نشریه اندیشه فلسفی
پیاپی 11 (تابستان 1402)

Nowadays, we have to rely on experts in many theoretical and practical matters. We consider them reliable and rely on them. To justify many of our beliefs, we have no other reason but the testimony of experts. Nonetheless, to trust the experts, it is necessary to recognize them and know their distinctive characteristics. In doing so, epistemologists proposed some definitions for experts and expertise. In this paper, First, we will explain the truth-based definition and then the justification-based definition and describe the criticisms of it. we show that the best definition is that S is an expert in domain D if and only if S has more understanding and ability than most people in domain D at his time. In the end At the end, we explain the five necessary conditions of belief, coherence, ability, efficiency and time.

Anthony Kenny develops a theory on religious language as follows: Firstly, a metaphor consists of using a word in a language game that is not its home; secondly, a word belongs to a language game if either the input to the game or its output involves contact with the word's object; thirdly, God does not belong to any language game. Thus, all uses of the ‘God’ are irreducibly metaphorical. Michael Scott proposes three objections to this theory: 1) Kenny’s criterion for words belonging to a language game is implausible. 2) it could be satisfied. 3) In some sentences, both the subject and predicate are religious expressions, so, the use of ‘God’ in these sentences is not metaphorical. Relying on Kenny’s account of the ineffability of God, in this paper, I shall introduce the ‘longitudinal otherness’ and argue on behalf of Kenny against Scott’s objections. However, I shall show that Kenny’s idea is objectionable.

Narrative is a way to understand human affairs. Among these is the understanding of man himself. Human experiences need a mediator called narrative to be understood. It provides a possibility for self-expression, known as engaged self. This engaged self in the religious lived world is affected by the narratives that shape experiences. A movement in Christian theology called Narrative Theology attempted to show that the religious man's understanding of himself in the modern world is formed through biblical stories. Addressing the problem of human requirements in the modern world, narrative theology designed a system of thought based on narrative. This article aims to show the meaning of engaged self-based on narrative, and then, with a brief presentation of Yale school's narrative theology, it will describe the basis of the narrative concept. Finally, it will present criticisms based on the narrative concept by evaluating the mentioned theology.

Effective Altruism has discussed helping others both in the domain of theoretical foundations and in the domain of practical foundations. In fact, helping others includes helping other humans, animals, the environment, and any other thing that improves the conditions of men and the world, and the discussion of this issue is of a background as ancient as human existence itself. The Most Good You Can Do by Peter Singer, one of the contemporary thinkers in practical ethics, contains four parts and fifteen chapters. The book has discussed the issue of helping others in a very proper and, of course, effective and applied manner, and it is unique in its specific domain; but the most significant point of weakness of this book is its negligence of the role of global organizations in prevention from war, etc., which in turn can play an effective and even fundamental role in the domain of altruism.

Hypothetical logic has a special place in the tradition of Avicennan logic. In this tradition, various opinions have been presented about the conditions of the truth of hypothetical sentences and the conditions of syllogisms with hypothetical premises. One of the most prominent Avicennan logicians who discussed it is Shams al-Dīn Samarqandī.  The truth of singular cogent hypotheticals is a special topic of Samarqandī about hypotheticals. His analysis of this type of hypotheticals finally led to limiting the number of hypothetical syllogisms. In this article, I compare the opinions of Samarqandī about the conditions for the truth of singular cogent hypotheticals with the opinions of Fakhruddīn Rāzī and Abdullah Jīlanī. I show that the origin of the differences between these logicians is the difference in their interpretations of Avicenna's texts about quantifiers of hypotheticals.

Epistemic Skepticism is one of the most controversial issues in epistemology. To block it, some find the failure of closure helpful. Dretske puts forward a recursive analysis of Knowledge. In his view, the analysis makes the closure principle fail which in turn helps to undermine the paradigmatic arguments for epistemic Skepticism. However, some including contextualists, dogmatists, or neo-mooreans, on the other hand, maintain the closure and yet undermine skepticism. In the present paper, I am not going to explore various approaches to preserving closure, criticize Dretske’s analysis as a knowledge nor will I study the setbacks of closure failure. I intend to show that, contrary to the current understanding of Dretske’s analysis, the mentioned analysis does not necessarily lead up to closure failure: There is a specific reading of the recursive base such that not only does it preserve the closure principle but also it offers a way to defeat the classic arguments for Skepticism. To better examine my suggestion compared to Dreske’s and see their exact differences, I will first study Dretske’s analysis of knowledge. Then, I will show that my suggestion respects the closure principle yet undermines skepticism.