ehsan karimi torshizi

Within the framework of Aristotelian ontology, being is understood as a result of two vectors: determinacy (actuality) and indeterminacy (potentiality). In this paper, we aim to clarify the specific meaning of Dasein's determinacy, which Heidegger refers to as "facticity" (Faktizität), within this ontological context. We will demonstrate that Dasein's facticity is ontologically-existentially crystallized in its Befindlichkeit (dispositional attunement) and ontically-existentiell in its Gestimmtheit (moodedness). We then endeavor to map out the general coordinates of moods through the specific case of "fear" (Furcht) and explore the intrinsic connections between facticity, thrownness (Geworfenheit), and understanding (Verstehen). This will allow us to delineate the semantic field of Dasein's facticity as a conceptual network centered on moodedness. In the first part, we outline the facticity of Dasein within the framework of an Aristotelian ontology centered on potentiality and actuality as a paradigm for understanding the determinacy of Dasein. In the second part, we show that the facticity of Dasein manifests ontologically-existentially in 'attunement' and ontically-existentiell in its 'mood.' In the third part, to achieve a general structure of moods, we focus on Heidegger's analysis of the phenomenon of 'fear' in order to derive the general coordinates of moods from it. In the fourth part, for a deeper understanding of the structure of facticity, we examine the intrinsic connection between attunement, understanding, and thrownness. Finally, in the fifth part, we endeavor to enumerate the general characteristics of moods and delineate a diagram of the semantic field of Dasein's facticity.

It is widely known that Kant refers all the three basic problems of philosophy to the single ultimate question “what is man?”, the task of finding a solution for which is assigned to the philosophical anthropology. One considers Critique of Pure Reason in this regard, however, one surprisingly finds that this question is entirely absent from Kant’s own magnum opus. By its very nature indeed, transcendental philosophy is incapable of arising this question thus formulated, since it eventually leads to a subject, not to a human being. Heidegger’s exegetical reading of Kant notwithstanding, one should not simply conclude, however, that the question of the essence of man eventuates by Kant in the formation of a metaphysics of subjectivity. Kant’s doctrine of transcendental unity of apperception is not so much a subject-centered metaphysical theory, of the sort that Heidegger assumes, as it denotes a transcendental formulation of Kant’s general anthropological conception. What lies at the core of this anthropological view is the twofoldness of human place in cosmos, in terms of which the tension between the marginality and, simultaneously, centrality of man in relation to the world can be articulated. We refer to this anthropological conception as “anthropological tension”, due to the irreducible duality that lies at its core.

Helmuth Plessner, beside Max Scheler and Arnold Gehlen, is known as one of the great founders of new philosophical anthropology movement. From among new anthropological theories, however, perhaps none has recently come to the center of attention and begun to flourish more than Plessner’s, not only in the field of philosophical anthropology, but also in science and technology. The ground for such a so-called “Plessner Renaissance” shall be immediately known in this article, once the special place Plessner’s theory occupies in both the prominent contemporary explanatory paradigms, in general, and philosophical-anthropological theories, in particular, is specified. In doing so, Plessner’s philosophical contribution is determined as: A non-reductive naturalistic explanatory paradigm as a middle ground between new Darwinism, social-cultural-historical constructivism, and naive transcendentalism. A phenomenological-hermeneutical account of the biological life, in general. A biological-based transformational philosophical anthropology, in particular. The focus of the present article is on Plessner’s contribution to the philosophy of biology as well as philosophical anthropology.

