Sarhan Dhouib: Conceptions of Tolerance and Intolerance in the Arabic Philosophical Literature Around 1900

The aim of the presentation is a concise reconstruction of the various understandings of the concepts of tolerance and intolerance which brings the philosophical dimension to the fore. The role of translation, adaptation, and transformation of European concepts into Arabic is analyzed in an intercultural or transcultural perspective, making the competing conceptions of tolerance around 1900 visible. It is against this background that I treat the Lebanese author Amīn ar-Rīḥānī’s (1876-1940) agnostic conception of tolerance as one example. His critique of religious intolerance will be discussed to show to which extent tolerance and agnosticism are interrelated.

Sarhan Dhouib studied philosophy at the University of Sfax (Tunisia) and Paris 1 Sorbonne. He holds a PhD from the Universities of Bremen and Tunis, which he received for his doctoral thesis on Schelling’s Philosophy of Identity. In 2011, he was awarded the Goethe-Institute’s Intercultural Award in Philosophy, and in 2020, he received the Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He is an AGYA Alumnus and currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hildesheim in Germany, where he specializes in German idealism, philosophy in the modern Arab world, intercultural philosophy and political philosophy.