درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Iranian exceptionalism has been a major factor in preventing rapprochement between the US and Iran. There are two major factions within the foreign policy establishment of the Islamic Republic representing “reconciliation discourse” and “resistance discourse”. These two can be seen as sub-discourses within the Islamic Revolution discourse engaged in a struggle over its “correct” interpretation. The “reconciliation discourse” seeks development as the main goal of Iran’s foreign policy, and, hence, considers reconciliation with the US to be a precondition to that goal. Its arguments imply that Iran is not an exceptional country. The resistance discourse, on the other hand, is deeply exceptionalist and deems resistance against the US and maximalist independence to be the main objectives of Iran’s foreign policy. This discourse strongly opposes mending ties with the US because such a move would be understood as a threat to Iran’s exceptionalism. 

The success of Developmental State in East Asia once again has proved the role of the state in the process of development and shed light on the weakness of Neoclassic theories in their emphasis on the role of the market as a balancing force. One of the necessary variables for the formation of a developmental state is the international context. Like many states in East Asia, the path toward development in post-revolution Iran seems to be through the formation of a developmental state in the context of the existing international system. But the reality is something different. Therefore, the objectives of the present paper are 1 - to study the relationship between the international context and formation of the developmental state in Iran; 2 – to study the role of the United States in the process of formation of the developmental state in Iran; 3 – to study the means the US has employed to block the formation of a developmental state in Iran; and, 4 – to study the role of Iran’s foreign policy behavior in the formation of the developmental state. The main question of the present paper is what are the international obstacles to the formation of a developmental government in the Islamic Republic of Iran? The main hypothesis of this paper is: International context, US hegemonic status in the international system, and various political and economic obstacles and sanctions imposed by the US have prevented the formation of a developmental government in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The findings of the research sustained the hypothesis of this study.

This study intended to investigate critical thinking-based teaching strategies EFL teachers of Iranian high schools integrate into their teaching. To this purpose, the inter-relationship between the teachers' frequency of use of critical thinking-based teaching strategies and their teaching experience, their attendance at critical thinking in-service training courses, and their higher university degree were explored through a survey questionnaire. To analyze the collected data, means, frequencies, standard deviations, percentages, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), correlation coefficient, and five-point Likert scale were utilized. The obtained results showed that teaching experience was negatively correlated with the frequency of strategy use, and that no significant relationship was found between the frequency of strategy use and teachers’ higher university degree. The results further showed a significant relationship between the frequency of strategy use and critical thinking in-service training courses attended by teachers. The findings of this study imply that critical thinking should be reinforced in Iranian education system as well as in high school teaching schedule.

Kant’s method on moral philosophy follows his general way of philosophizing, i.e. transcendental method. That is to say, he discovers formal conditions of moral action through the transcendental analysis rather than focusing on non-rational motivations. However, it would seem to be the case that his concept of the human being as “the end-in- itself”, “the kingdom of ends”, should be understood within a Kantian big picture which is the practical aspect of human existence. Firstly, I elucidate Kant’s idea of the kingdom of ends which is the idea of the humanity as end in itself with respect to moral dimension; secondly, I clarify its political dimension and, to some extent, its legal implications; thirdly, I delineate its religious implications; finally, the kingdom of ends is considered within Kant’s philosophy of history where I evince its final sense. Therefore, Kant’s practical philosophy is taken to be accounted as a comprehensive whole based upon the kingdom of ends, although it is not a systematic whole similar to Hegelian system.