درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Within the confessional approach to comparative theology, epistemic recourse to engagement with other religious traditions aims at attaining a deeper understanding of the home tradition while maintaining fidelity to the boundaries of its orthodoxy and orthopraxy. In this framework, the religious data of other traditions are consulted, examined, and brought into comparison with those of one’s own tradition. From the standpoint of Islamic orthodoxy, however, such engagement requires theoretical justification. This foundational epistemological concern constitutes the central problem addressed in the present study. The guiding question is therefore: within Islamic comparative theology, how can engagement with and benefit from the religious data of other traditions be justified? The study employs a descriptive‑analytical and comparative method. Its findings suggest that the legitimacy of such engagement may be inferred through the cumulative force and mutual corroboration of evidences derived from the Qurʾan, the hadith, and reason. Elements of truth present in other religious traditions may be understood as vestiges of humanity’s historical and prehistorical encounters with the Sacred Source, as well as products of human reason and fiṭrah (the primordial human disposition). Such elements are dispersed across diverse times and places, yet remain accessible to discerning theological inquiry. Furthermore, interreligious learning is not limited to drawing upon the object of comparison—that is, appropriating religious data from another tradition. The act of comparison itself also possesses intrinsic epistemic fecundity. Accordingly, this study concentrates on establishing the justificatory grounds for such engagement, while leaving the systematic articulation of the methodological and inferential frameworks required for interreligious learning to future research.

The problem of moral self-deception has always been one of the complex puzzles in the philosophy of mind and ethics due to its entanglement with epistemic paradoxes—a phenomenon that seemingly requires the simultaneous acceptance of two incompatible cognitive states, meaning that the agent believes in a proposition while possessing strong evidence to the contrary. Focusing on the cognitive-analytic approach, this article demonstrates that within this framework, the problem transcends mere explanation of neurobiological mechanisms and centers on evaluating the logical possibility of self-deception and the endeavor to escape static and dynamic paradoxes. In the first step, while distinguishing self-deception from similar phenomena such as wishful thinking, the current research emphasizes the central role of motivational components in the formation of beliefs contrary to evidence. In the main section, two prominent models of this approach—the Canfield-Gustafson linguistic model and the Jeffrey Foss epistemological model—are formulated and critiqued. Examinations show that the former, despite attempting to dissolve the paradox through the dissection of ordinary language, falls into reductionism and reduces the phenomenon merely to a belief contrary to evidence. Furthermore, by applying thought experiments such as the swimmers' scenario, it is argued that the evidence-based criterion of Foss also leads to unreasonable and counter-intuitive epistemic consequences. The final conclusion of the article indicates that the cognitive-analytic approach, despite its conceptual precision and logical sensitivity, faces inherent limitations in providing a comprehensive explanation of moral self-deception; because resolving the paradox solely at the cognitive level, while neglecting the normative and phenomenological layers of the agent’s moral experience, leads to overlooking the fundamental dimensions of self-deception.