Tradition and Critique in Kant and al-Jabri

In this paper, I focus on Kant’s notion of God, showing that his critical philosophy changed the meaning and function of traditional concepts. Then I move on to consider a philosopher of the contemporary Arab world, al-Jabri, who has been influenced by Kant: the author of the Critique of Arab Reason shares with Kant a dissatisfaction regarding a certain use of reason which does not inquire about its boundaries. Philosophy must confront its tradition, free it from prejudices, search for reasons and investigate the origin and uses of its concepts, but critically analysing tradition does not imply that the past cannot help charting the path of the future. A fresh reading of tradition could help modernize Islam without losing the cultural elements of identity.