To some extent, though not thoroughly.
He dismissed only a part of Aristole, in which he was in directl conflict with basic doctrines of Islam, like whether the soul take rebirth or not. Gazali was not dismissive of Aristotle as a whole. He accepted may of his other premises.
with love,
sanjay
FC,
I do not think that you still get it right.
plato.stanford.edu/entries/al-ghazali/
You are also a vitim of same misperception.
What he is actually trying to say that Atistotelian logic is an ontology, which runs on its own declayerd definitions/premises. It has not demostrated successfuly thus considering those as fundamental thruth is wrong.
And, he was not as narrow minded either as you are thinking.
Look at this-
He further says-
And, he was quite right.
with love,
sanjay
I forgot to mention his most significant contribution to islam and the world too.
Before Gazali, Sufism was considered as some sort of black magic by Islam and was opened to blasphemy too. It was only Gazali, who fought for it and established it as a subset of mainstream Islam.
with love,
sanjay
Sanjay,
again you give more credibility to my judgments of Al Ghazali.
The passages on him that you quote to demonstrate his open mindedness demonstrate precisely the insanity I accuse him of having spread.
How can you be lenient and forgiving to someone who thinks that demonstration can by definition not contradict ‘revelation’? How can you take someone seriously who holds these three purely undemonstrated ‘truths’ as a standard for what demonstration is allowed mean?
No, he was indeed insane, quite as bad as I had intuited.
It was perhaps nice of him to allow sufism. But I do not care about that. I care about his influence on the billions. In this sense he caused an evil of demiurgic proportions.
From where he stands, demonstration does not contradict revelation. Having said that, it is quite difficult for the pure intellectal persons to digest.
He had his reasons.
FC, you need to understand a basic thing about true spiritual scholars like Gazali. They do not say such just things because they find all that in any book. You are completely mistaken if you think so.
I do not know whether you are aware or not, there was a period of a serious intellectual/spiritual stuggle in his life, which lasted many years. During that time, he gave away all his wealth in donation and just roamed here and there in the search of his quest of answers. After some years, he came back and started teaching and writing again.
He must had some personal demonstration during that period of what is considered as relevation by you. But, the problem of such people is that they cannot prove it to others thus find it difficult to put that in such logical way as philosophy demands.
When he insists on doing some basic premises of Islam not to put on test, he must have confirmed those, at least to some extent. You can certainly doubt that but he cannot do anything regarding that.
You can say the same thing about Moses, Christ, Buddha, Mahavira and millions others too. None of them gave any proof either. You have to look at the life and the charecter of the person to see his intentions.
Secondly, most of the philosophy does not rely on proof. Can you tell me which philosopher gave proof of his premises, Kant, Hume, Descartes, Plato ot even N?
Did Descartes show by demostration that he thinks, therefore he is?
Did kant demostrate his metaphysics?
Did N demostrate his wtp to others?
It is all in the mind, not on the ground.
Philosophy is all about premises and ontologies derived by those and most of those are still not confirmed physically.
That is why philosophy has to rely either on science or spirituality for ultimate confirmation. It can confirm a very few of its premises on its own.
One may believe Kant, Hume, N or Gazali. That does not make any difference on the benchmark of demonstration. Remember, all are mere beliefs, not demonstrated facts.
But, by no means, i am holding all that useless.
with love,
sanjay
You can say that again … and again. 
This explains why you never understood what I told you about Nietzsche and value. You were prejudiced about me, thinking I don’t know about spirituality.
I find you a far more head-stuck person than myself. I think with my brain, sure, but I ground my thoughts in my heart. You do not display much heart in your writings, little passion, little spirit. (all these mean the same thing: courage)
So did Caligula.
He is the opposite of spiritual. He took away mans spirit and replaced it with servitude to his favorite book.
The koran is anything but spiritual. It’s a prison for the spirit.
And?
What meaning does such a quest have if it led to him cluttering up mans destiny with mud and causing future billions to live in deprivation?
He must had some personal demonstration during that period of what is considered as relevation by you. But, the problem of such people is that they cannot prove it to others thus find it difficult to put that in such logical way as philosophy demands.
So he should have stayed away form philosophy and stuck to his revelations. But instead he chose to defile the noble art of philosophy (honesty) with his hallucinations.
