The Incoherence of the Incoherence

1. Introduction

The Incoherence of the Incoherence (Tahāfut al-Tahāfut) is Ibn Rushd’s extensive philosophical reply to Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s Tahāfut al-Falāsifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers). Written in 12th‑century al-Andalus, it belongs to the mature phase of Ibn Rushd’s work as a commentator on Aristotle and as an Almohad court scholar. The treatise is framed as a detailed, often line‑by‑line engagement with al-Ghazālī’s accusations that the falāsifa fall into contradiction and unbelief on central metaphysical and theological questions.

Within the wider tradition of Islamic thought, Tahāfut al-Tahāfut is usually seen as the most systematic defense of Andalusian Aristotelianism against Ashʿarite kalām. It directly addresses issues such as the eternity of the world, divine attributes and causality, God’s knowledge of particulars, and bodily resurrection, while also elaborating a conception of philosophical method and the proper relationship between reason and revelation.

The work is simultaneously:

• A critique of al-Ghazālī’s logical and exegetical procedures
• A restatement of what Ibn Rushd takes to be the authentic doctrines of earlier Peripatetics (especially Aristotle and Ibn Sīnā)
• A reflection on the social and legal place of philosophical inquiry within Islam

Later readers in Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin traditions treated The Incoherence of the Incoherence as a key text for debates about demonstrative science (burhān), natural causality, and the alleged conflict between philosophy and religion. The title’s deliberate reversal of al-Ghazālī’s “incoherence” signals Ibn Rushd’s claim that it is the critique of philosophy—not philosophy itself—that lacks internal consistency.

2. Historical and Intellectual Context

The Incoherence of the Incoherence emerged in a complex setting marked by political change in the western Islamic world and ongoing debates about the legitimacy of falsafa.

Intellectual Climate in the Islamic West

By the late 12th century, al-Andalus and the Maghrib were under Almohad rule. The movement’s founder, Ibn Tūmart, promoted a reformist creed emphasizing divine unity, but some Almohad elites were interested in philosophical learning. Scholars have argued that this created a conditional space in which Ibn Rushd could develop a robust Aristotelianism while still addressing a theologically self-conscious regime.

Earlier Andalusian thinkers such as Ibn Bājja (Avempace) and Ibn Ṭufayl had already cultivated Peripatetic approaches, yet often in relatively esoteric or literary forms. Ibn Rushd’s work represents a more systematic attempt to integrate Aristotelian philosophy with Islamic law and theology.

The Aftermath of al-Ghazālī’s Critique

In the Islamic East, al-Ghazālī’s Tahāfut al-Falāsifa (late 11th century) and his broader theological oeuvre had significantly shaped Ashʿarite kalām, madrasa curricula, and attitudes toward philosophy. Many later theologians accepted his verdict that the philosophers erred gravely on questions like the world’s eternity and bodily resurrection. This created what some historians describe as an “anti‑falsafa” climate, although the persistence of Avicennian metaphysics in the East complicates that picture.

Ibn Rushd writes from a distance—geographical and doctrinal—from this Eastern environment. His Tahāfut al-Tahāfut presupposes both the prestige of al-Ghazālī’s critique and the continuing authority of Aristotelian science in fields like astronomy, medicine, and logic.

Competing Intellectual Traditions

Three overlapping currents form the background:

Ibn Rushd positions his work within this landscape as a defense of the demonstrative strand of falsafa, while seeking to show that its methods and conclusions can be reconciled with Islamic belief as understood in his context.

3. Author, Patronage, and Composition

Ibn Rushd’s Profile

Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (1126–1198) was an Andalusian jurist, physician, and philosopher. Trained in Mālikī law, hadith, and the sciences, he became famous for his detailed commentaries on Aristotle, which later Latin readers would regard as authoritative. His dual identity as qāḍī (judge) and philosopher shaped the form and tone of Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, where legal, theological, and scientific concerns intersect.

Political and Patronage Context

Under the Almohads, Ibn Rushd served at the courts of Marrakesh and Córdoba. He is commonly associated with the patronage of caliphs such as Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf and Yaʿqūb al-Manṣūr, who, according to later reports, encouraged the study of Aristotle. While no explicit dedication appears in the standard text, modern scholars widely hold that The Incoherence of the Incoherence forms part of his broader court-sponsored project of systematizing Aristotelian philosophy.

