191 research outputs found
From Analytic Philosophy to an Ampler and More Flexible Pragmatism: Muhammad Asghari talks with Susan Haack
No full textIn this interview, which took place in July 2020, Muhammad Asghari, an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Tabriz, asked eleven questions (via email ) to Professor Susan Haack, a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of Miami. This American philosopher eagerly and patiently emailed me the answers to the questions. The questions in this interview are mainly about analytic philosophy and pragmatist philosophy.
This interview was conducted via personal email between me and Professor Susan Haack in July 2020. This interview, which Professor Hawk eagerly accepted, includes eleven questions about her biography and roles of various philosophers in her thought and finally about the influence of the philosophy of pragmatism on her thought. Of course, it goes without saying that the Haack's book Philosophy of Logic in Iran has been translated into Persian and he has published two articles in the quarterly journal of Philosophical Investigations (University of Tabriz) and I also have translated one of her articles into Persian. What was most interesting to me was the influence of pragmatism on Haack's thought that Charles Sanders Pierce, among classical American pragmatists, had as much influence on this philosopher's thought as John Dewey had in Rorty's thought. Here I thank Professor Susan Haack for answering my questions patiently and eagerly
From Analytic Philosophy to an Ampler and More Flexible Pragmatism: Muhammad Asghari talks with Susan Haack
No full textIn this interview, which took place in July 2020, Muhammad Asghari, an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Tabriz, asked eleven questions (via email ) to Professor Susan Haack, a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of Miami. This American philosopher eagerly and patiently emailed me the answers to the questions. The questions in this interview are mainly about analytic philosophy and pragmatist philosophy.This interview was conducted via personal email between me and Professor Susan Haack in July 2020. This interview, which Professor Hawk eagerly accepted, includes eleven questions about her biography and roles of various philosophers in her thought and finally about the influence of the philosophy of pragmatism on her thought. Of course, it goes without saying that the Haack's book Philosophy of Logic in Iran has been translated into Persian and he has published two articles in the quarterly journal of Philosophical Investigations (University of Tabriz) and I also have translated one of her articles into Persian. What was most interesting to me was the influence of pragmatism on Haack's thought that Charles Sanders Pierce, among classical American pragmatists, had as much influence on this philosopher's thought as John Dewey had in Rorty's thought. Here I thank Professor Susan Haack for answering my questions patiently and eagerly
Mirat-ul-Uroos: Female Agency and Male Reform
No full textIn this article, much discussed and popular novel of Nazir Ahmad, Miratul Uroos is analyzed in gender perspective. With the analysis of its main character Asghari, it is argued that novelistic fiction brings about in Urdu literature possibilities of human Agency, especially for the hitherto silenced voices of oppressed gender. This character also brings forth the ambivalent nature of novel, to the extent that even the reformative pulls of the author gave way to the polyphony
Hegel’s Shadow over Contemporaries: A Critical Review of the Book Understanding Hegelianism
No full textThis article reviews the book Understanding Hegelianism written by Robert Sinnerbrink and translated by Mehdi Bahrami and edited by Mohammad Mehdi Ardabili. In this article, we will first analyze the content of the text in the book, regardless of its Persian translation, and mention Hegel's role in European philosophy, especially its role in the formation of French structuralist and poststructuralist thought, and then evaluate Persian translation. Orientalism is one of the best books in our country that can fill the gap caused by Hegelianism in the twentieth century to some extent, although the author of the book is often with his own taste and style of the important French thinker Jacques Lacan, who is part of the thought. It owes itself to Hegel, especially in the sense of "desire," and is one of the book's shortcomings. This article tries to express the advantages and disadvantages of this book with an introduction in order to introduce the author and the importance of his book for the reader and to introduce the form and content of the work and analyze the content of the work. Of course, we have also suggested some Persian terms for the Persian translation
