عارف دانیالی

Philosophy is a demonstrative science in order to know the truths of being qua being. Such a knowledge makes no reference to any holy and divine affair in its title. However, in the world of Islam, philosophy gradually was accompanied with certain religious and theological terms, the most prominent of which is “Islamic”. In recent decades, the term “Islamic philosophy” has been discussed by certain thinkers and each of them has presented some views in order to justify it. It seems that, in order to examine the truth of Islamic philosophy more accurately, it is first necessary to study its historical roots. When it was the time to translate Greek philosophy books during the Translation movement, the term “philosophy” became prevalent in the world of Islam with no prefix. Kindī was the first Muslim philosopher who only used the term “prime” before philosophy. Of course, he considered a role for philosophy similar to that of religion, which could direct man to the peak of divine perfections. However, he never used any term other than “philosophy” and “prime philosophy”. Fārābī, who showed his own innovations in several fields, was the first philosopher and one of the rare Muslim philosophers who described philosophy laden with ethical and religious semantic adjectives. He even divided philosophy into different layers, with some of them being abject and some of them noble, or described some as being defective and some as perfect. Accordingly, it can be said that Fārābī played a significant role in granting a religious nature to philosophy, after him, Muslim philosophers used many different attributes for philosophy. Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī used the term “supreme philosophy”; Ikhwān al-Ṣafā used the term “spiritual philosophy”, and even Ibn Sīnā in some places used the term “divine philosophy”, as well as “polite philosophy”, “impolite philosophy”, and “Oriental philosophy”. Ghazzālī, whose opposition to philosophy is quite known to all, referred to “philosophy of divine people”. Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī, Ibn Ṭabīb, and Shahrzūrī used the terms “supreme philosophy”, “best philosophy”, and “philosophy of truth”, respectively. Suhrawardī used the term “Illuminationist philosophy”, which referred to his philosophical method. Interestingly enough, none of these terms enjoyed an ethical, religious, and holy semantic load, and each referred to one aspect of the multiple aspects of the philosophy intended by different philosophers. However, unlike most Muslim philosophers who equated philosophy with wisdom, Mīr Dāmād, the Peripatetic philosopher of the Ṣafavīd era, granted philosophy a status lower than that of wisdom. In his view, philosophy was the same legacy of the Greeks, which had been developed and promoted to the level of wisdom in the light of Islamic teachings. He believed that philosophy can never reach the level of wisdom unless in the light of Islam and its supreme teachings. He was the first thinker who used the term “Islamic philosophy” for first time for a kind of wisdom that he considered to be nobler and more perfect than Greek philosophy. Mīr Dāmād viewed himself at the same level with Ibn Sīnā as the leader of Islamic philosophy and with Fārābī in teaching it. The term “Islamic philosophy” remained forsaken after Mīr Dāmād until the contemporary period. In the present period, even a philosopher such as ‘Allāmah Ṭabāṭabā’ī’ did not use it and, instead, employed the term “philosophy of Islam” or the “divine philosophy of Islam”, which could be semantically different from “Islamic philosophy”. Abdulraḥmān Badvī and Murtaḍā Muṭahharī began disseminating the term “Islamic philosophy” almost at the same time, that is in 1330’s (1950’s). The results of the present study reveal that what contemporary thinkers state in order to justify this title is completely different from Mīr Dāmād’s conception of Islamic philosophy. The required data for this study were collected based on documentary research and analyzed following a historical-descriptive-logical method.

The subject of the current article is Foucault's analysis of the ontology of the novel. This research provides an interdisciplinary reading indicating that the ontology of the novel is based on the deconstruction of home’s concept: novel characters, unlike the heroic characters of Greek mythology and the Bible, constantly depart from home to discover the unknown realm of existence or a new dimension of humanity. There is a direct relationship between this transcendental homelessness and the novel's ontology. The results of the current research have shown that the conceptualization of home has yielded specific outcomes: 1. The novel has replaced similarity-based ethics with difference-based ethics. 2. Home is not a fixed and unchanging concept, but rather a construct. 3. The novel's adventure is a journey from the known to the unknown realms. 4. The novel is not in pursuit of utopia but rather maps out heterotopias as realms of diversity and abundance. The clear implication of this research is that the difference between the novel and the epic is not merely a genre difference but rather an ontological difference

