Tarikh al-Falsafa al-Haditha
- Author died
- 1378 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-Dirasat al-Falsafiyya
Tarikh al-Falsafa al-Haditha ("History of Modern Philosophy") is a comprehensive Arabic historical survey of Western philosophy from the Renaissance to the mid-twentieth century, written by the Lebanese-born Egyptian philosopher and university professor Yusuf Butrus Karam (1304–1378 AH / 1887–1959 CE) .
Overview and Scope
The book serves as a chronological continuation of Karam's previous historical work, Tarikh al-Falsafa al-Urubbiyya fi al-Asr al-Wasit ("History of European Medieval Philosophy") . In his general introduction, Karam frames the modern era as an intellectual and cultural shift that emerged from the gradual breakdown of medieval scholasticism and the rise of nominalism, culminating in key historical shifts such as the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the Protestant Reformation . He identifies the core characteristics of the modern era as aggressive individualism in literature, religion, and politics, accompanied by intense focus on mechanical science and its practical applications to expand human dominance over nature . The work traces how philosophy gradually separated from theology, giving rise to diverse secular, materialist, and spiritual systems .
Structure and Contents
The work is organized into six primary divisions (abwab), arranged in chronological order:
- Part One: Between the Old and the New (15th and 16th Centuries): Examines the Renaissance transition, including the revival of Platonism with thinkers such as Nicholas of Cusa, Marsilio Ficino, and Pico della Mirandola; Latin Averroism and Aristotelianism at the University of Padua represented by Pietro Pomponazzi; occult and natural philosophies such as those of Paracelsus; early scientific developments in astronomy and mechanics; and emerging skepticism .
- Part Two: Major Modern Doctrines (17th Century): Surveys the stabilization of modern thought and the establishment of its foundational schools, focusing on rationalism and metaphysics initiated by Rene Descartes, developed further by Blaise Pascal, Nicolas Malebranche, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, alongside English empiricism founded by Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke .
- Part Three: The 18th Century: Details the age of analysis and social critique, covering radical British empiricism with David Hume, French sensationalism and Enlightenment thought represented by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and concluding with Immanuel Kant's critical synthesis of rationalism and empiricism in Germany .
- Part Four: The First Half of the 19th Century: Covers constructive and systematic philosophical trends, notably German Idealism with Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Arthur Schopenhauer; French psychological analysis by Maine de Biran; Auguste Comte's positivism; and British attempts, such as those by William Hamilton, to reconcile empiricism with German philosophy .
- Part Five: The Second Half of the 19th Century: Focuses on the intellectual contest between materialism—spurred by evolutionary theories advanced by Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer in Britain and Germany—and spiritualist reactions defended by French philosophers .
- Part Six: The First Half of the 20th Century: Addresses continuing twentieth-century conflicts between materialist, positivist, and spiritualist tendencies, offering a critical evaluation of contemporary spiritualism from Karam's realist Aristotelian perspective .
The work concludes with foreign bibliographical references for individual major philosophers and a biographical glossary listing Western philosophical figures with their names transcribed in both Arabic and Latin scripts .
Publication
The book has been issued in multiple Arabic editions, including printings by Dar al-Ma'arif in Cairo and Dar al-Qalam in Beirut .
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