shervin moghimi zanjani

Francis Bacon, the famous English philosopher of the 17th century, has been considered the forerunner of the modern science project, especially for his famous work entitled The New Organon. In this respect, Bacon's importance is not only limited to proposing a method that is different from the ancient method for researching nature, but his perception of the different foundation of the relationship between man and nature has been equally effective in this judgment. This foundational view is what the sixth and final part of the Great Instauration was to issue from. Bacon chose the name "active philosophy" or "new philosophy" for this new type of philosophy with a subtle sarcasm to the term "first philosophy". Active philosophy can be an example of the magical combination emphasized by Bacon, that is, the combination of human knowledge and human power in order to improve the quality of human life in this world. In a sense, it can be said that the original and revolutionary opening in the human condition, according to Bacon, is made possible through a kind of blockage towards the superhuman sphere and the impossibility of knowing it. However, the question must be raised that Bacon himself, as a philosopher, how could admit practical openness at the cost of theoretical blockage? In other words, if we consider Bacon's passionate defense of the effective and efficient scientific method to improve the objective condition of man under Baconism, as a trend that supports progress and opposes backwardness, could he himself, as a philosopher, has been a Baconist at the moment of founding? This point is important because philosophy in Bacon's time, that is, when Baconism had not yet won, was an activity that could have been rendered irrelevant by the aforementioned obstruction. In this way, can it be argued that we can speak of a double Bacon, of a Janus-faced thinker, based on the distance we see between Bacon's teaching and himself as a philosopher? Can we say that we are facing a Bacon as a founding philosopher and a Bacon as a partisan of the project of modern science?

 In this article, we will use the method of the “close reading”. Our basis in using this method is to rely on the philosopher's own text in the first place. Our assumption here is that Bacon, as he himself points out in many of his works, believes in two levels of philosophical writing: the exoteric level and the esoteric level. Baconian Bacon resides on the first level and Socratic Bacon lives on the second level. 

Unlike many of his successors, Bacon never stopped admiring the wisdom contained in ancient philosophy. In spite of the vigorous attacks he organizes against Aristotle, by avoiding equating Aristotle's philosophy with ancient wisdom, he always emphasizes the valuable core of wisdom as a universal thing that the ancients also benefited from. He even confirms the importance of the philosophical writing method and the considerations regarding the way to approach philosophy, which was among the principles of ancient wisdom in the Socratic sense of the word. In our opinion, he tries to show that the valuable core of wisdom is not the Aristotelian teachings, but the Socratic way of thinking; The way that the philosopher, as a philosopher, cannot step on that path. The characteristic feature of Socrates' position, which leads to a radical distinction between philosophers and non-philosophers, is that the best and most blissful way to live is continuous reflection on “what good is” question, while avoiding falling into the trap of any final and dogmatic teaching about it. Therefore, the Socratic political philosopher, as a philosopher, cannot necessarily be the true defender of a specific doctrine, even if it is his own systematic teaching.

Therefore, we must consider Bacon, as a founding philosopher, at the moment of issuing a new doctrine, which becomes a strong and at the same time dogmatic intellectual tradition. That moment characterizes the same distance that can be seen in Bacon and his writings: The Socratic distance between the philosopher as a philosopher, and the philosopher as a partisan of a particular intellectual tradition. This article is an attempt to explain this distance, focusing on the most important writings of Francis Bacon.

Republic and Statesman demonstrate the limitations of the city in distinct yet comparable ways. The first work reveals the impossibility of philosophers ruling, while the second work proves the necessity of the rule of law. Consequently, both dialogues establish foundations for addressing the question of the ideal political order based on its compatibility with the city's nature. However, formulating the best principles for the city falls within the domain of laws. This particular work held significant importance for Leo Strauss, which can be viewed from two perspectives. Firstly, Strauss' last work, "Argument and Action in Plato's Laws," focuses on the study of "Platonic Political Philosophy" and explores the tension between philosophy and politics through the final resolution of the problem. It represents the culmination and complete expression of theological-political thought. Secondly, in the introduction to "What is Political Philosophy," Strauss considers Laws to be Plato's most political work, if not the only one, as it features the Athenian stranger, along with his companions, describing a set of rules for an imminent city establishment. In contrast, Socrates constructs a city in the Republic solely through words and not in practice. Understanding how Strauss interprets Plato's Laws is of paramount importance. To comprehend his approach, we must first become acquainted with his elucidation of Farabi's interpretation of Talkhis-e-Navamis then, delve into his own interpretation to uncover similar motivations.

