Iran's Troubled Modernity
Debating Ahmad Fardid's Legacy

Mirsepassi uses interviews with thirteen individuals to relate the colourful life and times of Ahmad Fardid and his intellectual legacy.

Ali Mirsepassi (Author)

9781108476393, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 December 2018

380 pages
23.4 x 15.7 x 2.3 cm, 0.65 kg

Ahmad Fardid (1910–94), the 'anti-Western' philosopher known to many as the Iranian Heidegger, became the self-proclaimed philosophical spokesperson for the Islamic Republic, famously coining the term 'Westoxication'. Using new materials about Fardid's intellectual biography and interviews with thirteen individuals, Ali Mirsepassi pieces together the striking story of Fardid's life and intellectual legacy. Each interview in turn sheds light on Iran's twentieth-century intellectual and political self-construction and highlights Fardid's important role and influence in the creation of Iranian modernity. The Fardid phenomenon was unique to the Iranian story, and yet contributed to a broader twentieth-century Heideggerian tradition that marked the political destiny of other countries under a similar ideological sway. Through these accounts, Mirsepassi cuts to the nerve of how deadly political 'authenticity movements' take hold of modern societies and spread their ideology. Combining a sociological framework with the realities of lived experience, he examines Iran's recent and astonishing upheavals, experiments, and mass mobilizations.

Part I. Ahmad Fardid and His Legacies: Introduction
Part II. Fardid's Life: 1. The Man and His Life
Part III. Conversations on Fardid's Life and Thought: 2. Hossein Nasr: for Fardid, Corbin was worthless, but, the Shah was great
3. Daryush Ashuri: Fardid was not very religious
4. Ramin Jahanbeglu: Fardid was at the center of Fardiddiyeh (Fardid and Fardiddiyeh)
5. Abbas Amanat: Fardid whom I came to know
6. Ali Reza Meybodi: Fardid was 'Dante's Inferno'
7. Behrouz Farnou: Fardid's thought was post-modern
8. Ehsan Shari'ati: Fardid misunderstood Heidegger
9. Seyyed Ali Mirfattah: 'I admired his anti-capitalism and his anti-Americanism'
10. Mohammad Reza Jozi: Fardid's philosophy was not political
11. Mansour Hashemi: Fardid pioneered post-Bergson philosophy in Iran
12. Ata?ollah Mohajerani: philosophers need power
13. Seyyed Javad Mousavi: Fardid was a great man, with many failings
14. Abdolkarim Soroush: Fardid did not impress me at all.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], Philosophy [HP], Asian history [HBJF]