Abdurrazzaq Hesamifar

At the beginning of the twentieth century, when other philosophical tendencies were in the ascendance, two important movements emerged which rapidly came to dominate the intellectual domain: analytic philosophy and continental philosophy. The prominence of these two traditions caused the most famous classification of contemporary philosophy into analytic/continental. But this division created problems such as: Is it a comprehensive and exclusive division and could it cover all trends of contemporary philosophy? What are the features of each school which distinguish it from the other? This article tries to explain the relation between analytic philosophy and continental philosophy, and to evaluate the efforts which have been done to justify the division.

Critiquing the ontology of essence, Gilles Deleuze, in the Logic of Sense, provides an “ontology of sense” in which the notion of ‘sense’ as its central point is developed to establish a connection between thought and existence. Employing Stoic logic and concepts such as lekta, event, effect, expression, etc., and also applying Leibniz’s concepts of convergence and divergence relation between series of singularities- events, he presents his new ontology. This paper, aims to examine the notion of ‘sense’ in Deleuze’s Logic of Sense and provide an account for his conception of ‘Ontology of Sense’. So, after a glimpse at the ground which it grows and departs from, we go further to determine the topology of sense in Deleuze’s thought and get closer to understanding his ontology of sense, by making its connections with other concepts and ideas. Finally, we hope these steps could illuminate the relation between language and existence in Deleuzian philosophy.

The argument between Habermas and Rorty is directed toward organizing justification relations based on the Truth. Both of them suggest a pragmatic turn to avoid Truth deadlocks of the epistemological approach. Their difference of opinion is formed from the fact that Rorty takes the pragmatic turn to the extent that eliminates the concept of Truth, but Habermas considers a Kantian meaning for Truth, according to which Truth is merely a regulative and transcendental idea that assuming its existence is necessary for the possibility of organizing justification relations of actors. Rorty, on the other hand, believes that Truth even in its regulative and transcendental sense, does not offer any useful meaning. Because nothing can be targeted and achieved unless it is recognizable how to gain it or how to get an approach to it. The criterion that Rorty offers to organize justification relations is not a Truth in the future, but a narrative of the experiences we have had. It seems that Rorty is successful in rejecting Habermas' criticisms against the possibility of eliminating the concept of Truth in organizing justification relations; in the sense that his thought is more compatible with a pragmatic turn. But Rorty's alternative for Truth also implies that no specific goal virtually is conceivable for the human being. The worthiness of narratives in organizing the relations of actors is recognizable only in the realm of experience. According to him, we should only hope to follow a better path than the previous one. This ambiguity in Rorty's thought is perhaps the most important challenge in accepting his views.