The Ethics of Religious Intellectualism

This article is the first part of a two-part series. The research and writing of these two articles began approximately six years ago, and the electronic version of the first part was published online about five and a half years ago, on 3 September 2011. About a month later, the second part was published under the title “The Emancipatory Potential of Religious Intellectualism.”

The Ethics of Religious Intellectualism[1]

Mohammad Mahdi Mojahedi[2]

The attempt to transform any ethical order and any legal system without a transformation of religion is nothing more than a modern folly—[that is,] to make a revolution without a prior [religious] reformation having taken place; [that is, to entertain] the notion that a political constitution incompatible with the old religion can live in peace and harmony with that very religion and its sanctities; and [to entertain] this [notion] that the establishment and stability of laws can be secured through external guarantees.

Friedrich Hegel[3]

Introduction

The question driving this article forward is how one can strike a balance among the values and goals of religious intellectualism when they conflict with one another.[4] The discussion of the “ethics” of religious intellectualism is a discussion of a “meta” nature, and its subject is the preoccupation of religious intellectualism. Hence, the general domain of this discussion can be called “meta-religious intellectualism.” Therefore, this article does not directly address the topics and issues that religious intellectuals usually raise, and from an external perspective (in terms of the scope of the topics discussed) and with attention to a specific aspect of the preoccupation of religious intellectualism, it formulates and analyzes a conflict arising from the threefold commitments of religious intellectualism. The first two commitments are, on the one hand, a commitment to truth-seeking and the pursuit of truth, and on the other hand, a political commitment. This political commitment consists of paving the way for democracy and the acceptance of human rights in a specific society that is in a state of transition. These two commitments are the common ground between the program of religious intellectualism and the program of secular intellectualism. The distinguishing feature of these two intellectual programs is that third commitment of religious intellectualism: religious intellectualism is bound by this minimal criterion that one of the consequences of the religious intellectualism program must not be the qualitative and/or quantitative decline of religiosity in the target society (if it is not committed to the maximal criterion that one of its consequences must necessarily be the quantitative and qualitative enhancement of religiosity in that society).

The two types of conflict that are the subject of discussion in this article are not, on the one hand, conflicts between the program of religious intellectualism and criteria or matters external to this program, on the other. The characteristic of these two types of conflict is that they are internal; that is, they arise precisely when we assume the commitment to this minimal criterion alongside those two sets of defining and constitutive commitments of religious intellectualism, simultaneously as guides for the actions of religious intellectuals. The first two sets of commitments of religious intellectualism entail actions that occasionally either come into conflict with each other, or prove incompatible with the commitment to that criterion. What I mean by “the ethics of religious intellectualism” is a level of discourse that, as described, pertains, among other things, to the balancing and prioritizing of the values and goals of religious intellectualism when they conflict with one another.

It should be added here that all intellectual-political programs, even those presented in the form of systematic philosophies, are incomplete and contain internal contradictions. This observation, alongside other arguments, has convinced some political philosophers, such as Isaiah Berlin and the critical rationalists, that fundamentally, human desiderata and values cannot be brought together within a specific way of life and/or within a specific intellectual system without internal incompatibility.[5] Therefore, demonstrating the internal incompatibilities of an intellectual-political program, such as religious intellectualism, is not in itself a reproach to that program. However, precisely because of these inevitable or avoidable incompatibilities, no intellectual-political program can hope for its own continuity without devising ways to balance and prioritize its values and goals, and without constantly attending to the resolution of these conflicts. From another perspective, the secret of the continuity and advancement of an intellectual or intellectual-political program is nothing other than the successful resolution of these ever-renewing conflicts. Thinking about these conflicts and the balancing and prioritizing of the values and goals that drive the program of religious intellectualism requires elevating the epistemological level of the discussion. In other words, the nature of this discussion is, epistemologically speaking, one degree higher than the nature of the common discussions within religious intellectualism; that is, it requires stepping back from the level of religious intellectualism's discussions and engaging in a reflexive, second-order reflection on the logic of this intellectual-political program. It is for this reason that this discussion must be pursued in the domain of "meta-religious intellectualism."

To clarify this discussion, in the first part of this article, I will define what I mean by religious intellectualism. In the second part of the article, I will formulate two types of internal conflict within the program of religious intellectualism. In the third part of the article, I will first attempt to show that the solutions proposed so far for resolving this conflict lack the necessary adequacy; that is, they either lead to the dissolution of the program of religious intellectualism and, instead of solving the problem, eliminate the problem itself, or they end up issuing moral or pedagogic admonitions and practically fail to offer a way or criterion for resolving this conflict, or they refer to pseudo-criteria that, instead of clarifying and resolving the conflict, obscure it and thus render one incapable of thinking about it. Secondly, I will put forward two suggestions for further reflection on the balancing and prioritizing of the ethics of religious intellectualism.

۱. The Nature of Religious Intellectualism:

From an a posteriori perspective and with a socio-historical view, religious intellectualism is the name of an intellectual program that self-consciously pursues political goals.[6] This program is not a purely academic one, meaning it is not, for example, philosophical, scientific, or theological; nor is it an apologetic, promotional, or propagandistic program. Nor is it a program in the conventional seminary sense of religious studies. This program is an intellectual-political project that promises and strives, through the simultaneous and reciprocal critique of modernity and tradition (especially religious tradition), and by drawing upon both (sometimes as a source for criticizing the other and sometimes as significant epistemic sources in their own right), to pursue goals within a specific transitional society. These goals are political in the specific sense of the word, such as the expansion of democratic values, and/or curbing despotism, and/or severing the roots of colonialism, and/or opening up the capacity to accept human rights, and other such goals. "Political goals" should not be reduced here to their most superficial meaning. The point is not that these individuals are seeking a political career or seats of power within the official and conventional political structure. Rather, what is meant by this program being political is that it is oriented toward goals related to the sphere of politics, such as increasing democratic capacities for accepting human rights standards in social and political relations. These political goals are themselves based on moral values and derive their life and substance from them.[7]

Pursuing these aims is what distinguishes religious intellectualism from the concerns of traditionalists critical of modernity (such as Mesbah Yazdi), reformist clerics critical of certain religious traditions (such as Motahhari), and also traditionalists critical of modernity (such as Seyyed Hossein Nasr). For their own self-definition, traditionalists, reformist clerics, and traditionalists not only have no need to pursue political aims similar to those of religious intellectuals, but some are also fundamentally opposed to the very principle of democracy, human rights, and the values that support them (such as Mesbah Yazdi).[8]

On the other hand, however, for a religious intellectual, the outcome of their project must not lead to a qualitative and/or quantitative decline in religiosity among the believers of the target society. This is the distinguishing feature of religious intellectualism from secular intellectualism. In our time, secular intellectualism is represented by figures such as Aramesh Doustdar and Mohammad Reza Nikfar. If secular intellectualism does not desire a qualitative and/or quantitative decline in religiosity and its role in the target society (which it often does), it is, at the very least and rarely, indifferent to it.