Analysis of the “Other” in Gadamer and Levinas’s Thought
No full textIn the present article, we are faced with two phenomenological philosophers who, in two different intellectual traditions, namely philosophical hermeneutics and moral phenomenology, have referred to the concept of the Other as the fundamental possibility of the individual. The other, as an ontological and common concept in the thought of Gadamer and Levinas, is the turning point of the condition for the possibility of understanding and ethics. Focusing on the concept of the other, while addressing the points of difference and commonality between Gadamer and Levinas, this article will show that Levinas’s preoccupation with the other as a philosopher refers to the foundations of ethics, and the condition for the possibility of foundations of ethics is encountering the other. In Gadamer, the turning point is the determination of the possibilities of understanding in dialectical and dialogue-oriented relationships. Without the other, in Levinas’s thought, ethics, and moral matter, and in Gadamer’s thought, the process of understanding will not occur in the form of a fusion of horizons. Therefore, this article shows that the other is a common concept between these two philosophers, which both of them cannot avoid in their philosophical analyses of ethics or the process of understanding. Introduction The analysis of ethics is one of the important and innovative achievements of Levinas’s philosophical intellectual structure. Levinas’s concern is to refer to the foundations of morality itself, regardless of institutionalizing the moral in the form of law, and the foundation of morality is in face-to-face relationships with others. Regardless of Levinas’s plan about the concept of the other, Gadamer imagines the determination of understanding in a new way in the face of the other. The other is the comprehensible strain in philosophical hermeneutics, in such a way that the process of understanding is formed by the presence of the other and the face-to-face encounter with it. According to Gadamer, the other is the factor of openness in the process of understanding. The fusion of horizons is the product of openness and mutual encounters in dialogue, which is not possible without the other. The other is the condition of determining the possibility of understanding in each of the parties who are allowed to reveal a part of their being and allow the other to open up and talk. In fact, understanding is a kind of event that is revealed in a two-way conversation in an event-like way. This type of understanding depends on the presence of another. The main focus of the research is the analysis of the concept of the other, which has been done with emphasis on two important works: Truth and method, Totality and infinity. Body & discussion In general, the process of understanding is a dialogical process, whether the other side of the conversation is a text or a person, the foundation of understanding is formed in a relationship with the other. Determining the other as an independent personality and a different perspective is an ontological determination. The other thinks and becomes meaningful beyond the subject or object and even beyond my intellectual position, it belongs to its own independent world and its own experience. In conversation, it plays a significant role in the production of truth. Openness provides the possibility of dialogue and mutual agreement. In dialogue, the final product is not reproduced. The other condition for the production of the final product is dialogue According to Gadamer, facing the other is facing his world. At the moment of facing me, the other makes his abstract aspects concrete and opens his lived experience to me. He believes that the question-and-answer process is a kind of encounter with the world of experience and openness toward it. According to Gadamer, the process of understanding is the result of dialectical-hermeneutic relations between me (the interpreter) and you (the other). The dialogical relationships