A CRITICAL MIND 145
argument qualifi es a person’s argument as “ravings,” particularly when
one can point to a mythical discourse of the kind presented by Razi.
It is thus clear that Maimonides is following his Muslim pre decessors
when he brands Razi’s book on metaphysics as hadhayan. Maimonides,
however, employs this word beyond the par ticular context of the polem-
ics with Razi, as we have already seen in his writings on the Sabians.
The technical use of the word hadhayan is indeed attested in Arabic
philosophical literature prior to Maimonides.^96 This word is sometimes
used (along with several of its cognates) to translate the Greek adoleskhein.
For example, according to Aristotle, one of the sophists’ methods of ref-
utation is “to reduce the opponent in the discussion to babbling (that is,
to constrain him to repeat himself a number of times).”^97 This is rendered
by Yahya b. Adi as an yahdhiya wa- yahmiza;^98 in the corresponding
section of Avicenna’s Kitab al- shifa we fi nd the words hadhayan wa-
takrir.^99 Avicenna also uses the word to denote a seemingly logical state-
ment that is in fact tautological or senseless: he describes such a state-
ment as hadhayan min al- kalam.^100
Maimonides obviously draws on this philosophical usage and may
even have been familiar with Avicenna’s use of hadhayan. Maimonides,
however, uses the term as a sweeping condemnation, a tag that he affi xes
to certain kinds of literature. The appearance of this tag is an indication
that the book or books so labeled contain lengthy incoherent babbling
(hadhayantawil), like the talk of a person affl icted with madness or hallu-
cinations.^101 More specifi cally, this tag indicates books produced by some
schools and revealing a rather superstitious frame of mind. A poorly
written book on Aristotelian philosophy is not likely to earn this epithet.
It seems that a pro cess of narrowing down of its semantic fi eld led to the
(^96) I am indebted to Robert Wisnowski for drawing my attention to this use of the term had-
hayan in Arabic Aristotelian literature and for kindly furnishing the examples that follow.
(^97) Aristotle,Sophistical Refutations 165 b15, trans. W.A. Pickard- Cambridge, in Jonathan
Barnes, ed., Complete Works of Aristotle (Princeton, 1984), 1:279.
(^98) Kitab al- sufi stiqa, in Mantiq Aristu, ed. Abd al- Rahman Badawi (Cairo, 1948), 3:750;
translating the same passage, Ibn Zura uses the words hadhr wa- hitar (see Badawi,Mantiq
Aristu, 3:751)
(^99) Ibn Sina,Kitab al- shifa,La logique: la sophistique (al- Safasta), ed. A. F. al- Ahwani
(Cairo, 1958), al-mantiq (7); 1.1, 7:5.
(^100) Ibn Sina,Kitab al- shifa, Ilahiyat, ed. G. Qanawati et al. (Cairo, 1960), 1.5 (33:16– 18);
see also Avicenna, De Anima, ed. F. Rahman (London, 1959), 8– 9, where the mutazilite
arguments on whether the non- existent (madum) is a thing (shay) is described by Avi-
cenna as ma hadhaw bi- hi min aqawilihim.
(^101) The medical term hadhayan is, of course, attested also in Maimonides’ medical writings.
See, for example, Commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates 143, [Hebrew]: “Hippo-
crates calls the confusion of the weak mind hadhayan.”