Hi, welcome back to The New Thinkery. I'm David Barr. As always with me is Alex Greo. Hey, I am Greg McBrayer, Alex David, and our silent participant who we like to thank at the outset, our producer, Jake Gannon.
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Pass along. We're to your friends and family. Today is a very interesting episode, one that I think we're each excited about for different reasons to get going. And it's on medieval political philosophy, but specifically medieval Islamic slash Arabic political philosophy.
The figure looming in the background and all of this, of course, we'll discuss them a little bit as Al-Farabi, but we'll do a deeper dive into Farabi's work in a later episode. Perhaps when we have Charles Butterworth on. Today we're going to devote most of our attention to Averuis and his great text, The Decisive Treatise with Forays into other kind of minor Islamic slash Arabic political philosopher. So with that, Alex, why don't you kick us off?
Yeah, well, I thought the decisive treatise would be a good selection because it does state clearer than any other text, the dilemma that these philosophers face. Averuis really tries hard to justify on the basis of Islamic text that philosophy is permitted and for certain group of people obligatory. And in addition, that they should be given a fairly free reign to pursue this as they wish and to do so in secret. Now that's where we're working, but I think also we want to go back to the beginning and just sort of talk about why in general Islamic philosophy or political philosophy and what it has to do with us today.
It seems very like an abstract, kind of archaic subject, but I do think it has some relevance, right? I find it fascinating. I mean, I think that it's really a shame that more attention isn't paid to medieval philosophy, medieval political philosophy. I mean, you know, on a personal level, not just on an academic level, sort of as I try to understand myself, as I try to understand the world, you know, the most important question I think for human beings, especially if you're interested in global philosophy, if you're interested in philosophy is the alternative, the most fundamental alternatives to philosophy.
And that most fundamental alternative, I think, is religion or revelation or faith or prophecy, whatever you want to call it. And so they're these rival or maybe they're complementary, but who knows, but there are at least two potential sources of guides for how we ought to live our lives. And I think that's the most important question for you, I think, should I live my life by the light provided by scriptures, by divine revelation? Or should I live my life according to the dictates of reason?
Now, there are various ways people have tried to maybe try to harmonize those. We'll see if ever we just wanted those people. But I guess as I go back, I mean, for me, it's a sort of this is the most important question. And for me, the medieval thinkers, I think the modern thinkers, we've already done a little Machiavelli and we'll talk more about moderns later, I think that they try to make people forget about this fundamental question.
They try to placate us, as if I can make people rich enough, I can get them to forget about this really important question of revelation. But the medieval, I think more clearly than anybody else, tried to make clear for us this fundamental alternative. So the ancients, I think, so Plato, we're all big fans of Plato and Zenith and Aristotle here, they didn't have the serious challenge. Well, I will speak for myself, I'm going to be a fan of those guys.
But I think that the polytheistic pagan religion of the Greeks didn't didn't pose as serious of a challenge to the life of the mind to philosophy as that as we see in the Christian, Jewish and Islamic context. And all three are important, I hope we'll do episodes on all three faith traditions. But just so happens that I'll speak for myself as he falls degrees, I think political philosophy of the three monotheistic religions, political philosophy emerges first in the Islamic world. I mean, there's Augustine's or predates, but I'm sort of thinking of this ocratic tradition of political thought.
It seems to begin and Islamic political thought, move to Jewish political thought, and then also get involved with Christian political thought. I don't know if you want to jump in and agree or disagree, Alex, with that assessment. No, I mean, sorry, just really quick, Greg, you remind me of first peering into Aquinas' great work and to find men like my monadies on the Jewish side cited, but also folks like Al-Farabi and the various, it's amazing. Yeah, yeah, I mean, the way in which the Greeks are incorporated into all the traditions is really fascinating.
I mean, I think the Augustine example is interesting because Christianity was founded in the midst of Greekdom, which is not really the case of the other two. I think one important distinction to draw between Christianity and Islam and Judaism on the other side is the relative absence of law. There's this sense, if you're a Jew or a Muslim, that you wake up in the day in the morning and you have your whole day planned out for you, what's the main interview? There's very strict notions about how you want to live your life and obviously their demands that Christianity makes on individuals, but they're the role of obligatory ritual and all those things that come in and the obedience, as opposed to, you could say, forgiveness, which is essential Christianity, makes the problem in a way clearer, precisely because there is no accommodation or very little accommodation.
So one of the things you've seen, because Ollie, one of the things he's worried about is this very strict form of Islam, where there's a tendency to great literalness about the word of God and what is said, and that he's trying to push against. That's very different from Christian where you see Jesus speaking in parables and things like that. But law is the crucial thing that I think separates it, even if you haven't a gust in. The fact that there was this confrontation between divinely revealed law and the life of reason is something that first emerges so distinctly in the Islamic tradition.
Greg, you want to jump in here? Yes. So I mean, we probably should get to it because Ollie and then the very least, but maybe at some point we can do an episode where this is probably at least worth mentioning that this is a bit of a generalization, but I think because of that law aspect, you see in Judaism and Islamic, Jewish people thought, and Islamic people thought a turn to Plato's political thought above all, whereas in the Christian world, for political thought, they looked prince of later Aristotle, and I think the reason is because of the treatment they looked at Plato's laws. So it's because of the relative treatment of the relative importance of law in the political theory of Egypt.
So great point. Yeah. And Plato's laws is in a way the most distinctive platonic work. I think Strauss makes this point.
It was the only dialogue from which Socrates is absent. That implies that this is not a conversation Socrates would have had. I believe you're forgetting the eponymous. That's true.
Yeah. Greg, who's the famous translator of the still unpublished. Yeah. Well, it's the eponymous.
But the, you know, the least ocratic dialogue, which suggests that Plato wrote it, though Socrates would have had that conversation, that there's something distinctively platonic here. So it's not just that they focused on the laws because if interest to them, there seems to be a common thread to both. But to pivot to Ghazali, I think the reason we want to look at Ghazali before looking at a very is that two of the very big works are independent treatises as opposed to his commentaries are make reference to Ghazali. So Ghazali with two works of interest here for our purposes.
One is the incoherence of the philosophers. He hit us with some things, Alex. What's that? Can you hit us with the dates of these works?
