Iranian Intellectuals and Identity in the Mirror of Crisis

Abstract

The search for identity type in the thought of Iranian intellectuals necessitated dealing with this question: what kinds of factors have affected the Iranian intellectuals’ opinions on identity? And is it possible to provide any explanation on the diversity of identity types? With the use of Weber’s sociology of knowledge and methodological inquiry of Thomas Springs, it was attempted to provide explanations on the evolution and diversity of identity and also to illustrate how various identity theories of Iranian intellectuals have been influenced by the present crisis of intellectuals. Four types of identity type created during various crises are as follows: 1. Ancient identity type resulted from the crisis of lagging behind. 2. Islamic identity type rooted in the decadence crisis and the separation of knowledge from sacred ideas. 3. Multiple identity types resulted from the crisis of ideologism and inflexible accounts of cultures and civilizations. 4. Iranian type of identity born as a result of the crisis of forgetting the controversies between traditionalists and modernists and sunken in the struggle between tradition and modernism.

Keywords

• Crisis
• Decadence
• Identity
• Intellectualism
• Tradition and Modernism