22. Al-Ghazālī: The Intentions of the Philosophers - Moses Narboni: Commentary on The Intentions of the Philosophers
A Sourcebook in Global Philosophy - Mohammed Rustom
Yonatan Shemesh [+]
Yale University
Description
The Sufi theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111 CE) played a major role in the history of Islamic philosophy. Among his most influential works is Tahāfut al-falāsifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), which is a methodical refutation of twenty doctrines of Neo-Platonized Aristotelian Islamic philosophy, mainly those upheld by Avicenna. Yet al-Ghazālī rejected only certain doctrines, not Aristotelian philosophy as a whole. In fact, this great critic of philosophy was a major popularizer of philosophy as well. Another important work in this regard is his Maqāṣid al-falāsifa (The Intentions of the Philosophers), which is a concise summary of Avicenna’s logic, metaphysics, and physics. Al-Ghazālī presents the Intentions as a kind of preparation for the Incoherence, but as an independent work it became a popular philosophical textbook in the Middle Ages, particularly in Christian Europe, where it was studied in Latin and Hebrew translations. The Intentions was especially popular among Jews in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. There were two or three Hebrew translations and several Hebrew commentaries. The most influential commentary was written by Moses Narboni (d. ca. 1362) upon an anonymous Hebrew translation. The following excerpt is a translation of al-Ghazālī’s introduction to the first treatise of the Intentions, which is on logic. The translation is made from the anonymous Hebrew translation that contains Narboni’s commentary.