Can Plagiarism Ever Be Redeemed?

Amirhossein Khodaparast: Self-plagiarism means using one's own previous works in a new context without indicating their prior publication. Plagiarism is the use of substantial portions of others' texts in a way that implies originality. Even if the new text contains citations, if the expression of the material is not significantly altered or the quoted material is not placed within quotation marks, the new text constitutes an instance of plagiarism and scientific fraud. Although the executive bylaw of the Law on the Prevention and Combating of Fraud in the Preparation of Scientific Works has not yet been promulgated, these two cases have already been considered scientific misconduct in some of the country's scientific journals. In these journals, one of the ethical standards is the prohibition of "copying or repeating substantial parts of another article," "even if the copied article belongs to one of the authors of the new article." One of the journals that has explicitly stated these phrases in its authors' guidelines section is the Javidan Kherad journal, belonging to the Iranian Institute of Philosophy, currently headed by Abdolhossein Khosropanah.

Based on these points, it unfortunately appears that some of the works of Abdolhossein Khosropanah, the head of the Iranian Institute of Philosophy, exhibit both types of scientific misconduct. Firstly, chapters and parts of Khosropanah's works have been republished with slight changes in his different books, in such a way that the manner of expressing the material and its content in one work is so similar to the manner of expression and content of the same material in other works—despite some reordering and word changes—that it reinforces the suspicion of self-plagiarism and book-making. As far as I have seen, the first and second chapters of New Theological Issues and the Philosophy of Religion (Qom: Al-Mustafa International Publications, 2009) are very similar, and in places identical, to the first chapter of New Theology (Qom: Center for Cultural Studies and Research of the Seminary, 2000) and parts of the first and seventh discourses of Modern Islamic Theology (Qom: Islamic Education and Training, second edition: 2015) and the third chapter of Human Expectations of Religion (Tehran: Research Institute for Islamic Culture and Thought, second edition: 2007). The same point applies to the eighth and ninth chapters of New Theological Issues and the Philosophy of Religion and the second chapter of New Theology; the tenth and eleventh chapters of New Theological Issues and the Philosophy of Religion and the twelfth chapter of New Theology; large parts of the fourth chapter of New Theological Issues and the Philosophy of Religion and the third discourse of Modern Islamic Theology; almost all of the sixth and seventh chapters of New Theological Issues and the Philosophy of Religion and a large part of the sixth discourse of Modern Islamic Theology; almost the entirety of the eleventh discourse of Modern Islamic Theology and a large part of the eleventh chapter of New Theology; parts of the twelfth discourse of Modern Islamic Theology and the eighth chapter of New Theology; parts of the twenty-first discourse of Modern Islamic Theology and the thirteenth chapter of New Theology; parts of the twenty-second discourse of Modern Islamic Theology and the fifth chapter of New Theology; parts of the twenty-third discourse of Modern Islamic Theology and the ninth chapter of New Theology; substantial parts of the twenty-ninth discourse of Modern Islamic Theology and the fourteenth and sixteenth chapters of New Theology; and parts of the thirty-seventh discourse of Modern Islamic Theology and the sixteenth chapter of New Theological Issues and the Philosophy of Religion. Furthermore, Khosropanah has a book titled Moderate Expectations of Religion (Tehran: Organization of Basij Professors of Universities and Higher Education Centers of the Country, 2011) which is, in fact, the same as the seventh, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth chapters of Modern Islamic Theology. This book is listed as an independent book on Khosropanah's website.

More regrettable than copying and cheating from one’s own works is copying and cheating from the works of others. This has occurred in at least one instance in Khosropanah’s writings related to the philosophy of religion. A significant portion of the fourteenth chapter of New Theological Issues and the Philosophy of Religion is, in fact, a summary and transcription of the fourth chapter of the book Immortality (Qom: Bustan-e Ketab-e Qom, 1382 [2003]), written by Dr. Reza Akbari, a professor at Imam Sadiq University. The fifteenth chapter of Khosropanah’s book is a summary of part of the discussions in the second chapter of Immortality. In the fourteenth chapter, however, this summarizing is accompanied by transcription. Khosropanah might say that in some places in this chapter he has cited Akbari’s writing. But, first, with this volume of summarization, merely citing at the end of a sentence or paragraph is insufficient, and the author must explicitly state that the material is fundamentally based on such-and-such a source. Moreover, if we take one citation of Akbari’s book as the criterion for Khosropanah’s integrity in summarizing and transcribing from that book, what do we do with the occasional citations to other works that Khosropanah appends to material actually written by Akbari? Second, as it happens, in cases where the material has been transcribed completely or with very minor alterations, there is no citation at all.