that allow each other to enter the other’s history are relationships that are formed based on questions and answers. From Gadamer’s point of view, questions and answers are the opening of a new horizon based on tradition and contemporary history. Levinas phenomenologically refers to the philosophical tradition of the West to reread the process of the formation of the concept of the other. Many commentators and interpreters of Levinas’s works believe that it is possible to determine the foundations of ethics from Levinas’s point of view from face-to-face relationships. The condition for the possibility of morality is to pay attention to others. To describe another concept, Levinas analyzes the negative and positive aspects of this concept. In a negative way, Levinas first answers what the other is not, and for this reason, he criticizes the history of Western metaphysics and the criticism of Husserl and Heidegger’s phenomenology. Positively, the other is relative to me and different from me. The other is beyond subject and object. The other is not subjugated by any concept and recognizes its independent identity. The other and the encounter with him are the conditions for determining fundamental ethics from Levinas’s point of view. Another condition of concreteness refers to another person. According to Levinas, it is the condition for the formation of moral form. He believes that ethics is a kind of double encounter in the context of bilateral relations. Many moral concepts are formed in relation to a concrete other. In Levinas’s genealogy of ethics, we are faced with the presence of the other in a concrete way and with the subjectivity of the subject in an abstract and a priori way. Levinas specifies two approaches with the description of the other in the form of an infinite idea. First of all, there is an infinite gap between the other and the same. This issue shows its foreignness and otherness, its independence, and being true to its essence towards me. Second, it is the determination of another in a concrete or abstract form, which in both cases evokes an identity independent of me. Conclusion According to the explanations of the concept of the other in the thought of Gadamer and Levinas, we are faced with two phenomenological philosophers who have paid attention to the ontological aspects of the concept of the other in the fields of philosophical hermeneutics and ethics. In Gadamer’s thought, the other is an ontologically dialectical relationship between I-Thou and the starting point of the conversation process. The fusion of horizons is the turning point of the formation of the relation to the other, which is manifested in another area. The other has its own history, world, tradition, and authority, regardless of the formation of dialogical relationships, and has an independent identity. The other is allowed to share his lived experience in the conversation. The other creates new worlds. The other has opened himself and in return can be self-interpreting and self-revealing. Regardless, the other is the consistency of the complex relationship between language and the world. This form of bilateral relations, which is manifested in the presence of another, is a linguistic form that is the cause of a deep connection between language and the world. The other, whether concrete or abstract, is the turning point of our connection with the world in an ontological way. Regardless of Gadamer’s point of view, Levinas returns to another concept in his new thought project entitled “How to determine the possibilities of ethics.” According to Levinas, finding the foundations of ethics and determining the condition of moral possibilities is in facing the other and in face-to-face relationships. The other is concretely a kind of bilateral encounter which is the basis of many moral events and is manifested abstractly in the form of the subject’s subjectivity. This kind of infinite aspect of the other is revealed in subjectivity is implied in sense. Encountering another in an abstract form within itself is the encounter of the subject’s subjectivity with the sense, and the sense is in the encounter with the other. Sense is the basis of the subjectivity of the subject. Sense is a kind of concrete and visual face-to-face encounter that adds to the importance of determining another. Therefore, both Gadamer and Levinas raise many possibilities about the concept of the other, which shows the importance of this concept in the Western philosophical tradition
