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سال یازدهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 78، بهار و تابستان 1397)

Immanuel Kant says in Prolegomena that “the remembrance of David Hume was the very thing that many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber”. Despite this confession, it is still not clear just how Hume awoke Kant from his dogmatic slumber. Interpreters’ disagreement springs from the fact that there is no consensus over any aspect of this influence. Did Hume’s critique of causality awake Kant, or his discussion of antinomies of imagination? If the former is the case, which discussion of causality? Has Kant been familiar with Hume’s own works? In the introduction of the paper, we distinguish three different questions. In the first part of the paper, we deal with the historical aspect of Hume’s influence on Kant and the degree of Kant’s familiarity with Hume’s two famous works, Treatise and Enquiry. In the second part, firstly, we deal with the interpretative aspect of Kant’s relation to Hume and argue that it was Hume’s discussion and critique of the epistemic and semantic status of “general causal principle” in Treatise which finally awoke Kant from his dogmatic slumber. If our account of Hume’s major influence on Kant is accepted, then Hume’s other impacts should be explicated light of our explanation. In conclusion, we offer some of the findings of this paper.

Philosophy and sociology are converging over common issues but in different ways. The project gives sociology a bit of abstraction and to philosophy concrete considerations only of kind of post-Hegelian historicism. For this purpose, the encounter of philosophical and sociological enlightenment is useful in the new system methodology. The way that challenges previous methodologies and based on systemic rationality and divides equally importance between the rational and social. This article describes and analyzes the collected data through the library study of the theories some prominent philosophical and sociological thinkers, in order to explain epistemic obstacles and to introduce sociological enlightenment and to evaluate Kusch’s sociologism that he has introduced interdependent entities both the rational and social. The assumption of systemic knowledge is also the limitation of human rationality and the overcoming of the kind of system rationality that says social realities require to internal knowledge, since with intensification of polycontextuality of the universe, pluralism become common in the domain of meaning. Then emancipation from the vertical perspective, for example the humanistic views and the critical rationalism, is unavoidable. This view divides the role of agent between man and society and introduces them correlative and co-event.

Contemporary aesthetics emerged and developed in the United States of America in the second half of the twentieth century and in particular during its last three decades. The changes it underwent were not relevant to contemporary scientific paradigms and philosophy; yet its basic concepts and perspective alterations were introduced by John Dewey in the first half of the twentieth century. “Nature-Environment” is one of the main components of contemporary aesthetics and Dewey’s aesthetic paradigm. The fundamental question is to see whether a universal aesthetics model of nature-environment can be accounted for and incorporated in contemporary trends in environmental aesthetics through understanding of Dewey’s aesthetic paradigm. The aim of this study was to understand the contemporary aesthetics of nature- environment from the perspective of universal aesthetics and based on Dewey’s Theories. Accordingly, the characteristics of Dewey’s Aesthetic paradigm were first identified using the inferential-analytic method and a universal aesthetics model of nature-environment was then proposed based on Dewey’s aesthetic components and the review of existing models. Finally, its relationship with environmental aesthetic, the aesthetics of human environments and everyday life, and sustainable aesthetics was elaborated on.

This article seeks to explain the epistemological and ontological aspects of a priori. This concept plays a role in the thought of Kant as the consistency of essential and epistemological terms. And in Heidegger's and Gadamer's thoughts, it is present in other way. This article seeks to explain that the epistemological and ontological aspects of the former are reflected in Heidegger and Gadamer's thoughts. Kant uses it in the epistemological context, Heidegger in the ontological field, and Gadamer place on the combination of these two epistemological and ontological views. In short, a priori in Kant's epistemology is an integral part of the mind and is necessary for the realization of the reality and experience. In Heidegger's ontology, a priori is the former perception of being that the foundation of knowledge is in the realm of experience, and in Gadamer's thought, a priori is a rational necessity that the history of the individual and its belonging to the tradition and society are its ontological nature.

Kristeva’stheory ofsubject in process may be assumed as a composition of the psychoanalysis and linguistic fields.The primary writings of Kristeva are based on Lacan’sanalyses ofthemirrorstageand theOedipus complex.These two phases provide necessary conditions for theformation of what she later names as ‘subject in process’. But unlike Lacan, Kristeva is always aware of social and historical aspects of subjectivity. On the other side, Kristeva has been also influenced by Saussurean linguistics. It can be implied that Kristeva’s pattern of semiotic act has been formed from the relationbetween Lacanian psychoanalysis and Saussurean semiotics. Her perception of the semiotic and symbolic functions of social and psychological life is based on a distinction between pre-Oedipal and Oedipal motives. It can be said Kristeva considers the semiotic realm as a maternal- feminine space (Chora). If a subject has placed a pre-Oedipal semiotic action; in contrast, a symbolic subject is an Oedipal system that has formed by the law of the father (nom du pére) and these two forms together the ‘speaking subject’. In this paper, we aim to deal with these semiotic contexts of forming the subject. By emphasizing on the maternal, Kristeva argues against the contemporary reduction of the subject to the symbolic realm.