Some historians contend that Ibn Rushd’s defense of philosophy was partly motivated by shifting Almohad policies: phases of openness to rational inquiry alternated with moments of suspicion, culminating in his temporary disgrace late in life. The dating of Tahāfut al-Tahāfut to roughly 1180–1185 situates it in a relatively favorable period for philosophical work.

Circumstances and Aims of Composition

The treatise was composed in Arabic and circulated in manuscript. It does not appear to have been designed primarily as a didactic text for beginners, but rather as a technical intervention in a pre-existing debate initiated by al-Ghazālī. Ibn Rushd adopts a commentarial format, quoting long passages from Tahāfut al-Falāsifa before responding.

Proponents of a “courtly” reading suggest that the work aimed to reassure Almohad decision‑makers that Aristotelian philosophy could buttress, rather than undermine, Islamic doctrine and law. Others emphasize its role within Ibn Rushd’s own corpus: it stands between his more theoretical expositions in the Aristotelian commentaries and his programmatic discussions of the lawfulness of philosophy in works like Faṣl al-Maqāl.

4. Relation to al-Ghazālī’s Tahāfut al-Falāsifa

The Incoherence of the Incoherence is explicitly framed as a response to al-Ghazālī’s Tahāfut al-Falāsifa, and its structure follows the earlier work’s sequence of twenty discussions. Ibn Rushd quotes al-Ghazālī almost verbatim and then offers a running critique.

Points of Agreement and Disagreement

Ibn Rushd and al-Ghazālī share certain premises: both affirm the truth of Islam, respect scriptural authority, and acknowledge the value of rational argument. However, they diverge sharply on:

Methodological Engagement

Ibn Rushd charges al-Ghazālī with conflating dialectical and demonstrative arguments, and with using the philosophers’ own tools against them in a way that obscures their actual positions. According to Ibn Rushd, al-Ghazālī’s tahāfut reveals:

• Reliance on premises that are not granted by the philosophers he criticizes
• Use of rhetorical strategies that appeal to non-specialists, rather than to the standards of scientific demonstration
• A tendency to attribute to the falāsifa views that belong only to specific figures or to caricatures of their doctrines

Thematic Dependence

Despite its polemical aim, Tahāfut al-Tahāfut depends on al-Ghazālī’s work for its organization and focus. The main issues—eternity vs. creation, divine attributes, soul and resurrection, God’s knowledge, and causality—are taken directly from al-Ghazālī’s list of points on which the philosophers allegedly fall into incoherence or unbelief. Ibn Rushd’s work therefore cannot be separated from the earlier treatise; it is both a rebuttal and a re‑articulation of the terms of the debate that al-Ghazālī had set.

5. Structure and Organization of the Work

The Incoherence of the Incoherence is organized as a commentary-like refutation. Its architecture mirrors al-Ghazālī’s Tahāfut al-Falāsifa, allowing readers to follow the controversy topic by topic.

Macro-Structure

The work comprises:

The entry’s “outline of parts” consolidates related discussions; Ibn Rushd himself does not subdivide them into numbered “parts” beyond the inherited sequence from al-Ghazālī.

Commentarial Technique

Each discussion follows a relatively consistent pattern:

1. Citation of al-Ghazālī’s text: Ibn Rushd reproduces passages sometimes at great length.
2. Clarificatory remarks: He identifies what he sees as ambiguities or equivocations.
3. Philosophical analysis: He reconstructs what he takes to be the authentic Peripatetic view.
4. Evaluation: He assesses whether al-Ghazālī’s critique actually touches this view.

Some scholars compare the treatise to Ibn Rushd’s “Middle” and “Long” Commentaries on Aristotle, noting a similar concern to correct misreadings and to restore doctrinal coherence.

Thematic Progression

While the work follows al-Ghazālī’s order, readers often discern an implicit progression:

• From cosmology and creation (early discussions)
• Through divine nature and attributes, soul and intellect, and causal structure of the world
• To epistemology of prophecy, God’s knowledge, and eschatological doctrines in the later parts

This progression allows Ibn Rushd to build on earlier conclusions when addressing later questions, even though he is formally constrained by the sequence of objections he inherits from al-Ghazālī.

