2022 CMENAS Fall Colloquium: Higher Education & Reformation across the MENA: A Geopolitical Exploration
“Higher Ed between Debate and Innovation”
Rahmi Oruç & Önder Kucukural, Ibn Haldun University (Turkey): Adab in Dialogue: Developing Argumentative Virtues in a Divided World via the Munazara Engagement Model (MEM)
In this talk, we introduce the ADAB project. The project takes its name and draws from the Ādāb al-Baḥth wa-l Munāẓara. Serving among the instrumental disciplines an aspiring scholar must master in their journey to knowledge and virtue, Munāẓara emerged as a synthesis of Aristotelian analytics and Muslim ethics at the end of the 13th century. ADAB aims to develop a new argumentative engagement model and implement it in contemporary university debates. Institutionalizing through tournaments and the attendant debate clubs, university debates are one key component of modern higher education. However, as we all witness in our contemporary societies, deep disagreements have hijacked the public space to the extent that we hesitate whether public deliberation and argumentation can provide any remedy. Nevertheless, considering the high levels of polarization that sometimes fuel violence, the dismal state of public debating should not discourage us from rethinking virtuous interaction and prospects of deliberative democracy. We believe ADAB is a humble start. We first provide a brief history. Then we make a case for Munāẓara’s applicability to contemporary problems as its attention to virtues and their manifestation in argumentative behavior is key to handling the growing frustration with public space or the lack thereof.
Register to the virtual event: https://myumi.ch/G1VwM
