Redefining Reality
An Islamic Metaphysical Critique of AI’s Data-Centric Worldview
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22134136 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Boumediene Hamzi (0000-0002-9446-2614, Turing Institute, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 18 |
| Publication date | 2026-02-06 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Philosophies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2409-9287 • E-ISSN: 2409-9287 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/philosophies11010018 |
| OpenAlex | W7128159139 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 17 |
This essay explores the metaphysical and philosophical implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) through the intersecting insights of René Guénon (ʿAbd al-Wāḥid Yaḥiā), Martin Heidegger, and Ibn al-ʿArabī. It argues that modern AI systems, particularly in their statistical and data-centric forms, are not merely instrumental tools but expressions of a deeper metaphysical worldview-one rooted in quantification, abstraction, and utility. Guénon’s critique of the “reign of quantity” and Heidegger’s notion of Enframing (Gestell) converge in diagnosing the loss of qualitative and sacred dimensions in modern life. While Heidegger’s phenomenology provides a powerful immanent critique of technological reductionism from within the Western philosophical tradition, Guénon’s metaphysical traditionalism articulates a diagnosis of modernity that resonates with Islamic metaphysics, especially as articulated by Ibn al-ʿArabī. The essay includes Heidegger in the argument as a representative of a critique of modern technology issuing from the Western tradition itself, and by emphasizing his shared concerns with Guénon, whose metaphysics resonates with Ibn al-ʿArabī’s metaphysics. Through a comparative metaphysical framework, this paper proposes an Islamic response to AI that avoids both technophilia and technophobia, insisting instead on a spiritually grounded ethic of technology that preserves human’s dignity and mission. Methodologically, the essay restores a prior order often inverted in contemporary AI ethics: ontology (what AI is) grounds epistemology (what it can know), and only then can ethical evaluation be coherent
Dignity · Islam · Metaphysics · Modernity · Ontology · Reductionism · Digital Education and Society · Digital Media and Philosophy · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |