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سال هفدهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 68، زمستان 1391)

In the twentieth century, a variety of relativistic views have emerged in different fields. Anthropological and linguistic studies of some scientists such as Cyper and Whorf led to linguistic relativism. According to this view, not only languages have decisive roles in the formation of our thoughts and worldviews, but they are incommensurable and they cannot be translated to one another. In this paper, I seek to analyze relativism and its determinants in order to illustrate, first, that at what level, linguistic relativism enters, and what things are the ones that languages become their reference framework and relativity, and second, how strong and creidable this sort of relativism is—to see whether or not evidence and arguments for this view can drive home its claim. In this paper, I shall distinguish between linguistic relativism and linguistic determinism, showing that the weak thesis of linguistic determinism and the partial role of language in the facilitation of thought—and not in its determination and control—can be plausible.

Criticising different meaning theories, this paper aims to challenge the presupposition that “meaning” is a constituent part of language so that communication among people requires sharing the same meaning. In this paper, I will offer a critical review of three clusters of theories, i.e. referential, structurist and use approach to meaning, to show that none succeeds in accounting for the above presupposition. Then, relying on a new interpretation of later Wittgenstein’s theory of language, I will explain why meaning is a private matter and based on personal experiences, and communication among people is, not sharing meaning, but a harmony in their lifestyles and behaviors.

Pleasure is the strongest motivation behind human behavior and therefore has always been the interest of philosophers. From Ibn Sina's point of view, the only way of understanding pleasure's nature is through an insight into human soul and their perception of the world. He believed that 'pleasure' is a subjective perception which is experienced depending on the perceiver's conception and idea of goodness and perfection and thus there are different types of pleasure as a result of different perceptions of accomplishment, perfection and goodness. However, Razi held conflicting views about pleasure. On the one hand, he expressed the view that pleasure is beyond defining as it is a limitless feeling; on the other hand, he defines it as perception. In his view, there are not different kinds of pleasure since he is a firm believer of intellectual pleasure and regards sensuous pleasure only as alleviation of pain and suffering or a change of emotions. In this paper, we attempt to analyze the 'pleasure's nature' from the point of view of these two philosophers.

One of the main difficulties of conceptual and particularly realization-based dependence of moral attributes on religion is the irregularity of God’s will and voluntary actions and hence arbitrariness of morality derived from it. According to this critique, divine will and reluctance or command and prohibition without criteria and standards can shape moral concepts such as good and bad or at least have an influence on qualification of human actions to the predicates.But some philosophers and theologians, apart from other critiques against these two versions of religious morality, have attempted to resolve this problem by accommodating some determining factors in God, invoking to logical contradiction of bad actions, favour to attributes as divine simplicity and the like. These answers essentially have been incapable of solving this problem unless we consider the real object of God’s will and the fixed subjects of ethical propositions.

Testimony as a source of knowledge has an irreplaceable role in individual and social life of humans. Although many questions are raised about testimony, the central question of this paper—written in the context of analytic epistemology—is whether testimony only transmits knowledge or it can, in addition, be considered as a source for generating knowledge. The response of Individualists is No, but communitarians believe that testimony can also be a generative source of knowledge. Of course, this question is so important that the positive response to it brought about communitarian theories in epistemology. After formulating Jennifer Lackey’s view—one of the communitarians— I will consider the problems of this view and try to respond to them.

The paradox of confirmation results from two principles: first, Nicod’s condition, second, equivalence condition. Thus solutions to the paradox are of two types: first, solutions based on the rejection of Nicod’s condition, and second, ones based on the rejection of equivalence condition. After illustrating the paradox of confirmation, i shall examin solutions based on the rejection of Nicod’s condition: (a) Hempel’s solution, (b) solution based on standard Bayesianism, (c) Good’s solution, (d) Quine’s solution.

This article is concerned with the Fiqh al-Hadith method of Sayyed Murtada for the interpretation of narratives, in his book, Amali. Sayyed Murtada makes explicit in his book if the Khabar is the kind of Wahed that does not lead to knowledge and its apparent meaning is at odds with what we know, we should interpret its apparent meaning in a way that makes it compatible with what is right. Otherwise, we should reject this Khabar. It is necessary to take this Khabar as incorrect and reject it. Sayyed Murtada has used various methods to interpret narratives, including: regarding a Hadith as having a meaning contrary to its appearent meaning—e.g. taking it to have a metaphorical meaningand the like—by appealing to its attached and detached contexts; taking the term to have its literal meaning and not its religious meaning; and taking the narrator to have made a mistake. He has established principles for understanding Hadiths by employing intellectual methods and literal information.