No, no, no, no. Sorry. Oh, Ghazali is around 1058 to 1111. But I've always read so much later, who's born after Ghazali died, who's born in 1126 and died in 1198.
So anyways, Ghazali writes this work, the incoherence of the philosophers, which is a very large sort of systematic treatment of various claims made by these Islamic adherents of Aristotle in particular, combating their views and then trying to refute them, showing them to be incoherent. A very then wrote a response called the incoherence of the incoherence, which is I think an interesting title. I don't know, Greg, do you have any sense of why he doesn't call it the coherence of the philosophers? It's interesting that he's trying to show the other word coherent, presumably he's also trying to justify his own work, right, or his own views on things.
I think he does that another works. I mean, I think the point of I mean, it's funny and comable. I think that's probably part of it, but it's meant to show that Alga's alga's alga's alleys incoherence of the philosophers is mistaken. I mean, the funny, the interesting thing about the incoherence of the philosophers and he goes through, oh gosh, the number escapes me, maybe you know what Alex was, but there's he goes through dozens of not hundreds of errors that the philosophers have made, but it boils down to three really problematic errors at the end of the book that he repeats in another book that is called the Rescue Earth from Air.
And it's their denial of the resurrection of the bodies, the attorney of the world, and God's knowledge of particulars in particular that makes it a lot of nights. So he goes through hundreds of their opinions and those other faulty, but those opinions are just kind of bad, but the three biggies for which they can't be excused are the ones I think I have those right, the ones that I just mentioned, and they're observing of damnation and burning eternally, much like you are. Well, Bar's spent a little too much time in the sun today, so he might be already burning as the attorney might have already started. Can I just point out, I don't know how much more you want to talk about, but I'll just mention that one of the curiosities for me is someone who studies these things somewhat, I mean, I'm not quite an expert on these things, but is that we talked in our first episode about the appearance and disappearance or recovery of fluency and this appearance will be the philosophy.
I don't know if you're going to get to this, but Ali G as I like to call him, I think is probably single-handedly responsible for the destruction of philosophy in the medieval Islamic-slash-Arabic world. Who's Ali G? Alex Kowkali. She's kidding.
Yes, the trans-regnoisseurant going out. Yeah, so that's one work of a various that's explicitly making reference. Another one is a book called, well, the one we're talking about, The Decisive Treatise, which refers to his work, The Decisive Criterion, which is interesting as a counterpoint to the incoherence, and a very simple one point does try to bring out the tension between these two works because while the incoherence of the philosophers is meant to show their unbelief and therefore their deserving of the deservedness of condemnation and punishment and all that, the decisive criterion, that is, the decisive criterion for distinguishing genuinely belief from godlessness as the whole title of the work, that's actually a work of a consider a work of religious tolerance. He's trying to ease people up from this sort of sectarian infighting where these different factions are just accusing each other of heresy and arguing that each other needs to put the death.
He's trying to slow them down. So you can see two different objectives going on in this. Yeah, Alex, can you elucidate a little bit more, forcefully, what the stakes are here in the Arabic Islamic world? Because from one perspective, I think listeners could be forgiven for mistaking this back and forth across the decades and 100 years that the Vaidi's two men is nothing more than kind of scholastic infighting between thinkers of note of their time.
But the stakes are really higher than that philosophically. Can you talk just really quick, give some grounding on that? Yeah. Well, I mean, Ghazali, he's not against reading Aristotle simply.
He does make use of the logical treatises that always points us out. Ghazali talks about using demonstrative proof. But there's a difference between that and reading the metaphysical works or the physical works of Aristotle thinking that one can learn from those. So a lot of that's safe.
The question is, is whether one can even read Aristotle. What Aristotle one can read? Whether one needs to read anything outside of the sacred text at all. So lots of stake.
The question is, can one pursue one's reading and one's study in peace and in freedom at all? Which is, I think what makes the decisive treatise such an amazing work because he is trying his best to find a place of freedom despite this great swell of opposition coming from Ghazali. And one of the ways he does that is by actually appropriating Ghazali's logic against him. So when he's arguing for religious tolerance, Ghazali makes the point that so long as a reasoner believes in the fact that Allah is the sole god of Muhammad is his prophet.
If he believes that, then he's free of disbelief. He has to ascend to all the opinions, but he's allowed to ascend to them on different modes. So I'm just going to review these modes really quickly and particularly focus on the last one because that's the one that very uses. Things can either exist essentially, right?
In the way that a physical object actually exists, it can exist sensibly the way that my perception of that object exists, it can be imaginary or representational, which can either be the mediation between a thing in my perception or I've made it up. It can be a mental existence in the sense that a woman's one is to a kind of intellectual existence. But the fifth and most important is analogous or metaphoric existence. I'm just going to give you what a god, Alex Ali says.
So you know what a various is drawing on. He says, analogical existence is had when the thing itself does not exist in its form, or in its essential meaning, or outside or in sensing or in the imagination or in the mind. So none of the other ones, but only something that resembles it or one of its properties, one of its qualities exists. Now, think about what that means when you apply that to a sacred text.
It means that what the text says exists does not exist. And because I'll give some examples of some things that's obviously, you know, cannot have that sort of existence. He quotes a bit of text, you know, talking about the anger of God, talking about God having a right hand and stuff like that. He says, this can't be meant literally because this would go against the very nature of God.
But once you conceded that way of interpreting, right, this is a principle that's usable, you then have to determine when can it be used. And if you give it pretty free rain and a very seems to want to give it a fair amount of rain, then it might be that one can can interpret various things that people are willing to take literally various parts of the sacred text and run with it. So I think that's a sort of important background that well, there's all he is a somebody who condemns the philosophers very strongly. And he talks about Chryptal Muslims in this work as well.
He's also somebody urging for religious tolerance. And that is an angle into creating tolerance for the philosopher that a various, I think Greg can outline right now is going to exploit. Yeah, so I guess just something I wanted to address before we move on to Verui's. And this is sort of, I think, I mentioned, I think that Algazale is really instrumental in serving about this ultimate destruction of philosophy.
