An African Concept of World

Pr. Salim Abdelmadjid (at Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès)

Pr. Ali Benmakhlouf (CAS/UM6P)

May 15, 2025

UM6P Campus – Benguerir

This  presentation proposes a concept of world based on African history and the African situation. Its elaboration begins with the observation of the contradiction between the concept of world, which presupposes its unity, and the reality of this world, i.e., its division, eminently revealed by the asymmetry of borders between the so-called global north and south, and singularly intense in Africa: literally, it must be said, the world does not exist. The other side of this contradiction is that between the inexistence of the world and the existence of the concept of world: the unity of the world is a regulative idea of reason. By relating these contradictions to each other, we can hypothesize a tendency from inexistence to the existence of the world, which could appear with singular clarity in Africa. African history and the African situation reveal indeed a link between what we could call ‘African negativity’, i.e., the Africa-unifying and liberating productivity of the African negation of the colonial European negation of Africa, and ‘world negativity’, i.e. the world-unifying and liberating productivity of the negation divided of the dividing negation of this world. This link could be the main component of an African concept of world that would integrate the elaboration of a common concept of world.