Heidegger in the Islamicate World

Philosophical debates, many of them involving the reception of modern Western philosophical doctrines, are a crucial factor shaping intellectual and practical behavior of many thinkers in the Islamicate world and their audiences. One Western philosopher receiving a particularly lively reception throughout the Islamicate World is Martin Heidegger. Intellectuals and philosophers started to deal with Heidegger’s philosophy as early as the 1940s. Involvement with Heidegger’s intellectual oeuvre manifests itself in multiple aspects and at various levels: Besides the rather scholarly interests of reading, translating, and teaching Heidegger’s philosophy, his thought is valued as a possible means to recontextualise what thinkers in the Islamicate world define as ‘their’ intellectual tradition, often including religion, as a meaningful manifestation of a metahistorical dimension of human being. The interest in the work of this particular thinker appears to be grounded in the conviction that the position it takes towards the conventions of intellectual tradition contributes to overcoming the aporias inherent in them. Thus, in the Islamicate world, dealing with Heidegger is often part of a project reaching far beyond the strictly academic sphere. To what extent Heidegger’s National Socialism and anti-Semitism play a part in all this is a question deserving scholarly debate.
This conference explores in two public keynote lectures and four panels various aspects of the reception of Heidegger in the Arabic, Iranian, and Turkish intellectual context. The keynote lectures and papers introduce and discuss approaches to Heidegger’s philosophy that operationalize, recontextualize, or review it critically in the light of Islamic and Islamicate traditions. 
Admission to the public keynote lectures is free and no prior registration is required. If you wish to attend panels, please contact [email protected]. 
For more information see: www.islam.unibe.ch (flyer of the full program and of the public keynote lectures).