Transcript Ibn Rushd perceived that the whole peripatetic approach to

IBN RUSHD: THE GREATEST ARISTOTELIAN OF ISLAM
By Yoyo Hambali and Max Sahuleka
Paper on History of Islamic Philosophy
Lecturer: Dr. Haidar Bagir, M.A.
ISLAMIC COLLEGE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES (ICAS) JAKARTA
1424 H./2003 M
ABSTRACT
Ibn Rushd is the greatest Aristotelian of Islam, known in the
West as Averroes. He is a Commentator of Aristotle and The
Second Master. According Ibn Rushd, the world is eternal, God
does not know particulars and there is no providence, there is no
free will, the potential intellect is numerically one, as it the
active intellect. Philosophy and theology are contradictory, and
the supernatural ought to be rejected. Ibn Rushd proceeded to
rebut al-Ghazali’s arguments against the philosophers. Ibn Rushd
has great contributions in philosophy, theology, medicine, and
jurisprudence in the West and in the East.
A.
Prologue
By the beginning of the eleventh century Ibn Sina had become the
symbol of Greek philosophy in the eastern part of the Muslim
world. Al-Gazali’s attack on Neo-Platonist, had radically
jeopardized the whole cause of philosophy, but post-Avicennian
developments in philosophy and theology revealed the durability of
that intellectual spirit which had given a new dimension to the
Islamic view of life. Aristotle, in whose name the whole issue had
been joined, suffered most. As has been reiterated so often, he
was confused with Plotinus, reconciled with Plato, declared to be a
disciple of Hermes, and even hailed as a venerable monotheistic
sage. It is known until the latter part of the twelfth century,
which witnessed the appearance on the philosophical scene of the
first and the last great Aristotelian in Islam, Ibn Rushd of
Cordoba, known to the Latin authors of the late Middle Ages as
Averroes.
B. His Life
Schacht said that Ibn Rushd is the great Cordovan philosopher. According
to Esposito, Ibn Rushd is the greatest Aristotelian of Islam, known in the
West as Averroes. Born in Cordoba in 1126, he studied medicine under
the doctors of Al Zuhr, especially Marwan; and he studied philosophy,
religion, law, and jurisprudence for some time under patronage of the
Muwahhidin caliph in Marrakish who had a liking for philosophical
investigations. He was introduced at the age of forty to the caliph Abu
Yusuf Yakub by Ibn Tufayl, the caliph’s court physician and minister. As a
result of this introduction, the caliph ordered Ibn Rushd to expound for
him the works of Aristotle, which the caliph had found "intractable'. In
addition to this commission, Ibn Rushd was appointed qadi religious judge)
of Seville in 1169 and two years later as chief judge of Cordoba. In
1182 he was appointed physician royal at the Almohad court in Marrakesh.
In 1195, probably in response to public pressure incited by religious
conservatives and critics, the caliph Abu Yusuf ordered Ibn Rushd to be
exiled to Lucena to the southeast of Cordova, his books to be burned in
public, and the teaching of philosophy and the “ancient sciences’ with the
exception of astronomy and medicine, to be proscribed Ibn Rushd disgrace
did not last long, however, because two years later he was restored to
favor. He died shortly there after in 1198.
C. His Work s
Ibn Rushd wrote Al Kulliyat, a compendium of medical knowledge, surpassing that
of Ibn Sina in clarity, wealth, and organization of materials; Bidayat al
Mujtahid wa Nihayat al Muqtasid in Law and jurisprudence; Fasl al Maqal fi ma
bayna al hikmah wal Shari’ah Min al ittisal, as a further attempt to reconcile
religion and philosophy; and tahafut al tahafut in philosophy in which he sought
to refute al Ghazali’s charges against the philosophers. He also wrote what
became the standard commentary on Aristotetle’s works and standard style in
subsequent literature in all fields of knowledge: Al sharh al Asghar (The Lesser
Explanation), a systematic and brief presentation of Aristotle’s thought; Al
Sharh al wasat (The Middle Explanation), in which Aristotle’s writing was quoted
according to subject matter and commented upon; and Al Sharh al Kabir (The
Great Explanation), in which Aristotle’s writing was quoted verbatim, paragraph
by paragraph, discussed, and commented upon.