Undoubtedly, one of the most important controversies among political scientists in Iran is the debate over its application. In this regard, political thought or to be more precise the "history" of political thought, from the point of view of the supporters of making applicable political science, is the first-rate defendant because according to them, it is the basically theoretical nature of this field which with dominating the field of education and research political science has closed the way to the applicability of these discipline. On the other hand, the historians of political thought in political science departments defend their field of study with a guilty conscience due to the lack of connection between this field and the effective reality in the political and social arena in Iran. Our effort in this article is to show that the origin of this conflict is not so much epistemic as it is rooted in the political and social structures of contemporary Iran. For this purpose, firstly in a general sense, we will show that political science in its new meaning, that is, as one of the immediate results of modern political philosophy, basically became possible in the negation of the worth of theoretical activity alone. In other words, the modern political science was not only the product of an effort to formulate an effective and practical political knowledge, but above that, it was the product of an effort to make applicable philosophy itself. Then, according to this discussion, we should raise the question whether what is taught in Iranian universities under the title of political science is modern political science or not. Finally, we try to argue that the new political science itself is the product of a fundamental change and evolution in the socio-political structures and its application in practice depends on the expansion of such structures and not vice versa.

The question of “what is the good?” was the main characteristic of the Socratic political philosophy. However, the modern political philosophy had to pass this question and like its enemy (namely revealed theology) present a definite and tangible definition of “the good”. In other words, they had to show that philosophy, in addition to being the authoritative source of knowledge, can and must be the basis for promoting human life and a guide for attaining the good in practice. The role of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Spinoza from this point of view is so prominent. It seems that the good they defended, was the true origin of the values of a liberal democratic regime. These philosophers recognized that the necessity of the dogmatic definition of the good necessitates a theological-rhetorical expression to persuade the addresses. Therefore, without comprehending this theological-rhetorical backbone, the values of a liberal democratic regime cannot be understood completely. The modern political philosophy, on other hand, is the forbear of modern political science that its main subject is behavior and action of the citizens in a liberal democratic regime. Therefore, we can say that modern political science cannot be comprehended completely without contemplating on the ambivalent effort of these philosophers: on the one hand, their theological defense of the liberal democratic values, and on the other hand, their defense of a new scientific politics distinguished radically from ancient political knowledge.

The Education of Cyrus is Xenophon’s magnum opus in political philosophy. If Memorabilia is in the center of his Socratic writings, then The Education of Cyrus is the main work in his portrayal of Cyrus. The Education of Cyrus, as Plato’s Republic, is an educational work in the Socratic sense of the word and hence an original text in the tradition of the Socratic political philosophy. The biographical form of this writing originates from the educational intention of his writer who, by concentrating on the Cyrus’s deeds, encourages the reader to take notice of this question: “what is the best way of life for human beings?” If we confirm that Memorabilia has a biographical form, then we would be able to compare it to The Education of Cyrus. The author attempts to show that Xenophon’s The Education of Cyrus contains a comparison between the Socratic way of life and the Cyrus’ way of life. In spite of showing his admiration for Cyrus nearly in the entire of that work, Xenophon ultimately defends the superiority of the Socratic (or philosophical) way of life as compared to Cyrus the Great’s (or political) way of life. This is the deepest educational layer in Xenophon’s political philosophy hidden behind the disguise of political education in his work on Cyrus. In order to better understand, we should take a distinct stance on the text itself as a totality whose every part serves the whole. By whole, we mean the intention of the writer; and this is the well-known approach innovated and applied by Leo Strauss who is the most eminent commentator of Xenophon’s work. Nevertheless, we should avoid the modern dogmatism in Xenophon’s scholarship which tends to depict him as a marginal or second-rate writer. As mentioned by Strauss, Xenophon “had the courage to clothe himself as an idiot and go through millennia that way— he’s the greatest con man I know.” According to Strauss, and his commentaries in Xenophon scholarship in recent decades, there is no reliable way to understand Xenophon’s intention in the Education of Cyrus, unless we use Strauss’s method of interpretation of Xenophon as a first-rank political philosopher. The Education of Cyrus might be read as a logographic text given that every part of the work “must be necessary for the whole; the place where each part occurs is the place where it is necessary that it should occur.” Using this method, the author has tried to show that—in spite of its pessimistic tone toward the political way of life—the concluding part of The Education of Cyrus is consistent with the great admiration of Cyrus as expressed by Xenophon in the most other parts of this work.  We examine whether Xenophon’s intention in The Education of Cyrus is to expose the education which Cyrus received or the one he did not. Thus, he emphasizes the contradiction in The Education of Cyrus as a whole, and simultaneously in the other Xenophon’s writing, especially his Memorabilia. To understand the two main Xenophontic scholarly work, and their positions in the hierarchy of Xenophon’s philosophical thought, it is necessary to compare the similarities, differences and particularly as they relate to the limitations in the Socratic and Cyrus’ ways of life, and to analyze how each has affected the other. The aim here was to show the true intention of Xenophon as one of the most authoritative Socratic political philosophers. In doing so, we understand Xenophon’s preferences for philosophical or political ways of life.