Bearing in mind that the instances of transcription are more extensive than those I have provided, and I am compelled to truncate even these quoted instances with an ellipsis ‘...’ in places, consider these examples:

Mediums are one of the subjects researched in the contemporary era within the field of parapsychology. They are individuals who claim to be able to communicate with spirits and convey their messages to the living. Mediums are divided into mental (trance) mediums and physical mediums. If mental mediums wish to establish communication with spirits, they sit calmly in a chair and close their eyes. After a while, the medium begins to breathe deeply, snore softly, and struggle, taking on the state of a person who has fallen into a deep but restless sleep and is suffering from a nightmare. After a few minutes, they assume a calmer state, and a kind of murmuring can be heard, such that the impression is created that the medium is talking to themselves. After some time, the medium begins to speak aloud. In this state, the medium’s voice and demeanor change, and sometimes their speech is in words completely different from their ordinary speech... (Akbari, pp. 312-313).

“Mediums” are individuals who claim to be able to communicate with spirits and convey their messages to the living. Mediums are divided into “mental mediums” and “trance mediums”: the mental medium sits calmly in a chair and closes their eyes. After a while, the medium begins to breathe deeply and snore. In this state, the medium takes on the state of a person who has fallen into a deep but restless sleep and is suffering from a nightmare. They calm down after a few minutes. In this state, a kind of murmuring can be heard. Then the medium begins to speak aloud. In this state, the quality of the voice and the medium’s demeanor change, to the point where sometimes their speech is in words completely different from ordinary speech... (Khosropanah, p. 250).

As you can see, in this transcription, Khosropanah carelessly mistakes mental and trance mediums, which Akbari presents as two different terms for one type of medium, for two distinct categories, thereby mangling Akbari’s division. A little later, he mentions “physical mediums,” whereas, due to this mangling, the “physical medium” as the second category of mediums is never even introduced to the reader. As I said earlier, this material is also repeated in the third volume of Modern Islamic Theology. For this reason, this error is repeated in that book as well (pp. 430-431). The next instance:

Another phenomenon investigated by parapsychology is that of near-death perceptual experiences. In some cases, individuals who are medically apparently dead—that is, their heart and brain show no activity—are revived. Some of these individuals have reported perceiving realities after death that are entirely different from material realities... If we disregard the minor differences in the perceptions of such individuals, their general characteristics are as follows: a sensation of leaving the body and floating above it, hearing a loud sound at the onset of subsequent perceptions, a feeling of being drawn into a dark tunnel, entering a luminous and bright realm, meeting deceased friends and relatives, encountering a luminous being of immense attractiveness..., approaching a boundary that is the border between worldly and otherworldly life, returning to the world and the worldly body, and the reactivation of bodily functions such as heartbeat and brain waves. Usually, those who have such experiences develop a different conception of death and have no fear of it... (Akbari, p. 324).

Another phenomenon investigated by "parapsychologists" is near-death perceptual experiences. In some cases, individuals who are medically truly dead and whose heart and brain show no activity are revived. Some of these individuals have reported perceiving realities after death that are entirely different from material realities. If we disregard the minor differences in these reports, we can enumerate their general characteristics as follows: a sensation of leaving the body and floating above it, hearing a loud sound, a feeling of being drawn into a dark tunnel, entering a luminous and bright realm, meeting deceased friends and relatives, and in some cases encountering a luminous being of immense attractiveness, and after passing through these stages, approaching worldly life again, returning to the body, and finally the reactivation of bodily organs, such as the heart and brain. These individuals usually develop a different interpretation of death and no longer fear death (Khosropanah, pp. 252-253).

