Essay on Being: A Critical Reading of Charles Malik’s “Introduction”

This book provides an enticing glimpse of Arab contemporary thought as it deals with one of the most salient philosophical questions of all time; namely, the question of being. It does so in an unconventional way as to address the question of being not through a historical account of philosophical thought, but rather through direct critical analysis of the works of Lebanese thinker Charles Malik (1987), intended to provide a complete comprehensive overview of his personal understanding of existence and what he perceives to be the various degrees of what “is”.

The value of this book is thus three-fold: first, it investigates the philosophical basis of Charles Malik’s views on religion, politics, science and rights; second, it recounts the author’s transition towards a path of philosophical independence which is marked by a shift from a philosophy of power and politics to a philosophy of historical existence and meaning; and third, it delves deeper into the question of existence itself.

Another value this book holds is its demonstration of how critical thinking represents an essential intellectual exercise in philosophy and other disciplines of the mind, a skill that is nowadays most called for Arab contemporary thought to be built on.