The Language of Politics and the Encounter with Modernity: An Analysis of Language-Games of Power in Contemporary Iran
Subject Areas : Research in Theoritical Politics
Mohammadreza SalehiVasigh
1
,
seyed mahdi sadatinejad
2
1 - Ph.D. in Political Science, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
2 - Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
Keywords: Language-games of power, grammar of politics, conceptual engineering, encounter with modernity, Iranian intellectualism.,
Abstract :
The Language of Politics and the Encounter with Modernity: An Analysis of Language-Games
of Power in Contemporary Iran
Mohammadreza Salehi Vasigh*
Seyyed Mahdi Sadatinejad**
The present research explains Iran’s encounter with modernity not as a substantive dispute, but as a disruption of the “grammar of politics” and a shift in the rules of the language-games of power. The central question is why democracy and civil society have not become institutionalized in Iran, even while works such as Al-e Ahmad’s Gharbzadegi (Westoxification) or Shariati’s “revolutionary martyrdom” continue to reconstruct political reality. The theoretical framework rests on three principles: the historicity of concepts, the grammatical incompatibility of language-games, and re-grammaring as political action. Iranian intellectuals, functioning as engineers of political grammar, are grounded in structural contradictions. Al-e Ahmad makes cultural resistance the dominant discourse via the “pathology” of the West; Shariati produces the language of revolution by re-engineering religious concepts; Shayegan makes living within multiple language-games possible via “fragmented identity”; Soroush historicizes revelation and democratizes religious authority; Shabestari reveals tyranny by critiquing the language of taklif (duty/obligation); and Malekian enables rational dialogue through conceptual precision. The conclusion is that contemporary Iran’s intellectual history must be understood as a history of the transformation of the rules of the language-game of politics.
Keywords: Language-games of power, grammar of politics, conceptual engineering, encounter with modernity, Iranian intellectualism.
Introduction
At the outset of this research, we addressed one of the most fundamental philosophical developments of the twentieth century: the “linguistic turn,” which elevated language from a neutral tool for representing reality to a constitutive and foundational level. Relying on the works of Frege, Austin, Foucault, Bourdieu, and Habermas, we demonstrated that political conflicts occur not merely over the distribution of resources, but at a deeper level over the definition of concepts and the control of discursive rules. However, we noted that the bulk of these theories have focused on discourse at a macro level, paying insufficient attention to the finer, more fundamental layers of language namely, grammar and the rules of language-games in the Wittgensteinian sense. Consequently, we turned to the later philosophy of Wittgenstein to provide a framework for more precise analysis.
We described Iran’s encounter with modernity, which began in the late nineteenth century and continues to the present, as a prominent example of a “grammatical crisis” a crisis in which two systems of semantic rules were in tension, with no possibility of simple translation between them. We traced the historical trajectory of this encounter from the Constitutionalist intellectuals, to the generation of Al-e Ahmad, Shariati, and Shayegan in the 1960s and 1970s, and subsequently to late religious intellectualism in the works of Soroush and Shabestari. In our literature review, we categorized existing studies into three types: content-critical studies that view language primarily as a tool for conveying meaning; ideological-dualist studies that assume the semantic stability of concepts such as “the West” or “tradition”; and macro-discourse studies that remain at a high level of abstraction without addressing the finer layers of language. Based on this, we identified a theoretical-methodological gap that shaped our central research question: How can we understand Iran’s encounter with modernity as a struggle over redefining the grammar of politics?
Methodology
To answer this question, we utilized a conceptual-grammatical analysis approach, in which key political concepts served as our unit of analysis. Our method comprised three steps: reconstructing the prior grammar of a concept, identifying the grammatical operations performed by the intellectual, and evaluating the political consequences of this re-grammaring. We constructed our theoretical framework by combining three approaches: applying Spragens’s four-stage model to clarify the historical context of intellectual crises; employing Skinner’s concepts of “normative vocabulary” and “affirmative action” (کنش ایجابی) to reveal the operational and political dimensions of conceptual innovation; and utilizing the later Wittgenstein’s theory of “language-games,” “grammar,” and “forms of life” to analyze the underlying rules of meaning-making. We selected thinkers who have directly intervened in the redefinition of fundamental political concepts: Al-e Ahmad, Shariati, Shayegan, Soroush, Shabestari, and Malekian. This selection was based on two complementary logics: a theoretical logic (the degree of the thinker’s intervention in the linguistic and semantic rules of politics) and a historical-spectral logic (the continuity and transformation of the encounter with modernity from the 1960s to the present).
