Notions of Witnessing in Islamic Thought : Incompleteness and Intersubjectivity

by Borgerson, Janet L.

• ISBN13: 9781441148148
• ISBN10: 1441148140
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-06-28
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Academic

Summary

This book demonstrates the theoretical and practical potential of bringing Islamic thought into contemporary philosophical conversation, aiming to engage debates, build concepts, and develop themes that shed light on notions of witnessing. Aspects of witnessing relationships have emerged in various guises over the centuries in Muslim thought, perhaps, in part, because the prophet Muhammad is considered the "Perfect Witness", the one who could be trusted to present humanity to God. However, these rich conceptual resources remain largely unexplored in contemporary philosophy. This book explores Islamic innovations in the realm of witnessing to expose new understandings of subject formation and intersubjectivity, and highlight the implications of these for existential phenomenology, as well as global relationships. Such an engagement suggests images, contexts, and language to perceive, and to express, the emergence of witnessing in apparently irreconcilable contexts. By approaching current understandings and mobilizations of witnessing in Western philosophy with Islamic conceptions at hand, Janet Borgerson generates a crucial sense of shared genealogies and related concerns.