مفهوم العقل من الفلسفة اليونانية إلى الفلسفة العربية الإسلامية

Abstract EN

The journey from the Greek reason to that of the Arab-Islamic reason took approximately 15 centuries, i.e., from the start of the Greek philosophy 600 BC toward the ninth century AD (the third Hejri).

The Greek Reason is foundational for the Arab-Islamic reason.

Due to it, the second encountered pure reason; logical thinking; theory of knowledge; ontology; and ethical reason.

The Islamic reason was loaded with religious thought that is dependent on Quran and Islamic Sharia, Islamic philosophers tried to compromise between the first given (the revelation) with the second given (reason) in an ingenious philosophical compromise.

Nonetheless, theologians and religious clergy felt the danger of such incoming knowledge of free thinking (such as the Greek philosophy) on religious believe, hence they fought against it furiously until they manage to defeat it, they imprisoned reason and sharia within a narrow perspective, leading to the subordination of reason to a very law level.

This statuesque continued up until the modern age and the European enlightenment, when many Muslim thinkers tried to revive philosophical reason, criticizing the Islamic theologian reason that has been incarcerated in backword frames.

One of these recent thinkers is Mohammed Arkoun whom presented a detailed and radical critique of Islamic theology substituting it with the new investigative exploratory reason that is opened to the European humanities.

This paper main aim is to present a critique of Mohammed Arkoun’s project: Did he really succeed in elevating the Islamic reason from its isolation and backwords frames? If he did succeed to what effect he was able to demolish the theologian old reason? What are the elements of his project? What can we say about such project?