Journal of Philosophical Investigations in Scopus
Year:2018 | Volume:12 | Issue:23 |Papers Count:10

Some mathematical philosophers believe that we can achieve a new and better version of mathematical Platonism, by eliminating defects of original Platonism. According to Brown's version of Platonism, that here we call it “ Modern Platonism” , the nature of mathematics can be formulated in these seven theses: realism, abstraction, particularity, Intuitiveness, priority, fallibility, and extensibility. This paper criticizes and evaluates the New Platonism, according to two major criteria: the social acceptability, and the methodological acceptability. The social acceptability of a theory, according to my definition, is the interest and attitude of the people to that theory; and it can be measured on the frequency or percentage of interested parties. But the methodological acceptance of a theory means to match it with criteria such as consistency, simplicity and explanatory power; and its value can be assessed based on its success in solving philosophical problems related to it. According to Brown, the new Platonism, is the best philosophical theory about the nature of mathematics, both sociological and methodological. As for sociological criteria, we can be sympathetic and agree with Brown. That is, it seems that the new version of Platonism is still acceptable. But it needs to prove its methodological acceptability. Because the access problem and the certainty problem are still not resolved.

Undoubtedly, A Priori needs to be clarified if we are to understand the heart of Critique of Pure Reason; and Kant, precisely for this very reason, devoted a considerable part of Critique to explaining the epistemic status of A Priori, searching its origin, specifying its validity scope, and illustrating its instances. Although he, more or less, in both editions of Critique, put forward some characteristics intrinsic to A Priori (such as necessary, strictly universal, pure, clear, certain and independent of experience) since they have been also used in (pre)post-Kantian traditions, especially in a meaning different from what Kant meant, so they may simply bring about some confusions cause failing to appropriately grasp the heart of Critique. With reference to such confusions the authors make an attempt to shed light on this point in part (1). Then, in part (2-1), based on the text of Critique and its commentators’ views, authors proceed to show that to evade such confusions one should re-define necessary to “ what is emerged from the nature of the human mind” , strictly universal to “ applicable just in the realm of phenomenon” , pure to “ merely focused on the contribution of mind itself in collaboration with the objects themselves to form empirical knowledge” , clear to “ what the scope of searching for is limited to within ourselves not outside of it” and certain to “ what its scope is immutable – either regarding to its instances themselves or to their numbers” . In part (2-2), by scrutinizing the other characteristic (i. e. independent of experience), we shall show that this characteristic, besides of referring to mere structure, can refer to some kind of knowledge on which every possible experience is based; moreover, we shall determine the relation of above characteristic to pre(post)-Kantian traditions.

Ethics of using technology requires proper classification of technologies so that the ethical principles appropriate to the common characteristics of each major category of technology can be provided. Don Ihde in his postphenomenological approach categorizes our relationship with technology into four categories of embodiment, hermeneutics, alterity, and background; hence, one can similarly classifies technologies based on their primary function. Accordingly, embodied technologies expand our perceptions; hermeneutical technologies refer to something other than themselves and are like a text open before us; technologies of alterity appear a human person before us; and the background technologies are engaged on the margin of our consciousness. This article intends to show that Ihde’ s division is an appropriate foundation for the ethical issues, especially the ethics of using technology, because of its capacities such as its noticing the human relationship with his surrounding world, its including of old and new technologies, and its objectivity and neutrality. However, this division has its ambiguities and shortcomings, including the lack of collectivity and formal flaws. It seems that these shortcomings can be eliminated with a few reforms.

Jalaladdin Davani attempts to philosophically explain issues of unity and diversity. In this regard, he seeks to philosophically explain theosophical approach of Ibn Arabi toward particular unity of existence. In fact, two distinct and even conflicting theories on unity and diversity could be perceived in and inferred from his works. The first theory emphasizes on the unity and multiplicity of existence necessitating the fundamental reality of existence in the necessary and the fundamental reality of quiddity in the possibilities. The other theory is the fundamental reality of existence and reality of the existent based on views of Ibn Arabi and Mulla Sadra’ s views on this issue. Davani uses the term “ ascription” to explain the existence of possibilities in all his attempts to clarify his theory on unity and diversity-theory of Tasting of Theosophy. Thus, one of the tasks required for unfolding his goal from theory of tasting of theosophy is to elaborate on the term “ ascription” as it is utilized in his thought system. The present paper intends to define “ ascription” regarding philosophical system of Davani and considering his philosophical explanation and analysis of the issues of unity and diversity.

One of the fundamental questions about Moore's ethical intuitionism is that what role the intuition plays in the formation of ethical concepts and judgments. In this paper, I have scrutinized Moore's answer by an analytic method, and by differentiating the two meanings of “ Intuition” in his views, i. e. the intuition of the property of “ Goodness”-which I have called “ Intuition (I)”-and the intuition of the propositions containing the predicate “ Good”-which I have called “ Intuition (II)”-I have reached these results: 1) Intuition (I) influences on the formation of ethical concepts by the concept of “ Goodness” as the cause of the ethical concepts; 2) Intuition (I) influences on the formation of ethical judgments by the simple concept of “ Goodness” ; 3) Intuition (II) influences on the formation of the complex ethical concepts by the simple predicate “ Good” ; 4) Intuition (II), by virtue of the self-evidence and necessary truth of the propositions containing the predicate “ Good” , influences on the formation of other propositions or judgments.

