Research in Theoretical Politics
Year:2021 | Volume:NEW | Issue:28|Papers Count:16

This article seeks to shed light on the question of what is moral politics and what is its place in the political and moral thought of our time? The article argues that the separation between the two realms of politics and ethics, which Machiavelli has largely proposed, may and should be considered a positive achievement for both, but the simple, classical, and absolute form of this separation isn’ t defensible in our contemporary political and moral thought. For this reason, this article, based on the teachings of one of the most important philosophers of ethics, "Emmanuel Levinas", has tried to help strengthen the theory called "Ethical politics" and by defining ethics as the first philosophy and politics as an instrument to actualize the foundational ethical “ Hospitality” , find a way to link ethics as teleology of peace and politics as its practical agent. The second part of the paper extracts and clarifies Mohammad Mossadegh’ s notion of “ the relationship between ethics and politics” — which serves as the foundation and source of his political activities— from his letters, memoirs, lectures and treatises. A presumption of this paper is that Mossadegh had developed a project within the political sphere which can be deemed as ethical in certain respects. I argue that this project can in turn be interpreted as an indication of the unity between the ethical and political spheres in Mossadegh’ s thought.

Henry Corbin was the first thinker who attempted to apply philosophical hermeneutics as an analytical tool for understanding the Shiite texts in particular, and Iranian intellectual history in general. Making use of various intellectual traditions, including phenomenology, hermeneutics, Christian theology, and Platonic tradition, he provided a methodological and hermeneutical approach to the Iranian intellectual heritage. Although there are a literature body regarding his significance in the Islamic and Shiite scholarship, a critical evaluation of his works, and especially his own hermeneutical approach, has not been done yet. This paper aims to discuss Corbin’ s hermeneutical approach from a critical and philosophical-political perspective. Thus, it will be demonstrated that his hermeneutics suffers from three main deficits: the lack of critical dimension, over-interpretation, and finally de-politicization of Islamic and Iranian intellectual and religious tradition. All of these three issues are rooted in a “ cosmic” ontology in his philosophical system that makes no room for an intersubjective and social realm.

Transcendental homelessness implies a situation in which collapses human’ s connectedness with the meaningful resources, which give meaning to the human existence and being. Human being is the child of a certain time/space, and any event which disturbs the continuum will also disturb subjectivity. Whenever the state of time/space order gets into crisis and meaningful transcendental resources become inaccessible to human, he suffers from transcendental homelessness. The most important consequences of transcendental homelessness are depression and romanticism. If human being lose his/her roots in time/place and find it alienated with himself/herself, then get depressed; For the purpose of making it tolerable, he/she creates a subjective world which can satisfy him/her. Romanticism is the very consequences of that subjective world. Sadeq Hedayat, one of the most important writers in our contemporary history, based upon our propositions in this article, has suffered from transcendental homelessness.

The concept of "sovereignty" is one of the key concepts of modern political philosophy. This concept, systematically explained for the first time in the modern age by Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes, implies the meanings like absolute and legitimate power over the legislation process. The prevailing attitude in political thought, due to the very pioneering of Bodin and Hobbes in explaining the meaning of sovereignty, views this concept as an innovative concept which is discovered in the modern age. This article tries to demonstrate, however, the concept of sovereignty is raised from Christian theology and one of its main topics: The concept of "judgement". Therefore, the systematization of the term "sovereignty" by Bodin and Hobbes never means that they invented this concept as a wholly modern one. For this purpose, this article searches for the meaning of the term "judgement" in the Old Testament and the New Testament, and, on the basis of the prominent commentaries of the Scriptures, seeks to show that this concept has three relatively distinct but intertwined meanings. These three meanings are "Legislation", "Judgement in legal and judicial sense" and "Sovereignty", all of which accords with the features of the notion of sovereignty in the modern sense of the word. Consequently, it can be said that, the formation of modern sovereignty has not happened in discontinuity with Christian theology, but in continuity with it.

From the very beginning of the eighteenth century, the "Enlightenment" became the center of European reflections. Reactions to the Enlightenment have varied. In the first half of the twentieth century in Germany, anti-Enlightenment discourse through thinkers such as Heidegger, Schmitt, Adorno, Horkheimer and Karl Lö with, raised radical criticisms of the Enlightenment in various philosophical, political, and historical fields. In this essay, based on Skinner's approach, we interpret Karl Lö with's idea about the historical-political thought of the Enlightenment. The question of this article is "in what context was Karl Lö with's idea about the theological implications of the Enlightenment historical-political thought formed and what is the author's intention? " It can be said that Lö with's idea originated in the German anti-Enlightenment tradition in the first half of the twentieth century. He sees modern philosophy of history and the concept of progress as a secularized form of the theology of history and the concept of providence. With this claim, Lö with tries to introduce the Enlightenment as illegitimate by proposing theological roots for it. It seems that the consequences of accepting Lö with's idea could challenge the assumptions of modern thought, especially about the concept of "progress", as a secularized theological concept. In the sense that modern thought cannot be considered an independent thought. In contrast, Santo Mazzarino, Hannah Arendt, and Hans Blumenberg have fundamentally criticized Lö with's theoretical-methodological foundations and challenged him.

