Why Is Philosophy Bad for the Soul? Commentary on Al-Ġazālī’s Critique of the Philosophers

In this text, two notions described in two works by Al-Ġazālī are analyzed: the notion of “precipitance” (Arabic: tahāfut) and “attachment to authority” (Arabic: taqlīd), which are described in Tahāfut al-falāsifa (English: The Precipitance of the Philosophers) and Al-Munqiḏ min al-ḍalāl (English: Rescuer from Error). I try to show that Al-Ġazālī in his criticism of philosophy focused not only on theoretical issues, but that one of the key parts of his criticism are practical issues concerning the philosophers’ way of life. Pointing to specific examples of using the two aforementioned concepts to overthrow philosophy, I propose a different interpretation of these two late works by Al-Ġazālī.