The Incoherence of the Philosophers

An 11th-century Arabic work by al-Ghazali that challenges Muslim philosophers, especially Avicenna and al-Farabi, on metaphysics, cosmology, and causation.

Avicenna: An influential Persian philosopher and physician whose synthesis of Aristotelian and Neoplatonic thought shaped Islamic philosophy. His metaphysical system supplies the work's principal target.
Al-Ghazali: An 11th-century Muslim theologian, jurist, mystic, and author whose works shaped Islamic intellectual history. He wrote the critique after studying the philosophers whose doctrines it examines.
Islamic theology: The systematic study of beliefs about God, revelation, and the unseen in Islam. Al-Ghazali assesses philosophical doctrines against theological commitments.
Averroes: A 12th-century Andalusian philosopher, jurist, and physician known for commentaries on Aristotle. His rebuttal made the work a central point of dispute over philosophy.
Al-Farabi: A 10th-century philosopher who integrated Aristotelian and Platonic thought into a major Islamic philosophical system. Al-Ghazali groups his doctrines with those of Avicenna's philosophical tradition.
Islamic philosophy: Philosophical inquiry developed in Muslim societies through engagement with Greek traditions and Islamic intellectual disciplines. The book intervenes in this tradition rather than rejecting every form of reasoning.
Kalam: Islamic dialectical theology, which uses argument to defend doctrines of faith. The critique draws on argumentative methods associated with theological debate.
Incoherence of the Incoherence: The common English title of Averroes's Tahafut al-Tahafut, a response to al-Ghazali's critique. Its chapter-by-chapter reply directly challenges this work's arguments.
Eternity of the world: The doctrine that the universe has no temporal beginning. Al-Ghazali disputes philosophers' denial that the world began in time.
Aristotelianism: A philosophical tradition based on Aristotle's works and their later interpretations. The doctrines under attack draw substantially on Aristotle as transmitted and reworked by Muslim philosophers.

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