THE METHODOLOGY OF ISLAMIC HUMAN SCIENCES With an Emphasis on Ayatullah Mesbah’s Doctrine

چکیده

Ayatullah Mesbah takes “the human sciences” to denote “a set of sciences dealing with understanding the human being, and describing, explaining, and interpreting individual and social phenomena (as human incidents), and directing human actions and reactions.” For a discipline to be “Islamic”, he requires it to meet such conditions as: complying with the foundational principles of Islamic thought, including ontological, theological, epistemological, methodological, axiological, and teleological principles.On the basis of the above-mentioned definitions, it is apparent that the subject matters of the human sciences are human actions and reactions, and their objectives are: description, explanation, interpretation, and direction. Taking into consideration the variety of the subject matters of these sciences, and the diversity of their goals, it is fully logical to anticipate a considerable multiplicity in their methods as well. In this paper, I will base my discussion on the objectives of the human sciences, and following a methodology of logical analysis, I will reflect on the logical requirements of the subjects and concepts employed in these sciences, to study their methodological implications, based upon Ayatullah Mesbah’s doctrine.