In The Problematics of Enlightenment: Human Reason, North African Philosophy, and the Global South , Mourad Wahba explores the relevance of the philosophy of the Enlightenment to contemporary issues in Egypt and the Global South more generally. Wahba provides a historical account of the reception of Enlightenment philosophical discourse in the Arabic-speaking world through the study of the work of Rifa?a al-Tahtawi, Muhammed Abdu, Farah Antun, Abbas Mahmoud al-?Aqqad, and Louis Awad. Wahba argues that the claim that human reason is the ultimate source of justification-trumping the authority of inherited social institutions and the claims of historical revelation-is a universalizable principle whose actualization would make progress possible in Egypt and elsewhere. This book, translated by Zeyad el Nabolsy, provides Anglophone readers access to a philosophy from the Global South that does not take the alleged Eurocentrism of Enlightenment philosophies as its central problematic. Moreover, Wahba is concerned with situating the problems that emerge in the context of contemporary Arabophone North African philosophy in the larger context of African philosophy, including engagement with the work of Senghor and Nkrumah.
Mourad Wahba is emeritus professor of philosophy, Ain Shams University. Zeyad el Nabolsy is assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at York University.
Acknowledgments Initial Publication of Chapters Translator's Introduction Author's Introduction Chapter 1: The Enlightenment Chapter 2: Enlightenment and the Man on the Street Chapter 3: Authenticity and Modernity in the Third World Chapter 4: The Mystery of Tolstoy's Letter to Mohammed Abdu Chapter 5: The Paradox of Ibn Rushd Chapter 6: Ibn Rushd between Farah Antun and Mohammed Abdu Chapter 7: Rifa?a and Enlightenment Chapter 8: Al- ?Aqqad's Reception of Goethe in Light of the Enlightenment Chapter 9: Louis Awad and the Enlightenment Conclusion: The Problematic of Enlightenment and Culture Bibliography About the Author
"Zeyad el Nabolsy masterfully captures Wahba's profound philosophical insights, bridging the cultural and intellectual divide between East and West. Wahba's work, originally penned in Arabic, offers a fresh and essential perspective on the Enlightenment from North Africa, challenging conventional narratives and enriching the global discourse. El Nabolsy's translation not only preserves the depth and nuance of Wahba's ideas but also makes them accessible to a wider audience, making this book a significant contribution to contemporary philosophical thought." -- Robert K. Beshara, author of Transmodern Cinema and Decolonial Film Theory "The Problematics of Enlightenment collects together a number of essays by the Egyptian thinker Mourad Wahba, whose common denominator is an unadulterated admiration for Enlightenment ideals, which he regards as universal rather than exclusively European. Wahba's advocacy of liberalism and secularism represents a significant strand in twentieth-century Arab-Islamic and North African philosophy, which no student of these philosophical traditions can afford to ignore. The philosophical ideas that he advocates are very accessible and the translation is lucid, so these texts would work well in a range of introductory university courses. Moreover, the concise introduction by Zeyad el Nabolsy does an admirable job of situating Wahba's ideas in their intellectual context and provides a sympathetic but critical look at his philosophical outlook, contrasting it with decolonial and Marxist thought." -- Muhammad Ali Khalidi, University of New York