This very feature that distinguishes religious intellectuals from secular intellectuals is precisely the common ground between religious intellectuals and traditionalists as well. That is, religious intellectuals, like traditional clerics, take seriously the concern and aspiration for meaning, the good, felicity, and salvation through religiosity, and cannot be indifferent to it.

The religious intellectual's strategy for achieving their political aims is an epistemic strategy. This is the truth-seeking aspect of the religious intellectual program. The religious intellectual strives, by employing various methods of historical criticism of religion, religiosity, and religious institutions, as well as using methods of critiquing the understanding of believers, to remove obstacles—which in their view stem from a misunderstanding of religion—from the path of a society transitioning toward a more modern-and-civil politics. Religious reformism and religious revivalism are the two main types of religious intellectualism. The former results from a purgative critique, and the latter from a reconstructive reading of religious texts and the heritage of religiosity. The truth-seeking in the religious intellectual program is directed at the "truth of religion" and is oriented toward the other aims and values of this intellectual-political program.

On the other hand, an intellectual, whether religious or secular, is not an "intellectual" in the sense that some prominent philosophers of the Enlightenment era were called "intellectuals." That is, an intellectual is not a philosopher, although they may incidentally know a great deal about philosophy, or deliberately and mainly make abundant use of philosophical theories and tools of thought, or even incidentally be a teacher of philosophy. Philosophical endeavor, in and of itself, should not be consciously bound to any specific socio-political outcome or program, but intellectualism without commitment to a specific socio-political program is meaningless and cannot be sustained. In other words, philosophizing is not result-oriented,[9] but result-orientation is a defining and constitutive component of intellectualism, whether secular or religious. For example, even if Abdolkarim Soroush did not hold a professorship in philosophy, he would still be considered a religious intellectual.

In precisely this sense, the work of a religious intellectual is not scientific inquiry in the specific sense we understand from inquiry in the basic sciences, philosophy, theology, and the human and natural empirical sciences. Although they may be a graduate or even a university faculty member and lecturer in any of these scientific disciplines, and may draw, to a greater or lesser extent, upon each of them to advance their intellectual project. Bazargan is an example of a religious intellectual who was a graduate and teacher of technical and engineering sciences, and occasionally drew upon this knowledge as appropriate within his intellectual program, but his knowledge in the field of thermodynamics had no bearing on his intellectual program.

اما محصولات روشن‌فکرانه‌ی روشن‌فکران دینی نه به معنای متعارفِ دانشگاهی یا حوزوی، علمی یا فلسفی یا دین‌پژوهانه است و نه اغلب چنان عرضه می شود که به کار انتشار در مجلات علمی-پژوهشی بیاید، و نه اساساً با معیار‌های حرفه‌ای دانشگاهی قابل سنجش است. روشن‌فکران دینی بنا به تخصص‌هایی که تصادفاً در حوزه‌های مختلفی از دانش ممکن است داشته باشند، ممکن است آثار علمی یا فلسفی هم تولید کنند و برخی مقالات‌شان هم ممکن است در نشریات علمی-پژوهشی منتشر شود. اما ایشان را با این قبیل آثارشان نیست که روشن‌فکر دینی شمارند. مثلاً، ما عبدالکریم سروش را به این دلیل روشن‌فکر دینی نمی‌دانیم که او کتاب مبانی ما بعد‌الطبیعی علوم نوین یا کتاب فلسفه‌ی علوم اجتماعی را ترجمه کرده است. او اگر هیچ‌یک از این کتاب‌ها را هم ترجمه نکرده بود، باز هم یکی از بزرگترین روشن‌فکران دینی ایران بود، چون آثاری مثل قبض و بسط تئوریک شریعت را نوشته است. اگر او آثاری از سنخ قبض و بسط را ننوشته بود اما ده‌ها مقاله در نشریات علمی منتشر کرده بود، ممکن بود یک ساینتیست یا فیلسوف دانسته شود، اما روشن‌فکر دینی نه. حالا هم اگر نه دارو‌سازی و شیمی خوانده بود و نه فلسفه‌ی تحلیلی، و نه کتاب‌هایی از سنخ کتاب فلسفه‌ی علوم اجتماعی را ترجمه کرده بود، باز هم روشن‌فکر دینی دانسته می‌شد چون آثاری مثل قبض و بسط را نوشته است. مثال‌ها کم نیست. شریعتی هم هرچند جامعه‌شناسی خواند و از برخی فلسفه‌های اجتماعی چپ و برخی نظریه‌های جامعه‌شناختی دهه‌ی ۱۹۶۰ متأثر بود، اما آثار او نه به معنای متعارف و آکادمیک کلمه ارزش جامعه‌شناختی دارد و نه به عنوان آثار فلسفی-اجتماعی با آثار فیلسوفان اجتماعی‌ای که او از آن‌ها متأثر بود در سطح آکادمیک قابل مقایسه است. اما کی‌ست که منکر بزرگی شریعتی به عنوان یکی از مؤثر‌ترین روشن‌فکران دینی ایران باشد؟

بر اساس این تعریف، مهدی بازرگان، عبد‌الکریم سروش، علی شریعتی، محسن کدیور و محمد مجتهد شبستری شاخص‌ترین و مؤثر‌ترین روشن‌فکران دینی دهه‌های اخیر در ایران به شمار می‌روند. نام‌های دیگری را بر این فهرست می‌توان افزود مانند عبدالعلی بازرگان، علی پایا، احمد صدری، محمود صدری، آرش نراقی و حسن یوسفی اشکوری.[10] با وجود همه‌ی تفاوت‌هایی که میان ایشان، از نظر مبانی روش‌شناختی و معرفت‌شناختی، از نظر نحوه‌ نقد سنت و تجدد، و از نظر وسعت و عمق تأثیر اجتماعی و سیاسی، هست، برنامه‌های فکری ایشان واجد هر سه معیار تعریف پیش‌گفته برای روشن فکری دینی است. برنامه‌ی روشن‌فکری دینی، بنا‌براین، کلان‌برنامه‌ای است متشکل از برنامه‌های خردتری که با وجود تمایزات و تفاوت‌هایی که با هم دارند، چندان واجد ارزش‌ها و اهداف مشترک هستند که بتوان همه‌ی آن‌ها را اعضای برنامه‌ی کلان روشن‌فکری دینی، به تعریفی که گذشت، دانست.

