FALSAFE-YE ELM (PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE)
Year:2012 | Volume:1 | Issue:2|Papers Count:8

The concept of temperament is one of the key concepts which has played an important role in, ancient medicine and physics on the one hand, and in the philosophical discussions in particular in the field of knowledge of the soul on the other. According to the ancients, temperament is a quality resulted from reaction between four elements and is, in terms of its characteristics, other than its components. The resulted quality is at different levels of balance and that how much the resulted quality (temperament) is at balance is an important agent for beings to attain different levels of existence. May such a concept have some place in the modern medicine as well? To reply, at first, we define temperament as well as the concept related to it such as balance of temperament, four elements, and four-fold humors as viewed by the ancients. Then, we introduce four popular contemporary understandings of temperament and, after it and based on the true understanding of temperament, we will select from among the above four ones. In this understanding, the quality of functions of autonomous nervous system may be taken as a contemporary alternative for the traditional; concept of temperament.

In recent decades, rationality has become one of the important and controversial issues in the intellectual circles. There are many philosophers who have put (and still put) under question the status of reason and human rationality. Among those who believe in human reason is Popper. To show reason's ability, he rejects positivism and justifying approaches totally; and, designing falsificationist philosophy of science, he confirms critical rationality and attaches emphasis to it. In the present article, at first, Popper's rationality together with its important and constructive elements are inferred and reconstructed and, then, success and consistence of Popper's positions are studied and assessed. The main conclusion of the present article is that it is impossible to completely reject positivist and justifying approaches and provide an absolutely negativist and critical epistemology.

At the beginning, mentions will be made to definitions and analyses posed by philosophers of technology such as Martin Heidegger, Mario Jung, and Stephen Kline of the concept of technology; then, the author will describe how such definitions may be applied to the concept of ecommerce. After it, through analysis of ideas posed by Martin Heidegger, Karl Marx, Jacques Ellul, Donald Mackenzie, Hans Jonas, and Andrew Feenberg which are discussed in the philosophy of technology concerning requirements of technological civilization, limitations imposed by ecommerce on individuals and society will be discussed. Such requirements will evidently cause the issue of relation between morality and technology to emerge. In the present writing, the issue of morality and technology will be studied from three respects: determination of objectives, ways and means to attain objectives, and effects of technology. Then, virtual and meta-reality of postmodern technology will be discussed; and from this perspective, effects and consequences of ecommerce for the identities of individuals and traditions of the society will be analyzed.

The well-known American philosopher and theologian, William Lane Craig has been known as the reviver of a particular cosmological argument which he calls "Kalam cosmological argument". The main part of this argument is that the universe has some temporal beginning (temporal origination). To prove this important premise of his argument, Craig appeals to four reasons two of which are a priori (philosophical) and two others are a posteriori (scientific).In the present article, after depicting the beginning of the universe as Craig thinks, one of his a priori arguments for this claim is introduced and assessed. Finally, the article comes to the conclusion that, though Craig's picture of the beginning of the universe is consistent and coherent, it is not able to prove that such a picture may be realized in the external world.

Hempel's Dilemma is among several arguments posed against physicalism. Physicalists can respond to this dilemma in several ways. The present article aims to analyze Andrew Melnyk and Janice Dowell's responses based on their specific accounts about the conception of the term "physical". Melnyk's account is based upon a scientific realist's approach to natural sciences. We will focus on and discuss about that weather we can adopt such an approach to the present science and in particular the present physics or not. Dowell, however, defends an account according to witch ideal future physics should be replaced by an ideal science that has hallmarks of a scientific theory and differs in its subject matter. The author wants to show that these accounts, each one in respect to particular aspects, cannot play the given role in formulation of the physicalism thesis.

One of the popular theories of rationality of science is rationality as foundationism according to which rationality of a scientific theory is based on sense data upon which the theory has been constructed. The issue of certain data is, however, followed by many debates. In the present article, appealing to Wittgenstein ideas about "certainty", authors present a new understanding of certainties in a scientific theory. According to this new understanding, each and every scientific theory consists of two kinds of propositions: fixed and fluid. Based on this classification of propositions of a scientific theory, a new idea is presented concerning rationality of scientific theories according to which a theory is rational if, firstly it is consistent and, second, it retains fixed propositions of the scientific society and replaces fluid propositions by other proper ones.Presenting historical evidence, the authors try to show that this idea is efficient and realistic if it is assessed according to standards of rationality which are based on evidency of sense data.

As an independent, serious, and powerful field of human knowledge, till the 1970's, sociology of science was not so paid attention to in philosophers' debates. Early in 1970's however, many philosophers approached to this field of human knowledge in various ways. Since then, great advances and important developments have been made in this field. That is why the present article focuses on the sociology of science and tries to represent its main components, building blocks, representatives, and main works done in this field during recent centuries. Sociology of science is a field which has begun to make important exchanges with philosophy. Some issues introduced in the sociology of science have been at stake in the history of science as well. Sociology of science or, to put it more accurately, sociology of human knowledge, however, claims to be a substitute discipline for philosophy of science.The main claim posed in the present article is that what causes scientific events to occur- what causes people to believe some theory instead of some other theory-is actions and reactions of social forces. Science is a social action, and in no era it is relied on individual achievements of scientists. It is not isolated scientists who cause emergence of new eras in science; but rather, scientists are themselves products of debates, resolution of differences, hierarchies, inequalities in power, and other social factors. It goes without saying that emphasis attached to social aspects of science and ignoring the impact of the real structure of the world will be followed by many extremist consequences. In the present article, only main issues in sociology of science will be described; critique of this discipline, however, needs to be made in another article.