Papers by Hamad Mohamed Al-Rayes
childhood & philosophy, Apr 20, 2023
In this paper, I critically explore Ann Sharp’s conception of personhood as it figures in the the... more In this paper, I critically explore Ann Sharp’s conception of personhood as it figures in the theory and practice of the community of philosophical inquiry (CPI). Through surveying Sharp’s rich and varied philosophical output, it will be shown how Sharp’s conception of personhood as a trilateral relationship (between self, other(s), and community) maps onto “the Three C’s” of critical, creative, and caring thinking that make up the practice of Philosophy for Children. After thus presenting Sharp’s conception of personhood, the paper brings into view an aspect of said conception which could benefit from further development. This potential shortfall in Sharp’s thought is identified as “the problem of closure”. In highlighting the problem of closure, I will indicate how Sharp marshals the concept of faith in her conception of CPI as a spiritual community, a relationship that is coincident with personhood itself, as it stands for the bond that ties together the individual (self and other(s)) and the collective (community) dimensions of CPI. I argue that faith serves, among other things, as an agent of closure between the individual and the collective in Sharp’s thought. In considering the function of faith in CPI, I will suggest an avenue of possible resolution to the problem of closure in Leonard Nelson’s conception of “the Socratic spirit” as the embodiment of “reason’s self-confidence”. Finally, the paper looks ahead to David Kennedy’s writings on the intentionality structure that governs the relationship between the individual and the collective in CPI as a resource that promises to offer a more rigorous and systematic treatment of the problem of closure.
Baseera, 2023
تعتبر هذه المحاضرة من النصوص التأسيسية لممارسةٍ في الفلسفة لم تلق حظها من الشهرة، فالأفكار الوارد... more تعتبر هذه المحاضرة من النصوص التأسيسية لممارسةٍ في الفلسفة لم تلق حظها من الشهرة، فالأفكار الواردة فيها تشكل القاعدة التي بنت عليها كاثرين ماكول (Catherine McCall) مثلاً ممارستها الفلسفية التربوية، إذ يستعرض نلسون في تلك المحاضرة مفهوم “التجريد التراجعي” أو “الهبوط التجريدي” الذي جعلت منه ماكول أساساً لمنهجها التعليمي الحاضر بقوة في ميدان فلسفة الطفولة. غير أن النص وكاتبه ما زال يكتنفهما الغموض حتى للمتخصص. ما هي أبرز القضايا التي يتعرض لها نلسون في هذه المحاضرة؟ وما علاقتها بالممارسة الفلسفية بصفتها ممارسة تربوية، كما تتصورها فلسفة الطفولة؟ نقدم في هذا المقال لمحات مبدئية حول هذه المحاضرة المهمة.
البحرين الثقافية, 2023
إنَّ النَّظر في مصادر الرُّومانسية في الشّعرية العربية هو تنقيبٌ في
مصادر الحداثة الشّعرية العربي... more إنَّ النَّظر في مصادر الرُّومانسية في الشّعرية العربية هو تنقيبٌ في
مصادر الحداثة الشّعرية العربية الأولى، كما سبق وأن أشار أكثر من دارس 1 .