فلسفه هاي معاصر غرب
No full textفلسفههای معاصر غرب به مثابه جنگلی پر از درختان کوتاه و بلند است که چنان درهم تنیده شدهاند که گاهی تشخیص ریشهها، تنهها و شاخ و برگهای آنها از یکدیگر دشوار میشود. این وضعیت فلسفههای معاصر مغرب زمین است که تنها یک صفت برای آنها مناسب است: تنوع و کثرت. بیشک عصر ما عصر استقبال از تفاوتها و کثرتها و دوری از اینهمانیها و وحدتهایی است که از افلاطون تا هایدگر اول فیلسوفان آن را یگانه قلمرویی که حقیقت در آن سکنی گزیده میدانستند. البته این تنوع و پیچیدگی از یک سو، محصول بافت تاریخی، اجتماعی، سیاسی، اقتصادی، فلسفی، علمی، هنری و رسانههای جمعی قرن بیستم است و از سوی دیگر، همین بافت نیز بیتأثیر از فلسفهها و اندیشههای فلسفی و علمی به ارث رسیده از قرن نوزدهم نیست. بنابراین، تعامل بین این دو عامل و تأثیر و تأثر از یکدیگر قابل اغماض نیست. تحولات در عصر حاضر را به دو شکل میتوان توصیف کرد. یکی تحولات در عرصة جهان روزمره که میتوانیم آنها را تحولات سختافزاری بنامیم و عبارتاند از دو جنگ جهانی خانمانسوز اول و دوم، نژادپرستی، ظهور و افول دولتهای کمونیستی، تولید سلاحهای هستهای و استفاده از بمب اتمی، تولید سایر سلاحهای کشتار جمعی، درگیریهای قومی و نژادی و ضد استعماری، جهانیشدن، ظهور جنبشهای زنان، سقوط دولتهای استبدادی و ظهور دولتهای دموکراتیک، ظهور جامعة پساصنعتی، رشد روزافرون تکنولوژیهای کامپیوتری، افزایش قدرت رسانههای جمعی، پیشرفتهای روزافرون در حوزة پزشکی و.... تحولات نرمافزاری عبارتاند از ظهور نظریههای جدید در حوزة علم مانند نظریة نسبیت و نظریة کوانتوم، پیدایش پدیدارشناسی و فلسفههای اگزیستانس، فلسفههای پساساختارگرایانه، ظهور جنبشهای نوظهور در هنرها، تفسیرهای جدید از مفهوم عدالت در فلسفة سیاسی و.... هم تحولات سختافزاری و هم تحولات نرمافزاری در تعامل فزاینده با یکدیگر سمت و سوی تازهای به فلسفههای معاصر نیز دادهاند که آن را در قالب کثرت و تنوع و تفاوت فلسفهها میبینیم. این کثرت و تنوع به فلسفة معاصر غربی محدود نمیشود بلکه تقریباً شبیه همین وضعیت را در علوم اجتماعی، علوم سیاسی، حوزة هنرها و بهطور کلی در علوم انسانی و حتی در علوم تجربی مثل فیزیک شاهد هستیم. برای مثال اگر در قرن هجدهم فقط پارادایم نیوتنی غالب بود، امروز پارادایم انشتینی، پارادایم کوانتمیِ هایزنبرگی و سایر پارادایمها غالب هستند. گویی سرنوشت و تقدیر انسان معاصر این بوده که به این کثرتگرایی و تنوع تن دردهد. تنها وحدتی که میتوان با اطمینان خاطر بیشتری در فلسفة معاصر غرب پذیرفت این است که «کثرت» نقطهای است که فلسفههای معاصر به دور آن حلقه زدهاند. انسان معاصر گریز و گزیری از «کثرتگرایی» ندارد؛ لذا سرنوشت خود را باید در این فضا رقم زند. فلسفههای معاصر چه اروپایی مثل پدیدارشناسی، اگزیستانسیالیسم، هرمنوتیک و غیره، چه انگلیسیزبان مثل فلسفههای تحلیل زبانی و چه فلسفههای امریکایی مثل پراگماتیسم قدیم و جدیم در این جادة پر فراز و نشیب کثرتگرایی پا به عرصة هستی گذاشتهاند. یقیناً مبانی این فلسفهها نیز از سایة عظیم کثرتگرایی بیرون نیستند. البته مراد ما از کثرتگرایی صرفاً معنای متافیزیکی آن نیست بلکه به معنای عام کلمه است که دامنة آن تمامی حوزههای دانش بشری در عصر حاضر را شامل میشود. نکتة دیگر این است که این کثرتگرایی از ابتدای قرن بیستم به بعد ابعاد وسیعتری به خود میگیرد، چرا که در ابتدای قرن بیستم هنوز آن تفکر وحدتگرای هگلی در فلسفه و علمیکردن همة ابعاد زندگی و تلقی علمی از جامعه در قالب مارکسیسم ــ به قول لیوتار غلبة روایتهای کلان بر روایتهای خرد ــ اجازة تنفس به تفاوتها را نمیداد؛ ولی نقدهای کوبندة نیچه به متافیزیک افلاطونگرا ـ مسیحی سنت غربی، شکستن شیشة شفاف و یکدست نفس به دست فروید، وقوع دو جنگ جهانی، ظهور جنبشهای دادائیستی در عالم هنر و افول مرز هنر والا و هنر پست، ظهور بحران معنا، مرگ مؤلف و مرگ سوژه، جایگزینی زبان به جای ذهن، تقدم عمل بر نظر، استقبال از تفاوتها، سقوط دولتهای غیردموکراتیک و ظهور جوامع دموکراتیک در اشکال مختلف، ظهور جنبشهای زنان در قالبهای گوناگون فمینیسم، طرح مباحث زیستمحیطی، همه و همه این نوید را داد که تفکر وحدتگرای تمامیتخواه در فرهنگ انسان قرن هجدهم و نوزدهم به بنبست رسیده است و اکنون وقت آن فرارسیده که نگاهها به سمت تنوعها، کثرتها و تفاوتها در تمامی حیطههای جامعة بشری قرن بیستم و بیستویکم معطوف گردد. فیلسوفان همة این تحولات را در فلسفههای معاصر به چشم خویش دیدند و اغلب تسلیم این کثرتگرایی به معنای عام کلمه شدند. شاهد دیگری برای این کثرت و تفاوت در فلسفة معاصر، ظهور فلسفهها و مکاتب، جنبشها و جریانهای فلسفی متعدد در این دوره است. ما در هیچ دورهای از تاریخ طولانی فلسفه به اندازة دورة معاصر با کثرت فلسفه و مکاتب مواجه نیستیم. چنانچه در قرن هفدهم دکارت پدر معنوی فیلسوفان است و فیلسوفان این دوره فلسفههای خود را در مسیر دکارتی ایجاد کردهاند، در قرن هجدهم کانت و در قرن نوزدهم هگل و برخی فیلسوفان دیگر نقش پدر معنوی را بازی کردهاند. کما اینکه افلاطون پدر معنوی تمامی فلسفة غرب شناخته میشود. وایتهد در جملة معروفی گفته بود: «کل تاریخ فلسفة غرب پانوشتی بر افلاطون است.