But that sort of seems to be not as if you're just a cat, you're just given a how he's tolerant. But I guess one thing I would say just to sort of walk back what I was saying a moment ago is that in this work, I just mentioned deliver from error or the rescue from error. Algazale goes through the various philosophical sciences and ask the question, are they okay or not? Okay.
And it turns out actually almost all the philosophy is fine. Math is fine. Logic is fine. Natural science is fine.
Politics is even fine. Political science will apply to ethics is even fine. Metaphysics, that's where you start to run into issues. It's because it starts to question some of the accounts of existence that are given in the Quran.
And so that's, it's only the metaphysical claims that it increases into being, it increases into the nature of the world that seem to be problematic for him. So I mean, there is the same beginning in him, I think that's important. But I guess we should probably move on at this point to a little bit of an overview of the Sysa tree. So I'll just kind of give an overview of what the book is.
And then I'll turn it over to Alex for some more meat and potatoes kind of thing. But the book is called The Decisive Treeus, right? This is by a very, by even Rusht. Yes, it's called, there's actually a longer title in the manuscripts that it tends and we tend not to call this, you see, why I'm just a moment.
So here's the full title of the book. That's what's at the decisive tree is what's it decisively treating so well. Here's the full title, book of decisively judging the statements and determining the connection between the law, Sharia and wisdom. So this emphasis on law that Alex was talking about a moment ago.
So this book, purportedly, by a very is going to settle for us once and for all decisively. The question of the relationship between the law, Sharia and wisdom. So let me put a little bit of meat to that, is philosophy okay or not? According to Islamic law.
And Varewee is going to answer that question for us, authoritatively and decisively. So I'll just lay out the book in the parts as I see it. There's a brief introduction. The introduction makes clear that a Varewee is engaged in a certain kind of writing.
It sounds highly legalistic. I think that's important, right? Because it's decisively telling us the status of philosophy under law. And so he's speaking like a lawyer might speak, recognizing the authority of the court.
Mm, rhetorically, I think it's important because he outlines different modes of speech, right? So it's a justification rhetorical, almost like law court speech in defensive philosophy, not a philosophic offensive philosophy, right? Would you say that or no? Yeah.
Well, it depends. No, that would be my first answer. No. Okay.
I mean, except that I think that I think the rhetoric commands philosophy. So very, very simply. So the first major part of the book is, air Varewee is trying to ask this question. Does philosophy okay or not?
Okay. Turns out it's okay. And that's actually me being a little bit loose with a language, not only is it a obligatory. It's obligatory for some people, right?
But he gives a logical argument to prove ostensibly that philosophy is not just okay, but it's actually a obligatory for some people. In other words, that the law commands some Muslims to engage in philosophy. Let me make this a little more preposterous. He then goes on basically to tease out, you know what, not only is philosophy imperative, you actually have to read Aristotle.
The Sharia commands you to read Aristotle and Plato, right? I mean, this is sort of, we would think that's preposterous. Now that it's so difficult, right? You have to go to whoever's done it already.
So just read all the books, right? Yeah, exactly. So interestingly, sorry, I don't mean to jump in. No, no, no, jump in.
Interestingly enough that that kind of urging command encourages people to seek out and co-mingle with philosophers. They're the worst people to co-mingle with. You're from a pie-age point of view. I try to avoid them at all costs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are no philosophers on the show, so it's fine. You're safe with us. We promise.
Okay, so the first step is the first part of the book is this argument proving that philosophy is and logic or obligatory. Maybe I'll tell you this, I'm not sure, but the argument is not sound. It's actually a very bad argument. The next major part is showing us that whatever we can know by science, whatever we can know by demonstration, logic, must accord with the Qur'an.
It must accord with the law. There can't be a contradiction between what reason, science, knowledge tells us about the world and what the Qur'an tells us. I'll just give a little bit of truth. Because both are true.
That's not right. Yeah, because both are true. So I'll just say just biographically for me, I first read this text as an undergraduate at every university with a lady named Anne Ardo. She was a professor of medieval philosophy.
She's an Augustine scholar, a really wonderful lady. She's the first one who introduced me to this work. And I'll just say for my explaining just a second, but for me, this was really important. And at that time I was a young man trying to think through these questions of faith.
So I'll give just a very simple example. So what science tells us is true and what the Qur'an tells us is true. And they can't contradict one another. And so what do you do?
You're a serious thinking person. You're reading your Qur'an. You're reading your Bible. You're reading the Pentateuch.
And you encounter something that you sort of think, that doesn't sound right. The moon stopped and moved backwards. The ocean parted. Whatever.
Anything that would seem to suspend what we might say would be natural necessity. How does an intelligent reader deal with that? In Elgazaw, actually, the Auveruis, not Auveruis. For me, Auveruis provides the reader with a really interesting way to consider this problem.
What do you do when reason and revelation seem to be in tension? And he says, look, they can't be in tension. In any time, there seems to be a contradiction between the Qur'an or the law and reason or science philosophy. It's only an apparent tension or contradiction.
And so what you do then is you must read such passages, Al-Abor, if you're a sufficiently trained person who can understand science, you interpret these passages, which is to say you take them as being somewhat allegorical. Now, not everyone can read the books this way. And that's okay. So if your grandma, Alex, says, you know, God, I saw God last night and he's sitting in heaven on a throne, and he has a crown, you should say according to a very waste of your grandmother, that's fine.
You're a believer and you have a place in paradise. And so for me, this is a really nice- Thanks, my grandmother's dead. So well, now she's in heaven, Alex. You didn't know my grandmother, just getting a lot of grandma.
That's a piece. One of them is. Who's talking about the alive one for God's sake? In any event.
So I'll just mention this more time just to wrap it up and I'll try and bring us to what the book is doing. So for me, the two most important parts of the book for me are these two parts, right? Proving that philosophy is okay. And then telling you how to read scriptures, I thought it was a really wonderful map for thinking those things through.
Now, there are all kinds of problems that get insinuated into this. And maybe we'll tease it out. Let me just finish what the book's about and then turn it out. And Alex maybe he'll tell us how this is a relation, how it relates to Al-Gazali.
The other thing the book does, the size of tree is after telling you that philosophy is okay, and telling you how to read scriptures. It then says, what's the point of the law? Why did the prophet lay out these laws for us? And the answer is, because he wanted us to live well together.
