Al-Gazālī und die Logik (German Edition)

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History of Western Philosophy. Science Logic and Mathematics. Only when prophetical knowledge is accepted can philosophy become a respectable way to study the true nature of things. However, it seems that his name should be added to the Ghazalian dossier. In his opinion, their way of philosophizing is wrong; it even compromises philosophy as a science. He expresses this, for example, as follows: For the author of The Brethren of Purity cites these in his own work, appealing to their authority and thereby enticing the minds of stupid men to embrace his false doctrine.

That would be an invitation to those in error to wrest the truth from our hands by putting it into their own books. Even in that case, it remains obvious that the attitude of both scholars toward philosophy was similar in many respects. We can thus summarize what has been said up to now as follows: The Farabian-Avicennian approach allows him to use the scientific methods and discoveries made by philosophers.

I have tried to evaluate his position by comparing it to different approaches to philosophy developed by earlier authors in the Arabic tradition of which he was probably aware. In addition to these considerations, there is yet another dimension of our topic. These conclusions deserve our attention too, because they allow us to situate his statements on philosophy in a wider historical context.

Considering our discussion, three remarks seem to be appropriate. As I have argued, he does not develop a single and unambiguous notion of what philosophy is and whether it is valid. This is revealing in several respects. On the other hand, it appears that his approach to philosophy is not only shaped by conceptual reflections and theoretical reasons but also by pragmatic considerations. Obviously, he has one which he tried to apply whenever discussing a related topic.

Still, this strategy seems to be less based on intrinsic and consistent theoretical reasons than on extrinsic considerations such as, for instance, the compatibility of a doctrine with revealed truth. This is even true for logic: As we have seen, he acknowledges logic as a universally recognized science. There are certainly good reasons to declare: On the other hand, it also appears to be curiously incomplete.

Theses are set forth in formally conceptual terms, sometimes at length, with great assurance and even eloquence, but also superficially and inconclusively, as implications are left unclarified and apparent inconsistencies unresolved. Which books and writings did he know? How extensive was the corpus he read? Who were the authors that shaped his ideas on philosophical topics?

At first sight, the answer to these questions seems simple. Recent scholarship even goes one step further. But this does not necessarily mean that Avicenna is his only source of information and inspiration in this field. When Aristotle, for instance, reflected on philosophical topics, his main challenge was without doubt Plato; but this does not mean that Aristotle was not aware of the teachings of Parmenides, Anaxagoras and others who had a considerable impact on him, too. His main challenge was, without any doubt, Avicenna. But this does not prevent him from studying the writings of other philosophical authors whose ideas may have been closer to his own convictions.

As far as ethical questions are concerned, this has already been 51 52 53 See, in particular the articles by Frank and Janssens. When considering his overall conception of philosophy, however, one gets the impression that ethics was not an exceptional case. The answers given to this question by scholarship have changed considerably during the last decades. Nowadays, however, many scholars tend to the opposite assumption. Sometimes he is even qualified as a kind of crypto-Avicennian. Many of these ideas are still unfolding. Yet, this line of interpretation, if exclusively applied, risks creating its own problems.

To search for affinities can be a hermeneutical tool but it can also be suggestive. It may thus be appropriate to diversify the field of interpretation without fixing it on one perspective. Another example that may fit our context in a certain way: Augustine was an enthusiastic reader of Platonic writings but his own intellectual and religious project can hardly be qualified as a Platonic one. Late Antiquity and Arabic Thought.

Science and Philosophy in Medieval Islam: Studien zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters. The Plea for Philosophy in the Religious Community. Walter De Gruyter, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. Edition and German transl. Creation and the Cosmic System: Edition and French transl. Oxford University Press, Insights into Classical Arabic Literature and Islam. Griffel, Frank and Hachmeier, Klaus. Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Les Lettres Orientales, Sources avicenniennes et farabiennes. Khalidi, Muhammad Ali ed. Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings. Cambridge University Press, Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam: Review of Richard M.

Intuitive cognition of the intellect in al-Farabi, al-Isfahani and al-Ghazali. Ein Beitrag zum Problem der Religion. The Revival of Islam. Allen and Unwin, La prima stampa armena. La ricezione di Isacco di Ninive. Das Organon im arabischen und im lateinischen Mittelalter. Greek, Indian and Arabic Logic. Inspired Knowledge in Islamic Thought: Reprinted in idem, Greek into Arabic: Essays on Islamic Philosophy. A Study of al-Ghazali. Edinburgh University Press, Eric Ormsby has chronicled and discussed much of the contours of that debate in his book Theodicy in Islamic Thought.

