fateme Pasalari Behjani; rostam shamohammadi; ghodrat allah khayatian
Abstract
Abstract: The present paper, drawing on a descriptive-analytical research method, tries to examine the position of time in Dariush Shaygan's intellectual system, especially its appearance ...
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Abstract: The present paper, drawing on a descriptive-analytical research method, tries to examine the position of time in Dariush Shaygan's intellectual system, especially its appearance and emergence in the realm of traditional and modern culture, poetry, painting, architecture and novel. The results show that he considers time to be the central signifier or core of culture which in traditional Oriental cultures is mythical time and in modern Western culture is linear time. With a deep attachment which has to with the mythical time and its manifestations, he tries to find it by digging into various thoughts. According to Shaygan, although with the advent of modernity in Western culture, the mythical time was abolished and replaced by linear time, at the end of the twentieth century, following the electronic revolution, linear time gave its place to the global present time which has great affinity with mythical time. Of course, their ontological differences should not be disregarded. Eventually, this effort of Shaygan leads him to the novel, and he finds the time of the early myths in Marcel Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time.
Keywords: Dariush Shaygan, Culture, Time, Mythical Time, Mythical Time Disappearance, Electronic Revolution
Introduction
Dariush Shaygan (1935-2018), a contemporary Iranian philosopher and spiritualist, seems to be mainly concerned with culture, which rooted in the confrontation between tradition and modernity. On the one hand, because of his oriental identity and belonging to the traditional cultures of the Orient, he seeks to gain a deeper understanding of these cultures. On the other hand, by paying attention to the intellectual-epistemological products of the modern Western world, he tries to clarify the unknown dimensions of culture. The main question is whether it is possible to find a central core in his culturology that is the key to understanding of his ideas? The present article argues that this key is the category of time.
Methodology
This study employs descriptive-analytical method through analyzing and examining Shaygan's different works to show how Shaygan uses category of time to understand the traditional and modern culture.
Findings
In his first period of thought, Shaygan focused on the phenomenological study of the traditional cultures of the Orient and realized that their world view was rooted in a common spiritual experience. In this spiritual experience, the origin experience - an experience based on a kind of inner feeling to achieve "absolute timelessness" and "eternity" - precedes everything. Shaygan interprets this "timelessness" as a "mythical time." Concept of "trust" in Islamic mysticism, the "repository of consciousness" in the Mahayana Buddhist school, the "golden testicle" in Hindu mythology, and the "mnemosyne" in Greek mythology are examples of "mythical time". However, in Shaygan’s view, the man lived only in their initial stage in the "mythical time", when they were immersed in their eternal sleep. But with the awakening of consciousness and the consolidating concept of "I" as a very crucial rift occurred in the concept of time, and time took various forms without losing its mysterious power (Shaygan, 1371(a)sh).
Shaygan sometimes uses the phrass of "time as presence" to refer to "mythical time" and thereby shows its manifestation in the worldview of five great Iranian poets (Ferdowsi, Khayyam, Mulavi, Saadi, and Hafez) and Iranian arts. According to the emotional content of the poet, the presence times of these five poets are different but all of them are like a melody that has been played in various positions (Shaygan, 1376sh).
According to Shaygan, with the advent of modernity in the sixteenth century in the West, the "mythical time" disappeared and a "linear time" dominated the Western worldview. "Linear time", unlike "mythical time", can be divided into past, present and future; also it moves in a straight forward and irreversible line. More importantly, it is a time free of myths and devoid of content. The demythologization of time has caused a deep rift between nature and man on the one hand and man and God on the other hand.
Yet, with the advancement of technology and the advent of the electronic revolution in the twentieth century, a kind of global present time emerged that had obvious similarities to "mythical time". Global present time has three qualities, "omnipresence, momentum, and immediacy", which were attributed to the divine essence; and also this time is the basis for the emergence of intangible and imperceptible things that mystics speak of them. It should be noted, however, that "the present time" arising from the electronic revolution and the "mythical time" do not fall into the same ontological status. In other words, the former is at the level of the sensory world, but the latter is in the vertical order of existence and in the realm of “esoteric observation "(Shaygan, 1380sh).
Shaygan, in the last period of his life and his last work, The Magic Lantern of Time, analyzes time in Marcel Proust’s In Search of lost Time. The central issue of this novel is time, but not time in the calendar and everyday sense; rather, the time depicted in this novel is more like a "mythical time" which the past is always present or in other words "the synchronicity of successive moments" (Shaygan, 1396sh).
Conclusions
From Shaygan's viewpoint, the central core of culture is time. Time in traditional cultures has manifested in the form of "mythical time". But with the advent of modernity in the West in the 16th century, the "mythical time" disappeared and a "linear time" dominated. However, in the 20th century, two other times emerged which have very similar to " the mythical time". One is the "global present time" that took shape after the electronic revolution, and the other is "the present time" that appeared in the novel. Of course, it should be kept in mind that their ontological status is not the same.
References
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