Taha Abderrahmane's Interview on Philosophy and Language

Notes:

1) I have cut out the first seven minutes where Taha talks about the importance of the Doha Book Award to future intellectuals for the sake of brevity.
2) Regarding Taha's point of Plato and Aristotle's view that the philosopher should emulate [tashabbaha] the Divine, it is extremely useful for the viewer to peruse Ahmet Davutoğlu's work, 'Alternative Paradigms', in particular, the second chapter where he discusses this. Davutoğlu calls it an "ontological proximity"; see for example Theatetus 176b:
"Whereas the truth is this: [...] nor is there anything more like [God] than the man who grows as righteous as he can".
Davutoğlu asserts that the image of 'homoiosis' (becoming like to God) permeates the whole Platonic system.
As for Aristotle, one such example is in him defining God as 'thinking on thinking' (noesis noeseos) in Metaphysics 1074b33-35, and him limiting God's activity to contemplation in Nicomachean Ethics 1178b10.
It is worth reading Davutoğlu's work in full, because his thesis of 'ontological proximity' goes much further than Taha's claim of mere emulation.
3) Note that whenever Taha uses the word "Arabic" or "Arabo-Islamic", he is not referring to the ethnicity of the peoples but the Arabic language that was used in the production of intellectual output, especially within the classical Islamic tradition [turāth].

And God and His Emissary ﷺ knows best.

Prof. Dr. Taha Abderrahmane's Interview in Doha, March 12 2024.
Full video originally uploaded by جائزة الدوحة للكتاب العربي.