Necessarily Dissimilar

Philosophical Apophaticism

Bibliographic Data

ID23734931
AuthorsAydogan Kars (0000-0002-3628-3474, corresponding author)
Year2019
Pages73-128
Publication date2019-10-31
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueUnsaying God (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University PressNew York (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/oso/9780190942458.003.0003
OpenAlexW2946601455
ISBN9780190942458
LanguageEN
References cited69

In the centuries following al-Kindī, Muslim philosophers developed a coherent family of apophatic theological positions on the divine essence and its accessibility. The recurring aspects of this philosophical apophaticism were (1) a negative theology of divine attributes that reads them as negations, (2) the unknowability of the divine essence, closely connected with an Aristotelian version of the Neoplatonic distinction between discursive thought [dianoia] and non-discursive intellection [noēsis], (3) the necessary dissimilarity of God as the first cause of everything else, and (4) a philosophical hermeneutics that protects divine oneness and dissimilarity. Most of these aspects were established in conversation with the Muʿtazilites. As early as al-Kindī, Muslim philosophers adopted such a philosophical apophaticism of the divine nature, which later would take diverse forms, while preserving strategic resemblances.

Art · Conversation · Epistemology · Hermeneutics · Linguistics · Literature · Negation · Islamic Studies and History · Islamic Thought and Society Studies · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy

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