From critique of the formation of Arab reason to examining the coordinate origin of the epistemic domain and the derivation of meaning
This examination of Mohammed Abed al-Jabri’s project through Faouzi Messeoud’s MANHAJ is not based on ranking two intellectual projects, nor on denying the critical value of al-Jabri’s project. Rather, it examines the position of the cognitive act in each project and the domain within which it operates to produce meaning.
Al-Jabri returned to the formation of Arab reason and its intellectual history, especially the age of codification, and revealed the systems of bayān, ʿirfān, and burhān and the mechanisms through which they operate. MANHAJ advances a prior question: What is the coordinate origin from which the epistemic domain in which we move was established? What centrality organizes its coordinates and its field of meanings?
From this perspective, the difference between the two projects is not simply a difference between “epistemology” and “modeling,” but a difference in the level at which the domain itself is examined: does the act return to the roots of a structure within the domain, or does it re-examine the domain that produced that structure and the tools used to examine it?
The dependent thinker is not necessarily someone who advocates for the other or agrees with it. Rather, it is the thinker who moves within the coordinates of a prior epistemic domain, transfers its mechanisms of thought, re-adopts its method, or derives meanings within its framework, while remaining bound by its ceiling and limits without re-establishing its coordinate origin.
Returning to the roots of a subject does not necessarily mean returning to the coordinate origin of the domain from which knowledge about that subject is produced. MANHAJ therefore distinguishes between examining the roots of a structure within the domain and examining the origin from which the domain itself was established.
An a posteriori movement is one in which the cognitive act begins from a domain whose coordinates have already been framed and determined, then re-reads or critiques its subjects from within. The critique may be profound, but relative to the domain it remains derivative unless its coordinate origin is reconsidered.
Al-Jabri’s project is distinguished by the fact that it does not merely deal with Arab reason in its present form. It returns to its history of formation, especially the age of codification, in order to examine the epistemic structures and systems through which it took shape and to reread the relations organized among them.
MANHAJ, however, distinguishes between the roots of a subject within the domain and the coordinate origin from which the domain itself was established. Al-Jabri returns to the roots of the formation of Arab reason, but at this level of analysis he does not make critique of the coordinate origin of Western centrality, or questioning its doctrinal centrality, a prior condition of his cognitive act.
Accordingly, returning to the past in al-Jabri’s work does not make the movement a priori by necessity. Relative to the conceptual domain on which he relies to produce knowledge, the act begins from an existing domain and formed tools of inquiry, then turns toward rereading Arab reason within it; that is, it moves a posteriori along a path of meaning derivation.
These axes do not reduce al-Jabri’s project; they identify the difference in the position of cognitive movement between his project and MANHAJ.
He returned to the history of the formation of Arab reason, particularly the age of codification, to examine the formation of the systems of bayān, ʿirfān, and burhān and the structure of the reason within which they were organized. This is a profound return to the roots of the subject and its historical structure.
It does not stop at asking about the roots of the structure within the domain. It adds the question of the root of the domain itself: How was it established? What is the coordinate origin that determines its coordinates? What centrality organizes its meanings and relations?
It is not correct to reduce his project to advocating the West or accepting its theses. He critically examines Arab reason and reconstructs its relationship with heritage. But the criterion of dependence here does not concern his declared position toward the West; it concerns the domain within which the tools of his cognitive act operate.
It defines dependence as dependence in the position of the cognitive act: transferring mechanisms of thought, re-adopting a method, moving within prior conceptions, or remaining bound by the ceiling and limits of the domain without re-establishing its coordinate origin.
He starts from existing epistemic tools and concepts, then uses them to reread Arab reason, its history, and its structures. Thus, relative to the conceptual domain on which he relies, his act is an a posteriori derivative movement that does not begin by re-establishing the domain’s coordinate origin.
It makes prior examination precede detailed action: identifying the coordinate origin, doctrinal centrality, conceptual domain, and meaning coordinates before derivative work within the domain.
His project can criticize aspects of modernity or Western thought and can benefit from tools and concepts formed in the modern field. But from the perspective of MANHAJ, critique does not necessarily transcend the foundational level unless it addresses the coordinate origin and centrality that produced the domain and its tools.
It distinguishes between critiquing what exists and critiquing the foundation that produced what exists. The question is not only: What do we criticize? It is also: Where did the tools of critique come from? Within which domain of meaning do they operate? What does this domain presuppose before the cognitive act begins?
The specificity of the examination with al-Jabri lies in the fact that it would be incorrect to describe him as merely dealing with the surface of a phenomenon or its details. He returned to the roots of the formation of Arab reason and made the history of its epistemic structure a central subject of his project.
MANHAJ, however, adds another level of questioning: Are these roots the roots of the subject within the domain, or are they the coordinate origin of the domain from which the cognitive act itself is produced? From this perspective, al-Jabri’s project, as read here, does not make critique of the coordinate origin of Western centrality or questioning its doctrinal centrality a prior condition of the cognitive act.
His project can therefore be understood, relative to the conceptual domain on which it relies, as an a posteriori movement along a path of meaning derivation: it begins from a framed domain with defined coordinates, then rereads Arab reason, its history, and its structures within it. This does not mean that its conclusions have no value or that its critique is unreal. It means that, methodologically, the ceiling of the cognitive act remains linked to the ceiling of the domain whose coordinate origin has not been reconsidered.
This is where the meaning of the dependent thinker is determined: dependence does not mean that the thinker advocates for the other. It means that, cognitively, he moves within the other’s domain, using its mechanisms, conceptions, or methods, or remaining bound by its ceiling and limits, even when the object of his act is to criticize aspects of the West or the effects of Western centrality.
Accordingly, the question added by MANHAJ is not: “Did al-Jabri criticize the West?” It is: “Did he reconsider the coordinate origin and centrality that produced the domain within which his cognitive act moves, or did his act remain derivative within that domain?” Critiquing what exists, its structures, and its relations is not necessarily equivalent to critiquing the foundation that produced what exists.