2. The Conflict of Values and Aims in Religious Intellectualism: As explained in the first part of this article, in addition to the concern for promoting religiosity in society that governs the religious intellectualism program, two other sets of values and aims constitute the program of religious intellectualism: truth-seeking aims and values on the one hand, and the aims and values pertaining to the political dimension of this program on the other. This duality or twofold nature of values and aims, respectively, entails two kinds of commitment: commitment to the standards of "individual rationality" and commitment to "political reasoning." In the truth-seeking critique of tradition and modernity, the epistemology chosen by any thinker (e.g., critical rationality, non-critical realism, or the like) calls upon them to adhere to specific standards governing rationality when adopting one hypothesis or abandoning another. The work of religious intellectuals in the simultaneous and reciprocal critique of tradition and modernity is measured against these standards. On the other hand, however, as a religious intellectual, the simultaneous critique of tradition and modernity, though an occupation that cannot be abandoned due to the enlightening nature of critique, is also not something by which the program of religious intellectualism can be solely explained. Religious intellectualism, at the same time, views this critique as a passage and a means to achieve specific objective aims in a particular society in transition. Therefore, the program of religious intellectualism is a program that cannot, in itself, be indifferent to its political consequences. It is this consequentialist aspect of religious intellectualism that makes it need and adhere to the standards of political reasoning, in addition to the standards of individual rationality.

One of the consequences to whose non-occurrence religious intellectuals are sensitive is that their intellectual-political program must not lead to a quantitative and qualitative decline in religiosity within their target society. If we remove this sensitivity from the intellectual-political program of religious intellectualism, this program will not differ significantly from the intellectual-political program of non-religious intellectualism. Therefore, guaranteeing this consequentialist sensitivity is one of the defining components of religious intellectualism. Some views of religious intellectuals and the works of some disseminators of their views have provoked this critique among both supporters and opponents of the religious intellectualism program: that the aims and values of this intellectual-political program have come into conflict with one another.

It is necessary here to explain what I mean by the consequentialist nature of the political-intellectual program of religious intellectualism. What is meant by consequentialism here is not its general, non-technical sense. Consequentialism in the general sense is a description that, broadly speaking, any theoretical inquiry and any practical endeavor must necessarily possess lest it be futile. In other words, every effort is directed toward some purpose; otherwise, it is futile, and in this sense, all theoretical and practical actions of rational beings, in the general sense of the word, are consequentialist, meaning they have a goal in any case. This is not the precise, technical meaning of consequentialism. Consequentialism in its specific, technical sense, which is intended here, is what explains, for example, the difference between exploratory and basic research on the one hand, and applied research on the other. It is like the difference between a political program and a purely philosophical program or an inquiry in the field of basic sciences. An intellectual-political program, such as religious intellectualism, if it cannot demonstrate that it has achieved the specific political aims it had in mind and announced from the outset, or is perceptibly moving toward them, loses its existential philosophy and political distinction, even if it has also had important achievements, for instance, in the realm of pure philosophy, literary criticism, or historical criticism of tradition. However, a purely philosophical inquiry achieves its goal if it can demonstrate that it has, in a reasoned and plausible manner, revealed a philosophical error, for example, in the understanding of one of Plato's dialogues, even if no specific, premeditated objective consequence follows from this philosophical achievement. The maximum probable achievement of a purely exploratory inquiry, after the expenditure of vast financial, temporal, and human resources, might be no more than the discovery of an asteroid thousands of light-years away. Such scientific programs are neither set aside nor considered worthless because they do not pursue a tangible and clear consequence.

Of course, a philosopher who is also a political activist, while advancing a political program, may find that the theoretical achievements of his work as a philosopher produce even unintended consequences for or against his political program. Nevertheless, this has no bearing on the philosophical value of his work; it neither adds to nor detracts from it, even if one of the unintended results of his philosophizing is that it builds up or destroys his own political program. For, in his capacity as a philosopher, he was not committed to a specific political outcome or consequence, such that now, for instance, by its contravention, his philosophical program would be rendered futile or self-defeating, or conversely, by its guarantee and fulfillment, his philosophical program would have reached its conclusion.

But the station and position of a religious intellectual, as noted, is not like that of a philosopher who has no sensitivity or commitment regarding the consequences of his theoretical inquiries. This does not contradict the possibility that a religious intellectual might also assume a philosophical role, but in his capacity as a religious intellectual, he is in fact advancing an intellectual-political program that, willy-nilly, carries with it, in addition to the requirements of a purely intellectual endeavor, the requirements of a political undertaking as well, which is, among other things, conditioned by a criterion concerning the improvement of the state of religiosity in the target society. Now, if in a hypothetical situation, the intellectual efforts of an intellectual have not advanced his political program, or have even jeopardized some values and goals of that political program, the theoretical value of these intellectual efforts cannot be considered an excuse for this political failure of his in the field of intellectualism. Or conversely, the political success of a religious intellectual cannot be taken as a reason or evidence for the success of the intellectual aspect of his program. As noted, and as will be discussed again in the third part of this article, this does not mean reducing the program of religious intellectualism to a purely pragmatist program.

Understanding religious intellectualism as an intellectual-political program committed to two kinds of theoretical and practical requirements, and this dual commitment being also conditioned by a criterion concerning the religiosity of the target society, necessitates taking seriously the question of how, when these requirements conflict, they can be brought into balance, in such a way that, as far as possible, on the one hand, the preference of one over the other, or constant hesitation and vacillation between them, does not lead to the dissolution of the religious intellectualism program, or, on the other hand, the political aspect of this program does not overshadow its epistemic aspect to such an extent that it blocks the path for a truth-seeking critique of tradition and modernity, nor does the intellectual aspect of this program override its religious considerations.

3. The Modification and Adjustment of the Values and Goals of Religious Intellectualism in Situations of Conflict:

In the first part of this section, I will examine and critique the strategies that have been proposed so far for solving this problem, and in the second part, I will put forward two alternative proposals.

