Kamal al-Hajj

This article is about the Lebanese philosopher. For the Sudanese cameraman Sami al-Haj, in another spelling Sami al-Hajj, see Sami Al-Haj .

Kamal Youssef al-Hajj , also al-Hajj (* 1917 , † 1976 ), was a Lebanese philosopher . He was maronite .

Al-Hajj worked as a professor of philosophy. He was heavily influenced by French philosophy. He received his PhD from the University of Sorbonne , Paris, with a thesis on Henri Bergson . But still he was an advocate of the Arabic language in Lebanon. Through studies of the philosophy of language he came up with the question of Lebanese identity. As a philosopher he developed a "Lebanese philosophy". Based on the duality of essence and existence, the latter is a realization of the former, he built a philosophical system. This duality, applied to Lebanon, meant for him: religion is a question of essence, while denominationalism is a question of existence. For him, denominationalism with blind fanaticism is not an argument per se against religion, but a wrong application of denominationalism. He advocated political sectarianism in Lebanon. Since for him religion is a question of doctrine, no state or nation can live without doctrine. For him, atheism and logic are also subject to a doctrine.

He was murdered in an assassination attempt during the Lebanese civil war.

literature

• Intellectual dimension of Kamal al-Hajj, NDU, Lebanon, 1998
• Yasir Suleiman: The Arabic language and national identity: a study in ideology . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2003, ISBN 0-7486-1707-8 , pp. 210 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
• Al Hikma, April 1997