فهرست مطالب محمدباقر قمی

This article seeks to demonstrate that some of Plato's epistemological and ontological principles and foundations underwent some changes during the interval between the early and middle period dialogues. Although this conclusion may lead to the strengthening of the developmentalist's position as regards the relation between the early and middle period dialogues, this change in Plato's ontology and epistemology and expanding it, implies a more profound development that the one adhered to by developmentalists. The fact that bipolar and incoherent ontology and epistemology in the early period dialogues are replaced with tripartite and interdependent ontology and epistemology in middle period dialogues suggests that Plato's view regarding the concepts of being and knowledge has changed.

What are to be discussed in this article include two main points: i) some kind of a fixed structure can be found in all the chronologies that have been proposed from the last quarter of 19th century onward; a structure that is called here “standard” chronology, and ii) in spite of the fact that the appearance of this structure owes too much to the stylistic evidences, these evidences themselves do not confirm anything in the structure but the place of the so-called late dialogues. The standard chronology of Plato’s dialogues is inclined to consider Meno and Republic as dialogues that have been composed after so-called Socratic dialogues and before Parmenides and Theaetetus. This chronology also insists that the latter two dialogues must be dated after so-called middle dialogues and before dialogues like Sophist, Timaeus, Philebus and Laws. This papper is to illuminate the fact that except the similarities between the late dialogues and their probable lateness, the place of other dialogues, more importantly among them the so-called middle period dialogues, Theaetetus and Parmenides, cannot be approved by stylistic evidences.

Ibn Sina speaks repeatedly of the distinction between the specific (khas) being and the positive (ijabi) being; a distinction on the basis of which is his distinction of being and essence. Thence, the famous problem of the distinction of being and essence is applicable to this distinction too. The difficulty is this: if the specific being is 'being'? This is indeed a problem about essence: is there any sense of being present in Ibn Sina’s understanding of essence? Based on the relation of the specific being to positive being, possible being, thingness, and essence, this paper is trying to explain that the distinction between specific and positive being in Ibn Sina is, indeed, a distinction between two aspects of being in its Greek sense; a distinction on the basis of which is the famous distinction of being and essence and has not been focused on in Greek philosophy.

This article is going to discuss on the meaning of Ibn Sina’s repeated statement that being is the accidence of quiddity (mahiyat) or its accidental feature. The commentators have always been trying to interpret that, on the basis of one of the accidental senses in categories, argument and universals. As it can be understood obviously from Ibn Rushd’s critiques, since it has always been strange and unacceptable for the philosophers and Ibn Sina’s commentators to take being as the categorical sense of accidence, the accidental of Universals were the feasible options. We have suggested that though being in Ibn Sina’s philosophy corresponding to mahiyat, has to be the accidental of universals or argument, because being cannot be essential for the quiddity, what Ibn Sina has had in his mind, is the sense of being to be 'outside, in and with' mahiyat which is taken from the accident inthe categories as conceived in Islamic philosophy.

This article intends to draw out the ontological as well as epistemological principles of Plato’s early dialogues specially Laches, Euthyphro, Euthydemus and Hippias Major, based on three elements that I call 'Socratic circle', namely Socratic question, his disavowal of knowledge and elenchus. Those principles are enumerated as knowledge of what X is, bipolar epistemology, bipolar ontolgy, split knowledge, split being and knowledge of being. This article tries to show that these principles are consistent. The parallelism of the epistemological principles with the ontological ones and their similarity in some specifications, like their being absolute and split, are taken as evidence for such claim.

This papper is going to represent a new arrangement of Plato’s dialogues based on his ontological as well as epistemological development having essential differences from the current chronologies. While in all of the famous arrangements of the time, Parmenides is regarded as referring to and, thus, later than middle period dialogues, our suggested arrangement assigns somewhere between the early and middle dialogues. Corresponding to this change, not only Meno, Phaedo, Phaedrus and Republic come later than Parmenides but there will be a noticeable distance between Theaetetus and Sophist on the one hand and Phaedo and Republic on the other hand so that Meno and Phaedo are set among the former pair while Sophist and Timaeus among the latter. We will try to show here how this differences can lead to a more consistent reading of the middle and late period dialogues avoiding many problems of other arrangements.

This paper aims to challenge the current chronology of Plato’s dialogues based on the development of the concepts of knowledge and being in his philosophy. The six presented objections are arranged in two groups. The first group is to criticize the position of some of the late period dialogues after the middle period ones. While the first objection discusses the problems of Theaetetus’ late position, the second argues about the the problems of the late position of Sophist and the second part of Parmenides after Republic and the third that of Laws and Politicus.The second group of objections is going to challenge the position of Parmenides after the middle period dialogues. Criticizing the dominant theory that Parmenides’ critics of the theory of Forms are referring to the theory in the middle dialogues, we will try to illustrate that not only these dialogues provide the answers of the critics, but they are constructed based on, and directed to, them. The fifth and sixth objections show that based on the current chronology of the dialogues we can neither take Parmenides’ critics as valid nor as invalid.