Ibn Rushd also wrote commentaries on all the works of Aristotle, the Republic of
Plato, and the Isagoge of Porphyry. Ibn Rushd wrote commentaries of Physics,
the Metaphysics, de Anima, de Caelo, and Analytica posteriora.
In addition to these commentaries Ibn Rushd wrote a series of original works
intended to show far al-Farabi and Ibn Sina had departed from the genuine teaching
to Aristotle. One dealt with The Divergence of al-Farabi’s Approach to Logic…from
that of Aristotle, another with Al-Farabi’s Departure from Aristotle in the
Arrangement, Canon of proof, and Definition in Analytica Posteriora. Another group of
Peripatetic treatise was aimed at Ibn Sina. A general Inquiry into Problems Discussed
in Ibn Sina’s Metaphysics of al-Shifa appears to have dealt with his general
metaphysical strictures against Ibn Sina, the tenor of which may be gathered from his
extant works. Another treatise dealt specifically with Ibn Sina’s Distinction between
the Absolutely Possible, the Possible in Itself, the Necessary trough another and the
Necessary in Itself. To these last works must be added the copious references to alFarabi and Ibn sina in the commentaries, in the Tahafut, and the two important
theological tracts, Fasl al-Maqal and Al-Kashf ‘an manahij al-Adilah. Michael the Scot
translated into Latin ibn Rushd’s commentaries on De Caelo et Mundo, De Anima, De
generatio et Corruptione, physica, Metaphysica, Meteorologica, as well as the
paraphrase of Parva Naturaliaa, and De Substantia Orbis. Hermann the German, on the
other hand, translated the epitomes of Poetica and Ethica Nicomachea between 1240
and 1256.
His Tought
God and the world. Although Ibn Rushd did discuss theological topics in his
commentaries on occasion, he usually reserved them for his more polemical
works, where he has a more contemporary philosopher in mind. His Tahafut
al-tahafut (Incoherence of the Incoherence) is a response to an earlier
attack upon philosophy, the Tahafut al falasifa (Incoherence of the
Philosophers) written by AL-GHAZALI, who had argued in this work that
there are two major problems with Islamic philosophy. The first problem is
that it misapplies the very philosophical techniques which it advocates; that
is, its arguments fall foul of the criteria for validity which philosophy itself
advocates. The other problem is that the conclusions of philosophy go
against the principles of Islam, which the philosophers pretend they are
supporting. Al-Ghazali produced accurate descriptions of philosophical
arguments and then set about demolishing them, using the same philosophical
principles which his opponents try to employ. He argued that although the
philosophers purport to prove that philosophy is merely a more sophisticated
analysis of the nature of reality than that available to ordinary Muslims, the
philosophers are in fact involved in dismantling the religious notion of God,
the afterlife and creation in the guise of merely analysing these ideas.
Although the object of his attack is primarily the work of AL-FARABI and
IBN SINA, Ibn Rushd perceived that the whole peripatetic approach to
philosophy was being challenged by al-Ghazali, and he rushed to its defence.
The nub of al-Ghazali’s attack on philosophy is what he regards as its misguided
interpretation of the relationship between God and the world. The Qur’an is full
of references to the creation of the world and to its eventual destruction should
the deity feel it appropriate, yet Islamic philosophy tends to argue that the
world is eternal. If God really is an agent, al-Ghazali asks, why cannot he just
create the world ex nihilo and then later destroy it? Ibn Rushd replies that
temporal and eternal agents act very differently. We can decide to do
something, we can wait for a certain time before acting, we can wonder about
our future actions; but such possibilities cannot arise for God. In his case there
is no gap between desire and action, nothing stands in the way of his activity;
and yet we are told by al-Ghazali that God suddenly created the world. What
differentiates one time from another for God? What could motivate him to
create the world at one particular time as opposed to another? For us, different
times are different because they have different qualitative aspects, yet before
the creation of the world, when there was nothing around to characterize one
time as distinct from another, there is nothing to characterize one time over
another as the time for creation to take place
Al-Ghazali argues that such a response is evidence of mental laziness. Even we can
choose between two alternatives which appear to be identical in every respect except
position. He gives the example of a hungry man being confronted by only two dates,
where he is able to take just one. Since they are to all intents and purposes identical, it
would seem to follow that if the philosophers are right he must just stand there and
starve since there is no difference between them. Ibn Rushd criticizes this analogy,
since it is not really about a choice as to which date to eat but about a choice between
eating and not eating. What al-Ghazali is trying to do is establish some scope for divine
action and decision-making which represents God as a real agent and not just as a cipher
