Journal of Philosophical Investigations in Scopus
Year:2017 | Volume:10 | Issue:19 |Papers Count:18

The article deals with the examination of method of hypothesis in Plato's philosophy. This method, respectively, will be examined in three dialogues of Meno, Phaedon and Republic in which it is explicitly indicated. It will be shown the process of change of Plato's attitude towards the position and usage of the method of hypothesis in his realm of philosophy. In Meno, considering the geometry, Plato attempts to introduce a method that can be used in the realm of philosophy. But, ultimately in Republic, Plato’s special attention to the method and its importance in the philosophical investigations, leads him to revise it. Here, finally Plato introduces the particular method of philosophy, i.e., the dialectic.

Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher who has been known as "The Father of Existentialism", was a great critic of Hegel's philosophy and a passionate defender of faith and individual morality. However so many books have been published of Kierkegaard’s idea due to his influence on modern philosophy, in this review we, by emphasizing on Kierkegaard's different critical conceptual aspects to the Hegelian system, try to retrieve his thoughts. Since the thinkers can be understood more precisely in the light of negation by their oppositions, in our discussion we analyze Kierkegaard thoughts at the context of his time and his antagonistic connection with Hegel. Despite the evaluation of the truthiness of Kierkegaard’s critics against Hegel in reference to the inner conflicts of his thoughts, we also try to understand several aspects of Hegel’s philosophy that were criticized during the second half of the nineteenth century.

The essay tries to evaluate Wittgenstein's resolution to the riddle of Russell's negative facts. That is, when we say, for example, "Tehran is not the capital of Ireland" is true, what kind of truth–maker should we consider for the negative proposition because of its truth? Surely, a negative truth- maker is so problematic and counter- intuitive. Therefore, Wittgenstein has tried to show how it can be returned to the positive truth- makers. Thus, the paper first analyzes Wittgenstein's general resolutions to the nonexistent. Then it focuses on his special resolution to the negative facts riddle, i.e. Tractatus 2.05: "The totality of existent atomic facts also determines which atomic facts do not exist". Finally, after refuting some philosophers' criticisms, it shows his resolution's positive points and possible lacks.

Justification of believe in God had been one of the most challenging problem throughout history of philosophy. The problem is "is believe in god epistemically justified? " Gutting's theory in justification of theism is combined of two parts. He critiques Witgenstainian's view firstly, and then considers Aquinas', Plantinga's, and some other views as incorrect views on theism. Gutting says that Witgenstainians and Tomistic approaches cannot draw a religious language exactly. He also considers Plantinga's view as an incorrect view, because it is completely possible that the viewpoint of believers in believing to the existence of God to be evaluate epistemologically as true as the non-believers' view to the nonexistence of God. Discussing his own view, Gutting justifies believing in God regarding the religious experience. This article explains Gutting's critique of Witgenstainian's, Tomistic and Planting's approach on justification of believe in God.

One of the most important questions on Kant's philosophy is the meaningfulness or meaningless of metaphysics. This article tries to answer two questions on Kant's philosophy: 1- Is the metaphysics, in the philosophy of Kant, meaningful or meaningless? 2- Is the meaningfulness or meaningless of metaphysics, for Kant, so important for contemporary philosophy? In this paper, firstly, I argue that we can call Kant’s approach to Metaphysics not as a linguistic one (including; language metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of ordinary language or linguistics) but it is a transcendental epistemology. Secondly, in terms of problem-based, the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of metaphysics not only is not the basic problem of Kant, but his philosophy in a clear, distinct and independent manner, involves not such an issue. Thirdly, on the problem of the meaningfulness and meaninglessness of metaphysics, it could be accepted that Kant's philosophy seems to have the backgrounds, indications, and implications For the second question, it could be distinguished two levels of meaningfulness or meaningless in Kant's philosophy: linguistic and nonlinguistic levels. The linguistic level are considered from two directions, i.e., the parts or components (words and metaphysical propositions) and the whole (as the science of metaphysics). In the linguistic level, in one hand, I argue that the metaphysical words or propositions are not meaningless, buton the other hand, the proposition that "Metaphysics is a science" is a meaningless proposition. In the nonlinguistic level, metaphysics due to not reaching to the ends and goals seems meaninglessness as well.

The problem of hermeneutic is an important component in Averroes's thought and it is a key to resolve the contradiction between religion and philosophy, and to reject the claim that philosophers are pagan, as well as to understand religious texts and manuscripts. According to him, hermeneutic is to move from the exoteric meaning to esoteric one and to conceive internal target of the text. His hermeneutical method is based on the reconciliation procedure. He tries to reconcile reason and revealing, or religion and philosophy. Therefore, Averroes introduces certain rules for hermeneutic and asserts that as philosophers benefit of rational method, they have priority and allowance to hermeneutic, but they are not permitted to issue it.

