The International Journal of Humanities

Davison has two famous articles against conventionalism. The core of his argument is to scrutinize erroneous but successful conversations which happen in language occasionally and conventional meaning cannot explain how the speaker and the listener understand each other in these cases. However, his premises are not clear and it makes it difficult to study and criticize his main point. We believe there are at least five premises such as: 1) The listener comprehends the words the speaker has said in their conventional meaning; 2) If the conversation is successful then the listener has understood the words and sentences in their general first meaning; 3) Sometimes the conversation is successful although there are some misuse of words; 4) In these cases the conventional meaning is not the same as general first meaning; 5) If the listener comprehends the words in their general first meaning, then he has not in his mind their conventional meaning; so (Conclusion) conventionalism is not acceptable. We claim that we can save the conventionalism by analyzing these premises and pointing out that users of a language can have several meanings of a word in their mind and choose between them according to hints and backgrounds. Besides, conventional theory of meaning can accept new and different uses of words that have already been used in some old fashion ways, and in addition, special cases occur rarely in everyday use of linguistic expressions. So, opposing Davidson, we have sound grounds to keep conventionalism.

Throughout the history of philosophy and theology, diverse versions of the problem of evil have raised different solutions in the form of different theodicies. In this paper, I first offer an exposition of one of these solutions developed by Shiite theologians. Since the core notion of this solution is “God’s compensation for the sufferings” I call it the “compensation theodicy.” Based on some theological principles such as rational goodness and badness and the principle of lutf (God’s grace), and some preliminary remarks about pain and its classifications, the compensation theodicy shows that since God is totally wise and just, He compensates for all undeserved (both human’s and animal’s) sufferings He is responsible for. Thus, the presence of undeserved suffering is not at odds with Divine justice. After explaining the relevant issue of God’s litigation (intisaf) and discussing some main aspects of compensation, I then make a brief comparison between the compensation theodicy and the so-called afterlife theodicy. I finally argue that the compensation theodicy is cable of providing good response to the challenge of the lack of moral justification.

In the preface to his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant characterizes his own critical metaphysics as the main opponent of dogmatism, which inevitably results in the assertion of conflicting dogmas especially about the existence of God, the freedom of the will and the immortality of the soul. Simultaneously, Kant subtly distinguishes his critical philosophy from three other stances opposing dogmatism: the skepticism of Descartes and Hume, the empiricism of John Lock, and the indifferentism of thinkers who, without rejecting metaphysical assertions, refute any attempt to argue for them systematically and rigorously. Refusing indifferentism, Kant somehow admits a commonsensical view similar to that of indifferentism regarding principal issues of metaphysics. Touching very briefly on Kant’s view, the paper examines Nietzschechr('39')s take on especially the issue of the existence of the Christian God. Defending a kind of stance similar to skepticism or even, in some aspects, to indifferentism, Nietzsche’s chief endeavor is to look at the issue from the different perspectives of genealogical and axiological critiques in order to pave the way for an entire overlooking the issue. In this respect, such an endeavor results in a stance contrary to Kant’s commonsensical position, ending up in Nietzsche’s talk of the Death of God and the Death of the True World.

The main argument of the book Warranted Christian Belief by Plantinga is a distinction between de facto and de jure objections to Christian belief. De facto objections, according to him, are those about the truth of Christian belief, where the claim is relatively straightforward that rge belief is false. However, Plantinga is primarily concerned with de jure objections, which are arguments or claims that Christian belief, whether or not true, is at any rate unjustifiable, or irrational, or without sufficient evidence, or in some way not intellectually respectable. While the conclusion of such objections is that there is something wrong with Christian belief, Plantinga contends that the question is never explicitly formulated of what exactly is wrong; however, he finally locates a promising candidate for the de jure question in the complaints against theistic belief by Freud and Marx. Critics, according to Plantinga, cannot simply object to the rationality or justifiability of theistic belief without presupposing that theistic belief is false. However, I will, in this paper, argue that the epistemic objection to the rationality of theism need not presuppose the falsity of theism or Christian belief, and I will show that the most important charge against Plantinga’s defense – if theism is true, it is warranted – is that it proves too much.

Using light as a conceptual metaphor for his main philosophical framework, Mulla Sadra introduces some mystical-philosophical principles such as principality of existence, its gradation, unity, and substantial movement. By applying these principles on aesthetics, Mulla Sadra achieved some aesthetical principles such as the principality of beauty, its gradation, and unity. Having these principles in ontology, aesthetics, and regarding some anthropological principle to confront the complicated problems of art, it is reasonable to construct notions such as angelic art and satanic, wrathful, and carnal pseudo-art. The first is the result of a personchr('39')s emanation who reached high levels of existence; others are due to existential emanations of those who have existential deficiencies. This paper shows that similar to art, love is also of four kinds.

The rule of contraposition was used by Aristotle and later popularized during the medieval period in both Arabic and Latin logics. In this paper, we investigate the role of Aristotle and ancient commentators on developing the subject. We show that although Aristotle had used contraposition (on conditionals and indefinite affirmative categorical propositions), Proclus was the first to apply it to universal affirmatives and Philoponus was the first to name the rule. The latter used the rule on possible propositions too, which yielded to Simplicius’ thorough objections. We have found no ancient logician who could apply the rule to quantified categorical propositions except universal affirmatives, nor have we encountered any ancient logician who thoroughly investigated the rule with regard to all kinds of modal propositions. It seems that these developments occurred in later stages of the history of logic.