| Title | Aristotle and Averroes: The Influences of Aristotle's Arabic Commentator upon Western European and Arabic Rhetoric |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2007 |
| Journal | Review of Communication |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 369-387 |
| Categories | Commentary, Aristotle, Influence, Rhetoric |
| Author(s) | Carol Lea Clark |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| During the 9th through 12th centuries, Aristotle's works, including the Rhetoric, were translated and studied in Arabic centers of learning, following the Prophet Mohammad's injunction to “seek knowledge even unto China.” Averroes (Ibn Rushd, d. 1198), the most prominent of the scholars who wrote commentaries on Aristotle's works, advocated that pagan Greek philosophical logic and rhetoric complimented, rather than contradicted, Islamic teaching. However, Averroes's strictly rationalist views and appreciation for pagan Greek philosophy clashed with an intensification of Islamic orthodoxy toward the end of the 12th century, and the commentator's reputation declined or disappearerd in Islamic centers of learning. Many of Averroes's works, though, were translated into Latin, Hebrew, and other languages, and his texts were studied along with Aristotle's in medieval Europe. This essay attempts to sbhow that, in a minor way, Averroes's heritage as an Aristotelian commentator continues to be studied and, thus, to influence rhetoric in both Western and Arabic countries. It also demonstrates, however, that these desultory efforts do not take advantage of the potential for insightful scholarship on this subject. In the long history of the dominant intellectual tradition of the Muslim world, Averroes offered for a brief few years the revolutionary perspective that logic, and consequently, rhetoric was independent of ideology or religion. The ramifications of that perspective have yet to be fully explored. |
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| This article is intended to illustrate that the hermeneutics of al-Ghazzali influenced Ibn Rushd in a certain degree. One can come across a number of contexts in the works of Ibn Rushd such as Tahafut al-tahafut, Fasl al-maqal and al-Kashf,in which he criticizes al-Ghazzali in relation to the interpretation of religious texts. However, one can notice that Ibn Rushd is deeply influenced by the views of al-Ghazzali on the matter of hermeneutics, especially concerning the definition of interpretation, the categorization of the ambiguous wordings in the religious texts as well as the classification of the groups of people authorized to fulfill the task of interpretation. In fact, Ibn Rushd’s threefold graduation of people as the masses, thetheologians, and the demonstrative people was masterminded and introduced by al-Ghazzali. In addition, it is from al-Ghazzali and from his interpretation of the125th verse of Surat al-Nahl that Ibn Rushd borrowed the suggestion that as regards the interpretation of religious texts, each of these three groups should adopt one of the three methods described as rhetorical, dialectical, and demonstrative. Another important context where Ibn Rushd is clearly under the influence of al-Ghazzali is the issue how the lawful method of interpretation is to be applied to the religious texts. Regarding this issue, he took up al-Ghazzali’s fivefold categorization of“being” as essential existence, sensual existence, imaginative existence, mental existence and analogical existence, suggesting to interpret the religious texts on the basis of this categorization. |
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