Search

This study explores the distinguished Persian Sufi mystic Shaykh Maḥmūd Shabestarī's Golshan-e Rāz, or The Rose Garden of Mystery. Adopting a hermeneutic approach, it scrutinizes the intricate spiritual journey towards divine realization delineated in Shabestarī's poetry, utilizing qualitative content analysis of original texts and interpretations by scholars such as Lāhījī and Ibn Turka Iṣfahānī. The main question the paper addresses is this: "How can the spiritual journeyer overcome obstacles--particularly 'otherness'--and achieve unity with the divine Essence within the framework of Islamic mysticism, as interpreted through Shabestarī's teachings in Golshan-e Rāz?" To answer this inquiry, the paper addresses pivotal questions concerning Shabestarī's depiction of the spiritual journeyer's path, its stages and challenges, and the critical role of the human form in divine manifestation. The study underscores the necessity of overcoming duality and distinction, alluding to the transformative nature of the journey that necessitates self-purification and the cessation of otherness. Findings from this study provide an enriched understanding of Shabestarī's thought, contributing to the discourse on Islamic metaphysics. It presents valuable insights into the spiritual journeyer's path, offering a comprehensive interpretation of the challenges, practices, and transformative experiences leading to divine realization and unity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important and most discussed problems of traditional and contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of science is the problem of causality. The problem has generated a lot of controversies and debates from scholars. One clear point amidst these discussions on the causality problem is that the last has neither been written nor heard. It remains an open-ended issue for philosophical consideration. The causation problem itself is not just a problem but a cluster of problems with puzzling questions such as; how do causes bring about their effects? Our concern in this paper is not to examine all the problems that are embedded in the relationship between cause and effect, but to focus on the metaphysical problem of how cause, conceived as a separate event is related or connected to the effect. Several theories have been postulated by Western scholars like Aristotle, Spinoza, Hume, Hempel, Russell, Kant, Mill, among others to explain the kind of causal connection obtainable between causes and effects. Some of these theories of causation are traditional view or common sense view, Humean, and the host of others. It is a fact that some of these theories have failed in proffering a philosophical solution to the traditional causation problem. In an attempt to further reflect on the traditional causation problem, this paper undertakes an exposition of the nature of causality, determinism, freedom and predestination in traditional African thought with the aim of proffering better explanation towards resolving the traditional causation problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artifacts are ubiquitous and influential in our world, but their nature and existence are controversial. Several theories have been proposed to explain the ontology of artifacts. Drawing on Popper's theory of three worlds, this paper suggests a metaphysics for artifacts along the line of a critical rationalist (CR) approach. This theory distinguishes between three realms of reality: the physical world (World 1), the mental world (World 2), and the world of objective knowledge (World 3). The paper argues that artifacts have different ontological components that correspond to these three realms, and that each component is real and causal. The paper shows how this perspective can account for the intentional and functional aspects of artifacts, as well as their dependence on plans that influence different realms of reality. The paper explains how this pluralistic ontology, compared to the rival theories, enables one to explain the relevant ontological problems of artifacts. The paper also explores how this proposal can lead to a research program encompassing a broader range of technologies, such as social artifacts. In sum, the paper suggests that Popper's three worlds theory provides a rich and comprehensive framework for understanding the metaphysics of artifacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his theory of knowledge, Kant presents an exclusive method for obtaining science by applying categories to the data of sensory intuition. "A priori synthetic propositions" are those the only the product of the application of categories to the data of sensory intuition, Propositions that are Kant's exclusive criterion in diagnosing science. Kant claims that only the sciences that have a priori synthetic propositions, which necessarily have sensory intuition data are science, and propositions that do not have sensual intuition data are nothing more than fake science. With the same reasoning, he pushed metaphysics out of science. Accordingly, the attempt of this paper is to measure Kant's theory of knowledge with his own criterion of knowledge. We want to know whether it has a priori synthetic propositions or not. To be more precise, do the propositions through which Kant explained his theory of knowledge, contain sensory intuition data or not? If they have these data, they are science, otherwise, they are not. The investigations carried out in this article, which focuses on Kant's important and key propositions in transcendental aesthetic and Transcendental analytic, show that these propositions, which define and explain the basis of Kant's theory of knowledge, lack sensory intuition data and are not science. Eventually, Kant's "theory of knowledge" is not able to obtain the accreditation it wants and according to Kant's own