Frank Sibley, one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century in the field of aesthetics, has tried to stabilize the place of aesthetic and nonaesthetic features as a major subject of aesthetics and its use in the critical discourse. The current paper seeks to find out how proper aesthetic and nonaesthetic terms should be applied to objects based on Sibley’s linguistic pillars. It also studies the Sibley’s inclination towards the critic’s use of rhetoric to defend aesthetic judgements in the critical discourse.Here, it is sought to scrutinize the Sibley’s view with a critical approach, figuring out if he has succeeded in presenting the methods used by a critic to attract addressees’ attention to see aesthetic features or not. According to the findings and the writers’ criticisms, Sibley has undergone some gap in pursuing his goal, but his efforts have paved the way for the improvement of the addressee’s aesthetic sense.

The importance of the ontological and epistemological aspects of beauty as a concept and its aesthetic embodiment has laid down foundation for philosophical deliberations. From Socratic deliberations to the 18th century formulations, despite their different attitudes and achievements. Here the most philosophical attitude is reconstructing of theories to the whole body of the texts in question. The present essay intends, through the explanation of the aesthetic aspects of the works and the general viewpoints of Shahabaddin Suhrawardi, considering hisworks’ structures and their general formations along with his Visionary Worlds and the Hanging Images, to indicate the fact that the hierarchical formation of those worlds, their relation and affinity to one another, the explanation of the Illumination (ishraqi) are all of an aesthetic formation and an artistic facet.

The issue of the originality of the artwork is one of the most important and challenging issues in arts, including performing arts, that has always been discussed by many philosophers and art critics. Despite the fact that the uniqueness of the artwork has been challenged in various aspects recently, ensuring the originality of the artwork remains an important and influential indicator of the aesthetic experience for audiences and has never lost its importance. Dennis Dutton, American philosopher of art, looks at the originality of art from the perspective of the evolutionary theory. He says that in the context of the formation of arts, the mechanism of sexual selection has been at work. In his opinion, the reason for the existence of certain tendencies in the human mind, like being sensitive to the originality of artwork, is due to the role of sexual selection in the formation and maintenance of the arts.

The problem that there are relations between moral values and aesthetic values is a most important concern of the philosophy of art today. In the other words, the question is whether ethical criticism relates to aesthetic criticism. In response to this question, three positions have been adopted, among which the position of moderate advocates seems acceptable. Moderate advocates agree that there are relations between moral values and aesthetic values, but disagree on how they relate to each other. They believe that moral virtue/vice and aesthetic merit/demerit are related to each other in several ways. Here, it can be found, at least, four important views worth speaking of: (1) sometimes a moral virtue in a work of art becomes an aesthetic merit in it, (2) sometimes a moral vice in a work of art becomes an aesthetic demerit in it, (3) sometimes a moral vice in a work of art results in an aesthetic merit in it, and (4) sometimes an aesthetic merit in a work of art results in a moral virtue.

Althusser introduces the question of ideology into a new level of discussion. Borrowing ideas from Freudian psychoanalysis, he redefines the concepts of human sciences asserting that ideology is not only a ‘false consciousness’ or ‘consciousness of the inverted world,’ but also a kind of ‘ignorance’ or ‘unconsciousness,’ which stands at odds with Humanism and Economism. Althusser regards this as the reappearance of Marx's fundamental thesis which he believes must be accomplished. Althusser immediately encountered a variety of criticisms that reveal various aspects of his theory. He insisted in following the logic of his argument departing from the problem of ‘reproduction,’ and ending with ‘subjection’. The paper tries to demonstrate that Althusser cannot rely on his ideology argument without distinguishing ‘science’ from ‘politics.’ Since ‘politics’ and ‘philosophy’ are the key elements in any discussion concerning ideology, it should be noticed that, for Althusser, philosophy is nothing but the ruminated (ruminé) politics. That is why philosophy cannot be conceptualized. Philosophy has no Essence, but can only be applied. The article argues that philosophical practice should be defined as a theoretical political action or the ‘critique’ of ideology. I will conclude that although Althusser emphasizes the rational relation between philosophy, politics, and ideology, his account of the ‘critique’ cannot go beyond the political realm.

John Dewey, the American pragmatist philosopher, was an experimentalist when he introduced the pragmatic foundations of his thought. For him, experience is a key that opens the gates of aesthetics to him and all else. The telling title of his famous work, Art as Experience (1958), is evidence that for Dewey art is an experience while beauty is an event happening in the context of human life experiences. Focusing on Art as Experience, which is analytic in form and romantic in content, this paper seeks to explain how the experience of art developed and transformed in Dewey's thought. Then we illustrate how an aesthetic experience, by drawing on the possibilities the natural world and everyday life offer, can become accessible to human beings. Thus Dewy, as the philosopher of life, turns into a source of expression about art and beauty.

Early Wittgenstein considers metaphysics as nonsense because metaphysical propositions do not picture any state of affairs. To understand this, we need to have a thorough comprehension of what metaphysics is as well as what delicate limits separate linguistics from ontology. Wittgenstein's verdict about metaphysics is in fact a judgment on language and its limits rather than on existence or nonexistence of a sphere of Reality. Nevertheless, in Tractatus, Wittgenstein obviously goes beyond the limits he sets and declares that the mystical exists. This sentence is nonsense based on Tractatus's thesis! Yet, it shows the apparent difference of logical positivist's approach from Wittgenstein's.