Yes. He confirmed it but he could not prove it so everyone just had to obey on blind faith.
You don’t understand this at all, Sanjay.
My objection is to his claims to logic and thought. Not to the fact that he shared his little fantasy with the world. His evil is that he imposed his fantasy on free spirits and stole from them the faculty of mind.
As you may know ‘mind’ relates to ‘mannas’, the higher thought faculty in sanskrit, and also to ‘Man’. Due to Ghaxzali, the muslim man is no longer man, but back to ape.
Al Ghazali is thus literally the reverse of Prometheus. He is the one that took the fire away from man. He brought man back into darkness.
All these thinkers did is demonstrate and justify. That is what philosophy is. They made mistakes, because until Nietzsche they too still relied on the possibility of objective analysis. But their work was to liberate man from such ideas, from the hallucinations of prophets and madmen like Ghazali.
It is all in the mind, not on the ground.
Then you believe that mind is unreal?
If you had a notion of spirit, you would know that “as above, so below”.
I guess you have to believe this to keep misreading Nietzsche, to serve your own beliefs.
You are describing your own mind. The mind of the philosopher is beyond your comprehension, apparently – the idea that a man could be honest to himself,choose to not delude himself with fairytales, seems alien to you.
Signing of with “with love” when all you’ve given is falsity is not smart. It shows that you do not know what love is. Love is not something you can bring about by saying the word. It’s in your actions. The love you could show me would be in correctly representing my views, and to try responding to them (as hard as it is to understand someone like me for either an atheist or a theist), and not to preconceived notions of what a philosopher can be.
Honesty and courage, my friends. That is all it takes. God may give you courage, but will thwart your honesty. And to be courage for a lie isn’t that hard.
Having heart while seeing the world in the eye is a far greater courage.
Consider the relation of courage and intelligence. It is a precarious relation, but a crucial one in the face of all other beings. The task of philosophy is to leave and love all things in their self-nature. This is the Way, as the greater Dogen of Shobogenzo practiced it. It is sitting in lotus and being rooted in oneself. And considering, this is the ecstatic bliss of the spirit, all other beings in their self nature.
James,
I acknowledge your objection and have to accept too that i have nothing to present in the support of Gazali.
But, as i have a read him to some extent, my assumption is that he is not faking. He was an honest person with a serious quest to know the answers.
An average doctor can tell whether the person has been attended medical classes or not from conversation only, without checking the degree.
with love,
sanjay
I sort of regret saying this as it is exceptionally harsh thing to say. Please see it as the full range of my anger at you for insinuating that I do not operate from spirit or love, that my intellect is incapable of grasping spiritual revelation and divinity. That is an incredibly grave insult, and your signing off on that with the automatic ’ with love’ adds to its cynicism.
Still, I am certain that if you had encountered my writing with heart and courage, that you would not have seen the need to lecture me on the very first thing that all meditative people learn when they set out on the path, which is that a sanctifying intelligence is awakened once the teleological mind is silenced.
dp
All I am asking is that we do not disregard the tragedy. The Islamic world was magnificent in its outset. Its splendid mastership of the horse-energy, its attempts to decipher God in aesthetics (of which the Mosque is still an impressive testament) and its appreciation of the Hellenic spirit - all this was far superior to what Christianity represented in that time.
But then… spirit waned, and Al Ghazali came, it seems to me much like Paulus, to block the road to health and lure man into a future of metaphysical dust, error, a cloud like ground zero at first, suffocating, the mind dying in terrible ways, torture, falsification of love and finally the dawn of belief.
I am not saying that Al Ghazali is the sole caue of the demise - the Islamic world had to be ready for it. Its glory days may simply have been played out. Around the time of its demise the renaissance started in Europe. Al Ghazali can in the most favorable light I can shed be seen as the swan-song of a beautiful culture. The starkest light shows him precisely like that - party’s over, now to home and then the hangover.
As so often the hangover lasts longer than the party.
All silliness aside the starker light shows Ghazali as the one who enabled the stupid and arrogant to take over from the inquisitive and profound.
I am certain he was a nice man. That is not the point. This is a warning to all nice men who just try to be honest and then conclude that they might as well refer to their honesty as divine truth.