6. Philosophical Method: Demonstration, Dialectic, and Rhetoric

Ibn Rushd’s methodological reflections in Tahāfut al-Tahāfut develop a tripartite scheme of demonstrative (burhānī), dialectical (jadalī), and rhetorical (khiṭābī) discourse, derived from Aristotelian logic.

Types of Argument

In Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, Ibn Rushd repeatedly claims that al-Ghazālī’s arguments against the philosophers rarely meet the standards of burhān and instead rely on dialectical or rhetorical strategies.

Method and Religious Knowledge

Ibn Rushd integrates this classification with a hierarchy of religious understanding. He holds that:

• Scripture addresses different groups using varying modes, including rhetorical images and dialectical arguments.
• For those capable of demonstration, philosophical inquiry into metaphysical and natural questions is not only permissible but, in certain interpretations, religiously obligatory.
• Confusion arises when non-demonstrative readers are exposed to demonstrative interpretations, or when dialectical theologians attempt to refute demonstrative conclusions using weaker forms of reasoning.

Proponents of this reading emphasize that, in Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, Ibn Rushd consistently appeals to the superiority of scientific method when adjudicating disputes about cosmology, causality, and divine knowledge. Critics, particularly from kalām traditions, maintain that he underestimates the rational rigor of theological argument and overstates the epistemic reach of Aristotelian demonstration.

7. Cosmology and the Eternity of the World

In the discussions corresponding to al-Ghazālī’s first major objections, Ibn Rushd addresses the eternity of the world and its compatibility with Islamic belief.

Eternity vs. Temporal Creation

Al-Ghazālī had argued that the philosophers’ claim that the world is eternal contradicts the doctrine of creation ex nihilo in time. Ibn Rushd replies by distinguishing:

• The question whether time itself has a beginning
• The question whether the world is ontologically dependent on God

He maintains that philosophical demonstration allegedly shows that motion, time, and the heavens are eternal in the sense of having no temporal first instant. However, he holds that this does not mean the world is independent, since it remains continuously caused by God.

Continuous Dependence on God

Ibn Rushd develops a model of eternal creation: God is the necessary cause of the existence and order of the cosmos at every moment. The relation is not like a craftsman producing an artifact at a particular time, but more akin (for him) to the relationship between the sun and its light—although he emphasizes that all such analogies are limited.

In his reading of Aristotle, an eternal world is fully compatible with God’s being:

• The first cause of motion and existence
• The final cause toward which all natural motions are ordered

Critique of Opposing Positions

Ibn Rushd argues that affirming a temporal beginning of the world cannot be demonstrated philosophically; it rests on scriptural and dialectical premises. He contends that al-Ghazālī’s critiques either misunderstand the Peripatetic view (for example by treating the world as co‑eternal in the same way as God) or rely on assumptions that the philosophers do not share.

Theologians influenced by al-Ghazālī have replied that Ibn Rushd’s account threatens core doctrines of creation and divine freedom, whereas Ibn Rushd presents his position as preserving dependence while rejecting, in his view, incoherent notions of a “before” and “after” to time itself.

8. God, Divine Attributes, and Causality

Unity and Simplicity of God

In responding to al-Ghazālī’s criticisms, Ibn Rushd defends the Peripatetic account of divine simplicity. The issue concerns whether attributing multiple names and attributes to God—knowledge, power, will, life—implies composition in the divine essence.

Ibn Rushd argues that, for philosophers, these attributes are conceptually distinct ways of understanding one and the same simple reality. They do not correspond to separate parts or accidents in God. He charges al-Ghazālī with conflating conceptual distinctions in human thought with real multiplicity in God.

Anthropomorphic Language

On scriptural texts that ascribe to God a “hand”, “face”, or “sitting on the Throne”, Ibn Rushd stresses the necessity of non‑literal interpretation (taʾwīl) for qualified interpreters. In Tahāfut al-Tahāfut he aligns this with philosophical reasoning: since demonstration establishes God’s immateriality and simplicity, any apparently corporeal descriptions must be read figuratively to avoid contradiction.

Divine Causality and Secondary Causes

A central theme is Ibn Rushd’s opposition to occasionalism, the doctrine that only God truly causes events and that created things have no genuine causal efficacy. In his reading, al-Ghazālī and Ashʿarites downplay or deny secondary causes.

