Miscellaneous Articles

Unless they are completely unaware of each other's existence, civilizations ordinarily affect and transform one another. For instance, America's indigenous civilization was completely unknown to the outside world until Europeans discovered the contin...

Unless they are completely unaware of each other's...

Liberty, brotherhood, and egalitarianism were the key promises of the French revolution, but these promises were themselves tools in the hands of the new bourgeois class as it competed with the aristocracy for power, driven by the boundless ambition ...

Liberty, brotherhood, and egalitarianism were the ...

Thus we must concede that the incompatibility of modern civilization with our tradition-bound civilization is one of the most important causes of the crisis in our society. What is to be done? Should we insist on remaining immersed in our tradition, ...

Thus we must concede that the incompatibility of m...

Thinking about the meaning of the above three concepts and discerning the relationship among them is one of the most pressing preoccupations of thinkers in our age, especially in non-Western countries. A superficial. glance at the above terms may lea...

Thinking about the meaning of the above three conc...

Much has been said in our era about the central role of information in shaping human destiny, making it possible even to claim that information has surpassed military and political might as the main source of power in today's world. All peoples who s...

Much has been said in our era about the central ro...

Even those opposed to our revolution's goals and ideals concede its greatness. Unprecedented conspiracies and planning against us offer ample proof that this revolution has been taken seriously, its greatness indisputable even to its enemies. The Isl...

Even those opposed to our revolution's goals and i...

Matters such as the place of religion in our age, the role of people in shaping their destiny, the relationship between religion and modernity and religious government to liberalism, as well as the relationship between religion and democracy, are cen...

Matters such as the place of religion in our age, ...

Text of an address delivered by President Mohammad Khatami to the annual session of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), on 29 October 1999. It gives me great pleasure to be speaking here at UNESCO, in your p...

Text of an address delivered by President Mohammad...

The Organization of the Islamic Conference, as the only universal multilateral organization in the Islamic world, plays an important role in the accomplishment of the aforementioned and, in general, the realization of the fundamental objectives of 'p...

The Organization of the Islamic Conference, as the...

Development constitutes another propitious basis for the preservation of the security, stability, and independence of Islamic societies as well as for the honor and dignity of Muslim nations. In our view, proper and preferred development is comprehen...

Development constitutes another propitious basis f...

Parallel to joint efforts towards fulfilling the historical mission of the Islamic world in contributing to the shaping of a new humane world order, the full-fledged cooperation of Muslim countries towards the provision and preservation of world peac...

Parallel to joint efforts towards fulfilling the h...

Despite the efforts of American politicians to impose their will on others, as the remaining pole of power, around whose interests the world should gravitate, international relations are in the process of transition from the previous bi-polar system ...

Despite the efforts of American politicians to imp...

I wonder whether to commence my words with a statement of woes and misfortunes that are, or with the joys and delights that are to be. Is it not a fundamental objective of the Islamic Conference to arrive at common remedies for the woes of Muslim cou...

I wonder whether to commence my words with a state...

Text of an address by Mohammad Khatami, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran and President of the Islamic Conference Organization, to the European University Institute, Florence, on 10 March 1999. Attending an academic gathering has always been ...

Text of an address by Mohammad Khatami, President ...

I. General Overview Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels strove to put into practical effect the humanitarian concept of Feuerbach. In so doing, they founded a new economic movement called Socialism. According to Marx, the supreme end of man is an immanent...

I. General Overview Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...

The second half of the nineteenth century is marked by a broad new movement of thought called Positivism. This movement arose in opposition to the abstractionism and formalism of the transcendental Idealists, who had made nature a "representation" of...

The second half of the nineteenth century is marke...

I. Life and Works Johann Gottlieb Fichte ( picture) was born at Rammenau in Upper Lusatia in 1762. He studied theology at the University of Jena, where, some years later, he occupied the chair of philosophy. Dismissed from Jena as a result of a viole...

I. Life and Works Johann Gottlieb Fichte ( picture...

I. Life and Works Georg Hegel ( picture) was born in Stuttgart in 1770. He studied theology and philosophy, and at first gave his sympathies to the philosophy of the Enlightenment and to Kantian Criticism, only to turn to Romantic historicism and bec...

I. Life and Works Georg Hegel ( picture) was born ...

Introduction The vast intellectual movement which made its appearance at the close of the "Glorious Revolution" in England (1688) and continued until the French Revolution (1789) is called Illuminism, or the Enlightenment. The new culture, advancing ...

Introduction The vast intellectual movement which ...

Introduction David Hume (1711-1776), native of Edinburgh and a product of its university, denied the existence of all substantial reality, material or spiritual. In his Treatise on Human Nature he declares that man's mind is only a collection of perc...

Introduction David Hume (1711-1776), native of Edi...

Kantian Criticism represents an attempt to unify Rationalism and Empiricism in a superior kind of phenomenalism. This superior phenomenalism consists in considering the human spirit as endowed with a priori forms, which are the subjective means of or...

Kantian Criticism represents an attempt to unify R...