From Habermas to Timbuktu: Teaching African Philosophies in Morocco (Mohamed Lachhab) скачать в хорошем качестве

From Habermas to Timbuktu: Teaching African Philosophies in Morocco (Mohamed Lachhab)

From Habermas to Timbuktu: Teaching African Philosophies in Morocco Interview with Mohamed Lachhab Language of the Interview: English Conducted by Anke Graness Questions with Timestamps: 00:17 What brought you to philosophy? 10:00 What sparked your interest in Sub-Saharan African philosophy? 20:09 How do you envision the future of the relation between the philosophies of Northern and Southern Africa? In his interview at the Center for Advanced Studies “Philosophizing in a Globalized World” at the University of Hildesheim, Prof. Mohamed Lachhab offered a reflective account of his intellectual trajectory, his engagement with German philosophy, and his recent turn toward African and intercultural philosophical perspectives. Lachhab began by recounting his early fascination with philosophy during his school years in northern Morocco in the early 1990s—a time when studying philosophy was both intellectually stimulating and institutionally precarious. Despite the lack of professional prospects and the political restrictions surrounding the discipline, he decided to pursue philosophical studies at the University of Fez. After obtaining his degree, he initially taught philosophy for over a decade in Moroccan high schools before embarking on postgraduate research. Balancing a heavy teaching load with scholarly work, he eventually completed his PhD in 2007 on Jürgen Habermas, marking the beginning of his specialization in modern German thought. His path into German philosophy, Lachhab emphasized, was shaped by autodidactic determination. Motivated by the intellectual depth of thinkers such as Kant, Hegel, and Habermas, he taught himself the German language using limited resources in his village, studying through French-language textbooks. This linguistic and intellectual engagement not only expanded his horizons but also distinguished him within Morocco’s predominantly Francophone philosophical community. Over time, however, Lachhab sought to move beyond the label of “the Moroccan Habermasian.” His encounter with intercultural philosophy—particularly through collaborations with Heinz Kimmerle and Franz Wimmer’s networks of dialogue between Arab and German philosophers—led him to reexamine the global dimensions of philosophizing. He has participated in German–Arab collaborative projects and held a postdoctoral research position in Germany (notably at the Lichtenberg Kolleg in Göttingen) during which he broadened his philosophical engagement toward African and intercultural traditions. From this global horizon emerged his current interest in African philosophy, particularly the intellectual traditions of sub-Saharan Africa. His engagement deepened through dialogue with scholars such as Franziska Dübgen, whose book Paulin Hountondji: African Philosophy as Critical Universalism inspired Lachhab to translate key sections into Arabic for teaching purposes. He described this project as an effort to introduce African philosophical thought to Moroccan academia and to foster a broader conversation about the plurality of philosophical traditions. In the interview’s final part, Lachhab reflected on the historical and conceptual connections between North African and Sub-Saharan intellectual worlds. He invoked figures such as Ahmad Bābā of Timbuktu, who taught in Marrakesh in the early seventeenth century, as emblematic of a long-standing reciprocity between these regions. He highlighted how logic, theology, and jurisprudence once circulated across Saharan scholarly networks, linking centers of learning from Timbuktu to Fez, Kairouan, and Cairo. For Lachhab, reviving these intellectual exchanges requires renewed philosophical collaboration that acknowledges the historical continuity of African thought as a shared enterprise.He concluded by emphasizing that the study of African philosophy today should move beyond the mere recovery of texts to engage substantively with the philosophical arguments and modes of reasoning that have shaped the continent’s diverse traditions. His work aims to reopen this dialogue between North and Sub-Saharan Africa, situating Moroccan thought within a broader, global framework of philosophical inquiry.