Yousuf Khan Mostashar al-Dowleh is one of the most important and effective progressivists in the Qajar era. His treatise titled A Word, in spite of concision, has an important role in the constitutional thought during the Nasirid period and the Persian Constitutional Movement. A significant part of modernist view on the law in contemporary Iran is derived from the “status” of Mostashar al-Dowleh as the one of the main constitutionalists who is standing in the crucial place. This Article, by viewing the “Introduction” of A Word as the locus in which the spirit of the work is mentioned, situates the treatise in its modernist context and thereby attempts to show that Mostashar al-Dowleh’s position is completely modern from the law point of view and that is the case in spite of his emphasizing on the traditional “considerations”. We will try to do this by showing that he principally accepts the modernity and then he treats tradition but not vice versa. Therefore, we can consider him as a founder and not as a merely modernist intellectual. Considering this “status”, this article reread A Word and its introduction as a monument struggle to institute “the law” aimed to institutionalization of the government and legalization of the society.

The mainstream approach in interpreting the Rousseau's political philosophy is one that stipulates the understanding of Rousseau to the understanding of his "essential distinction" from Hobbes and Lock. Therefore in this approach, the understanding of the modern idea of citizenship which underwent a fundamental evolution through Rousseau's philosophy is dependent on the understanding of that "essential distinction". But we should not ignore the tight relationship between the Rousseau's political philosophy and Hobbes's new political design, in spite of its complexity and multilayered character. In fact Rousseau just like his modern predecessors confirms that human being in naturally apolitical and that for analyzing human condition we must begin with the idea of "individual". In this article, our purpose is to show that the understanding of Rousseau's political philosophy and thereby understanding of the idea of citizenship in Rousseau's thought is comprehensible more through the development and the radicalization of Hobbes's idea of the individual than through the "essential distinction". According to our reasoning the idea of "the individual possessed unconditional right in the state of nature" as the foundation of the new approach to politics is just the same idea hinders us to take this "distinction" into account as an "essential" one. Therefore what distinguishes Rousseauian citizenship from Hobbesian citizenship is the development and the radicalization of Hobbesian premises and leading to the conception of citizenship turned into second nature of the modern man.

The discussion related to the idea of citizenship in contemporary Iran can be considered the issue regarding the development of modernity in contemporary Iran. In this regard, the success or failure of this idea should be regarded in the shadow of the triumph or failure of modernity in contemporary Iran. The consistence of modern citizenship in the West was reliant on the endeavor of the holders of modern political philosophy towards the inclusion of some of the most important modernist premises in relation to the human and his relationship with the nature as well as the government in the pivot of western common sense network. Of the most important premises related to the discussion on the modern citizenship was the idea of rightful person in natural status based on which the natural right of individual in natural conditions was prior to the regulation improving of the political status. In this regard, the fundamental issue in this article is investigating the failure of citizenship idea consistency around the civil element or the right-centeredness which was founded by Habez in the modern West. In this article, it is endeavored to state this research in political philosophy view not in historical-social or legal ones. In this view, the principle of “satiation’’ along with that of “force” determines the political characteristics and relations. This study tries to clarify that the rhetorical endeavor of illuminati to make a justified relationship between the idea of right and regulation was not that much successful. It is inferred that this lack of success is mostly related to the internal weakness of their rhetoric more than their misunderstanding of the foundations of modernity. This weak point could strengthen two basic predicaments; the first one was the inconsiderable role of the rightful person’s idea and the second one was the Rousseau radicalism within the framework of uncivil revolutionaries

