WorkAverroes

Decisive Treatise and Epistle Dedicatory

A judge rules on whether Islamic law allows philosophy, and finds that it commands it — of those able to follow a proof.

by Averroes41 passages held

Arabic, the original language

Original title: Faṣl al-maqāl
Original language: Arabic

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Overview

Like a judge stating a case, Averroes opens with a single question: does the religious Law permit the study of philosophy and logic, forbid it, or command it? Faṣl al-maqāl is his answer, an independent treatise in the form of a legal opinion rather than a commentary, written around 1179, in the years when he served as a judge (qāḍī) in Seville and then Córdoba. The Qurʾān repeatedly tells its hearers to reflect on what exists, and Averroes reads that as a command to reason from the world to its maker by the strictest method available, which is demonstration from certain premises. Philosophy, so defined, is a duty for anyone able to do it. One truth cannot contradict another, so where a proof clashes with the plain sense of a verse, the verse must be interpreted. But most people are persuaded by rhetoric and some by argument from accepted opinion; scripture speaks to all three kinds of listener at once, so interpretations must never be handed to people who cannot follow the proof behind them. The opponent stands in the middle of the book: al-Ghazālī, the theologian who had declared al-Fārābī and Avicenna, the two great philosophers of the previous centuries, unbelievers on three points — the eternity of the world, God's knowledge of particular things, and the resurrection of the body. Averroes replies that on such questions no certain consensus of scholars can exist, so no certain charge of unbelief can follow. A short letter to a correspondent, transmitted with the treatise, takes up God's knowledge on its own. Marcus Joseph Müller, a Munich orientalist, printed the Arabic in 1859 from a manuscript in the Escorial, and his German translation followed in 1875.

Key concepts

What does it mean to ask whether the Law "commands" philosophy?

Islamic law sorts every act as forbidden, merely permitted, recommended or obligatory, and Averroes asks where the study of philosophy and logic falls. His ruling puts it at the top for those able to do it: recommended at the least, obligatory for those suited to it. The whole treatise is therefore a legal argument, not a plea for tolerance, and it is addressed to jurists in their own terms.

What does "interpretation" (taʾwīl) mean in this book?

Interpretation means carrying a word from its literal sense to a figurative one, in a way the Arabic language itself allows: calling a thing by something that resembles it, causes it or goes with it. Averroes asks for it only where a proof contradicts the plain sense of a verse. It is not free reading. It follows the habits of Arabic speech that any educated listener already uses.

Who are the three kinds of people the Decisive Treatise describes?

People are brought to assent in three ways. The demonstrative class is convinced only by proof from certain premises. The dialectical class is convinced by arguments from opinions widely accepted. The rhetorical class, by far the largest, is convinced by persuasive speech and images. Averroes holds that scripture uses all three ways at once, so each person finds in it the kind of argument they can follow.

Why does it matter whether scholars agree with certainty?

A charge of unbelief needs a certain consensus (ijmāʿ), the agreement of all scholars of an age on a point. Averroes argues that on theoretical questions such a consensus can never be known, since many scholars held that some interpretations must not be told to everyone, so no one can be sure what all of them believed. Without that certainty, al-Ghazālī's verdict against the philosophers cannot stand.

How is God's knowledge different from ours, according to the appendix?

Our knowledge is an effect of the things we know: it follows them and changes when they change. God's knowledge is their cause: things exist because he knows them. The short appendix to the treatise uses this to dissolve the puzzle of whether God knows particular things as they come and go. The same word, knowledge, is used of both only loosely, because the two run in opposite directions.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

A Duty to Reason

Does the religious Law merely tolerate philosophy, or does it require it? A judge's answer decides whether a Muslim may study the ancients at all.

Averroes argues like a judge giving a ruling. The Qurʾān tells believers to reflect on what exists and learn from it; reflection done properly is reasoning from the world to its maker; the best reasoning is demonstration from certain premises. So for those able to follow a proof, philosophy is a duty, and they may take what earlier thinkers worked out whatever their religion, as one uses a knife at a sacrifice without asking who forged it. That some students go astray proves no more than that some choke on water.

demonstration
reason and revelation
religious epistemology
epistemology
intellectual tradition
theology
rhetoric
foreknowledge

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One Truth, Three Kinds of Listener

If reason and scripture cannot really disagree, why do they seem to? And who should be told how the apparent conflict is resolved?

Since truth does not oppose truth, a proof that clashes with the plain sense of a verse means the verse must be interpreted, and the Arabic language allows it. But people differ: a few are convinced by proof, more by debate from accepted opinions, most by persuasive speech, and scripture addresses all of them at once. Interpretations therefore belong in books of proof and must never be handed to the public. Al-Ghazālī did harm by publishing them, and his charge of unbelief fails because no certain consensus exists on such questions.

hermeneutics
scriptural interpretation
religious education
education
consensus
divine knowledge
eternity
afterlife
creation
intellectual responsibility
religion and philosophy
philosophy and religion
cosmology

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Within this work

passages held: 41
distinct concepts: 74
by passages held, corpus-wide: #677

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “demonstration” and “scriptural interpretation”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 19 pairings. 43 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
demonstration	scriptural interpretation	7
religious education	scriptural interpretation	6
demonstration	epistemology	3
epistemology	intellectual responsibility	3
epistemology	religious education	3
epistemology	scriptural interpretation	3
intellectual responsibility	scriptural interpretation	3
religion and philosophy	scriptural interpretation	3
demonstration	religious education	2
demonstration	theology	2
divine knowledge	theology	2
epistemology	religion and philosophy	2
intellectual responsibility	religion and philosophy	2
scriptural interpretation	theology	2
demonstration	divine knowledge	1
demonstration	religion and philosophy	1
epistemology	theology	1
intellectual responsibility	religious education	1
religion and philosophy	religious education	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

Decisive Treatise and Epistle Dedicatory (Faṣl al-maqāl) you are here AR
Tafsīr mā baʿd al-ṭabīʿa
One of his last commentaries, from around 1190, and the fullest of his three on the Metaphysics, after an early epitome and a middle commentary finished in Córdoba in 1174.
AR
Tahafut al-Tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence) (Tahāfut al-tahāfut)
The long sequel to the Decisive Treatise, written around 1180: the earlier book asks whether philosophy is allowed, and this one defends its doctrines in detail.
AR
Talkhīṣ manṭiq Arisṭū
The earliest layer of his work on Aristotle: most of these commentaries were finished by the mid-1170s, though the long commentary on the Posterior Analytics belongs to his last years.
AR
Talkhīṣāt al-ṭabīʿiyyāt
His first commentaries on Aristotle's science of nature; the long commentaries on On the Heavens and On the Soul, which reached Latin in the thirteenth century, came much later.
AR

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