God wants us to live well together. And so then the next thing is, well, all these various people are interpreting the law in various ways. I just mentioned Alex's grandmother, who has a very simplistic understanding of scriptures. And then there's Alex, who doesn't read scriptures at all, but if he did any event.
So the point is. Or he could be foreign, just read the sod all the time. We all have our own, our own axe to grind. That's not scripture.
So just to bring it back. So the question then is, okay, so we have all these different people interpreting laws in various ways, but the purpose of the law is to help us live together in harmony. And so as you can see, there's this tolerance built in. If you interpret it one way, you ought to be tolerant of someone who interprets it in a different way.
And so he really, the book ends with a sort of rather long account of what to do with people who have various schools and interpretation various factions. And a very, we say, if you really understand things, you will understand that there is a variety of human types that people for whatever reason, their capacity or they're simply too busy, people have different capacities to understand scriptures. And so the more intelligent readings ought to be more tolerant of the less intelligent readings because we all ought to get along together. That's a kind of overview of what the book is doing.
I stress again that it's, there's at least this rhetorical appearance of being highly legalistic. But I think that's maybe that's enough to get you started out. Yeah. And so there's two things you said at the end that I really want to focus in on that are really sure it's a gazali.
So in section 27, I should point out, I'm the only one on this podcast who was not study with Charles Butterworth yet. I'm the only one who feels, you know, that I ought to, you know, plug Charles Butterworth. He's done a wonderful translation for bringing me on University Press. But we're using his translation.
Why would you do that? Why would you try and make us look bad in the eyes of our mentor? That's not fair. Yes.
Charles Butterworth, Charles E. Butterworth, we're using his translation. Brigham Young University Press, they actually do an excellent translation series for us. And Greg Butterworth is translated by the score of six.
Yeah. Well, we're hoping to interview him so we can start this. What's the phrase that he just wants to move on? What's the, what's the ECN for excellence?
Okay. I don't know. Excellent. You included it.
I felt like it mattered to you. That's what he got. It's his professional. Oh, no.
You know what it is, is because there's a Charles Butterworth who's a tensile town actor. That's right. I forgot about that. Okay.
Anyways, back to a very always. So in section 27, and so I want to touch on what Greg had to say about allegorical interpretation. Section 27, he discusses briefly, tying it to gazali says, this is the reason for the law being divided into an apparent sense and an inner sense for the apparent sense is those likenesses coined for those meanings, meanings being the inner sense. And the inner sense is those meanings that reveal themselves only to those adept in demonstration.
These likenesses and meanings are the four or five sorts of existing things that Abu Hamid al-Gazali mentioned in the book, The Distinction, or what I've been calling the decisive criteria. So you see that he's actually appropriating gazali's logic and expanding it even further. Another point I'll add that Greg brought up is his distinctions in types of people. There are three modes of speech necessary for the three different kinds.
One is persuasion or rhetoric. That's used for people generally who cannot understand demonstrations. And there's dialectic, which argues on the basis of some commonly held or individually held opinion and produces belief or conviction out of that. And the third and highest and most difficult kind is demonstration.
The Greek word is apotexus. It means literally showing down from down from some first principles. It's the firmest kind of proof you can have. Now this distinction, correctly from wrong, Greg, he doesn't get this distinction from the Quran, does he?
He seems to see it late into the Quran, but it's not like the Quran tells you there are three kinds of men. There's one textual basis a little bit, right? But it seems primarily to be a kind of ancient sort of natural hierarchy. Let me actually, since you asked, this is in section 14.
So I mentioned, I'm not going to go through the whole argument right now, but when he's trying to prove that philosophy is okay, he sort of, he does some funny things that are probably where it's mentioned. One of them is, so I'm sure one of our listeners will correct me in this understanding is that the Quran originally, there's no punctuation. And so one of the things he does, to your point out, is that there are different types or is there the hierarchy of human types? Is he points to a passage in the Quran, the third surah verse seven, where I'll just read it for you.
Here's the verse as it's set out in the Quran, the way it's punctuated most of the time. He it is who has sent down to you the book in it, there are fixed verses. Now that verse there, and it says, and no one should inquire into it, period, apparently, except for God. Now, a vera we says said, so the next sentence then begins, and those well grounded in science do blah, blah, blah, blah.
So a vera we says, that sentence says no one should inquire into it, except for God, and those well grounded in science, period. So a vera we's moves the period because there is no period in the original area. And so therefore, a vera we says, here is this Quranic evidence that there's a variation in types of other people have to take what's set down and don't search for the inner meanings, but those well grounded in science, it's okay for them to do it. So he does point to this Quranic source for what you were just talking about.
Yeah, and so there's a Quranic source, and as you point out, the punctuation is ambiguous. I think that's helpful because it's, you know, a lot hangs on that. So if the punctuation goes against the vera was intention, then it seems like you're not allowed to inquire in the law, and you must be a kind of harsh literalist. Am I right and thinking of that?
Great. Yeah, I think that that's right. But again, I mean, in the original area, there wasn't the punctuation. So I mean, you can say he's changing things, which maybe that's right, but you can also just say, well, it wasn't there.
So how up went to interpret it? But you're right, if you put the period before, except for those adapted science, then yes, it seemed to imply strict literalism. Yeah. And so, and that suffices for gazole is kind of already over the floodgates.
I'm going to read a short passage from the end of chapter five of the decisive criterion. And he's discussing two different interpretations. He says, our aim is not to justify one of the two interpretations, like to settle this question of interpretation. Rather, it is that you may know that every faction, even though it goes far in holding fast literal meanings is compelled to use interpretation.
You just have to interpret some verses, unless one exceeds the bounds in stupidity and ignorance and affirms that Black Stone is actually a right hand, and that death, even though it is an accident is transformed and changed into ram, etc. Now, anyone who reaches this degree of ignorance has been stripped of the noose of reason. Right. So even gazole can see that you can't be a hyper literalist, right?
So it's not that all interpretation is forbidden. So he would actually maybe agree. I don't know if there's any discussion of this, he might actually agree with the punctuation point, because it would forbid him as well. Yeah.
