Ghazālī and Metaphorical Predication in the Third Discussion of the Tahāfut al-Falāsifa

Abstract

Ghazālī's Th e Incoherence of the Philosophers is an unusual philosophical work for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the author's explicit dis- avowal of any of the conclusions contained within it. Th e present essay examines some of the hermeneutical challenges that face readers of the work and off ers an exegetical account of the much-neglected Th ird Discussion, which examines a key point of Neoplatonic metaphysics. Th e paper argues that Ghazālī's maintaining of the incompatibility of metaphysical creationism and Neoplatonic emanationism should not be viewed as simply a rhetorical or dialectical argument, but rather is best understood, to use Ghazālī's words, as a philosophical proof. Essential to this proof in the solution to the argument of the Th ird Discussion is an implicit theory of metaphorical predication that can be pieced together from several of Ghazālī's remarks as well as a reductio ad absurdum argument about the very pos- sibility of ethical discourse.