The central focus of this article with an interdisciplinary approach revolves around the common concern shared by Hannah Arendt and Milan Kundera: the perils of history for the individual. A general question to ask in this research is why Arendt and Kundera in their books distrust History’s forces. This implies that the individual, under the influence of impersonal appeals and invisible hands, erases oneself from memory and surrenders to suprahuman forces. Totalitarianism has consistently drawn the individual into submission through the support of these suprahuman historical forces. Hence, according to Arendt, Eichmann, for instance, was corrupted by history, as he was stripped of any personal decision-making and choice, solely entrusting himself to the quasi-divine voice of history. Beyond these historical strategies, any transformative action becomes impossible. Returning to action (in Arendt's terms) and guarding the legacy of the novel (in Kundera's terms) constitute resistance against such historical overreach. In Arendt's view, every action initiates its narrative, while, according to Kundera, the novel's memory records experiences forgotten by official history. As a result, Arendt and Kundera prefer personal history over public history, action over reaction, and decision over command. Therefore, Arendt emphasizes the significance of action, and Kundera underscores the independence of the novel against history. Both advocate loyalty to a poetic individuality that is increasingly fading into oblivion in the modern era.

This paper, through an interdisciplinary and comparative study, seeks to uncover the connection between Foucault’s approach to the concept of power and Kafka’s perspective in his novel The Trial. The point of convergence between Foucault and Kafka can be found in the concept of biopolitics, where life itself becomes the subject of politics. The emergence of biopolitics marks the distinction between the modern world and the traditional one. In the pre-modern world, power manifested itself in the figure of the executioner and in the moment of death. However, modern power engages in the management of the living and free subject. The case study of this research is Kafka’s The Trial. The character K. (the protagonist) is entangled in the same panoptic power that Foucault describes in his works—a power that pursues not just a specific criminal act, but the entirety of the criminal's life. This is why K. is never accused of a specific crime; instead, he is compelled to narrate and bring to light his entire life, from childhood to the present. According to Foucault, the more modern power hides itself, the more it brings the lives of the masses into the light. Similarly, in Kafka’s novel, K. never gains access to the court, which remains hidden from his view until the end. The court, like Foucault’s diffuse power, is omnipresent and has no fixed location. This paper demonstrates that this omnipresent power is not a theological force but the very biopolitics that Foucault speaks of.

One rich educational trait in Iranian culture is to respect the aged ones and keep their dignity, enjoying their lived experiences. Here, the concept of age is defined as an identity representation with a positive connotation which signifies enriching experience / knowledge. In keeping with, the main objective of the present study was to disclose how ageism as a social-ideological construct not a biological concept has been represented in English language schooling textbooks. Theoretically framed in Laclau and Muffe Critical Discourse Analysis based on Foucauldian reading, the current study was to do a content analysis of English language textbooks in Iranian junior and senior secondary schooling systems (Prospect and Vision series). The researchers extracted the dominant discourses represented in the exercises, images and contents of the textbooks based on frequency and the related categories. Findings spelled out a kind of “otherness” represented a kind of “otherising” discourse in the textbooks. The elders were represented in three aspects of “absentism” “a negative issue” or “token construct”.  Indeed, when present, they were also misrepresented as sick or disabled ones or persons with token /socially passive role. They did not enjoy a dominant discourse and the youth were the subject of the discourses. Curriculum developers are thus needed to revisit their readings on ageism construct to provide a positive definition on it, framing educational justice demanded in Fundamental Reform Document and its Islamic-Iranian ethos.  

This paper is a critique of Romanticism as aesthetics of Loss. As a case study, thispaper addresses Life is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera. Nietzsche says that an abundantlife is a major cause of the tragic pain (strong pessimism), but a sense of Loss resultsin Romantic aesthetics (week pessimism). A Romantic poet has been chosen as aprophet who has access to a transcendent truth: a truth going far beyond ordinarylimits; he is a person who is immature because he used to live in ideal place (womb).The Lyrical age, according to Kundera, is youth, and this novel is an epic ofimmaturity. The lyric poetry is an ideal form for self-expression, a poetry that praysemotions per se. Actions have been replaced by enthusiasm. In practice this meansthat poetry retreated into the soul. The current study has already described the crisis of Romanticism as an excess of subjective interiority. A poet goes so far as to say Reality is reduced to the aesthetic object. An action is the conditioned domain, but passion aims at the unconditioned. Poetry is always separate from the reality. These inward explorations do not coincide with the external world. This article focuses on a young poet, Jaromil, who aimed at the unconditioned, yet his last attempt ended in failure, falling under the spell of metaphors.

