A Reflection on the Topicality of the "Theoretical"/"Applied" Controversy Amongst Iranian Political Scientists Regarding the Field of "Political Thought"

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.