Rethinking the Philosophy of History's Paradigm in Studying Civilization: An Analysis of Malek Bennabi's Critical Review
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This paper analyzes the philosophy of history's paradigm in studying civilization. It critically reviews the approaches of the progressive school, within this paradigm, developed by the late Algerian thinker and philosopher of civilization’ Malek Bennabi (1905-1973). It discusses the concept of the evolution of the civilization formulated by the pioneers of this paradigm and their main ideas concerning civilization and its course in the history. It tries to find out what Bennabi mainly criticizes and considers the shortcomings of the progressive school, in the philosophy of history, concerning the study of civilization. Bennabi was of the view that this school’s approaches are more theoretical than historical, it is based on Euro-centric worldviews which sees the history of modern Europe as the culmination of the progress of human history without any critical analysis of the various civilized experiences. Therefore, this approach focus on some variables of a historical change while neglecting the complexity of a civilization as a multivariate phenomenon. Although Bennabi acknowledged the care of the Hegelians about the role of ideas in changing the history, and the Marxists’ praise of dialectical analysis, he was of the view that this school was not related to the nature of civilization. Consequently, he criticized this school in terms of the limitations of method, concepts, and perspectives.
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