نشریه پژوهش های فلسفی
پیاپی 9 (پاییز و زمستان 1390)

This article investigates the problem of doubt in Descarte's philosophy from a different viewpoint. I tried to answer the question that if it is possible to have a maximal sight to describe Descarte's methodic doubt? It seems to me we can consider Descartes’ doubt at least in two way (the “minimal” and the “maximal” sight); i.e., doubt as only a method or a principle, and as a theory. The methodic doubt, according to the most of Descarte's commentators, is not considered as a theory but is a method or a principle. Nevertheless, here, I am trying to show and explain his doubt as a theory. The meaning of ‘theory’ in this article includes: a doctrine, a methodology, a skill, a function, and an application.

The main subject of this paper is to scrutinize the concept of "play" in Gadamer’s aesthetics. The main question is to what extent Gadamer’s concept of play, in the realm of art and aesthetic, can goes beyond subjectivistic consequences of modern aesthetics (especially the Kantian reading). Generally, here, the claim is that Gadamer has succeeded partly in going beyond the subjectivistic consequences of modern aesthetics. So first we investigate the implications of this concept regarding some philosophers and then the comments of some con and pro of the attitude of this writing are presented. Then, after presenting the brief overview of modern aesthetics and its consequences (aesthetic consciousness and differentiation), Gadamer’s alternative (the concept of play) in order to avoid modern aesthetics subjectivistic consequences is investigated.

Interdisciplinarity approach is one of the newest to the knowledge. One of the contemporary necessities of interdisciplinarity approach to the knowledge is its philosophical explanation. This paper is an attempt to explain interdisciplinarity approach based on Mull-Sadra’s epistemological point of view. Sadra’s epistemology in its depth is unity-oriented, and hence has a capability for preparing an appropriate foundation for interdisciplinarity mode of knowledge. Here, it, primarily, is provided a brief historical overview on the unity of knowledge ideas led to interdisciplinarity as the recent issue of responding to the question of the unity of knowledge. Then MullaSadra’s point of view is followed in four axes; origin, necessity, process, and credibility of interdisciplinary knowledge. Based on the four axes, and as the epistemological foundations of interdisciplinarity of Mulla-sadra’s viewpoint, there are developed five foundations; that is, “grounding understanding on the graded unity of being”, “dependency of understanding to the complexity of universe”, “interdependence of components and whole”, “methodic and epistemic plurality and increasingly unity of understanding”, and “hierarchical discovery of truth”. Finally, we have mentioned some fundamental differences between the current interdisciplinary opinions and Sadra’s views. Sadras viewpoint reflects an original unity approach to universe which in itself has a large distance from the urgent technological unity of modern thoughts.

There are three general approaches in moral philosophy toward the demandingness of morality: maximalist morality, moderate morality and minimalist morality. However, moderate morality, which is very close to the approach of our ordinary morality, has been attacked from two sides: on the one hand, the "extremist" believe what moderate and ordinary morality claim as the demands of morality is much more lax than the real demands of morality in this era. On the other hand, the "minimalist" is against the demandingness of morality in moderate morality and is going to establish an easier system of morality. This paper, based on a kind of Selfinterest- based contractarianism, is going to defend the basic principles of moderate morality.

Both Avicenna and Augustine were the greatest philosophers and theologians, and because of being theologians, they considered the problem of evil from the windowof their devotion to God. Augustine, in his early years, although to answer to his important questions about God, creation, evil, and…, was influenced by Manichaeism, but he, after his familiarity with the Neo-Platonism and Christianity, approached the questions from the new viewpoint. Believing to two Divine attributes (wisdom and justice), within Muslims too, made some theoretical problems, such as; how while God is just and wise creates evil? If God created all things, and evil is a thing, then God created evil. Avicenna, like Augustine among the Muslim philosopher, tried to answer these questions. Here, after investigating their point of view on the problem of evil, I will attempt to assess their approaches.

