JOURNAL OF HUMAN SCIENCES
Year:2006 | Volume:- | Issue:49 (SPECIAL ISSUE ON PHILOSOPHY)|Papers Count:13

The deep attention to the truth of existence in existentialism and passing from epistemological tradition in philosophy caused a new philosophical trend in the West which influenced deeply contemporary Western philosophical thought. In Islamic philosophy, principality (fundamental reality) of existence, which focuses on the truth of existence and passes from quidditive explanation, also, caused a new strong trend in Islamic philosophy which influenced most philosophical issues through this deep viewpoint. At a first glance, these two evolutions seem to be similar with some similarity in the result; but although there are few similarities there are more differences. In this paper, we are going to explore existence in these two trends of two different contexts, and compare briefly their attitudes, and point to the main elements of this comparison.

The present article is an analysis based upon Treatise of Z in Aristotle’s Meataphysics. It studies the connection between form as intelligible primary and definition. The definition states the essence of something primary. Real definition involves a genus and differentia. One part of definition, must play the matter, the other that of form, so the generic part of differentia corresponds to matter, the differentia to form. This article explains that species has a kind of identity with pure form, though the species is other than pure form. It shows that the internal complexity of species of definition is comparable with complexity in form itself. The definitions are shown ultimately as concerned with form as intelligible primary.

Avicenna distinguishes between two different aspects in human soul, the essential and the actual aspect. With this distinction he could assign for the first time in the history of philosophy, the intellection as the Essential aspect of human soul because human soul is essentially the same as abstract intellects, so it is adequate for intellectual knowledge. That is why we can claim that he precedes Descartes in saying that human soul is nothing but a thinking thing. But the main difference between Avicenna’s and Descartes’ point of view is the fact that Avicenna in contrast to Descartes dose not neglect the effect of external agents in the procedure of intellection. So his philosophy does not lead to the western kind of humanism that Descartes is one of its founders. Avicenna refers to the effect of external agent that is called active agent in his philosophy with two different words: illumination, and diffusion. In his opinion, these two are not two different actions but these are two aspects of one action.

Greek writers pronounced different opinions about Socrates, personality and thought. Nowadays historians of Greek philosophy have also tried to discover the historical Socrates as he is presented in Greek thinker’s works, especially those of Plato. Our aim is not to find and explain the historical thought of Socrates, but to prove that, contrary to what is currently admitted, there is not one Socrates in Plato’s works. In the First Period of Plato’s career, Socrates is a dialectician with   addresses the mass and aims to educate them. He is political, but does not put forward a particular political philosophy. He is also the wisest moralist, but does not hold a philosophy of ethics. While he supports the literal meaning of civil Greek religion, he also criticizes tradition. In the Middle Period we encounter a number of Socrates: the mad philosophy, the lover philosopher, the intuitive philosopher who surpasses dialectics, the theoretician. He uses mythological and esoteric language, sometimes criticizes the first Socrates, and seeks a spiritual guide. In this second period he is an elitist who is in contrast with the mass, an utopist with a political philosophy in addition to one of ethics, and understands religion as having a mysterious and esoteric meaning. Plato accords Socrates a lesser role in works from the end his Middle Period and in his Late Period. It seems that Plato takes distance from Socrates until he disappears in the Laws. We could say that if he had any place in the society of this latter treatise, he should perhaps suffer the same fate as he did in the Apology.

This essay studies the process of formation of two negative concepts meden (no-thing) and meon (non-existing) in Greek classic philosophy as basis. Further it shows that in Islamic early philosophy, unexpectedly the term ′lā shay" has been used as equivalent to meon and not meden. Taking in consideration that in classic philosophy meon is not meaning absolute non-existence, it is clear that the first applications of ′khalq lā min shay" in Islamic text were more accurate than ′khalq min ‛adam′. The first transition from this formula to ′khalq iā min/‛an shay" been made by Farabi is indicating to a redefinition of ′lā shay" in his philosophy and is relation to hulē. It seems that Farabi′s theory on creatio ex nihilo, although is arisen from a Plato-plotinian basis in accordance to Aristotelian language, has been in dialogue with Islamic theology as well. That is why it has benefited in the composition of formule from the formerly produced Islamic theological texts which had proposed the formula ′khalq lā shay".