A main issue in Arendt writings is impossibility of action in modern bureaucratic society. Milan Kundera argued that a novel’s fundamental problem is action. This study discusses similarity between Arendt and Kundera's readings with reference to important Novels. Transition from epic world to Novel world means going beyond action and movement territory to reaction and ineffective territory. Adventures reduces to commands. Don Quixote, contrary to Homer heroes, has suffered a defeat at all. The despair of action, makes Flaubert novel’s character (Madame bovary) seek refuge in inside world and it makes her to withdraw from reality. Bureaucratization of life is allowed to dominate impersonal and unnamed powers over Kafka’s Novels personalities and they are no longer in touch with reality. Kafka’s Novels give us some examples for lack of action in a bureaucratic society. This world isnot tragic, but it is ironic. Considering Arendt and Kundera views, in bureaucratic world, action as poetical thing is revealed; not similar to Lyric poetic that Romantics promotes, but a surrealistic poetic: poetic as an unexpected events and surprising intersections and interrupting a dominant plot.

The main objective of this study is to understand how novel can be read against psychological reality. As a case study, this paper addresses the Novel of the Stranger by Camus. Embedded in Kundera’s reading on the linkage between psychology on novel and psychology, the main question here is that how this novel can be read as what acts against psychology. Psychological novels are framed in a psychological cause i.e. making linkages among those unrelated or discrete events. A plot coherence is not possible without acknowledging such causal relationship. Rather, the novel of the Stranger addresses “ out- of -law”and “ off-topics” issues . Meursault is a stranger as he does not follow up the rhythmic tone of plot. In existentialism era, novel made a fundamental change in its “form” and “content”. As an existentialist philosopher, Camus puts an emphasis on the existing situation/placement rather than analyzing the characters in the novel. Unlike psychology which tries to make a clarity and distinction, Camus tries to talk about ambiguities and irrational reality. A dynamic and flexible rather than monolithic and fixed identity is obvious in his work. Novel in his reading is a domain for unpredictable events. Psychology, rather, attempts to disclose meanings and rational motivations in randomly occurred events. Besides the political function, one consequence of avoiding reducing the concept of novel to psychology in literary criticism is to refer the text into out of context elements like author’s biography.

Framed in Laclau &Muffee’s critical discourse analysis, the main purpose of this study is to show how a BBC Persian TV Programme entitled "Pargar" presumes a consensus-based pluralism that leads to phobia of Difference. The main issue here is  to address “why has Laclau & Muffee’s antagonist pluralism been kept unaddressed in Pargar Programme. A consensus-based pluralism has been focusing on “ cultural differences”. Rather, antagonist pluralism has been focusing on “ differences”. Findings of the study showed that in Pargar programme, Abrahamic religions are assumed to be inferior compared to the oriental religions. The monotheism against to polytheism turns into anti-values and Islam has become in conflict with global citizenship. Therefore, according to Laclau and Mouffe, the real pluralism must not be construed as a meta-narrative. Islamophobia as replacement of communistphobia is the direct outcome of Pargar reading on pluralism. Laclau and Muffee believe that consensus-based pluralism cannot address the complexities in the contemporary world. Instead of formal assimilation, differences should be valued. Majority of Pargar experts have a biased reading on the concept of pluralism. Indeed, they are observing their own presuppositions, namely, respecting multivoices, various contextual religions and cultures. In all of these T.V programmes, western liberal hegemony has been sophisticatedly valued. The researcher goes beyond the dichotomy of liberalism-communism, providing a new solution which can be read as antagonist pluralism.

