Abstract
In the last one hundred years in Iran, a thinker who spoke about the ontological dignity in a problematic manner is Reza Davari Ardakani. In terms of thinking about the nature of language, it is the question of existence, and the question of existence is the question of human nature. The future of man depends on being able to think about the nature and essence of language, because the nature and essence of man and human society cannot be created without affection, humanity and love. In the critical reading of judgment, if we do not deal with the essence of language, distress, division, grouping, war and strife will become an integral part of human life in the new civilization, and the way to overcome this impasse is to deal with the essence of existence. The essence of existence is nothing but existence, fear, love, solidarity and attachment. But today, if there is no love, there is no mercy, there is no affection, and there is division, and with all these existing scientific approaches, we will not reach a conclusion. Because we still did not take the question of human nature or the question of existence seriously and reduced language to psychological, sociological, literary, political and historical approaches. Language, human nature, existence and thinking are placed in a system that somehow questions nature. The question of essentialization means the question of the possibility of another kind of future and another kind of being in another historical situation and thinking about it.
Key words: language, essence of language, existence, ancient dignity, ontological dignity, logic, logos
 
Introduction
Over the last century, the scientific and philosophical landscape of contemporary Iran has witnessed numerous developments concerning the problem of language. Despite this intellectual activity, those developments have rarely been incorporated into academic curricula, institutional research programs, or the broader public sphere. Language debates have largely remained marginal within Iranian university departments and mainstream scholarly texts. Against this backdrop, Reza Davari Ardakani offers an ontological reappraisal of language that departs from the dominant linguistic, sociological, psychological, and historicist treatments. For Davari, language is not merely a tool, a social practice, or a psychological phenomenon; it is a locus of existential inquiry intimately tied to the question of human nature and being. This study asks: What are the theoretical foundations of Davari’s ontological account of language? Why and in what ways does this account matter for contemporary thought in Iran? And how does Davari connect the state of language to cultural decline and civilizational crisis?
 
Materials and Methods
This research uses a critical social theory methodology grounded in close textual analysis and conceptual interpretation. Primary materials comprise Davari’s books, essays, lectures, and recorded interviews where he addresses language, being, culture, and modernity. Secondary sources include scholarship in the philosophy of language, existential ontology, critical theory, and studies on the sociology of knowledge and the state of the humanities in Iran. The analytic procedure involved systematic extraction of key claims, thematic coding of ontological and ethical motifs, and comparative analysis against prevalent disciplinary approaches (linguistics, social sciences, psychology, literary studies). Emphasis was placed on reconstructing Davari’s theoretical architecture (his premises, central concepts, and argumentative moves), tracing inferential links between language and civilizational diagnosis, and identifying gaps in extant Iranian scholarship that have left Davari’s theses underexamined.
 
 
 
Discussion & Result
Marginalization of the ontological dimension: Contemporary Iranian inquiry into language has largely foregrounded instrumental, descriptive, or functional questions-how language operates, how social structures shape discourse, or how cognitive mechanisms undergird communication-while the ontological question of what language is in relation to human being remains underexplored.
Davari’s ontological framing: Davari situates language at the heart of existential inquiry. He contends that reflection on the nature of language is effectively reflection on the nature of human existence. Language, in his view, reveals and shapes human possibilities, modes of relatedness, and the horizons of meaning that constitute civilizational life.
Language as axis of cultural health: Davari argues that neglecting the ontological significance of language contributes to the erosion of moral-affective capacities-affection, empathy, solidarity, generosity-within social life. Such erosion manifests in cultural fragmentation, diminished civic bonds, and a widening civilizational crisis.
Critique of reductionist approaches: Davari critiques the tendency to reduce language to empirical categories (psychological processes, sociological patterns, historical artifacts, or political devices). He maintains that these reductions, while methodologically useful, are insufficient for diagnosing and remedying deeper civilizational maladies because they bypass questions of meaning, purpose, and the ethical dimensions intrinsic to language.
Normative-ontological rehabilitation: Reclaiming an ontological account of language opens a normative pathway for cultural restoration: by re-centering language as a vehicle of humanizing values, societies can recover relational virtues and reconstitute social fabrics that sustain healthy forms of coexistence and collective agency.
 
Conclusion
Theoretical implications: Davari’s ontological reading constitutes a substantive and generative research program for the philosophy of language in Iran. It reorients philosophical inquiry by integrating questions of being, human essence, and ethical life into the analysis of language, thereby offering a conceptual framework for diagnosing cultural and civilizational dysfunctions that are otherwise neglected by specialized disciplines.
Academic and curricular implications: To translate Davari’s insights into sustained academic practice, institutional interventions are required: curriculum reform that incorporates ontological and hermeneutic perspectives on language; establishment of interdisciplinary research centers that bridge philosophy, cultural studies, and social theory; and the promotion of graduate and postdoctoral projects focused on language-as-being.
Practical and cultural recommendations: Restoring the humanizing potential of language entails educational and civic initiatives that cultivate ethical-linguistic competencies-training in dialogical listening, rhetoric that privileges solidarity over antagonism, and cultural programs that encourage imaginative empathy. Public discourse should be reframed not merely as information exchange but as a domain for cultivating mutual recognition and shared values.
Research agenda and limitations: This study is an initial step toward a systematic appraisal of Davari’s position; it documents and reconstructs his core theses but does not exhaustively engage all primary texts or empirical manifestations of his critique. Future studies should undertake comparative analyses (placing Davari alongside continental and analytic traditions that treat language ontologically), empirical investigations into the social consequences of linguistic impoverishment, and pedagogical experiments to test whether ontologically-informed language education can measurably affect communal resilience.
Final remark: Davari’s ontological interrogation of language challenges both scholars and institutions to reconceive language not as a neutral medium but as a foundational dimension of human existence. Taking that challenge seriously could redirect intellectual energy in Iran toward interdisciplinary, value-oriented scholarship capable of addressing cultural decline and envisioning alternative civilizational trajectories.