for natural events which would take place anyway. Ibn Rushd comments that the
difficulty lies in distinguishing between the divine will and knowledge. Since an omniscient
God knows exactly how the universe should be organized to produce the optimal
arrangement, Ibn Rushd insists that there is no point in thinking of a gap in time existing
between that conception and its instantiation. An omnipotent God does not need to wait
for the appropriate moment to create the universe since nothing exists which could oblige
him to wait, and he does not require time to bring about the creation. Ibn Rushd argues
that given God’s nature, we cannot think of his acting in any different way from that
represented by the organization of the world. This does not imply a lack of freedom or
ability to choose, but is merely a reflection of God’s perfect nature
One might expect Ibn Rushd to share Ibn Sina’s view that God’s knowledge is
limited to universal judgments, but he does not adopt this line, arguing
rather that God’s knowledge is neither universal nor individual, although it is
more like the latter than the former. Our knowledge is the result of what
God has brought about, whereas God’s knowledge is produced by that which
he himself has brought about, a reality which he has constructed. The
organization of the universe is a reflection of God’s thought, and through
thinking about his own being he is at the same time thinking about the
organization of the world which mirrors that essence. He cannot really be
identical with contingent and accidental phenomena, yet his essence is not
totally unconnected with such phenomena. They represent contingent aspects
of the necessary and essential relationships which he has established. To
take an example, God knows which physical laws govern the universe, but he
does not need to observe any moving objects to understand the principles of
movement. Such observations are only appropriate objects of knowledge of
sentient creatures with sensory apparatus and are far beneath the dignity of
the creator. Ibn Rushd argues that this is not to diminish God’s knowledge,
but rather emphasizes the distinctness of the deity from his creatures and
their ways of finding things out
The soul .
Another charge which al-Ghazali brought against philosophy
was that it fails to allow the physical resurrection of human beings and the
provision of physical rewards and punishments appropriate to their
behaviour during their lives. He has in mind here the Aristotelian notion of
the soul, which makes the idea of an afterlife difficult to grasp. This is
because the soul is the form of the living being, an aspect of the being
itself, and there is no point in talking about the matter existing without
the form when we are considering living creatures. Persons are
combinations of soul and body, and in the absence of the latter there are
no persons left. Ibn Rushd appears to argue that as we become more
involved with immortal and eternal knowledge, and with universal and
abstract principles, our mind becomes identical to a degree with those
objects of knowledge. So, once we have perfected ourselves intellectually
and know everything that there is to know about the formal structure of
reality, there is no longer really any `us’ around to do the knowing. Ibn
Rushd regards our progress in knowledge as equivalent to a lessening of our
ties with our material and individual human characteristics, with the radical
result that if anything survives death, it must be the species and not the
individual. Temporal and finite creatures are destructible, but as members
of a species we are permanent, although only the species itself is entirely
free from destruction.
This seems even more incompatible with the traditional religious view of the
afterlife than the position which al-Ghazali attacks. Ibn Rushd follows this with a
political account of the function of the religious language, describing the afterlife
as providing ordinary believers with a motive for virtuous action and dissuading
them from immorality. He does not entirely rule out the possibility of the sort of
physical afterlife on which al-Ghazali insists, but it is clear from his work that he
regards such a possibility as wildly unlikely. The only meaning which can be given to
such a notion is political, and there is nothing irreligious about such an
interpretation, according to Ibn Rushd. It is difficult for unsophisticated believers
to understand that it is worthwhile to act well and avoid evil, or that their actions
have a wider reference than the immediate community of acquaintances, so any
religion which is able to motivate them must address them in ways that they
comprehend and in a language which strikes an emotional chord. Richly descriptive
accounts of the afterlife, of God seeing everything which happens and of his
creation of the world out of nothing, help adherence by the majority to the
principles of religion and are the only sort of language which most members of the
community can understand. The arguments which Ibn Rushd presents for hedging in
the notion of the immortality of the individual soul would not mean much to the
unsophisticated believer, while the more intellectually alert are expected by Ibn
Rushd to understand how that notion fits in with the basic principles of Islam.