Ibn Rushd instead maintains:

• God is the primary cause and sustainer of the entire causal order.
• Created entities possess stable natures from which regular effects follow.
• Recognizing real secondary causality manifests, rather than diminishes, divine wisdom.

He holds that denying natural causality undermines the possibility of science and makes divine action unintelligible, since wisdom would no longer be apparent in the ordered structure of the world.

Defenders of occasionalism counter that Ibn Rushd risks limiting divine omnipotence and making God subject to necessary causal laws. Ibn Rushd replies by distinguishing between the necessity of the causal order as willed by God and any external compulsion on God, which he denies.

9. Soul, Intellect, and Human Knowledge

In Tahāfut al-Tahāfut Ibn Rushd revisits central themes of psychology and epistemology, defending the philosophers against al-Ghazālī’s charges.

Nature of the Soul and Its Faculties

Ibn Rushd adopts an Aristotelian view of the soul (nafs) as the form of a living body, with multiple faculties (nutritive, sensitive, imaginative, and rational). He insists that philosophers do not reduce the soul to mere body, but analyze its operations in relation to the body to explain perception, imagination, and thought.

Al-Ghazālī had argued that some philosophical positions jeopardize moral responsibility and personal identity. Ibn Rushd responds by clarifying distinctions between:

• The animal soul, which perishes with the body
• The rational soul, whose highest operations are immaterial and thus, on the Peripatetic account, not dependent on bodily organs

The Agent Intellect and Human Cognition

A major point of contention is the doctrine of the agent intellect (al-ʿaql al-faʿʿāl). Ibn Rushd presents human knowledge as arising through:

1. Sense perception of particulars
2. Imagination storing and manipulating images
3. Abstraction of universal forms by participation in a separate agent intellect

He defends this model against the claim that it dissolves individual thinking into a single, separate intellect. In Tahāfut al-Tahāfut he emphasizes that, although the agent intellect is one, the reception of intelligibles in human souls is individuated, preserving personal cognition and accountability.

Responsibility and Knowledge

Responding to al-Ghazālī’s concerns, Ibn Rushd argues that the philosophers’ theory of knowledge supports, rather than undermines, the notion of moral responsibility:

• Individuals differ in their actualization of rational potential.
• Culpability or merit depend on how they use their faculties—senses, imagination, reason—within their circumstances.

Theologians critical of Ibn Rushd have questioned whether his emphasis on a shared, separate intellect is compatible with traditional accounts of personal eschatological reward and punishment, an issue that connects this section of the work with his later discussions of the afterlife.

10. Prophecy, Miracles, and Natural Order

In engaging al-Ghazālī’s discussions of prophecy and miracles, Ibn Rushd aims to reconcile these religious phenomena with a stable natural order governed by secondary causes.

Philosophical Account of Prophecy

Ibn Rushd draws on the Peripatetic tradition to describe prophecy as a perfection of both:

• The rational faculty, enabling the prophet to grasp universal truths, and
• The imaginative faculty, enabling him to translate these truths into vivid images and laws accessible to the wider community.

On this view, prophetic revelation is not irrational; it is the highest form of rational and imaginative excellence, granted by God. Ibn Rushd maintains that this conception supports the authority of prophetic legislation while preserving the intelligibility of its content.

Miracles and Causal Regularity

Al-Ghazālī had used miracles to challenge the necessity of causal connections, arguing that God can always intervene directly without intermediaries. Ibn Rushd replies by distinguishing:

• The ordinary course of nature, in which causes regularly produce their characteristic effects
• Rare events associated with prophets, which he is prepared to call miracles but which, he suggests, do not abolish or negate the general reliability of causal laws

Some passages are read by scholars as indicating that Ibn Rushd regards miracles as events with causes unknown to us but still embedded in the broader order willed by God. Others interpret him as allowing genuine exceptions while insisting they are rare and purposeful.

Harmony of Prophecy and Philosophy

Ibn Rushd treats prophetic teaching and philosophical inquiry as complementary:

• Prophecy addresses all people through rhetorical and imaginative means.
• Philosophy addresses a narrower audience through demonstrative argument.

In Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, he argues that when both are properly understood, there is no real conflict between prophetic miracles and an intelligible natural order, though he recognizes that misunderstandings on either side can generate apparent contradictions.

