Mohammad Hossein Jamalzadeh

This article offers an analytical and critical examination of the foundations, structure, and theoretical implications of the concept of “Foundational Methodology” of Prof. Hamid Parsania. On the one hand, the study elucidates the major achievements of this theoretical framework, including its provision of an integrated conceptual apparatus for the critique of scientific theories, its explanation of the transmission and reception of knowledge in non-Western societies, and its attempt to operationalize the principles of Transcendent Philosophy (al-Ḥikmah al-Mutaʿāliyah) for the humanities. On the other hand, it critically investigates several fundamental challenges within the framework. The most significant of these challenges include the gap between the philosophical foundations of Transcendent Philosophy and methodological operationalization, the ambiguity surrounding the hierarchical relationship among the four foundational levels (ontology, epistemology, anthropology, and methodology), and the neglect of the institutional dimensions of science and the role of discursive unconscious structures. The findings further indicate that, although “Foundational Methodology” has been successful in explaining the crisis of the humanities in Iran and in proposing a strategy of “active engagement” as an alternative to “passive consumption,” its transformation into a productive research program requires the development of more concrete methodological tools, sustained dialogue with other intellectual traditions, and a stronger emphasis on the creation of original theoretical frameworks. Ultimately, this study evaluates “Foundational Methodology” as an emerging paradigm that, by addressing its existing shortcomings, has the potential to play a more influential role in shaping the future of the humanities in Iran.

The essential needs of societies are provided through natural social organizations, called institutions. For instance, to create order and security and management of society, the institution of politics is formed. Every culture and civilization has its own style of management and discipline. Hence, every civilization has a political institution with its own structure. Modern civilization was formed and developed by abandoning the unseen reality and relying on the apparent reality (secularism) and trust in man (humanism). Its social institutions, including politics, were based on this. With the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and the emergence of Islam in a civilized perspective, it seems that new structures were given to social institutions, especially politics. The present article tries to estimate the structure of politics in the new Islamic civilization in a comparative study using the method of reviewing texts and discussing and consulting experts. The findings of this study show that the form of politics in these two types of civilizations are fundamentally different from each other; however, both may adhere to democracy. Modern civilization, based on humanism and attention to the profit and benefit of human beings, allows any kind of action, but Islamic civilization relies on divine lordship and tries to replace the system in politics with the importance of the link between the unseen and the visible. Divine to be present and current in different social levels.

Justice is known to be the virtue of social structures and institutions in modern social thought. In classical thought, justice was the sum of all virtues or the highest of them, and at the same time it was a virtue for society and a virtue for man. Evaluating the conceptual and functional evolution of justice can be a criterion for measuring the impact of various factors such as religion, culture, politics and economics in comparison with justice. The aim of the present study is to examine the concept of justice in the social thought of medieval Christian philosophers and seeks to restore the concept and function of justice in medieval philosophy in relation to social institutions. Accordingly, by emphasizing the social thought of five famous philosophers of this period, aspects of the importance of the concept of justice have been explored. Among Christian philosophers, Augustine was regarded as the initiator of Neoplatonic philosophy and Thomas Aquinas as the culmination of Aristotelian Peripatetic school. In addition, Anselm of Canterbury was regarded as a prominent Christian theologian, Meister Eckhart as a leading figure in Christian mysticism, and finally Marsilius of Padua as a revisionist political philosopher of ecclesiastical world domination. In this study, using descriptive-analytical method, it is concluded that the thinkers influenced by Neoplatonic thought, namely Augustine, Anselm and Eckhart, mainly considered justice from an individual perspective and Aristotelian thinkers, namely Aquinas and Marcellus, considered justice from a social perspective. In order to achieve that, they have considered the formation of the government and the centrality of the law necessary.

Etebarian theory of Tabatabei is one of the most important inventions of Islamic philosophy in the modern age. In this theory, Tabatabaei has dealt with how the concepts of practical intellect are formed and considers basic concepts of practical philosophy. Thus, he does not regard the argument as current in etebarian. In other words, practical philosophy is not a discursive science. Whether Etebarian Theory is rooted in Islamic philosophy or not is something the authors have paid close attention to. In this regard, some scholars believe that Etebarian Theory is influenced by epistemological changes of the new philosophy in Europe, while others consider it an innovation merely. The authors believe that Etebarian Theory is somehow a continuation of Avicenna’s view of practical philosophy arguments as conventional propositions. Unlike Al-Farabi, Avicenna does not associate the mind in practical area with self-evident arguments. As a result, he has brought practical philosophy out of the circle of discursive sciences. So, in this article, the authors closely look at existing documents and works of Al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Tabatabaei and by describing and analyzing them, tries to prove the continuation of Avicenna’s view of practical philosophy arguments as conventional propositions with Etebarian Theory of Tabatabaei.

Positivism as a specific notion to the realm of science and knowledge (ma'rifah) has been criticized by many philosophers. Among this, the critiques of martyr Motahari and Jürgen Habermas to positivism as philosophers with a realistic view in their period have been observed by others and have strengthened the critical approach to positivism in philosophy, humanities and social sciences. In this research with the comparative method, it has been investigated the evaluation of the origin, methods and the prerequisites of these two scholars’ critiques to positivism in three domains: epistemology, methodology and axiology and this result has been achieved: from one side the unification of the realistic opinion of both thinkers to the issue of knowledge has established the commonalities between these two thinkers in their critical views to positivism and the requirements and results of this opinion and from the other side the differentiation in the origin and the way of their critical opinions to positivism causes to emerge differentiation (polarity) between these two attitudes. Even though the critical look of both philosophers is lacking the criticism of positivism from the point of anthropology.