Reza Davari Ardakani’s Reading of Edward Said: A Comparative Study within the Framework of Social Critical Theory

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
fatemeh ahmadi 1
javad miri 2
1 Assistant Professor of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Lorestan University, Khorramabad, Iran
2 Professor of Social Sciences, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies (IHCS), Tehran, Iran
10.22034/mi.2026.11093
Abstract
This paper presents a comparative analysis of Reza Davari Ardakani’s and Edward Said’s critiques of Western hegemony, using the theoretical resources of social critical theory (the Frankfurt School and allied thinkers) as an interpretive framework. The paper asks how Davari, writing from an Iranian philosophical and metaphysical standpoint, reads, assimilates, and critiques Said’s cultural-discursive critique of colonialism and Orientalism. While Said locates domination primarily in the microphysics of representation, language, and institutions (a Foucauldian/Gramscian orientation), Davari shifts the focus to the metaphysical and ontological foundations of modern Western thought: technicity, subjectivism, and the forgetfulness of Being (a Heideggerian inflection). The study employs textual comparison, conceptual mapping, and critical triangulation to reveal both convergences (diagnoses of modernity’s crisis and the link between knowledge and power) and divergences (practical reformism vs. metaphysical rupture). The analysis argues that Davari appreciates Said’s political efficacy but regards it as ultimately immanent to the Western intellectual horizon; hence, Davari advocates a deeper ontological reorientation as a prerequisite for genuine de-hegemonization. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications for intellectual strategies in non-Western contexts seeking alternatives to Western modernity.
Keywords
Orientalism
Critique of Modernity
Metaphysics
Critical Theory
Davari Ardakani
Said, E. W. (1978), Orientalism. New York: Pantheon.
Davari Ardakani, R. (1978), Philosophy in the Court of Ideology (Falsafe dar Dādgāh-e Ideology), Tehran: Sokhan. (In Persian).
Davari Ardakani, R. (1987b), The Present State of Thought in Iran, Tehran: Soroush. (In Persian)
Davari Ardakani, R. (1980), What Is Philosophy? (Falsafe Chist?), Tehran: Iranian Society for Wisdom and Philosophy. (In Persian).
Davari Ardakani, R. (1984). A Glimpse into the History of Our Westernization, Tehran: Soroush. (In Persian).