Thus, he should abandon or significantly modify one of the two theses. Several philosophers, Eastern and Western, have historically held the optimistic thesis: For everything which God Most High distributes among His servants: For if [there were something more fitting, etc. Indeed, I will discuss ways in which he might view possibility differently than we. I rely heavily on David B. And if God were not omnipotent, He would be impotent, thereby contradicting the nature of divinity. In the third sentence I depart from Burrell and replace his with my own.

Frank, Creation and the Cosmic System, This passage, however, is ambiguous. Perhaps the most common objection to any BPW theory is that the actual world is most obviously not the best possible since it contains so much evil, pain, and discord. It certainly seems that we can conceive of a better possible world simply by imagining this world without any number of these ills. His response is essentially two-pronged. First, he argues quite fervently that if one carefully examines the world, she will realize that the empirical facts confirm BPW: In fact, if it is argued that God must create the best possible world, and it can be shown that this is not the best possible world, then it looks like a simple argument that God does not exist.

He does this in many ways, some of which will be highlighted below. The gist of this argument is, as in the quote above, that deficiencies actually serve the greater good of the whole, often by manifesting or contributing to the wellbeing of other more perfect existents in the world. Thus, some evils and harms are not only allowed by God but are in fact necessary for the best possible world.

And you know that, for their sakes, He does the best for all His creatures. I quote and further discuss this particular passage below. And that would clearly be corrupt. Defenders of Reason in Islam, The views of both Marilyn M. But of course neither of the Adamses needs to affirm that each person receives the best possible life overall. Roughly speaking, this would be categorized as a type of compatibilism in the contemporary debate regarding free will and determinism. The proof that He [scil. God] is free to do whatever He does is that He is the Supreme Monarch, subject to no one, with no superior over Him who can permit, or command, or chide, or forbid, or prescribe what He shall do and fix bounds for Him.

And if He declared it [scil. He is the cause minhu of good and evil, benefit and harm, Islam and unbelief, acknowledgement and denial [of God], success and failure, rectitude and error, obedience and rebellion, association of other gods with Him and belief [in Him alone]. Ormsby, Theodicy, , fn. The same applies to other forms of imperfection: All exist solely as sacrifices for the perfect. Rather, BPW here is used to mean the best possible world for each individual person or living creature , even if not the best in some larger, cosmic sense.

One might raise several objections here. And consequently the blessing minna would be [too] great for them, and the blessing would be oppressive. See Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, Entering paradise has a specific cause. Perhaps human knowledge is inadequate to make judgments about any apparent evils that might undermine either BPW position. Nevertheless, it seems plausible that, if people can recognize clear defeaters at all, it is probably more likely on the level of the individual BPW rather than the global BPW.

The scope of the latter includes so much more that is simply beyond our limited epistemic abilities. The issue is complex for several reasons. I myself think either McGinnis or Griffel is probably right, but I cannot argue for that here. I discuss the same problem below in fn. In this way, he does not commit himself to an individual BPW, except for believers. Aside from indicating obvious instances of evil in the actual world that seem to militate against BPW, many philosophers have questioned whether BPW is true in a different way.

BPW is false if it can be shown that there is no best among all possible worlds or that there could not be any best possible world. This could follow in one of two basic situations: BPW provides a theodicy since, because God created the best, logically speaking He could not have done any better so He is not to be blamed for evil in the world. Furthermore, even if BPW is possible, this problem also concerns whether it is true.

If, no matter what world an omnipotent being creates, there is a morally better world that being can create, then, provided that the omnipotent being creates a significantly good world, it cannot be morally at fault for not having created a morally better world. Now, 2 could be true in broadly two ways: One of the precepts concerning [divine power] is that it is related to all objects of power.

So [the divine power] is suited to always creating one motion after another, and likewise one color after another, and one substance after another, and so on. That is what we meant by saying that His power exalted be He! Swinburne, The Existence of God, If there were no hell, the inhabitants of paradise would not know the extent of their blessing. Thus, given the possibility of an infinite number of Us and, thereby, of Fs, there will be an infinite number of better possible worlds.

Indeed, God might have to work out a balancing act to account for all the additional suffering involved in these increasing possibilities. Nevertheless, maybe a more plausible formula to account for these complexities would be: If Swinburne is right that additional populations of people with lives worth living can only make the world better, then by continually adding additional people to the world even people with a lower than average well-being , equalizing resources, adding yet new people, and so on, God could only improve the world.