لكن في حين أنَّ أرشيف الرُّومانسية في ظهورها العربي يتمركز حول الرُّومانسية
الإنجليزية والفرنسية وفق ما توصل إليه الدَّارسون، فإنَّ هاتين تُعدَّان انبثاقًا
بدورهما للفلسفة الرُّومانسية الألمانية، ولا يمكن - بحال - التَّعرُّف على عمق
منجزهما بمعزل عن الأخيرة 2 . إلا أن الرومنسية الألمانية ذاتها تقف على مفترق
طرق بين فلسفة الخيال الشعري القديمة والحديثة، وهو تحول يبدأ بالارتسام مع
فلسفة الخيال عند كانط، وقد كان الخيال قد "أصبح عنوان الممارسة الشّعرية
الرُّومانسية العربية" بتعبير بنّيس 3 . في هذا المقال نبدأ بتوضيح مقومات هذا
التحول الفلسفي وطبيعته بقليل من التَّعمُّق، الأمر الذي سبق والتفت إلى أهميته،
ومضى في تنفيذه، محمد بنّيس وغيره من الدَّارسين. وسوف نركّز البحث ههنا
على مسألة الخيال كقوَّة أو مَلَكة في النَّفس، ونترسّم تحوُّلها في فلسفة الشّعر
من الطور الأرسطي )شاملاً الفلسفة الإسلامية الوسيطة( إلى إسهام إيمانويل كانط
الفارق، مُشيرين إلى الأفكار الرئيسية التي يتميز بها كل من هذين الطورين في
مسلكهما نحو فلسفة الخيال، ولا سيَّما الخيال الشّعري.
Michigan Quarterly Review Online, 2022
“The Torrential Blood” is Qassim Haddad and Amin Saleh’s statement on the invasion of Kuwait by I... more “The Torrential Blood” is Qassim Haddad and Amin Saleh’s statement on the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990 and its aftermath. Arguably Bahrain’s best-known modern poet, Haddad found himself collaborating yet again on a manifesto with Saleh, his compatriot, and an experimental writer of high renown in the region, though much less celebrated internationally.
Translation Review, 2021
We have before us a strange and hermetically cloistered text. I wanted to convey the strangeness ... more We have before us a strange and hermetically cloistered text. I wanted to convey the strangeness of the experience of reading this text in the original Arabic as much as I could. Published in 1994, Amin Saleh’s (b. 1950) A Hymn to the Universal Room belongs to a movement of subjective and imaginative transformation stemming from the various projects of modernity in Arabic poetics. Specifically, the work belongs to what may be called the second wave of poetic modernism in Arabic, which came to its own in the years leading up to the 1980s. If the “first wave” of the ’60s and ’70s carried with it much of the Tammuzian iconoclasm (after the Sumerian god Tammuz, who counts among his Near Eastern counterparts figures such as Dionysus and Adonis), youthful energy, and rejuvenative ambitions of poets of the ’40s and ’50s, the wave that followed preserved the counter-cultural thrust but exhibited a sense of foreboding that borders on despair with regard to the possibilities of cultural, not ...
Labyrinth: An International Journal for Philosophy, Value Theory and Sociocultural Hermeneutics, 2020
In this paper, I attempt to read the poetic principle behind the Tammuzi movement of modern Arabi... more In this paper, I attempt to read the poetic principle behind the Tammuzi movement of modern Arabic poetry through the lens of speculative poetics. While speculative-poetic accounts of modern poetry, such as those provided by Allen Grossman, blazed new paths connecting poetry to personhood in modernity, their application to the development of modern poetry outside of Europe remains limited by their self-avowed focus on European history. This paper will outline a critical corrective to speculative poetics which, I argue, can be of value in extending its domain of application to Arabic projects of poetic modernity, particularly the two tendencies of "free verse" and "commitment" poetry that emerged out of the Tammuzi movement.
Translation Review, 2021
Proof. Final version available in Translation Review Vol. 109, No. 1 (2021).
