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The “Modern” West and the Non-Western World

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Hegel in the Arab World

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Abstract

This chapter deals with the question of “modernity,” that arises in this period, in which modern Europe begins to structure its discourse and identity, also by defining its “other,” and the role of Hegel’s philosophy in it. Historicism and world history, the contrast activity–passivity, the idea of “stagnation” and decadence, the relation between the development of history and Christian religion, are the key concepts addressed in this chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See also Voltaire ([1756] 1963, I, p. 838), who affirms that the Ottoman Empire is preserved by the divisions among Christians.

  2. 2.

    On “stagnation,” which is also a key idea in this context, see for example Marx’s articles on the British rule in India, where he speaks of the “stagnation” of Indian society as a negative element (for example [1853] n.d., p. 85). On stagnation see also Osterhammel (1998, p. 393).

  3. 3.

    An example is the famous “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar” in Rousseau’s Emile (Rousseau [1762] 1979, pp. 266–313). He states, for example:

    The greatest ideas of the divinity come to us from reason alone. View the spectacle of nature; hear the inner voice. […] I see that particular dogmas, far from clarifying the notions of the great Being, confuse them; that far from ennobling them, they debase them; that to the inconceivable mysteries surrounding the great Being they add absurd contradictions; that they make man proud, intolerant, and cruel; that, instead of establishing peace on earth, they bring sword and fire to it. (p. 295)

  4. 4.

    In the Social Contract, in the chapter dedicated to “Civil Religion ,” Rousseau states that Muhammad’s views were “extremely sound, and his political system closely knit; and while his government kept its original form, under the caliphs who succeeded him, it was wholly united, and in that respect good” (Rousseau [1762] 1994, pp. 160–161). Afterwards, the Arabs became “prosperous, cultured, civilized, soft, and feeble, and were subjugated by barbarians” and the division of the “two powers” (161), the theological system and the political system, against which Rousseau raises his criticism, began again.

References

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  1. Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Lorella Ventura

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  1. Lorella Ventura
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Correspondence to Lorella Ventura .

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Ventura, L. (2018). The “Modern” West and the Non-Western World. In: Hegel in the Arab World. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78066-5_5

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