Wisdom and Philosophy
Year:2019 | Volume:15 | Issue:1 (57) |Papers Count:8

Aristotle is one of the philosophers who have influenced young Heidegger’ s thoughts. The purpose of the present paper is to clarify certain aspects of this influence. During the years 1922– 1926, Heidegger ponders deeply on Aristotle’ s Philosophy. Among Aristotle’ s works, Nicomachean Ethics draw more much Heidegger’ s philosophical attention to itself. To understand Heidegger’ s encounter with Aristotle, we concentrate on three important works of this period: “ Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle” (1922), “ Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy” (1924), and Plato's “ Sophist” . The argument of the current study is that Heidegger’ s interpretation of Aristotle during these years can be considered to be his first attempts and exercises leading to his special methodology, i. e. that of Phenomenological Hermeneutics. From this special perspective, we can consider phenomenological hermeneutics and most of other basic concepts of Heidegger’ s thought in Being and Time, such as phenomenological deconstruction, care, and conscience as products of his contemplations on Aristotle’ s thoughts during these years. Therefore, the leading question of this inquiry is this: What are the ingredients of Heidegger’ s self-appropriating interpretation of Nicomachean Ethics? And through this question we aim to investigate the influence of these ingredients on Phenomenological Hermeneutics, the effect of young Heidegger’ s reflecting on Aristotle on his understanding of technology.

One of the main issues in explaining the phenomenon of diversity of religions in the world is the issue of religions ranking; i. e. the question of whether religions are essentially comparable or not! And if it is comparable, what is the criterion and criterion of this comparison? It seems that the border between two different positions in explaining the phenomenon of religious plurality, namely relativism and religious pluralism, comes from the accuracy of the issue of religions ranking. In this article, we will speak of two main representatives of these two trends by proposing and examining this problem and among the religious relativists we refer to Ernest Troeltsch and to John Hick from religious pluralism. This article seeks to put these two theories together and remind them of their similarities and reveal their fundamental differences. Briefly, it can be noted that the major similarity between Troeltsch and Hick is to rely on cultural categories in the consistency of religious awareness, while the fundamental difference between them is the observation of objectivity or subjectivity in their grading criteria. In the end, Hick claims that although religions are comparable in principle, but practically the result of this comparing is the equivalence of religion’ s Truth-claims, while Troeltsch says it's basically impossible to compare religions, اowever, in his original statements, he clearly states that in practice, Christianity is superior to other religions. Of course, in his later remarks, he reviews this result and claims that religions are only relative in absolute terms and he claims absolute religions are relative only.

The present paper evaluates Ibn Sina's view about the intentionality and the truth of declaration in the case of the future and the past, the object of which is nonexistent. The paper strives to demonstrate that there is a close relationship between the well-known intentionality and the truth of the declaration (khabar), and that both can be used to elucidate certain unclear points in Ibn Sina's reasoning. Furthermore, an inconsistency in Ibn Sina’ s view of intentionality is pointed out: He first states that regarding the knowledge of the nonexistent entities of the future, the mental forms we have of the entities in our mind have no relation to reality. However, he sets out to prove such a relation a few lines later. The paper tries to resolve the inconsistency as much as possible, and lastly, it criticizes the view(s) of Ibn Sina, i. e. the pure mentality of knowledge and the potentiality of knowledge about nonexistent entities in the future and the past.

Subjectivism as an epistemological schema is a fundamental element of modern thought. This schema was based on the Cartesian cogito and considering human as the “ thinking substance” , and with Kant’ s transcendental Philosophy and granting human a self-grounded role in the act of cognition, it gained unique importance in the Human Knowledge of the New Age. However, with the beginning of the 20th century and the paradigmatic changes that occurred in Philosophy, thoughts appeared that strongly challenged the schema of subjectivism, this substantial foundation of modern thinking. Meanwhile, Wittgenstein is one of the philosophers who has made the most of his efforts to overcome this schema in his Philosophy. The present paper tries to measure the relation between Wittgenstein’ s early and later thought with regards to modern subjectivism, and at the same time, strives to demonstrate the degree to which Wittgenstein's efforts have been successful toward transitioning past subjectivism in each period. On this basis, the first part of the article, with a transcendental reading of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus will show that Wittgenstein, while attempting to abandon the schema of subjectivism, continues to adhere to Kant's subjective approach. And in the second part, while referring to Wittgenstein's novel way of inquiring regarding philosophical issues, the paper will investigate how to transition from subjectivism in his later thought.

