NAMEH-YE-MOFID
Year:2004 | Volume:10 | Issue:9 (44 PHILOSOPHY)|Papers Count:7

The present paper has two goals: classifying theories concerned with the relationship between religion and politics (and their institutions), explaining each of the theories with respect to their theoretical foundations. Based on a specific typology, the paper distinguishes the relationship between religion and politics from the relationship between the clergies and the state. With respect to religion and politics, some believe that religion deals with politics, with some others denying this kind of relationship. The former group is divided into the optimalists, the minimalists, and those belonging to the neutral space [Mantaghat-ol-Feragh], with the latter being classified into the believers and the anti-religious. The second part of the paper deals with the relationship between religion as an institution (the clergies and jurisprudents) and the state. This relationship may be in the form of merging (and unification), or interaction (and cooperation), or independence (and separation).

Based on an analytic approach, this paper studies the logical-analytic relationship between mystical knowledge and political knowledge. Accordingly, the paper criticizes the claims of some writers over the direct relationship between Imam Khomeini's mystical ideas and his political ideas. The paper shows that although there is not any linear-productive epistemological relationship between these two epistemological domains, there is the possibility of establishing other types of relationships such as an existential relationship between them. Therefore, considering this relationship as a possible hypothesis, the paper studies such existential relationship between the mystical and the political aspect of Imam Khomeini's personality.

With regard to their political thoughts, contemporary Shiite thinkers are classified into three groups. The first group are thinkers who do not consider any specific duties for believers in the public sphere during the occultation period and limit the interference of ulama only to the hesbiyyeh affairs. The second group refers to those who advocate the Wellayat-e Faghih thesis. And, the last group are thinkers who, denying any privileged rights for jurisprudents in the public sphere, believe that the responsibility of the public sphere is given to the people themselves under the condition that the basic regulations of the religion are observed. Sheikh Muhammad-Mahdi Shams-od-Din, the contemporary Lebanese jurisprudent, who put forward his innovative thesis, "the sovereignty of the people over themselves", and Dr. Mahdi Ha'eri Yazdi, who proposed the innovative thesis, "the agency of private joint owners", are among the prominent thinkers in the third group. Making over the right to sovereign entirely to people, they proposed a model of Islamic state that we may call "elected Islamic state". The most important basics of the model are the legal and political equality of human beings, denial of privileged rights for men, Muslims, Shiites, and jurisprudents in the public sphere, the principle of the responsibility of the governors, and legalism. The model is comparable to the evolutionary model of democracy (Rousseau and Mill), one of the nine models of democracy proposed by David Held.

Hobbs and Locke are two of the founders of modem philosophy. Though both are widely known as political philosophers, Hobbs' "Leviathan" and Locke's "An essay concerning human understanding" are among the most important epistemological works in the 17th century and the beginning of the modem era. Rousseau was not an epistemologist, but, under the influence of Locke's epistemological philosophy, founded a specific type of anthropology that dominated the social contract political philosophy. What kind of relationship can be established among epistemology, anthropology, and political philosophy in these scholars? The present paper is to answer the question based on the hypothesis that Locke's epistemology prepared the grounds for Rousseau's anthropology and that both of them, though with deferent degrees of clarity, strengthened a thesis that may be called concealed anarchism. Later, Marx reinforced the idea and, thus, it turned into an integrated part of competing philosophies such liberalism and socialism.

Simultaneously occurring events may have a common origin and cause. The objective French revolution and the subjective revolution in the German classic philosophy, two important philosophical and political events in the West, chronologically overlapped each other. It is assumed in this paper that self-law-making principle, which resulted from the Enlightenment movement in France and Germany, was the starting point of the above events. The paper, finally, elaborates on the reason why a real objective revolution did not occur in Germany.

Given the increasing cultural diversity in the Western societies, many political philosophers have tried to study culture and cultural differences in the political arena. One example is Charles Taylor, the Canadian socialist philosopher, whose "Politics of Recognition" and philosophical argument for the recognition of cultural differences in the political arena attracted the attention of many commentators. However, Taylor can be criticized not only for politicizing all cultural differences but also for assuming that the moral necessity of recognizing different cultures arises from their being considered worthy. His argument to prove and limit the necessity of recognizing cultural differences are also untenable. Moreover, his account is confined to geographically concentrated cultural minorities.

The main goal of the paper is evaluating the capacity of the joint ownership thesis to solve the legitimacy problem and the difficulties related to the relationship between the individual and the state and finally to justify democracy. To do so, after elaborating on the legitimacy problem, the paper evaluates two theories, the divine theory and the social contract, which are criticized and opposed by the joint ownership thesis. Then, the basic notions on the basis of which the doctrine is based are explained to evaluate its capacities for the justification of democracy and to analyze its internal logical discrepancies and theoretical problems.