Which is a gazole who though, even though he's so anti philosophic, has a slight wedge that very can work with as opposed to these harsh literalists with whom, I assume a very is because all it would be united. Obviously, their dates are not allowed, would be united in opposing, because they both allow for some interpretation. Yeah, let me just, I want to make sure I get that since I just found the passage in the Quran. So I just want to read this for you so you can see the fun part here.
So Quran, sort of three verse seven, he it is who has sat down to leave the book. No one knows its hidden meanings except for God Allah, period or not period, next sentence, and those who are firmly grounded in knowledge, they say blah, blah, blah, blah. So if it's no one knows they're going to accept Allah period, that's different than no one knows their meanings except Allah and those who are firmly grounded in knowledge or science. So sorry to take us on that digression, but that was important to maybe try and get the quote somewhat precise.
No, I think that's helpful. And so one point that I didn't want to pivot to is the degree of freedom that because sorry, a vera always allows velocity. So we go to section 23, I think we get a nice statement on this where it's pretty clear that he's drawing. So he seems that those who disagree about the interpretation of these were conduct questions have either hit the mark or to be rewarded and are to be rewarded or they have aired and are to be excused for a sentence to something due to an indication arising in the soul is compulsory, not voluntary.
I mean, that is not up to us not to a cent or to a cent, as it is up to us to stand up or not to stand up. Since a condition of responsibility is having choice, the one who is sent to error because of vagueness occurring in it is excused if he is in a depth of science. So if you are skilled in science, you're allowed to make mistakes. If you're not if you're not an average Joe Muslim, you're not.
Average David Barr. Yeah, that's a good point. That passage you just read always stuck with me. This is something that we'll probably talk about in other episodes too, but you don't choose what you believe in.
That's right. A cent is not up to you. I could not choose to believe that two plus two equals three. That's a fascinating thing.
I mean, because we've got how much religion took a lot of courage. Thank you. Thank you. But I mean, did you all right David?
I've been not in the sun today. David has drunk on the sunshine. I think he had a few my ties. No, I don't want to get into it.
I just might unfried me. Sorry. That's all right. Another point I want to that I really like is section 31.
We can jump to that one is another interesting use of of this logic. Here he says, there's a third sort of versus in traditions. There's a very odd sentence. So I'll have to sort of translate it to plainer speech.
There's a third sort of versus with respect to the law, one wavering between the other two sorts and about which there is doubt. One group of those who occupy themselves with reflection attach this sort to the apparent sense that it is not permissible to interpret. So some of the learned think you're not allowed to return interpret this. You have to take it at face value.
Others, however, attached to it, attach it to the inner sense that is not permissible for the learned to take according to its apparent sense. So some of the learned says you're forbidden from deviating from the apparent sense. Others say you're forbidden from sticking to the apparent sense. What do you do here?
When one of the learned, because Ollie, for example, says you're not allowed to interpret this, you've gone too far. And then another, let's say, an avarois says, no, no, you have to interpret it. You're not allowed to stick to the apparent sense. He says one who commits an error with respect to this is to be excused.
I mean, one of the learned. So the average person can't make these mistakes. And even if you see a verus and you say, hey, a verus, what are you doing? This is horrible.
This is unbelievable. Verus says you can't tell on me. You can't tell the people. And that's, I think, an amazing thing.
He's done. He's really carved himself a sort of freedom that even with those who might see what he has to say or might hear what he actually thinks and how he interprets the Quran, he's allowed to do what he wants. So long as he believes that that's permitted. So a few minutes ago, Greg gave an rush to his Quran and gave a kind of a nice interpretation on one of the passages.
But if the readers of this, of the decisive treatise, his target audience then are these religious jurists, right? And his success rises or falls on their, on his ability to convince them. Is that a fair way of putting it? Yeah, I think that's fair, yeah.
But why would they, why would they interpret the passage you just read, or the passage Greg interpreted for us in a way that's favorable to a bearish, and not just revert back to their mentality? I think his audience, that's a great question. I think that, I think in part, his audience are these theologians, these jurists, these legal, these religious legal scholars. But I suspect that it's also a certain type of intelligent young person who might be confused about conflicting sources of wisdom.
And so I think part of his, what he's doing is trying to introduce or make philosophy acceptable to a certain human type. And that, like I said, people who, you know, you read your Bible, you read your chronicle, like, what's going on? This doesn't sound rational. It doesn't, that's not a reason.
I think he's trying to provide you with an avenue to sort of try to figure out how to resolve that tension for yourself. And so I think he does have this political project. I think this is a deeply apologetic work. But I think while it's doing that, it's trying also simultaneously to attract new sheep to the flock, as it were.
That's right. And if I can change your question slightly, David, it's not that they would interpret it that way. I think the main thing he's trying to do is say that even if you disagree, you're not allowed to publish it. And so then the question is why the, why is it forbidden to talk about demonstrations?
Why, for example, was it, was it wrong for Gizali to publish the ignorance of the philosophers? So in sections 34 and 35, let me put it actually 35, he says the following. He says, this is why it is obligatory that interpretations be established only in books using demonstrations. For if they're in books using demonstrations, no one, but those adept in demonstration will get at them.
Whereas if they are established in other than demonstrative books, with political and rhetorical dialectical methods using them, as Abu Khimid al-Gazali does, that is an error against the law and against wisdom. Why? We'll go back to 34, which is how I do need this. He says, anyone adept in interpretation divulges that to him calls him to unbelief.
And the one who calls unbelief is an unbeliever. So if you start publishing these interpretations, you start decreasing faith. The reason certain people rely on persuasion, but there is essentially is arguing, is because anything else will shake their unbelief. That's why he might say God or the prophet gives you laws, right?
Because law is what works for the majority of men. Now, for people who are adept in demonstration, they can go on interpreting and they can go even further and dig deeper and they'll find out that the law also speaks to them. But that's not something you want to be loud about, you say. You learn to have a duty to stay quiet, you're saying.
Exactly. And not just a duty based on the fact that it goes against the law, it decreases belief. Right? When you start, when you start, when you see this, I think sometimes when people will raise very fast-well contradictions, right?
