Thinking differently about modernity: Reception, practical wisdom and pandemic uncertainty

Thinking about modernity differently means exploring its history and foundations beyond its certainties and established paths. The book highlights certain pillars of Western modernity and their divergent reception in the Arab-Islamic world, oscillating between complete imitation, selective assimilation and deconstructive criticism. It then examines the vagaries of a weakened modernity, revealed by the pandemic, calling for complex thinking capable of grasping the interdependence of crises and confronting uncertainties. The reflection extends to ethics, with the rehabilitation of phronesis, the practical wisdom that guides action in the face of the excesses of individualism. Finally, modernity is presented as a structure oscillating between reflexivity and altermodernity, a fertile tension paving the way for a decentralised, pluralistic modernity that is attentive to marginalised voices.