Ultimately, we are bound to be led to the repugnant conclusion: Yet, why should the possible worlds be limited in space and resources even as we imagine them increasing in people? An omnipotent God surely is able to make each successive world bigger and more abundant, thus avoiding the paradox. For a more clear-cut case, however, there seems to be nothing impossible about a view of the afterlife in which non-physical immortal souls are rewarded and punished, without need of resources or space. David Burrell quoting Ormsby hints at this approach: As in this quote and the footnote above, Ormsby also gestures towards this approach to the issue.

Ormsby mentions several proposals for clarifying or limiting the notion of possibility at play in BPW, and it will be instructive to consider them. A possible world, other than the actual world, is simply another way the actual world could be, at this or any instant.

So possibility is temporally limitless, and the [divine] power extends to all of that. The preponderator [who is God, S. However, this does not remove the conflict, for, in conceiving of possible worlds, we can take into account the infinite sequence of time, such that the above counterexample of increasingly more faithful Fs or benefits Bs in the afterlife is not to be construed just as the same, yet temporally progressive, possible world.

Die Neubewertung der Logik durch al-Gazālī

Thus, there are three ways to consider [a possible world relative to divine omnipotence]. The first is to make the existence of the [divine] will and its relation a condition for it, and so by this consideration it is necessary. The third is that we avoid taking into account the If God could actualize another infinite in every respect , that world would be God, which is impossible.

But these sensible considerations do not effect the infinity of possible worlds in relation to divine omnipotence. His other comments discussed above may seem obscure primarily because of his more historical approach to the issue.

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From which it is obvious that one thing can be possible and impossible; however, it is possible by considering it itself and impossible by considering another. Thus, there are three types of possibility or necessity to which we will refer: Meaning a logical or metaphysical impossibility. It is not anything inhering in the world itself. We refuse to say that its [scil. Thus, I will limit my discussion here to simply speaking of will.

The Arabic text was not available to me. The guaranty of his theodicy is the unassailable fact of the divine predestination.

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Yet this meta-ethic yields a surprising and unsatisfactory conclusion. The best possible world is the best because it is the one willed and created by God. Though in modality ii it is the only possible world, I stated above that this version of BPW is not vacuous because of the conferring of real excellence by the divine will. To use another example, the explanations of ancient physics are not trivial i. This deficiency 98 99 For example, see R. Why explain that the sufferings of the damned add to the pleasures of the saved, if any arrangement of the afterlife would be just if willed by God?

He can have no motive or purpose for what He does. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, 1: Since the possibles do not depend on God for their being as possibles but are already there for Him as essences instances of which He can cause to exist, the measure of the good of what God can create and of what He does create does not have its origin in Him, but stands as an independent measure by which His action is to be judged. If so, then the DCT is less pronounced.

As mentioned above, BPW theodicies are meant to show at least that God is not morally culpable for having created this world. Philosophers of religion often address the Frank Griffel suggested in an oral conversation that he thinks this. For he is not subject to a moral law not of his own making. Therefore, as I argued above, the result is a wholly inadequate theodicy, since God could have willed a world with maximally greater amounts of evil and it would still be the best, morally speaking.

See the longer quote of the main passage in Section I above. We have seen above how an attempt at adapting the latter might go: See the end of Section II above. God could not be blamed with respect to either his justice or omnipotence for not actualizing the impossible.

His thought should be instructive for contemporary philosophers and theologians as they continue to ponder Optimism, divine command theories, and the relation between God and the world. Edited by Marilyn M. Originally published in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Originally published in The Philosophical Review 81 Finite and Infinite Goods.

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Some Problems from Parfit. Edited by Luke Wadding. I wish to thank especially Frank Griffel and John Hare, but also participants in the Yale philosophy of religion colloquium and my commentators and audience at the University of Toronto for very helpful feedback on earlier versions of this paper. Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality. Edited by William Frank.

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Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics. Edited by Maurice Bouyges. A Parallel English-Arabic Text. Reprint in 8 vols. Librairie du Liban, Edited, with an introduction by Austin Farrer, transl. Edited by Parviz Morewedge. Defenders of Reason in Islam: Translated and annotated by R. From the Many to the One: McGinnis, Jon and David C. An Anthology of Sources. Edited by Thomas Williams. Theodicy in Islamic Thought: Princeton University Press, Originally in The Philosophical Review 72 The Nature of Necessity.

Edited by Eleonore Stump. Cornell University Press, The Existence of God. Swoyer, Chris and Francesco Orilia. Edited by Edward N. Moral Agents and Their Deserts: Islamic Philosophy and Theology. Adams and Robert M. Originally published in International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 16 I suggest that his main inspiration was the work of Galen, both directly through its Arabic translation and indirectly through the mediation of Avicenna and a 1 See, e.

