Based on the suggestions by some friends, not reading Persian and curious about my weblog, I just decided to occasionally write short essays in English as well.
Today I was reading parts of Dr Sebastiano Maffettone's just newly published book on Rawls. The title of the book is Rawls; an Introduction (2010) and is published by Polity press. We, as Sebastiano's PhD students here, were gifted to have a copy of the book before its real publication.
In part of the first chapter of the book I faced with a sentence by Rawls, a methodological suggestion about how to read classical texts of philosophy, which agitated me to think and make this post. The sentence is taken from Rawls's ‘My Teaching’ (written in 1993, forthcoming(?)), in which he declares:
"A doctrine is not judged at all until it is not judged in its best form . . . The text has to be known and respected, and the doctrine presented in its best form."
In this sentence I found something interesting not only about how to read Rousseau and Locke, but even about how to read different authors such as Motahhari and Khomeini in the Iranian context. But how and why?
We know nowadays Iran is passing through a tough trasitory period towards democracy. In the documentary Pejvak-e Ruzegar (the Reflection of the Time in Persian) by BBC Persian channel, Mohammad Reza Shajarian also referred to this difficult fact.
The argument is that this transition to democracy can not be passed and democracy can not be accomplished, unless majority of groups and sects in Iran find democracy the best way of government and recognition for themselves. Therefor, pro-democratic groups, should avoid pushing away the conservatives and humiliating them, and instead would be better try to make constructive dialogues with them on fundamental issues.
Rawls's suggestion about how to read and understand a text, if applied to the reading of the figures like Ayatollah Khomeini and Motahhari who are major references for conservative parties, will definitely open some ways to make constructive dialogues with the conservatives. This is a fact which was more or less the subject of of my recent essays as well (A Liberal Reading of Ayatollah Khomeini)
Just as an example, one can read Motahhari both as a dogmatist, backward-thinking and reactionary Mulla who is supporting old-fashioned thought which only belongs to past (the worst possible reading of Morteza Motahhari), or seeing him as progressive intellectual, although having some faults (best reading of him, done by Khatami, Soroush and some other religious reformists).
Which of these two readings of Motahhari are better to make a dialogue over democracy in Iran?
Rawls answers us the second reading, of course!
I take this opportunity and will write my comment in English too, since I rarely write in English myself ;) Frankly, I don’t see any relationship whatsoever between your quotation of Rawls and what you recommend to do! Perhaps you should give the full sentence to clarify your point. I looked it up to make sure, but I guess you made a mistake. This phrase is from John Stuart Mill (see Rawls, Lectures of History of political philosophy, p. xiii). But it doesn’t matter who said it. I guess what Mill means is fidelity to the original text, which of course is a priori principle of any interpretation of texts. It’s necessary to stay as close as possible to the text in order to understand what it really means. Every historian of philosophy tries to stay as close as possible to the text. If it is really a useful advice or the right method of study is something that I put aside for the moment: it is related to the methodology of historical studies which is a very complicated subject.
پاسخحذفOn the contrary, what you propose is a prudential style of “political action”. But, what an old philosopher or a writer really thinks doesn’t have anything to do with what “he should have better to have thought”. If someone really wants to study what Plato or Hobbes thinks, he shouldn’t be interested in what might be the consequences of his discovery and its political effects. The real historical research consists of trying to understand as much as possible the historical facts (in this case, another writer’s point of view and thought) and publishing the findings, regardless of their political consequences. I can even go as far as saying what you recommend is not only unscientific, but even contrary to ethical principles of a true scholar. As I understand, you say that we should try to give the most politically correct or useful interpretation of an author even when the interpretation is refuted by some parts of the text. For example, I can easily find many undemocratic ideas in Motahari works, but I should ignore them and try to highlight other democratic ideas in his texts in order to convince my opponents that their master was a democrat and they should also be one. Of course it might be a good political strategy (which is not evident), but it doesn’t have anything to do with writing faithfully about history of ideas. Or at least it is what I think
The Rawlsian principle remebr us the principle of charity. what is named اصل حمل بر احسن
پاسخحذفTo Rasul I answered through the next post and he answered me back.
پاسخحذفTo Yaser: Thanks for your attention and comment. I did not know the Persian equivalent