Al-Ghazali - The Bane of the Philosophers — Transcript

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1. 0:01[Music]
2. 0:05Renee Descartes iconic quote I think
3. 0:09therefore I am argued that if one was
4. 0:12able to doubt their own existence by
5. 0:15necessity they must firstly exist
6. 0:18his method which used doubt as a central
7. 0:21tool to prove the existence of a self
8. 0:23would shift the Western philosophical
9. 0:26landscape and facilitate the Inception
10. 0:29of modern philosophy but what if
11. 0:32Descartes was beaten to this mode of
12. 0:33philosophy much earlier
13. 0:36in the 11th century a Persian scholar
14. 0:39from tus roamed through the far-reaching
15. 0:41lands of the soljuk empire
16. 0:43dragging himself through a distressing
17. 0:46yet profound existential episode just as
18. 0:49it is with Cartesian skepticism he began
19. 0:52his Reflections by questioning all of
20. 0:54his beliefs
21. 0:56destroying and reconstructing the claims
22. 0:59of others which at once acted as a
23. 1:02source of dynamism or despair for many
24. 1:04philosophical movements this version of
25. 1:07Doubt would function as the Catalyst for
26. 1:10an unprecedented medieval intellectual
27. 1:12paradigm
28. 1:14firmly attached to this revolution of
29. 1:16thought would be the name of the most
30. 1:18famous academic of his age
31. 1:22the intellectual proof of Islam or the
32. 1:26bane of the philosophers
33. 1:33was born in 1058 CE into a poor but
34. 1:38deeply Pious family
35. 1:40from childhood Elizabeth's
36. 1:43inquisitiveness and unquenchable thirst
37. 1:45for comprehension of reality stood
38. 1:48unmatched often being scolded by
39. 1:51teachers for asking too many questions
40. 1:53and engaging in debate
41. 1:56Allah's passion is recalled in a story
42. 1:59where as a student he once encountered
43. 2:02Highway robbers they searched his bags
44. 2:05and robbed him of his possessions
45. 2:07he begged that they at least spare his
46. 2:10study notes
47. 2:11the leader of the bandits laughed in his
48. 2:14face and asked young scholar what good
49. 2:17can all this knowledge be if it was so
50. 2:19easily taken from you later recounted as
51. 2:23the best piece of advice the young
52. 2:25al-hazali received from then on he never
53. 2:28failed to memorize all that he wrote so
54. 2:31it couldn't be taken from him
55. 2:33indeed Allah blossomed as he studied at
56. 2:36the prestigious nizamiya Institute in
57. 2:39nishapur ultimately resulting in his
58. 2:42teachers being out shown by him but also
59. 2:44praising his breath of knowledge as a
60. 2:47sea one could drown in
61. 2:49Allah's Journey entailed teaching at the
62. 2:52greatest Institutes of baghbad under the
63. 2:56patronage of the grand Sultan himself
64. 2:59his Works would catapult him into Fame
65. 3:02as they predated modern board
66. 3:04experiments and theories like the
67. 3:06trolley problem and ideas about Infinity
68. 3:10famously he would stand as both a
69. 3:12rational and spiritual icon against a
70. 3:15charge brought against religious
71. 3:17adherents even today before the age of
72. 3:2020 al-hazali complained of people's
73. 3:23passivity and gullibility in accepting
74. 3:25the beliefs of Elders with no research
75. 3:28or critical thought
76. 3:29he witnessed that for Many religious
77. 3:32scientific and philosophical beliefs
78. 3:34were merely a product of environment and
79. 3:37upbringing despite the rationalism in
80. 3:40the works of IBN Cena and al-farabi
81. 3:42dominating during his working years
82. 3:45today it is common to think of religious
83. 3:48people as blind followers but those who
84. 3:51were most guilty of conformist ideology
85. 3:53for al-hazali were actually the
86. 3:55philosopher or the neoplatonists of
87. 3:58Aristotle even Cena and al-farabi after
88. 4:02being praised by the neoplatonists
89. 4:04themselves for his grasp on philosophy
90. 4:07with the publication of his aims of the
91. 4:11philosophersali's repudiation for
92. 4:13credulity climaxed in the release of his
93. 4:16popular text the incoherence of the
94. 4:18philosophers in it he specifically
95. 4:21targets three of 18 metaphysical
