Wisdom And Philosophy

Critical Remarks Concerning the Experience of Modernity in Iran

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Ali Paya

Associate Professor at the Center for Scientific Policy Research, and Visiting Professor at the Center for Democratic Studies, Westminster University.

https://doi.org/10.22054/wph.2008.5754
Abstract
The present paper pursues three general objectives. In the first place, it tries to present a succinct account of the phenomenon of modernity. Secondly, it goes some way towards producing a brief and critical assessment of some aspects of this phenomenon in the context of Iran. And, thirdly, it offers some guidelines for constructing a model for developing modernity in Iran. Throughout, I shall try to be as brief as possible. This means, among other things, that the reader should lower his/her expectation of the paper to a realistic level. Any discussion of the complex phenomenon of modernity in a limited space provided for a short paper would involve, inevitably, resorting to measures such as simplification and omission. The paper does not make any claim with regard to producing solutions for the theoretical difficulties of the issue of Iranian experience of modernity. In fact, it is the present author’s firm conviction that if the present contribution to this debate could shed even a faint light on some of the lesser aspects of this issue and draw the attention of the readers to some of its not-very-well-known angles, and, by doing so, invites the readers to think afresh about this phenomenon, then the main goal of the paper is achieved.

Keywords

modernity
critical reason
enlightenment
alternative modernities
Iranian experience
Wisdom And Philosophy
Volume 4, Issue 15
Autumn 2008
Pages 63-89

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