Abstract
What is Middle Eastern existentialism? In answering this question, one must consider a couple of other, related questions: (1) how did Middle Eastern philosophers adopt existentialism, and, more importantly, (2) why did they adopt existentialism? I will argue that existentialism was deeply effective in reviving the spirit of humanistic philosophical thinking in the Middle East. Philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre were a kind of reminder for Middle Eastern philosophers to recapture the essence of philosophical thinking.
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Notes
- 1.
Ayşenaz Koş (Cengiz) has written a comprehensive MA thesis on the Migration of Sartrean Existentialism into Turkey through Translation (Koş 2004).
- 2.
I mean the theory of isalat vojoud in Islamic philosophy. Many scholars have compared this theory with the theory of the precedence of human existence to human essence in Sartre’s philosophy. The theory in Islamic philosophy is not at all about human existence, and comparing it with Sartre’s is wrong. It is a metaphysical question concerning that which constitutes the core of beings, the existence of a being, or its essence. For instance, in response to “what is the main aspect of being an apple,” some philosophers believe that the essence of being apple is the main part, like having sweet taste and red color; some others think that the existence of it is the main part, and essence is an accident to it.
- 3.
Leftist Syrian philosopher. He has interesting ideas about the causes of degeneration and defeat in the Middle East, criticizing religious orientation (al-Azm 2013).
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Andishan, H. (2020). Middle Eastern Existentialism. In: Betschart, A., Werner, J. (eds) Sartre and the International Impact of Existentialism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38482-1_13
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