Milan Kundera puts an emphasis on efects of Existentialism Philosophy on Novel in the 20th century. The main issue in this paper is to present Existential reading of Metaphor in Kundera' Novel. One main objective in this comparative literary study, focusing on this problem, is to find the relationship between the concept of Metaphor in Kundera and Sartre' bad faith. This study can show similar functions of them in identity- formation; sometimes, this functions are self-deception: the ways of converting individual to thing or subject to object. This affair resulted in disowning choice and responsibility by denial of freedom. A positive function of Metaphors is revelation of subject' creative direction, but negative function of them is objectification. In Kundera' point of view, Kitsch converts Beauty to trap. person is assailable in confrontation with Beauty. Different Worlds become alike by Metaphors and it leads to metamorphosis of subject. Nietzsche reveals Metaphor identification and ontology. Nietzsche shows that Metaphors are not only a Rhetorical Device. Findings of this study showed How Metaphors frame our identity. 

Many investigations have been done about Foucault's approach to Iran Islamic Revolution, but none of them did not explain its relation with ancient Greece philosophy. One main objective in this comparative literary study is to argue that Without understanding of Greece Philosophy and critic of Christianity, it did not Reveal cause of Foucault's protection of Revolution. Therfore, the main question here is that what relation is between Iran Shiite Revolution and Ancient Greece Philosophy? Do this similitudes is justifiable? In Foucault' view, Parrhesia is common point between Greece Philosophy and Tashayyu. Concepts of "Martyr", "the creation of subjects" and "Marjiyat" are features of Shiite Parrhesia Practice. Foucault maintains aim of Parrhesia and Tashayyu is the conversion of person into autonomous subjects. He has different understanding of political concept of Revolution , such as he understands Tashayyu as a political spirituality. this Paper reveals Philosophical origin of Foucault's approach to Revolution.

The present study is a Critical Discourse Analysis on twenty four episodes of a BBC Persian T.V programme entitled “Pargar”. The main purpose of this study is to represent how the dominant hegemonic discourse in this special program i.e. secularism discourse wittingly manipulates audience minds so that they acknowledge religion’s survival and existence only in the forms of neo-emerging theosophies (Erfans) or individual spiritualties. Indeed, religion is imagined as a missing one in public domain. Articulating discourse of religion in dichotomies such as modern expert/Marja sonati, Erfan/ Fiqh, Religion Essence /Religion rituals, individualism /Marjaism tends to deessentialize all essences presupposed among the traditional believers. Indeed, religious reformation and dereligionism are two strategic approaches which secularism applies to deessentialize religion. As a result of this deessentialism, religion has been transformed into something so-called shallow and neutral so that it cannot be easily recognized as a concrete phenomenon in social life.

The English language textbooks for learners with special educational needs play a crucial role in classifying knowledge in the learners’ minds and framing their axiological-epistemological systems. As a result, developing English language textbooks based on discourses of needs analysis can not only empower language skill abilities among these learners but also contribute to them to become active citizens. However, if the materials developed are silent on the learners’ needs in developing their practices may marginalize the learners as at risk educational groups. Very few studies have critically analyzed prevocational English language textbooks written for learners with special needs to see to what extent the content, conversations and image of these English language textbooks could meet daily affair realizations for learners with special needs.  Embedded in Laclau and Moffe’s Critical Discourse Analysis approach, the current study thus focuses secondary school prevocational English language textbook by ministry of education in grades seven, eight and nine. Findings showed that in the dominant discourse of these textbooks, there exists no symbol of body and life style representation of these learners. They have been selected either in ideal or token manners. Contents and images of these textbooks could not go beyond dichotomizing hegemonic discourses of society (normal-abnormal) and have reproduced power relations belonging to ordinary people. Normal affair is a social construct. Discourse representation and power relations dominant on curriculum patterns frame real worlds and life styles for learners with special needs. Thus, dearth of images and challenges of people with special needs are perceived as their absence in public domains and consequently neglecting multiple life styles of these groups. Hence, this study is of significance as it has some theoretical and practical ramifications for the materials developers and raises their awareness to redesign English language textbooks for these learners based on their needs.

