Topic > Neoplatonic thinkers: Ghazali - 750

In the history of concepts, there is no concern that the figure of Al-Ghazali emerges as one of the best Western thinkers. Considered the eminent Sunni theologian who ever lived, Al-Ghazali's polemic against Neoplatonic thinkers, principally Ibn Sina, caused a fatal anger to philosophy in the Islamic world. Written after his period of private study of philosophy and completed in 1094 AD, Tahafut al-Falasifa was intended to pursue the analysis of reason that inspired his period of cynicism and attempted to illustrate that reason is not self-sufficient in the world. sphere of metaphysics and is incapable of constructing an absolute vision of the world on its own. While, as Goldziher (1981) explains, Al-Ghazali uniquely held certain beliefs that he refuted in Tahafut, he wanted to demonstrate that reason alone cannot establish that the world has a creator, two gods are unachievable, God is not a entity or a body, and which includes both itself and others, that spirit is a self-resilient body. This article will analyze Al-Ghazali's argument about the eternity of the world, as found in his early areas of debate with philosophers and evaluated against Ibn Rushd's responses. Al-Ghazali began his first argument by stating that historically there are three philosophical perceptions about the eternity of the world the past eternity of the world. The most generally held point is that of maintaining the previous eternity (of the world): that it has never ceased to be present with God, glorified be He, to be a consequence of Him, to prevail together with Him, and not to be following Lui su tempo (Jackson, 2002). Another position related to Plato proposed that the world was created and begun in time. Of these, Al-Ghazali directed his controversy towards the most... central part of the paper... the premise is undoubted. Therefore, it became significant to show the truth of the premise that the world ended and began to exist. To do this, Al-Ghazali used two major lines of attack: first by demonstrating that theorists had failed to demonstrate the impracticality of creating the worldly body from an eternal being; the second that the beginning of the world is demonstrable. Al-Ghazali began his test of argument one by summarizing the thesis among philosophers and theologians, and began with his general statement: that it is difficult for the temporal to arise from the eternal. He recorded the argument of philosophers, that without recognizing that the universe emerged from God co-eternally, the universe would remain in the sphere of real possibility, because continuation would have what predominance affords it (Dutton, 2001).