The relation between subject and object is the main concern for Jean-paul Sartre, especially in his Being and Nothingness. Thus, he first of all divides Being into two categories: 'being in itself' and 'being for others'. With regard to the latter, essence is preceded by being while with regard to the former, they are completely correlated with each other. Being in itself is devoted only to the states of Being and being for others only to the states of human being. In this regard, Sartre believes that there are a third alternative for Being which is included within the realm of being in itself. The characteristic of the third kind is that it is not neutral in relation with us, but it can look at us too, and delimit our freedom. Being for others is the manifestation of hostile relations among human beings. The present paper tries to analyze the third kind, i. e. being for others. Sartre believes that the other's look denies our freedom. The relations among human beings are highlighted within three realms: the relation of child with his/her parents; the lovely relation based on sexual intercourse; the relation between man and God. Each of these three relations, for Sartre, is the manifestation of self-deception and condemned to defeat. But it must be noted that the being for others is not constrained to these three kinds but it is especially highlighted within three realms. With the account of these three self-defeating relations, we deal in our paper by focusing on Sartre Being and Nothingness.

The “Digression” in Plato’s Theaetetus (172-177) compares between philosopher’s life and orator’s of which I’m going to render an analytic report. There are some questions: how and why Plato’s discussion on the general definition of “Knowledge” is led to the “Digression” and what are the key themes of it? What is the role of the “Digression” in the Theaetetus? The “Digression”, apparently and besides the content, not conflicts with the whole of the Theaetetus. Because Plato, naturally and not conventionally, transits to the “Digression”, from the process of a judgment on the superiority of some people to others. After all, the content of “Digression” is in consistence with Plato’s doctrines. The apparent conclusion of the Theaetetus, relying on the individuals, is negative. However, the “Digression”, explicitly or implicitly, refers to the previous existence of the Forms. But, regarding to the “Digression”, the impossibility of the definition of “Knowledge” without universal Forms is the important message of the Dialogue.

Understanding the other” is the paradoxical point of ethics: without it no ethics is possible, and with it I would take away the other it’s alterity. Modern philosophy involves us in such a paradoxical situation, especially in the opposition of Husserl and Levinas. Following their thoughts, we would come near its deep roots. We will show post-structuralism, by decentering of subject, would help us to get rid of this paradox. In Kant’s words, we want to find transcendental condition of ethics. At the end, we will reveal a new aporia concealed in every relation with the other, an Aporia, which involves post-structuralism too.

Aristotle's virtue ethics is a teleological ethics, namely, for him, the purpose of achieving moral virtues by human beings is to obtain eudaimonia. The best interpretation of eudaimonia in Aristotle is human flourishing that is the main axis of Aristotle's ethics and also contemporary virtue ethics. Aristotle's analysis of human flourishing that is performed in biological context is based on the concept of ergon or function. Therefore, Aristotle, in description of human flourishing, emphasizes on the exclusive function of human being. For Aristotle the proper function of human being is not only nutrition, development, and reproduction because these are common between human beings on the one hand, and animals and planets, on the other hand. Hence, it rests the rational activity that is the exclusive function of human being. This activity is to be in conformity with the best and most perfect virtue. Philippa Foot, one of the most important contemporary philosophers of virtue ethics, presents an analysis of human flourishing through achieving moral values that in despite of its similarities has important differences to Aristotle's analysis. In description of human being, Foot emphasizes extremely on the biological aspect of human being in relation to Aristotle. Thus, he neglects of the other proper characteristics of human being. This problem brings about some difficulties and ambiguities in Foot's analysis of human flourishing and makes her view encounter with serious criticisms.

One of the most famous constituents of kant's critical philosophy is distinguishing between knowable and unknowable realm. We want to illustrate characteristics which distinct Kant's version from his predecessors. For the sake of this, first, we express briefly Kant's view on this problem. Then, we briefly study the distinction between knowable and unknowable realm from the viewpoint of some brilliant philosophers. Finally, it is showed that kant's thought, because of some elements, is different from the others.