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        1 - School of Vedanta and Non-Dualism
        Ali Naqi  Baqershahi
        Vedanta is the most original Indian philosophical school which has borrowed its basic principles from Upanishads and emphasizes non-dualism. Indian historians have divided the history of this school into three periods: Pre-Shankara, Shankara, and Post-Shankara. In the f More
        Vedanta is the most original Indian philosophical school which has borrowed its basic principles from Upanishads and emphasizes non-dualism. Indian historians have divided the history of this school into three periods: Pre-Shankara, Shankara, and Post-Shankara. In the first period, some figures such as Badarayana and Gaudapada emerged and laid the foundation for Vedanta philosophy. In the second period, Shankara expanded this school and played a significant role in spreading and disseminating it. During the third period, Ramanuja presented a different interpretation of non-dualism and the notion of Ultimate Reality based on his own critical views and pushed the borderlines of this school even further. Generally speaking, each of the founders and interpreters of Vedanta philosophy explained and expanded this school based on their own philosophical tastes and views and tried to enrich it more than ever before. However, the important point here is that all of them were unanimous regarding the notion of non-dualism. Of course, they had some serious disagreements concerning certain issues, which can also be seen among their advocates. Some of the contemporary Indian thinkers, such as Rabindranath Tagore tried to reconcile their ideas with each other in some way. Vedanta has also influenced contemporary Indian philosophers and artists to such a great extent that their worldview has been completely affected by this school. In the present paper, the writer traces the historical development of the school of Vedanta and explores its relationship with non-dualism. Manuscript profile
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        2 - Components of Plato’s Critical Approach to Poetry and Poets
        Meysam Dadkhah Ali Naqi  Baqershahi
        In his Republic, after denouncing Athenian poetry and poets in certain sections, Plato decrees their deportation from his Utopia in the 10th book of the same work. At the same time, however, Plato’s own works abound in poetic concepts, and wherever he talks about poets, More
        In his Republic, after denouncing Athenian poetry and poets in certain sections, Plato decrees their deportation from his Utopia in the 10th book of the same work. At the same time, however, Plato’s own works abound in poetic concepts, and wherever he talks about poets, he uses a language which is both hesitant and respectful. Accordingly, this paper is intended to provide some answers to the following questions: which truth underlies such a paradoxical attitude? How could Plato’s approach to poets be explained? What is the main object of Plato’s criticism: Athenian poets’ use of poetry or the essence of poetry itself? Or, should one seek for the response elsewhere and perhaps find the problem in the addressees of poetry? The authors believe that, if one agrees that one of the important elements of poetry in Athens was to believe in an epistemological aspect for sophist teachings, and if one assumes that, beyond ontological and epistemological discussions, Plato’s first problem is basically politics and the establishment of an organized political system, it can be concluded that, in this Utopia, the Athenian poetic tradition and its specific features are not consistent with Plato’s political ideas. The reason is that if one considers paedeia or a system of education to be necessary for the establishment of Utopia, if the intended paedeia is based on mythology and sophists’ teachings as its epistemological origin, it will be doomed to failure from the beginning. Moreover, one can approach this problem from the epistemological aspect of Plato’s philosophy and speak of the distinction between aesthetic beauty, as we know it today and as it is manifest in works of art, and the Ideal beauty or the same truth, as intended by Plato. In his view, the aesthetic view of beauty is a subcategory of Ideal beauty; hence, by the word “beautiful”, he does not merely mean the values that are involved in today’s concept of aesthetics. Rather, he has ethical and epistemological values in mind as well. Therefore, the discussion of the dismissal of poets from Utopia must be revisited under the category of general and particular senses of beauty. Manuscript profile
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        3 - Plato’s Mathematical Ontology in Islamic and Western Interpretations
        Mohammad Saket Nalkiashari Ali Naqi  Baqershahi
        Mathematics has always been considered to be among certain sciences; however, the objects of mathematical knowledge have continually occupied the minds of mathematicians and philosophers of mathematics. The theory stating that the objects of mathematics consist of a num More