Moral and political philosophy
Ibn Rushd presents a firm critique of the Ash’arite theory of moral language, which
interprets rightness and wrongness entirely in conformity with the commands of God.
The purpose of that theory is to emphasize the power and authority of the deity over
everything, even over the meaning of ethical terms. What we ought to do then is
simply equivalent to God’s commands, and we ought to do it because God has
commanded it, so that everything we need to know about moral behaviour is
encapsulated in Islam. Ibn Rushd argued that on the contrary, a distinction should be
drawn between moral notions and divine commands. Here he follows an Aristotelian
approach. Since everything has a nature, and this nature defines its end, we as things
also have natures and ends at which our behaviour is directed. The purpose of a plant
is to grow and the aim of a saw is to cut, but what is the purpose of a human being?
One of our ultimate aims is to be happy and to avoid actions which lead to unhappiness.
It is not difficult here to align Islamic and Aristotelian principles: moral virtue leads to
happiness since, if we do what we should in accordance with our nature, we will be able
to achieve happiness. This happiness may be interpreted in a number of ways, either as
a mixture of social and religious activities or as an entirely intellectual ideal. However,
the latter is possible only for a very few, and neither religion nor philosophy would
approve of it as the ultimate aim for the majority of the community. There is an
essential social dimension to human happiness which makes the identification of
happiness with correct moral and religious behaviour much easier to establish. It is
conceivable that someone would try to live completely apart from the community to
concentrate upon entirely intellectual pursuits, but this way of living is inferior to a life
in which there is a concentration upon intellectual thought combined with integration
within the practices of a particular society.
Gazali v.s. Ibn Rusd
Ibn Rushd proceeded in his Tahafut al-Tahafut (Incoherence of
the Incoherence) and al-Fasl (Exposition) to rebut al-Ghazali’s
arguments against the philosophers. On the first issue of the
eternity of the world, he argued that contrary to al-Ghazali
contention in his book Tahafut al-Falasifah (Incoherence of
Philosophers), the philosophers do not believe the world to be
really eternal or really temporal. According to Ibn Rushd, the
former thesis entails that like God, the world is uncreated; the
latter that is corruptible. The genuine teaching of the
philosophers, he explained, is that the world is generated ab
aetorno (from eternity). This is so because the claim that the it
was generated in time (muhdath) simply derogates from God’s
power or perfection, because it would entail that God could not
have brought the world into being before the specific time He
created it and would raise the question why he chose to create it
at that specifi time and no other.
On the Second issue, that the philosophers deny god’s knowledge of
particulars, Ibn Rushd reported that what the philosophers in fact deny is
that God’s knowledge is analogous to that of humans and thus divisible into
particular and universal. The two are radically different: human knowledge
is an effect of the thing known, whereas God’s knowledge is the cause of
the things known and accordingly is neither universal nor particular but is of
its own kind. Moreover, its mode is unknown to us, because, like God’s will,
it is part of the mystery of God’s creative power. On their issue of
resurrection, Ibn Rushd explained, the philosopher and religious creeds of
his day are in accord regarding the fact of resurrection, but they differ on
its mode. The philosophers, he held, subscribe to spiritual resurrection or
immortality (maad) regard the Quranic reference to corporeal resurrection
and pleasures and pains of heaven and hell as so many pictorial or sensuous
representations of spiritual truths, intended to sway or deter the masses,
who are unable to understand the subtle, spiritual language of revelation.
Ibn Rushd further impugned al-Ghazali’s sincerity in denying the necessary
correlation between cause and effect, on the ground that this denial is a
sophistical gambit in which “one denies verbally what is in his heart,” that is
without serious conviction or simply out of malice. He then proceeded to ridicule
al-Ghazali’s notion that the alleged correlation between cause and effect is a
matter of habit, born of humankind’s observation of the recurrence of causeeffect sequences. By habit, al-Ghazali could only mean habit, which the Qur’an
(35:45) denies on the ground that God’s ways are immutable; that of inanimate
objects, which is absurd; or finally, humankind’s own habit of judging the
correlation of events in the world. This is synonymous with the activity of reason,
which is nothing other than the knowledge of the cause underlying any given
effect or series of effects. Thus, “he who repudiates causality,” Ibn Rushd
wrote, “actually repudiates reason.” This Repudiation logically entails the
repudiation that divine wisdom tat presides over creation and has ordered it
according to a fixed causal pattern from which the mind is able to rise to the
discovery of its maker or First Cause
For Averroes there are three sorts of minds, corresponding to the three types of
argument established by Aristotle. Firstly, demonstrative minds able to follow a rigorous
argument and to reach necessary and evident conclusions. The concatenation of theses
demonstrations is what constitutes philosophy, but this is accessible only to a minority of
minds sufficiently gifted to devote themselves to it. Secondly, logical minds satisfied by
probable arguments. Thirdly, minds given to exhortation or oratorical argument unsuited
to follow formals reasoning. These belong to all ordinary men, the great mass of humanity
responsible only to imagination and passion. But, as Averroes states, one of the
miraculous features of the Koran is that it is accessible to all three categories, each
discerning in it the truth adapted to intellectual capacity. For the verses which are clear
and unmistakable there is no problem; they are apprehended and understood by all in the
same obvious sense. Other texts are ambiguous they make use of symbols and metaphors.