theory of knowledge, it is not a valid science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In ten of his works, Al-Fārābī discusses ousia/substance and its derivatives. Among these works, we frequently encounter quotations from Aristotle and Al-Fārābī's interpretation of them. He accepts the established meaning of ousia as substance and doesn't argue against its translation to maujūd, Eyn, maahiy[y]at and ẕāt. This article tries to show the similarities and differences between Al-Fārābī and Aristotle conceptions of substance and then to bridge between the two innovative theories of Al-Fārābī: one in his division of existence and another regarding his view on reality. In discussing the concept of substance, Farabi seeks to create a unity between Plato and Aristotle's views. In another way, this claim can be expressed that Farabi aims to create a unity between the book of metaphysics and Aristotle's treatise on categories. In this direction, his innovative theory of substance is born. Also, this paper shows some inconsistencies existing in his discussion, which makes his philosophical language even more ambiguous than Aristotle's in Metaphysics and subject to various interpretations. Finally, the relation between the concept of substance and the concepts of shai and tashakhkhos is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite Wittgenstein's philosophical activities in Britain and his strong inclination towards analytic philosophy, there are also non-analytic elements in his thought which are rooted in classical German thought, especially in Kant's critical philosophy. We can, therefore, detect Kantian elements in Wittgenstein's thought. Concerning the main aim of this research, i.e., to show the Kantian veins of Wittgenstein's thought, the following elements can be enumerated: critique of Metaphysics, delimitation of expression of thought, transcendentality of logic and ethics, problem of Metaphysics and science, refutation of private language. Given the evolution of Wittgenstein's though, this paper aims to show that, first, these similarities and parallels can be drawn not only from the Tractatus but also from the Philosophical Investigations. Second, there are fundamental differences between Wittgenstein's commentators, for instance, P.M.S Hacker argues against the transcendental reading of both the Tractatus and the Philosophical Investigations, and claims that the two philosophers do not share the same concept of the term transcendental. Finally, the question arises as to whether these Kantian veins can be considered as a proof of the unity of Wittgenstein's thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I consider the principle of sufficient reason (henceforth, PSR) as it functions in both Leibniz and Kant. The issue separating these thinkers is a modal status of absolute contingency, which is exempt from PSR insofar as it is neither logically necessary, nor does it necessarily follow from the given causal series. Leibniz's ambitious metaphysics applies PSR even to God's choices, which, since they must rest on a reason that makes sense of them, necessarily tend to the creation of the best of all possible worlds. Through PSR, the exercise of human freedom represents the unfolding of a concept God already has chosen, with an eye to the best possible world aligned with the universal intelligibility enjoined by PSR. PSR, in Kant's critical period, is not a principle of being, but one of mere experience, since any extension of thought beyond possible experience can yield no knowledge. Human agency, for Kant, has an intelligible aspect that is beyond possible experience. Since PSR is only a principle of experience for Kant, the agent in its intelligible aspect is not subject to it. Human free will introduces a special modal category of absolute contingency. Kant provides impetus for a humanism that makes the absolute freedom of the human will a competitor with the sovereignty of God, and also liberates the human will from contemporary ideologies that would subordinate it to natural determinism or group dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The method of metaphysics: Metaphysics is empirical but depends not, like the sciences, on recondite experience but on close attention to aspects of everyday experience we ordinarily scarcely notice. "Real" is a broader concept than "exists" (which applies only to particulars) and also applies to phenomena, kinds, and laws, which are real, but not, of course, existent entities. But "there are real kinds, laws, etc." doesn't imply that all the kinds and laws we believe are real, are. I call my approach "Innocent Realism" because--though it's certainly not naive--it requires attending to experience, so far as possible, without substantial preconceptions. There is one real world, enormously varied but also integrated. It includes physical stuff, kinds, laws, etc. and, here on earth, a vast array of human artifacts, physical, social, intellectual, and imaginative, all intimately interconnected. All this requires human mindedness (a better word than "mind" because it doesn't suggest that human mentality is an organ like the heart or the liver). Rather, it's a complex congeries of dispositions and abilities: to understand even such a relatively simple thing as what's involved in someone's believing something, we need to take account of the person's dispositions to behavior, verbal and otherwise; to the neurophysiological realizations of these dispositions; and to their connections to the world and to words in the person's linguistic community--this last requiring other people's words-world connection. "Virtual" reality is just one more computer artifact, clever, no doubt, but not metaphysically startling. It's oversold, but this is advertising hype, not serious metaphysics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]