PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION RESEARCH (NAMAH-I HIKMAT)
Year:2004 | Volume:2 | Issue:3|Papers Count:9

In Teatetus. Plato defines knowledge as "true justified belief". Known as tripartite definition (or analysis) of knowledge, by 1960s it was a dominant definition for knowledge. In 1963, American philosopher Edmund Gettier in short paper, accepting necessity of three parts, has presented us with two counterexamples to the claim that knowledge is completely justified true belief. Since that, it has given numerous answers to Get tier’s counterexamples. Some of these answers accept Get tier’s objection to sufficiency of three fold conditions, try to complete it by adding a fourth condition. This essay surveys and criticizes answers of this kind and shows that these efforts were not successful by now and that Get tier’s objection is yet remained.

In Islamic philosophy before Mulla Sadra epistemology was not principal concern of philosophers, and what they have said in this matter was in relation to other problems. First Mulla Sadra take this problem seriously and after examining sayings of prior philosophers, theorizes about it. Epistemological theory of Mulla Sadra consists of three fundamental elements: scientific forms or images (object per se), the subject (soul), and mutual relations that scientific forms acquire in process of knowing. On the one hand, scientific forms represent beyond themselves and are intermediaries of our knowledge of other things. and on the other hand, they are in relation to the subject and are acquired in soul. Mulla Sadra has novelties about all above-mentioned elements, and from all of them has made a novel and powerful theory of knowledge. While Mulla Sadra theorizing is coherent with his system of philosophy, his theory lacks coherent justification. This diverge view of commentators on his theory. Assumption of this essay is that Mulla Sadra system of philosophy has necessary tools and possibilities for justifYing his theory. Hence, in this essay, at first we briefly introduce epistemological theory of Mulla Sadra and compare it with theories of prior muslim philosophers, and then reconstruct its reasons, It must to be said that part of Mulla Sadra theory that was more challenging, ie, relation of scientific forms with soul, is principal concern of this essay.

Copernican revolution of Kant and his opening a way between empiricism and rationalism was centred round a new conception of object, thing, and objectivity. Reducing thing to object and passing from object to object of knowledge and painting "object" in mental colours, is a long way that kant was passed, by keeping distance from prior philosophical traditions. Showing exactly what is the function of "object" in uniting sensible representations by grasping them in concepts and combining these concepts in a judgment, and seeking the role of other concepts, specially pure concepts of the understanding, in relation to object and the function of uniting are other related topics. Kant's explanation of how apriori synthetic judgments are possible, and how empirical judgments are distinguishable from subjective judgments are based in some sense on certain conception of "object" in his theoretical philosophy. For Kant, objectivity and truth are clarified in light of this discussion. Then, along with dichotomy of noumenon and phenomenon, Kant divides thing into empirical and transcendental, and surveys relation of these two divisions and their consequences with idealism, subjectivism or phenomenalism. Hence, we consider that the concept of "object" and fundamental concepts and doctrines of Kant's philosophy make a complicated network, so that examining this concept provides a key to systematic understanding of philosophy of Kant.

One of the difficulties of understanding and commentating on Aristotle's "Metaphysics" understands the structure of it. While ancient commentator of metaphysics regarded it as one collection that have Coherent structure, most of the modern commentators on Aristotle hold that this collection does not have unity and its topics, specially topic of ontology in middle books and topic of theology in final books, do not have philosophical consistency with each other. In this essay, based on problems of book 1II (B), which can be regarded as Metaphysics' table of contents, it is tried to offer a theory about structure of Aristotle's Metaphysics and to criticize different theories in this matter.

In this essay, at first we glance one's eye down most important intellectual concern of Pre-Socratics, which can be seen as context and origin for idea of substance, and then look at Aristotle's stand on two intellectual trends before himself. ie, Platonism and materialism, and finally we try to report and in some cases, analyse and criticize Aristotle view of the problem of substance, two meanings he meant by it and its attributes in first meaning, according to Organon and Metaphysics.

In this essay, the author tries to classify definitions, which were offered by muslim logicians for logic, into two categories of intrinsic and derivative definitions, and to separate form and matter oriented goals from merely form directed goals that they cite for logic. Then he infers from their sayings that logic according to its definition and goal is primarily and essentially directed to not matter but form of thought, and that two parts of logic, ie, concept and assent, are basically relevant to not context of definition but of argumentation, and that the discussions concerning matter of argument and definition must be sought in other special disciplines. In this essay, also the relation between logic and syntax, and reasons of needlessness of some sciences to logic has been studied.

Nowadays, one of the most important discussions in modal logic and analytic metaphysics is the distinction between de dicto and de re modalities. For example one of the basic foundation of accepting essentialism is acceptance of de re necessity. This essay points to the history of this distinction in Islamic and Western Philosophy, and then deals with syntactical and semantical difference between these two kinds of modality, and compares this distinction with two similar distinctions, and finally looks at relationship of de dicto and de re modalities.

Epistemological relativism presupposes at least some fundamental moral ditferences, and addresses those differences in terms of epistemic values such as truth and justifiability. To suggest relativist analysis of moral statements which account for both cognitive locutions found in moral language and the differences in moral beliefs is main task of Wong's theory that also considered new developments in philosophy of language. This essay consists of five sections: introduction; recent development in philosophy of language; faults of prior relativist theories; Wong's relativist analysis of moral statements; critique of Wong's relativist analysis.

Cultural relativism and ethical subjectivism are two theories that are against ethical objectivism. In this essay, lames Rachels shows that cultural relativism is based on invalid argument; that the consequences of taking it seriously are irrational; that it exaggerates moral disagreement. Yet he holds that we can learn lessons from it. Next, he presents and criticizes two versions of ethical subjectivism; the first version (simple personalism) is rejected by him, because it denies the facts of humen fallibility and moral disagreement. The second version (emotivism) is regarded incomplete, because it can not explain the role of reason and argumentation in ethics. He shows that argumentation and reasoning in ethics is possible and favourable, and because of this, ethics is objective, not subject to personal taste or cultural assumptions of cultural assumption of one special society.