فصلنامه حکمت و فلسفه
سال پانزدهم شماره 3 (پیاپی 59، پاییز 1398)

In the first Critique, Kant delineated the principles of metaphysics of nature and in the second Critique, those of metaphysics of morality. Since these two kinds of principles were essentially distinguished, there appeared an absolute gap between nature and morality, which Kant called abyss or gulf and emphasized that it is "incalculable". That is, if one considers only the first and the second Critique, one should accept the dualism in the essence of subject. Kant, however, takes over in the third Critique the task of investigating the possibility of transition between the two sections of the dualism.
In this paper, we try first to clarify what it means that a transition occurs between nature and morality and then to show how it occurs. Before that, however, we should transform the metaphorical expression of "gulf" into a logical one in order to get the problem right. Once this is done, the meaning of transition becomes clear. In order to delineate how the transition is realized, we should appeal to concepts of the beautiful and the sublime. The transition in the sphere of the beautiful occurs in three instances: intellectual interest in beautiful, the genius, and being the symbol of morality. But in the sphere of the sublime which is "formless", one should go beyond the purposiveness of the form of nature. It will be clear that the sublime represents the possibility of transition in two respects:  by  introducing  the  idea  of   humanity  and  morality  and  by   aesthetic  representation of reason "as both theoretical and practical" which is nothing but unity of the first and the second part of Kantian philosophy.

Kant's transcendental ego is the absolute and final subject which constitutes the logical foundation of knowledge and experience. It is completely subjective, and as the most necessary and fundamental element in Kant's epistemology is involved in any judgment, intuition, imagination, synthesis, and category and, in a word, in any kind of knowledge and experience which occurs in a priori way. One of the most important and fundamental problems arising about transcendental ego is that of its functions. In this article, we have extracted four functions of transcendental ego according to Kant's own viewpoints in CPR which as follows: 1- transcendental ego provides our knowledge with universality. 2- It provides necessity for our knowledge. 3- It makes possible our knowledge. 4-It unifies our knowledge through the process and act of synthesis. Finally, we came to the conclusion that the function of unification is the most important and fundamental function due to fundamentality and importance of the process of synthesis in Kant’s epistemology.

Relying on the teachings of Aquinas, Oderberg as one of the analytic hylomorphists ascribes the unity of an object to form. His view is that if form is responcible for unity, it should be a simple entity not a composite one. In this article, we have shown that although one can find this view tenable, but his own specific metaphysics cannot support it. In doing so, we first focus on his explanation of form and analyze his argument for form. We argue that his view suffers from many weaknesses. In the sequel, we explained our own argument for unity of form, which is taken from Aristotle. At the end, we showed that even if we ignore the weaknesses of Oderberg’s argument and accept his claim to the unity of form, his metaphysics cannot support this theory.

There is no doubt that both Mulla Sadra and Allame believe that philosophical necessity holds in external world; they begin their philosophy by necessity as well. Necessity is actually the origin and basis of all beings and truths in external world, one can even argue that it is the same as the objectivity of things. It is, whatever being devoid of necessity, is devoid of objectivity and reality. But Mulla Sadra and Allame differ in the origin of such necessity. Each of these philosopher’s abstract necessity from one thing. Whereas Mulla Sadra takes necessity from being, Allame takes it from reality as such. In other words, for Mulla Sadra the basis of philosophical necessity of things lies in the being and for Allame in reality as such. Mulla Sadra, therefore, begins his philosophy from being and Allame from the reality of things. In this paper, we consider first the question of how they differ in the origin of abstraction of philosophical necessity and then the question of which philosophical and practical consequences follow from these two views.

Although the problems concerning natural causality, particularly the problem of the difference between causally-driven relations and non-causally-driven relations, are one of the most controversial problems discussed frequently by contemporary physicists and philosophers. However, Islamic thinkers have paid no significant attention to this problem so far, and the Islamic Thought Council has been in session Concurrence of such problems is almost devoid of opinion and thought. In response to the problem the difference between causally-driven relations and non-causally-driven relations, David Lewis proposes the causal dependence, which is tested in the context of counterfactual conditionals. The practical evaluation of this theory suggests that it contains a limited range of causes and does not provide the necessary knowledge in the process of causation and in many cases even fail to do so. In contrast, it seems that based on the thought of Islamic philosophy, one can defend the theory of direct knowledge and integrate it with the theory of the Intuitive Faculty.

