Abdessalam Benabdelali’s critical thought: towards a philosophical canon in Morocco

Abstract

The main objective of this chapter is to present the philosophical thought of Abdessalam Bendabdelali (ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbd al-ʿĀlī) (b. 1945), one of the first Moroccan critical thinkers to propose a contemporary philosophical canon in the country, and to analyse his main intellectual contributions to Moroccan philosophy. It focuses on three main axial problems that Benabdelali has prolifically theorized: translation, contemporary thought, and philosophical thought in Morocco. Methodologically, the chapter explores the main concepts used by Benabdelali in each one of the three problematic fields by developing a critical discourse analysis. Firstly, Benabdelali’s approach to the translation process goes far beyond the philosophy of translation in theoretical terms to become a philosophical “fact” by itself, for translating the culture, history, and identity of the “other” and incorporating it into one’s own is also a philosophical task. He considers the philosophy of translation as an intrinsic part of contemporary Moroccan philosophy. Secondly, the ultimate horizon of his thought is the very conception of “modernity”, which he places within the Moroccan intellectual framework between a historical (i.e. chronological) and an ahistorical position that “expects” modernity passively, on the one hand, and a structuralist position that confronts modernity as a dialectical and integral process, on the other, considering it as a global era and not merely as a concrete period of time. Thirdly, this is the position that, according to Benabdelali, must be taken by Moroccan philosophical thought as a whole.