فصلنامه پژوهش های فلسفی - کلامی
سال بیست و چهارم شماره 4 (پیاپی 94، زمستان 1401)

Panpsychism, as opposed to physicalism and dualism, offers a third way to explain consciousness. According to panpsychism, some fundamental physical entities have conscious states. One of the important arguments for this view is the refutation of the emergence of consciousness. According to emergentism about consciousness, the consciousness of human beings and other beings is a property that emerges at the non-fundamental physical level from the fundamental physical nonconscious level. In the contemporary era, Galen Strawson first argued in detail for panpsychism through the refutation of the emergence of consciousness. Strawson divides emergentism into two types, true and inexplicable emergentism; he takes the true emergence of consciousness to be impossible, and inexplicable emergence to be fundamentally incoherent. The claim of this paper is that according to the historical background of emergentism, it turns out that a third type of emergentism can be assumed, which is, firstly, coherent and, secondly, the emergence of consciousness based on it is possible. In this type, the emergent property is only partially dependent upon the fundamental level. The dependence of the emergent property upon the fundamental level is nomological, and the laws of nature are fundamental (nomism), not reducible to powers (powerism).

Thaddeus Metz, by developing a non-consequentialist theory on meaning in life, has tried to provide a relatively complete explanation of the meaning of most people's lives. Metz’s theory is based on two components: 1) “rational nature” as a subjective component and 2) “the fundamental conditions of human existence” as an objective component. This article through an analytical-critical approach, first examines Metz's argument and its components, then explains some important objections raised against the components of Metz's theory, that is, :1) defending the meaningconferring of the consequentialist view of the meaning in life, 2) the incompatibility of Metz’s theory with human intuition, 3) lack of attention to the role of emotional aspects, 4) meaning-conferring of some necessary conditions, 5)the problem with the sufficiency of fundamental conditions for meaning, 6) the inability of fundamental conditions to explain the meaning of some works of art, and 7) ignoring the meaningfulness of an artificial intelligence’s actions. Although Metz’s theory is considered defensible to most of the objections, it has been shown that his theory in the subjective aspect is problematic. Based on the Robot Problem, it can be argued that without the need for transcendence and going beyond the animal nature, meaningfulness is possible. If it is possible to regard the computational aspect of artificial intelligence as a part of the rational nature of humans, the subjective component of Metz’s theory cannot be defended.

In Transcendent Wisdom, the human soul is a supreme parable of God. Almighty God has created the human soul in its nature, attributes, and actions as a parable of Himself, so that contemplation on its three aspects is a ladder to the knowledge of the three divine aspects. The Theory of the Unity of Human Actions is one of the aspects of the supreme parable of God. In an innovative Theory of the Unity of Human Actions and by proposing the opinion that the unity of human acts is the highest parable of the unity of divine acts, Mulla Sadra doubles the effort to provide a precise explanation of the unity of divine acts. The meaning of the unity of man acts is that while a single act is really and essentially attributed to that faculty, it is also really and essentially attributed to the soul in the same sense. In the same way, an important point in explaining the unity of divine acts is that a singular act, while truly and essentially being related to a possible agent, is also truly and essentially related to the divine agent. In this article, using a descriptive-analytical method, in order to analyze the aspects of the supreme parable of the unity of human acts for the unity of divine acts, we have analyzed the most important aspects of this theory with a comprehensive view of Transcendental Wisdom. We have concluded seven points from this theory while explaining the unity of acts both in the human and the divine spheres.

Alongside acquired-conceptual knowledge, intuitive knowledge, as one of the instances of knowledge holds a very important position among Islamic philosophers as well. Allamah Tabatabai also mentions presential knowledge with importance while discussing acquired knowledge, and ultimately, considers presential knowledge to precede acquired knowledge. In this paper, using an analytic method, we have tried to explain his theoretical foundations regarding presential-intuitive knowledge and rationally defending its cognitive validity. An important finding of this paper is that presential-intuitive knowledge, apart from being the base of acquired knowledge, also provides a convincing rational defense regarding cognitive validity. The basis of this validity is that accessing reality is the main goal of knowledge and if we can verify that reality itself is available to us in presentialintuitive knowledge, we would have no further concerns epistemological concerns. According to Allamah Tabatabai, just as sensory intuition creates a certainty of being in accordance with reality in ourselves, presential-intuitive knowledge also contains similar dominance over reality. At the end of this paper, some instances of views that claim to disaffirm the validity of presential-intuitive knowledge have been addressed, analyzed, and explained so that the epistemic validity of presentialintuitive findings is objectively proven.

Empirical underdetermination is one of the problems that challenges the position of scientific realism regarding the unobservable level of scientific theories. In response to this problem, Mario Alai claims that underdetermination cannot seriously trouble the realist’s position. Like other realists, he introduces theoretical virtues to break the underdetermination and offers special solutions to get rid of the objections to using theoretical virtues. Although Alai believes that theoretical virtues can break the existing underdetermination in most cases, he admits that today, despite using theoretical virtues, the underdetermination between the alternatives of quantum mechanics theories – Standard Quantum Mechanics (SQM) and Bohmian Quantum Mechanics (QBM) – cannot be broken. For this reason, defending the realist position in this special case, he proposes (and brings up) a new solution that pays attention to the unobservable agreements assumed in the ontologies of alternative theories. In this article, by critically examining Mario Alai'’s approach to the problem of empirical underdetermination, it is shown that his solutions to solving the objections of using theoretical virtues are not without difficulties. Also, after examining some similarities of Alai’s new proposed solution to maintain a realist position regarding quantum mechanics theories with the approach of structural realists, it is shown that his solution faces three drawbacks: 1) Reducing alternative theories to each other and dismantling the problem instead of dealing with it, 2) inconsistency and ambiguity in the truth of parts of the agreements of alternative theories, and 3) lack of guarantee in the existence of parts of the agreements, and ineffectiveness to generalize the solution for other possible cases.

Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the most influential philosophers in the field of ethics, in his criticism of elder ethical systems, undercuts the philosopher’s ethics and considers it inefficient. This essay, taking Nietzsche’s criticism as its canon, scrutinizes his critiquess of Kant’s Categorical Imperative and clarifies that most of his reproves of Christian morality and philosophical ethics is, in fact, a reaction against the Categorical Imperative and the generalization latent in it. The essay at hand studies notions like Will, Reason, and Instinct before arriving at the conclusion that, the extreme contrast in ethics and opposition is due to two different perspectives adopted towards the human being and his will. Finally, we will find out that the canon of ethics is the Categorical Imperative and general maxim for Kant while Nietzsche, by reevaluating the values, introduces a moral criterion that recommends we seek the morality of any action in its conformity with the will to power. At the end of the article, we will show that Nietzsche’s attack on the philosopher’s morality, is concerned with Kant’s Categorical Imperative more than every other moral system. Regarding this interpretation, we show that Nietzsche’s reaction to Kant’s Categorical Imperative does not mean that Kant’s Ethics can be denied. These approaches are formed in separate discourses and we can just interpret them as continuous steps of progress in the history of Ethics. Nietzsche’s approach to morality can’t be considered without Kant’s account of the Categorical Imperative.