This is the reason why I do not refer to value ontology as divine truth, while that would be perfectly justified by the standards upheld by Christ, Krishna and other historical representatives of the heart of (human) being. But I do not hold these standards. I am a philosopher - I will that God is dead, and I know that by this will, which is increasing, a great truth is being disclosed, and by great truth I mean great world. All I can do to help will be in the background. I won’t spell it out for anyone. Who has ears, let him listen. Spirit that dwells in this time is wonderfully archaic – free of any resentment, any attachment ot history – we know we are in the pure present, which in all other times has been referred to as the future. We have arrived. Perilous truths now govern us now, rather than safe lies, and resourceful humans will come to govern mans fate. And resourceful humans are far better capable of holding the world together than religious ones or the ones that are chosen by the people. The time of the Übermensch has come into the second house, we can no longer only talk about her, but hold it in our hands, the gold o it. It will be a time before we can step above the horizon, as free beings, masters of the Earth. I will not likely live to see that day. I can only hold the gold and laugh, so that the spell resounds and awakes others to what is actually given to them.
FC, you are looking very much angry, which i do not think is a good thing. And, that is why you are getting in all this.
Nevertheless…
I understood more or less what you said about him but did not accept it.
FC, i do not ever either try to hide my thinking nor being politically correct. I would like to say what i think i should say in plain and simple language. And, i stand by my asuumption, which is based on my experience, unless you correct me.
We are not at the same page here.
I am not a head-stuck person but very sensitive actually, far more than an average person. But, over the period of time, i realized that it is nice and even helpful to some extent to be sensitive but useless to let yourself flow with those. The wiser use of sensitivity is go deep down in the issues to form a proper understsnding. And, if one is too much engaged with those, his vision would become blurred.
I do not see any scope of emotions in philosophy. I even see use of poetic prose not suitable for philosophy. All that falls under art and litrature, not philosophy.
Secondly, i do not see that courage is proper choice here.
Writing texts full of emotions but without any real and clear content is certainly not philosophy by any means. The massage of the philosopher should be loud and clear, in order to aviod any misinterpretion.
FC, did you ever realize how much prize humanity has been paid for not getting interpretaions right?
Yes, that is true. But, the real issue is whether the reasons are right or wrong. And, without any doubt, Caligua had wrong reasons.
Your conclusion about both is wrong. Quran has two different interpretations. If you realy want to understand the esoteric version of Quran, you should read its Sufi version, which is much different from the conventional one.
I do not think that he done that.
I do not think that he was trying to be a philosopher either, in which way we use the term philosophy nowdays. But, the problem of that time was that there was not much clear dividing line between philosophy and religion. Both were much conflated.
He said what he thought as worthy of say and to those who he thought as worthy to listen. He was not interested in addressing philosophers. That may be his mistake but it was as it was.
That is your observation which may be wrong. I do not see any dishonesty in him. He did neither say less not more than what any other prominent religious scholar would have said. On the contrary, he was the most lenient one towards other ideas.
I would like to quote again from my post-
FC, can you show me any other quote from Saint Perer (who has the same postion as Gazali in Christianity) paraell to this in leniency?
As i said above, he neither said more nor less than what the scholars of other religion said.
If he was guilty, why are you sparing Jesus and Buddha?
Did Jesus not say exactly the same about the those three premises, that Gazali hold not open to criticism?
I am well aware of that. The concept of Manu (the first human) is also from the same.
Not at all. They only justified their ontologies, and with their premises only, nothing else. They do not have a third party certificate. Intellectuals, who engage themselves too much in philosophy (though it is not a bad thing) tend to forget this simple fact.
FC, If you do not mind, may i ask you a simple question?
Imagine that an andriod from some other planet comes to earth. You tell him about the philosophy and philophers. Hearing you out, he asks you where is N’s wtp and how it works? Can you demonstrate him wtp and its working, given that he is andriod and has no emotions? And, what if he asks you to give him some wtp to bring to his planet? Can you satisfy him, ever?
This is what i use to call third party verification. I think it is a new term for philosophy.
No matter whether wtp is true or false, you cannot demonstrate it ever in true sense.
No. I do not believe that mind is unreal, rather know it is for real. But, when it comes to third party verification, i am helpless. My knowing is relevant only for me, not for others unless i cannot demonstrate it successfully.
