The incoherence of the philosophers

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The incoherence of the philosophers ( Arabic تهافت الفلاسفة, DMG Tahāfut al-falāsifa  'The incoherence [the inner contradiction] of the philosophers', lat . Destructio philosophorum , German also Der Ruin der Philosophen and The Refutation of the Philosophers ) is a philosophical work by the Persian theologian and philosopher al-Ghazālī from 1095 and is considered a masterpiece of philosophical literature. It is directed against the "alternative religion" of philosophy and the "arrogance towards the religious scholars" that emanate from the philosophers. The work offered Averroes the occasion for his reply Tahāfut al-tahāfut ("The incoherence of incoherence", Latin Destructio destructionum ).

Emergence

Al-Ghazālī wrote in Savior from Error ( al-Munqid̲ min aḍ-ḍalāl , "The Savior from Error") that he had worked on the incoherence of the philosophers for three years - two years to understand the teachings of the philosophers (falāsifa) , one to show its incoherence - in fact, probably worked on the work for decades. He prepared "very thoroughly" for his rebuttal and wrote several summaries of the teachings of the falāsifa, including The Teachings of the Philosophers ( Maqāṣid al-falāsifa ) - an "Arabic revision of a Persian textbook by Avicenna", which was translated into Hebrew and Latin has been translated.

title

“Tahāfut al-Falāsifa” can be translated as “refutation” or “incoherence of the philosophers”. Griffel describes the Tahāfut as “ collapsing into oneself ”.

Addressees and procedure

The philosophers' incoherence is directed against the "whole intellectual tendency called falsafa," from which al-Ġazālī was ready to accept some ideas. The work is divided into twenty individual questions of different lengths (singular masʾala ), in each of which al-Ghazālī subjects a philosophical tenet to a critical examination. Al-Ghazālī's project was stimulated by the preoccupation with the “political philosophy” of the Arab intellectual history since al-Fārābī , which he sees as an “alternative religion to Islam” and asserts the priority of rational apodictics over religious revelation. Due to a lack of criticism from the philosophers, this was "carried over from one generation to the next". Al-Ghazālīs main concern in his, at times polemical, but always philosophically argumentative work, is "to show that rationality alone cannot lead to [...] knowledge". In addition, the “great philosophers” for al-Ghazālī are mere “imitators of the great prophets - like all other people”.

In the discussion of the first question, al-Ghazālī formulates the paradox, known as Buridan's donkey , of the decision between two similar desiderata.

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b Frank Griffel : Al-Ghazali , in: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , 2014.
  2. ↑ Frank Griffel: Al-Ġazālī as a critic , in: Heidrun Eichner / Matthias Perkams / Christian Schäfer (eds.): Islamic Philosophy in the Middle Ages. A handbook , Darmstadt 2013, p. 298.
  3. ↑ Cf. Abu-Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazālī: The Savior from Error , translated, introduced and edited by Abd-Elsamad Abd-Elhamid Elschazli , Hamburg 1987, p. 16.
  4. ↑ Griffel 2013, p. 294 f.
  5. ↑ Griffel 2013, p. 298.
  6. ↑ Griffel 2013, p. 295.
  7. ↑ See Griffel 2013, p. 296.
  8. ↑ Griffel 2013, p. 296 f.
  9. ↑ Griffel 2013, p. 297 f.
  10. ↑ Griffel 2013, p. 298.
  11. ^ Nicholas Rescher : Choice without preference. A Study of the History and of the Logic of the Problem of “Buridan's Ass” , in: Kant studies . 51, 1960, ISSN 0022-8877, p. 146 ff.