When Nietzsche creates a contrast between Heraclitus’s philosophy and philosophical tradition، interprets it based on game and admires it، one must wait for this concept to perform a role in Nietzsche’s own philosophy. After this introduction، we will refer to some of Nietzsche’s thoughts based on which he puts himself in front of the metaphysical tradition، and we will show how these thoughts related to game. Becoming and the necessity of being appropriate، game-oriented view to the world، thought as game، opposing the metaphysical view based on dice games، and a view based on the immaculacy of game in a morality beyond good and evil are all evidences of Nietzsche’s use of this concept to oppose metaphysics. We are also witness to the presence of game in fundamental thoughts such as Will of Power and Eternal Return of the Same. From another viewpoint، the issue of interpreting and understanding Nietzsche''s philosophy is still an unraveled mystery. Heidegger''s metaphysical interpretation of Nietzsche has overlooked his concept of game in thought، and Jasperes also deems impossible any final interpretation of Nietzsche. But it is Derrida who interprets Nietzsche under the concept of Game of Symbols. In the end، we aim to show how understanding the concept of game in Nietzsche''s philosophy can shed light on understanding the gist of his thought.

In the [Critique of the Power of Judgment], Kant introduces a new division of judgments. After dividing judgment into determinative and reflective judgments, he says that in the first we have a concept to subsume the particular under it while in the second we do not have such a concept. This definition of reflective judgment is not obvious. Most of the interpreters think that we cannot understand such a judgment,especially in accordance with Kantian principles in the first Critique. In this article we try to understand what constitutes a reflective judgment and what it would mean in the light of Critique of Pure Reason. First, we look at the definition of judgment, reflection and transcendental reflection in the first Critique. Transcendental reflection, as we will see, is only a necessary part of what we can call it now "determinative judgment". Then in the third Critique we find that not only the reflective judgment is not consistent with first Critique`s principles but also its meaning is not fully intelligible. However, it has an important and functional role to play in the third Critique.

The position of knowledge of God in Spinoza’s theory of knowledge has provided one of the most distinct theories of knowledge. In Spinoza’s philosophy, knowledge is particularly interwoven with knowledge of God. For Espinoza, method, conception and knowledge are all based on the conception and knowledge of God. Espinoza bases the method on conception: a perfect method is based on a perfect conception and the most perfect method is based the most prefect conception, i.e. the conception of God. The conception of God is the only real conception and no other conception can be a real conception. Spinoza’s theory of knowledge is also based on the knowledge of completeness which is God in his philosophy. On the other hand, knowledge of God is the basis of differentiation between intellectual and intuitive knowledge and, as a result, the basis of third kind of knowledge called perfect knowledge. Knowledge of God is a factor through which intellectual knowledge transcends into intuitive knowledge.

In the present writing, the authors go to discuss various interpretations of the concept of free play in Critique of Judgment. On the one hand, this concept plays an important role in the Critique (since the judgment of taste is based on it for its validity), on the other hand, however, Kant's explanation of this concept is not so consistent with his fundamental principles in Critique of Pure Reason. This inconsistence is caused by the fact that Kant bases judgment of taste on the free play of cognitive faculties as some mental state which is founded on no determinate notion of the object; and, at the same time, he considers a universal validity for it. But, according to the principles posed in the first Critique, universal validity of a judgment is based on its objectivity; and the basis for objectivity of a judgment is a concept of the object on which is founded the judgment. Guyer classifies attempts made to solve this problem under two precognitive and multicognitive approaches, and introduces the metacognitive approach. According to the precognitive approach, free play of faculties is the pre-condition for each and every cognition. The problem with this approach is that [in this way] every judgment will be a judgment of taste. On the basis of multicognitive approach, free play of the mental faculties will, finally, attain one concept from among some existing concepts. This interpretation is not consistent with Kant's points concerning non-inclusivity of the concept. Finally, Guyer introduces metacognitive interpretation which skips the problem instead of solving it.

In his many works about aesthetics، morality and philosophy، Schiller always has a unique concern: radical separation or contrast that can be seen in culture، society and politics. The basis of this contrast is the same with the old metaphysical contrast between matter and form. On the other hand، he thinks that the basis of all these contrasts should be searched in human being. Modern man، opposing ancient Greek`s، is a broken one since some parts of him is always dominating over his other parts. As Schiller believes، we have two drives: sense drive and form drive. The first represents man`s materialistic dimension and the second represents intellectual and moral dimension. But there is a third drive، the play drive، that with which Schiller tries to solve the problem of contrast between matter and form or sense and reason. It is this that is our question here: How can Schiller solve this big problem of contrast with the concept of play? With this concept، he goes beyond that duality. The human being can be a human being only when he goes beyond these two drives and reaches to the third. This third drive is play drive and the perfect man is a man who plays. The play drive is not the equilibrium of those two drives but is that which goes beyond them. It is with this drive that a man can go beyond sense and reason and instead of feeling or thinking can play. It is beauty that leads human being to play drive; man plays only with beauty and this beauty is nothing except «freedom of semblance».

In the present article, authors will study imagination and understanding in the first and third Critiques. At first, they will throw a glance on three syntheses in the first Critique (in his three syntheses, Kant shows that how faculties of sensibility, imagination, and understanding work together to acquire knowledge of an idea). Then, they will study each of these faculties in the first and third Critiques. While studying imagination, they will show that in the first Critique, this faculty follows understanding and acts based on its concepts, whereas in the third Critique, it will be freed from such function and schematize even without concepts. When the faculty of understanding is studied, it will be shown that in the first Critique, it acts as the faculty of concepts and only based on them. In the third Critique, it will be separated from its main function, and used by Kant generally and without its concepts.