The Priority of literature to Philosophy in Richard Rorty
No full textn this article, I try to defend the thesis that imagination against reason, moral progress through imagination not the reason, the emergence of literary culture after philosophical culture from Hegel onwards, contingency of language, the usefulness of literature (poetry, novels and stories, etc.) in enhancing empathy with one another and ultimately reducing philosophy to poetry in Richard Rorty's writings point to one thing: the priority of literature to philosophy. The literary or post-physical culture that Rorty defends is opposed to the Enlightenment and the philosophical and religious culture. Rorty prefers literary culture among the religious culture and philosophical culture. The literary culture Rorty envisages is a radically historicist and nominalist one. Rorty’s romanticised version of pragmatism aims precisely at dealing with this literary or post-physical culture or, in generally, the literature
"Island Disease" and Its Treatment Through "Interdisciplinary Thinking" in The Educational System
No full textThe term “island disease” refers to the isolation and fragmentation of academic disciplines, a phenomenon prevalent in Iranian universities and research institutions. Specialization, while enhancing precision and depth within individual fields, often results in limited interdisciplinary interaction, leaving each discipline functioning as an isolated “island.” This fragmentation manifests in curricula that separate related subjects, minimal collaboration among faculty, and disciplinary languages that hinder cross-field understanding. Philosophical perspectives from Rumi, Jaspers, Heidegger, and Ortega y Gasset highlight the importance of holistic knowledge and the university’s role in integrating education, research, and culture. Globally, universities increasingly adopt interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches to address complex societal problems, foster innovation, and prepare students for the demands of the twenty-first century. In Iran, recent initiatives—including the University of Tehran’s College of Interdisciplinary Sciences and Technologies, interdisciplinary engineering programs at Amirkabir University, and national interdisciplinary journals—illustrate growing efforts to overcome the “island disease.” This study examines the origins, manifestations, and consequences of academic isolation in Iranian higher education and argues that interdisciplinary thinking is a necessary remedy for cultivating integrated knowledge, collaboration, and problem-oriented education
From Atheism and Agnosticism to God-Indifference
No full textThe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were a period of fundamental transformation in the relationship between theology and philosophy. In England during this era, traditional Christian theology sought to present faith as a rational system, consistent with logical necessities. In contrast, a skeptical and naturalistic tradition was emerging, with figures such as Thomas Hobbes representing its most prominent voices. Hobbes, through teachings such as materialism, moral relativism, and the denial of natural religion, paved the way for new approaches to religion, while simultaneously provoking the anger of ecclesiastical authorities.
David Hume grew up in this intellectual environment and developed his philosophy both in continuation of, and in critical response to, the rationalist and natural theological traditions. Drawing inspiration from Locke, Berkeley, and Hobbes, Hume established his radical empiricism and, by analyzing concepts such as causation, substance, the self, and God, demonstrated that much of traditional theological doctrine lacked a solid epistemic foundation.
In reaction to this approach, early critics labeled Hume an atheist, skeptic, and destroyer of religion. However, interpreters such as Ernest Mossner, Kemp Smith, Passmore, Gaskin, and Paul Russell in later centuries have shown that Hume’s skepticism had a constructive dimension, and that his aim was not the negation of religion but rather the clarification of the limits of human knowledge.
Nonetheless, a fundamental question remains: what was Hume’s actual stance regarding God and religion? Should he be considered an atheist or an agnostic? This article argues that both characterizations are inadequate, and that the most accurate description of Hume’s position is God indifference. In this view, the question of God is not a central issue, but rather a topic outside the core domain of human epistemology and ethics.
The term God-indifference in this article is neither equivalent to Apatheism nor to theological Indifferentism; rather, it is an interpretive term proposed to accurately represent Hume’s perspective on religion. In this sense, Hume is neither a denier nor a defender of God; instead, by focusing on human psychology and ethics, he removes the question of God from the center of philosophy and reinterprets religion in light of human experience.
Materials & Methods
This research employs a conceptual-hermeneutical method grounded in historical-philosophical analysis. The study integrates three levels of investigation:
Textual Analysis: A close reading of Hume’s primary works—A Treatise of Human Nature, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and The Natural History of Religion—to identify his treatment of divine and religious themes.
Contextual Interpretation: Examination of the intellectual and theological milieu of early modern Britain, including responses to Hobbes, Clarke, Butler, and other figures of natural theology.
Conceptual Reconstruction: Introduction of the term God-indifference as an interpretive tool to describe Hume’s stance toward the divine, distinguishing it from related notions such as indifferentism (a theological neutrality) and apatheism (a psychological or practical indifference).
The methodology of this research combines historical and philosophical analysis, aiming to reconstruct the structure of Hume’s thought and to determine the place of his philosophy in the development of modern philosophy of religion.