Popper and Derrida are two influential philosophers of different schools of thought in the second half of the twentieth century. In terms of epistemology, Popper belongs to the critical rationalism school and Derrida to the deconstruction approach. Both of them intend to question any philosophical, social, political, and linguistic fundamentalism. They aspire to go beyond the duality of realism and idealism, and to this end, each offers his own definition of reason’ s essence/substance and its domain. Popper distinguishes between the affirmative and negative aspects of reason. He counts the affirmative aspect of reason as fundamentalism that must be abandoned and the negative aspect of reason as the faculty necessary to explain any scientific Philosophy. On the other hand, Derrida questions the totality of reason from a critical perspective toward logo-centrism in the Western metaphysics of presence. The article goes on to compare Popper's and Derrida’ s approach in the Philosophy of science and explains the essence /substance of Philosophy of deconstructive science.

The discussion of perfection is of different natures in the ideas of Aristotle and Avicenna. Both have divided perfection into first perfection and second perfection. What is the difference between the two? What are the meanings of each of these concepts and what is the domain of their usage? Has Avicenna been influenced by Aristotle or has he exceeded him? To discuss perfection, Aristotle has employed the two terms of "energia and entelecheia’ , and he has discussed it in different positions in metaphysics, sciences, natural sciences and ethics. He has discussed first perfection and the second perfection in On Soul and talk of movement. To him, the first perfection of the primitive stage is secondary perfection. In the On Soul, the first perfection has potency, and it is imperfect perfection in motion. In his works, Avicenna has used the first perfection and the second perfection as related to natural subjects such as movement, soul, and sometimes regarding God and His relation to creatures. Avicenna perceives the soul from two perspectives: in terms of its relation to the body, as well as the abstract view of the two. And for him, perfection is existential and intensive, and the second perfection is subordinate to the first. The purpose of the present paper is to discuss this division into first and second perfection and its position in Aristotle and Avicenna’ s reasoning.

The first trace of the critique of objective truth and the “ present-at-hand” tradition can be found in Sufism and Mysticism. Mystics emphasize the outstanding role of uncovering and intuition which implies the desire to leave mediators in order to achieve the truth and reflects their creative approach toward tradition, which, while rooted in tradition, is seen as revival. They considered the truth of their approach to tradition as a Naghd/critique. Naghd, in common terms, is simply translated as the assessment of something. However, in the mystical tradition, it is prior to assessment and refers to calling something that is “ ready to hand” existence. Today, the way through this tradition is being inquired about and though about is groundless. Groundlessness is the indicator of the dichotomy of tradition and modernity, whereas the original foundation through the experience of a moment of "negation" is an abyss/ the nothing foundation. This article will begin with two fundamental theoretical approaches in Western thought to understand the foundations of the mystic approach to tradition. The first approach is "Romantic Hermeneutics, Historicism, Fundamentalism, and Traditionalism, " which comprehends tradition as it has been spent, and the second approach with titles such as "philosophical hermeneutics, historicity and traditionality" considers tradition as something present now. This article proves that both tradition and modernity adopt the same approach while the second approach implies a different perception of the foundation / beginning, time and existence.

Wittgenstein in his later Philosophy, as in his early Philosophy, reiterates that philosophical method or activity is a critical activity although he develops it method in his later Philosophy. In some fragments of Philosophical Investigations, he calls this method therapeutic, in which, the philosopher recognizes the cause of fallacy or categorical mistake. Establishing such a method has been possible through a new vision of language, which does not see language as apart from linguistic activities. In other words, concepts have internal relation with our linguistic activities and our life-with-concepts, and their meanings are not graspable separate from their context. Indeed, by concentration on "use" in language, Wittgenstein wants to show the interrelation of language and our form of life. In Wittgenstein’ s view, philosophical problems arise of neglecting this insight about language because philosophers see language separate and abstracted from any activity. By considering Wittgenstein’ s revolutionary approach to language, philosophical problems arise from ignoring and confusing the uses of language, which will be dissolved with showing the confusion.