328 Anke von Kügelgen
the universals in rebus, and that they can, therefore, be placed on an
equal footing. Thus, it would have been enough to reject the rational-
ists’ use of syllogism in the realm of theology.
His apologetic rebuttal of a key tenet of the Peripatetics that he him-
self adheres to is probably due to a holistic view that takes into account
the foundations and the consequences of Peripatetic reasoning. It is
thus comprehensible that he refers to the Koran as the authoritative
source of the rational methods he himself counts among the demon-
strative inferences, dismissing Peripatetic logic as a balance established
by but one individual. In his two refutations, he expounds three kinds
of such rational inferences that he considers capable of leading to true
knowledge within and beyond the scope of revelation: 1) the inference
by signs, 2) the a fortiori argument, and 3) the inference based on the
“common factor,” i. e., analogy and the first figure of the categorical
syllogism. His equation of the last inference with the balance that God
revealed to the hearts of men and spoke of in the Koran is reminiscent
of al-Ghazālī’s “correct balance”. Yet whereas the latter identified this
balance with Peripatetic syllogistics in general, Ibn Taymiyya warns
against understanding it as such or at least underlines that it is “not
limited to Greek logic,” a statement that might reflect his acknowl-
edgement of the search for the middle term. At any rate, the knowledge
reached by these three kinds of inferences has an unmistakable correc-
tive in the sound religious tradition, for God will not contradict him-
self. Outside the scope of revelation, there is no such absolute measure
for true reasoning.
Seen as a whole, the philosophical elements in his own epistemology
and the interlinked ontological theory should certainly not be overes-
timated. Ibn Taymiyya did not take over whole theories as such, but
only tenets of his opponents that were functional for his own vision
of God, man, and the universe. In regard to the deconstruction of the
arguments of his rivals, Ibn Taymiyya is adroit. The fact that, in spite
of their acuity, his refutations were apparently not much appreciated
and transmitted outside the Ḥanbalī circles until the turn of the 19th
to the 20th century is probably due to his extremist tendency to refute
every theory and to offend everyone whom he considered guilty of
not following his own, right path. Thereby, he discredited a wide range
of theological, philosophical, and mystical reasoning about the divine
world in his time and for many centuries to come.
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