journal of Philosophical Investigations

Number 21, 2017

1-12
Joseph de Maistre and Retributionist Theology

Authors: Gabriel Andrade

Abstract

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Joseph de Maistre is usually portrayed as Edmund Burke’s French counterpart, as they both wrote important treatises against the French Revolution. Although Maistre did share many of Burke’s conservative political views, he was much more than a political thinker. He was above all a religious thinker who interpreted political events through the prism of a particular retributionist theology. According to this theology, God punishes evil deeds, not only in the afterlife, but also in this terrestrial life; and sometimes, he may even use human tyrants as instruments of his wrath. This interpretation especially evident in Maistre’s Considerations sur la France, an early work in his philosophical career. In that book, Maistre interprets the French Revolution as divine punishment, and in that regard, his views bear some similarities to the Deuteronomist historian in the Hebrew Bible, who interpreted the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian Exile, as divine punishment in retribution of Israel’s sins.

13-23
That Philosophy as Epistemological-Based is Not Debased: A Critique of Post-Modernist/Hermeneutic Critique of Traditional Philosoph

Authors: Anthony Afe. Asekhauno و Wesley Taiwo Osemwegie

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Over the centuries, beginning with the classic Greeks through the trends of the mid-20 th century, philosophical enterprise has been intricately and seemingly irretrievably rooted in the theory of the given—an edification of philosophy as that giant mirror and standard for measuring what counts as knowledge; but is it thus synonymous with or reducible to epistemology? How or why? There are two answers to both of these questions. The attempt in this work is to delineate those separate concerns, their areas of convergence and disparity, but also indicated the genesis of edifying philosophy rooted in epistemology but which has been discredited in the works of some postmodernist reformers—Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Dewey, Quine, and Rorty. Against theirs, this piece shows that historically, philosophizing has had a methodology and some perceptual axioms; that it is not easy to abdicate it from this mode, no matter the will and zeal—for success is not a matter of will alone; that the post-modernists revolution is nothing new with its swollen nerves and arteries (as others before it, it soon wanes). It concludes that the urge for philosophic understanding shows no sign of abating and so the philosophical journey will probably go on and on, each stage building on and rewriting its past and ruminating specific but perennial problematic; that while some of the issues seemingly do appear resolved, others may have endured and eloped any final solution; and finally that the philosophical method and basic assumptions have seriously remained firmly even beyond post-modernist restructurers.

24-37
Philosophical Rationalism in Shia Kalam

Authors: Seyyed Mohammad Ali Dibaji

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One important question that the emergence of philosophical or rational Kalam has raised is what rationalism in the so-called Kalami (theological) schools actually means. This paper investigates the answers to the aforementioned question in Shi’a Kalam. Also, we have a comparative look at the philosophical Kalam and the rational one, concluding the identity of Shi’a Kalam with Shi’a philosophy. In this work, we have referred to three types of rationalism: personal, Vahmi (imaginal), and Hikmi (philosophical) rationalism. In short, our answer to the above question would be that, Shi’a Kalam – specially in Khaje Nasir’s works – is based on Hikmah (philosophy), and so, rationalism in this school does not refer but to this approach. This type of rationalism is in contrast to the personal or Vahmi rationalism. As a matter of fact, Those Mutakalims (theologians), who use Hikmi rationalism, don’t try to criticize philosophy or elicit from it; they just try to employ the principles, foundations, and results of Hikmah to explain, justify, and defend their religious beliefs.

53-67
A Pragmatic Solution to the Value Problem of Knowledge

Authors: John Greco, Sahar Joakim (corresponding author)

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We value possessing knowledge more than true belief. Both someone with knowledge and someone with a true belief possess the correct answer to a question. Why is knowledge more valuable than true belief if both contain the correct answer? I examine the philosophy of American pragmatist John Dewey and then I offer a novel solution to this question often called the value problem of knowledge. I present and explicate (my interpretation of) Dewey’s pragmatic theory of inquiry. Dewey values competent inquiry and claims it is a knowledge-forming process, and I argue that it is competently conducting inquiry that explains why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. Knowledge is always the result of a process of competent inquiry (itself valuable) whereas belief can but need not be the result of inquiry. I end by considering and replying to reasonable objections to my pragmatic solution.