MARIFAT I FARHANGI AND EJTEMAII
Year:2011 | Volume:2 | Issue:2 (6)|Papers Count:6

Rationality is a means of recognizing the reality of mankind and one of the important concepts of contemporary theory of culture. The main question of this discussion is: what is the relationship between Max Weber's view of rationality in his theory of culture and 'Allamah Tabatabaii's view of rationality?; Taking into consideration the four types of rationality (substantive, formal, theoretical, practical), the author presents a logical-analytical review of the views of these two thinkers. He concludes that although both of them accept substantive and formal rationalities, there are fundamental differences between them in terms of the content of rationality manifested in theory and practice. Weber considers that rationality in everyday life is a reflection of a merely pragmatic and arbitrary view, i.e., selecting the most appropriate means for achieving one’s aim. He considers that modern world is a world where instrumental rationality has determined western man's social world by dominating all the social aspects of his life. Conversely, according to 'Allamah Tabatabaii's view, rationality is inseparably linked to man’s sound original nature. Therefore, man should meet all his needs and instincts and avoid going to extremes so that his nature (fitrah) may remain sound, his mind secure from deviation and his conduct rational and then he can live an agreeable life. Innate rationality contributes to framing an Islamic social life (agreeable life) and furnishing an agreeable social world for believers.

Rationality is considered as one of the main elements of modernity. Habermas is among the thinkers of Frankfurt Critical School who believes that critical rationality dominates communicative rationality. He proposes communicative rationality as a means for removing the restrictions of modernity. As for his criterion for removing these restrictions and gaining freedom in communicative rationality, due to his limitations, it can be no more that public culture or common sense. This is because he does not rely on the criteria of sacred intellect which the highest form of intellect and is unable to provide value and normative criteria based on practical intellect derived from sublime human values and ideals. So, we could not help accepting Habermas's criteria to free ourselves from these limitations if Islam had not provided a criterion which goes beyond common sense, based on divine teachings. Using the cognitive and ontological principles of Islam and applying principal methodology, the present paper criticizes Habermas's principles of communicative action and tries, through an overview of the principles of his theory to find what, according to Islam, position it has. In other words, does Islam accept the criteria proposed by Habermas in his critical ideas by using communicative action for obtaining freedom?.

The question of knowledge acquisition and way of achieving true and valid knowledge has long been of special concern to thinkers. The main subjects discussed in epistemology are the nature of knowledge, the domain of knowledge and the sources and methods of acquiring knowledge. Over many centuries, these subjects have been discussed and investigated from different angles. The development of new philosophical and epistemological schools have enormously contributed to this subject and new questions have been raised in methodology and epistemology. Using a comparative method, the present paper tries to study the main important issues in this field from Farabi and Habermas's viewpoints, two thinkers coming from two different cultural and social backgrounds. There are several similarities and differences between the intellectual and scientific system of each of these thinkers. A comparative analysis of their thoughts in epistemology, methodology and the challenges facing this field could be useful and effective.

Ernesto Laclau's and Chantal Mouffe's theory of discourse analysis proposed in their book, "Hegemony and socialist strategy", is one of the new theories which can contribute to expounding and analyzing the function of sociopolitical phenomena and promoting the capacity of prevision, prediction and development – making in societies by means of developing the significs (semantic theory) which consists of a set of interrelated concepts and exploiting them for creating a systematic structure. Discourse analysis, in terms of semantic theory has a root in Saussurian structural linguistics and as a social theory; it is a synthetic theory whose roots are detected in the ideas of such thinkers as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Karl Marx, and Antonio Gramsci. This theory, nevertheless, has some weakness, such as lack of the effective linguistic tools to analyze and explain semantic discrepancies. The present paper aims at providing a clear the definition of discourse, the meanings it conveys and its philosophical, ontological, and epistemological principles, and finally discussing the criticisms made in the light of the perspective of Islamic theosophy about it.

The domain and social role of religion especially its meta-institutional position have long been the subject of inquiry in such fields as theology and sociology and the special concern of thinkers. In this new world, which is referred to as the modern and rational world, this topic has been a matter of dispute among many writers. Some have minimized the role of religion, firmly denied the relationship between religion and the world, and stressed the idea of necessity of separating religion from public arena. Others, though do not openly talk about the isolation of religion, believe that the circumstances of modern world necessitate this isolation. In other words, they consider the decline of the social role or religion and its social isolation as a prerequisite for a modern world, and they name it "secularization". Such a belief is based on some presuppositions which have been analyzed and criticized in this article.

The present paper investigates the condition of modern culture and its problems from the viewpoint of Max Weber, one of the twentieth century thinkers. According to him, the acquaintance with the problems of modern culture has a strong relationship with the acquaintance with rationality, because modern culture is fundamentally based on rationality. Therefore, his views about rationality have been reviewed and his views about the features of modern nationality have been analyzed. According to him, modern culture faced serious problems after the infiltration of instrumental rationality into science, knowledge, semantic system, commitments, and motivation. The most serious of these problems were disenchantment, relativism and being trapped in an iron cage (of rationality). This paper tries to expound the problems and restrictions of modern world form the viewpoint of Max Weber, because he has been well acquainted with these problems. The viewpoints of many of the subsequent critics have roots in Max Weber's views and thoughts. Therefore, it is very necessary to understand his viewpoint on modern and developed world. A qualitative method of text commentary and documentary method have been used in this research.