Diseases of the Head: Essays at the Intersection of Speculative Philosophy and Speculative Horror, 2020
Talks by Hamad Mohamed Al-Rayes
Middle East Studies Association (MESA), 2019
In 1993 Dafatir Kalemat, an imprint of the avant-garde, short-lived, but highly esteemed literary... more In 1993 Dafatir Kalemat, an imprint of the avant-garde, short-lived, but highly esteemed literary journal Kalimat, published an edited volume entitled Al-Bayanat (The Manifestos). The volume, introduced and assembled by the Tunisian Muhammad Lutfi Al-Yousfi, brought together three manifestos by the Syrian Adunis (“The Manifesto of Modernity” (1979-1992)), the Moroccan Mohammed Bennis (“The Writing Manifesto” (1981)), and the Bahraini Qassim Haddad and Amin Saleh, who co-authored “The Death of the Chorus” (“Mawt Al-Chorus” (1984); hereafter “Chorus”). The first three authors were already well on their way to producing massive works of literary scholarship, namely, Al-Yousfi’s Fitnat Al-Mutakhayyal, Adunis’ Al-Thabit Wal-Mutahawwil, and Bennis’ Al-Shi’r Al-’Arabi Al-Hadeeth, texts which have since become mainstays of research into Arabic poetry from the second half of the twentieth century onward, aside from their influence on the self-understanding of modern Arabic poetics. These multi-volume studies can be seen as materializations of their respective authors’ condensed theoretical statements as found in Al-Bayanat. Haddad/Saleh’s “Chorus” stands orphaned by comparison. The two Bahraini authors also stand awkwardly beside Al-Yousfi, Adunis, and Bennis for their non-academic orientation: “Chorus” was written by a practicing poet and a storyteller (of sorts), neither of whom was academically trained. Of the collection, “Chorus” reads the least like prose, having been written rather as an imaginative statement of poetic principles. And while the three other manifestos were eventually complemented by the aforementioned scholarly projects, “Chorus” was followed by a perverse work of oneiric writing, penned by the same two authors, entitled Al-Jawashin (plural of jawsh, “al-sadr min al-insan aw al-layl,” according to Ibn Manzur; roughly, the foremost part of a person’s body -- thus “sadr” = chest -- or the night).
The relationship between “Chorus” and Al-Jawashin appears tenuous until we learn that “Chorus” was originally written as an introduction to Al-Jawashin. I propose the perhaps ill-advised task of reading Al-Jawashin through the lens of “Chorus,” that is, as an expression and extension of the theses suggested by the latter. To this end I will bring together the critical artillery presented in “Chorus” and “Al-Damm Al-Fadheh” (the only other text co-authored by Haddad/Saleh) to bear on Al-Jawashin. Above all, I will be concerned with anchoring the aesthetic concerns of Haddad/Saleh to the cultural and political “night” with which they brand the historical moment of the 80’s and 90’s in the Gulf and the wider Arab context.
Drafts by Hamad Mohamed Al-Rayes
Arab Left Reader, 2022
Abdallah Laroui (b. 1933, Azemmour, Morocco) is one of the few thinkers who have dedicated their ... more Abdallah Laroui (b. 1933, Azemmour, Morocco) is one of the few thinkers who have dedicated their efforts toward rigorously developing the epistemological foundations of leftist thought in the Arab context. This statement is true only if we understand the left in what Laroui would call its “genetic”1 sense, tracking the term back to its origins in the historical developments that led, through the Renaissance, toward the creation of the modern state. The Concept of Reason (1996), the final book of his Concepts series, concludes the ambitious project which additionally includes The Concept of Ideology (1980), The Concept of the State (1981), The Concept of Liberty (1981), and The Concept of History (1992). In the Preface to The Concept of Reason, Laroui brings his philosophical and historical expertise to bear on the overall nature of his five-part enterprise, presenting the arch-concept of “modernity” as the keystone that unites the whole. The most a translator can hope to achieve in the space of this introduction is to contextualize the text by (1) justifying its choice and (2) providing some guiding threads on its key terms and themes.
Books by Hamad Mohamed Al-Rayes
الثابت والمتحول (8), 2021
Thesis Chapters by Hamad Mohamed Al-Rayes
A basic feature of natural consciousness, which Hegel seeks to transform into “philosophical cogn... more A basic feature of natural consciousness, which Hegel seeks to transform into “philosophical cognition” in his 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit, is that it presupposes an “immediate knowing” as locus of complete certainty and model of genuine knowledge. Accordingly, philosophical cognition proper begins for Hegel from the examination and critique of the non-philosophical presupposition of immediate knowing.