3-1. So far, at least three strategies have been proposed for formulating and solving this problem. These three strategies, despite all their differences, also have common implications. Among these common implications is this analysis of the problem: that either the conflict discussed in this article essentially does not arise, or if it rarely does, its resolution is easier and less costly than to require such reflections. In my view, these three strategies, for the explanation I will provide under each, are unsuccessful.

a. The first strategy is to refer the problem to the dichotomy of “identity-oriented religiosity versus truth-oriented religiosity.”[11] This dichotomy is not merely descriptive, but also contains a normative aspect. The normative implication of this dichotomy concerns prioritizing the discovery and expression of truth over identity-oriented considerations, including political, religious-identity, or cultural considerations. The solution to the conflict, based on adopting this approach, is to arrange a hierarchy of considerations, at the top of which sit considerations pertaining to truth-orientation, followed by identity-oriented considerations. In this way, instances of conflict are resolved by referring to this hierarchical system, because identity-orientation is always pushed aside in the shadow of truth-orientation.

One of the epistemological assumptions of this dichotomy is that what each of us, as knowing subjects, perceives and formulates of reality is, on the whole, independent of the social constructs that constitute the position of each of us as knowing subjects; or if it is not entirely independent, at least at the level of epistemological analysis and critique, identity structures can supposedly be separated from the picture of truth, like a frame enclosing a photograph of truth, and the picture itself can be viewed without that frame and displayed nakedly.

In addition to this epistemological presupposition being a cumbersome and unfruitful one (great in cost, meager in aid), abandoning this presupposition is compatible neither with a hermeneutical approach to understanding and critiquing tradition and modernity, nor with the approach of the historical critique of tradition and modernity. In other words, the very two approaches to which the methodological apparatus of a major part of the project of religious intellectualism in Iran has been indebted over the past thirty years are thoroughly and deeply constructivist approaches,[12] whereas the division of religiosity into truth-oriented and identity-oriented recognizes a boundary between truth and identity that constructivism begins by negating and refuting, subsequently finding various hermeneutical, historicist, and discourse-analytical identities. Thus, this anti-constructivist strategy (i.e., dichotomizing identity-oriented religiosity versus truth-oriented religiosity), even assuming it can overcome its own epistemological problems and difficulties, ultimately cannot help resolve this problem of religious intellectualism; and even if it could offer some assistance, the price would be as heavy as imposing a severe methodological inconsistency upon the program of religious intellectualism, the remedy for which is far more complex than solving the problem itself.

B. The second strategy is the strategy of reducing the problem to the dichotomy of “the stage of seeking truth versus the stage of expressing truth.” According to this strategy, the stage of seeking truth is the stage of innovation, invention, and creativity. In this stage, the capture of clever conjectures and hypotheses is free from any limit, boundary, rule, or law. The stage of judgment and critique is also, by definition, absolved of any non-epistemic consideration. In this stage, according to this strategy, the religious intellectual neither recognizes nor can recognize any non-epistemic consideration or constraint, and even if they could, they ought not to. However, expressing the achievements of the stage of seeking truth is another stage that has its own rules and etiquettes. Based on this strategy, not every truth should be told, or at least, not every truth should be told to everyone. Specialized discussions should be brought before specialists, not before the common people. Some truths must be concealed until their perceptual faculties, epistemic constitution, and critical digestion become strong enough to handle the understanding, digestion, absorption, and critique of certain discourses contrary to the customs and habits of the community of believers. These words must be whispered softly into people’s ears so that no sleep is disturbed and no mind is troubled, lest this lead to bad faith, pessimism, and impiety, and deter the community of believers from submitting to religion or from the sphere of religiosity. Some, in following this strategy, may go even further and make the publication of critical opinions in the domain of religiosity contingent upon obtaining permission and the favorable opinion of specialists; a raw fantasy whose time for presentation has already passed, let alone for nurturing it.

The flaws of this strategy are more obvious than to require detailed explanation and elaboration. The first and least flaw of this approach is that to solve the problem, it proposes a path, proceeding along which is tantamount to the fundamental nullification of the program of religious intellectualism. In other words, if we take this approach seriously, our current problem transforms into another problem. That is, if we were to accept this solution, its requirement would be that, by observing these considerations, religious intellectualism should not have taken shape from the very first day. Adopting this approach to solve and discuss this problem is an instance of the Slippery Slope Fallacy.

This strategy has been put forward by critics of the religious intellectualism project from outside that current. Figures such as Makarem, Javadi Amoli, and Sobhani, from outside and in opposition to the religious intellectualism project, are among the proponents of this strategy. But the work of this strategy ultimately leads to avoidances that, even in the domain of the secondary rulings of religion, would deter a powerful authority like Ayatollah Borujerdi from announcing a view contrary to the mainstream even on a marginal issue such as the ruling on the traveler’s prayer[13], or would make a great authority like Ayatollah Khoei fearful of declaring the permissibility of replacing the turbah with a layer of wood embedded in prayer rugs—an initiative undertaken by the administrators of the Islamic Center of Hamburg before the Islamic Revolution to exonerate Shiites from the accusation that they prostrate upon idols of stone and clay.[14]

This strategy, in its best form, leads to a kind of advice and counsel regarding the necessity of observing a politics of expression. Advice that, while possessing pedagogic value, lacks substantive value and ultimately leaves the regulation of the politics of expression to each individual recipient of this counsel. The very fact that the pedagogic aspect of the politics of expression must be taken seriously carries no clear substantive implication as to what religious intellectuals should or should not say. For instance, both in Iran and in certain other countries, the necessity of observing a politics of expression in teaching sexual matters has led to two completely different forms of instruction on these matters. In Iran, this education is postponed until university, whereas in some other countries, such instruction begins from the early years of primary school.

On the other hand, religious intellectuals can argue that if critics are concerned about the epistemic digestion of their audience, they should know that this digestion is not strengthened except through the introduction of these very challenging discussions. The more we keep the minds and consciousness of the audience away from such discussions, the less opportunity they find to prepare themselves for digesting complex intellectual and religious issues.

P. The third strategy reduces the problem to another dichotomy: “Pious religious reform versus pragmatist religious reform.”[15] This strategy, in its most robust reconstructed form, prescribes a preference for adopting a moderate pragmatist approach over an extreme pious approach in religious reform. In this strategy, the most important problem with pious religious reform is considered to be that this type of religious reform is so radical that it uproots historically institutionalized religiosity—a religiosity that, as a social and cultural institution, can be reformed and refined in such a way as to play important roles, roles that people need. In other words, pious reform leaves nothing of religion at all.[16] The main concern here is that if we dissect religion with the scalpel of critical reason and historical criticism, in the end nothing will remain of the body of religion, because, presumably, on the one hand, few primary or secondary religious doctrines emerge safe and sound from under the scalpel of critical reason and historically-oriented criticism, and on the other hand, through the historical criticism of religion, religiosity, like any other historical phenomenon, becomes subject to judgments that leave nothing of religious sanctity and transcendence; and in the absence of religion’s rational solidity as well as its sacredness, what remains of religion except a worn-out subject for archaeological studies?

