and seeks to gauge, from the suttas, at what point in a person’s practice they become such a person, and hence a member of the s?vaka-Sa?gha. In the process, the practices of the person practising for stream-entry are explored and the sutta meaning of terms such as ariya, ariya-s?vaka, sekha and sappurisa are also examined. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Contrasting Images of the BuddhaTaitetsu UnnoAll the Christian writers express a deep and sympathetic appreciation for the historical Sakyamuni Buddha, demonstrating some of the positive fruits of interreligious dialogue. But—speaking as a practicing Buddhist—their views appear to be focused on the human face of the Buddha and scant attention is paid to what might be called the numinous. It is this dimension of his enlightenment experience that constitutes his (...) very being and the reason for his appeal far beyond the borders of India. This sense of the sacred, the transhistorical, inspired the great civilizations of Asia and today attracts worldwide attention to the Buddhist path of liberation and freedom.Terry Muck makes an ironic allusion to the respective lives of the Buddha and of the Christ. He states that “Official Christian dogma teaches that Jesus was divine, a part of the Trinity, three gods in one: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Buddhist teachings dogmatize a different understanding of the Buddha—that he was human through and through,” but a reversal occurs in later history: “The popular Buddhist [End Page 133] approach to the Buddha tends to produce a ‘godlike’ Buddha in a religious tradition that insists on his humanity, and the popular Christian approach to Jesus tends to produce a very human Jesus in a religious tradition that insists on Jesus’ divinity. It is almost as if the populace has decided to emphasize what the buddhologians and theologians have decreed secondary. The evidence for this reversal is everywhere” (Muck, p. 107).This may be a valid observation, but the truth of the matter might not be so simple. That is, both religious figures may combine the practical and the spiritual in different, complex ways and, depending on the historical lens, a person may see one aspect and not the other. At any rate, in this paper I wish to note that Sakyamuni Buddha is more than simply “human, through and through.”Rudolph Otto was the first to use “numinous” as a religious category to describe Christian and Hindu experience, but it also can be applied to the Buddhist case. This is so if we subscribe to one of its basic characteristics: the quality of the inexpressible—“in the sense that it completely eludes apprehension in terms of concepts.” 1 In Buddhist literature we have an abundance of words suggesting this fact: the unconditioned, formless, ineffable, inconceivable, unthinkable, unattainable, indefinable, immeasurable, and so on.In order to understand the numinous fully, Otto writes that a person “must be guided and led on by consideration and discussion of the matter through the ways of his own mind, until he reaches the point at which ‘the numinous’ in him perforce begins to stir, to start into life and into consciousness.” 2 He continues: “The arising of the numinous from beyond discursive consciousness is central to the Buddha’s enlightenment experience. This point has been overlooked and has caused misunderstanding, as noted by John Ross Carter: ‘One is told repeatedly that one has to work out one’s own salvation—this is treated as a corollary to there being no savior or savior god. This has been pounded into the English-reading audience to such an extent that one has failed to discern what Theravada Buddhism has long known—one does not work out one’s own salvation or liberation or release.’” 3In the Theravada classic, Visudhimagga, the ultimate awakening does not result from human calculation. According to Mahinda Palihawadana, it comes from the “arising of magga.” Magga is the “path” in the eightfold scheme (ariya attahangika magga), but it has a further connotation: “the moment of spiritual change as well as the event and the content of the mind at the moment.” 4 He sums up this process by enumerating the fourfold goal of Theravada life. The first three are well known—sila, samadhi, and lokiya panna. There is also the fourth, which is crucial but often overlooked: supramundane or lokuttara panna. The first three are preliminaries to the fourth realization: “Personal effort is only the ‘setting’ for the realization of the highest religious truth, that the highest realization can take place only when effort ceases to be... (shrink)