فصلنامه حکمت و فلسفه
سال ششم شماره 2 (پیاپی 22، تابستان 1389)

There is no agreement about Pascal’s purpose of suggesting his “Wager.” Is Pascal after presenting a logical reason or merely invites others to his spiritual intimacy? Is his addressee Atheist or his purpse is strengthening Christian faith? What are the origins of “Pascal’s Wager”? In this paper, we try to describe Pascal’s sayings about his wager as far as possible and then, explecate contradictory interpretations about the wager through clarifying the above questions. Firstly, the Religious views about rationality are presented. Then, the historical roots, presumptions and premises of the wager are considered and analyses. After that, the main conflicting conceptions of rationality are recognized by means of considering the most important criticisms and interpretations of Pascal’s wager. Finally, we conclude that many objections to the wager have been raised from detaching its presumptions and premises from its conclusion.

East theosophy and west philosophy have some foundatumental topics in common. One of these topics is the unity of existence which is one of the main subjects in Upanishads and appears frequently in Greek philosophy, especially the views of thinkers like Anaxagoras, Plato and Plotinus. Hindu thinkers and Greek philosophers have much in common in the subject of Art and Beauty. The prevailing idea of Mimesis as the essence and nature of Art in views of philosophers like Plato, Aristocrats and in particular, Plotinus appears in Hindu theosophy as the Sadrsya. Likewise, the Sadrsya means resemblance and mimic but the one which concerns heavenly images and upon which rely asceticism, worshiping and particularly, Yoga. This particular approach is largely connected with Plotinus’ ideas in Enneads. He regards Art as the mimic of the sensible images and represents moral and spiritual methods for realizing it. This paper is a comparative study of the views of Ananda Koomara Swamy in explaining and interpreting the theory of Sadrsya and that of the Plotinus regarding Art and the spiritual divine nature of it.

According to the modern thought, the essence of human is his subjectivity and the world is mere extension and object of study. The result of this manner of thinking is the separation of the world and human being and alienation of human being from the world. Heidegger tries to revive the nearness of human being and the world, which existed before the new era. Particularly in his later thoughts, he tries to come over the idea of duality of world and human through thinking on the truth, dwelling, divinity, the language and the world. In his thoughts, the world includes of four features: Mortals (Human beings), the Divinity, the Sky and the Earth. Calling by Being, human beings dwell the earth, under the sky, and in nearness to the divinity.

The issue of “Finity or Infinity of Space and Time” is one of the most important problems in the western and also in the Islamic philosophy. The history of the debate about this problem is interwoven with the history of differnet views of philosophers and theologians. In the western philosophy, Aristotle is the first thinker who presents a detailed and articulated discussion about the finity or infinity of space and time. In On Heavens, he asserts that considering the Infinity is a crucial step in the way of understanding the truth. This issue is propouned again in the Islamic world, especially by Avicenna, in a different articulation, but by the same attitude. Avicenna presented arguments in an Aristotelean way in favor of finity of space and infinity of time. In this paper, we are to analyse and consider the views of the mentioned great peripatetic philosophers on the finity of space and infinity of time.

Rawls’ theory of justice enjoys all characteristics of a comprehensive conceptual system, and like any such a system, it embraces a special method nature of which has a definite influence on the content of the theory. The main methodological concepts of his theory consist in the ideas of the contract doctrine, the original position, the veil of ignorance and the reflective equilibrium. The content of these concepts and their relationships with each others and also with another relavant concepts in an cpmprehensive political theory is one of the most important qustions to which commentators and critics have payed attention. For instance, Doworkin has analized the relations between Rawlsian methodology right-based, goal-based and duty-based theories and aloso the constituitive and the natural model. Tomas Nigel is in about this claim that the final result derived from the Rawlsian method would lead to a just position. Calling Rwals` method a kind of `fictionalization`, Davide Hall has objected the possibility of actualization of this theory. In this paper, we try to focus on and categorize some important critical viwes conerning the Rawlsian methodology.

Holy Bible is the most important source of Christian iconography and correspondingly, this kind of iconography is a visual interpretation of Bible. Hence, considering the relationship between Christian iconography and Biblical interpretation is a crucial task. In some cases, the visual representation itself has an active role in the interpretation of Biblical texts and is not a mere passive illustration of the text. Therefore, in order to understanding of various periods of Christian iconography, it is necessary to consider Biblical interpretations schools. In this paper, two interpretational views of Antioch and Alexandria schools, and the reflections of these views in the early Christian arts (which is historically coincided with these schools) are considered briefly. In addition, some examples of the relations between images and texts of this period are illustrated.

This research is seeking Allameh Tabatabaee's philosophical and ontological views and its educational results. This study actually explains the basic issues related to the dimensions of the universe domains based on Allameh Tabatabaee's view and its most important elements of educational system. Research methods was descriptive - analytic with using first hand and library sources. In this study, Allameh Tabatabaee's ontological view namely his philosophical approach, which epistemological approach obtains from knowledge of God, man and the world. With explaining issues raised in the area of ontology matching Allameh Tabatabaee's approach, is providing education related to these topics as a proposed framework in the form of goals, curriculum and methods have been discussed, too. The results are:1. Goals include different levels of monotheistic ultimate goal and mediating objectives are comprehensive and moderation.2. Curriculum includes attention to curriculum profile, curriculum contents, curriculum pathology and the branches of science.3. Education methods include personal, ethical, scientific and social methods.