نشریه متافیزیک
سال یکم شماره 2 (پیاپی 4، پاییز و زمستان 1388)

Incorporeal being consists of immaterial things such as intellect and soul. Also The One, in Plotinu's philosophy, and Independent and Rich Existence (Necessary Being), in Mullā Sadrā's philosophy, are incorporeal and immaterial. Moreover there is another kind of immaterial being in Islamic philosophy, which is called ideal incorporeal. Incorporeal things are distinct from material things in some attributes: existence, unity, knowledge and causality prevail in incorporeal things and matter, movement, time and space are negated in them. Plotinus and Mullā Sadrā have different ideas about these attributes. The significant point in Mullā Sadrā's point of view is the negation of material and immaterial opposition and facilitating the relation between material and immaterial things. Plotinus is in trouble with this relation because he assumed soul completely unaffected.

There are many criticisms about Aristotelian modal syllogism. Some logicians tried to provide adequate formulation of his total system but they were not successful. Therefore some logicians decided to account for those parts of the system which had been more controversial. The most controversial of the system is the "two barbaras" problem. The problem is about Aristotle's claim that moods with necessary major premise and assertoric minor premise have necessary conclusion while moods with assertoric major premise and necessary minor premise do not have necessary conclusion. Some logicians accept this, some believe that both of them have necessary conclusion, and some believe that both of them have assertoric conclusion. Rescher defended Aristotle's idea rather successfully. Moreover he thereby showed the consistency of this account with other parts of Aristotle's logic.

Richard Rorty is a neo-Pragmatist philosopher. For three decades, he has attacked the traditional philosophy (from Plato to Kant) as well as any other epistemology searching for truth or claiming to mirror the nature in his philosophical works. Rorty holds that, according to the history of philosophy in his reading, there is no final answer to the traditional questions concerning knowledge, truth, and representation. These questions, therefore, should be dissolved and denied. He maintains that knowledge is justified belief, justification, however, being not the consequence of some correspondence between the theory or the statement, but the consequence of conversation, social practice, group consensus, and social solidarity. Rorty also thinks that democracy has priority on philosophy, disagreeing with the thesis that philosophy is the foundation of the rest of culture. Despite of usefulness of some elements and implications of Rorty’s metaphilosophy (such as his emphasis on freedom, democracy, and pluralism as well as his insisting on philosophical humility and avoiding scientific pride), it is faced with several problems, including 1) ignoring the referential and realist features of language, 2) confusing interpretation and reality, 3) eliminating the border between objectivity and subjectivity, 4) interfering of public and private life, and 5) ignoring the need of science, culture, technology and, in particular, politics, in philosophy. The authors try to show and analyze some elements of these problems.

This paper compares vision, in general, and seeing God, in particular from two view points: Allame M.H.Tabatabai’s and M.Arabi’s, who are representatives of two school of Hikmat Mutaalie and Gnosticism. Subjects such as: heart as the place of receiving vision, the factors for incerasing heart’s receiving capability of the inspirations, error in visionary knowledge, criteria for finding these errors and seeing God are investigated in this paper. A quick look at these two scholars’ definition of “vision” makes one think that these two views are complementary and point to the same direction. Also there are similarities in their approach to the subject of vision. For example, both agreed that the heart is the place to receive the vision and Aref can increase his heart’s receiving ability by some self-watching exercises. They both believe that it is possible for visionary knowledge to be erroneous for the probability of non-divine sources of revelations or inspirations and wrong interpretations of observations. However, there are important differences between the thinking methods of Allameh and Ibn Arabi, the most crucial of which is the different position of rational mind in their views. As for Allameh, unlike Ibn Arabi, it has a special importance as a cognitive tool and he refers to it as a criterion for the validity of visionary knowledge

John Rawls, American contemporary philosopher, has chosen the title of constructivism for his views on philosophy of ethics and politics. The base of his veiws is the same as the theory of social contract which has been discussed before by John Locke and Imanuel Kant. Rawls completes this view by the condition of impartiality and fairness, which is distinguished by ignorance about the position of self (the veil of ignorance) in primary situation. Rawls criticises intutionism and utilitarianism and holds an antirealistic approach towards ethics. The theory that has been delivered by Allame Tabatabee (the constructional perception) caused agreements and disagreements, but his idea seems to be new and effective in Islamic philosophy. Based on this idea many conceptions are constructive including goodness, badness and justice. The aim of this paper is to analyse and give a comparison between these ideas and studies similarities and differences with regard to topics such as antirealism, objectivity, criteria of justification and separation of science and ethics.

Husserl - at least in his third intellectual career - was convinced that subject is placed at the heart of philosophy and philosophy is nothing but egology. This Cartesian character makes Husserl one of the greatest figures of modern thought. But in contemporary period, this central ego and, accompanied with that, the modern thought have been challenged by poststructuralists. Because of their focus on psychoanalysis and their priority to other poststructuralist writings, Lacan's argumeats are significant. In this article, at first, we proceed with the Lacan's central idea against the Cartesian subject, and then by explaining Husserl's thoughts we will see what his defence is. Husserl, by phenomenological reduction of natural attitude inherent in natural sciences (among them psychoanalysis), places phenomenology in a different dimension and prefers it to other sciences. The process of raising empirical ego to transcendental ego supports such defence.

Imagination and death are two mysterious areas of the truth that serve as a buffer zone between sense and reason, world and afterworld. By imagination, we mean imaginary forms, the world of imagination and faculty of imagination. With faculty of imagination, man in the world is able to imagine the transcendental truths and meaning in guise of appropriate imaginary forms, given that imagination relates itself to higher foundation of Being, not to the common sense. Death, which is a buffer zone between the world and afterworld, enables man to observe ideal truths. Abundance of paradise graces is realized through imagination according to the will of paradise people in the ideal world which is the field of spiritualization of bodies and corporealization of spirits. Death and imagination are transcendence from the sensual and entering the abstraction of limbo, from a lower to a higher stage. Then, man reaches an openness in the realm of death and imagination which can never be grasped in sensual stage. Art, the field of imagination, is a death toward divine Beauty. Sadra, in the 7th volume of Asfar Arbae, believes that chaste love of artists helps them gain a clear mind, compassionate spirit and fine view that develop a beauty which is manifestation of divine Beauty. In fact, the artist’s imaginary forms are medium of transcendence to the name of Allah. Then, art, in its original sense, is the death of whatever than God and the manifestation of God’s beauty.