Oh, why are there days of creation, but the sun hasn't been made yet? Right? Well, one who thinks about these things seriously and is not sort of easily put off can come up with a plausible solution to that question. But if you allow that kind of questioning out in the open, people will fastily reject it.
Can we just say, by the way, on that specific question, I think the Avera West answer to that question, what do you do with there was no sign that there were days is, well, that must be a passage that one has to interpret allegorically. And so that's an Avera West reason of the creation story. Yeah. So days is meant differently.
And that's typically how people resolve this problem. So then I love, so after he says, this is what Ghazali does, and it's an error against the law and against wisdom. Now, according to Avera, if you make that error, you're to be forgiven, right? That's one of the learned.
And this is what he does. I think it with a remarkable amount of humanity, maybe a little condescension, he goes on to say, get the man that is Ghazali intended only good. That is, he wished thereby to make those adept in science more numerous, but he actually made those adept in wickedness more numerous, yet not without some increase among those adept in science. In that way, one group came to slander wisdom, another group to slander the law, and another group to reconcile the two.
It seems that this was one of the intentions of his books. And he talks about how he mimicked whoever his audience was. So, you know, I think Avera always does something quite nice here, where he argues for a kind of tolerance, condemns Ghazali with unbelief and with a sin against wisdom and the law, and then forgives him immediately, as though to show that this is how he lives, right? Right.
Right. So, yeah, since you're the verses and stuff like this, I think you focused on the central case. So, I already mentioned the idea that you ought to interpret the allegorical passage of the scripture, but you already drew attention to one of the kinds. So, maybe it's worth pointing out, I'll just re-ep says what you said, that as one reads, the Quran is one reads scriptures, there are three kinds of verses, ones that should be interpreted, ones that should not be interpreted, and one, excuse me, there are ones that everyone should interpret, there are ones that some should interpret, and there are ones that no one should interpret.
There are some that you just simply have to take a face value, and those are the roots, he says the roots of the law, that if you were to get rid of those, the whole structure would come tumbling down. And so, your interpretation doesn't guide every kind of Quranic verse towards work. We'll see that that's a big problem, I think. That's in section 28, right?
Do you want to go through that one? Because I love this one, I like comparing this with a later passage. So, why don't you go through 28, and then I'll bring in another. Okay, so all right, fine.
So, then this is, all right, so then I'll take another step back. So, there's three types of verses. This is, so section 28 is in the middle of, so a very week's goes through. So, first he's established that interpretation is what you do when your reason seems to be in conflict with revelation.
But then he says, look, there's limitations on your interpretation. Okay, so you can't just interpret really nearly. So, your interpretation shouldn't violate the Arabic language, he says. That's the first limitation.
Secondly, if you have to interpret, you should find a passage where the meaning, then somewhere else, accords with the interpretation that you've laid forward. Third, you're not allowed to interpret any passage where there's a consensus among all Muslims. So, everybody agrees, you're not allowed to interpret. Fourth, I think this is kind of funny, right?
Because if you disagree, then everyone doesn't agree, right? I think actually all of them fall away by the way, side fourths worth, right? If it doesn't violate the Arabic language, then you can, well, I mean, wouldn't any interpretation somehow be in accord with the Arabic language? So, yeah, I think all of these limitations that the very least puts on interpretation, I think you'll see that they're all problematic.
The fifth one is the misabis problem. When I just said the roots, you can't violate the roots of the law. But you asked about 28, and that's the fourth restriction on interpretation. Yes, it is.
So, section 28 is the fourth kind. Teachings known through all three kinds of arguments must not be interpreted. You're not allowed to interpret anything where science, dialectics, and rhetoric all agree. But this isn't even a restriction either, because why would you need to interpret something where there's no tension between science, dialectics, and rhetoric?
But we can read that passage if you want, and we want to go through it. So, we'll give a shot. Why don't you read it? Because I think he does refer to the roots here.
He does refer to the roots. That's right. Yeah. So, here's a very weak section.
If it happens, as we have said, that we know something in itself by means of the three methods, the ones I just mentioned, there is no need for us to coin a likeness for it. And as long as it's in its apparent sense, it does not admit an interpretation. If this manner of apparent sense refers to the roots of the law, the one who interprets it would be an unbeliever, like someone believing that there is no happiness or misery in the hereafter, and that such a statement is intended only to safeguard people from one another in what pertains to their bodies and physical senses, that it is a strategy, and that a human being has no end other than sensual existence. Religion is the opiate of the masses, man.
That's the view there. I find this really a kind of, this is a very, I think, Koi's statement, right? Because he's offering the interpretation. He says you're not allowed to make, right?
And he's putting it before his audience to think about it. I want to think about it. Hold on, hold on, hold on. So, you're telling me, Alex, that some people interpret eternal damnation as allegorical, and it's a statement in the law that's only intended as a safeguard for people from one another in what pertains to their body and physical senses?
I'm telling you what some people say. I'm not saying it. Some people say that. Okay.
Some people. Some people, you know. People say, listen, this is a good time to pause the episode and remind listeners to send all mail. Anyway, yeah, that's not condemned.
So I'm going to look at 48, because I think when I read 28 and 48 together, I get a lot of questions. So 48, he says this, here's a likeness of these people's intention as contrasted with the intention of the lawkeeper. Someone is intent upon going to a skilled physician who is in turn intent upon preserving the health of all the people and removing sickness from them by sending down for them statements to which there is common dissent about the obligation of practicing the things that preserve their health and remove their sickness as well as avoiding the contrary things. So this is, I think this is, it sounds like it's borrowed from Plato's statesman, but something like this happens in the statesman where Plato says, well, Socrates or the stranger rather says, you know, if a doctor is going to go away, right, or you have to give general rules to people, you're going to have to just give some statements, right, you can't go person by person.
So this is an equivalent to a lawkeeper. So the lawkeeper here is the doctor, and he gives some statements, guidance to give their life because not everybody can understand and become a physician. But various continues, he goes, he's not able to make them all become physicians, because the physician is the one who knows by demonstrative methods, the things that preserve health and remove sickness. Then this one goes out to the people, that is the false version, says to them, these methods this physician has sit down for you are not true.
