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سال چهارم شماره 2 (پیاپی 65، پاییز و زمستان 1390)

From the viewpoint of Suhrawardi, authentic philosophy must be based on mystical aptitudes and intuitive discernments. But these are instantaneous, simple, inexpressible, and non-propositional; whereas the audience of the school of Illumination deals with a philosophical system composed of concepts and propositions, and its two major characteristics are that it is gradually obtained and detailed. Nevertheless, how is possible for the knowledge which is per se inexpressible becomes the base for that knowledge which is in it constituted with concepts and propositions? What relation exists between non-propositional intuitive knowledge and propositional intellectual knowledge? What is intellect's function, In relation to intuition? Through a methodological regard on the illumination philosophy, this essay argues that Illumination's discursive knowledge, explained and written by Suhrawardi, is distinct from intuitive knowledge; and discursive knowledge implies to intuitive knowledge only figuratively and metaphorically.In the school of Illumination, intellect is unable to discover truth, yet it is productive and capable for systematizing based on inner intuitions. In this status, intellect undertakes three roles: to assay, conceptualize, and establish discipline and consistency within propositional knowledge system; this latter is beyond the limit of intuition's ability.

The domination of propositional logic in Wittgenstein’s philosophical manner in Tractatus which is revealed in the conceptions of picture, representation and correspondence on one hand, and analytical philosophy and its scientific, anti-metaphysics and logic-oriented content on the other hand, challenges Wittgenstein’s historic approach and his attention towards common hermeneutical concepts, whereas historical indications in the later Wittgenstein’s contextualistic manner namely custom, game and rule, culture and common language legitimize his slight historicism. On the contrary, history is one of the pillars in Gadamer’s hermeneutical system in which the relation with temporality and tradition is obvious. Finally, regardless of irrefutable conceptual diversion, the emphasis on the dimensions of the above mentioned of contextualism resulted in relative convergence between later Wittgenstein and Gadamer’s thought in this domain.

The French phenomenological philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), in his Phenomenology of Perception (1945), based his doctrine on the theory of “being-in-the-world”. Following Husserl and Heidegger, he tried to focus on the proportion between us and the world. One of the main concepts in Husserl’s phenomenological notions is the “return to the thing” to which modern science does not pay attention. Merleau-Ponty, relying on the nature and the thing depicted in Cezanne’s works, tries to explain the phenomenological notion of the “return to the thing” and the nature; he tries to put Cezanne’s paintings as the intermediate between two types of reduction, the eidetic and the transcendental one, and so fills up the gap between these two reductions. This article studies phenomenologically Merleau-ponty’s attempts regarding the concept of the nature, the thing and the artist Cezanne’s approach towards these concepts. How it is possible to fill up the gap between the perception and the world, is explained, in terms of Merleau-ponty’s doctrines.

In Θ3, Aristotle presents four arguments against the Megarians who maintained that there is no potentiality prior to actuality and that each thing is able to do something only when it is acting and doing it, and not before that. In the fourth argument, 1047a10-14, he uses αδυνατον which means either not-potential or impossible. If it means the latest, his argument would be: It is impossible for whatever lacks potentiality to become, and it cannot be said that it becomes or will become, and this is the denial of motion. But how can Aristotle, in this argument, pass from potentiality to possibility? Moreover in 1047a24-26, he explicitly relates potentiality to possibility. This paper explains the relation between potentiality and possibility. Aristotle’s analysis of motion pushes him into the notion of potentiality, and then he notices that potentiality implies possibility. He first explains potentiality independently, and then explains it on the basis of possibility. His words in Θ3 and Θ4 may indicate that he has a temporal notion of modality, but as is argued, temporal interpretation cannot cover what he means. Although Aristotle has some uses of temporal expressions in order to explain possibility, impossibility and necessity, this might be due to his approach to the problem here. That is, here he speaks of modality in relation to potentiality and motion.

No discourse is self-sufficient, for it is founded on previous concepts and thoughts. Derrida takes the discourse of the human sciences to be the heir of concepts, which were accompanied by metaphysical systems. Metaphysical structures always include a center, which block the infinite play of surroundings. By deconstructing the opposition center / surroundings, Derrida recalls “play” in the discourse of the human sciences. The center receives its privileged situation through the structure. This decentering encounters us with an eternal nontotalization, which binds us permanent habitation in the midway. We always deal with interpreting interpretations, rather than with interpreting reality.

From the point of view of Substratum theorists, "Bare Particular" is necessary concept for concrete Particulars or familiar things. In this view, a concrete particular is a set of properties and additional entities, which is called Substratum. These entities are subject and bearer of the properties. Moreover, the possibility of making them a complex in that set and justifies thing's identity and individuality. This paper, after defining this concept, shows that the Bare Particular is an incomplete concept, if are not taken into consideration Aristotle and Islamic Philosophers’s Forms. So we cannot use this concept to justify concrete particulars.

The dialectic of familiarity and strangeness was introduced by Romantic hermeneuticians who aimed to depict the process of understanding by elaborating components of it. Schleiermacher referenced familiarity and strangeness to language and its functions in grammatical interpretation. However, in technical or psychological interpretation his approaches are a kind of metaphysics of individuality and he mentions it as the base of strangeness. He believes this strangeness can be overcome by approaching the author’s mind, then the text can be understood from his point of view, an approach that takes place based on intuition. Therefore divination is the element of familiarity. But Gadamer, who on one hand is not satisfied with his psychological account and considers understanding necessity to require familiarity and strangeness, on the other hand, regards temporal distance and hermeneutic horizon as the elements of strangeness and tradition as the element of familiarity. He considers that understanding is realized only thorough dialectical process in the base of the dialectics of familiarity and strangeness.