|
Abstract: Philosophical foundations of the Bahá’í teachings, including ontology, theology, epistemology, philosophical anthropology and psychology, and personal and social ethics. Notes: Presented at the Irfan Colloquia Session #86, Louhelen Bahá'í School, Michigan (October 9-12, 2008). Mirrored with permission from irfancolloquia.org/86/kluge_philosophical. See also a collection of quotations from Some Answered Questions extracted from this article, using the revised 2014 SAQ edition. |
Some Answered Questions:
A Philosophical Perspective
by Ian Kluge
published in Lights of Irfan, Volume 10, pages 149-274Wilmette, IL: Irfan Colloquia, 2009
Abstract:
By identifying and examining the philosophical positions explicitly and implicitly embedded in Some Answered Questions, this paper calls attention to the philosophical foundations of the Bahá’í teachings. The goal is to understand these teachings philosophically, as distinct from understanding them historically or theologically for example. The areas covered are ontology, onto-theology, epistemology, philosophical anthropology and psychology, and personal and social ethics. This paper also identifies those philosophical views with which the positions taken in Some Answered Questions have the greatest natural affinity.
| Contents: | |
|
Introduction Part I: Ontology 1. SAQ’s Ontology: Some Basic Principles 2. Ontological Realism 3. Ontological Pluralism 4. Distinctions of Being and Power 5. Ontological Hierarchism 6. Hierarchy After Death 7. Kinds and their Perfections 8. A Dynamic Ontology 9. A Nested Hierarchy 10. Panentheism 11. Ontology: Causality 11a Four-Fold Causality 11b Consequences of Four-Fold Causality 12. Teleology 13. Intelligent Design 14. Hylomorphism 15. An Application of Four-Fold Causality 16. Platonic Trends in SAQ 17. The Reality of Universals 18. Reflection and Participation 19. Existence and Nonexistence 20. The Structure of Beings 21. Essence and Existence 22. God — an Epistemological Preview 23. The Existence of God: Argument from Contingency 24. The Ontological Argument 25. The Argument from Design 26. The Argument from Change 27. The Perfection of Creation 28. A Process Ontology Part II: Onto-Theology 29. The Ontological Attributes of God 30. Emanationism |
31. The Manifestations 32. The Manifestation as World-Soul 33. Three Comments 34. The Manifestations’ Superior Knowledge Part III: Epistemology 35. Realism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth 36. Rejection of Nominalism and Conceptualism 37. Sources of Knowledge 38. A Reflection on `Abdu’l-Bahá’s Statements 39. The Question of Certainty: Scylla & Charybdis 40. Moderate Rationalism 41. Knowledge of Essences 42. Objective, Subjective Knowledge 43. Knowledge of God 44. God’s Knowledge 45. Mind 46. Mind is Not Brain 47. Brain and Mind — A Formal Connection 48. Infallibility Part IV: Philosophical Anthropology 49. Human Nature 50. The Soul and Immortality 51. The Rational Soul 52. Humankind’s Dual Nature 53. Inherent Struggle Between Higher, Lower Natures 54. The Purpose of Earthly Existence 55. Innate, Inherited and Acquired Character 56. Free Will 57. Ethics 58. Virtue Ethics 59. Progress 60. Human Evolution 61. SAQ and Science Conclusion |
If PDF does not display below, click here to download.
|
|