11. Eschatology, Resurrection, and the Afterlife

The later discussions of Tahāfut al-Tahāfut turn to eschatological doctrines, responding to al-Ghazālī’s charge that the philosophers deny or distort core beliefs about the afterlife.

Survival of the Soul

Ibn Rushd defends the Peripatetic claim that the rational soul is immortal insofar as it participates in immaterial intellection. He presents the soul’s highest activity—conjunction with intelligibles through the agent intellect—as not dependent on bodily organs and thus capable of surviving bodily death.

Al-Ghazālī had accused philosophers of undermining personal survival by emphasizing universal intellect. Ibn Rushd replies that:

• Individual human beings retain distinct relations to the intelligibles they have acquired.
• Degrees of felicity or misery after death correspond to the extent to which each person has actualized their rational potential.

Bodily Resurrection

A particularly contentious issue is bodily resurrection. Al-Ghazālī listed philosophical views on this point among the doctrines bordering on unbelief. Ibn Rushd, in Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, navigates between:

• Philosophical considerations about the nature of the soul and its independence from the body at the highest level, and
• Scriptural affirmations of resurrection, depicted in concrete, bodily terms.

He suggests that scriptural descriptions of paradisal pleasures and punishments are often tailored to the understanding of the general public, while allowing that there are deeper significations accessible to the learned. He does not, however, deny the reality of post‑mortem recompense.

Degrees of Interpretation

Ibn Rushd links eschatological questions to his broader hermeneutical approach:

• For the masses, literal belief in bodily resurrection is appropriate and religiously sufficient.
• For philosophers, demonstrative reflection points to an incorporeal mode of survival, which can coexist with scriptural language understood in a more figurative or layered way.

Theologians critical of Ibn Rushd have argued that this stratification risks relativizing central dogmas. Supporters of his approach emphasize that, within Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, he consistently affirms the fact of afterlife reward and punishment while debating the philosophical form in which it is best understood.

12. Scriptural Interpretation and Esotericism

The Incoherence of the Incoherence contains important, though dispersed, reflections on how scripture should be interpreted in light of philosophical reasoning, and on the esoteric management of such interpretations.

Literal and Non-Literal Readings

Ibn Rushd distinguishes between:

• Apparent (ẓāhir) meanings of Qurʾānic and prophetic texts, accessible to all believers
• Inner (bāṭin) or deeper meanings, which may require taʾwīl—non‑literal or allegorical interpretation—especially when literal readings conflict with demonstrated truths

He holds that where burhān establishes a conclusion (e.g., God’s incorporeality), verses apparently implying the contrary must be interpreted figuratively by qualified scholars to preserve both truth and piety.

Audiences and Esoteric Restraint

A recurring theme is the differentiation of audiences:

Ibn Rushd maintains that esoteric dissemination of philosophical interpretations should be carefully controlled. He warns that revealing complex allegorical readings to those untrained in demonstration can cause confusion or unbelief, while withholding such readings from those capable of them may hinder their understanding.

Relation to Law and Theology

Within Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, these hermeneutical principles are applied to scriptural passages on:

• Anthropomorphic descriptions of God
• Creation and cosmology
• Eschatological imagery

Ibn Rushd presents his approach as consistent with legal and theological norms: the outer sense of revelation guides practice and belief for most people, while the inner sense harmonizes with philosophical truth. Some later thinkers accept this graded view; others criticize it as introducing a de facto division between an exoteric and an esoteric religion.

13. Key Concepts and Technical Terminology

Throughout Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, Ibn Rushd employs a set of technical terms drawn from Aristotelian logic and Islamic theology. Several are central to understanding the work:

These concepts interlock: for example, burhān and taʾwīl jointly structure his approach to conflicts between philosophy and revelation, while secondary causes and divine power frame his treatment of miracles and natural order.

14. Famous Passages and Representative Arguments

Several passages in Tahāfut al-Tahāfut have been widely cited as emblematic of Ibn Rushd’s thought.

Defense of Demonstration

In his methodological remarks, Ibn Rushd strongly affirms the obligation of philosophical inquiry for those capable of it:

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“If the activity of philosophy is nothing more than reflection upon existing beings and consideration of them insofar as they are an indication of the Artisan, then it is clear that this is called for by the Law, for the Law has urged us to consider beings.”

