Papers by Dr. Javad Taheri
Religions, 2024
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
International Journal of Philosophy and Theology
In the present paper, I investigate the ways in which the grammar of God-talk in David B. Burrell... more In the present paper, I investigate the ways in which the grammar of God-talk in David B. Burrell’s philosophical theology comes to meet Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai’s account of divine names, which has been developed in his theory of religious language. I begin the first part of the paper by introducing Tabatabai’s innovative articulation of the concept of Mental Construct and its relevance to his account of language and meaning. I, then, clarify how he proceeds to elucidate his conception of religious language in terms of what he calls ‘focal meaning’, i.e. his idea of a true sense underlying the application of a word. In the second part of the article, Burrell’s methodology of God-talk is introduced and briefly discussed, before proceeding with interlocutory explanations as well as an examination of Tabatabai’s semantics of divine names. On the basis of Burrellian reading of via analogia, I propose a novel interpretation of the principle of focal meaning. This interpretation is particularly concerned with the most appropriate manner in which we can comprehend the literality of religious language. I conclude by explaining the way in which Burrell’s analysis is useful and elucidating for a contemporary interpretation of Tabatabai’s work.
International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, 2023
In the present paper, I investigate the ways in which the grammar of God-talk in David B. Burrell... more In the present paper, I investigate the ways in which the grammar of God-talk in David B. Burrell’s philosophical theology comes to meet Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai’s account of divine names, which has been developed in his theory of religious language. I begin the first part of the paper by introducing Tabatabai’s innovative articulation of the concept of Mental Construct and its relevance to his account of language and meaning. I, then, clarify how he proceeds to elucidate his conception of religious language in terms of what he calls ‘focal meaning’, i.e. his idea of a true sense underlying the application of a word. In the second part of the article, Burrell’s methodology of God-talk is introduced and briefly discussed, before proceeding with interlocutory explanations as well as an examination of Tabatabai’s semantics of divine names. On the basis of Burrellian reading of via analogia, I propose a novel interpretation of the principle of focal meaning. This interpretation is particularly concerned with the most appropriate manner in which we can comprehend the literality of religious language. I conclude by explaining the way in which Burrell’s analysis is useful and elucidating for a contemporary interpretation of Tabatabai’s work.
Poligrafi, 2022
This paper aimed to present a novel approach to the comparative philosophy of religion which I ca... more This paper aimed to present a novel approach to the comparative philosophy of religion which I call traditions-oriented. It is related to and yet distinct from both comparative philosophy and confessional (tradition-oriented) comparative theology. This paper begins with a reflection on the meaning and employment of ‘comparison’ in the context of philosophical analysis. What follows is an analysis of the nature of the comparative practice conducted under the umbrella concept of the comparative philosophy of religion. After sketching out the developmental trajectory of research through which a traditions-oriented, non-neutral, comparative philosophy of religion can emerge, the articulation and implementation of a global monotheistic philosophy of religion is suggested. Two case-studies from the area of Muslim-Christian comparative reflection are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach developed in this paper.
2According to modern religious studies, religions are rooted in certain metaphorical representati... more 2According to modern religious studies, religions are rooted in certain metaphorical representations, so they are metaphorical in nature. This article aims to show, first, how conceptual metaphors employ image schemas to make our language meaningful, and then to assert that imageschematic structure of religious expressions, by which religious metaphors conceptualize abstract meanings, is the basis of meaningfulness of religious language. Authors benefit from cognitive theories of some eminent semanticists, such as Mark Johnson, Jean Mandler, George Lakoff, et al., on metaphors. There are, as described by cognitive semantics, many preconceptual patterns that constitute a network of meaningful image-schemata upon which our primary knowledge is grounded. It is argued that image-schemata are inherently meaningful, and conceptual metaphors by using these image-schemata transmit the meaningfulness to the religious representations.
The objective of this article is to show that it is justified to assert that the existence of God... more The objective of this article is to show that it is justified to assert that the existence of God is plausible, considering the fact that thinking itself is an immediate outcome (effect) of a thinker (cause). This idea may seem evident, but it is in fact challenged by certain claims of cognitive philosophers who aver that our knowledge of necessity and causation is, in the final analysis, bounded by our naturalness. That is to say, what we understand of necessity and causation is originally based on root-experiences we have had from the early moments of our birth onward or even before our birth. This article tries to display that giving a model for a kind of necessity which is not essentially built upon the naturalness of human experiences can negate the universality of believing in the naturalness of human understanding. With this, one can prove the probability of the existence of a Necessary Being, whose necessity is different from the so-called embodied necessity. However, the Ne...