And he says about rejecting them until they have rejected them, or he says they have interpretations, right, hidden teachings, yet they do not understand them, it does come to no ascent as to what to do before them. He's talking about somebody destructive with the law. Now, what results on this? This is what I always ask.
Now, are you of the opinion that people who are in this condition will do any of the things useful for preserving health and removing sickness? Or will this one who has declared that they should reject what they used to believe about those things, be able to practice that with them? I mean, preserving health? No, rather, he will not be able to practice these with them, nor will they be able to practice them.
A tradition will encompass them all. So my question here is let's translate this out of the allegory or out of this likeness, right, this allegory. What is predition here? Well, in the context of the analogy, predition is dying of a kind of sickness, a sickness that comes from not following the law and a literal death.
Well, what's the predition that comes from disobeying the law? Are you clear? I'm asking, I'm asking the listener. I think David's also at home.
Oh, I see. He has died yet. I think it's an important question we want to ask, right? Is the predition eternal damnation?
Are we meant to translate it that way? Or is the predition as the obita, the masses guy says the dissolution of the political community, right? He offers a likeness that I think goes both ways. It puzzles me here because I don't know which way to go with it.
So who knows? What is the root of law? Is one way to ask this ultimately? Can I think that this rhetorical device here, this to me that suggests I sort of read Section 48 as a very maybe partly telling us about his own project here, that he's acting as a kind of physician law giver trying to preserve the health of all people.
So he's trying to bring us back to this harmony, trying to get rid of faction these things. Yeah, that's great. And I think therefore the scientist, the philosopher, can't perform a politically salutary role in his view here, right? There's something I mean, I'll probably does this perhaps even better than a very always, but and my monadys does this for the Jewish tradition, right?
There's a sort of moderating, we all know that in any given religion, there's a lot to take things to moderate extremes. And so I think that that sometimes these thinkers can come along. And actually, ultimately, I think they have their roots in Aristotle who's trying to moderate some of the Greek conceptions of the gods, but more so of morality. We talked about his kind of courage earlier.
And so there's this way that there's this moderating influence that these thinkers attempt to have on the political community around them to try to preserve their health. I think that's what he's doing here. So if Ghazali is the bad physician who says, hey, look, they're up to no good, right? Yes, false or whatever, then a very is the good physician.
And what he would be solving is the faction, right? The dissolution of the community. So tradition here, right? The kind of faith he's trying to instill and thereby heal the community is a matter of unity in this world, political unity.
And that's it. But then again, the physician is a law giver. So then we want to say, is that true even of the divinely revealed law? This is what I find so amazing about this work.
And why I mean, maybe I disagree with you about this, Greg, but I do think it is a rhetorical work at bottom, precisely because these fundamental questions don't actually get answered today about what is the root of the law really? What does it really is actually believe? How far is he actually willing to go with allegorical interpretation? What do we do with those problems that you raise about interpretation, right?
So I mean, I guess maybe our disagreement is probably maybe it's more semantic than real, but yes, of course, it's a rhetorical work. But I guess the reason I want to say that it's maybe it's more than that, maybe it's philosophical because I think those problems that I pointed out, I think it's a rhetorical, I think he's trying to achieve rhetorical goals, right? What is he trying to achieve? He's trying to justify philosophy before the bar of the city, just like Plato and Aristotle, he's trying to make sure that we all understand the philosophy is okay.
I think he's trying to heal the community, he's trying to get the community to get along and go along, go along. But I think he's also simultaneously, I think that the work is philosophic insofar as those adept at science. So you're reading this and you're like, well, if you're adept at science, you can interpret. And so I think if you fancy yourself an intelligent person, you might say, I'd like to do this.
And so I think he's planting seeds, breadcrumbs along the way, signposts along the way, to point the philosophically adept to the deeper teaching. So very simply, I mean, he gives a logical argument at the beginning, and maybe we can return to that, showing or proving that philosophy is okay. And so I think there's a certain type of reader who will just read this bad argument and go, fantastic, I can do some science, happy to do it. But I think the more philosophically inclined might start realizing that, by the way, he's using a bad logical argument to prove that it's okay to study logic.
And so I think that that's why I'm saying it's not simply rhetorical. It might lead us sort of logically minded person to say, okay, let's get down to breast tax and examine this argument that philosophy is okay. Because I mean, it has premise one, premise two conclusion. And I think the premises are questionable, and the conclusion does not follow from the premises.
Do you want to go through that or no? Yeah, we can go through. I mean, one thing I would say just on the point about being philosophical is there's all this talk about demonstration, right, using demonstration. And yet, there's also all this talk about error and being air long, even about the most fundamental things, and it's supposed to be excused.
And you could say that the tension between those is in a way, socratic, right? This is a type of demonstration and then find. So maybe it's not a work of demonstration or scientific, we could say, and for that reason, philosophical, that there's a sort of open emptiness about it. Maybe it's dialectically, you want to say, and there's something more in common with dialectic, but I do think that that's absolutely the case.
Do you want to let's give that that proof just because it is the core of the working, you know, we're getting towards the hand and we should probably at least mention it, right? I'll talk about it. I'm gonna get a rough dirty one and then maybe we can flush out a little more simply. Okay, so here's the simple quick version.
Premise one, if philosophy is just thinking about stuff, premise one premise two, if the Quran tells us to think about stuff, conclusion philosophy is commanded. That's the syllogism. I mean, it's a little more complex than that, but that's it stripped down to its bare parts. So the first one literally, I almost said that literally the first premise is if philosophy is nothing other than reflection on the beings, that's premise one, okay.
And premise two, let's see if I can find my spot here. If the law permits reflection on the beings, then philosophy is obligatory. Hopefully you noticed that there was a move from permitted to obligatory, so permitted in the premise obligatory in the conclusion. And I'll just mention that under Sharia, Al-Bairoui's is playing with five traditional Islamic categories of whether things are acceptable or not.
So there's things that are obligatory for Muslims, things that are recommended for Muslims, things that are prohibited, things that are reprehensible, and things that are permitted. So premise number one, philosophy is only reflection on the beings. I know that Alex is a big metaphysician. I'm not.
I think maybe we can do philosophy about ethics or something like this. It's not just reflection on the beings, but that's fine. We can debate that. But the second one, does the law command us to reflect on the beings?