— Attributed to Ibn Rushd, closely paralleled in related works such as Faṣl al-Maqāl

While this formulation appears most clearly elsewhere, Tahāfut al-Tahāfut repeatedly echoes its sentiment, using similar language to legitimize demonstrative reasoning.

Eternity and Dependence of the World

In the first discussion, Ibn Rushd offers a representative argument that an eternal world can still be wholly dependent on God. A simplified reconstruction is:

• If God is a necessary and unchanging cause, His causal activity is eternal.
• An effect eternally dependent on an eternal cause need not have a first temporal moment.
• Therefore, the eternity of motion and time does not preclude total dependence on God.

This argument exemplifies his strategy of reframing creation not as a temporal beginning but as ongoing ontological dependence.

Critique of Occasionalism

In his response to al-Ghazālī’s discussion of causality, Ibn Rushd argues that denying real secondary causes destroys science:

"

Roughly: If we admit no fixed connection between what is thought to be a cause and what is thought to be an effect, scientific knowledge of the world becomes impossible, and God’s wisdom in creating an ordered cosmos would not be manifest.

This line of reasoning has become a classic reference in debates over occasionalism and natural law.

God’s Knowledge of Particulars

In the final discussions, Ibn Rushd articulates his influential view that God knows particulars by knowing Himself as their universal cause:

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God’s knowledge of the particular is not like our knowledge, which is acquired and changeable; rather, He knows particulars in a universal way, by knowing Himself as their cause.

This formulation captures his attempt to reconcile divine simplicity with all-encompassing omniscience, a theme that significantly affected later Jewish and Christian philosophical discussions.

15. Reception in the Islamic World

The reception of Tahāfut al-Tahāfut within the Islamic world was uneven across regions and periods.

Limited Impact in the Eastern Lands

In the Islamic East, al-Ghazālī’s authority in theology and law remained strong. Evidence suggests that Ibn Rushd’s Tahāfut al-Tahāfut circulated only modestly, and it does not appear to have displaced Tahāfut al-Falāsifa as the standard reference on the philosophers’ alleged errors. Eastern kalām and post‑Avicennian philosophy continued largely along trajectories shaped by al-Ghazālī, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, and others.

Some later Eastern thinkers, such as Ibn Taymiyya, criticized both al-Ghazālī and the philosophers, but there is limited indication that Tahāfut al-Tahāfut was a major direct interlocutor in these debates.

Reception in al-Andalus and the Maghrib

In al-Andalus and the Maghrib, Ibn Rushd’s work had a more immediate presence, though still within a relatively small learned circle. Almohad-era scholars and some later Maghribi authors engaged with his Aristotelianism in varying ways:

• Some jurists and theologians criticized his perceived subordination of scripture to Greek philosophy.
• Others drew selectively on his legal writings and medical expertise while ignoring or downplaying his metaphysical positions.

Political changes, including the eventual decline of Almohad rule, contributed to the fragility of his philosophical legacy in the region.

Later Islamic Assessments

Over the centuries, many Muslim scholars knew Ibn Rushd primarily as a jurist or physician rather than as the author of Tahāfut al-Tahāfut. Where the work was known, reactions were mixed:

In modern times, renewed interest in Ibn Rushd within Muslim-majority societies has led to a reassessment of Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, with some seeing it as a resource for contemporary discussions of reason and revelation, while others remain cautious about its alignment with traditional theology.

16. Transmission, Translations, and Latin Averroism

Manuscript Transmission

The Incoherence of the Incoherence survives through a manuscript tradition rather than an early fixed edition. Manuscripts were copied in the western Islamic world and, to a lesser extent, in the East. The standard modern Arabic edition is that of Maurice Bouyges (1930), which collates several manuscripts but still leaves room for philological debate about variant readings and textual integrity.

Translations

The work became widely accessible to modern scholarship primarily through Simon Van den Bergh’s English translation (The Incoherence of the Incoherence, 2 vols., 1954). Partial translations into European languages had appeared earlier, especially for passages relevant to debates on eternity, causality, and divine knowledge.

