مطالب

The paper attempts to give a systematic survey of different strands and intentions of “narrative ethics” both in philosophy and in theology and proposes how to develop narrative ethics in the future. This proposal features three different dimensions of the term “moral vision,”, i.e. morally substantial ideas that are embedded in traditions (Moral Vision 1), the appropriation of these ideas by particular historical cultures or individuals (Moral Vision 2) and moral perception channeled by Moral Vision 2 (Moral Vision 3). Narrative ethics, the paper argues, can describe how (religious) traditions can inspire moral thinking and learning without falling prey to traditionalism. Theological ethics is about forming an ethical culture in which we remind each other of the stories that continue to inspire us and in which we tell each other of our moral world-view and commitments, our strong feelings about the good and the bad which are based in our individual and common lives and not derived from grammatical rules or ultimate principles.

The primary concern of this research is to reassess the British foreign policy, focusing on its military withdrawal in 1971 from the Persian Gulf and its return in 2014. The Persian Gulf, as a region of geo-strategic importance, has always been at the center of attention for the UK and other great world powers. This study will therefore attempt to answer the following question: what are the realities behind the British retreat from the Persian Gulf in 1971, and its return to the region after 43 years? Britain, which has a significant history of military presence in the Persian Gulf, decided to keep a low profile in the Arab hosting countries since 1971. The UK has been working to manage interstate conflicts among Arab-speaking countries, deter Iran, and maintain its ‘special relationship’ with the U.S. In terms of the theoretical framework of the study, realist theory will be used by focusing on the defensive and offensive realism as the instrument of analysis. Britain’s military withdrawal from the Persian Gulf can be analyzed through defensive realism, whereas its military return to the region could be explained by offensive realism. The case study method has been helpful in arriving at the conclusion that the main motivation for the British military presence in the Persian Gulf has been to strengthen an alliance with the Gulf’s periphery Arab States.

This article lays the groundwork for a defense of rational intuitions by first arguing against a prevalent view according to which intuition is a distinctive psychological state, an “intellectual seeming” that p, that then constitutes evidence that p. An alternative account is then offered, according to which an intuition that p constitutes non-inferential a priori knowledge that p in virtue of the concepts exercised in judging that p. This account of rational intuition as the exercise of conceptual capacities in a priori judgment is then distinguished from the dogmatic, entitlement and reliabilist accounts of intuition’s justificatory force. The article concludes by considering three implications of the proposed view for the Experimental Philosophy movement.

This paper focuses on the Anatman experience as described by Guatma(6th century BCE). Many Buddhist philosophers consider the absence of self as a foundational experience of Buddhism. This paper elaborates the Buddhist Absence of Self from the View of Existential Phenomenology. The paper articulates the phenomenological difference between the Ontic-Ontological absence of Self in early Buddhism and the Ontic-Ontological presence of Self in Contemporary Existential Phenomenology. Throughout the paper there is an Existential Phenomenological focus on the intertwining of our Sense of Self and our Sense of Being. The sense of self in early Buddhism is being-less, baseless and empty. Empty of What? Empty of Being! There is no presence of Being and no Being of presence. There is no experience of Being. There is no source of Being. There is no source of Being for our mind. The mind is absent of Being. There is no source of Being for us as person. In early Buddhism the absence of self is the absence of Being-ness.

This research aims to investigate how Heidegger's thoughts are received in Iran and how the Iranian interpretation of Heidegger has influenced contemporary Iranian thinking. The significance of Heidegger’s philosophy for Iranian thinkers can be due to the fact that Heidegger is the most radical critique of the Western civilization, modernity, and modern rationality. On the one hand, Heidegger’s thought can provide Iranians with the theoretical foundations based on which the Eastern traditions can be reinterpreted and reconstructed. On the other hand, Heideggerian view of the history of philosophy can be used by Iranians as a mirror to see themselves and the whole tradition of Eastern thinking. I also try to provide a sketch of the thought of Ahmad Fardid as the first interpreter of Heidegger in Iran and his influence on some other Iranian thinkers. My main claim is that the religious-spiritual interpretation of Heidegger by Fardid is by no means a distortion of Heidegger’s thoughts but a necessary step towards the academically and scientifically true understanding of Heidegger as the greatest critique of the Western thinking. There are various historical, philological, and interpretive clues in Heidegger’s life and works that make the spiritual (but certainly not theological) interpretation of Heidegger possible. In my opinion, contrary to some claims by Iranian scholars and intellectuals, a secular Heidegger is by no means the true Heidegger, because the secular interpretation is in opposition to the main insight of Heideggerian thought that is overcoming nihilism and forgetfulness of being.

According to most Muslim philosophers, the Divine foreknowledge, on the one hand, is so inclusive that encompasses each and every minor and timed action of moral agents, and because of the perfection of God in essence and attributes, any defects in His essence and attributes including any errors in His foreknowledge are impossible. On the other hand, these philosophers, like other defenders of free will, claim that significance of any kind of free will and responsibility of a moral agent depends on their access to alternate possibilities (PAP (and, consequently, their ability to do and not to do an action simultaneously. This paper aims to deal with this highly debated and rooted question that whether these two views are essentially in conflict with each other. To answer this pivotal question briefly based on a modified version of Frankfurt cases and Muslim philosophers’ definition of free will, we attempt to defend their initial approach to eliminating the conflict between Divine foreknowledge and free will or moral responsibility and show that, firstly, this infallible knowledge is contingent on the agent’s voluntary action and, secondly, despite the principle of alternate possibilities, moral responsibility of the agent does not depend on the person’s avoidance of the forthcoming action.