What i said was nothing to do with my perception of N. I do not know why you bring him into this. I am not that much influenced with him in either way.
Yes, that is true. I think that everybody does the same, including me and you. We cannot help it either.
FC, please do not put these kind of useless statements. That would not serve any purpose.
Love means to care for me. And, that is exactly why i used that as my signature.
Furthermore, i cannot represent your views correctly. No one can do that either. You have to do that in person. The only thing that i can do is to comment on your views, according to my knowledge, which may be right or wrong.
with love,
sanjay
I am afraid this correspondence is closed, San J,
You simply do not agree with me that there is not such thing as a “third party” that is not part of the equation. And this disagreement makes any agreement on this subject impossible.
AlGhazali did something you can forgive but I can not. He assumed that he could rely on something beyond himself, and he presumed that others could rely on the exact same thing. And then, his central assumption, which is different from yours perhaps, is that the Mohamad had stated an inevitable truth.
In this he was wrong.
I thank you for engaging me from your perspective and drawing some explanations out of me. I believe I have made myself clear to those who share my intellectual values. In fact, your arguments to support the man have been the proof of the pudding, so to speak. To me, philosophy is about the means of justification, not the justification itself. This ‘taste’, (life) is the reason it is superior to both religion and science, and why its subject can not be treated as you treat series of objects.
Never mind. I already know that you did not mean all that. You feel insulted by me thus became angry though it was not my intention to insult you.
FC, being here at ILP more than an year, i think that i understand you to some extent, if not completely.
I know you are a commited and honest person and appriciate that too.
That is where you misread me. I did not say that you do not have any sense of love.
You are certainly as capable as any other person in the world. That was not my point.
FC, we all are different to some extent. Everyone use to have its own forte. It is not a matter of shame. This is how we are.
You have your own forte and others cannot compete with you in that.
Like, my english is not as good as yours. I cannot write in the way you can and perhaps not many can do that. Secondly, my knowledge of philosphy is not the same but it is what it is. There is no point regreting it, because that is not my forte but something else. And, i know more than you in that field. It is not the question of inferiority or superiority, for the simple reason that both of us are capale to learn about each other fields, but we have not evolved in the same way.
As you wish.
But, i will take one mose post to clear some points. Aftter that, it will be your call. I do not mind it either way.
with love,
sanjay
Feel welcome to continue posting here. I have given you my arguments, but this thread is meant as an investigation into the man, as I think this is not common enough on the internet. I actually would like this thread to appear in Google searches for Muḥammad al-Ghazālī so that debate about him can acquire some of the critical perspectives I have presented. But for this to happen, much positive must be said as well.
“I do not think that he was trying to be a philosopher either, in which way we use the term philosophy nowdays. But, the problem of that time was that there was not much clear dividing line between philosophy and religion. Both were much conflated.”
That is still the case.
This is what VO resolves; it ontologizes the valuing of which religion consists.
With VO, it is no longe possible to have a “mere perspective” or random values -
The only real value is valuing —
which incidentally is the value standard on which the capital-markets operate.
Great thread, FC! Not sure I agree with you on Aristotle, Newton and Einstein though. In my videos, I have (among other things) been pursuing the thread of esoteric(?) Aristotelianism. The house that is lived in–dwelled in!–is the final cause and the only true cause of the whole thing–the whole that is more than the sum of its parts; also the “value-in-itself”, the intrinsic value that is the extrinsic value of the whole process that leads up to it. The workers, too, all want Home. And that is the only thing that justifies the cutting down of the healthy, ripe tree for wood. The formal cause is a reflection of the final cause.
“The question ‘why?’ is always a question after the causa finalis, after the ‘what for?’ We have no ‘sense for the causa efficiens’[.]” (WP 550.)
The answer to the question ‘why is there something rather than nothing?’ is indeed the intrinsic value–pleasure! or joy, if you will–of valuing. But what is this self-valuing really? The living home is the goal of the building process, and it’s extrinsic unless the process is itself experienced as such a home. And even the inhabitants of the house may be unaware of the intrinsic value of their living there. In a way it’s only a dwelling when they are aware. The ultimate goal is wisdom, the ultimate path is philosophy: as Novalis said, “Philosophy is really homesickness: urge to be at home everywhere.” Poiesis noeseos.