I claim that this description of the overall aim of the Phenomenology of Spirit is accurate but incomplete, especially with regards to questions of method. By showing the difficulties involved in understanding the beginning of the Phenomenology by relying solely on the opening chapter (“Sense-Certainty”), I attempt to reconstruct the beginning by reading the Preface, Introduction, and “Sense-Certainty” together. My attempt at reconstruction focuses on one question: what is the overarching methodological concern that connects these three texts?
The answer I propose revolves around the implicit role of a method called “construction” (more commonly known today as “geometrical deduction”) in the context of classical German philosophy. I offer a narrative of the beginning of the Phenomenology centered on Hegel’s objections to “construction” as a viable method of demonstration for philosophy. I show that his objections include criticisms of Kant, Reinhold, Beck, Fichte, and Schelling, criticisms that shed useful light on Hegel’s understanding of philosophy as independent of presuppositions such as intuitive or immediate cognitions.
CfPs by Hamad Mohamed Al-Rayes
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Papers by Hamad Mohamed Al-Rayes
مصادر الحداثة الشّعرية العربية الأولى، كما سبق وأن أشار أكثر من دارس 1 .
لكن في حين أنَّ أرشيف الرُّومانسية في ظهورها العربي يتمركز حول الرُّومانسية
الإنجليزية والفرنسية وفق ما توصل إليه الدَّارسون، فإنَّ هاتين تُعدَّان انبثاقًا
بدورهما للفلسفة الرُّومانسية الألمانية، ولا يمكن - بحال - التَّعرُّف على عمق
منجزهما بمعزل عن الأخيرة 2 . إلا أن الرومنسية الألمانية ذاتها تقف على مفترق
طرق بين فلسفة الخيال الشعري القديمة والحديثة، وهو تحول يبدأ بالارتسام مع
فلسفة الخيال عند كانط، وقد كان الخيال قد "أصبح عنوان الممارسة الشّعرية
الرُّومانسية العربية" بتعبير بنّيس 3 . في هذا المقال نبدأ بتوضيح مقومات هذا
التحول الفلسفي وطبيعته بقليل من التَّعمُّق، الأمر الذي سبق والتفت إلى أهميته،
ومضى في تنفيذه، محمد بنّيس وغيره من الدَّارسين. وسوف نركّز البحث ههنا
على مسألة الخيال كقوَّة أو مَلَكة في النَّفس، ونترسّم تحوُّلها في فلسفة الشّعر
من الطور الأرسطي )شاملاً الفلسفة الإسلامية الوسيطة( إلى إسهام إيمانويل كانط
الفارق، مُشيرين إلى الأفكار الرئيسية التي يتميز بها كل من هذين الطورين في
مسلكهما نحو فلسفة الخيال، ولا سيَّما الخيال الشّعري.
Talks by Hamad Mohamed Al-Rayes
The relationship between “Chorus” and Al-Jawashin appears tenuous until we learn that “Chorus” was originally written as an introduction to Al-Jawashin. I propose the perhaps ill-advised task of reading Al-Jawashin through the lens of “Chorus,” that is, as an expression and extension of the theses suggested by the latter. To this end I will bring together the critical artillery presented in “Chorus” and “Al-Damm Al-Fadheh” (the only other text co-authored by Haddad/Saleh) to bear on Al-Jawashin. Above all, I will be concerned with anchoring the aesthetic concerns of Haddad/Saleh to the cultural and political “night” with which they brand the historical moment of the 80’s and 90’s in the Gulf and the wider Arab context.
Drafts by Hamad Mohamed Al-Rayes
Books by Hamad Mohamed Al-Rayes
Thesis Chapters by Hamad Mohamed Al-Rayes
I claim that this description of the overall aim of the Phenomenology of Spirit is accurate but incomplete, especially with regards to questions of method. By showing the difficulties involved in understanding the beginning of the Phenomenology by relying solely on the opening chapter (“Sense-Certainty”), I attempt to reconstruct the beginning by reading the Preface, Introduction, and “Sense-Certainty” together. My attempt at reconstruction focuses on one question: what is the overarching methodological concern that connects these three texts?