        Mathematics has always been considered to be among certain sciences; however, the objects of mathematical knowledge have continually occupied the minds of mathematicians and philosophers of mathematics. The theory stating that the objects of mathematics consist of a number of certain immaterial and separate affairs which are independent of the world of the human mind and thought has been attributed to Plato, and several realist philosophers who, in spite of all their differences, have been called neo-Platonists. Commentators of Plato have failed in providing any clear and consistent interpretation, whether in terms of ontology or semantics, of his philosophy of mathematics, which has resulted in some misunderstandings in this regard and some ambiguity in his whole philosophy. When completing his PhD dissertation at the University of Bristol, Paul Pritchard presented an interpretation of Plato’s ontology, according to which the objects of mathematics are the same sensible things. Here, the allegory of the divided line has been interpreted differently, and the existing ambiguities have been removed. In this paper, the authors have examined this interpretation and compared it with other interpretations of Plato’s ontology of mathematics. They also refer to its effects on Plato’s philosophy of mathematics in general and reveal that, unlike its traditional interpretation, his philosophy of mathematics does not conflict with Benacerraf’s identification problem. Moreover, the authors demonstrate that, based on Mulla Sadra’s arguments, the theory of Ideas is a completely consistent theory in terms of ontology and, thus, Plato’s philosophy of mathematics is a consistent body of philosophy. Manuscript profile
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        4 - Socio-political Roots and Consequences of Gandhi’s View of God and God’s Relationship with Truth
        Ali Naqi  Baqershahi
        The present paper investigates the socio-political roots and consequences of Gandhi’s view of God and God’s relationship with truth. His idea of God and truth is rooted in Vedanta School of philosophy, Vaishnavism, and his studies of Islam and Christianity. Based on Ved More
        The present paper investigates the socio-political roots and consequences of Gandhi’s view of God and God’s relationship with truth. His idea of God and truth is rooted in Vedanta School of philosophy, Vaishnavism, and his studies of Islam and Christianity. Based on Vedanta philosophy, truth is discussed at two levels of nirguna (a truth without attributes or station of essence) and saguna (a truth with attributes or the station of names and attributes). In Vaishnavism, reference is made to Vishnu, who is one of the Vedic deities, as a personal God and the preserver of the world. Because of his philosophical interest in Vedanta and his family belief in Vaishnavism, Gandhi believed in both impersonal (Vedantic) God and personal (Vishnu) God. At the beginning of developing his philosophical thoughts, for several reasons, he concluded that God is the same as the truth for he believed that one can only refer to God as the truth. In his view, truth is not an attribute of God and is, rather, the same as God. In Indian philosophical texts, the term satya is used to refer to the truth. The root of this word is /sat/ (is) meaning that God is the same as the truth and being. Later Gandhi decided that, instead of saying, “God is the truth”, he should say, “the truth is God”. In his view there is a subtle difference between these two statements. Gandhi states that the only way through which one can attain the truth is ahimsā (non-violence) and, in order to clarify this term, he refers to the concept of satyagrah (holding to the truth), which, he believes, is the technique of using ahimsā. This mainly focuses on the great influence of Gandhi’s approach to God and the truth over the quality of his socio-political campaigns against British colonists. Manuscript profile
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        5 - The Relationships Among Eros, Techne, and Philosophy in Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus (With a Critical Emphasis on the Views of Vlastos and Nussbaum)
        Javid  Kazemi Seyyed Mohammad  Hakak Ali Naqi  Baqershahi Mohammad Raayat Jahromi
        Eros, the Greek god of love, in addition to its different meanings in the pre-Socratic mythological and philosophical history, has been used in Plato’s philosophy in different senses. This diversity has misled its interpreters in translating it into erroneous meanings s More
        Eros, the Greek god of love, in addition to its different meanings in the pre-Socratic mythological and philosophical history, has been used in Plato’s philosophy in different senses. This diversity has misled its interpreters in translating it into erroneous meanings such as love. The present paper examines the meaning of eros in Plato’s two Dialogs of Symposium and Phaedrus and then explores its relationship with philosophy and techne. In the dialog of Symposium, after being used in some different meanings, Eros is used in the sense of the longing and desire for observing absolute beauty, which is the same philosophy. This is because in Plato’s philosophy, the difference between the Idea of the good (philosophy is a motive for viewing it) and the Idea of beauty is mentally-posited. In other words, the Ideas of the good and absolute beauty are the same truth that is viewed from two points of view. Now that dialectics – an activity in which multiple details are recognized from the one and the one from multiple details – is introduced in the dialog of Phaedrus as an instrument of techne, it can be concluded that the Platonic lover, and the philosopher cannot perceive the Idea of beauty (or the good) unless through techne. The major problems in this paper are discussed based on the views of two interpreters of Plato, Gregory Velastos and Martha Nussbaum. Manuscript profile