Volume 10, Issue 14 , October 2015, , Pages 247-274
Abstract
The present article is an attempt to introduce the reader to two great and prominent thinkers, Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and Mahmud Shabestari (687-720 A. H); and to discuss their viewpoints on the problems concerned with language. What makes the two thinkers closely related is not the age or the place ...
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The present article is an attempt to introduce the reader to two great and prominent thinkers, Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and Mahmud Shabestari (687-720 A. H); and to discuss their viewpoints on the problems concerned with language. What makes the two thinkers closely related is not the age or the place they lived in. It is rather their linguistic thoughts that dissolve all spatial and temporal boundaries in itself and keep these two thinkers, who lived in different ages and countries, closely related. On the one hand, utilizing the neologism “differance”, Derrida criticizes the logic of logocentrism and the process of signification existing in Western philosophy. On the other hand, emphasizing on the epistemology originated from Sufi practices and mysticism; and utilizing mysterious allegorical language, Shabestari abandons the Peripatetic philosophy of univocal language and the worldly rules of the logic dominating his age. The opacity and inadequacy of speech and writing, the means of presenting meaning; and the never-ending suspension and postponement of meaning all provide the junction for these two thinkers’ linguistic thoughts.