They bear a literal and also a deeper, hidden meaning, and only the philosophers, the
chosen spirits, are able to comprehend the strict sequence of reasoning and to understand
the deeper meaning. A for the common people, they understand the texts in their literal
sense and one must beware of letting them catch a glimpse of the deeper hidden meaning
which these texts conceal as they would not understand them and would be troubled in
their faith.
But what disorder and sows trouble is the intemperate work of the
‘Theologian’, the mutakallimun, who, unable to appreciate an apodictic
demonstration, have recourse to dialectic reasoning which prove nothing.
Averroes does not stint is sarcasm against these trouble-makers, and he
would willingly appeal to the secular arm to prevent them pursuing their
misdeeds. This quality of wisdom which Muslim philosophy strives to adopt
is none the less, at least in intention, religious. This is its fourth
characteristic. It contains the religious elements taken from the Koran,
but instead of borrowing them as religious elements, it sincerely seeks to
‘reconcile’ religion and reason with the intention of giving the former a
scientific ‘status’. It applies religious principles the structure of Greek
philosophy thereby bestows on the latter a religious resonance which it did
not have with the Greek masters. It was thus able to get a hearing from
religious minds or at least those desirous to harmonize their faith with
reason and ‘science’
References:
Al-Faruqi, Ismail Razi and Al-Faruqi, Lois Lamya’, The Cultural Atlas of Islam, Mac Millan
Publishing Company, 1986.
Al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid, Tahafut al-Falasifah (translated into English by Sabih Ahmad Kamali),
Lahore: Pakistan Philosophical Congress, 1963.
_________, Tahafut al-Falasifah, (translated into Indonesia by Ahmadie Thaha), Jakarta: Pustaka
Panjimas, 1986.
Al-Iraqi, Muhammad Afif, Metode Kritik Ibn Rushd Peletak Dasar Filsafat Islam, (translated
from Al-Minhaj al-Naqdi fi Falsafah Ibn Rushd), 2003.
Berg, Simon van Den, Averroes Tahafut al-Tahafut, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954.
Craig, Edward, Rutledge’s Encyclopedia of Islamic Philosophy, London and New York:
Rutledge, 1998.
Esposito, John L. The Oxford History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Fakhry, Majid, A History of Islamic Philosophy, New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.
___________, Sejarah Filsafat Islam Sebuah Peta Kronologis, (translated from A Short
Introduction to Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Mysticism), Bandung: Mizan, 2001.
Jabiri, Mohammed ‘Abed, Kritik Kontemporer Filsafat Arab-Islam, (translated from Arab-Islam
Philosophy: a Contemporary Critique), Jogjakarta: Islamica, 2003.
Kartanegara, Mulyadi, Menembus Batas Waktu Panorama Filsafat Islam, Bandung: Mizan, 2002
Leamen, Oliver, Pengantar Filsafat Islam Sebuah Pendekatan Tematis (translated from A Brief
Introduction to Islamic Philosophy), Bandung: Mizan, 2001.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein and Leamen, Oliver, History of Islamic Philosophy, Qum : Anshariyan
Publications, 2001.
Schacht, Joseph, The Legacy of Islam, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.
Shaliba, Jamil, Tarikh al-Falsafah al-‘Arabiyah, Beirut: dar al-kitab al-Bananiyah, 1973.
Urvoy, Dominique, Ibn Rushd (Averoes) London: Chapman and Hall, Inc, 1991.