This event has been postponed. The new date will be announced soon.

Abstract
Kant’s Critiques of Pure Reason and Critique of Practical Reason were first translated into Arabic in 1965 and 1966, respectively, by the yet-little-known Syria-born author Aḥmad al-Shaybānī (1923-1995). Focusing on his political writings as well as the only play he wrote, this lecture will first trace how Shaybānī’s engagement with Kant is to be situated within his broader intellectual struggle to navigate the complex sociopolitical and ideological changes of the postcolonial Middle East. Against this historizing background, it will then examine Shaybānī’s own understanding of Kant as expressed in his prefaces to his translations. This philosophical reading will show how, in the Critique of PracticalReason, Shaybānī synthesizes his beliefs in freedom and reason with his religious convictions through Kant’s idea of ‘acting from duty’. Exploring Shaybānī’s intellectual trajectory offers valuable new insights into the global reception of Kant, as well as the complexities of intellectual life in an era often viewed through–and reduced to–its major ideological currents.

Bio
Michael Frey is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies at the University of Bern. His primary area of research focuses on Arabic philosophical discourses in the modern and contemporary Middle East, currently with particular emphasis on concepts of freedom. His book on the Lebanese philosopher Nassif Nassar (Velbrück, 2019) received the Philosophy Book Award from the Hannover Institute for Philosophical Research (Germany) in 2020.

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