He gives, I think, five Quranic passages to prove that the Quranic commands us to reflect on the beings. I'll just give my favorite one. There's a passage in the Quranic that says, look at the camels. I mean, that's really funny.
I was thinking about that actually earlier today. You saw some camels? No, no, no. I was thinking about, you know, Plato, you know, it comes up, I mean, on then the problem of the mule.
So the mule combines the virtues of the horse and the virtues of the donkey with none of the vices, and yet it can't reproduce. So the best animal is defective in probably the most important way of being able to reproduce itself. I wonder if maybe the Quranic if it had caused us to reflect on the mule, maybe that it would condone philosophy. But I think the main one again, by the way, Zenithin talks about camels.
So again, Zenithin's period of play, but anyway, go ahead. You know, when I took introductory Greek, one of the first words we learned was camaloss, which is I guess is Greek for camel. And I was just like, why am I learning this word of all words? It turns out, I think it's Herodotus, we're reading Herodis later.
So no, but the big question I have with this is philosophy, reflection on the beings. Nothing more than that. That's all this. Or is it reflection on being or the whole, right?
Whole of things. Yeah. So that's a very point being's plural in his premise, not being singular, very good. And I think that that in a way is an interesting point to me because that suggests that he doesn't need to answer that question in this context, because all he needs to do is secure a kind of secret freedom, which I think, you know, is the way he's argument eventually ends up.
And then he can think about beings, the whole, and if anybody comes out to us, like, Hey, what are you doing? I'm saying the same thing about camals. Don't worry about it. Right.
Can I just restate the, since I found my notes here, I just want to restate the syllogism to make sure that I'm sure there's some readers out there were going to get hate mail saying the prayer didn't get precise. I'll just get precise premise one, if philosophy is nothing more than reflection and consideration of existing things, premise two, if the law recommends or urges consideration of existing things, then conclusion philosophy is either obligatory or recommended. He switched and urged way and it's now obligatory or recommended it. That's a small point.
Sorry. Should we have a correction section of the podcast whenever we got probably a rata? They don't just involve deep shaming. I, uh, we have to wrap up where we're nearing time.
One reflection I had, obviously, I have been quiet. I have terrible sunstrokes today. That's not a metaphor for like God, it's like belt of wisdom or something. So they took the kids to the beach.
It was terrible. Oh man. He's contemplating the forms he left the cave for the day. Yeah.
Yeah. So I'm going to rent my body, wouldn't I? But I admire this manner that a very streets very delicate conversations with revealed religion is so interesting in contrast to what would occur just a few hundred years later during the enlightenment when the relationship was exploded by various types of thinkers like Voltaire, where there's no subtlety for the encyclopedists. I mean, this is such a subtle treatise.
I mean, the way that he's talking about how to dance around, I mean, it's this subtle dance that not everybody's going to understand as many, many layers. It's a kind of modeling. I wonder, this question may be too radioactive. So we don't need to, you guys don't need to answer it.
But I wonder if it comes to defanging the excesses of revealed religion is a very least model preferable to that of say some of the enlightenment thinkers, or is this kind of a wrong handed question? Can I take a stab at that house? Okay. Did that make sense?
I don't know. No, it's a great question. I thought it was fantastic. Let me give a, I'm going to give a, my, as is my want, our listeners will know my weasily answers.
So there was a, so very was enormously influential within Christianity. So you're talking about the enlightenment that takes place in the West and the Christian West principally. And so prior to the enlightenment, there was the emergence of a certain kind of Christian school of thinking, the so-called Latin of Aeruos. I think that turn of phrase was actually invented much later by a French philosopher named Rename, but in any event that the title is apt.
There were people who were influenced by her. It's a misnomer, only as far as it's wrong. It's not a very, it's ultimately alpharabi. But this kind of rational, subtle, careful treatment of religion was tried in Christianity with some success with some failures.
Ultimately, I think it failed. And so I forget what it's called maybe Al-Aunty or maybe there were these prohibitions that went out for the Catholic Church. Things weren't allowed to be taught. The propositions, that's some number, 300 and some odd propositions that weren't allowed to be taught.
So within the Catholic Church, some church thinkers were became greatly aware of this Averuos strand and basically effectively stamped it out. And so I think what you see in the enlightenment, this defanging, this much more direct hostile attack on religion is because this Averuos attempt didn't work. Now, maybe, and Alex already alluded to one of the possible reasons why it's possible that the status of the law in Islam and Judaism allowed was more hospitable to this Averuos interpretation than it would have been in the Christian world. And so you do get these later.
I mean, just these vicious attack, like you mentioned, but also Machiavelli, of course, and Spinoza and others. So I think that's right now. So which one's better? I'm sorry, I don't want you to wrap up, but it depends on what you mean.
Which one's better for the little community? That's one way to ask the question. Another is which one's better for intellectual clarity? And as I mentioned, I think the sort of the podcast, the moderns, I don't think they actually refute what they think they said out and refuted with revelation.
I think they tried to get us to forget about it. I think it was a enormously successful rhetorical project. But I think it mostly bracketed the fundamental intellectual challenges. So again, why should you read a little medieval little thinkers?
Because I think they addressed this question more directly. That's right. The moderns who just attack it. That's right.
That's right. In the reading. Okay. So I have more to say, but jump in.
No, no, no, no, no. This is good. This is good. This episode, we are going to have to do extended episodes.
We should return to this. Yeah. I got to say, I just we've given a very simplistic kind of overview. Like, there's so many subtle sort of categories and these discussions are so nuanced, and there's all these sort of weird puzzles and questions that emerge.
I mean, going through this section by section ends to short book, I think it's like 15, 20 pages, whatever it is. And it just pays reading very, very carefully. We have barely scratched the surface, we've just done a great as heads. But the devil's always in the details with this as with other texts.
Yes. And on the note of the devil, I would ask everybody to follow us on Twitter at can do thinkery, email the newthinkery at gmail.com. Visit our website at the newthinkery.com. Don't forget to review us well and subscribe, pass along words to friends and family.
And again, we'd like to thank our producer, Jake Gannon. Thanks, everybody. Thanks. See you next time.