MWANAFALSAFA

Taha Abderrahmane

طه عبد الرحمن

Lifespan
born 1944
Region & background
Morocco — born in the El Jadida region
Intellectual tradition
Contemporary Arab philosophy; logic, philosophy of language and ethics

Key ideas

  • Ethics as constitutive of the human being
  • The trusteeship (iʾtimāniyya) paradigm and moral responsibility
  • Critique of a modernity detached from ethics
  • Philosophy of language, logic and argumentation

Taha Abderrahmane was born in 1944 in the El Jadida region of Morocco. After studying in Rabat, he completed doctoral studies at the Sorbonne and taught philosophy of language and logic at Mohammed V University in Rabat from 1970 until his retirement in 2005. His name also appears as Taha Abdurrahman in English-language scholarship.

Trained as a logician, he has written on argumentation, language and the ways philosophy is translated between cultures. His later work develops an ethical philosophy that treats morality as constitutive of what it means to be human, and criticises forms of modernity that separate reason, ethics and faith. His “trusteeship” (iʾtimāniyya) paradigm frames human beings as entrusted with — and responsible for — the world and their own capacities. His books include The Question of Ethics (2000) and The Spirit of Modernity (2006).

Notable works

  • Al-ʿAmal al-Dīnī wa-Tajdīd al-ʿAql (Religious Practice and the Renewal of Reason), 1989
  • Fiqh al-Falsafa (Praxeology of Philosophy), vol. 1: Philosophy and Translation, 1994
  • Suʾāl al-Akhlāq (The Question of Ethics), 2000
  • Rūḥ al-Ḥadātha (The Spirit of Modernity), 2006

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