فصلنامه کیمیای هنر
پیاپی 14 (بهار 1394)

Gabriel Marcel is a contemporary French existential philosopher, dramatist, musician, theater and music critic.As he says his love for music and theater stems from his passionate interest in the individuality of beings and irresistible attractions of reality. In existential philosophy he opens the hope path to human beings; challenges the man and his situation in his dramas and searches a way for developing his thought in music. His mode of thinking is concrete and objective, and so conforms totally to the theater’s essence as a fully tangible art. Marcel’s plays do not provide answers but they do suggest paths of light for reflection whereby we might discover an authentic response to the challenge of the dramatic situation. Indeed, after the curtain falls spectators reflect on the questions raised not only in relation to the characters in the play but in relation to their own lives as well. It can even be said that reading his dramas provides a better ground to understanding his philosophic concepts. Introducing his works seems necessary as none of his dramas has been translated into Persian yet. While presenting his dramas this article is an inquiry about how Marcel’s philosophic terms are reflected in the themes of his dramatic works. Some of these terms include: death, presence, faith, creative fidelity, mystery and hope.

One of Kant’s basic concern in the critique of judgment is teleology. Purpose as subject of investigation in Aristotle and his followers was completely put aside in the justification of world by the modern philosophers such as Descartes and Spinoza. Kant as the leader of modern philosophy in the Critique of Judgment again comes back to purpose and purposiveness. He believes that teleology is the principle of reflective faculty of judgment. This paper concerns with this problem that whether the concept of teleology، raised with metaphysical tint from the start، has any connection with purpose and purposiveness in the third moment or not? If this connection is proved، what will its results be?

Irony and laughter had a special place in 16th century Flanders society, and Pieter Bruegel as one of the greatest painters of this era displays this quality of his society. Bruegel was a painter between the times of middle ages and the Renaissance. In 1604 he was portrayed as the greatest comic artist of his time; however, the nature of his art is something beyond the laughing subject and for reaching a deeper understanding and obtaining new meanings out of his works they must be studied in terms of cultural context – the carnival culture in 16th century Flanders – which they were made in. In this essay Mikhail Bakhtin’s points of view are used as a proper theoretical structure for surveying the works of Bruegel. Bakhtin’s theories cover various and widespread contexts and they have great richness. The focus of this essay is on Bakhtin’s notion and his special point of view toward the carnival and grotesque realism. Bakhtin’s carnival is the emanation of carnival spirit in cultural productions such as painting and literature. The main idea of Bakhtin’s work in carnival comedy and grotesque realism is to depict human body that relates to power disposal and rebirth in carnival. As Bakhtin says, carnivalesque is the primary result of native, local or public culture which people intend to and help by its formation. Accordingly, by surveying carnival forms and symbols, meaningful correspondence can be made between works of art like Bruegel’s and carnival literature of Bakhtin. As a result, research method used in this essay is an adaptive one and the analysis is done by using written the documents and sources.

Aesthetics objectivity or subjectivity has always been a noteworthy philosophical problem for aesthetic philosophers during the history of thought. History of such a discussion could be pursued from Plato’s dialogues with aesthetics objectivity to Kant’s third critique which perches on top of aesthetics subjectivity. The question about aesthetics objectivity or subjectivity would be like this: if the aesthetics qualities have objective truth so is it true to attribute them to things or they are just subjective attributes being different among people? Theorizing about this is one of the most challenging discussion in philosophical aesthetics. Instead of endless disussions about aesthetics subjectivity or objectivity, Frank Sibley as an effective aesthetic philosopher in twentieth century tried to propell it to colors’ objectivity and to prove, on this basis, the objectivity of aesthetic qualities. In this paper while clarifying Sibley’s point of view, I will try to criticize his theory and to see if he was successful in gaining victory against sophists and subjectivists or not. Finally, it will be concluded that although Sibley has failed in proving the objectivity of aesthetic concepts, he has opened a way that can help people for importing philosophy in their life and that’s what really important.

In this paper, we try to research into concept of “Art” in Iranian culture based on “Minu ye xrad” essay. For this goal, first we explain the nessecity of this inquiry and then by indicating its method we describe the relation between art and ethics in “Minu ye xrad” essay. In second part of this study, we compare the result of the first part with Plato’s point of view. We show briefly that “Art” and “Ethics” are associated in “Minu ye xrad” essay and Plato’s view and this is by reason of special ontological view. A difference between “Minu ye xrad” essay and Plato’s point of view is the consideration of Artist’s position. In “Minu ye xrad” essay artist has an intermediate position, but in Plato’s point of view artist’s position is declined considerably.

Manichean is a religion with many written works and few remaning visual resources or art works. Although the manichean works of art are scarce in number, they are important and noteworthy works. Through obtaining adequate information about manichean beliefs and analysing manichean art, it is possible to observe the reflection of main ideas of the religion in its art. Some of the principal elements of the manichean beliefs are obviously visible in manichen art. Art works of the mentioned religion, as any other art work, have been created upon a specific idea to express particular thoughts and impressions, and decoding and interpreting them based on manichean doctrine to find the ideas behind them is a fundamental work in order to understanding manichean art.

The issue of metaphysics is one of the important problems in philosophy and especially in Islamic philosophy. Practically, all of muslim philosophers pay more attention to this aspect of philosophy which is also very famous in the Middle East and ancient philosophy. The metaphysics is a basis for many theories in Islamic philosophy because of Good’s pivotal place in this philosophy. In fact, God, i.e epistemology of God, is an important subject in Islamic philosophy and the study of God and its issues have been always regarded as a part of metaphysics in Islamic philosophy. Farabi is one of Muslim philosophers who is known as the Second Teacher. He formulated his Islamic philosophy on the basis of Aristotle’s philosophy. In this paper, I want to study metaphysical theory of Farabi and his theory of beauty and describe the relationship between them by method of philosophical analysis. Whereas Farabi expresses intellectual beauty as something that refers to intelligible world, it seems that there are deep linking between beauty and metaphysics. In addition, when God as one part of metaphysics is regarded as the beautiful existence in his theory of beauty, how can we separate metaphysics and beauty in philosophy of Farabi?