FALSAFEH (THE IRANIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY)
Year:2017 | Volume:44 | Issue:2|Papers Count:8

The current study investigates the concept of modernity in Theodor Adorno and Michel Foucault’s opuses and emphasizes that each of these philosophers has his specific conceptions of modernity. Therefore, after defining continental philosophy as a “discourse”, and explaining the problems of investigation, we will study this concept separately for Adorno and Foucault. Finally, as comparison and conclusion, we will design ontological, epistemological and paradigmatic models for these philosophers and present them here for the first time. As it will be shown, the fundamental elements that construct ontology and epistemology of modern human are, for Adorno, totality and identity, and for Foucault, bio-power and finitude. The heterogeneity of one discourse’s constituting elements will perfectly appear in paradigmatic models; based on the levels of knowledge, we will show while Adorno has “direct” philosophical and paradigmatic encounters with modernity and his theoretical encounter is an “indirect” one, Foucault has “indirect” philosophical and paradigmatic encounters and “directly” enters to the reality from theory, i.e. from the most concrete level of knowledge.

In Being and Time, Heidegger does not specifically thematize the concept of finitude, but he assumes a specific ontological meaning for this concept which is made briefly explicit in the explanation of the priority of future in the authentic timeliness as the “originary finitude of timeliness”. In this paper, on the basis of the phenomenological absolute precedence of Dasein over all beings, the concept of originary finitude will be distinguished from the ordinary and ontical conception of finitude. The ontical conception of finitude is primarily related to the fact, that Dasein is situated in the middle of beings. The distinction between the ordinary and originary finitude is emphasized on the basis of the fundamental distinction between timeliness and Being within-time. The last distinction makes the primary difference between Being-in-the-world and Being within-the-world ontologically possible. Accordingly, the distinction between ontical and ontological finitude enables us to disclose the specific ontological meaning of finitude as the origin of timeliness by the interpretation of the relation between the exsistential analysis of death and the disclosedness of Dasein. The originary finitude will be reached in relation with the authentic future in timeliness and will be finally regarded as the condition of the possibility of the disclosedness and encountering.

Truth is one of the most important concepts in Heidegger’s thought. Its role is such prominent that the major part of Heidegger’s works can be interpreted on the basis of it. This paper tries to present a clear portrait from application of method of deconstruction on the history of truth through concentrating on Heidegger’s two works: Plato’s doctrine of truth and the essence of truth. Heidegger’s thesis in these works is to demonstrate how recognizing truth as unconcealment requires considering closely the deviation of meaning of truth through its history. It seems that clarifying Heidegger’s critique of Plato will bring to light one of his concepts i.e. history of truth. Main claim of this paper is to show there is a strict relation between Heidegger’s interpretation of Plato and his formation of the concept of history of truth. The overall goal of this paper is to elucidate and clarify Heidegger’s deconstructional interpretation of Plato through rereading of those two mentioned books. So our leading question is how Heidegger’s deconstructional interpretation of Plato finds its proper space to appear and what unexamined horizons this interpretation opens before us and what is its relation to history of truth.

The Stoics believed that valid arguments are reduced to “undemonstrated’s’’ through “thema’s”. This interpretation, implied by ancient authors, considers Stoic logic as an axiomatic system with argumental rules. On the basis of this view on Stoic logic, undemonstrated’s are used as axioms and Themas as transmission rules. Yet, SextusEmpiricus in his book, Against the Logicians, introduced two examples of Stoic reduction of valid arguments to undemonstrated’s in which he used undemonstrated’s as sentential rules. In this approach, undemonstrated’s are used as inference rules and Themas don’t play any different reasonable role than undemonstrated’ss; on the other words, undemonstrated’s and Themas are used as inference rules. Mates and Bochenski didn’t attention to this conflict and analyzed these two examples like Empiricus. This paper brings up this conflict and suggests two solutions for it. Based on first solution, Stoic logic has two various surfaces and in each surface, it includes one of argumental or sentential rules; Therefore argumental rules and sentential rules can be used simultaneously. In second solution, based on the historical development of Stoic logic, two mentioned interpretations are attributed to Stoics in different historical periods.

In Plato’s dialogues, we find various “revelations” including Socrates’ customary divine voice or sign (i.e. his daimonion), his communication with divine realm through dreams and oracles, and the oracular and poetic divinations. Plato’s portrait of Socrates shows that Socratic revelations are monitions directing him according to divine wisdom throughout his life. However, his mantic powers do not make him cognizant of their epistemic source(s); thus, Socrates cannot remain independent of his philosophical way of searching knowledge. Furthermore, the prognostications of soothsayers and poets indicate their inspirations by the divinity; but they are not conscious of their prophecies, since they must enter an ecstatic and trancelike state before they become inspired. Through these prophetic predictions, people are forewarned in some important circumstances, but never partake of gods higher knowledge. Thus, in Socratic-Platonic view, there is a divine source for revelations and the human beings are led through them in the face of their problems; but none of the revelations bring the highest level of knowledge which the philosopher is looking for.

Anachronism occurs in producing a historical account if the arrangement of story’s events is manipulated and misplaced. The main question of this article is whether avoiding anachronism in the historiography of philosophy is desirable, or even feasible? Some historical methodologists and philosophers, e.g. Quentin Skinner and MurtazaMutahhari respectively, consider anachronism as a historiographical mistake. This view is formulated under the theoretical framework of “the availability principle,” according to which no epistemic resources are allowed in historical interpretation that were unavailable in the time period under study. Problem-oriented historiography of philosophy would, consequently, face serious challenges. On the contrary, some other thinkers consider certain types of anachronism in historical narrative to be desirable or even inevitable. Among this group are Arthur Danto with his “Narrative Sentences,” and AhadFaramarzQaramaleki who makes sense of historical study as “understanding predecessors in the light of successors.” Arguments of the two opposing camps are discussed in this article, together with a number of considerations explored here for the first time. In conclusion, any response to the main question of our inquiry is argued to be dependent on the very conception of history adopted in the meta-historical framework by which the process of historiography is guided.

Muslim thinkers have discussed "Origin of beauty" and "Origin of enjoying the masterpieces of art" in their works and there is a long tradition of this problem in Western philosophy. In this discussion, philosophers have tried to explore the source of beauty inspiration to the artist, to make clear why and how the audience of the artwork understand beauty, and to provide a framework to discuss the "quality of understanding beauty". To answer to this problem, two main approaches are introduced. On the on hand, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans believe that the origin of the beauty of art is its narration of the Spheres. According to this view, known as "Musicauniversalis, ” the distance in music is equal to the distance between the sun and other planets, and enjoying art is resultedfrom understanding of the harmony of the Spheres. On the other hand, Muslim philosophers believe that the beauty of art is due to the narration of the beauty of heaven. The defenders of theory of "Representation of heaven" believe that human beings in their presence in heaven have tasted its beauty and in encountering the material beauties of this world, recollect the heavenly beauty, and in fact, this association and remembrance is enjoyable for him. Rumi as a Muslim thinker, expresses both theories and apparently defends the second one.