JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL MEDITATIONS
Year:2014 | Volume:4 | Issue:12|Papers Count:6

The purpose of this study is the investigation and critique of Brightman's personalistic temporalism viewpoint. To achieve this purpose, descriptive-critical method has been used. First, personalism philosophy is introduced and then Brightman's personalistic temporalism viewpoint and the quiddity of person are investigated. Ultimately, the viewpoint is critiqued. The findings indicate that Brightman presents a new conceptualization of "self". For him, self is empirical, not only Brightman's empirical self differs from Hume and his advocates' empirical self, but also he believes that their viewpoint has basic difficulties. For Brightman, the empirical self is "person". In his view, person is moral self and it has ethical implications. Of course, Brightman's viewpoint has the disadvantages resulting from his notion of experience; these disadvantages are lack of adherence to logical implications of his conception of experience, its incompatibility with accepted principles of phenomenology, violating the characteristic of communication as one of important features of experience and person, providing context for experience error, skepticism, abstractionism and limiting ethics to subjective ethics.

Utilitarianism has undergone a variety of refinements since the early twentieth century. Modern utilitarians have attempted to address the criticisms by proposing their new interpretations of 'maximization' and/ or 'the good.' It has brought about a vast variety of different and irreconcilable types of modern utilitarian approaches such as the 'actualist/ possibilist' distinction, the 'objectivist/ subjectivist' distinction, the 'action-based/ character-based' distinction, the 'maximizing/ satisficing' distinction, and the 'hedonist/ preferencist' distinction. These distinctions are responses to the following questions about 'maximization' and 'good': Are the values that should be regarded in determining which option is the best, 'the values of what would be the case were the agent to carry out the option' or 'the values that are possible for the agent in an ideal situation'? Is the moral quality of a feature of agency determined by 'actual consequences’ or by what the agent 'expects' or 'intends' to be brought about by her actions? Is 'the greatest good principle’ a criterion for evaluating ‘all features of agency’ or just the agent’s ‘actions’? Is the right action what 'maximizes the good' or what 'satistices the good'? Which one is the sole intrinsic good: 'pleasure' or 'preference'? This paper 'describes' and 'analyzes' the various approaches to different types of utilitarianism.

In the twentieth century, the idea of experiencing religious philosophy of religion became increasingly important in the eyes of many philosophers and religious thinkers. The formulation and presentation of religious experience as a source of justification and religious concepts were introduced, and the argument for the existence of God and His attributes were derived. Explaining the second half of this century, the epistemological argument with versions came along and tried some philosophers of religion rationality of religious belief based on experience to defend. One of these philosophers is William Alston. He has attempted to articulate a theory of religious experience through accreditation of experiential knowledge of God, which he calls the mystical experience, knowledge base to justify and reasoning faith in God to provide. He explained his theory, first proposed the theory of appearance. Through perceptual experience and understanding of religious and spiritual perceptions, and then by relegating religion to justify the means "doxastic practice" and the epistemic justification of religious belief based on mystical perceptual practice, he tries to show that religious experience religious faith is a source of justification.

In the openings of Sophist and Statesman, Plato does reportedly promise the reader that he intends to write a trilogy respectively entitled Sophist, Statesman and Philosopher. The two former dialogues have been authored and are available today, but this is not the case with the third dialogue; that is, Plato never writes the third dialogue, or as said differently, he does not pen it like the other two ones. There are different views concerning this third dialogue. This essay is a critical appraisal of Heidegger’s taking on this issue. Heidegger does not accept the common view among the interpreters that Plato has had the intention to write the triple dialogues and accordingly he seeks to retrieve the depiction of philosopher through Plato’s corpus. He believes that Plato has written the Philosopher but not in the form of other dialogues or rather in a Socratic fashion. This essay seeks to demonstrate that firstly, Plato does not meet his promise as regarding to the composition of Philosopher; secondly, the reason for not keeping his promise is that Plato believed basic philosophical themes could not be presented in written form, and that there is no benefit for the public in having them inscribed; thirdly, his depiction of philosopher can well be retrieved from his works.

Contemporary environmental crisis is the product of many factors: intellectual, cultural, political and economic. Not only is the role philosophical perspectives have had in generating this crisis is significant, but also philosophical ideas are among the most fundamental causes of this crisis. Undoubtedly, one of the most influential ideas and philosophical foundations in the generation of the environmental crises are Francis Bacon's theories. The way he has explained the universe, and almost most elements of his philosophical perspectives, i.e. anthropology, nature and logic, have influenced man’s welfare and triggered environmental degradation. This study investigates various areas of the Bacon's philosophy and aims to demonstrate the effect of his opinions on the birth of the environmental crises. It is argued that Francis Bacon is in the category of ethics which endorses anthropocentrism.

The nature of revelation is one of the controversial problems in theology of religions. There are different views on this subject in the Islamic theology. According to the common view, revelation is a set of divine truths in the form of linguistic propositions that are presented to people via the holy prophet. In recent years, another view on the nature of revelation has been introduced. According to this view, revelation does not have a linguistic nature and is under the influence of historical-cultural factors. This paper aims to analyze the views of Morteza Motahari and Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd as the advocates for each perspective. According to Motahari, descent of revelation means that the prophet, during a spiritual ascending, receives divine truths and then these truths descend within the prophet's existence and are finally revealed in a linguistic form. Motahari believes that revelation is a meta-historical object. Abu Zayd, on the other hand, argues that revelation does not have a linguistic nature and the prophet just receives the divine meanings and shapes them in a linguistic form by himself. According to Abu Zayd, it is the prophet who gives the Arabic form to the revelation, and revelation is a historical object. In this paper the similarities and differences between these two perspectives are discussed.