Edinost in dialog
The so-called »theory of I’tibariat«, as formulated by Muhammad Hussein Tabataba’i, is unpreceden... more The so-called »theory of I’tibariat«, as formulated by Muhammad Hussein Tabataba’i, is unprecedented in the philosophical and theological tradition of Islamic thinking. »I’tibariat«, i.e. »conventions«, are related to what have been necessitated and conventioned by human beings. I’tibariat can differ among different groups of people and usually vary from one culture to another, but at the same time, they have some main common aspects. Allamah asserts that many cultural and religious conceptions have their roots in I’tibariat. He explains how these conventions are being made by people in order to fulfil their spiritual and material necessities. This justifies how cultural and religious categories and concepts are different cross-culturally and inter-religiously. Analyzing religious language as a product of imaginative power of human intellect can testify that religious diversity is a function of the circumstances of lives of human beings. With this explanation, inter-religious dialog...
Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Contemporary Philosophy of Religion
Building upon the fact that the nature of morality can, in some way, be seen as not being derived... more Building upon the fact that the nature of morality can, in some way, be seen as not being derived originally from religion, this paper aimed to reveal the independence of morality from religion. This has been shown by borrowing new insights from cognitive science by which morality can be explained based on the notion of embodiment, i.e. pre-conceptual patterns of our bodily experience. With regard to the results of advances in contemporary studies on cognitive science, it could be asserted that our conceptions of so-called 'root metaphors' creates our primary understandings of what morality comes from. As a result, the idea that morals stem primarily from religion cannot be accepted. This is not to say that one will not be able to find moral statements in the language of religions; but to say that very notion of morality is grounded in human's cognition. Basic metaphors for morality which shape the moral system of western religion are not so many but a few, so this paper had a chance of looking through roughly all of them.
Books by Dr. Javad Taheri
ویتگنشتاین و اختلاف نظر میان دینی Wittgenstein and Interreligious Disagreement, 2022
این کتاب با توجه ویژه به اختلاف بینادینی، تفاسیر جرج لیندبک، دیوید تریسی و دیوید بورل از فلسفه وی... more این کتاب با توجه ویژه به اختلاف بینادینی، تفاسیر جرج لیندبک، دیوید تریسی و دیوید بورل از فلسفه ویتگنشتاین را نقادانه بررسی میکند. اینکه در آثار موجود پیرامون مناسبات بینادینی، ویتگنشتاین به انحاء متفاوت و گاه متناقض تفسیر شده بدان سبب است که پژوهش فلسفی او به نظریه پردازی در باب دین نپرداخته است. گرزد آندریچ، استاد دانشگاه خرونینگن (هلند)، نشان داده که چگونه برداشتهای مختلف سه اندیشمند نامبرده از فرایافت¬های ویتگنشتاین در کنار نظرگاههای الهیاتی آنها گفتمان جدیدی در فلسفه دین مقایسه ای پدید آورده است. جواد طاهری، مترجم کتاب و دستیار پژوهشی پروفسور آندریچ این کتاب را حاوی روش جدیدی در استفاده از جهات توصیفی و هنجاری فرایافت های ویتگنشتاینی در تفسیر اختلاف بینادینی می¬داند که با نگاهی خلاقانه به تحلیل نظرگاههای این سه فیلسوف تاثیرگذار پرداخته است.
سیر مفاهیم الهیاتی در مسیحیت
Thesis by Dr. Javad Taheri
University of Groningen, 2024
This thesis produces a detailed study of the philosophy of religion, and especially the theory of... more This thesis produces a detailed study of the philosophy of religion, and especially the theory of religious language, of ʿAllāmih Siyyid Muḥammad Ḥusiyn-i Ṭabāṭabāʾī, a prominent figure in Shi’a philosophy. It reads Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s work through the prism of David Burrell’s neo-Wittgensteinianism. A particular focus in this thesis is Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s principle of ‘focal meaning’, which serves as a tool to speak of God in an analogical way, allowing Ṭabāṭabāʾī to conceptualise both the transcendence of God and the connection to the realm of creation.
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Papers by Dr. Javad Taheri
Books by Dr. Javad Taheri
Thesis by Dr. Javad Taheri