درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present article investigates the signification of miracle to the prophet’s prophethood from the rational and logical viewpoints in the context of Islamic theology. After proving the necessity of the prophethood with the help of the ‘Rule of Grace’, most of the Islamic theologians consider miracle as the main reason for affirming the claim of someone who claims God has called him to prophethood. Most of theologians maintain that miracle is enough evidence for affirming such a claim, but a few of them criticize this idea. That the miracle rationally signifies the prophethood, and being called by God as a messenger can be stated in two ways. One is that the mere issuing of a miracle by the claimant to prophethood can rationally and logically affirm his prophethood. The other is that by adding some introductory items to the miracle and compiling an authentic logical deduction, one can affirm someone’s claim to prophethood. It seems that both explanations are defective. The deficiency of the first explanation is that the miracle in itself has no logical signification to prophethood and affirmation of the claimant. At most, it shows the agent’s power to perform extraordinary actions, not more. The second explanation is faced with numerous critiques such as vicious circle in argument, deficiency in attributing miracle to God, simultaneous fallacy, deficiency in being miracle as a sign of prophethood, non-homogeneity of reason and claim, the drawback of miracle’s being extraordinary, criticizing the premises of the argument, and the prophethood’s no need for miracle. Finally, the result of the present study is that miracle has no rational signification for prophethood, and prophethood and guiding the human beings do not necessarily require miracle.

The contemporary world observes an increasing leaning from the thinkers in various intellectual and cultural spheres towards an approach to reality, interpreting reality as something in relationship to human beings and his goals and purposes, not independent of them. Richard Rorty is among the adherents of such a thought. The present article uses an analytical-critical method to show how Rorty has defended this view and to evaluate his view. According to the present study, it is clarified that Rorty adduces the features he considers for language to negate the possibility of accessing pure and naked reality; thus, he considers the available reality as made by ourselves in cooperation with others, which has a quite lingual structure. In my view, however, despite the fact that believing in lingual structure of reality places us in a better situation for defending concepts such as activity, freedom, self-consciousness, ownership, thinking and genuine life, Rorty’s emphasis on solidarity, instead of objectivity and truth, entails a dominion of culture over the rational sciences. Consequently, we observe a leaning towards the principality of ‘will’ (including both individual and social) according to which, philosophy turns into something a posteriori and relied on will.

The perceived outbreak of COVID‐19 has forced the closure of schools in Iran. Alternatively, e-learning has emerged as a viable replacement for training students. The present study examined the comparative effects of applying Shaad as online learning versus face-to-face teaching on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ vocabulary learning. To achieve this aim, sixty ninth-grade high school students were randomly selected. The members of the study were assigned to the Shaad and control groups. The instruments were a Cambridge Placement Test (CPT) and a researcher-made test administered as a pre-and post-test. First, the CPT was used, then a pre-test was administered to members of both groups. EFL learners’ vocabulary learning was analyzed at the end of the research; thus, the students in both groups performed the vocabulary post-test. Descriptive statistics and independent samples t-tests were run to determine the effect of Shaad on Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary learning. The results revealed that teaching vocabulary through Shaad as online learning did not have a statistically significant effect on EFL students’ vocabulary learning. The results also showed a significant difference between the vocabulary learning of EFL students exposed to face-to-face teaching and those exposed to Shaad; thus, face-to-face learning is more effective. One of the study implications is that policymakers might provide infrastructure for virtual education to contribute to the improvement of EFL learning along with face-to-face education after the Covid-19 pandemic. Also, material designers can remove the deficiencies of the Shaad platform to develop the student’s vocabulary learning as an instructional aids tool.