Influenza e ricezione del pensiero di Hegel nel mondo arabo (Siria, Libano, Egitto)

In recent years many studies have been devoted to the interactions between Western and Arab thought in the nineteenth and twentieth century. The present research concentrates on the influence and reception of German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, whose ideas had a great importance in the formation of Western thought and in the Western self-representation. The study is restricted to the area of the present Syria, Lebanon and partly Egypt and starts from the assumption that Hegel’s thought, particularly what has to do with the ideas of history, the role of nations in history, progress, “modernity”, may have influenced also the Arab self-representation and political thinking. Since there is no evidence of a direct reception of Hegel’s works in the nineteenth century, in relation to this period the research’s main focus is on the indirect connections to his ideas and on Western agents and institutions who may have had a role in transmitting them. The last part of the study deals with the direct reception of Hegel’s thought and with the movement of translation of his works that started around the 1960s-70s and is still ongoing.