FALSAFEH (THE IRANIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY)
Year:2014 | Volume:41 | Issue:2|Papers Count:7

In his post-critical writing, particularly prolegomena and both versions of preface in Critique of Pure Reason, Kant explains the importance and core function of mathematical antinomy in his philosophical project. This essay reviews and analyses the history and function of antinomies of pure reason, particularly mathematical antinomies and poses an account on Kant’s proof for first and second antinomies, his method in discovery of antinomies and systematic response according to principles of transcendental idealism (critical philosophy), and in final section propose some critical reflections.

In the last chapter of his Posterior Analytics, Aristotle raises two questions about the archai of knowledge (epistêmê) that are to be answered by nous, the key concept which must be illustrated itself before getting the answers. While in both of these answers, as in some other passages, nous is introduced as the hexis of the soul, it is the second answer where nous is considered as one of the stages and degrees of knowledge. Having discussed Aristotle's second question and its answers in the first part of this paper, we are going to recognize, in the second part, three substantial senses of hexis. Based on these senses, the third part aims to challenge some commentators' view of dunamis as the only sense of hexis throughout Posterior Analytics. The first part of article ends with the explanation of this problem. The second part of article will examine what is nous.

Spinoza’s theory of mind posits identity of mind and body in opposition to the Cartesian dualistic tradition. These dualistic and monistic views of the mind and body have caused many reactions in the contemporary philosophy. Feminists have objected to the dualisms which were resulted from Cartesian tradition and criticized them. In doing so, they have found Spinoza’s philosophy as a resolution of such problems. Particularly, they have seen Spinoza’s theory of mind as a resolution of some problems resulted from Descartes’ theory of mind. In this essay, I have explained how feminists have found Spinoza’s theory of mind as a way of dealing with the problems resulted from Descartes’ dualistic tradition. Finally, I have posed a question which feminists may be faced with if western tradition, on their context of discussion, is compared to eastern one.

Heidegger has always emphasized that Husserl’s Logical Investigations has a major share on providing the base of the basic questions in Being and Time. This paper is, according to the basic question of Being and Time, which is the question of Being, discusses how Logical Investigations aid Heidegger to elaborate this question. Among the six investigations it is especially the sixth investigation that interested Heidegger. It deals with so called “categorical intuition” which, according to Heidegger, helped him to pursue the question of Being. What has the “categorical intuition” to do with the question of Being? In the “categorical intuition” we face a kind of “surplus” of sensual data, which will be added to the predicate proposition during the transition phase of perceptions to it. Heidegger believes that in this “surplus” of sensual data is the possibility of raising the question of Being given.

The basic question of the present article is about the world in which we dwell. It will be indicated that the essential character of this world is its east-west orientation, which appears in different aspects of our life: in our geographical understanding and directions, in politics, in ideologies that push politics ahead, in history of culture and finally even in the history itself. This historicity of east-west orientation in the world has four aspects. Firstly, it is made by modern human. Secondly, its root goes back to the Christian world view of the Middle Ages and an important theological theme has been arisen from it at that time. Thirdly, in the modern understanding of history the Christian east-oriented theological-historical conception has been turned over to make a Eurocentric world view. Finally, the east-west framework has been turned into a schema within which the history and its important events are interpreted; examples of it will be given from Jaspers, Hegel and Hölderlin. In contrast to such a Eurocentric view, Goethe's essentially unificationistic stand will be presented.

Putnam's 1960 article, "Minds and Machines", sketched a novel approach to the mind based on the analogy between mental states and logical-computational state of Turing machine, which later acknowledged as functionalism. Based on his interpretation of the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger, Dreyfus criticized Putnam’s functionalist-computation a list approach to the mind in an article directly addressing to him. In both physical and psychological-phenomenological level, Dreyfus proposes that mind can’t be understood as Turing machine which works with formal rules and in which inputs and outputs are context-free and independent of environment. About three decades after his article "minds and machines", according to Carnap’s failure to formulate induction and Quine’s holism and also based on his semantic externalism, Putnam rejected his functionalist-computation a list approach and accepted an externalist-contextualist approach. Although Putnam does not mention the name of Dreyfus, his criticism to reject functionalism was obviously resembling the one Dreyfus stated previously contrary to the functionalism. In this paper, in order to reconstruct the critical dialogue between Dreyfus and Putnam, first, functionalism is formulated in the works of Putnam. After that, the phenomenological critique of Dreyfus to Putnam is stated. Then, it is shown that the causes of Putnam’s turning from functionalism to contextual point of view were thoroughly similar to Dreyfus’s critics to him. Last, it is shown that based on this turning from functionalism to contextualism, physicalism as a theory of mind is challenged and instead “subject in the world” provides a better model of the mind.

The traditional logician’s explanation on categorical syllogism, make the analysis of controversial syllogism and other relative syllogism, very difficult. The thirteenth century logicians use two methods to solve this problem. One method is Ibn Sina's method, which adds a premise to syllogism, and the second method is Fakhr al-Din al-Razi and Katebis’ method, which provide syllogism relying on middle terms and without adding a premise. In eighteenth century, Gelenbevi tried to find another way of closer justification on these syllogisms, by using other analysis on relative syllogism. The traditional logician’s explanation on categorical syllogism, make the analysis of controversial syllogism and other relative syllogism, very difficult. The thirteenth century logicians use two methods to solve this problem. One method is Ibn Sina's method, which adds a premise to syllogism, and the second method is Fakhr al-Din al-Razi and Katebis’ method, which provide syllogism relying on middle terms and without adding a premise. In eighteenth century, Gelenbevi tried to find another way of closer justification on these syllogisms, by using other analysis on relative syllogism.