The Incoherence of the Philosophers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-Falasifa) in Arabic (تهافت الفلاسفه) is the title of a landmark polemic in Islamic philosophy by the Sufi sympathetic Imam al-Ghazali of the Asharite school against the Islamic Neoplatonic school of thought. Philosophers like Ibn Sina and al-Farabi are denounced in this book. The text was dramatically successful, and marked a milestone in the ascendance of the Asharite school within Islamic philosophy and theological discourse.

Contents 1 Background 2 Contents 3 Beyond Heresy 4 Summary 5 Refutations 6 Continued Discussion in the Muslim World 7 References

[edit] Background

This book was preceded by a summary of Muslim Neoplatonic thought titled: Aims of the philosophers Maqasid al-falasifah. Al-Ghazali stated that one must be well versed in the ideas of the philosophers before setting out to refute their ideas.

Al-Ghazali also stated that he did not have any problem with other branches of philosophy like physics, logic, astronomy or mathematics. His only axe to grind was with metaphysics, in which he claimed that the philosophers did not use the same tools, namely logic, which they used for other sciences.

[edit] Contents

The tahafut is organized into twenty chapters in which al-Ghazali attempts to refute the Muslim Neoplatonists.

He states that they have erred in seventeen points (each one of which he addresses in detail in a chapter, for a total of 17 chapters) by committing heresy. But in three other chapters, he accuses them of being utterly irreligious. Among the charges that he leveled against the philosophers is their inability to prove the existence of God and inability to prove the impossibility of existence of two gods.

The twenty points are as follows:

1. Refuting the doctrine of the world's pre-eternity.
2. Refuting the doctrine of the world's post-eternity.
3. Showing their equivocation of the following two statements: God is the creator of the world vs. the world is God's creation.
4. The inability of philosophers to prove the existence of the Creator.
5. The inability of philosophers to prove the impossibility of existence of two gods.
6. The philosopher's doctrine of denying the existence of God's attributes.
7. Refutation of their statement: "the essence of the First is not divisible into genus and species".
8. Refutation of their statement: "the First is simple existent without quiddity".
9. Their inability to demonstrate that the First is not a body.
10. Discussing their materialist doctrine necessitates a denial of the maker.
11. Their inability to show that the First knows others.
12. Their inability to show that the First knows Himself.
13. Refuting that the First does not know the Particulars.
14. Refuting their doctrine that states: "the heavens are an animal that moves on its own volition.
15. Refuting what they say regarding the reason that the heavens move.
16. Refuting their doctrine that the heavens are souls that know the particulars.
17. Refuting their doctrine that disruption of causality is impossible.
18. Refuting their statement that the human soul is a self-sustaining substance that is neither a body nor an accident.
19. Refuting their assertion that the impossibility of the annihilation of the human soul.
20. Refuting their denial of bodily resurrection and the accompanying pleasures of Paradise or the pains of Hellfire.

[edit] Beyond Heresy

The three irreligious ideas are as follows:

1. The theory of a pre-eternal world. Ghazali argued that God created the world in time and just like everything in this world it will cease to exist as well.
2. God only knows the universal characteristics of particulars - namely Platonic forms.
3. Bodily resurrection will not take place in the hereafter only human souls are resurrected. This is an important point as it is a cornerstone of Muslim belief that humans (body and soul) will be resurrected and will partake in the pleasures of Paradise or the pains of Hellfire.

[edit] Summary

The late 11th century book brings out contradictions in the thoughts of philosophers about God and the universe, favoring faith instead. In some ways, it can be seen as a precursor to Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

[edit] Refutations

Ibn Rushd (Averroes) attempted a reductio ad absurdum of Al-Ghazali's work, the Incoherence of the Incoherence (Tahafut-al-Tahafut), although the text was not so well received by the wider Islamic audience.

[edit] Continued Discussion in the Muslim World

Far from stifling philosophy in the Muslim world, the tahafut has piqued Muslim interest in philosophy: jurists are no longer afraid to study the works of Avicenna and al-Farabi as is evident in the works of Averroes and Fakhr al-din al-Razi.

The tahafut and Averroes' refutation continue to be studied in the Muslim world. The Ottoman sultan Mehmed II (a.k.a. el-Fatih) commissioned two of the realm's scholars to write a book summarizing the ideas of the two great philosophers as to who won the debate across time.

[edit] References

• Aristotelianism in Islamic philosophy
• The Incoherence of the Philosophers Lahore, 1958, 1963 English translation by S. A. Kamali. [large pdf file]
• Marmura: Al-Ghazali's The Incoherence of the Philosophers, (2nd ed.). Brigham Young University Press, 2002. A new English translation of tahfut al-falasifa includes the Arabic text. ISBN 0-8425-2466-5.
• The Incoherence of the Incoherence translation by Simon van den Bergh. [N.B.: This also contains a translation of most of the tahafut as the refutations are mostly commentary of al-Ghazali statements that were quoted verbatim.]