When it comes to the relation of modern mathematics and philosophy, most people tend to think of the three major schools of thought—i.e. logicism, formalism, and intuitionism—that emerged as profound researches on the foundations and nature of mathematics in the beginning of the 20th century and have shaped the dominant discourse of an autonomous discipline of analytic philosophy, generally known under the rubric of “philosophy of mathematics” since then. What has been completely disregarded by these philosophical attitudes, these foundational researches which seek to provide pure mathematics with a philosophically plausible justification by founding it on firm logico-philosophical bases, is that the genuine self-foundation of pure mathematics had been done before, namely during the 19th century, when it was developing into an entirely new and independent discipline as a concomitant of the continuous dissociation of mathematics from the physical world. This self-foundation of the 19th-century pure mathematics, however, was more akin to the German-idealist interpretations of Kant’s transcendental philosophy, than the post-factum, retrospective 20th-century researches on the foundations of mathematics. This article aims to demonstrate this neglected historical fact via delving into the philosophical inclinations of the three major founders of the 19th-century pure mathematics, Riemann, Dedekind and Cantor. Consequently, pure mathematics, with respect to its idealist origins, proves to be a formalization and idealization of certain activities specific to a self-conscious transcendental subjectivity.

As it is well known, Aristotle in his Metaphysics seeks a science subsumed under different rubrics of “prime philosophy”, “wisdom”, “the study of being qua being”, and “theology”. The relation between these different titles of Metaphysics has been formulated by Paul Natorp as an insoluble paradox: the subject matter of prime philosophy cannot be both being qua being (being in general) and divine being (the supreme being) at the same time. Since Natorp, there has always been a controversy on this paradox as well as the problem of integrity of different books of Metaphysics. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is twofold. Firstly, we shall scrutinize the neo-Kantian foundation of Natorp’s interpretation of Aristotle; secondly, we shall present Octave Hamelin’s exegesis of Aristotle’s theory of being as an interpretation on the basis of which two seemingly contradictory aspects of Aristotle’s metaphysics can be reconciled, and thereby one can find an appropriate solution to this paradox. In fact, we intend to disclose the underlying assumptions lie at the bottom of Natorp’s understanding of Aristotle, and we shall indicate that Hamelin’s ontological interpretation of Metaphysics is so fertile that provides us with an appropriate measure to avoid confronting such contradictions.

In early 20th century, a widespread tendency toward a philosophical anthropology was dominant over the intellectual space in Germany, and it was so deep and extensive in its influence that phenomenology had to react and take a stance against it. This initial stance appeared be an essential conflict of a sort, so that Blumenberg coined the term “anthropological ban” regarding Husserl’s and Heidegger’s Phenomenologies. In this paper, we have tried to illustrate that such a confliction is neither essential nor absolute, meaning that it is quite legitimate to talk about a philosophical anthropology of a sort based on Husserl’s and Heidegger’s Phenomenologies. Thus, the plot and general characteristics of such a phenomenological anthropology, in terms of Heidegger's existential analysis of Dasein as a Fundamental ontology in his Sein und Zeit, has been depicted, and its fundamentally different anthropological pattern comparing with that of a traditional anthropology has also been demonstrated.

In this paper, we shall demonstrate that the Cartesian approach to the res extensio and taking it as the most fundamental, essential determination of Vorhandenheit, though Descartes’ ontology is not rich enough to explain the relationship between pure extension and Dasein’s existential spatiality, has its own phenomenological justifications in Heidegger’s view. In order to clarify Heidegger’s stance, we shall first study the distinctive characteristics of existential space as well as its ontological foundations. Meanwhile, existential space proves to be ultimately rest on Dasein’s own existence. Next, we shall turn to the transition from existential space to Cartesian space as a pure extension via the process of Entweltlichung. Cartesian space will thus prove to be a necessary resultant of depriving existential space of its richness and purposiveness of human meanings. It is in the context of this more comprehensive ontology that the relation of Cartesian space with existential one and spatiality of Dasein, on one hand, and the ontological deficiency of Cartesian approach, on the other, would be elucidated. Finally, we shall show that assuming extension as the essential determination of Vorhendenheit, and thus Cartesian space, as a totally meaningless, and deprived of all Dasein’s circumspective concerns which underlie existential space and Dasein’s everyday experience, is not so much refuted by Heidegger’s ontology as regarded to be phenomenologically justified. Moreover, It is so fertile that has paved the way for the subsequent paradigm shift in mathematics and theoretical physics in the 19th century.