Wittgenstein’s philosophy is considered as a reflection of linguistic changes emerged at the end of 19th century. Language at this stage was regarded as a philosophic subject and then appeared in new approach as science. These two functions were applied in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. He expressed "the theory of pictorial language" in Tractatus Logico-philosophic which was published in 1921. But in interval years when he put aside philosophy, he was thinking about the second theory which was explained in Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein is regarded as the first philosopher whose thoughts and philosophy are based on language. He believes that the whole function of philosophy is the critique of language. In both approaches, his main purpose was to understand the structure and limits of language. In first approach, Wittgenstein believes that the fact determinates language structure. But in latter period, he initiated a critique on this theory and presented the theory of "language foundation of world". The article aims to study the three basic issues in the linguistic philosophy of Wittgenstein: 1- What are the fundamental elements in two theories of language? 2- What are the causes of thought development of Wittgenstein in language? 3- What is the prominence of second theory in contemporary philosophy?

In this treaties, objective sciences are investigated is intentional phenomena. By approving this theory, the view point that sciences are objectivist or "in itself" is rejected. In this way, experiment is taken as pre-supposed criteria when we deal with objective sciences and, therefore, is distinguished from being realized. This treatise historically makes clear that objectivism has gradually overcome the idea of objective science and objective science has been modified as general non-intuitionable mathematics. Therefore mathematical rules with logical content were regulated in the form of natural rules of mathematics. Whereas logical contents of these rules their origin from the life-world, it cannot be claimed that scientific rules would not undergo experiments, no matter how much intuition influences them. These rules, however, undergo experiments and Husserl’s outlook about non-experimental mathematical natural sciences is, therefore, incomplete and inconclusive.

Undecidability of first order predicate logic has been proved by different methods. One of them is a complex method in which algebraic concepts such as sets, semi groups and its words problems are used. In this paper we have examined the above method and it seems that all methods have a common important core which is related to what Hilbert calls "halting problem". So we think that undecidability of first order logic is subordinate to the halting problem.

Ebn-Torken Esfahani is one of those philosophers who pondered in the field of philosophy of language, relation of language and truth, and science of Letters too. Regarding the way allegory penetrates into language and necessity of its usage to transfer concepts, he believed that if we want to put true knowledge- which is gained through discovery and witnesses- in the words and transfer it through this, we have to inevitably take advantage of allegory since there is a limited space for established concepts and forged contexts. The goal of such an allegory is that we find aspects of those analogies and relations that exist among words’ common concepts and those discovered truths and place these aspects as a connecting ring between established concepts and discovered truths and through this, we remove the incision between both aforesaid established concepts and discovered truths.

The Neo-Kantian philosophical tendency of the nineteenth century appeared with the aim of resolving the problems of the natural sciences. It developed in different philosophical branches and eventually reached the summit of its credibility. Afterwards its importance diminished, but it has not completely disappeared, even though other schools of philosophy have appeared and developed. The philosophers who followed this tendency, kept to the principles of Kant’s philosophy, but, as Wideband explains, following Kant means surpassing his philosophy, and the presented new ideas built on the foundations of Kant’s thought. Then, in addition to other great actions, they went through three distinctive steps in order to surpass Kant’s own philosophy. In order words: the total disappearance of metaphysics, even of its remains in Kant’s philosophy; the discovery of philosophical principles for historical sciences; and, finally, the combination of the principles of Kant’s philosophy with that of Karl Marx.

Social upheavals from the mid-twentieth century have constituted a figure of human being whose mental whose mental and behavioral characteristics, according to many specialists of psychology and philosophy, could be resumed in the concept of "Narcissism". This present article aims at studying the various layers of this concept according to Christopher Lash’s view, one of its outstanding theorists to show some of the lacks or narrow-mindednesses of his analysis. Precise understanding of this concept gives an efficient possibility to analyze and comprehend many of the present human behaviors in western society and to some extent, in societies influenced by western culture.