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If you affirm that things have a creator who is wise and powerful, then He must intend good for His servants, rendering satisfaction for them according to virtuous governance that is based on seeking their benefit. Arriving at this result is a logical necessity and thus requires no actual observation of the individual points of law. What allows him, rather, to arrive at the same conclusion and to defend the inherent beneficiality of the sacred law is the method of induction.

The cosmos is the macrocosm of the human being. The majority of mankind see everything except God. Then consider how He raised the nose in the middle of the face, and made it beautiful, and opened up its two nostrils; and how He placed the sense of smell in it, so as to indicate through the inhaling of smells its food and drink, and to luxuriate in fragrant smells and to avoid what is filthy.

Then [consider how] He raised the nose in the middle of the face, and made it beautiful, and opened up its two nostrils; and how He placed the sense of smell in it, so as to indicate through the inhaling of smells its food and its nourishing qualities. And [the nose also allows one] to inhale through the opening of the nostrils the refreshment of the air to nourish the heart and to cool the internal heat. As Bouyges noted, the scholars of Judaism Abraham S.

A discussion of the features of the nose, presented in Table 4. Note that since neither text has been critically edited, the textual variation should be viewed with caution.

Yahuda, Prolegomena, 11, n. But the parallel passages shown in Table 4. Lobel, Sufi-Jewish Dialogue, Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought, 48, n. So behold the vastness of this blessing and the ease of accessing it, and yet [our] unawareness of its real value, despite the intensity of the need for it, to the extent that were it to become scarce, life in this world would become miserable.

From this, we know that God, by sending it down and making it easy [to procure], wished the world to be inhabited by animals, plants, and minerals, as well as [providing] other benefits [so bountiful] that someone trying to enumerate them will fall short. So praise be to the great dispenser of favors. Terms denoting the fulfillment of human benefit and needs: There is [for this] no natural cause at all, but its principle is necessarily [divine] providence. Avicenna was familiar with the teleological argument and even, it seems, endorsed it in principle. MS London Or , fol. Although the bulk of the work consists of minute and detailed anatomical descriptions, Galen always concludes his descriptions by emphasizing that the body part or organ under study is perfectly designed to fulfill its function and therefore indicates the existence of a wise creator.

At least five manuscript copies of the Arabic text appear to be extant: For additional examples, see fols. The first of these, quoted above, straightforwardly affirms divine teleology in the structure and functioning of creation. The second, however, veers into the subject of prophecy: This [lawgiver] must be in a position that enables him to address people and make them adhere to the law.

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He must, then, be a human being. He must not leave people to their private opinions concerning [the law] so that they disagree, each considering as just what others owe them, unjust what they owe others.

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These ideas coincide in the eleventh book of De usu partium, where Galen describes the beneficial design of the eyebrows and the eyelashes, which protect the eye by their existence but do not interfere with its function because they cease to grow at a certain length. In the context of this discussion Galen remarks that. He then goes on to argue that the sending of prophets is a necessary corollary of such a teleology, since the existence of prophets is even more necessary for human flourishing than the practical length of eyebrows and lashes.

Gibb, who examined the manuscript, seems to have found no reason to doubt its attribution. The work provides a defense of divine providence by appealing to, among other things, the beneficial design of the human body. As but one example, all three works make the argument that the human speech organ is the model for musical instruments made out of bronze. However, the source text is used selectively, in altered wording and with some information e.

This is indicated by a quotation from Hippocrates that 45 See van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, 2: Theodoret, On Divine Providence, 4 introduction and discourse no. Compare Galen on the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body, 1: And when the divinely aided person considers it, it will be a cause of his guidance and felicity. There is no speck of dust in heaven or on earth that God does not use to misguide through it whomever He wishes and to guide through it whomever He wishes.

After all, Galen rejected prophecy and professed belief in the eternity of the world in De usu 52 The English translation is from the Greek, but it also fits the Arabic version. In consequence, both theories suffer from the bane of empirical observation, namely, the inherent uncertainty of the knowledge that inductive reasoning produces. Avicenna still considered this a fatal weakness and.

In the realm of law this injection of a teleological methodology marked a breakthrough by providing a coherent and practical basis for the inclusion of considerations of human benefit in legal reasoning. The 54 55 56 MS Istanbul, Ayasofya , fols. Essai de chronologie des oeuvres de al-Ghazali. Studies on Jurisprudence in Honor of Bernard Weiss. Kevin Reinhart and Robert Gleave. Galen on the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body. Ninety-Nine Names of God in Islam.

Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought. University of Pennsylvania Press, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums. Schacht, Joseph, and Max Meyerhof. Die Medizin im Islam. The present study shall attempt to resolve an ostensible discrepancy in one discussion and to identify and explain a real and serious discrepancy in the other. These in turn will explain the incongruence between his views in this work and positions championed in some of his other works.