The sphere of politics has long been defined based on a masculine approach and women have been neglected and have not been given a clear and prominent position in the politics. Even in the Western philosophy, which is known as a manifestation of rationalism, women are recognized as the second sex, on the assumption that intelligence is a masculine character. Due to the fact that the status and position of women in the mirror of princes in different periods, is one of the ways that can clarify this status in different historical ages, in this article their rejection or acceptance by epistemological systems has been analyzed. What appears in the mirror of princes as prominent political texts in the Medieval is a depiction of a creature called woman who was nowhere present and, therefore, men have drawn their appearance as they liked. But the question is: what metaphors were in medieval the mirror of princes and historical texts that have reinforced the exclusion and marginalization of women? For this purpose, here the prepositions of the political texts and governance literature have been examined with the theoretical framework of metaphorical analysis and classification of metaphors into three titles: metaphor of creation, metaphor of governance and philosophical metaphor of masculine intellect. This article is based on a hypothesis in which women were excluded and confined to a private life for many years, and such metaphors have played a special and effective role in removing women from the political arena.

The political theology of the Shi'a theologians and Jurists of the Baghdad school has undergone a transformation compared to its predecessor, the hadith school of Qom. This transformation was answered by the hypothesis that these scholars, by virtue of the Shi'a theological and theological-jurisprudential rationale In connection with the prevailing custom, transcended the approach of lacking the absolute legitimacy to the relative legitimacy of the existing government. The method of this article is based on the interpretation of text and historical analysis and qualitative analysis. The findings show that the Baghdad school, in their theological reason, came to the two categories of "establishing the government" and "the institution of the Imamate" Which, accordingly, elaborated the relevant necessities and conditions with rational reasoning. Then, on the basis of the jurisprudential reason, and in connection with the custom of their time, they gave the relative legitimacy of existing customary governments that can be understood by the signs and implications of permitting cooperation and accepting government offices.

Simultaneously with the constitutional movement and the change of the political system from (absolute monarchy to constitutionalism), the debate over the idea of equality became popular among the thinkers of this era. But the question is that what was the thinkers’ attitude of this age (constitutionalists and sharia seekers (Mashroehkhahan)) about equality? Based on the four categories of ontological meaning, dimensions, realm and scope of inclusion, the present article examines the perception of constitutional thinkers of equality. The method of the present article is text-based reading. The findings of the study are as follows: Constitutionalist religious thinkers such as Naini and Mahallati emphasized the legal (rather than natural) equality of the nation, including the equality of religious minorities and women in civil and social dimensions (rather than religious). And they recognized specifically political equality only for the wise men of the nation. Constitutionalist secular thinkers such as Akhundzadeh and Talibov, and moderate constitutionalist thinkers such as Mostashar al-Dawla and Malkum Khan at the same time emphasized the natural and legal equality of the nation in the civil, social and political dimensions in the public sphere. In contrast, sharia seekers (Mashroehkhahan) such as Sheikh Fazlullah Nouri, Ali Akbar Tabrizi, and Najafi Marandi believed in natural inequality (especially from a religious perspective) and saw the civil, socio-political equality of religious minorities and women as opposed to the inherent superiority of Islam.

The comparative study on political theory of the public and private sphere with law provides a basis for restriction of law and state and redraws public-private law boundary. Research method is descriptive-analytical. That is, firstly, the private and public sphere, according to Hannah Arendt's theories, are described by identifying its elements. And, secondly, the elements in two spheres are analyzed in accordance with law framework and its branches generally. And, finally, the level of recognition of private and public sphere in legal system of Iran is measured. The private sphere is an area of human life that is intertwined with elements such as intangible ownership and presidency of the family, and the tendency to conceal and naturally de-legalization. Civil society is a part of private sphere; it is an area of human self-control activity into non-governmental groups. The public sphere is an area of policy-making by citizens through free conversation and action. In the legal system of Iran, the private sphere is supported overall; independence of civil society is not guaranteed, despite implicit recognition. Government makes policy, then citizens work within its framework after getting governmental permission.

The relationship between political philosophy and development, as the creation of conditions that would lead to "life betterment", was marginalized in the beginnings of the development of modern political thought. Due to the influence of ideas such as utilitarianism and the market economy, the twentieth century witnessed the re-emergence of the concept of development as growth. The mentioned concept claimed what civic/political knowledge sought from the beginning, namely "Good living". This paper is an attempt to rebalance this situation by developing a theory of phronetic development based on the Aristotelian concept of phronesis. Using an implicative approach, the paper argues for using the concept of citizenship as the normative implication of phronetic development. In order to do so, the paper deconstructs economic growth theory, exposes its reductionist conception of development, and reestablishes the link between moral philosophy, economy, politics, and development. In this conception, democracy as public reasoning, participation as empowering citizens' phronesis, and freedom are the main constitutive elements of phronetic development. Therefore, appropriate policies and measures should be put in place to promote citizenship that induces phronetic development.

