Research Paper
Saeed Darvishy; Gholamreza Zakiany
Abstract
Aristotle is one of the important sources for studying pre-Platonic philosophers, among whom Heraclitus was the subject of Aristotle’s main focus. His focus on Heraclitus was most importantly for the reason that Heraclitus was, as Plato states, the intellectual godfather of sophists and was, according ...
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Aristotle is one of the important sources for studying pre-Platonic philosophers, among whom Heraclitus was the subject of Aristotle’s main focus. His focus on Heraclitus was most importantly for the reason that Heraclitus was, as Plato states, the intellectual godfather of sophists and was, according to Aristotle, the intellectual godfather of Plato himself, too. Aristotle therefore sought to make fundamental critiques of teachings of Heraclitus and to thereby attack foundations of sophist and platonic thoughts as well. This paper aims firstly to show how and in which domains teachings of Heraclitus influenced teachings of sophists and Plato’s thoughts. It seems that Heraclitus’ works to reject authenticity of sensibles and particulars convinced sophists in their idea that there is no truth, and made Plato to claim that, since there is no truth in sensibles and particulars, one should search for another container which would, based on teachings of Parmenides, provide degrees of solidarity in order for one to acquire knowledge and thought. The container Plato introduced was his theory of ideas. After examining the influence of Heraclitus on sophists and Plato, the paper then looks at Aristotle’s critiques of two famous teachings of Heraclitus, namely, the doctrine of Universal Flux and that of Identity of Opposites, and demonstrates which particular thoughts of Plato or sophist paradoxes can be the target of the criticisms. It seems that the criticisms endeavour to imply that sensibles do have some sort of solidarity. Sophists teachings will thereby be rejected altogether and Plato’s thoughts on his ideas and his creation of their container will be pointless.
Research Paper
zahra zavarian; bijan abdolkarimi
Abstract
Language has an important place in philosophical hermeneutics. The experience of human life is an area of being which is identifiable only through language. Language is a mediator through which understanding takes place. All understanding is interpretation, and all interpretation forms within the frame ...
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Language has an important place in philosophical hermeneutics. The experience of human life is an area of being which is identifiable only through language. Language is a mediator through which understanding takes place. All understanding is interpretation, and all interpretation forms within the frame of language. According to Gadamer, truth is disclosed to us on the event of understanding, and this disclosure relies more than anything else on a state of openness and dialogue. The relationship of language and being is reflectional. Language essentially has a reflective nature and makes possible for being to be disclosed through speech and conversation.
In Gadamer’s view, poetry and thought share a common ground. Poetry is an area within which thinking takes poetical form. The poet becomes able to hear the calling of existence through poetical empathy and liberation, and he thereby approaches the nature of existence.
A common element between the poet and the thinker, in addition to their empathy with existence, is their involvement in language. They disclose themselves in language, as though being only discloses itself through poetical thinking and thoughtful poetry.
Now the question is: How does the disclosure happen? How can the interpreter approach understanding of poetry? Is this understanding possible through method, or does Gadamer suggest another path to interpretation? The present paper aims to explore Gadamer’s views on the relationship of understanding and truth, that of language and existence, and of poetry and its interpretation.
Research Paper
Mohammadreza Abdulahnezhad
Abstract
The concept of ‘free will’ is central in both Kant’s and Schopenhauer’s moral philosophy. In the Kantian moral system, ‘free will’ is only regarded as moral when it dutifully follows reason and its a priori, absolute rules. Schopenhauer, on the other hand, holds that ...
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The concept of ‘free will’ is central in both Kant’s and Schopenhauer’s moral philosophy. In the Kantian moral system, ‘free will’ is only regarded as moral when it dutifully follows reason and its a priori, absolute rules. Schopenhauer, on the other hand, holds that since human will is a priori to his reason, reason cannot engage will into any action. Instead of reason, he regards human motivations and stimulations as the main sources which shape any action, including moral actions. The important point is that he identifies three types of stimulations, namely ‘compassion’, ‘egoism’ and ‘pessimism’, among which he finds only ‘compassion’ to be the true stimulation for moral action and the basis of moral acts, and he dismisses the other two as immoral stimulations. He criticises foundations of the Kantian moral philosophy with the help of three following arguments: first, he questions the Kantian moral formalism and his a priori claims; second, he criticises the conceptual flaw in Kant’s moral philosophy (which is the result of an inconsistency between his claim that morality should be based on reason and his inner appreciation of verbal morality); third, he accuses Kant’s moral system of being one based on egoism. The present paper aims to explain the main status and characteristic of Schopenhauer’s moral system by way of explaining his criticism of Kant’s moral system.
Research Paper
Seyyed Mostafa Shahraeeni; Seyyed Mohsen Azadikhah (Bize)
Abstract
Despite being accused of scepticism in his own and later times, Descartes was not a sceptic at all but he used doubt as a means to reach an end. In every instance he speaks of true philosophy and metaphysics, he invites the audience to dismiss from their minds anything which can be the subject of the ...
