JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Year:2019 | Volume:21 | Issue:1 (79)|Papers Count:9

The Human soul has two faculties of theoretical intellect and practical intellect. The soul’ s divine matter has the potential to elevate and seek absolute perfection and if man abandons it purposelessly, it will go towards darkness. The gradually perfecting and evolutionary qualities of the soul are among the indisputable principles of Sadrian philosophy and substantive motion is one of its main arguments. Based on this, man is constantly in a state of motion and becoming. The main discourse of this article is that man’ s gradually perfecting motion in Sadrian philosophy towards ultimate happiness and the peak of existence is not possible except through knowledge and action. Knowledge and action correlate to one another and each is the cause for the development and actualization of a more perfect degree of the other. Although, in terms of assigning value knowledge is higher than action because in the initial stage knowledge is the cause for action in a way that without it action has no meaning; and in higher stages as well, knowledge is the purpose of action and action is the prelude and constituent of knowledge which results in the removal of inner and outer obstacles and veils, i. e. it creates the groundwork so that man’ s divine existence becomes manifest and results in a knowledge known as “ Divine Knowledge” .

According to Sadra, the relationship between possible beings and the Necessary Being is dependency. He believes that all other Muslim philosophers before him, including Jalal al-Din Davani understood this relationship to be relational. However, Davani, who in his works holds that the relation between the cause and the effect is a kind of “ attribution” , explains this relation in two different forms, the first of which is known as the theory of Zawq al-Ta'alluh (Inclination to Divinity); from his views in this regard one can mostly conclude the relationality of possible beings. In the second form he uses the concept of emanation instead of causality and the notion of the source of attributions (Um al-Nisab) to more precisely explain the concept of “ attribution” and considers it to be synonymous with manifestation and emanation in a way that one can say Davani's view corresponds to that of Sadra concerning personal unity. In this paper, firstly it is shown that the second approach to Davani's view is a more complete and precise one and secondly, it is concluded that two matters caused Sadra to believe that Davani considered possible beings to be relational beings: Davani’ s unsuccessful explanation of his intended meaning and Sadra’ s inattention to the second form of the explanation of “ attribution” .

This article focuses on the relation between Tajarri (insolence, audacity) and the Law of Will: has the Law of Will been violated in instances of Tajarri or, in other words, has the Law of Will been disobeyed, broken and defied? This article does not focus on the circumstance of the external act in which Tajarri has occurred. Therefore, one can consider the present discussion to apply to instances where an external act has not taken place, a circumstance that the agent abstains from committing an act against the law due to the presence of obstacles and in doing so does not extend Tajarri to the domain outside of his self. It will be shown that in the area of natural dispute and conflict, there has certainly been no violation of the law, in the same way that in instances of ‘ Isyan (transgression), there has absolutely been a breach of the law; in this case, the violatation of the law by the agent in instances of Tajarri is linked with the violation of the law by the agent in instances of ‘ Isyan in terms of ruling; rather, it can be said that the violation of the law by the agent in instances of Tajarri has no difference from that of ‘ Isyan.

In his Being and Time, Heidegger does not illustrate Dasein’ s embodiment but he postpones his illustration for some time in the future, namely in his Zollikon Seminars (1959-1969). In the seminars, Heidegger provides his clearest elucidation for this primordial fact that Dasein’ s embodiment is openness to the world; Dasein’ s existence extends beyond and over its physical body thereby construing and analysing the world from an existential standpoint. He puts forward the title “ bodying forth” for this primordial fact. Dissimilarly, Levinas, by adopting his peculiar ethical approach, criticises the Heideggerian Dasein: Heideggerian Dasein is sufficiently not human (i. e. “ from flesh-and-blood” ). Levinas lays stress upon the fact that the subject’ s face-to-face encounter with the Other can be taken from the perspective of embodied reality. A novel wisdom of the body will be constituted in the context of the I’ s ethical relationship with the Other and the I’ s widely open receptivity to fulfilling the Other’ s demands and needs. In this paper, having made an investigation into the subject’ s embodiment in both philosophers’ different phenomenologies, a serious scrutiny will be given to the Levinasian critique of Dasein as it is insufficiently constituted “ from flesh-and-blood” .

