ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Fundamentals of Islamic Thought: God, Man and the Universe The World View of Tawhid Every path and philosophy of life is based on a belief, outlook, and value system vis-a'-vis being or on an explanation and analysis of the world. The kind of conception that a school of thought presents of the world and of being, the manner in which it contemplates it, is considered the intellectual foundation and support of that school.

This foundation and support is termed the worldview. All religions, customs, schools of thought, and social philosophies rest on a worldview. A school's aims, methods, musts and must nots all result necessarily from its worldview. The hukama' divide wisdom into theoretical wisdom and practical wisdom. Theoretical wisdom is the realisation of being as it is, and practical wisdom is the realisation of the practice of life as it should be.

What should be derives logically from what is, especially what is as primary philosophy and metaphysics are charged with explaining it. World Feeling versus World Knowledge The term “worldview” contains the idea of sight, but we must not fall into the error of interpreting worldview as world feeling. Worldview means world knowledge or cosmology; it relates to the well-known question of knowledge, which is an exclusively human property, as opposed to feeling, which man shares with other animals.

Therefore, world knowledge is exclusive to man and is a function of his reflection and intellection. Many animals are more advanced than man from the standpoint of world feeling; they are furnished with certain senses that man lacks (for instance, it is said that some flying creatures have a sort of radar, a sense that man lacks, or that, although some animals have a sense in common with man, it is much better developed in them-such as the eagle's eyesight, the dog's or the ant's sense of smell, and the mouse's hearing).

Man's superiority over other animals lies in his knowledge of the world, that is, in a kind of insight into the world. The animals feel the world, but man explains it as well. What is knowledge? What connection is there between feeling and knowledge? What elements other than sense enter into knowledge? Where do those elements come from and how do they enter the mind? What is the mechanism of the act of knowing? By what standard are valid and invalid knowledge distinguished?