JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL MEDITATIONS
Year:2019 | Volume:9 | Issue:22|Papers Count:12

A comparative study of death from the perspectives of St. Augustine and Mulla Sadra is an effective and beneficial step toward its understanding. St. Augustine’ s perspective is based on Christian traditions and especially influenced by St Paul’ s notions of death and the original sin, as he believes that the main cause of death is sin. He believes that man should have been able to benefit from the gift of eternal life if he did not commit sin. But the original sin of Adam and Eve since the conception of the human race has been their death penalty. Mulla Sadra, however, does not accept the effect of the original sin, although like St. Augustine he believes that intentional sin does kill the soul. In addition, with regard to substantial motion theory, Mulla Sadra believes that natural death is another existential step of perfection for mankind. Despite all the differences, both philosophers emphasize the common aspects of natural death including necessity, generality and its being a favor. Also, both believe that volitional death means the cultivation of the soul and eradication of the sensory instincts and disconnecting the soul from the body of Salek (The Spiritual Traveler). They consider death as a beginning of a new life and call it a way to approximate God.

Representing and analyzing classical Islamic thoughts in the language of contemporary philosophy can be very fruitful. In this paper, I review Ryle's thesis on ‘ self’ and then explain this idea according to Mulla Sadra. Ryle believes that ‘ I’ is not a name to indicate something, but it is just an ‘ index word’ which is somehow equivalent to adverbs and that it signifies the person who presents it. By use of linguistic analysis, he argues that if ‘ I’ cannot be replaced by ‘ my body’ , then it must refer to ‘ nobody’ ; but this assumption is not true, while self-consciousness is a higher order performance above self. On the other hand, Mulla Sadra sees ‘ I’ as an existence which has different aspects; in spite of subtlety, it can be sensitive, imaginational or reasonable. Therefore, ‘ I’ in all applications has a unique meaning that shows some reality which occurred in that seat without any virtual denotations. As a result, we see that the existential viewpoint of Mulla Sadra is accompanied by interesting discussions on linguistic analysis.

Our interaction with the environment depends on our understanding and attitude towards it. This interaction can be based on the relational hegemonic subjective view between man, the environment and the creatures, as we see in the modern thought, a relation which is the underlying cause of the aggravation of contemporary environmental crisis. On the other hand, a different relation can be considered according to which man does not intend to dominate the world and the environment; rather, this is a relation based on familiarity and kinship to the world, the nature, and the environment. Among contemporary thinkers, Heidegger’ s thought refers to a relation to the environment based on which environmental crisis can be overcome. His thought endows rational credit to the issues in the subject. Heidegger’ s views on the reality of existence and dwelling can change our conception of man’ s relation to himself, the world, and his understanding of each of them. Therefore, based on the concept of dwelling and referring to the meaning of the earth and the nature in Heidegger's thought, we examine a different way of man's confrontation with the environment and the earth – a way based on the nature of dwelling according to which man's relation is defined as that of a maintainer and inheritor of the earth and creatures.

In Islamic philosophy, the rule of Impossibility of Impression of big things in small place is used to demonstrate the immateriality of their abstracts, imaginations and perceptual powers, as well as the place where the partial images of visual and imaginary images (figurative forms) are used. Thus, one of the reasons for the immateriality of the imaginal world as well as the immateriality of the soul and its powers is the impossibility of supposing large imaginary forms in the material place of brain. In this article, by collecting the philosophical applications of this principle and extracting their shared bases, the views of the proponents and opponents of it are discussed. According to new psychology, it is shown that the cases which have been cited by the ancients are not considered as Impossibility of Impression of big things in small place. Thus the arguments that have been raised in theology of Islamic philosophy through this rule are not valid; other proofs are needed to prove the claims. Accordingly, it is necessary to revise this rule in philosophical applications.

Kant's racist statements in his practical philosophy seem to be problematic when it comes to human rights. At the first glance, these statements seem controversial to the spirit of his thinking. Some Kant scholars have justified it, while some others have emphasized the existence of such conflict. In our opinion, despite Kant's racist statements, his moral theory is immune from a racist approach. In fact, Kant’ s mortal theory enjoys a universal form that emphasizes the preservation of the dignity of all human beings as a social-moral duty. In this article, we first consider the position of Anthropology in Kant's thought as a framework in which his racial views are outlined. Then we survey his theory of race (philosophy of race) and racist statements. Finally, we examine the spirit of his thinking and explain and evaluate the views of Kant scholars on the subject.

The relationship between moral life on the one hand, and pleasure and pain on the other, is one of the most important philosophical questions. Does a moral person necessarily enjoy more in his/her life or moral practice? The relation between moral states and pleasures is complex in Aristotle's philosophy. According to our understanding of him, a moral life is not necessarily enjoyable; but this does not mean that there is not any relationship between morality and pleasure and pain. For Aristotle, moral states are in the realm of pleasure and pain, and pleasure is the result of moral action; that is, the goodness of an action is not because of its pleasure, but an action is pleasurable because of its goodness. This means that even the person who does bad actions and avoids moral actions does so for the sake of pleasure and avoiding of pain. Yet the virtuous man enjoys his moral action; therefore, enjoying the moral act is a sign of the character of the virtuous man. This view of Aristotle has had important implications in educating our emotions from the beginning of childhood, and it can be said that the basis of ethical knowledge is based on the interference in pleasure and pain in human life. This view of Aristotle has had important consequences for guiding emotions since childhood. In his view, guiding and controlling pleasure and pain is important and gives strength to a moral character and a moral life combined with pleasure.

