Dariush Shayegan (Persian: داریوش شایگان;‎ 24 January 1935 – 22 March 2018) was one of the most consequential thinkers of contemporary Iran and the Near East.

[3] Besides Persian, Shayegan wrote in French and English, and spoke fluently Georgian, Russian, and Turkish (both Ottoman and Azeri).

Having spent his teens at boarding school in Great Britain, Shayegan subsequently lived, during his formative years, in Geneva, where he read at the Université de Genève French literature, philosophy, Sanskrit, and political science.

Shayegan has written many pioneering works on the epistemological specificities of eastern and western cultures and the possibility of dialogue between them.

His son, M. Rahim Shayegan, is an American historian and expert in history of ancient Iran.