QARBSHENASI-YE BONYADI (OCCIDENTAL STUDIES)
Year:2017 | Volume:7 | Issue:2|Papers Count:6

Concept of the other in philosophy of Levinas gives identity to his other concept. He criticizes the epistemology and ontology, at the same time questions the integrity of the subject and the universality of other. According to Levinas the other is possibility to deny the totality of the subject and possibility to transcendence to go beyond static identity. This article tries to show that relationship between subject and the other is not cognitive or ontological, but it's foundation is ethical relationship that is formed in proximity the other. The most important dimension of other's existence that we understand it, is the moment of his/her death. This leads to fundamental ethical relationship in which responsibility for the death of the other is the most important aspect of realization of our being. According to us, understanding being, as Heidegger insists on it, is not being toward death through a genuine relationship with his own death, but we believe that other's death is the moment of devastating departure to find out such a being tied with the nothingness. The existence is realized in being for other and subjectivity in the acts of relation to the other and subsequently by protecting others against death.

First, I sketch out main ideas of Suarez concerning the concept of freedom in his Disputations 18th and 19th and his commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima. I elucidate how his metaphysical and non-theological understanding of freedom is. Second, I clarify how Thomas Pink’s categorization of Suarezean concept of freedom could be insufficient regarding the difference between Suarez’s and Thomas Aquinas’s foundations of deliberate acts.

We have seen that Islamophobia is said to be an ‘unfounded hostility towards Islam’. It is some researchers’ contention that they need to rethink this definition, and see Islamophobia not as ‘unfounded hostility’, but a hostility for which reasons may exist. They argue that, it is important to acknowledge that Islamophobic attitudes are rooted into a complex socio-political ideology. Plus in order to engage with the key arguments that shape the conflictual and dialogic models of analysis, one should be familiar with classic texts and contemporary works related to explanatory frameworks. In this article, Clash of Civilizations as one of the most important of these conceptual frameworks will be discussed in detail. First, we talk about theory of Clash of Civilizations and two well-known spokespersons for it i.e. Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington. Then, we’ll explain how this thesis became the main root and foundation of Islamophobia in 2000s and why western media and politicians welcomed this explanatory framework and helped Lewis and Huntington to propagate their theory in public discourse in the last two decades.

What is the final form of Kant's moral philosophy? is his moral system tough, firm and inflexible as it is famous and does the eighteenth-century German philosopher discard purpose and happiness in the path of his moral behavior? How can we apply Kantian ethics in everyday life? These are some questions formulated in this article and on the basis of Allen Wood's interpretation of Kant's moral system, we will suggest some answers which are very different to the current opinion on Kant's ethics. The precise picture of Kant's ethics must be drawn on the neglected book, entitled Metaphysic of Morals, and the End has an important place in it. In practice, Kant preferred the second formula in which a human being is an end in itself. In contrast with the general opinion, Kant's main solution is not the test of generalizability and the deductions derived from the universal law formula. Similarly, the love for charity and interest in helping others, do not only impede Ethics, but also foster it.

Ethics as one of the major branches of philosophy from Plato and Aristotle till recent time, theorising by male philosophers and for male audiences, In recent decades some women philosophers starting to think and write about moral issues. Some of them gave new life to virtue ethics; some of them produce ethics of care; some, like radical feminists, spoke of ethics of love and so on. Although all these thinkers do not belong to the same school of thought, but similar voices heard through their writings which are different from mainstream moral philosophy. In this article we are going to evaluate this common voices and show that these philosophers, affected by their experiences as women, demanding for recognition of emotions and human relation in ethics. By this recognition, the meaning of autonomy has been challenged and the borders of a moral agent will be changed from inside and outside. The moral agent will be responsible for mental and internal states of her/himself as well as objective acts of self. Furthermore, moral responsibility to particular others became important. Gender insights in ethics do not look for separation all the time, vice versa some women philosopher, like Annette Bayer and Virginia Held, looking for unity and improvement which we examine their idea in this article.

Frankfurt School, commonly named Critical Theory, is one of the main representatives of contemporary counter-enlightenment movement. Horkheimer and Adorno, two main theorists of this school, argue that the enlightenment contradicts itself through a dialectical process, undermining the intellectual foundations of its own values. According to them, the domination of instrumental reason, which is the result of enlightenment's dialectical development, culminates in dissolving any objective ground for commitment to such ideals as human freedom, equality, and respect for human rights. They see enlightenment's turn to pragmatism in the current century as the sign of its intellectual bankruptcy. In this essay, first I would try to elaborate their criticism of enlightenment, and then answer them from Richard Rorty's point of view. As one of enlightenment's contemporary defenders, he argues that enlightenment's turn against rationalism and toward historicism and pragmatism is the sign of its maturity through a dialectical process of self-canceling and self-fulfilling. Last of all, I would argue that the contemporary pragmatic liberalism, as immediate successor of Enlightenment, is not subject to the charge of resignation in the face status que, being able to criticize it in the light of ends and ideals to which our identities and traditions are most deeply attached.