نشریه متافیزیک
سال دهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 25، بهار و تابستان 1397)

Another contributing factor is the vague and often complicated exposition of Millikan's theory. The biosemantics theory is not very well-known among Iranian philosophers and logicians. It is based on natural selection, which is an inseparable part of the theory of evolution. To understand the Millikan’s examples and what she has mentioned in semantic, mind and language, the biological backgrounds are needed. The more important issue as Millikan declares herself and it is also obvious from the name of her theory is that, biosemanrics is a theory about meaning, although according to her works on mind and mental contents, biosemantics has mostly been interpreted in the field of mind., Having briefly introduced Millikan's theory, we try to demonstrate that the biosemantics theory is completely about meaning by presenting a novel model and has a great potential to change semantical concepts fundamentally.

Baumgarten maintains that he introduces aesthetics as a science or a branch of philosophy. There is no doubt that being a science requires requirements such as distinction from other realms, enjoying particular legitimacy, having specific laws and principles and universal claims. In other words, to introduce aesthetic as a science he should first explains the unique characteristics of this discipline and its subordination to special rules; so that he could distinguish it from other branches and disciplines. Mentioning the fundamental principle of this branch is important because it causes the universality claim for its judgments. This study tries to deal with Baumgarten’s desire i.e. (establishment of aesthetics) and to answer the question that how he differentiates this new branch from other realm of philosophy and also how he attempts to justify and specify universality of the aesthetics judgments? Baumgarten succeeds in his above mentioned goals by exclusively relating aesthetic to perception and specifying the main feature of this perception i.e. “extensive clarity.” He aims at justifying the universality of aesthetic judgments by introducing aesthetic experience as some cognition-like experience and also introducing general principles. Unfortunately, appealing to general principles which are gained only through experience and general principles of psychology can not specify the universality of aesthetics judgments because the only result of these principles is some psychological and empirical generalization and not logical univers.

In this essay we try to show the place of freedom (free will) in Kant’s thought according to Heidegger’s interpretation; according to this interpretation, freedom is not a metaphysical and noumenal freedom for human as Subject but an existential one that makes him possible as a Dasein (being- in- world). Such a fundamental freedom is not provable and cannot be treated by any theoretical speculation, rather we encounter it in our actions and in the process of making free decisions, finding philosopher’s theoretical attempts to prove it in vain. The actuality of freedom must be searched in ourselves and in our own state of being, not in a lifeless and systematic arguments of philosopher’s; And it is Kant that discovers this point implicitly in his second Critic (The Critique of Practical reason) causing a great turn for Heidegger's thought.

Grice puts an end to the disputes between propositional logic and natural language by fully enclosing their respective fields. He employs logic to semantics and natural language to pragmatics. This article claims that with the substitutional interpretation of quantifier, we are in a better position to extend Grice’s idea to cover the predicate logic as well and resolve paradoxes of this field. Strictly speaking, by adding a fifth principle to Grice’s fourfold, this article is aimed to demonstrate how appropriateness of quantified statements in natural language is tied to their implicatures and how it has nothing to do with their truth values. That is, by distinguishing between semantical meaning of quantifier and pragmatical meaning, the author inclines to substitutional interpretation. Likewise, because of the fact that a quantifier is closely related to the proper name, we extend our claim about quantifiers to the field of proper names by drawing on the names that do not name.

Philosophical skepticism about the external world is a philosophical view that questions our knowledge of the propositions that are about the external world. Some versions of philosophical skepticism use skeptical hypothesis to prove that we can’t know anything about the external world. One of the most famous skeptical hypothesis is the brain in a vat hypothesis. Putnam is the first philosopher who has tried to show that accepting semantic externalism refutes this kind of skepticism. Semantic externalism is the view that the meaning of a term in our language, or the content of our psychological state, is at least partially determined by factors that are external to the speaker. Putnam's argument seems to be epistemically circular; so it cant show that we know that we are not brains in a vat. By introducing new externalist arguments, Brueckner has tried to solve this problem. The evaluation of Bruckner’s simple arguments in refuting the skepticism is the main purpose of this paper. Having analyzed these arguments, it has shown that these arguments can’t prove that we can have knowledge about the external world. But Brueckner’s compatibilist argument shows that we can have justified believes about the external world.

Modest actual intentionalism’ is a view held by Noël Carroll, who maintains that the meaning of an artwork is determined by the successfully realized intentions of its author. After calling himself modest actual intentionalist, for a long time, Carroll recently has chosen to change position and, now, he holds a view which he calls ‘modest actual mentalism’. Why he preferred to change his account and how is the latter position different from the former? He did not offer a clear account of the constitution of meaning in his former period, but it seems that he accepts a framework which is based on M-intentions. I argue that this framework is not always suitable for the explanation of meaning. Works of art have implications that are not intended by their writers and I claim that some intentionalists, like Carroll, tend to cover such cases by regarding them as an aspect of the work’s significance, or, are inclined to link them with the unconscious intentions of the author. The former relate those implications solely to the responses of audiences which, I argue, is counterintuitive, on some occasions; and the latter is not justified by a framework, based on M-intentions. I argue that because of these fundamental problems in intentionalism, Carroll, chose to shift to mentalism, which is more powerful and resilient with regard to some counterexamples