There are different approaches regarding the morality of abortion. Richard Dawkins is one of the advocates of the Theory of Evolution who has tried to approach abortion based on this theory. Applying library method in this article, his theory has been analytically studied and the major criticisms for his theory have been propounded. Due to the importance of Dawkins' ideas regarding the Theory of Evolution and his scientific books for the general public, it is necessary to study and analyze his opinions on the issue of abortion. The findings of this article indicate that Dawkins' reasoning in support of abortion not only has theoretical problems, but also creates practical problems which are contrary to his pragmatistic and consequentialistic inclination. Although his line of reasoning does not work for abortion, it can be used to defend animal rights due to its premises.

In this paper, the authors have tried to provide a clear and vivid picture of the theory of gradual and meaningful evolution. To this end, Dr. Sahabi's perspective on the creation of man as well as the views of Allameh Tabatabaei have been documented. In the final stage, which is the main work of this article, we have discussed the comparison between the views of these two scholars. First, we have discussed what their opinions have in common and in what ways they differ. Then we have preferred Dr. Sahabi's opinion to Allameh Tabatabaei's view.

The naturalistic approaches to ethics try to find some solution to the problems of moral philosophy with an emphasis on the findings of empirical science. One of the most famous naturalistic approaches to ethics is evolutionary approach. Evolutionary explanations of morality have always been accused of committing naturalistic fallacy. The naturalistic fallacy has two versions: Humean and Moorian. Hume's reading, also known as deductive version of the naturalist fallacy, suggests that the inference of values from facts is a kind of fallacy. Moore's version of naturalistic fallacy, says that defining moral properties based on immoral properties, and in particular natural properties, is impossible. In this article, after introducing Ruse's evolutionary ethics, his reasons for not being committed to naturalistic fallacies are brought. Then we answer the question whether or not Ruse really avoided the fallacies. Our answer to this question is affirmative. But, along with critics like Rottscheafer and Martinsen, we will show that the cost of avoiding these fallacies has been discarding the objectivity of ethics. Would Ruse, without endorsing an illusionary and subjective account of morality, avoid the naturalistic fallacy? We will demonstrate that such a reading can be offered by giving a greater role to culture. Thus, the purpose of the article is to oppose Ruse's illusionary readings of morality and to defend an objectivist reading. In our opinion, elements of this reading can also be found in the work of Ruse himself.

Mulla Sadra has two different approaches to the principle of authenticity of existence and the validity of the nature of the two. This separation is due to the fact that in some positions in explaining the principle of the originality of existence, his arguments sometimes indicate the realization of the causal nature, and sometimes necessitate the denial of any external realization of nature. This difference has led Sadra to have two attitudes towards some issues in his philosophical system; in most of these positions, his ultimate attitude is based on the rejection of the realization of the nature of the outside world. In the present study, based on this index, some of the ontological consequences of the principle of the originality of existence, including the general nature of the problem, the review of the nature and identity of objects, the theory of important motion and the formation of existence in existence have been studied. In this study, the author tries to explain the different views of Mulla Sadra on the authenticity of existence, and ultimately explain his final views on each of these issues.

For a long time, philosophers have considered thinking and contemplative knowledge to be the specific perfection of the human race. What is the relationship between thought or theoretical reflection and action? What are the opinions of Aristotle and Avicenna on the relationship between theory and practice? Is Avicenna merely a commentator of Aristotle or has he also developed the latter’ s ideas? Has this development been holistic or otherwise? What is the nature of ‘ relative Causality’ of opinion and practice in Aristotle and Avicenna? The relationship between theory and practice can be studied under twofold issues: first, the relationship between theoretical and practical potential in terms of epistemology; then the relationship between knowledge and action manifested in mysticism, happiness, politics, ethics and prophecies (called practical wisdom). The paper discusses Aristotle's and Avicenna`s views on these issues and then examines the relationship between practical and theoretical reason and practical wisdom with a special focus on the concept of ‘ Causality’ .

This article critically investigates the development of Putnam's pragmatism and presents Putnam's critiques of different dualities, the Claim of The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and the end of Putnam's pragmatism which resulted in the problem of ‘ Ontology possibility’ and the pronouncing of The Death of Ontology. Then with a comparative perspective, we discuss Aristotle's opinion about duality of Theoria and Praxis; ‘ Separation of Morality’ has been investigated as Aristotle's best solution for the problem of ‘ Ontology possibility’ . At the end of article we argue that in spite of Putnam's critiques to his previous comments and his attempt to avoid various dualities, Putnam's pragmatism does not have the separation of duality of Theoria and Praxis. On Putnam's philosophy as ‘ Metaphysical Realism’ to ‘ Internal Realism’ and ‘ Pragmatic Pluralism’ , accompanied with ‘ duality of Theoria and Praxis’ and accordingly, development of Putnam's pragmatism and his tendency to Ethics, just explained with impact of the Aristotelian duality of theoria and praxis. In this way, unlike Putnam's opinion, his critique on Metaphysic has not confirmed the Rejection of Ontology. But this critique highlights the importance of ‘ Separation of Morality’ in contemporary philosophy and reconsiders Aristotle’ s philosophy.