Discussion & Results
The analysis reveals that Hume’s position cannot be adequately captured by the dichotomy of belief and disbelief. In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, while Hume’s characters debate the teleological and cosmological arguments, none provides a conclusive proof of divine existence. Even the possibility of a “supreme cause” is left as a mere hypothesis, lacking moral or existential significance. Hume thus neither affirms nor refutes God’s existence; he simply regards the question as lacking epistemic value.
Similarly, in A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume dismantles metaphysical concepts—such as causality, substance, and the self—that traditionally underpinned natural theology. His critique of causation, for instance, undermines the logical structure of the cosmological argument. If causal inference rests merely on habit and not on rational necessity, then no argument from the world’s order can lead to a necessary divine cause.
Moreover, Hume’s moral philosophy reinforces this perspective. By grounding morality in sentiment rather than divine command, he redefines the basis of ethics as natural, psychological, and social. Religion, in this view, is a byproduct of human imagination and emotional need, not an outcome of rational proof.
This interpretive shift culminates in what the present study calls God-indifference a philosophical posture that neither rejects nor affirms divinity but de-centers it. Unlike apatheism, which denotes emotional or practical unconcern about God, Hume’s God indifference is epistemic and philosophical: the belief that the question of God’s existence simply does not matter for human knowledge, ethics, or happiness.
Such an interpretation clarifies why labeling Hume as an atheist or agnostic is misleading. The atheist seeks to deny God; the agnostic withholds belief but continues to treat the issue as central; Hume, by contrast, shifts the axis of philosophy altogether—from divine ontology to human experience. Religion thus becomes, for Hume, an object of empirical and psychological inquiry rather than a domain of metaphysical speculation.
This reading also explains the constructive side of Hume’s skepticism. His purpose was not to destroy belief but to redefine its limits, showing that meaning, morality, and social order can arise independently of theological foundations. Consequently, Hume’s philosophy paves the way for a new, human-centered philosophy of religion—one that interprets faith as an expression of emotion, imagination, and the search for meaning rather than as a system of proofs about divine reality.
Conclusion
In light of this analysis, Hume’s religious philosophy should be understood as a form of God-indifference—a reflective detachment from metaphysical claims about God that reorients philosophical inquiry toward human life and experience. He does not advocate atheism, which would still involve a kind of metaphysical commitment to the nonexistence of God, nor does he adopt agnosticism, which continues to treat the divine question as an unsolved problem. Instead, Hume marginalizes the entire issue, regarding it as secondary to the study of human nature, sentiment, and morality.
This stance has profound implications for modern philosophy of religion. It challenges the assumption that religious thought must center on belief in a deity and opens the door to a non-theistic but meaning-oriented understanding of faith. Hume’s philosophy thus anticipates later existential and humanistic trends that interpret religion as a function of human emotional and moral life rather than as metaphysical speculation.
Ultimately, God-indifference encapsulates Hume’s enduring legacy: a redefinition of the relationship between philosophy, religion, and human experience. In his framework, the divine ceases to be the axis of intellectual inquiry, and human nature—its perceptions, passions, and search for meaning—takes center stage. This transformation marks a pivotal moment in the history of Western thought, moving from the theology of being to the philosophy of living, from metaphysical proofs to existential understanding, and from the question of God to the reality of humanity
The Rise of the "Other" and the Fall of the "Self": from Hegel to Derrida
No full textSince time immemorial, due to its metaphysically grounded perspective, western philosophy has not been able to detach itself from the egoistic outlook, and thus, the interaction with the "other” had no role in this philosophy. The world has always been interpreted from the perspective of "self" ignoring the "other". Reviewing this mode of thought from Ancient Greece to Modern Age, one can reveal a kind of repression and forgetfulness of "alterity" and difference which Levinas has well highlighted in his philosophy. The very foundation of this egoism can be traced back to the Socratic slogan "know yourself”. In the same spirit, a kind of self-centered moral philosophy has been developed, the clear example of which is Kant's ethics. In line with Hegelian tradition of recognition, contemporary thinkers have redefined ethics and politics and acknowledged the constitutional dependence of the “self” on the "other." Based on the coordinates of their thought as well as the historical condition of their own time in the formation of subjectivity, these thinkers have criticized the neglect of the “other”. Hegel's role in underlining the importance of the vital status of the “other” is unique. Hegel bridges all post-Hegelian currents on the concept of “Other”. Then, in the present essay, we seek to show that since Hegel’s time up to Derrida, we have been witness to the rise of “Other” and the fall of “Self”
- …