We can recognize two distinguished mainstreams in the moral philosophy. The virtue Ethics and the deontological ethics. The former is conception that many scholars in moral philosophy call it as the clearest characteristic of the moral thought of classics. In fact moral philosophy for Plato and Aristotle and their followers in the middle ages namely for Islamic and Christian philosophers, should lead to virtuous life. While in the deontological ethics, after profound evolutions in the recent centuries, the foundation of ethical judgment is based on “duty” or “obligation”, the conception is itself grounded on the modern philosophy of right. Relying on original texts of virtue-oriented and deontologist philosophers, we attempt in this article to take the “priority” of deontological ethics over virtue ethics in the media sphere into consideration. This priority does not mean superiority, but it means that if we want predicate the media on virtue ethics, we firstly and necessarily needs to recognize priority of the deontological ethics over the virtue ethics.

The understanding of the modern notion of citizenship is mostly based on the sociohistorical and partly legal approaches and the contribution of the philosophical approach is not as considerable as we think it deserves. We attempt in this article to take the Hobbesian roots of the modernist notion of citizenship into consideration from philosophical point of view. We think that Hobbes's political philosophy has the fundamental implications for the new notion of citizenship.These implications are so fundamental that we may speak about Thomas Hobbes as the founder of the modern idea of citizenship. It seems that there are two principles on which he grounded his status as the founder of the modern idea of citizenship:The first is the idea of "individual"; it is one of the most important rupture points that separate the new political philosophy from the pre-modern one and meanwhile the substantial backrest of the some new notions such as the modern citizenship. And the second is replacing the natural law by the natural right or subordinating the natural law to the natural right. This transfiguration led to the individual-based modern state. In this article, we will show that if we can suppose the idea of "the individual possessed unconditional right in the state of nature" as the foundation of the new approach to politics, then we can call Thomas Hobbes as the founder of modern citizenship because he was the original designer of this type of individuality from the political point of view.

In this paper we will attempt to compare the characteristics of Imam in the Ismaili theosophy، as described by Nasir Khusraw، with properties and traits of Ideal King in ancient Persian wisdom. We emphasizes on essential qualities in the Iranian political thought that throughout a long historical period، from establishment of contents of ancient Persian thinking to today، has had an impact on our political culture. If we can consider correctly the characteristics of Ismaili’s Imam (or Fatimid Caliph)، as portrayed by Nasir Khusraw، we would diagnose some fundamental affinities between them and descriptions of the Ideal King in the ancient Iranian political thought. By surveying of essential concerns of Nasir Khusraw in both of historical-social and intellectual-dogmatic sides through detailed study of his works، we can mark out the continuity of a distinct approach towards nature of political relations and especially of the sovereign’s characteristics without which the history of political thought in Iran is not understandable.

The main purpose of this article is to find the relation between political implications of Sophocles’s Antigone and “Athenian Democracy”. To do so, we have used a structuralist approach the main feature of which is exploring binary oppositions in the text which in turn results in finding the oppositions within the political-social life that provides a ground for the creation of the text. From the point of view of political thought, the most prominent opposition in the tragedy of Antigone which creats a network of oppositions around itself, is the one drawn between “family”- with its values- and “political system” and the relationships among the citizenry. The importance of this opposition has been confirmed by Christian Meier, Jean Pierre Vernant, Charles Segal, and even Micheal Zelnak.It reveals a transition to the epoch of citizenry’s relations. It also caused the confrontation between “unwritten divine laws” and “man-made written laws”, the opposition that is the main focus of the present article.