PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS
Year:2011 | Volume:7 | Issue:19|Papers Count:8

The question of plurality or unity of human soul is among the topics which basically originate from Plato's and Aristotle's works. Plato considers the subject from two approaches and finally accepts the plurality whereas Aristotle deems it unreasonable to reckon the soul to be plural and divisible and consequently admits the unity of the soul. Regarding these two theories (i.e. the unity of the human soul and the plurality of it), the philosophers have to either confirmed one theory and reject the other at the same time. Therefore the two Peripatetic Islamic and Christian philosophers, Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas are inclines toward the “unity of soul “theory. The difference of these two philosophers is in that Avicenna's requires clarifications due to some conflicting aspects in his theory. This conflict arises from the repeatedly emphasis on soul unity on one hand and in the meantime attribution of human activities to three other souls. To integrate these evidently clashing points it is possible to set forth two status namely “definition and realization” (essence and existence). Aquinas assesses the subject more rigorously and in more detail comparing to Avicenna and while considering different views including Plato's, proves the dominance of Aristotle's theory over Plato's.

Carnap's method of explication of concepts proposed based on the idea that the main responsibility of philosopher of science is the clarification of vague scientific and unscientific concepts in the language of science and replacement of them by “crystal clear” ones. The critiques of philosophers like Strawson, Quine, and Popper caused most philosophers of science not to openly endorse Carnap's method of explication, even though an important part of their philosophical works devoted to his project. In recent years, some philosophers of science have fully defended the method of explication. Instead of criticizing the arguments of these philosophers, this paper criticizes the products of applying the method of explication on one important concept of philosophy of science, “unification”. It has been shown that the efforts of philosophers of science in offering an explication for this concept have been futile.

“Religious experience”, in its broadest sense, is either an inner experience or an objective event that has religious meaning for the subject. In philosophy of religion, however, a narrower meaning of the term is at issue: an experience taken by the subject as experiential awareness of God, in which one directly perceives the presence of God (or a divine being). Religious empiricism is an approach which tries to justify or reconstruct religious beliefs on the ground of “religious experience”. In this paper, after a short review on the historical background of this attitude, I will propose two different meanings for religious empiricism. Then, considering Schleiermacher's and James's views, I will discuss religious empiricism in its contemporary and perhaps most important formulation developed by Swinburne and Alston. Religious empiricism could be understood as a religious reaction to the criticism of religion in the modern time. It tries to stay and act within the framework of modern philosophy that emphasizes on the significance of experience. In their intellectual efforts, the advocates of this stream have expanded the boundaries of the notion of experience. On the other hand, “religious experience” has a different meaning and function for each of aforementioned philosophers. So, to evaluate this approach we need to understand these differences in depth.

Much has been said in discussions concerning literary criticism from the position of the writer and the reader deciding the type of the existing readings and claims in criticisms. But the problem is that the identity of the writers and readers of various texts are not precisely definite and determined in a way we could be able to establish our critic claims. How could we deal with such a problem and what might be the solution to it? The concepts such as “the real individual”, “typical individual” and the broader concept of “the logic of situation ”have been applied here to find a solution to this problem and all these discussions have become an introduction to Roland Barth's “the death of the writer” theory. And here Roland Barth's viewpoints can be challenged. A study of Barth's theory according to the concept of “the logic of situation” can lead us to results contradictory with those of Barth's. In fact, the work done here in this article is that the theory of ' the death of the writer' has been applied to that theory itself, that is, the consequences of Barth's theory have been studied independent from his own intentions.

Transcendental Ego is the principle of principles that philosophization of great philosophers such as Husserl has been based upon it. Husserl, too, as a follower of Descartes meditations and philosophy with attemption in intentionality of transcendental ego accepts it as the base of principles of philosophization and declares himself as a New Cartesian. In this study, the author develops an original reading of the Cartesian Meditation. This text, far from giving rise to a “Transcendental solipsism”, leads to a constitution of intersubjectivity on various levels (“primordial”, “Intersubjective” et “Objective”). In its center, a “Phenomenological Construction” operates, i.e. a methodological piece that masters the genetic approach of intersubjectivity. Closely following the “almost mathematical” rigour of this crucial text of Husserl’s phenomenology, in this way equally tackles the issue of the constitution of the experience of the other and the truly intersubjective structure of transcendental subjectivity. This study concludes with the metaphysical results of the analysis of the experience of the other.

The assumption that people understand each other by employing a ‘folk’ or “commonsense” psychology is currently pervasive in philosophy of mind, cognitive science and various other disciplines. Folk psychology is almost always taken to consist primarily of an ability to attribute internal propositional attitude states, principally beliefs and desires, in order to predict and explain behavior in a deductive structure, so “folk psychology” also called “belief- desire psychology”. But this is not the only theory that considers interaction between people, there is also a rival that called simulation theory. This theory is the greatest opponent of “folk psychology”. In this research I, like Ratcliff, call all the things that people do to understand, explain and predict each other, folk psychology. And call the first view “folk psychology as a theory of mind” and the second one “folk psychology as a mental simulation” or “simulation” alone. In this paper I will begin by the most accepted view, folk psychology as a theory of mind,, based on Fodor's view, then we will come to some critics that bring up by Goldman. After these critics we will present simulation view and answer to some of its critics to “folk psychology as a theory of mind”. Then, at the end of the essay I will conclude that we can mix this to view together and present a hybrid theory to consider what people really do to explain and predict each other behavior.

In this research, the theory of probabilistic causation is investigated. The main idea of this theory is that the cause changes the probability of happening effect. The causation in this theory is introduced as an objective relation and it is based on inherent properties. The causal relation is attended in type level. Otherwise human cognition of natural phenomena is not definite and determined, the process of cognition is approximated to the truth. In another words, with the acceptance of fault of human cognition, man suggests a probable frame for explanation of his findings. Probabilistic causation uses the probability theory as a tool for explaining the relationship between cause and effect. Probabilistic causation is proposed in two levels: type level (General causal) and token levels (Singular causal). In this research, like Eells's approach, probability causation relationship in type level and it is considered in General causal meaning. Causal relation is considered as typical factor or Property. There are two different interpretations: objective interpretation and subjective interpretation. What is explored in this research is objective interpretation in the frame of frequency-propensity interpretation. The main question in this research is consideration in the sense of probabilistic causation theory and pondering the capability and merits of this concept in against with ontological and epistemological challenges.