The drawback of adopting this strategy is that it can lead to a kind of non-critical religiosity that is in principle outside the definition of religious intellectualism, and if religious intellectuals wish to submit to it, they must abandon religious intellectualism altogether. This approach, too, falls prey to the same slippery slope fallacy and subordinates the aspect of religious truth-seeking—one of the most important constitutive components of the religious intellectualism project—to a pragmatist understanding (albeit a non-extreme pragmatism) of religion, thereby rendering the religious intellectualism project fundamentally moot.

Moreover, some might be able to argue forcefully against the premises of this strategy, contending that this understanding of rationality and historical criticism embedded in its premises[17] is a positivist understanding of rationality, and claim that the worry about the destruction of religion under the blade of rationality could only be apt and justified if the rationality underpinning religious intellectualism were necessarily always a positivist rationality, whereas today one can scarcely find an intellectual, if any exist at all, who undertakes the critique of religion from a positivist standpoint of rationality.

On the other hand, the method of the later Mostafa Malekian in the radical critique of religion and religiosity (as also reflected in some writings of Akbar Ganji) has found little acceptance or currency among religious intellectuals. Mostafa Malekian’s judgment is entirely correct that religious intellectuals do not extend the critique of religion and religiosity to questioning the historical reliability of religious texts and their epistemological authority.[18]

Furthermore, from an interreligious perspective, it is a valuable observation that modern Christian theology has shaped a variety of rational theologies, including one based on Reformed Epistemology. Another example is John Hick’s religious pluralism, which is the product of a rational-critical project in the field of philosophy of religion and modern Christian theology. The same point can, of course, be made with a little caution regarding the historical criticism of religion as well. It is true that among the writers and disseminators of intellectual views there are those who turn the cultural-historical critique of religion and/or religiosity into a kind of radical historicism that ultimately leads to historicist reductionism,[19] which is a fallacious reduction, but one can hardly say that the historical criticism of religion in the program of religious intellectualism in Iran has been based on such a reduction. According to this twofold argument, the concern that serves as an argument for the third strategy loses its force.

3-2. Two Proposals for Further Reflection on the Balance and Priorities of the Ethics of Religious Intellectualism: In the introduction and also in the second part of this article, two conflicts at the heart of the religious intellectualism program were introduced: one, the incompatibility between the requirements of simultaneous commitment to standards of truth-seeking and standards of political argumentation; the other, the conflict that possibly arises between adherence to standards of rationality in the critique of religiosity on the one hand, and the concern for not diminishing religiosity on the other, within the target society of religious intellectuals. The two interrelated proposals below address these two kinds of incompatibility and conflict, respectively.

a. The first proposal is aimed at removing or mitigating epistemological asymmetry from the program of religious intellectualism. Epistemological asymmetry, according to one of its definitions, occurs when the standards we apply to examine and reject a hypothesis consistent with our beliefs are stricter than the standards we employ to examine and reject a hypothesis contrary to our other beliefs.[20] That is, we readily reject hypotheses incompatible with our other beliefs, but resist rejecting hypotheses compatible with our other beliefs. As Mawlana Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi says in the Divan-e Shams,

I deem it forbidden to speak with people,

But when talk of You arises, I prolong the speech.

I limp in a thousand ways on every path they take me,

The path that leads toward You, I gallop down.

From the itching thorn of longing for You, I become a thorn-gatherer,

From the narcissus and the hundred-petaled rose, I abstain.

I see all felicity when I head toward misfortune,

All becomes truth if I deem it metaphor.[21]

This asymmetry can take the form that, when it comes to democracy or modern politics, we either dismiss its critique altogether or critique it indulgently and with forbearance, but when it comes to criticizing traditional religiosity, we bring forth the most rigorous critiques. By analogy with this definition, a kind of epistemological asymmetry can be identified in the program of religious intellectuals. This asymmetry may be one of the principal sources of the incompatibility between the political aspect and the truth-seeking aspect of this program. This asymmetry manifests itself in many instances; for example, by comparing the critical reading of religion on the one hand, and the critique of modernity on the other, among religious intellectuals, this conflict becomes apparent. These two types of critique sit at the core of the definition of religious intellectualism, but the record of religious intellectualism shows that even the mild critique of democracy and human rights that occasionally appears, particularly in the works of the disseminators of our religious intellectuals' views, is entirely marginal, whereas the critique of religiosity is not only central but, by comparison, also very radical, rigorous, and earnest. Religious intellectualism has devoted most of its effort to criticizing religion and historical religiosity in order to open a passage toward a more modern and civil politics, a democratic politics with a broader capacity for accepting human rights in Iran. But the critique of politics and governance in the West, and the critique of democracy and human rights—which are highly prevalent in Western academic and intellectual spheres—if not entirely absent from the discourse of religious intellectualism, can be said to have never, in terms of either quantity or quality and robustness, matched their critique of the religious tradition.

The cause of this asymmetry could be considered the exigencies of the asymmetrical space in which post-revolutionary intellectualism has flourished. But if we accept this, it is itself another part of the problem statement, not the answer to the problem. Religious intellectualism is not a critical response to the static and stationary condition of society such that its record could be measured merely by a static reference to a specific cross-section of the intersection of politics and religiosity in Iran. Religious intellectualism, by definition, is a critical and path-opening response to the exigencies of the transitional situation in a given society, a transition toward a more modern and civil politics, democratic and compatible with human rights standards. This requires a dynamic and evolving critique from religious intellectualism. Therefore, religious intellectualism cannot, while exercising seriousness, effort, and independent reasoning in the radical critique of a dilapidated religiosity, abandon the critique of modern politics, because if religious intellectualism has presented modern civil politics as the desirable future of a society in transition—which it has done repeatedly—then the critique of this modern civil politics must also have found a central place in their intellectual-political program, a place which, of course, has been conspicuously empty until now.

