Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Mahbibeh Pakdel ¹
• Abbas Yazdani ²

¹ Department of Philosophy. Faculty of Theology< University of Tehran

² Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Theology, University of Tehran

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine Allama Tabatabai’s account on faith and analyze it within the framework of Daniel Howard-Snyder’s non-doxastic approach. Faith is one of the key concepts in the epistemology of religion, and recent analytic approaches has increasingly distinguished it from belief. Allama Tabatabai describes faith as being based on two main components: "al- i'tiqad " and " tamakkun fi al-qalb ".This paper employs a comparative method to evaluate Allama’s account, interpreted as a form of doxastic faith, with the core components of Howard-Snyder’s non-doxastic model, in order to address the ambiguities in the concept of faith and the challenges associated with doxastic faith. Based on Howard-Snyder’s non-doxastic analysis of faith, the upshots show that the concept of "al- i'tiqad " in Allama’s account, as a cognitive attitude, is ambiguous and lacks the essential characteristic which is constituent for belief. Additionally, the failure to explicitly define the conative and evaluative components of faith in Allama’s account is another challenge. Drawing on Howard-Snyder’s model, which emphasizes faith amid doubt, this article argues that the non-doxastic framework provides conceptual resources for clarifying these ambiguities and for constructing a meaningful bridge between classical Islamic thought and contemporary discussions in the epistemology of religion.

Keywords

• Faith
• belief
• doubt
• non-doxasticim
• Allama Tabatabai
• Howard-Snyder

Main Subjects

• epistemology