Rorty, who influenced Habermas by his linguistic turn, believes that the debate between realism and antirealism belongs to the tradition which we have already departed from. In fact, in his view, the linguistic turn principally make this distinction difficult. In contrast, Habermas believes that the decision between the realistic and nominalistic positions is a fundamental choice, which plays a crucial role in epistemology, ontology, and the corresponding concepts of truth and reference. The main concern of Habermas as the heir of the realist and the idealist traditions, is to show the simultaneous presence of idealistic and naturalistic elements of knowledge in explaining cognition. For this purpose he refers to a pragmatic account of knowledge. Habermas replaces what has been achieved pragmatically, as the internal realism, with the transcendental idealism. Internal realism, for Habermas, has two essential duties; on the one hand, to stand against relativism as a new form of skepticism, and on the other hand, to oppose the metaphysical realism in its dogmatistic form. The difficulty of Habermas's task, in explaining his realistic view, is to reconcile two priorities; the ontological priority of the objective world, with the epistemological priority of linguistic life-world. This article describes and criticizes the way Habermas develops this view.

In this paper, I have tried to discuss the following questions: Do reasons that have been/have not been put forward, all have a trans-historical and universal nature or essence? And has there been or will there be a unanimous consensus on that? Why do so many reasons in the history of philosophy that seemed convincing at a time have lost their cogency? When we say "I have become convinced by your reasons", do we mean that your reasons have characteristics that anyone in any historical era and with whatever cultural make-up who hears or reads it will become convinced?Do we have to ask for the convincingness or persuasiveness of reasons and its measure? Why is it that during the long history of argumentation, theorization, and taking of positions in philosophy, and during the not so long history of social sciences, there has not been a single position for which reasons have been advanced and those had convinced all those concerned?6. Why is it that roughly for the number of philosophers who have reflected on the Idea of reasoning, there are different Ideas of reason.7. Are reasons necessary for acquiring important and/or interesting knowledge?

Language is among the most controversial philosophic issues in twentieth century. Martin Heidegger is one of the philosophers of this epoch who has emphasized on language and its abilities. Present essay tries to consider the position of language and its relation to Heidegger's ready-to-hand ontology in his philosophy. It argues that this ontology effects strongly Heidegger's notion of language. Ready-to-hand ontology is a kind of practical encountering things in the world which makes no distinction between subject and object. Present essay examines language as one of the most important things in-the-world in horizon of this ontology. Relationship between ready-to-hand ontology and language is pursued in two periods of Heidegger’s thought. In first period, it concentrates on some parts of Being and time, and in second, on some other works of him. The question is whether this ontology opens a new possibilities approaching to the language? Here we try to answer this question as much possible.

The naturalistic explanation of realized dream (or dreams that come true) means that this phenomen will be explained regardless of supernatural agents. Aristotle in Parva naturalia and Jung in his works explained dream visionary. In this article by scrutiny on these thinkers’ theory, we will indicate the naturalistic approach to dream that is far- fetched for followers of metaphysics. In spite of this fact that Aristotle and Jung both belongs to different historical contexts, they have common aspects in terms of naturalistic method; in the universal or broad sense of word, but in terms of content both explain the true dream by the term "coincidence" or accidental conformity between objective events and psychological affairs. It also seems that the notion of Neutral monism in Jung is adaptive to Hylomorphism in Aristotle psychology, and this, provides a path for naturalistic approach to dream as one forms of consciousness.

Socrates is in search of a specific knowledge that by achieving it, one would both realize the moral virtues and practically become virtuous. Based on morality on knowledge, Socrates unifies his philosophy with his way of life, and discovers a criterion by which he could criticize the customary morality, religion, politics, and rhetoric of the Greeks, and expose their moral defects. The common defects that are the subjects of his moral examination and rectification include: the belief that committing injustice is better than suffering it; revenge and reciprocation (the lex talionis: a gift for a gift and an evil for an evil); popular piety based on the belief in the deceit and strife among gods, and deceitfulness and callousness of the gods towards human beings, and commercial transaction between gods and humankind (i.e. gods' receiving sacrificial gifts from human beings in exchange for providing their needs); allowing the superordinate to exploit the subordinate; and lastly, the method of persuasive and deceitful rhetoric.

In this essay the concept "positivity" and its diversion in Hegel's early thought (the Berne Era 1793-96 and the Frankfurt Era 1797-1800) are studied. Diversion of the concept "positivity" as the dominance of a system contradicting genuine freedom, necessitates Hegel's passage from the pure religious literature of Berne Era to the specifically political literature of Frankfurt Era. Accordingly, in comparison to the Berne Era, in the Frankfurt Era Hegel pays attention to a vaster social context which includes much more politico- economical elements. This essay is to explain the concept "positivity" according to Hegel's texts belonging to both eras and to show that Hegel could not find a way to eliminate "positivity" in both eras.