Discussion and Findings
In our case analysis, we demonstrated that each thinker, by intervening at the level of semantic rules, constructed a new grammar that itself carried structural contradictions. Regarding Al-e Ahmad, we argued that by combining “West” and “-strickenness” (-zadegi), he shifted modernity from the language-game of “politics and choice” to the language-game of “medicine and therapy,” thereby transforming the political opponent into a “patient.” We showed that his rigid dualisms (authenticity vs. imitation) created a “grammatical monopoly” that excluded a third position from the sphere of meaningfulness. Writing on Shariati, we argued that by redefining “martyrdom” from a passive event into a history-making action, he created the language of revolutionary mobilization, yet we showed that by essentializing the “Imamate” and maintaining a command structure, he remained trapped in the conflict between “individual consciousness” and “obedience to leadership.”
In our examination of Shayegan, we clarified that through “fragmented identity” and “parallel consciousnesses,” he opened the possibility of living in multiple language-games; however, we concluded that he lacked a clear criterion for distinguishing “living tradition” from “dead tradition,” and his intermediary grammar led to relativism devoid of prescriptive power. In analyzing Soroush, we showed that by separating “Sharia” from “human understanding,” he moved revelation from “absolute divine command” to “sacred human experience,” thus democratizing religious legitimacy; yet, we argued that his simultaneous effort to maintain sanctity while accepting the historicity of interpretation led to ambiguity in defining “the self of religion.” Writing on Shabestari, we noted that through the theory of the “prophetic reading of the world,” he considered the Quran to be the “Prophet’s speech” rather than direct divine speech, effectively deconstructing the language of duty (taklif); however, we showed that he provided no clear criterion for distinguishing “prophetic revelation” from “mystical inspiration.” In our analysis of Malekian, we demonstrated that by dividing beliefs into “objective” (āfāqi) and “subjective” (anfosi), he sought to base the public sphere on empirical rationality; we argued, however, that this division itself rested on a secular presupposition that marginalized the majority of religious beliefs. We also showed that in his critique of metaphysics, he relied on metaphysical presuppositions himself. In our comparative analysis, we concluded that in escaping traditional grammar, all these thinkers became trapped in new grammars that reproduced similar structural limitations; we found the root of this paradox in the “untranslatability” between language-games based on different forms of life.
Conclusion
In our conclusion, we demonstrated that Iran’s encounter with modernity is, beyond an ideological dispute, a struggle over the rules of the language-game of power. We argued that every instance of re-grammaring, while conceptually innovative, has been grounded in a structural contradiction rooted in a shared fundamental challenge: the untranslatability between language-games based on different forms of life. We showed that democracy is not merely a political system but a specific language-game that demands a form of life based on negotiation, pluralism, and the acceptance of uncertainty. We argued that the incompatibility of this language-game with the authoritarian grammar of certainty and hierarchy in Iran explains why the superficial adoption of modern concepts has been more prevalent than their deep internalization.
The essential paradox revealed in this research is that intellectuals, in their attempt to escape traditional grammar, became captives of new grammars that reproduced similar limitations: we showed that Shayegan remained reliant on Western hermeneutic vocabularies, Soroush fueled interpretive relativism, Shabestari reached a grammatical dead-end, and Malekian, in rejecting metaphysics, relied on metaphysical presuppositions. We concluded that the primary implication of these findings for understanding contemporary Iranian politics is that legitimacy crises are rooted in the structural conflict between the official language, based on the grammar of duty, and the social language, based on participatory concepts a tension that explains why formal reforms, without changes to the underlying structure of the language of politics, have often failed. Finally, we stated that although we have illuminated these grammatical dynamics, we do not offer a definitive solution for overcoming the untranslatability between language-games, positing instead that sustainable transformation depends on designing strategies for constructive interaction between different forms of life.
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* Corresponding Author: Ph.D. in Political Science, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
mo.rezasalehi@ut.ac.ir
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1157-6326
** Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
msadatinejad@ut.ac.ir
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4802-0735
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