Shariati and the dialectical method; Imitation or innovation

Major method in philosophy and humanities until the middle of the nineteenth century was the causal method of explanation. With Hegel's new design of history, the dialectical method found a special place in the humanities. Hegel used dialectics with developments in the analysis of history and social events, using Greek dialectical principles that stopped at the field of thought. Marx also took a materialist approach to the dialectical analysis of history. Shariati was one of the first to introduce this method in Iran. Our aim in this article is to determine the extent of Shariati's imitation and innovation in the dialectical sense. Therefore, in a documentary way, we have analyzed the dialectical concept in his thought. According to Shariati, Aristotle's logic is mental and abstract. Shariati considers the application of this method in the Islamic world as an obstacle to scientific developments. Despite Maxr influence on Shariati his system of thought, his method differs significantly from the Marxist and Hegelian dialectics. Shariati opposes both dialectics on the basis of consciousness and materialism on the basis of it. In addition, he separates the second multiplication of dialectics and defines it outside the first multiplication, and does not consider the third multiplication as the sum of theses and antitheses. In Shariati's analysis of history and man, the first and second multiplications of dialectics are the flow of good and evil, which, in contrast to each other, transform history and man, and finally, with the victory of the right current, this struggle reaches its end.