Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
1058-1111 · Islamic Philosophy · Prominent
Ghazali was a Persian theologian and Sufi who took the philosophy of Avicenna apart using its own logic, in The Incoherence of the Philosophers. Fire does not burn cotton, he argued. God burns the cotton, and does it again each time the two touch, because things hold no causal power and every event comes straight from God. Some of the philosophers' teachings he judged unbelief.
Signature
The position Ghazali is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Transcendence
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
Positions on the 16 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Purposeful (95 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Collectivism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (86 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- mildly between Describable and Indescribable (58 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- mildly between Realism and Nominalism (50 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- strongly leans Unchanging (9 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Inherent (97 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Unity (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Transcendence (94 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- strongly leans Objective (100 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- strongly leans Illiberalism (10 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- leans Means (80 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Ignorance
- leans Bliss (75 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- leans Certain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
4 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Ghazali refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Clerical Theocracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Division of Good and Evil
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Knowledge
- Grounded in God
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Divine Command
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Occasionalism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Eschatological
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Divine Revelation
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Sacred Speech
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Paradox
- Apophatic Pointer
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Sacred Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Judgement
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Path to the Divine / Virtue to Cultivate
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Redeemably Corrupted
What is human nature?