نشریه فلسفه غرب
پیاپی 11 (پاییز 1403)

The present paper aims to explore the views of two great continental and analytic philosophers, Paul Ricoeur and John Searle concerning the nature of text and propositions. Ricoeur first aimed to examine the nature of text and semantics in his hermeneutic study. To do this, he expanded the meaning of the text, which included writing, speaking, human acts, and even human sciences. By expanding the meaning of the text, in addition to a compromise between explanation and understanding, he tries to make a compromise between humanities and natural sciences. John Searle too as an analytic philosopher expanded the meaning of the propositions by proposing his theory of speech-act propositions. In this way, he parted himself from classic analytic philosophy and approached continental philosophy. Searle sees the fundamental role of language as the function of performing various actions. According to him, propositions and sentences have a practical aspect as well as a theoretical aspect and they have meaning with illocutionary acts. Ricoeur is trying to decode the hidden meaning in the text, as in Searle’s theory, it is the illocutionary act in the speech that includes the indirect meaning of the speech. Ricoeur points out that during the formation of speech, a conversation is first established between the person and himself and acts show the intention of the speaker, as Searle values the speaker’s intention in his speech. Ricoeur’s reliance like Searle’s reliance is on the illocutionary act. The present paper is an attempt to highlight the common points of these two philosophers: 'The concept of understanding and interpretation’, ‘semantics’, ‘linguistic communication’, and act.

The main subject posited by Heidegger in his philosophy is existence. He believes that this subject has been neglected in the history of Western philosophy after Plato and Aristotle and it that it has been replaced by epistemology. In the modern era, he has made a lot of efforts to the revitalization of the forgotten subject, “existence”. He endeavored to transcend beyond the conceptual realm of existence and get to the objective and concrete depth of existence. To achieve this goal, Heidegger looks for a way of identifying existence; for the same reason, he becomes more inclined toward human beings. From his perspective, humans are the only beings capable of asking about existence and they are the sole manifestations able to grant meaning to all the other phenomena. The question about existence can only come about through the creatures because existence is latent inside all of them and its solution lies in the analysis and investigation of the concrete reality of existence. The present article tries briefly evaluating the thoughts of this German philosopher about the existence.

The present analyzes Kant's subjectivist understanding of the concept of the event in the way aesthetic judgments are issued under the aesthetic experience. Heidegger returns to the original position of Ereignis or event in the way of finding the question about understanding the inner foundations of language. An event is a situation in which language reveals itself through speech and speaks about itself, and in this way, other beings also enter the field of presence. But in Kant, the subjectivist view of the event is revealed in the free play between imagination and understanding. Kant does not directly use the concept of event in explaining the beautiful thing. However, the examination of his view on the validity of aesthetic judgments indicates the cognitive interaction between understanding and imagination, which beyond epistemological rules and foundations is revealed in a general, necessary, and universal way in the situation of the event. From Kant's point of view, because the understanding is faced with difficulties in how to issue reflective judgments, and the understanding lacks prior categories that can formulate the sensory impressions contained in the imagination, therefore, the issuing of judgments outside of the cognitive rules is manifested in an event-like way. The subject goes beyond their subjectivity in relation to the object to beyond the object at the moment of encounter, they interact through the event of the game. It is the first interaction of the subject with the world and then the free play between imagination and understanding.

To solve the mind-body problem that didn’t get the proper response from Descartes, Malebranche by reanalyzing the concept of “causal power” in addition to purifying the human mind from the Scholastic faults, tried to de-independent all the creatures and by suggesting the theory so-called “Occasionalism”, considered God as the only real cause and treated the natural events as a mere occasion for God’s agency. However, according to the high position of morality in Malebranche’s thought, he must provide an explanation to count human beings responsible for their actions. This explanation should be compatible with his basic epistemic principle -i.e. Occasionalism- and to solve the problems like the problem of Evil, which needed to proceed not by mere faith but only with reliance on philosophical rationality (which was a mixture of Descartes and Saint Augustine). Malebranche who realized well that in this matter we cannot expect complete rational clear and distinct expression and should be content with metaphoric ones, indeed retreated from his desired Cartesian rationality and none of his solutions were good enough to reconcile between Occasionalism and human freedom.

Catharsis is one of the most controversial ideas presented in the realm of aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Aristotle's lack of a precise definition of this concept in "Poetics" is one of the reasons for its ambiguity. This issue has led critics and philosophers to speculate about this idea and offer various interpretations of it. In this article, we will attempt to address the most prominent interpretations that have emerged regarding this idea. From this perspective, we will examine three significant interpretations of this concept that have been proposed in three different domains: ethical (purification), psychological (refinement), and epistemological (clarity). Alongside this, we will also explore the relationship of this idea with other aesthetic concepts, including tragic pleasure, tragic flaw, and tragic knowledge. Additionally, we will review the views of some philosophers, such as Nietzsche and Hume, who have had concerns about tragedy and have written extensively on the subject—particularly those passages that have contributed to the clarification of the concept of catharsis. Ultimately, we will demonstrate that the idea of catharsis is one characterized by uniqueness and plurality, which cannot be reduced to abstract concepts of thought and cannot be confined within the framework of a singular grand narrative. Instead, it finds its meaning and specific functionality depending on the perspective from which it is viewed or the context in which it is employed.

From ancient times until now there have been two theories about speaking of God and His attributes, namely, negative Theology, and univocity. However, some religious thinkers rejected them because the former caused the suspension of reason and the second caused the analogy of God with creatures. Meanwhile, some thinkers as Mulla Sadra in Islamic tradition and Thomas Aquinas in Christian tradition tried to find a middle way between them. The theory of Univocity, degrees of existence in Mulla Sadra, and the theory of Analogy in Aquinas are this middle way. In this article, we have compared their views and concluded that although their foundations are different their conclusions are the same. In the end, we have concluded that both theories failed to solve the problem.