Open to Reason

This is a remarkable and interesting book. Open to Reason is tremendously valuable on two levels: first, as an account of the place of philosophy in Muslim history; and, second, as a philosophical proposal of some depth and substance that could orient Muslims and others in understanding Islam today. -- Charles Taylor, author of <i>A Secular Age</i> This remarkable book asks questions that only a philosopher could ask: How does a religion yield a vast and long and rich philosophical tradition? How do its doctrines and practices come to require one to develop a philosophical temperament so as to ask rather than shun a wide range of philosophical queries? How does its language evolve to become the carrier of such a philosophical quest? With his immense learning, his wise judgment, and his probing analytical skills, Souleymane Bachir Diagne does not merely provide answers to these questions in relation to Islam, hein doing soalso reveals something of the highest importance: that a proper pursuit of these questions can offer to us today critical possibilities in two opposing directions. On the one hand, to probe and question from the point of view of our modernity the fixities of our doctrinal past, but equally to present how Islam and the philosophy it has yielded over the centuries may offer critical resources by which to understand and criticize many aspects of our modernity. -- Akeel Bilgrami, Sidney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University This elegant and enjoyable book neatly summarizes the importance of philosophy in Muslim civilization, both in medieval times and in the present. Vividly written and framed with illuminating encounters, Open to Reason is highly recommended for anyone interested in the intellectual history of Islam. -- Carl W. Ernst, William R. Kenan Distinguished Professor, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Diagnes animated presentations of seminal Islamic philosophers range across centuries, continents, and languages as creative Muslim voices from Damascus, Baghdad, Spain, South Asia, and Mali reject 'closure' and 'literalism' and continue to offer the resources for a reconstructed Islamic intellectual tradition able to meet contemporary challenges of personal faith, ecological ethics, and political and social justice. -- Marcia Hermansen, Loyola University Chicago He emphasizes that Islam itself has changed with the world around it, and argues that Muslims should be open to this change. * Los Angeles Review of Books * Succeeds admirably in showing that Islam has a long tradition both of philosophizing and of positive engagement with other traditions. * Reading Religion * What makes the volume particularly valuable is a self-conscious theoretical reflection that is often missing in global philosophical accounts. * Critical Inquiry *

Souleymane Bachir Diagne is a professor in the departments of French and philosophy at Columbia University. His books in English include African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson, and the Idea of Negritude (2011) and The Ink of the Scholars: Reflections on Philosophy in Africa (2016).

Acknowledgments Introduction 1. And How to Not Philosophize? 2. How a Language Becomes Philosophical 3. What Does It Mean for a Philosophy to Be Islamic 4. Against Philosophy? 5. A Lesson in Ecological Philosophy 6. The Obligation to Philosophize 7. The Need for Philosophy 8. The Philosophy of Reform 9. The Philosophy of Movement 10. Pluralism Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index