Apologetic Comparision and Alternative Designs. Methodological Considerations on Contemporary Philosophical Discourse in Iran

The first part of this paper examines a specific type of comparative philosophy in Iran, namely the tendency of apologetic comparison which appears to be highly influential in certain intellectual and academic circles associated with the ideological discourse of the Islamic Republic. One distinctive feature of this approach is that the epistemological and moral foundations of various strands of European philosophy become the target of fundamental criticism and are measured against a particular interpretation of the philosophy of Molla Sadra. This apologetic comparative approach to European Philosophy can be clearly noted in such widely circulated works as Osūl-e falsafe va ravesh-e reʾālism (based on Ṭabāṭabāī’s lectures together with commentaries by Moṭahharī). In this paper I shall discuss the ideological context of such approach, which has further been employed and developed by students of Moṭahharī, and analyse its general comparative design by questioning its specific preconditions—in terms of the purpose of the comparison, choice of the objects of comparison by the one who compares, and the grounds on which comparison takes place. In the second part, by drawing on the above preconditions, I shall discuss additional comparative designs as methodological alternatives and will give some examples as to where these other approaches have been applied in contemporary philosophical discourse in Iran and in what way they could be employed systematically in order to substantively link the intellectual archives of the Islamicate philosophical tradition to various contemporary strands of modern philosophy.