درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The future of philosophy and the future of humankind-in-the-world are intimately related, not only (i) in the obvious sense that all philosophers are “human, all-too-human” animals—i.e., members of the biological species Homo sapiens, and also finite, fallible, and thoroughly normative imperfect in every other way too—hence the natural fate of all human animals is also the natural fate of all philosophers, but also (ii) in the more profound and subtle sense of what I’ll call philosophical futurism. Philosophical futurism is a critical, synoptic, and speculative reflection on the fate of humankind-in-the-world, with special attention paid not only to what humankind-in-the-world (including philosophy itself) will most likely be, if things continue to go along in more or less the same way as they have been and are now going, or could conceivably be, as in science fiction or other forms of imaginative projection, but also to what what humankind-in-the-world (including philosophy itself) ought to be, and therefore (assuming that “ought” entails “can”) can be, as the direct result of our individual and collective free agency, for the purpose of rationally guiding humankind in the near future. In my essay, I very briefly present, defend, and strongly recommend a version of philosophical futurism that I call Kantian futurism.

What is the state of democracy today? In the Western world, people often take the meaning of this term for granted, but do they genuinely know what democracy is? In this sense, how can we define democracy in today’s digitalized world? What is the relationship between democracy and information? Furthermore, do we really live in a democratic world? In Infocracy: Digitalization and the Crisis of Democracy—the 2022 translation of the original German book Infokratie. Digitalisierung und die Krise der Demokratie, published in 2021 by MSB Matthes & Seitz Berlin Verlagsgesellschaft mbH—Byung-Chul Han reflects on these and other related issues. Han’s analysis of the current political, social, and technological situation indicates that a profound democratic crisis is emerging. The loss of interest in truth, the end of grand narratives, the replacement of reason with data analysis (even in philosophy), the fragmentation of the population due to digitalization, and the predominant role of information in everyday life are all symptoms of a radical transformation underway in Western society, with severe consequences for democratic stability. In these terms, Han’s vision, at times excessively pessimistic, orients us on the crucial issues of our time.

Maintaining strong flavor of Aristotelian theory of perception, Farabi as well as Avicenna have appended new phases to the theory. Depicting imaginary perception with its crucial jobs, Farabi explains these three activities: storing sensory forms, composing and decomposing sensory forms, as well as imagery. What Farabi names the imaginary faculties, is conceptualized as three inner perceptions, i.e., imagination, estimative and memory faculties in Avicenna’s works. Evolving existing theories of perception, Avicenna delivers an account of five inner perceptions. Beforehand Farabi did not consider any difference between imaginary perception and motekhayelah. However, he mentioned one faculty doing both activities and was usually calling it motekhayelah and sometimes imaginary perception. Conceptualizing imaginary perception with its functions, Farabi deals with three primary activities: storing sensory forms, composing and decomposing sensory forms, and imagery. In other words, Avicenna defines what Farabi calls the imaginary faculties as three inner perceptions, i.e., imagination, estimative and memory faculties.

The Thing-in-Itself has been contentious issue within Kantian philosophy. Initially, it seems like an unfortunate side-effect of Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena. This article deals with this issue in a different manner, attempting to re-situate the Thing-in-Itself within Kantian philosophy, albeit from an anthropological rather than a critical angle. The anthropological works of Kant fully recognize that subjectivity and lived experience, as well as a thoroughgoing cognitive gradualism are necessary to “orient ourselves in thinking”. By reading the importance of the Thing-in-Itself from the anthropological viewpoint of Otto Friedrich Bollnow and the Kyoto School philosophy of Ueda Shizuteru, I argue that in all its negativity, the Thing-in-Itself constitutes the outer expanse of thought. Connecting this exposition with contemporary thinking on actancy and ecology, and following the Romantic tradition represented by Schopenhauer and Schelling, I argue that the Thing-in-Itself can be grasped indirectly and non-conceptually. As such, it constitutes the ground of thought. This insight makes Kant’s initially problematic concept directly relevant for our current ecological predicament, through which we realize the necessity for epistemic humility and embracing the unknown or the noumenal dimension that we cannot conceptually represent.

The architectonic is key for situating Kant’s understanding of science in the coming century. For Kant the faculty of reason turns to ideas to form a complete system. The coherence of the system rests on these ideas. In contrast to technical unity which can be abstracted a posteriori, architectonic ideas are the source of a priori unity for the system of reason because they connect our reasonable pursuit to essential human ends. Given Kant’s focus on mathematics, in the architectonic and his critical philosophy more generally, we must have some sense of the architectonic idea of mathematics. In this paper, I argue for the key principles of the architectonic idea of mathematics: 1) because mathematics is grounded in a priori intuition, it is a peculiarly human activity; 2) the method of mathematics is one of a priori construction, a method only mathematics can employ and: 3) the objects of mathematics are extensive magnitudes. Given these principles, we can use the architectonic idea to have some clarity about how mathematics has dealt with historical development.

The experience of our conscience belongs in the same category as feeling, thinking and wanting. However, it has a special aspect, namely the presence of other human beings as absolute entities. The process of experience is concerned with the way to best promote your own interests, with how far you will go in actualising your essential characteristics as an absolute entity. The discussion of our urge for survival shows that we can go quite far in that respect, and that to actualise that urge, there are in fact no boundaries; everything is permitted. The same can be said about actualising our other essential characteristics, but the difference is that our need to do so is perhaps less cogently present; it is not our life, or at least not our continued material existence, that is at stake. Nonetheless, we can and may even choose to go to extremes in this respect and thus to give ourselves priority over others. Respect for the interests of others is based on self-respect, which may lead you to decide to subject your dealings with other people to a set of standards for yourself. Here we enter the area of morals and ethics, to which we can attach a complete moral philosophy and on the basis of a belief, a moral theology. At the end of this road is total love of yourself and others, because you have come to realise that it is the only way that can lead to the fourth essential characteristic of human beings as absolute entities, namely self-fulfilment. You will then have developed in a way that allows you to give yourself and others the scope we need as absolute entities (compassion, solidarity). Self-fulfilment is achieved through self-development, i.e. discovering and honing our gifts and talents and thus finding our own identity (development), a process by which the lives of human beings as absolute entities acquire purpose (the search for meaning). Self-fulfilment is self-actualisation, the state that results from the realisation of the essential characteristics of human beings as absolute entities, and it leads to satisfaction derived from ourselves or our activities, a sense of being satisfied with what we have accomplished.