Diogenes 57 (2):92-100 (
2010)
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Abstract
This paper discusses in critical terms Muhammad ‘Abd al-Jabiri’s influential philosophical work. It engages, in particular, in the analysis of the assumptions underlying the radical contrast that al-Jabiri sets up between Avicenna’s philosophy – which is supposed to represent irrationality and Gnosticism – and that of Averroes who, according to him, breaks decisively with that current of thought and thus makes exercising philosophical thought once again possible. After a close discussion of the positions of classical philosophers , the author concludes that it is the very validity of the notion of “Arab reason” that has to be questioned in al-Jabiri’s analysis