In Hebrew and Latin Middle Ages, Tahāfut al-Tahāfut itself does not seem to have been as extensively translated as Ibn Rushd’s Aristotelian commentaries, though some of its arguments circulated indirectly through these and through doxographical reports.

Relation to Latin Averroism

In the Latin West, the image of “Averroes” was shaped chiefly by translations of his commentaries on Aristotle, not by a direct Latin version of Tahāfut al-Tahāfut. Nonetheless, several themes central to that work—such as:

• the eternity of the world,
• the autonomy of philosophical demonstration, and
• the doctrine of a single separate intellect—

entered Latin debates via these commentaries.

Medieval critics like Thomas Aquinas engaged with what they perceived as “Averroist” positions, sometimes attributing to him a “double truth” doctrine (philosophical vs. theological truth). Modern research suggests that this characterization arises more from Latin receptions and extrapolations than from anything explicitly stated in Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, where Ibn Rushd insists on the ultimate harmony between demonstrative and revealed truths.

Modern Editions and Scholarship

Contemporary scholarship relies on:

Ongoing work continues to examine manuscript variants and to situate Tahāfut al-Tahāfut within the larger web of Ibn Rushd’s writings and their translations.

17. Major Critiques and Modern Scholarship

Pre-Modern Critiques

Several lines of criticism have been directed at Tahāfut al-Tahāfut:

In the Latin and Hebrew traditions, thinkers such as Aquinas and Gersonides critiqued positions they associated with Averroes on the eternity of the world, the unity of the intellect, and God’s knowledge. These critiques sometimes draw implicitly on themes articulated in Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, though they rarely reference the work directly.

Modern Scholarly Assessments

Contemporary scholarship has examined the treatise from multiple angles:

• Historical-contextual studies (e.g., Majid Fakhry, Frank Griffel) analyze it as part of the long debate between falsafa and kalām, investigating how faithfully Ibn Rushd represents al-Ghazālī and the earlier philosophers.
• Philosophical analyses (e.g., Herbert Davidson, Richard C. Taylor) focus on specific arguments about eternity, causality, and divine knowledge, comparing Ibn Rushd’s reasoning with that of Ibn Sīnā, al-Ghazālī, and Latin scholastics.
• Hermeneutical readings emphasize his theory of taʾwīl and its implications for plural levels of religious discourse.

Among the main scholarly debates are:

Overall, modern scholarship treats Tahāfut al-Tahāfut as a pivotal text for understanding late medieval Islamic philosophy and its reception, even while remaining divided over the cogency of its specific arguments.

18. Legacy and Historical Significance

The Incoherence of the Incoherence holds a distinctive place in the history of philosophy and Islamic thought.

Within Islamic Intellectual History

The work crystallizes the Peripatetic response to Ashʿarite critiques of philosophy. Even though its immediate impact in the Islamic East seems limited, it provides a rare, comprehensive defense of Aristotelian metaphysics, natural philosophy, and epistemology from within an Islamic legal and theological framework.

It also exemplifies a particular model of the philosopher-jurist, integrating:

• commitment to demonstrative science
• engagement with Qurʾān and Sunna
• concern for the social regulation of knowledge through law and pedagogy

For modern historians, it serves as a key witness to the high point of Andalusian Aristotelianism and to the diversity of positions within premodern Islamic theology and philosophy.

Impact Beyond the Islamic World

Indirectly, many of the positions elaborated in Tahāfut al-Tahāfut—on eternity, intellect, and divine knowledge—became central to Latin Averroism and to medieval Christian and Jewish discussions of faith and reason. Although transmitted primarily via commentaries on Aristotle, the arguments systematized here helped shape:

• debates over the autonomy of philosophy relative to theology
• controversies around the alleged doctrine of “double truth”
• conceptions of natural law and necessary causality

Modern Relevance

In contemporary scholarship and broader intellectual discourse, Tahāfut al-Tahāfut is often cited as:

• An early, sophisticated attempt to reconcile scientific rationality with religious revelation
• A case study in the management of esoteric and exoteric knowledge
• A resource for comparative work on reason and faith in Islamic, Jewish, and Christian traditions

Different interpreters draw divergent lessons from it—some emphasizing its rationalist tendencies, others its insistence on the ultimate unity of truth. Nevertheless, the work remains a central reference point for understanding the historical negotiations between philosophy and theology in the medieval Mediterranean world.