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Dialectical Treatise · Arabic

The Incoherence of the Philosophers

Tahāfut al-falāsifa

OPEN THE BOOK WITH A QUESTION

Does observed regularity prove necessary causation, or does that add a stronger metaphysical assumption?

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Read the argument as a story

Story 1How far can reason speak about faith?

Al-Ghazālī — Critiquing unproved necessity, not philosophy wholesale

The question that opens it

Does observed regularity prove necessary causation, or does that add a stronger metaphysical assumption?

What changes as you read the work
  1. 1

    The Incoherence argues that twenty teachings associated with al-Fārābī and Avicenna have not been demonstratively established, treating three as especially grave religious errors.

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    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • al-Ghazali

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: §3 The Incoherence of the Philosophers

      Open source
  2. 2

    Al-Ghazālī does not reject logic, demonstration, or natural inquiry wholesale; the seventeenth discussion targets the inference from observed conjunction to necessary causation.

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    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • al-Ghazali

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: §3, seventeenth discussion; §4 The Revival of the Religious Sciences

      Open source
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How the work moved through time

  1. Around 1095

    The Incoherence reframes a conflict between revelation and reason as a question about what has actually been demonstrated.

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