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Despite being accused of scepticism in his own and later times, Descartes was not a sceptic at all but he used doubt as a means to reach an end. In every instance he speaks of true philosophy and metaphysics, he invites the audience to dismiss from their minds anything which can be the subject of the slightest doubt. What we need to take into account is that doubt and scepticism can be of use only to the level at which we succeed to establish a solid ground, and that after that level only an analytical method will help us in building a solid construction of knowledge. The aim of the present paper is to demonstrate that, unlike prevalent beliefs, doubt is not Descartes’ method but is his procedure for employing his method, which is indeed analytical. The role doubt plays for the Cartesian thinker is to provide a ground of certainty which can support the new construction of knowledge he intends to build. Descartes in fact uses doubt as a helpful tool for implementing analytical methods in the area of metaphysics.
Research Paper
Meysam Sefidkhosh
Abstract
Hegel defines phenomenology as the knowledge of experiencing awareness. The ultimate goal of this field of study seems to be establishing that philosophy is a science by conceptually ‘phenomenalising’ the necessary steps to be taken in this course. Phenomenological establishment of the idea ...
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Hegel defines phenomenology as the knowledge of experiencing awareness. The ultimate goal of this field of study seems to be establishing that philosophy is a science by conceptually ‘phenomenalising’ the necessary steps to be taken in this course. Phenomenological establishment of the idea that philosophy is a science will involve phenomenological settling of a key question which has at least three sub-questions, one of which is the question of meaningfulness of life. In its complicated course of growth and development, awareness is depicted as a traveller who is broadening his experiences, who uses these experiences to critically survey his nature, meaning, course and goal, and who, acknowledging his weaknesses, continues his journey to overcome them. The journey on the whole is about finding the true meaning through developing into the ultimate awareness. Meanwhile, however, concepts like meaninglessness, absurdity and the like are among the many waypoints through which awareness navigates, at least as a swift pass, to reach the destination. The present paper considers the multi-layered course of the history of the Hegelian phenomenology to look at it within the domain of the concept of meaningfulness of life, providing a new reading of the phenomenological journey of awareness as it would relate to that concept. The paper raises the question as to whether a different approach than the one adopted by Hegel in his Philosophy of Right can be used to settle the question of meaningfulness of life. Making an affirmative response, the paper then claims that the Hegelian phenomenology is in fact an escape route from Jacobean critiques of the Kantian-Fichtean nihilism. The paper addresses the question of meaningfulness of life from two aspects based on Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit: one is the value of life in general, and the other the ethical and social values which are contained in the value general value of life and guarantee it.
Research Paper
Fatemeh Saeedi; Abdolrasoul Kashfi
Abstract
In the classic image of knowledge, the category of ‘reality’, and by extension those of ‘truth’ and ‘justification’, are treated as matters independent from the subject’s mind. Relativists, on the contrary, reject independence of these matters from the subject’s ...
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In the classic image of knowledge, the category of ‘reality’, and by extension those of ‘truth’ and ‘justification’, are treated as matters independent from the subject’s mind. Relativists, on the contrary, reject independence of these matters from the subject’s mind and hold that the three, or at least some of them, are shaped under the influence of needs, values and social interests. They are, in other words, ‘social constructs’. Knowledge is therefore a relative matter, varying from society to society and from a society in a certain time to that same society in another time. The result of such an attitude to knowledge is a theory which is known today as ‘epistemological relativism’. Paul Boghossian, contemporary philosopher, is a prominent critic of epistemological relativism. The present paper draws on Boghossian’s views to review and critique a certain type of epistemological relativism which results from ‘constructivism of reality’, demonstrating weaknesses of the theory as well as scrutinising a number of Boghossian’s views in the field.
Research Paper
Shirzad Peik Herfeh
Abstract
Good and evil are sometimes so dramatically meshed in each other that they face the person with an acute dilemma: on the one hand, his idleness and non-interference will cause enormous pain and, on the other, his interference for relieving or ending a pain will itself involve causing another pain–even ...
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Good and evil are sometimes so dramatically meshed in each other that they face the person with an acute dilemma: on the one hand, his idleness and non-interference will cause enormous pain and, on the other, his interference for relieving or ending a pain will itself involve causing another pain–even though a far less enormous one than the former. The solution always offered by consequentialists is the rule of ‘the most pleasure for the greatest number’. They argue based on this rule that humans are always permitted and even obliged to inflict pain in order to reduce the total pain in terms of both quality and quantity. This solution, at least in its maximalist form, contradicts our moral intuitions and established judgements. However, the idleness which is the result of opposing consequentialism and subscribing unconditionally and wholeheartedly to certain absolute, unalterable constraints will, in cases where not inflicting a slight pain will cause acute, burning pain, be similarly destructive and does not conform to our moral intuitions and established judgements, either. Therefore, in such cases where no third option can be found, non-consequentialists have used the ‘double-effect reasoning’ to prevent the greater of two harms. After introducing the main intellectual sources of the ‘double-effect reasoning’ in Thomas Aquinas’ views and explaining its newer readings in views of French Jesuit Jean Pierre Gury, Joseph Mingen and in the New Catholic Encyclopedia, the present paper endeavours to analyse, scrutiny and reformulate the argument’s four conditions in order to provide a newer, more precise and simpler reading of it, demonstrating one of its important consequences in pragmatic ethics.