As regards to the importance of soul issue among philosophers and thinkers in the history of human thought, This research seeks to examine the points of communities and separations of Mulla Sadra's and Zenouzi's views on the soul and its powers and the relation between them. Mulla Sadra on the basis of his main foundations which are the fundamentality of existence, existential gradation and change in substance, has considered powers as existential rank of a single soul and has spoken of gradation of degree. Modares Zonouzi who considered as one of the best exponents of Transcendent Wisdom, has spoken of a combination of degrees rather than gradation of degrees. The research has made it clear that the difference between these two views arise from the way these two philosophers look at a single fact and does not emerge from the Fundamental differences between them, and that Sadra, with more emphasis on the issue of the fundamentality of existence in the substantial motion, has paid more attention to the issue of gradation, but Agha'ali, having relied on topics of matter and form, has focused on the issue of combination. The author has tried to provide a clear explanation of the views of these two wise.

The problem of evil, by a logical framework, has seen the belief in a knowledgeable, almighty and purely good God logically inconsistent with the existence of evil in the universe, rather than challenging the existence of God and His attributes of perfection evidentially, relying on some absurd and apparently aimless evils or massiveness of human life difficulties. It is clear that the validity of this logical reasoning depends on the truth or probability of its annexational proposition, whereas, from the perspective of philosophers like Mulla Sadra, the idea of the best ordering of things based on the God’ s providential knowledge insists on the falsehood of this annexational proposition regarding the conflict and interference in the material world, the limited point of view of human beings living in this world, occurrence of evil by accident through Divine destiny etc. This paper aims to examine the logical reasoning of atheists and their annexational proposition, then propose Mulla Sadra’ s defence against the logical problem of evil and study its strengths.

This Paper tries to prove that it is possible to use postmodern methodologies in Islamic theological studies. Accordingly, the three main steps in this paper are taken to defend this thesis. The first step explains that the Iranian philosophical mentality disregards any use of postmodernism in Islamic studies. The paper points out that the problem with this mentality is that this mentality usually sees a fundamental contradiction between materialism and relativism in postmodernism and Islamic understanding of theology. In the second step, the paper shows that, contrary to this understanding of the relation between postmodernism and Islamic theology, the use of postmodernism as a methodology in theological studies opens up new horizons of critical thinking in Islamic studies. In this regard the paper explains how the process of applying postmodern methodologies to theological studies can be justified if we rely on an epistemological feature of postmodernism: Postmodern methodologies defend the preference of epistemology over ontology. In the third step, in order to explain the realization of this thesis in the real world, it shows how Christian theology could well use postmodern methodology and create a valuable postmodern theological literature. This comparison is based on the assumption that theology, Christian and Islamic, have the same ontological similarity in defending the theological metaphisics and in rejecting the modern ontological cognitive.

The relation between art, especially cinema, with philosophy, on one hand, and a philosopher with an artist’ s thinker are the main subject of this paper. Martin Heidegger and Andrey Tarkovsky (1932-1986) are one of these philosophers and filmmakers. Accordingly, “ philosophical film” separated from “ film as philosophy” . Andrey Tarkovsky, Russian filmmaker, brings up in his works some issues such as time, death and care which are very important in the context of existential philosophy. Then, his works and thought included “ film as philosophy” . In Heidegger’ s thought, dosein is “ being in the world” . He distinguishes between fallen and original dosein and emphasizes on dosein’ s possibilities which the end of them is death. In order to indicate the relationship between what Tarkovsky, as a cinematic theorist, expresses in his films with the cinematic expression, and Heidegger’ s philosophy, cinematic theories such as realism, formalism and phenomenological theories are very important. We discuss about them and basic properties of Tarkovsky’ s films and fundamental issues of Heidegger’ s philosophy. Finally, this paper intends to find and pursue some issues like “ death” , “ time” and “ care” , in Heidegger’ s thought and Tarkovsky’ s films: “ The Mirror” , “ Stalker” , “ Nostalghia” and “ Sacrifice” .

Leibniz’ s account of perception for understanding of German rationalistic aesthetic tradition in 18 century is very crucial and important. His account of sense qualities has a Cartesian framework and it is so central to his views on aesthetic experience. He explains the concept of perfection and pleasure based on the clear but confused nature of perception. Accordingly, he defines beauty as follows: perfection is the ability or power to unite multiple properties into one; pleasure is feeling perfection in things. Beauty, for him, is the contemplation or reflection upon the pleasurable, or perfection of things. Having investigated the importance of Leibniz in German aesthetics, we intend to figure out the nature of perfection and its relationship to aesthetic experience, perfection, and beauty in his aesthetics.