مجله تاملات فلسفی
پیاپی 10 (تابستان 1392)

Kyoto School as the only Japanese contemporary philosophy combines the Eastern ideas such as Zen Buddhism with the Western philosophical ideas including those of Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. From this view, it is a philosophy that stands beside other great world philosophies (including Platonism, Hegelianism, and existentialism). Nishida Kitaro, the founder of Kyoto School, and his two famous disciples, Tanabe and Nishitani, have incorporated Eastern and Western ideas together and then introduced their own philosophies for the world. But the main aim of this article is to introduce Kyoto School briefly, and to present the Western roots of the school. Among the other branches of Western philosophy, Hegelianism, Kierkegaardianism, Nietzscheism and Heideggerianism are the most influential schools which have been integrated into the works of Japanese philosophers. Although, Nishida, Tanabe and Nishitani have been influenced by four Western philosophies, yet Hegel and Heidegger for Nishida, Kierkegaard for Tanabe and finally, Nietzsche for Nishitani play an important role in their thoughts. Therefore, the most important finding of this study is that Kyoto School contains Buddhist and mystical elements as well as philosophical ideas. It can be said that this school is a synthetic philosophy.

Apart from being a rational argument and proof, and a selfrefinement and theosophy, The Quran (way of revelation) is one of the main bases and indeed the most important foundation of Transcendent Wisdom. MullaSadra, the leading philosopher, exegete and theosophist of the Muslim world, believes that attaining the “unified truth” is possible via different methods, and that these methods complement one another; on the one hand, we can perceive clearly the deep influence of MullaSadra's existential philosophy and identify the theosophical principles and foundations, as well as MullaSadra's intuition and inner light in understanding, interpretation and commentary of Quranic verses. On the other hand, we can perceive his reflections on the revealed and Quranic verses as well as the stories of The Innocent in the discovery and introducing of many of philosophical foundations. In MullaSadra's philosophical system, Quranic verses are sometimes as an argument, sometimes as a confirmation and sometimes as a quotation. It seems that MullaSadra applies the word of revelation to build up his philosophical foundations and achieve the truth, rather than using the “interpretation” method and being content to the apparent meanings and terms of use in the verses of Quran. Rather, he has benefited from method of “commentary” and understanding the inner reality of Quran. He believes that the right commentary goes from wording to the meaning, and that is indeed a fusion of books of codification and creation. Although in some cases he does not commit himself to this base and gives commentaries incompatible with the appearance of the verses or their styles and also rational principles of conversation.

Causality and God's relation with possible beings is regarded as one of the important problems in the realm of ontology, which overshadows other philosophical problems. Philosophers and theologians are said to believe in the idea of causality, but mystics credited with its denial in such a manner that they are said to have unanimity on the rejection of causality, because they do not believe in any being except the absolutely unitary being so that speak of the relation between them. In order to find out the place of this principle in the words of mystics and MullaSadra, we need to proceed in the first place to their viewpoints concerning unity and multiplicity. By the examination of mystic's viewpoint on the unity of being (which apparently suggests the denial of causality) and on the other hand, by surveying the more precise Sadra's theory on this issue, turning from graded unity of being to the particular unity of God, we first realize that MullaSadra in his ontological thoughts has totally inclined to the way of mystics. In his famous work, Al- Hekmat Al-Mutaaliyeh, after explaining graded unity of being, he promises to prove the particular unity of being, the pivotal Idea of mystics. Second, we may argue that embracing particular unity of being does not result in the denial of causality, because the particular unity of being does not require the negation of possible beings; they really exist and play a role in the universe.

Any attempt to establish the main features of a philosophical school that the unity of its members brought about by means of which is very difficult. In this respect, analytic philosophy as one of the most important schools of the 20th engaging in different fields such as logical realism, logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy is not an exception. This study by taking “the place of metaphysics in analytic philosophy” as its title seeks to portray the unity of analytic philosophy as well as its metaphysical dispositions through finding a key distinguishing feature of analytic philosophy. It seems that none of the major philosophical schools as analytic philosophy agree with the idea that “language is misleading or deceptive”. So the claim is that we can establish the place of metaphysics in analytic philosophy through considering how analytic philosophers deal with the deceptiveness of language.

This paper addresses the relation between Ethics, Laws, and universal declaration of human rights, from a logical point of view. There are two universal kinds of presented propositions; "descriptive propositions" and "prescriptive propositions". The principles of the universal declaration of human rights are not in the extent of descriptions, because they do not predicate any fact. Therefore, they should be prescriptive propositions. Ethics and Laws are the most famous prescriptive extents. Therefore, these principles should be in one of the extents. Ultimately, Laws are the compacts that are temporal and spatial, whereas the authors of the declaration of human rights do not seem to believe in such frameworks. Also, it is clear that any differences between the declaration of human rights and the national Laws will arrest the enforcement of the declaration. Therefore, these principles have to be ordered in the Ethical form. For example, the Kantian or Utilitarian Ethics can be the best basis for this declaration. It is clear that any criticism on the absolute ethical systems inevitably includes the declaration of human rights. Again, the declaration of human rights has a complex of principles that cannot be ethical because of their form. For example, ethical propositions stress on the relation between a human being and others, whereas the principles of the universal declaration of human rights focus on the relation between others and a human being. Therefore, the principles of the universal declaration of human rights cannot be a kind of descriptive propositions, nor ethical or legal propositions. Hence, they fall into a paradox that needs to be solved primarily. Clearly, this paradox discourages the universal declaration of human rights in present.

Weakness of will is equivalent to the Greek word Akrasia which implies acting agent contrary to his/her best judgment. Some philosophers count the phenomena as impossible. Davidson is one of those who believed in the possibility of weakness of will. In 1970 in a remarkable essay, he tried to obviate the paradox arising from the acceptance of the possibility of akrasia. Yet, he declares the phenomena as a clear sample of irrationality and maintains that the agent has no reason for what he/she does. Davidson's attitude regarding irrationality of weakness of will was moderated in 1982, where he saw irrationality as a fault in the reason scope. He maintains that weak-willed agent has a reason for his/her action; At least he could explain what he/she does. To clarify how weakness of will occurs, Davidson considered a Freudian idea that divides the mind into some distinct parts, each has its beliefs, tendencies and desires and can affect on functionality of the other parts in an irrational manner. This essay aims to show to what extent Davidson was successful in obviating paradox of akrasia and showing how it actually happens.