It is interesting that at the end of this paragraph, Khosropanah cites John Hick's book Philosophy of Religion. The next instance:

Moral arguments for immortality begin in earnest with Kant. Kant was a philosopher in the Wolffian tradition, and Wolff is among the Cartesian philosophers; therefore, we must characterize him as an extreme rationalist. Kant grew up in such a tradition, that is, extreme rationalism. But, in his own words, by studying Hume's works, he was awakened from the dogmatic slumber of extreme rationalism. Hume is an empiricist philosopher who casts doubt on many of the prominent debates of his time... The issues raised by Hume had a tremendous impact on Kant. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant, like Hume, adopted the view that reason is incapable of proving the existence of God, human free will, and the immortality of the soul. He came to believe that reason issues antinomial judgments in the aforementioned domains, but unlike Hume, who had adopted a skeptical stance, he stated that by moving beyond the domain of theoretical reason and entering the realm of practical reason, one can find grounds for belief in the existence of God, the existence of free will in humans, and the existence and immortality of the soul... (Akbari, pp. 340-341).

Moral arguments for "immortality" begin in earnest with Kant. He was initially affiliated with the Wolffian tradition, which was considered a Cartesian rationalism. Kant grew up in such a tradition. But, in his own words, by studying Hume's works, he was awakened from the dogmatic slumber of extreme rationalism. Hume is an empiricist philosopher who casts doubt on many prominent philosophical debates. From the position of a skeptic, the issues raised by Hume had a tremendous impact on Kant. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant, like Hume, holds the view that reason is incapable of proving the existence of God, human free will, and immortality. He came to believe that reason issues antinomial judgments in the aforementioned domains, but unlike Hume, who had fallen into skepticism, he concluded that by moving beyond the domain of theoretical reason and entering the realm of practical reason, one can find grounds for belief in the existence of God, the existence of free will in humans, and the existence and immortality of the soul... (Khosropanah, pp. 254-255).

These lines and the lines that follow are merely Akbari's introduction to his discussion and simple points from the history of philosophy, yet Khosropanah has copied even these. The next instance:

Fideism – Fideism is a view that considers the presentation of rational arguments concerning religious propositions to be futile, even harmful. We first explain two types of fideism that have been more widespread in the history of human thought to prepare the ground for a discussion of immortality in this area. 1. Kierkegaardian Fideism – Kierkegaard is a philosopher who is today situated within the school of existentialist philosophers. In his thought, faith holds a lofty position... Kierkegaard believes that truth is subjective and that seeking it through objective arguments is inappropriate and even harmful. From the notion that “truth is subjectivity,” three reasons can be found for truth not being objective, arguments that Robert Merrihew Adams refers to as the argument from approximation, the argument from postponement, and the argument from passion... (Akbari, pp. 35-351).

Fideism – Fideism is a view in which the presentation of rational arguments concerning religious propositions is deemed futile or even harmful. In the history of thought, fideism is mainly expressed through two approaches, which we will briefly explain here: 1. Kierkegaardian Fideism – Kierkegaard is an existentialist philosopher in whose thought faith enjoys a lofty status. He believes that “truth” is subjective and that seeking it through objective arguments is inappropriate and even harmful. He deems the use of reason in the domain of religion inappropriate for three reasons... (Khosropanah, p. 257).

In the following, Khosropanah summarizes and transcribes all three of Kierkegaard’s reasons (though he has altered the pronunciation of his name to Kierkegaard) and Wittgensteinian fideism from Akbari’s book.

Unfortunately, scientific misconduct has become so entrenched in the country’s academic environment that discussion of it has crossed the boundaries of the scientific community and spilled into the public sphere, and has gone beyond domestic reactions to provoke international reactions as well. However, the misconduct referred to in this note is not merely an addition to previous frauds and violations. This time, it appears that someone who holds highly influential positions in the country’s academic and seminary centers has engaged in such behavior. The question is: Does the content of the Law on Prevention and Confrontation with Fraud in the Preparation of Scientific Works apply equally to everyone?

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Can “Plagiarism” Ever Be Redeemed? Author: Amirhossein Khodaparast Faculty Member, Iranian Institute of Philosophy .

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