PHIL 20B Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Nicolas Malebranche, Necessitarianism, Ata-Malik Juvayni
Document Summary
Avicenna"s concept of the necessary existent (wajib al-wujud) If there are two, there must be something differentiating them. They are dependent on that differentiating factor for their existence. Not possible since a necessary existent is not dependent on anything. Anything material / made of matter is made of parts. Immateriality --> would be always thinking about everything. Avicenna thinks that the nature of goodness is to be desirability. Fundamentally, what beings desire is to exist in a perfect way. When things fulfill their nature, they are trying to be like the necessary being. Full name: abu hamid muhammad ibn muhammad al-ghazali. Persian, under the (turkish, sunni muslim) seljuk empire. Invited by the grand vizier to teach at the leading madrasa in baghdad. Composed the incoherence of the philosophers (tahafut al-falasifa) while teaching at the madrasa (1091-1095) In 1095, al-ghazali went under a crisis of skepticism. Saved from his crisis only through a direct mystical experience of god.
