Doha, Qatar: The Philosophy Program at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (DI), in cooperation with the Philosophy Club, organized an academic event on Monday, 24 November 2025, on the occasion of World Philosophy Day, under the title: “Why and How Do We Think Today? The Question of Philosophy Between Artificial Intelligence and Genocide.” The event brought together a distinguished group of professors, researchers, and students. According to the background paper, thinking is the cornerstone of our understanding and of interaction with the world; we depend on it, in part or in whole, for our choices, decisions, and relationships. It forms an essential part of the hidden infrastructure of our individual and collective lives.
The event opened with a welcome speech by Dr. Amal Ghazal, Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, who emphasized the importance of reviving philosophy at a global moment where technology intersects with major human questions. She pointed out that philosophy emerges today as an indispensable space and a tool for reaffirming human responsibility and agency in an era where technology encroaches on politics and political decision-making retreats into data. Philosophy, she stressed, is not abstract contemplation but rather a practice of resistance in the face of the power of technologies and the violence associated with them.
Following this, Dr. Elizabeth Kassab, Head of the Philosophy Program, offered introductory remarks underscoring the need to rethink the very meaning of reflection in an age of artificial intelligence and profound global transformations. She said that reflective thinking is no longer an intellectual luxury, but a necessity imposed by a complex reality in which technology is intertwined with the structure of political and ethical decision-making. Dr. Elizabeth Kassab explained that the transformations driven by artificial intelligence reveal new levels of influence in shaping consciousness and guiding policy, which calls for a return to philosophy as a tool for understanding and unpacking this entanglement.
Dr. Kassab affirmed that this event seeks to restore philosophy to the heart of public debate and to enhance critical awareness among students and researchers, enabling them to confront the epistemic and ethical questions posed by the digital age and to reclaim thinking as a human responsibility before it is an academic pursuit.
The event was organized into four main sessions, addressing contemporary philosophical issues related to artificial intelligence, ethics, human agency, and epistemic transformations in times of genocide.
The opening session featured a presentation by Dr. Raja Bahlul, who delivered a critical paper on artificial intelligence and its philosophical implications, highlighting the epistemological, metaphysical, ethical, and social issues raised by AI, while considering the remarkable developments in the field since the time of Turing and the early pioneers.
Dr. Walid Al-Saqqaf, Associate Professor in the Journalism Program, discussed whether code can itself carry culture and whether the culture embedded in data can reshape the code.
Dr. Fadi Zaraket, Associate Professor and Head of the Arab Digital Social Sphere Studies Unit at the Arab Center, who presented a paper titled “Artificial Intelligence Between Myth-Making and Epistemic Validity,” in which he attempted to demystify how AI systems operate and traced the phases of cognitive formalization, from Aristotelian reflection and reasoning, to algorithms, and finally to statistical modeling.
Omar Al-Magharibi, Research Assistant at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, addressed the topic of technological determinism and human agency, focusing on the interventions of Latour and Haraway. Al-Maghribi examined two responses to the tension between technological determinism and human agency: the first represented by Bruno Latour’s contribution, and the second by feminist philosopher Dana Haraway’s work on situated knowledge.
The event also featured several advanced research interventions by students from the Philosophy Program and other programs at the DI, addressing topics such as the threats posed by artificial intelligence, ethical responsibility in AI, philosophical linguistics in the age of AI, and value-based coloniality through the lens of AI.
The day concluded with an expanded panel discussion titled “Thinking in the Time of Genocide,” featuring Dr. Azzouzi Baghara, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Kuwait University, and Dr. Rachid Botayeb, Associate Professor in the Philosophy Program.
This event, organized regularly by the program, aligns with the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies’ vision to foster academic dialogue, strengthen critical thinking, and provide serious research spaces that address the ethical, epistemic, and technological entanglements of contemporary human issues.