One of the consequences of abandoning the direct critique of modern politics and human rights discourse, as far as the discussion of this article is concerned, is precisely this tension that has arisen between the political aspect of the religious intellectualism program and the epistemological aspect of this program, yet has remained unthought. In many works of religious intellectualism, while religiosity is considered historical and context-dependent, the historical aspect of the formation of democracy and the "invention of human rights"[22] is left unsaid or ignored. For this reason, for instance, the cultural diversity of the societies that have cultivated model and exemplary democracies from within, and the different hues that these colorful national and local cultures have cast upon the diverse models of democracy, have been ignored or left unsaid, and the actually existing external democracies have been conflated with an ideal definition of democracy. Furthermore, the political aspect and the historicity of human rights have also remained unthought in this context. In the absence of political thought about (and historical critique of) human rights among religious intellectuals, human rights has been reduced, in their view, to its moral or legal aspect. The program of religious intellectualism, if it wishes to reconcile political argument alongside epistemological argument with less incompatibility, requires taking the political seriously and thinking about power and politics. Thinking about power and politics, not in passing and through thinking about other subjects, is the yield of the first proposal. Power and the political, even if they have rarely found their way into the discourse of religious intellectualism, have often been the subject of moral denials.

Recognizing power and the political (as two categories that must be placed at the center of religious intellectualism’s discussions and subjected directly to critical and foundational thinking) is the first condition of possibility for thinking about the conflict that exists between the epistemological dimension and the political dimension of this intellectual-political program. A comparison of religious intellectualism in Iran and Turkey can clearly reveal this point.

B. The second proposal concerns the conflict between religious concerns on the one hand and the critique of religiosity on the other. In Iran, religious intellectualism, like many of its rival and alternative programs, focuses its political program on the critique of religious understanding. A general and deeply entrenched belief about political and social transformation guides this strategy. According to this compound belief, first, political transformation is a function of cultural transformation (a culturalist reduction, sometimes attributed to Max Weber due to a misreading of him); second, cultural transformation is a function of the most important component of culture, namely religiosity (reduction of culture to religion); and third, the most important aspect of religiosity is religious understanding (reduction of religion to religious knowledge). Thus, by a reverse course, it is clear why engaging in the critique of religious beliefs and knowledge is generally considered the starting point of various projects of political and social transformation. For that same general belief dictates that by changing the religious beliefs and knowledge of the faithful, the state of religiosity will change, and by changing the state of religiosity (i.e., changing people’s relationship with religion), culture will change, and once culture has changed, politics, society, and the economy will also be transformed.

The dispute and rivalry between religious intellectualism and its rival and alternative programs has, of course, always been over what the desirable change is, and hence, which aspect of the faithful’s religious knowledge must change at the outset and what must replace it so that the desired political change is ultimately achieved has differed from one program of political transformation to another. The exposition and critique of this strategy common to religious intellectualism and its alternative and rival programs requires a separate occasion. In criticizing this strategy, it can be briefly noted in passing that this general belief rests on at least three reductionist fallacies: reduction to culture (culturalism), reduction to religion (religionism), and reduction to epistemology (epistemologism).[23]

The most important error that has entered the program of religious intellectualism through this strategy is the belief that the main obstacle to the civil-and-modern becoming of politics, government, and society is the unfounded religious beliefs and/or religious superstitions held by the faithful of that society. The rationalization of religiosity, the demystification of religious culture, the reform of religious thought, the replacement of one reading of the text with another reading of the text, and the like—which constitute the bulk and volume of our religious intellectuals’ intellectual output—are all based on that same compound diagnosis and hope that if they become established, they will also pave the way for democracy, human rights, and a civil politics. This diagnosis has, on the one hand, opened the path to a kind of automatism, meaning that the most important task to be done is the replacement (all at once or gradually) of unsubstantiated/unexamined religious beliefs with substantiated/examined religious beliefs, and the rest of the path of changes until reaching the political goals of religious intellectualism will be traversed automatically and like dominoes. As a result, and on the other hand, a kind of maximal self-sufficiency from attending to the models and theories, history, and experiences of democratizing political transformation has cast a shadow over the atmosphere of our religious intellectualism. Consequently, among our religious intellectuals, attention to theories of philosophical theology, modern theology, the historical critique of religiosity, and the critical reading of certain classical religious texts to achieve the desired political changes has reached a point of inflation, while the review of the rich literature of the social sciences and sociology concerning the diverse models of political and social transformation in societies similar to ours has been entirely neglected.

One consequence of this neglect, as far as the subject of this article is concerned, is that a crucial non-necessitation, which is key to the project of religious intellectualism, has been overlooked: namely, the non-necessitation between the prevalence of a pure, scholarly, rational, and demystified religiosity on the one hand, and democracy, the acceptance of human rights, and modern-civil politics on the other. Such a necessitation is not only unproven, but abundant evidence among stable democracies as well as newly emerging democracies testifies to its absence. From Japan and Malaysia to India, Australia, America, and England. Not only are many of these democratic societies among the most superstitious contemporary societies, but in some cases they are also among the most religious, such as America and Malaysia, and, as it happens, a religiosity purged of superstition is not prevalent in them either.

Critique of Shi‘ism in Iran is the main and common strategy of both religious and non-religious intellectualism for achieving more or less shared political goals such as democracy. To the extent that not only is the religious authority of the clergy considered an obstacle to democratization, but Mahdism, pilgrimage, intercession, mourning rituals, exaggeration in claims about the knowledge and infallibility of the Shi‘a Imams, and other beliefs, ceremonies, and cultural and social structures of Shi‘ism are also counted among the impediments to democracy. Regardless of whether these beliefs, ceremonies, institutions, and structures have a sound basis in the early, founding historical sources of Shi‘ism or not, one can argue, based on the mainstream of sociological theories, social sciences, cultural studies, and anthropology concerning processes of democratization, that democracy is almost entirely independent of all these cultural components. That is, all these components of cultural and “non-rationalized” Shi‘ism could increase in Iran while society and politics simultaneously become more democratic, and vice versa; that is, all these components could diminish and a rationalized Shi‘ism could replace them, yet democracy might still not find favor.[24]

The second proposal is not that religious intellectualism should abandon religious truth-seeking, but rather that the unbalanced and asymmetrical focus on this aspect of the religious intellectualism program should be moderated in favor of focusing on theories of political and social transformation in societies similar to our own. In that case, religious intellectualism would continue its efforts in the path of truth-seeking critique of religion for that segment of the community of believers for whom cultural religiosity no longer meets their spiritual needs, but it would not place its audience at the crossroads of a fruitless choice: either to abandon cultural religiosity in order to attain democracy and human rights, or to take up their cultural religiosity and forgo democracy and human rights. The first option will mainly be the choice of those for whom the pursuit of democracy and the demand for human rights take priority over religiosity. While with this choice they also lose that existing store of unexamined cultural religiosity, they attain neither democracy nor necessarily a more refined experience of religiosity, which is a double loss. The second option, however, is the choice of those who consent to preserving their traditional, unexamined, popular, “unreformed,” and non-rationalized religiosity at the price of abandoning the aspiration for democracy and human rights. The most determined enemies of democracy and human rights can arise from this latter group.