Iranian Constitutionalism as an important event of the Iranian new Ages introduces many new concepts to Iranian thought. The concept of right as well as the concept of freedom as two important concepts were put forward by the thinkers of this age and theorized about it. Intellectuals, as one of the groups involved, played a major role in designing these concepts. They were able to acquaint Iranians with many concepts of the new era, such as law, parliament, limitation of power, freedom, equality, constitution, and so on. Talibov Tabrizi's words about the concept of right are more precise than others. Talibov's life outside of Iran and his familiarity with the writings of Western scholars have led him to carefully examine new concepts. He has spoken precisely about many modern concepts. He deals with the basis of law, types of rights, violations of rights, and conflicts of rights. It also calls for freedom as one of the evidences of right and tries to find theoretical foundations for this important demand of Iranian constitutionalism. He has the emphasis on praising freedom, linking it with the right, setting limits on freedom, and the avoidance of chaos. Relying on Talibov's works and using a descriptive-analytical method, this article seeks to examine the question of what is the place and meaning of right in Talibov's thought and what is its relation to freedom. And an attempt has been made to explain his theory of rights and freedoms as two key concepts in Iranian constitutionalism.

Order and justice are the most important concepts of thought that are rooted in the worldview and ideology of each nation. Accordingly, the idea of Tensor, the Zoroastrian priest of the Sassanid era, is influenced by the religion of Zoroaster and his mythological view of the universe. In his view, myths direct and regulate the view of the pious and religious man towards himself and nature. A cosmic order in which everything has an end and everyone acts in his own duty under the supervision of Ahura Mazda in the battle of good and evil. The mirror of this upright view on earth becomes the chief-centered system in which the three elements of the ideal king, the universal religion, and the social hierarchy, establish order and justice according to the eternity law called Ashe. Justice is transmitted from the individual to society, and all its details correspond exactly to religion and the cosmic order. The Tensor Letter is one of the classic texts in which the outlines of the political thought of ancient Iran are drawn. Political thought reflected in this text reflects the norms of the political and social environment of this period and the author has theorized in the prevailing religious intellectual space, namely the Zoroastrian worldview. The method used in this article, based on Tensor's letter, is Skinner's text-context-based method. In this article, an attempt was made to represent the role of mythology in the formation of the cosmic order in Tensor's letter.

In its various narratives, the theory of Oriental despotism has been the dominant analytical framework for understanding the nature of state and society in pre-modern Iran. The main product of this theory's application has been presenting the state's image as an arbitrary and strong organization in the face of a fragmented society with dependent, weak, and passive social forces. According to such an analysis, the state's fundamental features, society, and the relations between them have not undergone a qualitative change from the beginning of history until now despite all the apparent changes in Iran's history. The first purpose of this article is to present a report on the origins of oriental despotism theory, its application by Western and Iranian scholars for analysis of the Iranian history, identification of its core themes about the nature of state and society, and the reasons for its popularity in the post-revolutionary period. The essay shows that despite the long history of this theory, it has been redesigned in the context of a political-theoretical conflict between the Leftist groups and their critics during the 1950s and 1970s. The article considers the hegemony of this approach after the Islamic Revolution due to the invalidity of Orthodox Marxism's analytical framework and capabilities this theory to provide a simple yet understandable answer to the problem of economic and political underdevelopment. The second aim of this article is to reveal the inadequacy of the theory and its results in analyzing the nature of the Iranian state and society. It emphasizes that the mentioned view has practically blocked the way for a "truly" historical sociology of Iran and a correct understanding of the nature of the state, society, and their interactions with one another.

Today, because of the development of communication and information technologies, the world in which we live is called the virtual world. This virtual world is heavily influenced by "Web2. 0 technologies". Web2. 0 technology refers to electronic and Internet media that can increase citizen participation in various affairs, in particular, political affairs. This technology as a second generation of Internet services has a social dimension that emanates in the form of social media, and therefore the impact of these technologies on the performance of the government is important. This article seeks to answer this question: What impact Web2. 0 technologies can have on government performance? And how it affects the government? The hypothesis of the article suggests that Web 2. 0 technologies potentially transformed the way and function of the traditional government and led to the emergence of a new kind of government. In the literature on communications and politics science, this kind of government is referred to as the "web. 2. 0 government". This study shows that Web2. 0 leads to an increase in the level of government performance. Indeed, government 2. 0 has not only influenced by the integration of new communication and information technologies but also benefited from the effects of these technologies. The mechanisms by which the web2. 0 technologies increase the level of government performance are: Creating open culture, increasing citizen participation, promoting government transparency, citizen-centered government, and promoting democracy. In this paper, the question and research hypothesis has been evaluated using library resources and the descriptive-analytic method.