Al-Ghazali Flashcards
(55 cards)
Dates
1058–1111 CE
What school was he trained in?
Ashʿarī
What role did al-Ghazali play in Sufism?
He re-legitimised Sufism by grounding it in Qur’anic and Prophetic models
What is Tahāfut al-Falāsifah?
The Incoherence of the Philosophers
Ghazali’s critique of philosophers like Ibn Sina
Did Ghazali end falsafa?
No – the idea that falsafa died with Ghazali is overly simplistic and possibly influenced by colonial biases
Why might people say Ghazali ended falsafa
Commentary nature of Muslim philosophy is incredibly difficult to read and comes across as nitpicking
Commentaries and glosses were seen as a mark of decline (nothing new)
The true philosophy occurred in these layers
Who was Ghazali’s teacher?
al-Juwayni
History of analogy
Al-Farabi saw analogy as a crucial method in logic, Ibn Sina used analogy in logic and medicine but was cautious about its epistemic strength, Ibn Rushd after Ghazali embraced analogy in legal theory (fiqh) and saw its philosophical form as a legitimate tool
Ghazali quote on analogy
‘As for analogy, it has no basis in theology, to judge according to this method is invalid’
Argument one - general
Relates to why you cannot analogise X to Y/About the transfer of a judgement from X to Y
A1 - two strands
Just because P(Y) does not mean P(X)
Universal proposition
A1 - first strand
Class x and y are considered distinct due to different attributes, so why should it follow that since of has certain properties, as does the other
A1 - first strand (example)
e.g. Green balls and green trees are both green but not by virtue of being ‘things’ but for different reasons, so this shared characteristic cannot be used in analogy
A characteristic can be more essential to one thing than another (e.g. more to trees than to balls)
A1 - first strand, what does Ghazali argue we should do?
Ghazali argues that we must find the reason that a class has characteristics
Does Ghazalu condemn analogy?
Ghazali is not condemning analogy but arguing that it does not carry any certainty
A1 - first strand, conclusion
Once one figures out why a class has a certain characteristic, there is no need for the previously known class
Analogy: P(X) ∵ P(Y)
Ghazali: P(Y) because of something about Y
A1 - second strand
Ghazali argues that a proposition must be able to be universalised
All X are…
All Y are…
Can we put both X and Y under a larger class and make a claim about this class, if not, then X and Y do not really fall under similarity
All Z (including X and Y) are…
A1 - second strand (example)
e.g. Analogy - ‘Pigeons lay eggs and are birds, therefore woodpeckers because they are also birds lay eggs’ turns into ‘all birds lay eggs’
Argument two - general
Why is P(X)
We need to find the grounds for the characteristic in the object
It is very difficult to find a reason that is universally applicable to everything
A2 - example
e.g. Wine is forbidden (Forbidden(Wine)), but what about wine makes it have this characteristic?
A2 - four strands
It is very difficult to show that possible reasons are exhaustive
How do we know a reason does not have subcategories?
A cause can be specific to one thing
There can be a combination of grounds
A2 - inspiration
Basic formula is already outlined in Ibn Sina’s Critique of Analogy
A2 - first strand
Do we have any proof that the list of possible reasons X(P) is truly exhaustive?
If not, then this is an argument from ignorance, implying that not knowing of further reasons means that there are no further reasons
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
A2 - first strand, how can we know?
Relational questions (where something is either <, >, or =)
E.g. A is either greater than, less than, or equal to B, A light is either on or off, etc
Binary questions
