فصلنامه ذهن
سال چهاردهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 53، بهار 1392)

The issue of the multiplicity of soul and spirit in philosophy is of the issues about which there has been little investigation. Searching for the reasons of this neglect could help the researcher in finding the perspicacious opinion. Taking no notice of this issue has led to some problems in the field of the Philosophical psychology. This writing deals with the issue of the existence of soul (spirit) before body, an issue which has been emphasized by the verses and traditions. After this, while investigating Mulla Sadra’s idea regarding this issue, efforts have been made to find the origin of his ideas and show why the issue of the existence of soul (spirit) before body has been neglected. Moreover, the issue of multiplicity of soul and spirit in this Muslim philosopher’s point of view has been put under discussion.

“Semantics” may be thought of as the main concern of analytic philosophy. And, if it may be said that there are some links between analytic philosophers, the most important link between them is their very concern about semantics. Since, because of historical conditions, “semantics” as an independent has not been among philosophical concerns of Muslim philosophers, no independent discussion may be found in the works of earlier Muslim philosophers. Because of necessity and benefits of discussing this issue in the present time, the authors of the present article try to provide a model of semantics based on and in line with a general view to the Transcendent Philosophy, as much as they are able to do so. Though many parts of this model cannot be clearly found in the earlier body of philosophical approaches adopted in the Islamic world, the model has flourished in this very general ground.

In the Islamic philosophy, intelligibles are general concepts perceived by reason. These concepts which are independent from material accidents are found by the help of sensible things. There are many disputes among philosophers about the way they are formed and what that they represent. All Muslim philosophers are unanimous that rational forms and perceptions are immaterial. The problem of their permanence and generality may be solved if their immateriality is taken into account. Since they are immaterial, intelligibles cannot be found by and through senses, rather, they are perceived by reason. There are many pieces of evidence in sayings of the earlier philosophers about these points and based on which a common doctrine about perceiving intelligibles as rational intuiting can be depicted. Based on this solution, the way secondary philosophical intelligibles and consequences which are sought from such concepts may be explained. While explaining the solution of rational intuition, the author will discuss suspicions about this solution. When rational intuition of intelligibles is taken into account, the prevalent interpretation of the theory of immateriality seems not to be correct and it should be interpreted in another way and based on Peripateticism. And, the theory of rational intuition seems to be a correct one.

In this article, the author will show that Mulla Sadra’s arguments for substantial motion and ordinary motion and explanation of the relation between attributes of the object (accidents) and the object itself (substance) result in a four-dimensionalistic picture of objects and fluid body based on which common research plans may be proposed for interaction between the contemporary metaphysicsconcerning endurantism and perdurantism- and Sadrean metaphysics. This interaction, particularly in disputable fields such as “identity” and “non-existence” (or existence) of the quantum of time and that whether temporal parts are mentally-posited or not, may be executed.

Hume’s skepticism created a serious challenge for the validity of natural sciences as well as metaphysics; for this very reason, it became so important for Kant. Hume denied a priori concepts such as necessity and a priori synthetic principles such as the principle causation. Kant tried to revive a priori concepts and in particular a priori synthetic principles by the help of counterexamples on the one hand and a two-parts approach on the other. A part of this approach consisted of transcendental arguments and the other part of transcendental idealism. Both parts of this approach are faced by some problems. Both in transcendental arguments and transcendental idealism, Kant comes to logical conflicts. In addition, he is not able to prove correspondence between results of transcendental arguments on the one hand and reality on the other. Finally, it may be noted that results of Kant’s critical philosophy, which had come into existence to fight against skepticism, strengthen ideas of skepticists in some cases. In the present article, the author has tried to provide a brief explanation of Kant’s approach to Hume’s skepticism and describe critiques of it.

Donald Davidson seriously criticizes the Cartesian conception of the dichotomy of the subjective and the objective and treats it as the root of some significant problems of modern philosophy. This dualism, he thinks, is based on a certain conception of the relation of man and the world which pictures an essential divergence and disconnection between them; a divergence the clear presence of which is in the abyss between objectivity and subjectivity. Davidson argues for a firm and intrinsic connection between man and the world. In this paper I refer to the idea backs this argumentation with the title of "the worldlihood of man" and try to explore the roots of this idea in Davidson's philosophy. I concentrate specially on three basic characteristics of human beings by analysis of which Davidson takes us directly into the world: having mind, rationality and agency. I will argue that in Davidson's view the constitutive characteristics of human beings develop only in the world, and a human being only in the world can be a human being.

As the two different scopes of history and philosophy of science expanded in 1960’s, a question raised for philosophers and historians of science: “are history and philosophy of science related to each other?” “Are the two fields absolutely independent from each other?” “Or, are there an interrelation between the two?” After Kuhn who has been perhaps the first who has provided a reply for this question, Laudan is an important philosopher who has returned to this question. In this article, the author intends to describe the process in which Laudan has found the reply to his question concerning pragmatist philosophy. He divides history in two parts and believes that the history of science is the basis of philosophy of science so that philosophy of science should have the maximum overlap with the pure historical data.