96. 4:24propositions naively taken from the
97. 4:27Greek switch for him were permeated in
98. 4:30Gross era even by the neoplatonist's own
99. 4:33standards
100. 4:34has the universe always existed explored
101. 4:38earlier in our series
102. 4:41rejected the notion that along with God
103. 4:43the universe has existed forever
104. 4:46this idea espoused by IBN Cena that God
105. 4:50did not create the universe in time as
106. 4:53it would entail God changing his mind
107. 4:56fallaciously making something within God
108. 4:58contingent is criticized by Allah as
109. 5:01merely an unproven assumption
110. 5:04for Allah time and the universe was
111. 5:07created by Allah through an eternal
112. 5:10decree
113. 5:11which means that God essentially always
114. 5:13existed without the universe and had the
115. 5:16will to bring the universe into being
116. 5:18independent of time
117. 5:21one way the neoplatonists responded is
118. 5:24that this would make God's choice
119. 5:25arbitrary why exactly would God delay or
120. 5:29bring forward the creation of the
121. 5:31universe without an explanation
122. 5:33but for al-razali this is exactly what
123. 5:36Eternal will is
124. 5:37consider a man with the free choice to
125. 5:40eat one of two equally succulent and
126. 5:42tasty dates if we as humans could do
127. 5:45this arbitrarily al-hazali asks what
128. 5:48would stop God from making seemingly
129. 5:50arbitrary decisions
130. 5:52in fact it is arbitrary will in the
131. 5:54first place that allows God to be a
132. 5:57completely free agent
133. 5:59humans on the other hand make choices
134. 6:01which seem free but are ultimately
135. 6:03determined by external sometimes
136. 6:06uncontrollable factors additionally
137. 6:08notices a double standard for the
138. 6:11philosophers could one not ask why God
139. 6:14decided to make the universe with the
140. 6:15exact properties it has could he not
141. 6:18make it colder or warmer bigger or
142. 6:21smaller if arbitrariness is allowed
143. 6:24there it is the same with the creation
144. 6:26of the universe in time
145. 6:28to top it all al-razali argues that the
146. 6:31neoplatonists commit themselves to
147. 6:33fallacies of infinite regress especially
148. 6:36when presenting the universe as Eternal
149. 6:37something they wish to avoid in the
150. 6:40first place
151. 6:41this is an objection that remains
152. 6:42popular even today another proposition
153. 6:46al-razali attacks Indian coherence is
154. 6:49the claim that God is only aware of
155. 6:51universals not of particular matters
156. 6:54in that time one way of doing
157. 6:56metaphysics was to split reality into
158. 6:59universals and particulars for instance
159. 7:02there is the universal notion of man
160. 7:05which entails the non-specific and ideal
161. 7:07concept of man and then there are
162. 7:10particular instances of men that contain
163. 7:13specific qualities like being short tall
164. 7:16skinny fat and so on
165. 7:19for the neoplatonists God is unaware of
166. 7:22particular people in times and places
167. 7:24such as you or me but only knows of the
168. 7:28universal platonic person which is
169. 7:30independent of space and time
170. 7:32in this way the neoplatonists protect
171. 7:35God's Eternal knowledge by stating that
172. 7:38it is not subject to temporal or spatial
173. 7:40change like the humans is
174. 7:44Ali might have simply stopped at the
175. 7:46statement that such ideas contradict
176. 7:49clear scriptural verses as any old
177. 7:51cleric might yet he demonstrates the
178. 7:54limitation in the Philosopher's argument
179. 7:56systematically by expressing that change
180. 8:00in the nature of knowledge does not
181. 8:02necessarily entail change in the essence
182. 8:04of the Noah as the philosophers wrongly
183. 8:06presume
184. 8:08God can have knowledge of particulars
185. 8:10and his knowledge could constantly
186. 8:11change with his Essence left unscathed
187. 8:15in the effort of trying to preserve
188. 8:16God's Majesty the neoplatonists strip
189. 8:19him of the essential attributes of power
190. 8:22and knowledge reducing him to the status
191. 8:24of the Dead
192. 8:26finally
193. 8:27refutes the neoplatonic claim that
