Al-Jahiz and Michel Foucault on power relations in oral debates

Abstract EN

This article attempts to shed light on a striking similarity between the ideas of two major thinkers: al-Jahiz and Michel Foucault.

Although they belong to very different historical, political and intellectual contexts, this article shows that their views of power in debates and polemics are very similar.

However, given the very complicated nature of the intellectual projects of the two thinkers, this article does not claim to provide a comprehensive comparative study, and therefore , it is mostly descriptive in nature, attempting to show how al-Jahiz’s and Foucault’s accounts of oral debates are similar despite of the different backgrounds.