Causality in some contexts such as “ Hamid’ s failure to water his plants was a cause of their death. ” and “ Rickets is caused by a deficiency of vitamin D” can be called "absence causation". In this paper, the main question is whether the use of the term “ cause” in such instances due to carelessness and a misuse of language or denotes something that is real and independent of our minds. Defending the first view can be called “ anti-realism” in absence causation and the second as “ anti-realism” . Helen Beebee is one of the contemporary philosophers that defend anti-realistic theory of absence causation. Her main argument is, in short, as Davidson said, that causation is a relation between events, whereas there are no negative events, therefore, there is no genuine absence causation. However, the main objection that those like her encounter is the common and strong linguistic intuition in sentences like Hamid’ s inattentiveness to plants. Beebee has argued that our intuitions in these cases are wrong and the author strives to show that her arguments have failed to achieve this goal.

In recent decades, one of the challenges facing morality is its alleged conflict with what are among the most important contributors to human well-being. It is claimed that adopting moral theories may alienate one from that which makes one’ s life worthwhile, such as her affections, her personal commitments, as well as from other people. In his paper, “ Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality” , Railton attempts to answer this objection from a consequentialist point of view. For this purpose, he has formulated a new version of consequentialism, which he calls “ sophisticated consequentialism” . This version, he thinks, avoids the problem of necessitating alienation. This paper first provides an explanation of Railton’ s formulation of consequentialism and then goes on to criticize the solution he has devised for the problem of alienation by using this formulation and while showing certain incoherencies in the proposed formulation, refuses to accept it as a new version of consequentialism. It is also argued that there are problems in how Railton’ s account solves the problem of alienation which ultimately render it non-consequentialist.

Kant believes providing objectivity is one of the most essential functions of imagination. The role of imagination in establishing objectivity includes both the epistemic determinant judgment related to understanding, and the aesthetic reflective judgment. Kant constantly places imagination in connection with matters such as understanding, self-consciousness and/or pure intuition, or common sense, and reflective judgment. Imagination has always maintained a core role in relation to other faculties of cognition. This role could be simply regarded as the possibility of constituting objectivity. This paper seeks, in the first step, to critique pure reason by addressing how imagination in relation with understanding serves as a source of objectivity and then provides answers as to how imagination in its unity with common sense and the operation of reflection presented in the critique of the faculty of judgment, provides an objective reference to them, without which, the common validity for aesthetic-taste judgment will be lost. Hence, in Kant’ s view, imagination has a requisite role in providing objectivity.

There are many new philosophical queries about the moral status and rights of artificial intelligences; questions such as whether such entities can be considered as morally responsible entities and as having special rights. Recently, the contemporary philosophy of mind philosopher, Eric Schwitzgebel, has tried to defend the possibility of equal rights of AIs and human beings (in an imaginary future), by designing a new argument (2015). In this paper, after an introduction, the author reviews and analyzes the main argument and then deals with four criticisms witch Schwitzgebel himself has presented and rejected and ultimately, the author presents and explains two new critiques against the argument. According to the writer, though the argument regarding his new criticisms and some other probable critiques is not convincing, or at least needs to be corrected, however, it holds appeal and raises questions and may open a new horizon for future questions and researches.

Hannah Arendt’ s philosophical thoughts have some theoretical proximity with her compatriot mentor Martin Heidegger and on the other hand are directly influenced by contemporary political events like the rising of new forms of regimes and the Second World War. Hannah Arendt is a political philosopher who understands art to be a way to achieve a type of political life and tries to revive a type of political social life which she believes has been corrupted and lost in the modern era by using a liberal foundation like art. Considering that Arendt has not written a distinct and compiled work under the title of political aesthetics or philosophy of art, in this paper we will try to understand her aesthetics which has been presented in the context of a type of political philosophy by collecting, compiling, reviewing and analyzing Arendt’ s scattered views in her books, articles, lessons and notes. In Arendt’ s philosophy, the disappearance and corruption of the political character of human life is closely related to the corruption and transmutation of the public sphere. Therefore, the public sphere and its maintenance can somehow be considered as Arendt’ s political philosophy ideal. The importance of this topic can be realized only when we understand how Arendt thinks the maintenance of the public sphere requires the existence of diversities and how the maintenance of diversity requires art. Due to the character of her philosophy we will review the philosophical foundations which were undefined in her works to make it possible to understand her aim of some kind of political aesthetics which is hidden in her philosophy.