The Incoherence of the Philosophers () is a landmark 11th-century work by the Muslim polymath al-Ghazali, a student of the Asharite school of Islamic theology, criticizing the Avicennian school of early Islamic philosophy. Muslim philosophers such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and al-Farabi (Alpharabius) are denounced in this book, as they follow Greek philosophy even when, in the author's perception, it contradicts Islam. The text was dramatically successful, and marked a milestone in the ascendance of the Asharite school within Islamic philosophy and theological discourse.

The book favors faith over philosophy in matters specifically concerning metaphysics or knowledge of the divine.

Background

In July 1091, at the invitation of Nizam al-Mulk, al-Ghazali became professor of law at the Nizamiyya of Baghdad, one of the most prestigious colleges at that time. This college was intended in part to train scholars to counter the religious propaganda of the Fatimid caliphs, and al-Ghazali's appointment at the Nizamiyya was consistent with that intention.

This book was a series of four theological works that he wrote during his tenure as professor of law at the Nizamiyya. The first one was a summary of philosophical thought titled Maqāsid al-Falāsifa (Aims of the philosophers), an exposition that follows Avicenna's philosophical doctrine.

  1. The theory of a pre-eternal world. Ghazali wrote that God created the world in time and just like everything in this world time will cease to exist as well, but God will continue to exist.
  2. God knows only the universal characteristics of particulars - namely Platonic forms.
  3. Bodily resurrection will not take place in the hereafter, and only human souls are resurrected.

Occasionalism

The Incoherence of the Philosophers propounds the Asharite theory of occasionalism. Al-Ghazali wrote that when fire and cotton are placed in contact, the cotton is burned directly by God rather than by the fire, a claim which he defended using logic in Islamic philosophy.

He explained that because God is usually seen as rational, rather than arbitrary, his behavior in normally causing events in the same sequence (i.e., what appears to us to be efficient causation) can be understood as a natural outworking of that principle of reason, which we then describe as the laws of nature. Properly speaking, however, these are not laws of nature but laws by which God chooses to govern his own behaviour (his autonomy, in the strict sense) – in other words, his rational will.

Cosmology and astronomy

Al-Ghazali expresses his support for a scientific methodology based on demonstration and mathematics, while discussing astronomy. After describing the solar eclipse and the lunar eclipse, he writes:

In his defense of the Asharite doctrine of a created universe that is temporally finite, against the Aristotelian doctrine of an eternal universe, al-Ghazali proposed the modal theory of possible worlds, arguing that their actual world is the best of all possible worlds from among all the alternate timelines and world histories that God could have possibly created. His theory parallels that of Catholic theologian Duns Scotus in the 14th century. While it is uncertain whether al-Ghazali had any influence on Scotus, they both may have derived their theory from their readings of Avicenna's Metaphysics.

Critical reception

Ibn Rushd (Averroes) wrote a refutation of al-Ghazali's work entitled The Incoherence of the Incoherence (Tahāfut al-Tahāfut) in which he defends the doctrines of the philosophers and criticizes al-Ghazali's own arguments. It is written as a sort of dialogue: Averroes quotes passages by al-Ghazali and then responds to them. This text was not well received by the wider Islamic audience.

In the 15th century, an Ottoman Turkish scholar Mustafa Ibn Yusuf al-Bursawi, also known as Khwajahzada (d. 1487) wrote a book about The Incoherence of the Philosophers upon the request of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. In this book, Bursawi criticises al-Ghazali so harshly that Sheikh ul-Islam Ibn Kemal expressed a doubt on if Bursawi's purpose was to demonstrate the incoherence of al-Ghazali or the philosophers.

Another less critical response to al-Ghazali's arguments was written by Ibn Rushd's predecessor Ibn Tufail (Abubacer) as part of his Arabic philosophical novel, Hayy ibn Yaqzan (later translated into Latin and English as Philosophus Autodidactus). Ibn Tufail cites al-Ghazali as an influence on his novel, especially his views on Sufism, but was critical of his views against Avicennism. Ibn al-Nafis later wrote another novel, Theologus Autodidactus, as a response to Ibn Tufail's Philosophus Autodidactus, defending some of al-Ghazali's views.

Footnotes

References

  • Aristotelianism in Islamic philosophy
  • The Incoherence of the Philosophers Lahore, 1958, 1963 English translation by Sahib Ahmad Kamali. [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. .
  • 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.]
  • Review of Tahafat al-Falasifa