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Before the advent of Modern Science, philosophy ruled over sciences. But, after the emergence of modern science, with the appearance of philosophers like Locke and Hume, empiricism which relied only on sense data became prevalent in most scientific circles. This was fortified by the advent of positivism of Aguste Comte which gave value only to the knowledge obtained from sensory experience. Thus, philosophy lost its status among scientists. But with the emergence of some schools of philosophy of science in the second half of the twentieth century, it became evident that all sciences are based on some general supra-scientific (metaphysical) principles. Then, some eminent physicists recognized the significant role of philosophy and several coalitions was formed between some eminent philosophers and physicists in several important universities of UK and USA, which has yielded fruitful results. With the revival of philosophy, religious studies, too, got momentum, and theists have used philosophical arguments to refute the challenges of atheists against theism.

The purpose of this article is to examine the close connection between the science of psychology, especially Gestalt psychology, and phenomenology in the thinking of twentieth-century French philosopher and phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty. This philosopher established his own philosophy under the influence of significant advances in psychology on the one hand, and also under the influence of Husserl's phenomenology. Understanding the philosophy of this philosopher without understanding the close relationship between psychology and phenomenology, especially in the matter of the living body, will lead to a lot of misunderstanding in reading his views. In this article, we tried to show this close relationship in the thought of this thinker. We know, of course, that he criticized Husserl's phenomenology and Gestalt psychology, and argued that psychology fails to understand the nature of the human mind.

As generally accepted, consciousness or mind and material brain are closely related to each other; but how? Quantum mechanics is a new pathway to understand the hard problem of consciousness and its relation to the brain. Consciousness has specific properties such as unity, irreducibility, non-locality, etc. The completely different features of classical physics (locality, reducibility, determinacy, etc.) hindered the success of scientists to study consciousness. But quantum mechanics with its features (non-locality, irreducibility, indeterminacy, etc.) gave scientists hope to study consciousness. Several quantum approaches to consciousness have been proposed in recent decades; the most important point about these approaches is that each one has used its own philosophy to determine its viewpoint about the mind’s nature and even its quantum approach. In general, all scientific theories are based on some metaphysical principles which come from the worldview of scientists. In this article four contemporary approaches are discussed: The Eccles-Beck, Stapp, Penrose-Hameroff, and Avicenna-Bohm theories; philosophical and scientific points are highlighted for each of them. Finally, the theory of Top-Down Causation is discussed because we think it can provide a fertile philosophical ground for theories of “mind-brain relation” and “quantum consciousness”.

Some of Donald Barthelme’s works have been undeniably influenced by Michel Foucault’s socio-political philosophy, however, few scholars have explored such concepts in his works, especially the theme of “panopticism.” The purpose of this article, which is library based, is to analyze and scrutinize the panoptic society of Barthelme’s “Subpoena” in the light of Foucauldian “panopticism” which is a segment of his more general concept of power. Keeping the Benthamite “Panopticon” in the back of his mind, Foucault outlines the “new physics of power” represented by “panopticism” as a modern or disciplinary power; he, then, draws our attention to its most important feature, i.e., the penetration into the most trivial and personal affairs of social subjects. It is worth mentioning that the basic characteristics of disciplinary power such as omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence can be discovered in panoptic society of “Subpoena.” In this society, there is always the possibility of resistance and rebellion because wherever power is found, resistance emerges as well, though, eventually, power prevails upon individuals. Barthelme creatively portrays a post-modern society in which disciplinary power, with its meticulous and permanent surveillance, on the one hand, has transformed the subjects into the men of modern humanism, and, on the other hand, has changed the traditional society into a panoptic one. Barthelme successfully finalizes the story with the message that modern society intends to make obedient and useful machines out of the subjects.

The relation of the many and the one, difference and identity, multiplicity and unity, particularity and universality, and finally that of negativity and negativity of negativity through reason and history is the core of Hegelian Absolute which is still an inevitable philosophical source to deal with most of the contemporary ontological problems. The article’s claim consists of two parts: Absolute is internally a retrospective totality of the System, on the one hand, and it is intertwined with a prospective negativity in a reciprocal relationship, on the other hand. Therefore, Absolute would be an absolute totality and an ongoing openness to the future at the same time. This article explains how Hegel’s articulation of the absoluteness is still a challenging ontological problem since it would simultaneously include both totality and negativity.