STRATEGY FOR CULTURE
Year:2012 | Volume:5 | Issue:19|Papers Count:7

This paper discusses the shortcomings of psychology in Iran. The objective is to provide a list of shortcomings and problems involving psychology in order to show the necessity of transforming and finding the mechanism for transformation. The method applied for this study is descriptive–analytical with critical approach towards the existing condition and also some suggestions and solutions are implicitly provided.Findings of this research are summarized in following three sections: Enrichment: Ignoring new approaches and views, weakness in applicability of psychology, poor methodology, disregard for philosophy of psychology, absence of research oriented education and dominance of translation in the relevant literature.Indigenization: Absence of need assessment and gender balance, quantitative disproportion concerning educational stages, educational trends and provincial distribution, practical and skill weakness in psychology.Value orientation: materialistic approach in psychological assumptions, determinism and disregarding free will, poor anthropology and absence of comprehensive view about mankind, restrictions concerning epistemological and methodological basics.With respect to the above, psychology in Iran requires reconsideration and transformation.

This Paper attempts to define the basis of development of scientific Knowledge and then based on that explanation to ponder on the pathology of the development of scientific knowledge in the field of humanities in Iran.Production and development of scientific knowledge in humanities takes shape based on abstract concepts, epistemology, ontology and methodology.Science will not be formed and knowledge will not develop without taking these elements which form the method of knowledge into account. On these Bases, world view from Islamic perspective differs from paradigm in the western thinking. The outcome of this difference is the essential distinction of religious (Islamic) science from non-religious (western) science.Development of humanities in Iran suffers some shortcomings including the following three prominent cases: lack of specific knowledge foundations based on Islamic world view, theorization weakness and creating a form of development of scientific knowledge which is mainly difficulty-oriented rather than problem-oriented and finally this type of development of knowledge is largely exogenous than endogenous. This paper examines the above features from the perspectives of various scholars.

Political science since its introduction in Iran in 1277/1888 has undergone lots of ups and downs. This course became a sub-division of law course at Tehran University in 1313/1934 and because of being influenced by law, 3 took a French flavor. In later stages, this domination disappeared and was replaced by positivistic and Anglo-Saxon trends. Based on a classification, the shortcomings of this discipline could be classified in politico-social problems (including lack of comprehensive strategy, its relation to dominant discourse, insufficient development of civil and scientific institutions, illusion of irrelevance of political science, improper relation with executive system, ambiguity of unity of university and Hawzeh, insufficient criteria, second-orderness of political science and brain drain); shortcoming in part of scholars (such as reduction of political science to other sciences, ambiguity of the relation between tradition and modernity, unsatisfactory level of Islamic political knowledge, vagueness of indigenization, vagueness of Islamization, insufficient interdisciplinary studies, method crisis, confusion of concepts, self- censorship, absence of popular language and politicization and ideologicization of political science) and shortcomings in part of students (including disproportion with students’ level and employment crisis).

The question brought up in this research is: what are the shortcomings of Philosophy in academic and Hawzeh environments? The main shortcoming of the western philosophy is domination of imitation and translation in scientific centers. The shortcoming of Islamic philosophy is its ineffectiveness in social areas and inability to influence humanities. The question is how the Islamic philosophy can be applied and come down from heaven to earth.The answer proposes four suggestions. First: establishment of Philosophy of Islamic Philosophy. Philosophy of Islamic Philosophy is a second grade and posteriori approach to Islamic philosophy which answers the external Islamic philosophy queries by historical and logical methods. Finding 4 answers to external questions by historical and logical approaches makes the compatibility of the Islamic Philosophy with contemporary needs and the applicability of this philosophy possible. Second suggestion: establishment of a new insider wisdom by establishing newly devised philosophies such as philosophy of society, philosophy of media, philosophy of art, philosophy of cinema, philosophy of technology, philosophy of health, philosophy of nursing and so on, along with the philosophy of existence, knowledge, soul and religion.This happens when the subject of the philosophy is changed from existence in itself to concrete existence of mankind. The third suggestion: completion of methodology of philosophy from pure theoretical reason to practical reason.Fourth suggestion: benefiting of Islamic philosophy from Islamic teachings.Prior to making these suggestions this paper ponders the main obstacle of applicability of the Islamic philosophy, namely the definition of philosophy.

In this paper the three positivistic, interpretative and hermeneutic paradigms are introduced in order to investigate the epistemology of research in science of management and organization. Positivism attributes the originality to sensory cognition and as a result separation of the topic of research from researchers and social realities and elimination of values from the research process are considered as weakness of this approach. The interpretative approach is somehow indulged in extreme subjectivism and therefore deals with the problem of analysis of human behavior specifically on the basis of intention and objective. Meanwhile hermeneutic considers individuals as world within the context of organization.Therefore, lack of criteria for distinction between relevant and irrelevant interpretations is the main weakness of this approach. The positivistic approach considers organization as cross-cultural while according to interpretative and hermeneutic approaches, organization is influenced by culture.

Transformation of the curriculum of the humanities with Islamic and native approach has been one of the main concerns of senior managers of the political system, scholars and academics in recent years. Transfer of liberalistic and secularistic views and values, inconsistency with society’s needs and outdatedness of the topics are the main sources of concern and emphasis on reconsideration of curriculum.This paper is an attempt to assess the possibility of Islamization and indigenization of the approved curriculum through evaluation of its present condition and on the basis of the existing educational knowledge. In order to do so, three questions have been brought up for evaluation: 1. what are the strong points and weaknesses of the existing curriculum of educational sciences in undergraduate courses and the text books currently being taught in universities? 2. considering the answers of the first question as well as native and Islamic knowledge produced during the past 20 years (following the ratification of the curriculum), to what extent indigenization and Islamization of educational sciences have become possible? 3. What factorshavecaused the plan of Islamization and indigenization of the curriculum not to be implemented rapidly after its approval.The research method in answering the first question is descriptive and documentary, for the second and third questions descriptive-analytical and descriptive-critical methods have been employed respectively.Findings of this study show that the ground is somehow paved for revising the curriculum and the text books with this difference that revising the content of the curriculum dealing with general, historical, philosophical and narrative interpretive nature is more feasible than those topics with empirical, prescriptive and methodological nature.

Science of law has a long record in Iran’s higher education system and students have shown more interest in this discipline than other branches of humanities. The reason for such interest is better employment opportunities in this discipline and increasing need for legal advisors by people in their daily life, families, companies and governmental departments.Unfortunately, disproportionate quantity growth without preparing the required setting is a deficiency which is threatening this branch of humanities like other academic disciplines in Iran.There are other shortcomings too in areas of legal thinking, educational and research methods, legal resources and so on which are brought up for discussion in this paper and proposal are made to tackle the problems.