رهيافتهاي دانشمندان مسلمان در علم شناسي

Approaches of Muslim Scholars to the philosophy of knowledge

Following evolution in sciences, philosophy of knowledge was considerably developed and ,thus, encompassed such various approaches as logical-philosophical philosophy of knowledge, psychology of science, sociology of science, and history of science. Alongside with the development in different sciences of their time, Muslim scholars have dealt with development of philosophy of knowledge as well. They have captured four major, different approaches in knowing sciences. Having an Aristotelian root, logical philosophy of knowledge is dealt with in logic books and is dependent upon a priori analyses as well as presentation of dominant principles and rules over sciences. Investigating sciences comparatively, comparative philosophy of knowledge presents a pattern for their classification. That approach is an a posteriori study and is developed by Muslim scholars. Historical philosophy of knowledge is also of an Aristotelian root studying development of sciences and scientific theories through an empirical, a posteriori approach. Opening a discussion at the beginning of any science called the eight fold heads, Muslim thinkers have in fact dealt with case-study philosophy of knowledge as well. In that case, conformity of logical philosophy of knowledge to a specific science has been challenging bringing about strategic questions to both realms of sciences and philisophy of knowledge.