Intellectuals and Democracy
Intellectuals and Democracy
This chapter presents a perspective on contemporary intellectual thought in Iran. The dominant intellectual perspective of the Iranian intellectual on democracy and modernity has been philosophical, and has been in the tradition of philosophical rationalism. This philosophical reading of modern ideas and society has reduced the hold on democracy to an embrace of “progress,” “scientific rationality,” and “reason.” Democratic ideas and institutions have therefore either been seen as by-products of modern rationality or as the absence of intellectual sensibilities concerning culture. The chapter also reviews the ideas of three important intellectuals—Abdulkarim Soroush, Javad Tabatabai, and Aramesh Dustdar—whose writings have influenced Iran in the post-revolutionary period, arguing that their works, despite important differences and the political implications that follow from these differences, are philosophically in agreement with one another.
Keywords: contemporary intellectual thought, Iranian intellectual, democracy, modernity, philosophical rationalism, Abdulkarim Soroush, Javad Tabatabai, Aramesh Dustdar
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