Wisdom and Philosophy
Year:2008 | Volume:4 | Issue:2 (14)|Papers Count:7

The fact that Corbin left the realm of Western philosophy to devote himself to Islamic philosophy and Iranian theosophers has usually been considered as a radical "rupture" in Corbin's philosophical thought.This article aims at showing that in reality, there is no contradiction but rather a deep continuity in his philosophical path, which was guided by a unique quest of being. Corbin was therefore deeply influenced by Heidegger's main issue of "being qua being" as well as his hermeneutical methodology, but reached another apprehension and level of being through his acquaintance with Mulla sadra's transcendental philosophy. This crossed-approach led to the transformation of the Heideggerian "Being-towards-death" into the Sadrian "Being-beyond-death", and revealed the deep correspondence between the mode of being and the mode of comprehension as well as the complementary nature of philosophy and mysticism; the latter being the essential and only true realm in which, through presential knowledge, “the fundamental reality of being” may be grasped.

Attempts to capture the distinction between categorical and dispositional states in terms of more Primitive modal notions- subjunctive conditionals, causal roles, or combinatorial principles- are bound to fail. Such failure is ensured by a deep symmetry in the ways dispositional and categorical states alike carry modal import. But the categorical/ dispositional distinction should not be abandoned; it underpins important metaphysical disputes. Rather, it should be taken as a primitive, after which the doomed attempts at reductive explanation can be transformed into circular but interesting accounts.

This research attempts to throw light on and show the fundamental similarities and differences between an African and Western ethical conceptions by examining the foundation of ethics and morality in the two systems, using the Golden rule principle in an African ethics and Kant's categorical imperative in Western ethics as tools of comparative analysis.An African indigenous ethics revolves round the "Golden Rule Principle" as the ultimate moral principle. This principle states that, "Do unto others what you want them to do unto you". This principle Compares favorably with Immanuel Kant's whose main thrust is found in his "Categorical Imperative” with the injunction for us to “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. “The categorical imperative becomes for Kant, the principle of reason and universalizability, which according to Kant, is categorical and must be equally binding on everyone. This idea of Kant, we argue, compares with the "Golden Rule Principle". Both are rationalistic and social but the limitation of Kant which I hope to point out is the idea that moral intentions can be fully grounded on reason. I argue that human interest or welfare is the basisfor morality. This refusal to see the wider horizon of morality is precisely the limitation of Kant's principle, which makes it quite insufficient as the foundation of morality. The African's which is more humanistic describes morality and is better served. The main difference between the two ethical systems lies in the fact that whereas the "golden rule" starts from the self and considers the consequences on the self before others, the universalizability principle on the other hand considers the consequences on others first before self.

In the present article, the author tries to comparatively study capacities of two Asian and European philosophical systems concerning a particular issue i.e. the faculty of reason-; and, in this way, to contemplate the possibility of a dialogue among philosophical traditions as an inexorable priority of the present time. Though no limitation was recognized for reason in the space of Enlightenment (Aufklarung) and by the Newtonian physics, and in Kant's critical philosophy, unity and complementarity of understanding were provided by reason; limitation of reason and its realm is emphasized practically. "Fallacies", antinomies, and ideal of the ”pure reason” were proclamations of failure of the reason in three fields of knowledge of the truth of Soul, Nature, and God, ' and" transcendental dialectic" was introduced as a critical situation stemmed from transcendence of the reason The inevitable result of such approach was dualiry between subject and object, noumenon and phenomenon, understanding and reason; and Kant's successors had to overcome such duality.In Islamic philosophy- and in particular in Sadrian philosophy- "Reason" contains, on the one hand, levels of knowledge and in fact levels of "Being", and on the other hand - unlike Aristotelian and Kantian traditions- there is no conflict between levels of knowledge; thus, "Reason" is introduced as a form of levels of Being and as corresponding to these levels. Though, lately in the 18th Century and early in the 19th Century, Kant's successors-and in particular Hegel-focused their attempts to remove duality between subject and object and noumenon and phenomenon, no philosophical system based on traditional metaphysics managed to overcome the difficulty of critical philosophy. (It was only in the mid-20th Century that a new window was opened by the help of Husserl's Phenomenology and Heidegger' s Hermeneutics).In the present article, through a comparative study between philosophical system of Kant and Mulla Sadra, the author is trying to open a road to dialogue and critical exchange of ideas between two great philosophical traditions in the West and East.

The issue of developing a rational framework for not only assessing scientific theories but also providing effective guidelines for satisfactory progress of science lies at the heart of modern methodological debates in the field of philosophy of science. During the past few decades, realists and anti-realists of every hue have tried to produce viable theories for science.Any viable theory of science ought to be able to provide, among other things, satisfactory answers for the three following questions, namely, "What must the world be like for scientific knowledge not only to be possible but also to have the greatest chance of progress? “; ” What aim and structure must science have to be successful i.e., to give us knowledge of the observable as well as unobservable aspects of the physical universe? "; and "How must the methodology be like to maximize the success-rate of science? " In what follows, making use of the ideas of a number of realists writers including Karl Popper, Roy Bhaskar and Nicholas Maxwell I shall try to tackle the above questions. The upshot of the arguments of the paper is that a new type of realist approach, mostly based on the views of mature Popper (popper post 1960s) but also enriched & the insights offered I? J some other realist writers provides not only a powerful framework for making rational sense rif science but also an effective research tradition for the advancement of science.

Philosophy ofreligion is an intellectual and logical interpretation of religious Experience and language. It merges in philosophy so far as its philosophical thinking about religion is concerned. Philosophical thought is always rational and very deeply intellectual It is a rational analysis of religious experience and the problem of the language of religion. In the philosophy of religion as it has developed in the Western philosophy and Christian theology, two main questions may be identified as representing problems associated with the religious use of language. How we ought to understand the terms which we use to predicate certain things of God? Do these terms bear the same sense when used of God and of creatures? Another problem is that God is so fundamentally and so enormously different from human beings and other creatures that it seems impossible for terms to be true of God and of creatures in just the same sense. In recent years a number of analyses of theological discourse have been suggested.Thus, this paper analyses a reduction the problem of the language of religion by discussing symbolic interpretation which is alternatively a development of symbolism in religious texts and practices. Therefore, the first of this paper includes the review of the problem of the language of religion and philosophers' and theologians’ reflections on it. Secondly, it surveys the correlation between symbolism and interpretation and their function in analyzing.