Reconciliation between the Quinian Physicalism of Science and Tabatabaie’s Theory of the Causal Relation between the Supernatural World and the Nature

Abstract

Tabatabie is an Islamic philosopher who believes in supernatural world and also believes in the causal relation between supernatural world and the nature. He was living in the modern world where the empirical science has an outstanding position. According to Quine, science is biased on physicalism which considers the nature independent. It seems that there is a contradiction between these two points of view. Tabatabie did not address this issue directly. However, in his philosophical writings, it can be found two theories in order to describe the relation between nature and the supernatural world that can be used as a solution for the aforementioned contradiction. The first solution is that although the ultimate cause of nature is the supernatural world, the near cause of natural activities are forms of the species. This solution opens the way to the consistency between science and Islamic philosophy. Nevertheless, it has also some difficulties. Another solution is that the nature in whole is the effect of the supernatural world as a simple creation, but all of the activities in the nature are related to natural causes. It seems that the second solution is better and can prepare better ground for the consistency between physicalism and the claim of Islamic philosophy. Still, it requires additional complimentary explanations to be coordinated with other philosophical claims.

Keywords

• physicalism
• self-sufficiency of nature
• simple creation
• forms of the species
• modern science