The answer I propose revolves around the implicit role of a method called “construction” (more commonly known today as “geometrical deduction”) in the context of classical German philosophy. I offer a narrative of the beginning of the Phenomenology centered on Hegel’s objections to “construction” as a viable method of demonstration for philosophy. I show that his objections include criticisms of Kant, Reinhold, Beck, Fichte, and Schelling, criticisms that shed useful light on Hegel’s understanding of philosophy as independent of presuppositions such as intuitive or immediate cognitions.
CfPs by Hamad Mohamed Al-Rayes
مصادر الحداثة الشّعرية العربية الأولى، كما سبق وأن أشار أكثر من دارس 1 .
لكن في حين أنَّ أرشيف الرُّومانسية في ظهورها العربي يتمركز حول الرُّومانسية
الإنجليزية والفرنسية وفق ما توصل إليه الدَّارسون، فإنَّ هاتين تُعدَّان انبثاقًا
بدورهما للفلسفة الرُّومانسية الألمانية، ولا يمكن - بحال - التَّعرُّف على عمق
منجزهما بمعزل عن الأخيرة 2 . إلا أن الرومنسية الألمانية ذاتها تقف على مفترق
طرق بين فلسفة الخيال الشعري القديمة والحديثة، وهو تحول يبدأ بالارتسام مع
فلسفة الخيال عند كانط، وقد كان الخيال قد "أصبح عنوان الممارسة الشّعرية
الرُّومانسية العربية" بتعبير بنّيس 3 . في هذا المقال نبدأ بتوضيح مقومات هذا
التحول الفلسفي وطبيعته بقليل من التَّعمُّق، الأمر الذي سبق والتفت إلى أهميته،
ومضى في تنفيذه، محمد بنّيس وغيره من الدَّارسين. وسوف نركّز البحث ههنا
على مسألة الخيال كقوَّة أو مَلَكة في النَّفس، ونترسّم تحوُّلها في فلسفة الشّعر
من الطور الأرسطي )شاملاً الفلسفة الإسلامية الوسيطة( إلى إسهام إيمانويل كانط
الفارق، مُشيرين إلى الأفكار الرئيسية التي يتميز بها كل من هذين الطورين في
مسلكهما نحو فلسفة الخيال، ولا سيَّما الخيال الشّعري.
The relationship between “Chorus” and Al-Jawashin appears tenuous until we learn that “Chorus” was originally written as an introduction to Al-Jawashin. I propose the perhaps ill-advised task of reading Al-Jawashin through the lens of “Chorus,” that is, as an expression and extension of the theses suggested by the latter. To this end I will bring together the critical artillery presented in “Chorus” and “Al-Damm Al-Fadheh” (the only other text co-authored by Haddad/Saleh) to bear on Al-Jawashin. Above all, I will be concerned with anchoring the aesthetic concerns of Haddad/Saleh to the cultural and political “night” with which they brand the historical moment of the 80’s and 90’s in the Gulf and the wider Arab context.
I claim that this description of the overall aim of the Phenomenology of Spirit is accurate but incomplete, especially with regards to questions of method. By showing the difficulties involved in understanding the beginning of the Phenomenology by relying solely on the opening chapter (“Sense-Certainty”), I attempt to reconstruct the beginning by reading the Preface, Introduction, and “Sense-Certainty” together. My attempt at reconstruction focuses on one question: what is the overarching methodological concern that connects these three texts?
The answer I propose revolves around the implicit role of a method called “construction” (more commonly known today as “geometrical deduction”) in the context of classical German philosophy. I offer a narrative of the beginning of the Phenomenology centered on Hegel’s objections to “construction” as a viable method of demonstration for philosophy. I show that his objections include criticisms of Kant, Reinhold, Beck, Fichte, and Schelling, criticisms that shed useful light on Hegel’s understanding of philosophy as independent of presuppositions such as intuitive or immediate cognitions.