his philosophy with Iranian mysticism. Such identification is fundamentally flawed and contradicts Nietzsche's ontological principles and moral values. Some of the Iranian commentators, expert in Nietzsche's philosophy, identified Nietzsche's thought is pregnant from the epic universal values, not the mystical patterns. Understanding of Nietzsche's Philosophy is possible with the help of Shahnameh and Iliad not mysticism. The reason of this fundamental error lies in the fact that these Iranian commentators fail to distinguish the subtle differences between mysticism and epic, and this failure, has led to their mixing Nietzsche's thought with the Iranian mysticism. Epic and mysticism are related in the differences not the similarities. Although there could be some similarities between the mystical worldview and that of epic, they are merely outward and superficial. In effect, in the matter of epistemic, moral and ontological principles, epic contradicts mysticism. At the best, mysticism can be considered to be the negative correspondence of epic and called "Negative Epic". Nietzsche's thought has been affected to a greater extent by the Greek culture than and prior to the Iranian traditions. Nietzche's symbolic recourse to Zoroaster cannot be a cogent basis for these commentators' claim. Moreover, Nietzche's grasp of Zoroastrian worldview is so much blurred and incomplete. He appreciates the Greek culture not the Iranian traditions. Therefore, autonomy, voluntarism, appreciation of life and denunciation of passivity are the set of values and principles associating Nietzsche's philosophy with epic. These are exactly the principles disregarded and even denied in mystical thought. In other words, Nietzsche's philosophy can be considered the rebirth of the epic in the sphere of philosophical thought.

In this article we have tried to investigate argues of proponents of intelligent design (ID) about an intelligent agent in the creation of the universe. These scientists and philosophers who insist that intelligent design theory is a scientific theory that can be an alternative to evolutionary theory. But evolutionists, claims that intelligent design isn’t a scientific theory, it is raised from religious beliefs. As this paper has indicated the main challenges between evolutionists and ID proponents, thus we, at first, explain the teleological argument as the root of the theory of intelligent design, and in the second place, a summary of the claims of evolutionists and supporters of intelligent design about the formation of beings are considered. Scientific and empirical arguments of both evolutionists and intelligent design supporters and controversy raised by the parties has considered and ultimately, the mere discussion of ID proponents about scientific arguments of ID, have been questioned.

Aristotle in his logical works, in addition to the statement, introduces the concept of proposition and defines it based on affirmation and negation in Prior Analytics. There are two issues about Aristotle's view of preposition, i.e., the interpretation of its definition, and its relation to the statement. In this article, first, three interpretations of preposition, including Alexander of Aphrodisias' and classical ones, are discussed and criticized. And because Aristotle points to the relation between contradiction and proposition, first, the definition of contradiction from Aristotle's point of view and, then, its relation to proposition are discussed. Finally, my interpretation of proposition is explained: proposition is a statement which its relation with contradiction is considered and the attention to this relation leads to the acceptation of the rule of contradiction which is the foundation of each deduction. The linguistics meaning of proposition is compatible with this interpretation: proposition is to propose one side of contradiction, and because of this, the dialectical proposition has two forms: question form the answerer and its replay as a premise in dialectical deduction.

The modern cosmology is based on the observational evidences, but several philosophical principles and metaphysical prejudices play an undeniable role in it. This paper surveys some important attitudes such as causality, prediction, determinism etc. in the general relativity and cosmology. The general relativity is a deterministic theory (apart from the singularities) and is applied in prediction of the universe large- scale evolution. However, the acceleration of the universe, noticed at the end of last century, leads to a revolutionary view in the prediction in the cosmology. Subsequently, because of the unknown nature of the acceleration driver, there is an unavoidable uncertainty in this prediction. It is asserted in this article that the cosmologists' unscientific assumptions, veiled in their scientific claims, affect strictly on their outcomes.

This article entitled" "I" as most important motivation of Human being" want to consider the main source of all human behaviors. This article aims to answer the question that what causes values or anti-values and also new ideas, giving meanings and human attitudes to be created? Where is the source of human activity and inactivity? Despite the diversity of human behaviors and actions of various origins it seems that one and same origin for all of them can be considered and it is self-preservation. Of course, self-preservation is a general principle for all living creatures. Calling it "self-preservation" in this writing, therefore I say that it is most important motivation of human behavior (whether active or passive behavior). Therefore, "I" is present everywhere with us and that is the creator of happiness and sadness. Thus, all our social and cultural behaviors in our society emanate from it and there will be always "selfishness" in society.

Communitarianism is one of the main critics of moral-political theory of liberalism. According to communitarians, liberalism presupposes an image of human identity which does not do justice to the collective ties between human being. It ignores altruist duties and common loyalties to traditional, historical values by inappropriately insisting on priority of justice from an individualist point of view, culminating in advent of ignoble, egoist characters unfamiliar with collective values. In this essay, firstly, I would elaborate these critiques and then try to answer them from Richard Rorty's point of view. Though Rorty agrees with the communitarians' claim that community makes a constitutive contribution to the identity of individuals, he believes that the pragmatist pole of contemporary liberalism is not subject to the communitarian objections. He tries to show that 20th century political liberalism, best formulated by John Dewy and John Rawls, is immune to communitarian critiques because of its consistency with historicism and ethnocentrism.