مطالب

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.

Various infectious diseases have plagued humankind and killed millions throughout history. Crisis management by governments has been crucial in such emergencies. This study aims to examine the method of crisis management caused by epidemics, especially Corona in Iran, and seeks to discover the policies and measures which have been taken by governments to prevent the spread of diseases and treat these diseases since the Qajar period. In this research, which was carried out by historical method and with a descriptive-analytical approach, to collect data, documents related to the subject, identification, study, and required information were extracted and indexed. Findings indicate that the policy-making process has been better and more effective by passing of time. Thus, the minimum programs implemented by the government were not successful for various reasons in the Qajar period, but infectious diseases were mainly controlled due to the compulsion to implement health regulations in the Pahlavi period. Great strides have been made in preventing the spread of infectious diseases after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Since the outbreak of corona disease, various measures have been taken to control the disease, which has helped curb public awareness and participation to a large extent, and Iran is now on the verge of producing the corona vaccine and launching it on the market.

As the COVID-19 pandemic rages through the world, a “tsunami” of legal and economic issues including breach of contracts occurred in the private and public sectors. In Iran and throughout the world, almost all contracts contain so-called “force majeure” clauses, which excuse a business’s non-performance if circumstances beyond their control prevent (or sometimes hinder) performance. These clauses often list out the circumstances which excuse non-performance and they may include flood, fire, terrorism, war “Act of God” and sometimes epidemic. Due to the impacts of the pandemic on the price of materials and tremendous increase in the costs, contractors try to take COVID-19 as a legal excuse (force majeure) to breach the contract. The present paper tries to answer the questions that can the contractors take force majeure as a “get out of jail free” card? Does the COVID-19 outbreak constitute force majeure and excuse non-performance of contract? And how does it affect “time of Essence” clauses in contracts? Through the critical analysis method, this article scrutinizes the legal challenges of the issue.  Findings show that having a look ahead, the legislator has to redefine the meaning of force majeure in the Iranian and European law .

The security-based futurology of political units is a type of futurology focusing on geographic areas to assess their security status in the future. The Caspian region as one of the regions facing various factors has gained geopolitical significance, has a wide range of probable futures. The operational objective of this study is to identify the criteria affecting the security of this region and its final objective is to delineate an optimal security-based future for the region through a future study approach. It is a qualitative case study being formulated based on some qualitative and quantitative models and the relevant literature is used as the basis for classifying security standards into six groups of military, economic, spatial, sociocultural, political and environmental. the results were used to present 18 criteria of this region security. Then, 26 questionnaires were distributed among a group of faculty members of geopolitics from the universities of Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. The collected data were analyzed using the combined mean TOPSIS method and key criteria of the Caspian region security were extracted. The findings indicated that the three key criteria of joint military and weapons investment, commercial relations and human development as the most critical geopolitical criteria of security in this region formed eight security scenarios and finally the scenario based on ‘regional joint military and weapons investment, free trade, and the homogeneous human development’ with higher scores were introduced as the criterion for the delineation of security perspective for the leaders of countries in this region.

Islamic fundamentalism is a thought school in the Islamic World which is manifested in the formation of Islamic fundamentalist groups and different violent actions. The Horn of Africa is a region for Islamic fundamentalist movements. From past to present, the most active fundamentalist Islamic groups in the region are AIAI, ICU and Al-Shabab group. The most important issue in this relation is the relation between Islamic fundamentalism and geopolitics. This research is theoretical from viewpoint of the nature and method and also is descriptive-analytic in terms of its approach. The research data gathering procedure is based on library findings. The research analyzed the relation between Islamic fundamentalism and geopolitics with the investigation of Islamic fundamentalist groups in the Horn of Africa. The research main question is that what is the relation between geopolitics and the formation of Islamic fundamentalism in the Horn of Africa? The research findings showed that Islamic fundamentalism is in geopolitical thought and the leaders of Islamic fundamentalist groups not only follow geopolitical thought in their goals and utopias, but also the causes and roots of the formation of Islamic fundamentalist groups have geopolitical burden, and six geopolitical roots can be characterized for the formation of Islamic fundamentalist groups.