194. 8:30bodies will not resurrect on the day of
195. 8:33judgment an orthodox Muslim belief and
196. 8:36that only the human soul persists to
197. 8:39which he simply claims they make no
198. 8:41conclusive argument for
199. 8:43this was a matter of the truth of
200. 8:45scripture not one of science since
201. 8:47science cannot comment on matters Beyond
202. 8:49Death in this way al-razali maintained
203. 8:52the healthy epistemic differences
204. 8:54between religion and empirical Sciences
205. 8:56whilst also demonstrating the
206. 8:59inconsistencies of the philosopher
207. 9:01logically possible matters of the rape
208. 9:04or the Unseen realm were to remain with
209. 9:07literal scripture as the authority while
210. 9:10other knowledge could validly be
211. 9:11scrutinized either empirically or
212. 9:14rationally
213. 9:16the philosophers wrongfully overestimate
214. 9:18their rational and empirical abilities
215. 9:21since the scripture clearly affirms the
216. 9:24resurrection of the body and the fact
217. 9:27that bodily Resurrection is logically
218. 9:29possible the philosophers are left with
219. 9:31no choice but to accept it at face value
220. 9:35and have no reason to reduce scripture
221. 9:37to simple allegory
222. 9:41it is crucial to note that Allah was not
223. 9:45against the general field of philosophy
224. 9:47itself rather he considered the
225. 9:50instrument of logic to be Paramount to
226. 9:52any method of thought and even worried
227. 9:54that the impression of certainty derived
228. 9:57from a field like maths would deceive
229. 9:59careless readers into assuming that all
230. 10:01of philosophy was equally as reliable
231. 10:04still Allah's Ali approved of the field
232. 10:06of philosophical ethics from the Greeks
233. 10:08noticing the many overlaps between
234. 10:10Islamic and ancient virtue ethics
235. 10:15at some point however Allah suffered a
236. 10:18psychological intellectual crisis he
237. 10:21abandoned his teaching posts left money
238. 10:24for his family and became a simple
239. 10:26mediator in the mosques of Jerusalem
240. 10:28this led to his eventual disillusionment
241. 10:31with theoretical philosophy causing him
242. 10:34to adopt a certain skepticism a
243. 10:37refutation of takleid Even in our
244. 10:39everyday experiences
245. 10:41here he predated the ideas of Descartes
246. 10:44in asking how one could trust their
247. 10:46senses when they so often deceive us
248. 10:49while intuitive logic might correct our
249. 10:52sensory understanding
250. 10:54asked whether there could be higher
251. 10:56forms of learning even greater than the
252. 10:58systems of logic In Case Logic suffered
253. 11:01from the same fallibility as our senses
254. 11:04it was this line of thinking which
255. 11:07informed his 40 volume magnum opus on
256. 11:10ethics and practical reason
257. 11:13A desperate attempt to revive
258. 11:16spirituality and pragmatically Aid the
259. 11:18ordinary man in finding contentment
260. 11:21that would be a topic for another video
261. 11:26some public intellectuals today preach
262. 11:29that Allah was the ultra-orthodox
263. 11:32religious cleric that declared maths as
264. 11:35the work of the devil and burnt down the
265. 11:38academic Paradise at the center of the
266. 11:40golden age of the Muslim world
267. 11:42nothing could be further from the truth
268. 11:45philosophy and the Natural Sciences
269. 11:48prospered for centuries after
270. 11:50al-hazali's death most prominently
271. 11:52through his Fierce critic IBN rushed
272. 11:56however should be remembered as someone
273. 11:59who harmonized rationality and Faith
274. 12:01bringing order and guidance to
275. 12:04Humanity's search for the Oasis of
276. 12:06wisdom
277. 12:08he died in 1111 after retiring to his
278. 12:11hometown of thus reminding Us in an age
279. 12:15of mindless deference to news outlets
280. 12:18and pseudo-intellectuals obsessed with
281. 12:20fear-mongering and personal profit to
282. 12:23just stop and think for ourselves
283. 12:26whoever determines truth from the people
284. 12:28alone will remain lost in the plains of
285. 12:31bewilderment rather know the truth and
286. 12:35you will know its people