Zeyad el Nabolsy:
Comparative Perspectives on 19^th Century African Philosophy

Philosopher Profile

Short Bio

Zeyad El Nabolsy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at York University in Canada. He specializes in the history of Africana philosophy, with a focus on modern African philosophy. In his PhD research at Cornell University, he conducted a comparative study of 19^th century scholars James Africanus Beale Horton (Ghana) and Rifa’a al-Tahtawi (Egypt). His other publications cover topics such as Amílcar Cabral’s philosophy of culture, methodological debates on racism and ideology in the historiography of philosophy, classical German philosophy (especially Kant and Hegel), Paulin Hountondji’s philosophy of science, modern African political and social philosophy (with a focus on African Marxism), and ancient Egyptian philosophy.

Summary of the Conversation

The conversation first turned to El Nabolsy’s comparative research on the Egyptian scholar Rifa’a al-Tahtawi and the Ghanaian scholar Africanus Horton. El Nabolsy was primarily interested in their conceptions of science and history. Both scholars responded to a similar historical context (19^th century Africa). El Nabolsy talked about his own research journey that took him from German philosophy (Kant and Hegel), through debates and critique on racism in the history of philosophy, to the search for 19^th century African responses to these issues—meaning writings from an African perspective. 

The conversation touched upon questions surrounding the philosophical enlightenment, contacts between scholars on and beyond the African continent, philosophical currents and their stance on historical text, and the reception of Sub-Saharan intellectuals in Egypt. Regarding the last point, he clarified that political philosophy was debated to a greater extent than purely academic philosophy. In addition to 19^th century scholars, we discussed selected 20^th century scholars. We discussed the the attitudes to the sciences of Paulin Hountondji, who is renowned for his criticism of ethnophilosophy, or Cheikh Anta Diop, who argued that Ancient Egypt was a Black civilization. This talk shed new light not only on the delimitation of sciences and philosophy but also on the question: Who is a philosopher?  

Selected publications

• “Reconciling Hegel with the Dialectic: On Islam and the Fate of Muslims in Hegel’s Philosophy of History,” co-authored with Emir Yigit, Hegel Bulletin , Volume 45 , Issue 1: Themed Issue: Racism and Colonialism in Hegel’s Philosophy (Part 1) , 2024 , pp. 93–119.
• “Questions from the Dar es Salaam Debates,” Pascal Bianchini, Leo Zeilig, and Ndongo Sylla (eds.), Revolutionary Movements in Africa: An Untold Story, London: Pluto, 2023, pp. 244–261.
• “Edward Said and Philosophy,” Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, 11(1), Forum on Timothy Brennan’s Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said, 2023, pp. 103–109.
• “Paulin J. Hountondji on Philosophy, Science, and Technology: From Husserl and Althusser to a Synthesis of the Hessen-Grossmann Thesis and Dependency Theory,” Grant Farred (ed.): Africana Studies: Theoretical Futures, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2022.
• “African Socialism in Retrospect: Karim Hirji’s The Travails of a Tanzanian Teacher,” Louis Allday and Mahmoud Najib (eds.): Liberated Texts, Collected Reviews: Volume One, Oxford: Ebb Books, 2022.