Mind and Modal Judgement: Al-Ghazālī and Ibn Rushd on Conceivability and Possibility

Abstract

This chapter examines how the psychological notions of conceivability and imaginability map onto the question of possibility in one seminal piece of post-Avicennian Arabic philosophical debate. The broader question of what can be allowed in thought informs the Incoherence debates as a whole, as both Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī and Abū al-Walīd Ibn Rushd repeatedly weigh in on what kinds of hypotheses constitute premises suitable for philosophical reflection. This in turn comes back to the conceivability and/or imaginability of unconventional cosmologies, something on which the two thinkers seem constantly at odds. In a study of Aristotelian perception and consciousness, Deborah Modrak remarks that while Aristotle's treatment of the imagination in relation to the intellect opens up the possibility of treating the way in which people conceive of, and have opinions about, future states of affairs and other nonexistent objects, this aspect of intentionality receives little attention from him. Keywords: Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī; Abū al-Walīd Ibn Rushd; Aristotelian perception; conceivability; post-Avicennian Arabic philosophical debate