In this article, by referring to the foundations of Royce's thought, his theology is explained and analyzed. Influenced, on the one hand, by personal idealism, Royce construes man as a part of cosmic process that achieves the goals of living and objective truth (God), and on the other hand, points out that every human being has his own unique talent. Thus in spite of absolute idealism, he attaches importance to individual differences. In his view, idealism has the potential to provide a new interpretation of Christian theology; so it comes terms with the active life of contemporary man. In Royce's philosophy it is possible to provide a model for the interaction between science and religion; because he distinguishes the everyday sensory experience and organized scientific experience. He considers all possible and actual experiences as objects of the absolute divine mind that will be actualized by human’s scientific endeavor in the context of inventions and discoveries.  Royce even maintains that the loyal commitment of scientists and business owners to society as a kind of religious experience (in the broadest sense) and thereby offers a new image of the invisible church.

In 1928, Wittgenstein took on a project for a short time which he himself called “phenomenological language”. Discovering some flaws in Tractatus as a whole (including the problem of color-incompatibility), he begin to think of a new symbolism and thereby to remedy the flaws. However, after a while he gave up the project and considered it impossible or at least unnecessary. In this article, we try to answer some important questions in this regard: what was the phenomenological language? Where did it come from? Why did he address it and give it up? And what did he introduce for substitution of the old project? The claim is that Wittgenstein used “phenomenological language” in two senses; first as the mere description of a phenomenon (vs. physical ordinary language) and second as the study of possibilities of meaningfulness. The origin of the first one goes back to views of theoretical physicists. One of the main reasons to launch this project was that Wittgenstein wanted to explain the color-incompatibility problem threatening the truth-functional logic of Tractatus. Wittgenstein was seeking a complementary notation and thought that the solution lied in the “logical investigation of phenomena themselves”. He made some preliminary suggestions (e.g. importing numbers in the form of propositions), but the more he went on, the more he saw the use of terms and concepts of ordinary language as inevitable. Finally, he discarded the project. Instead of “analyzing phenomenon”, he now spoke of “analyzing grammar”, whose goal was to separate what is essential from what is inessential in our language.

The problem of "immortality" - as an innate thing - can be studied from various aspects: revelatory, mystical, intellectual and philosophical. In this paper, Spinoza's conception of soul and immortality is critically analyzed while drawing on the principles of transcendental Philosophy. Spinoza, like Sadr al-Muta'llehin, believes in immortality of soul; but they differ by the fact that Spinoza denies, on the one hand, the substantiality of the soul and, on the other hand, believes that immortality is non-inclusive and acquired. Therefore, the acquisition of immortality for Spinoza is conditioned by gaining some qualifications and removal of some obstacles. Accordingly, only those souls experience immortality who are qualified by certain terms. Mulla Sadra, however, believes that immortality is genetic and essential for the soul, and therefore includes every single one.
The conception and explanation of how immortality is acquired and how it relates to human happiness in Spinoza, compared with the view of Mulla Sadra, constitutes the most part of the paper. The method of this research is descriptive-analytic with critical approach.

Love is a common theme of philosophy and mysticism. In Plato's view and in Rumi's considerations on love as well, love is known to be a source of divine intellect, all-perceiving power. In this paper, we compare the two views and highlight the similarities between them. In the genealogy of Rumi's thought and lived experience in the domain of love and the kind of general understanding governing his formulation of romantic concepts, it seems necessary to burrow into the historic-philosophical foundation of this kind of attitude. In this path, the shadow of Platonic thought as the origin of virtue-centered evaluation in the realm of love comes to fore. In this comparative approach of philosophy and mysticism to the phenomenon of love, the roles of sensory, rational, and intuitive knowledges are determined by and through Plato's dialectical method, which has been addressed in nine different dialogues including Phaedrus, Symposium,  Republic,  and  Theaetetus. Based on  these  discussions,  one   is encountered among Rumi's  lyric poetry with layers of epistemological argumentations, particularly in the Divan of Shams, which overlaps with Plato's epistemological view of knowledge and love. This indicates the influence of Plato's ontological and virtue-centered attitude on Rumi.

It seems that objective historiography and the question of the real referent in photography do not have a clear relation, as can be seen in most of the contemporary essays on the relation between history and photography which are based on new definitions of representational capacity of photography and have no attention to past currents of historiography although all of them, in criticizing the photographic representation refer to works of Roland Barthes and his contemporaries, as the classical texts on photography. But a point that has been almost ignored is that Barthes' attention to the problem of the referent in photography goes beyond mere structuralism. His works on these two seemingly distinct areas namely history and photography show that his critical attitude toward the tradition of objective historiography, through all his intellectual life, from structuralism to poststructuralism, has been present in different areas including photography. What Barthes looks for by analyzing the problem   of  referent  in  photography  is  indeed   the  problem  of  objective historiography and its relation to reality, which he believes is not representable. Doubting the possibility of objectivity in historiography, Barthes challenges within semiotic framework the notion of ”photo is equal with reality” and therefore criticizes the realistic approach in history and photography.