The main issue in this paper is to find the relationship between the concepts of Foucauldian dispersed power and Kundera’s kitsch in The Unbearable Lightness of Being a novel authored by Milan Kundera. In other words, the main question here is how the concept of kitsch accompanies and interweaves dispersed power concept. One main objective in this comparative literary study, focusing a Foucauldian reading on The Unbearable Lightness of Being, is to argue that Kitsch phenomenon in  Kundera’s literary work cannot be explained without going beyond power relations in traditional reading. This argument leads us to Foucauldian different reading on the concept of power relations. Foucault and Kundera bring about power without agency/subject: A Empire of the Gaze. In their readings, power/ Kitsch alludes to concepts going beyond communism/liberalism dichotomy. This study discusses decontextualized power versus centralized power, the aesthetics of the accident versus public aesthetics, a unique issue versus ontological similarity, author centeredness versus the death of the author. These dichotomies are the fruits of a paradigmatic shift on power concept in modern era. Therefore, this study can show the consequences of modern power in four aspects, namely politics, aesthetics, ontology and literature. This study, on one hand, has some ramifications on highlighting philosophical criticism in novel criticism, on the other hand, the linkage between post-modern school of thought and Kundera’s novels.

Ibn Habib Neyshaboory in self' book –that it is classified as sufi literature- considers the kinds of madness. In this classification, never madness isn't conceived as illness and it isn't the contrast with rationality. A madman is a man who he chooses different style with public life and refuses formal normal. At a conclusion, a madman is representated as critic of society and politics. Madness is language of outcasts and isolated persons. Therefore, it is irony and overturne ethics-knowledge regime.Foucault, also, criticizes psychiatry' dividing practices that constitutes reason-madness polarity and denies a different ways of thinking. In view of Foucault, psychiatry is a apparatus for social control and rejaction of singular subjects. In this approach, Foucault's perpective becomes similar to Ibn Habib's.But, Foucault, against Ibn Habib, avoids romantic or essentialist interpretation about a innocent essence. Foucault considers refrence to pre-modern discourses as a regressive approach. He pays attention to madness concept because it make possible forms of informal politics: ways of practicing power down to up and pass out of dividing practices. It is beyond of good-bad or truth-false. But Ibn Habib, in sufi discourse, constitutes madness language as hegemonic discourse against philosophical discourse. This article make a comparison between Foucault and Ibn Habib and it transfers superficial similarity to discoursive difference.

This article investigates concept of plot in thoughts of Aristotle and Kundera. Kundera's critiques to Aristotle show ontological-epistemological contrasts between them. In this regard, this article tries to answer this question: Why does Kundera -contrary to Aristotle- considers the plot as enemy of Novel?In Kundera'narrative world there wasn't Aristotelian concepts as unity,necessity,generality. On the contrary, Kundera discusses about world of multiplicity, unintelligible elements and coincidences; a world that Novels represent it.In this regard, Kundera is close to post-structuralism school. The Novel is a thinking way that it is in contrast with Aristotelian essentialism and causality. Contrary to philosophy, the Novel is narrator of irrational events. Kundera expressed her objection to plot, because It is outcome of rational perception about the world as causal texture. Kundera considers the elements that Aristotle cross them out :elements as minor event, off-topic and accidentalism. Kundera considers the plot as storyline hegemony and denial of polyphony in Fiction. This essay elaborates Kundera's post-structuralism perspective(Nietzsche perspectivism) resulted in narration change. For Kundera, Nietzsche as post-structuralism ancestor has always been the essential philosopher.

This article considers the concept of pastorship and its relation to the denial or creation of subject. Foucault, like Nietzsche, by reducing of pastoral morality to the will to power and exercising of domination, believes that end of this morality is denial of subject and nihilism; an end which is presented through rejection of life and resentment towards powerfulness. The shepherd reduces the Christian subject to a knownable object. He wants to know subjects because he must take care of them. In Foucault’s view, this is dangerous: reducing subjects to dependent and obedient persons who will be unable to create. This article criticizes this narration of Christian morality.

Myth is not the primordial and naïve insight of man; rather it is the dominant rationale of immortal and sacred man: a rationale of “origin” and “repetition” which, in its precise and harmonious structure, elevates every trivial thing to the level of signifier of eternity.The necessity and preciseness of this rationale is only comprehended in comparison (contrast) to the historical paradigm. Mythical originalism wants to collect all the pluralities and differences in one origin and foundation and, through this, turn them into eternal identities and archetypes: identities which are the natures or timless secret of things.Each event is a primordial rarity: this return to a single(united) origin, in its own nature, has concealed the tendency towards unity and “totality”. Synthesis of this "originalism" and "Unitarianism" is achieving an anti-historical theory in a mythical perspective: in such a world the revealing of eternity is tied to "denial of history".