Atay published in Ankara. An atom, therefore, can pass away and then, properly speaking, be restored, whereas a replica is an entity that comes to be having had no pre-existence. For that book was written to refute their doctrines, not to affirm true doctrines. The above statement speaks for itself. This is not the doctrine he holds to be true.

A slightly different reading is proposed by Richard M. Frank, who finds some ambiguity in the passage:. An important variant will be discussed below. For earlier, partial translations of this passage, see: He says that the premises of the argument do not correspond to his own belief concerning what is true. Because of the way the paragraph is cast, however, it is not immediately clear exactly what element or elements of the premises of the argument or its conclusion he may reject or accept.

Neither reading attempts to explain the one or two arguments described. Let us take a closer look at this passage. The two descriptions could be referring to two distinct arguments, or to one and the same argument. The antecedent or antecedents will be granted, and the consequent will be affirmed, both for the sake of argument. Now, as shown in the synoptic table on p. It seems that the argument described here starts by affirming two doctrines: The soul survives the death of the body.

The soul returns to the governance of a body, whether it be its original body or a different body. Neither edition, however, is furnished with a critical apparatus. So, having proposed what seems in some respects a compelling modified reading, I must for now suspend judgement on it. The following three models are eliminated in turn. The second model is that a human consists of body and soul nafs , that the soul survives the death of the body, and that God resurrects the individual by reconstituting his or her body out of its original particles and returning the soul to it.

The former possibility cannot be the case, as it implies that some inhabitants of heaven would be emaciated or mutilated, a truly discommodious state of affairs. The latter too can be eliminated on the grounds that the particles of one human body can become constituents of another either directly through cannibalism or indirectly through the food chain, and that a particle constituting one bodily organ can be cycled within the body to become a constituent of.

First, since human souls are infinite in number, they would need an infinite number of bodies; however, the world contains only a finite amount of matter. This, however, is impossible, for once a new foetus takes form, it will necessarily receive a newly-originated soul from the celestial principles, and no individual foetus can receive two souls at once.

He does this by proposing a hypothetical account of bodily resurrection on the basis of this model, and challenging the philosophers to refute it:. This is the same as the first of the three models, without the denial of the existence of the soul. How would you disprove one who chooses the last alternative and holds that the soul continues to exist after death, that it is a self-subsisting substance, and that this view is not contrary to revelation, but indeed is evidenced in revelation?

To substantiate his challenge, the third model is then developed along philosophical lines: So it survives the death of the body, which serves merely as its instrument. The identity of the individual is preserved in the continued existence of the soul, rather than in the body. For [the individual] is what he is by virtue of his soul, not his body To the second counterargument, which proceeds by equating bodily resurrection to metempsychosis, he gives two responses.

The obvious difficulty here is that the soul should become connected to another suitably-prepared body, not in the hereafter, but in this world, as soon as it departs from its original body. How does this hypothetical model of the afterlife prove Avicenna wrong? Or, to throw the problem into sharper focus: How could an argument premised, at several points, on theistic doctrines that an Avicennist adversary would never concede prove anything against him? The doctrines in question are the creation of the world in time, the denial of the natural origination of the soul, the notion that God is a voluntary agent who acts directly on physical objects, and the view that revelation is a source of theological knowledge.

Had his immediate purpose been to refute a positive Avicennan doctrine, he would not have been justified to premise his argument on any views that had not already been conceded by the philosophers. I propose that they are a mixture of conviction and hypothesis, as I explain in what follows. The former possibility can be eliminated on the grounds that the argument in question is in fact not ad hominem, and hence does not include any Avicennan views conceded for the sake of argument.

So it is only partly representative. And I propose that the views to which he is committed are the main central theses roughly corresponding to the brief initial outline of the third conception of humans and the afterlife: More specifically, it is the notion that the body to which the soul returns is not necessarily the body to which it was originally connected, but can possibly be an entirely other lump of matter. This term can refer either to an ad hominem argument as a whole the process of forcing the opponent to concede such and such , or more narrowly to the view that the opponent is forced to concede the consequent.

He hazards a wild guess of such a process in order to complete his hypothetical eschatology, but leaves it as a speculative. Beiser - - Oxford University Press. Richard Rorty and the Analytic Tradition: Radical Break or Partial Continuity? Tadeusz Szubka - - Diametros What is Continental Philosophy? The Owl of Minerva: Is Analytic Philosophy Moribund? Added to PP index Total downloads 10 , of 2,, Recent downloads 6 months 1 , of 2,, How can I increase my downloads?

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