Meaning of the Concept in This Book
For Mohammed Arkoun, rationality is neither a self-sufficient structure nor a final model ready for generalization; rather, it is a domain that requires critique and refoundation. Here it is connected to a reassessment of the limits of rational modernity itself, and to distinguishing between the major achievements it has produced and the shortcomings it has also revealed, especially when it is confined to the material and the consumerist, or fragments into distant specializations.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This concept serves the book’s argument by emphasizing that the crisis of contemporary reason cannot be resolved by reproducing its very same tools, but rather by critiquing them epistemologically. Rationality here is therefore connected to the question of critical intelligibility, and to the idea that the renewal of religion and thought passes through a historical reassessment of reason and tradition, not through merely relying on superficial reformist formulas. In this context, Arkoun links rationality to the limits of politicization, and to the need for a new reason that moves beyond closed centrums.
How It Operates within the Atlas
Rationality appears in the atlas as a point of passage between the critique of contemporary reason and the critique of modernity itself. It is not presented as an alternative to religion, but as a revisable framework that allows for a broader understanding of faith-based reason and prevents it from being confined to the religious alone. Through it, it becomes clear that the rationality required is not a reduction, but a critical plural rationality: one that acknowledges the historicity of cognitive tools and calls for moving beyond the strict separation between science and religion, and for absorbing the symbolic and spiritual dimension.