IWSA

Institute for North American and European Studies held the 2nd meeting of a series of professional meetings on the “Methodologies of Philosophical Occidentalism” in Hananeh Hall of the Faculty of World Studies on Sunday, April 16, 2017. Dr. Abdol Hossein Khosropanah, head of “Institute for Research in Philosophy” was the speaker of the second meeting. Dr. Khosropanah began his speech with four introductions. “Firstly,” he said, “methodology has various dimensions in religious, political, economic, social, and philosophical issues. This meeting is based on philosophical Occidentalism because philosophy is the basis for Occidentalism at large.” “Secondly, there are various approaches toward the West in Iran, including struggling with, running away from, and selecting the Western perceptions. It could be argued that philosophical Occidentalism has been highly influential in identifying these different approaches,” he added. “Thirdly, methodology here means identifying the methodologies of philosophical understanding, not methodologies to analyze the philosophical West,” he continued. He concluded his introductions by saying that, “There are fundamental differences between philosophical Occidentalism and Western philosophy. Western philosophy studies the ideas of Western philosophers, but philosophical Occidentalism, in addition to this, considers the philosophical and nonphilosophical reasons and factors effective in the emergence of the Western philosophy.” He then discussed the title of the meeting and said that, “‘Methodologies of Philosophical Occidentalism’ is in fact understanding the West through the Western philosophy approach. The fundamental question is which methodology best helps us in achieving philosophical Occidentalism. Therefore, first of all, we must study the methodology of phenomenon recognition. In order to do so, this speech is mainly focused on the methodologies of recognizing philosophical West.” He continued his speech by identifying the three pillars of methodology - fundamentals, principles, and method – and discussed the “historical, paradigmatic, functional, explanatory, comparative, interpretive, phenomenological, and systematic” methods. He concluded that systematic methodology is considered as the most fundamental and collective method in studying the trends of Western philosophy with a focus on humanism. Institute for North American and European Studies began the professional meetings on the “Methodologies of Philosophical Occidentalism” with the Dean of the Faculty, Dr. Saeid Reza Ameli’s speech on “Assumptions of Western Studies; Why and How”. The second meeting’s speaker was Dr. Abdol Hossein Khosropanah, head of “Institute for Research in Philosophy”. The meetings are held at the Faculty of World Studies and all professors, students, and scholars are welcome to attend the meetings and be part of the discussions.