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Fascinated by the recent scientific progress, even some philosophers today claim that philosophy is dead and that natural sciences (quantum cosmology, cognitive sciences) can answer questions which were once considered a domain of metaphysics: is our universe finite? Do we have free will? etc. The essay tries to problematize this claims by raising a series of questions. First, it is easy to show that modern science itself relies on a series of philosophical propositions. Second, what accounts for the role of science in our world is its link with capitalism. Third, we should distinguish between knowledge and truth: not only philosophy, other discourses (like Marxism or psychoanalysis) also practice a notion of truth which cannot be reduced to knowledge.  

In philosophy, many reflections and categories were the result of intuition and thought experiments. Intuition is defined as direct, immediate, and non-inferential knowledge accompanied by a sense of certainty. The thought experiment has always been a source of new insights by imagining possible situations to demarcate concepts and revise common philosophical theories. Metaphysicians usually have consensus on the informativity of intuition, but in the analytical tradition, there are severe challenges in dealing with this type of knowledge. On the other hand, some contemporary philosophers believe that the thought experiment induce the unjustified and unacceptable results in the mind of audience. In this article, by referring to some aspects of Kripke's thought, we show that his use of intuition and thought experiments in his critique of radical physicalism is defensible. By distinguishing between fixing the referent of the mental state and the physical phenomenon, Kripke has been committed to the theory of property dualism, which is a critical approach to physicalism in the realm of philosophy of mind.

Realist fiction, which had a pivotal place in 19th. Century literature, has lost its central position in the contemporary literary scene as modernism, postmodernism and poststructuralism have raised some serious challenges against it, advocating experimentalism in fiction, instead. Still, in our age, when globalization and capitalism breed different forms of marginalizations and injustices in societies, it is the realist fiction that better than any other form can depict the struggles and pains of these marginalized lives. Thus, realist fiction deserves to be considered a major genre of our time rather than a second-rater. This paper attempts to investigate into the present state of realist fiction in the literary scene, and it argues that, with the significant theoretical backing from the postpositivist realist critics, it can move toward reclaiming its position in literature today. Postpositivist realists base their defense of realist fiction on the notion that the representation of reality, identity and experience in realist fiction, in spite of being theory-mediated and affected by ideologies and discourses, is possible, as these objects of representation are real and important for being real. The paper maintains that the postpositivist support can favorably affect the present place of realist fiction. Still, the rightful realist fiction of our time, in tune with the developments in the theories of knowledge and fiction, unlike the 19th. century realist fiction, has patches of experimentalism, while keeping its realistic ethos, which further indicates that the contemporary fiction is the fiction of an era affected by postpositivist realist concepts.

Truth and knowledge are essentially the dictates of some rationality or metaphysical ordainment. By sense experience man is capable of accounting for his past, contemplate his life and predict his future and all of reality, for traditional Africa, however (as is the case with most native societies), there is another mode of knowing beyond man’s immediate capacity in search of truth and reality. An analysis of this perception indicates that there is some metaphysical tinge to epistemology or knowledge claims—whether in the spheres of justice, morality/ethics, religion, political authority, prosperity, law, or ontology/world-view. Put on a plain pedestal: Isn’t there an African mode of knowing? By the study among the Afemai-Etsako of Southern Nigeria, this article tersely adumbrates the scope and nature of knowledge and discovers that, beside the common routes to it (experience and reason), the gamut of knowledge among the traditional Africans also have several metaphysical strands reducible to creative determinism, reactive interference, and representativeness in timing and naming.

In this essay I present a new and empirically-testable strategy for completing quantum mechanics. In recent decades, urban design and architecture disciplines witnessed plenty of theories and school development. Primarily, those disciplines are inspired by philosophical perspectives. Thus, it is required to have a good deal of perception on the philosophical roots. Contextualism theory and approach is considered one of the most important controversial approaches in urban design and architecture. The present study intends to elaborate contextualism and explicate its difference with other similar philosophical ideas. Subsequently, it tends to explain the epistemological and philosophical foundations of contextualism in postmodernism and Gestalt school and subsequently to elucidate its position in the postmodern art and specifically in postmodern urban design and architecture. Contextualism is an idea based on the epistemology that the meaning perceived from an epistemological sentence would differ according to the epistemological standards. The idea has three distinct uses in philosophical views, primarily, the truth condition of the sentences is come to be assessed; in the second use, the language meaning is dependent on the context. The paper indicates the first and second uses of contextualism are mostly seen in urban design and architecture contextualism theory.

Whether we are free agents or not and to what extent depends on factors such as the necessary conditions for free will and our definition of human agency and identity. The present article, apart from possible alternatives and the causality of the agent regarding his actions, addresses the element of inclination as a necessary condition for free will. Therefore, an analysis of these conditions determines that even though in some circumstances the range of alternatives the agent can choose is very limited or the agent chooses an action without having the inclination to choose it; however, this does not make the agent forced; rather, free will has levels and every individual possesses a certain extent of it in different conditions. Just the fact that the ultimate choice is made by the agent himself and has voluntarily performed the act himself ultimately is sufficient for being free. As a result, even though the influence of external factors on human actions cannot be disregarded; however, because the action is ultimately not outside his control, accordingly, there is neither such a thing as a compelled agent and nor are our actions left to luck. The character of the agent that is voluntarily formed through our actions plays a determinant role in our choices and actions due to the epistemic and motivational components they possess.