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[1] The research and writing of this article began approximately six years ago, and its electronic version was published online approximately five and a half years ago, on 2 September 2011.

Although a relatively long time has now passed since the first publication of this article, I do not find its republication without the slightest change untimely now, especially since, alongside similar explorations in name and content that have been published during this period and particularly recently, it might, for its part, provide the ground for useful and long-overdue conversations about the present and future of religious intellectualism.

The idea for this article would never have taken shape without the conversations the author has had with many friends, colleagues, and students in recent years about religious and secular intellectualism. However, the current form of this article is indebted to the helpful suggestions and important criticisms that some of my friends and colleagues shared with me in writing and orally after reading the early drafts of this article. I wish to thank them once again here. In the margins of the first two drafts of this article, Ali Paya shared valuable criticisms and suggestions with me with exemplary care and patience. I accepted some of them and employed them in developing the subsequent drafts of the article now before you, but our conversation about some of the most important ones continues, even beyond the framework of this article. Mohsen Kadivar shared his critiques of the first draft of this article with me, some of which I used to develop the current form of the article. In light of the critiques offered by Mahmoud Sadri and Arash Naraghi, I added clarifications to two paragraphs of the article to make my meaning clearer. Also, the valuable observations of Seyyed Sadegh Haghighat and Seyyed Ali Mirmousavi prompted me to disambiguate certain points. Yaser Mirdamadi noted several points in the margins of the second draft of the article, some of which are reflected in the current draft. Soroush Dabbagh and Dariush Mohammadpour read the article with interest and discussed it with me. I am very grateful to all of them. Responsibility for the current form and content of this article rests solely with the author.

[2] Researcher at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge (2011).

[3] G.W.F. Hegel, The Philosophy of Mind, A.V. Miller (tr.), Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1973, § 551, pp. 287-88.

[4] Some, like Mostafa Malekian, have argued that "religious intellectualism" is a conceptually oxymoronic compound. The discussions in this article are independent of the affirmation or negation of this position, because in this article "religious intellectualism," as will be elaborated in paragraph one of this same article, is a designative and a posteriori title that refers to an intellectual-political program as a socio-historical entity, and is not based on an a priori definition and/or a conceptual or linguistic analysis of the term "religious intellectualism."

[5] This view of Isaiah Berlin is one of the ideas derived from his theory of pluralism. Berlin's pluralism and its relationship to relativism has always been a matter of dispute. For a deep and critical review of what transpired around this theory in the history of political thought in the second half of the twentieth century, and especially the subtle and delicate difference between this theory and relativism, see this brilliant article by Steven Lukes:

Steven Lukes, "Isaiah Berlin's Dilemma: Must Pluralists be Relativists?" Times Literary Supplement, March 1998.

Also see this article by the same author:

"An Unfasionable Fox," The Legacy of Isaiah Berlin, R. Dworkin, M. Lilla and R. B. Silvers (eds), New York, New York Review Books, 2001.

[6] For example, religious pluralism is a topic in modern philosophy of religion and theology. But for Abdolkarim Soroush, for instance, pursuing the theory of religious pluralism is not merely a discussion in modern philosophy of religion and theology. As I have noted in another article critiquing his political pluralism, in one of his lectures, he reviews his own intellectual-political record and shows how the four domains of his theorizing—namely, classical mysticism, the theory of the theoretical contraction and expansion of the Sharia, the theory of the expansion of prophetic experience, and finally, the idea of democracy—relate to one another. He introduces the first three domains as the sources of religious pluralism, and religious pluralism as the ground for negating political despotism, affirming political pluralism, and ultimately establishing democracy in Iranian society.

My article entitled “Unopened Pluralism: A Critical Reflection on the Political Thought of Abdolkarim Soroush,” which was published in the festschrift for his sixty-fifth birthday, is a critique of the pluralism of his intellectual-political program. You can find that article here:

http://www.soroushmilad.com/کثرت‌گرایی-نا‌گشوده-درنگی-انتقادی

You can listen to his lecture on religious pluralism and its political significance via this link

[7] Values such as reducing human suffering and pain, and unlocking spiritual, moral, transcendent, and emancipatory capacities.

[8] This is not to say that he is necessarily oblivious to the political dimension of his intellectual programs. His difference from religious intellectualism, as will also be discussed in the final paragraph of the third part of this article, is that in order to achieve desiderata that differ from those of religious intellectualism, he has pursued different political programs.

[9] It is clear that the knowledge-enhancing quality of a scientific or philosophical inquiry is a separate category, independent of whether it is outcome-oriented or not.

[10] I have listed these names solely in alphabetical order by their surnames.

[11]  The most important source of this strategy is the distinction that Abdolkarim Soroush has drawn between these two modes of religiosity in his works (for example, see his lecture entitled “Islam of Truth, Islam of Identity” dated October 23, 1997). For him, until recently, this distinction clearly signified the superiority of religious truth over religious identity, placing religious intellectualism in the ranks of those concerned with religious truth, and he considered this to be constitutive of intellectualism. Approximately nine years after that lecture, in an interview dated August 16, 2006, he emphasizes: “The religious intellectual deals more with religious truth than with religious identity. Identity is for the clergy. The Islam of religious intellectuals is the Islam of truth, and identity is secondary to it. The religious intellectual must, above all, deal with faith, religious experience, various religious interpretations, and providing the practical possibility for these.” Yet in the same interview, traces of doubt about this separation and judgment become apparent: “In my opinion, a third way can be assumed and realized in practice, and that is a balance between the truth-oriented and identity-oriented aspects of religion. If this balance is lost, we end up either with fundamentalism or with Sufism, which is a kind of dominance of truth over identity” (emphasis not in the original text). (http://www.drsoroush.com/Persian/Interviews/P-INT-13850525-Mosahebeh.html) These traces of doubt have become more pronounced and prominent from that date until now, to the point where, in one of his most recent lectures on June 29, 2011, while placing eloquent emphasis on the importance of religious identity and the identity-related aspects of faith, he even considered the concern for religious identity to be one of the defining components of religious intellectualism and “introduced religious intellectuals as thinkers who have a religious belonging, meaning their hearts are devoted to religious truth and identity, yet at the same time they are not clerics” (emphasis not in the original text). (http://www.drsoroush.com/Persian/By_DrSoroush/P-NWS-13900418-GoftemaneHoghoogheBasharDarAndisheDini.html). This course of evolution in his views could be a sign that, even for him, both that distinction and its normative implication have gradually faded over time.

[12] It is clear that constructivism refers to a different meaning among critical rationalist philosophers, postmodern philosophers, and some idealists.

[13]  I heard this anecdote during one of the jurisprudence lessons from Mohammad-Baqer Baqeri Kani, one of the direct students of Ayatollah Boroujerdi’s jurisprudence classes, at Imam Sadiq University in 1994.

[14]  I and a group of other friends heard this anecdote, among others, from Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari in 2003 at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin). He is the direct narrator of this anecdote.

[15]  The latest and most straightforward formulations of this approach can be found in these three articles by Mahmoud Sadri: “The Rush Down the Slope of Purism,” here: http://www.rahesabz.net/story/39142/ , “The Self-Regard of Purism,” here: http://www.rahesabz.net/story/40284/ and “Purism: The Blue Glass; From ‘Mocking the Imam of the Age’ to Criticizing ‘Cow-Worshippers,’” here: http://www.rahesabz.net/story/40362/  Although Mahmoud Sadri’s critiques in these three articles are mostly (if not entirely) directed at Akbar Ganji’s recent writings, and for this reason one cannot attribute this strategy to Mahmoud Sadri based solely on these three articles, the logic of his critical argument in these three articles is not only readily extendable to the project of certain productive religious intellectuals, but he himself has in fact previously published a piece using this very same logic in critique of one of the prominent projects of religious intellectualism. Mahmoud Sadri’s letter dated August 20, 2005, to Abdolkarim Soroush is evidence of this extendability and indeed the inclusiveness of this pragmatist critique. That letter was written in critique of Abdolkarim Soroush’s lecture titled “Shiism and the Challenge of Democracy,” dated July 25, 2005, at the Sorbonne University. In that lecture, points were raised in favor of the hypothesis of the “incompatibility of Velayat and Mahdism with democracy.” Mahmoud Sadri’s critical letter, which after about six years, on April 15, 2011, was published under the title “A Reflection on the Incompatibility of Modern Democracy with Velayat and Mahdism in Shiism” in the collection “Paths Traversed” by Nashr-e Aam, is written from the same theoretical standpoint that also underpins Mahmoud Sadri’s three recent articles critiquing Akbar Ganji’s writings. Find Mahmoud Sadri’s letter to Abdolkarim Soroush at this address: http://www.rahesabz.net/story/35572/  See a report of Abdolkarim Soroush’s lecture, which this letter critiques, here: http://www.drsoroush.com/Persian/News_Archive/P-NWS-1384-05-10-LectureInParis.html

Find some of Akbar Ganji’s recent writings on this subject through the following four links:

“The Successor to the Imam of the Age and Mocking the Imam of the Age,” Radio Zamaneh, Sunday, June 19, 2011, http://www.radiozamaneh.com/politics/2011/06/19/4845

“The Invention of Shiism,” Gooya News, Tuesday, June 28, 2011, http://news.gooya.com/politics/archives/2011/06/123988.php

“The Invention of the Essentials of Shiism,” Radio Zamaneh, Thursday, July 7, 2011, http://www.radiozamaneh.com/reflections/2011/07/07/5255

“The End of Ideology, History, Belief,” Roozonline, Wednesday, August 3, 2011, http://www.roozonline.com/persian/opinion/opinion-article/archive/2011/august/03/article/-945f693ce0.html

[16]  Mahmoud Sadri writes in “The Downward Acceleration of Purism”: “Purism is inherently contradictory because if the touchstone of pure reason and historical reality were to be applied uniformly and homogeneously, as the saying goes, ‘If it is decreed that the drunkards be taken, / In the city, all that exists will be taken,’ not only what the purists deem invalid, but also what they permit will pass under the blade of rational critique, and purism will be dragged into the arena of irreligion. (For example, if Imamate is irrational, why not raise the same irrationality regarding prophethood or resurrection? And so on). Since purists cannot tolerate such an outcome, they are compelled at some point, arbitrarily, to patch up the work of critique otherwise no religion will remain” (emphasis not in the original).

[17]  See the quotation I provided in footnote 16.

[18] He has, among other instances, pointed to this matter in this lecture: “The Pathology of Religious Intellectualism,” dated September 6, 2007, at the Religion and Modernity Conference. The text of this lecture can be read in two parts via these two links:  http://www.bashgah.net/fa/content/show/23362 and http://www.bashgah.net/fa/content/show/23378

[19]  The historicist fallacy in its general sense means that in understanding the content of a thought, or finding the cause of an event, or finding the cause and analyzing the meaning of an action, we refer them to the characteristics of the contexts of their formation, characteristics such as the historical period, and/or the geographical and/or cultural-local features of the environment in which that thought, event, or action was formed. Here, I mean this same general sense of the historicist fallacy. For a detailed discussion of this and to become acquainted with the theoretical developments of historicism, refer to the following two sources:

Jeffrey Kahan, "Historicism" Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 50, No. 4, 1997.

John Brannigan, New Historicism and Cultural Materialism, USA, Palgrave, 2003.

[20] Philip Kitcher, Science, Truth, and Democracy, New York: Oxford UP, pp. 93-108.

[21]  Divan-e Shams, Ghazal 1724.

[22]  For an example of serious discussions in this field, consider this book:

Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights, W. W. Norton, 2007.

[23]  I have expounded on the three aforementioned fallacies in the critique of the religious intellectualism program during a lecture at a conference hosted by the Islamic Association of Isfahan University of Technology on December 19, 2007, which has not yet been published. I hope that in the continuation of this article, the opportunity to write and publish that material will also arise.

[24]  Mahmoud Sadri, in this piece, has provided useful pointers in this regard: “A Reflection on the Incompatibility of Modern Democracy with Velayat and Mahdism in Shiism,”

http://www.drsoroush.com/Persian/On_DrSoroush/P-CMO-13840529-MahmoudSadri.html

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PDF file of the article The Ethics of Religious Intellectualism

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The Ethics of Religious Intellectualism

Author: Mohammad Mehdi Mojahedi

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