103. The first thing created in man is the sense of touch: by this he perceives certain classes of existents such as heat and cold, wetness and dryness, smoothness and roughness, etc. But touch is definitely unable to perceive colors and sounds: indeed, these are, as it were, nonexistent with respect to touch.
104. Next the sense of sight is created for man, by which he perceives colors and shapes: this is the most extensive of the “worlds” of the sensibles.....109. Now if a man born blind did not know about colors and shapes from constant report and hearsay, and were to be told about them abruptly, he would neither understand them nor acknowledge their existence. But God Most High has brought the matter within the purview of His creatures by giving them a sample of the special character of the prophetic power: sleeping. For the sleeper perceives the unknown that will take place, either plainly, or in the guise of an image the meaning of which is disclosed by interpretation.
110. If a man had had no personal experience of dreaming and someone were to tell him: “There are some men who fall down unconscious as though they were dead, and their perception, hearing, and sight leave them, and they then perceive what is ‘hidden’,” he would deny it and give apodeictic proof of its impossibility by saying: “The sensory powers are the causes of perception. Therefore one who does not perceive such things when his powers are present and functioning a fortiori will not perceive them when his powers are suspended.”
111. This is a kind of analogy which is belied by factual experience and observation. Just as the intellect is one of man’s stages in which he receives an “eye” by which he “sees” various species of intelligibles from which the senses are far removed, the prophetic power is an expression signifying a stage in which man receives an “eye” possessed of a light, and in its light the unknown and other phenomena not normally perceived by the intellect become visible.'--Al-Ghazali, Deliverance of Error
For Al-Ghazali (recall) prophecy is a form of guided intuition (an inner faculty (or "eye" beyond reason), which makes otherwise unknown phenomena available. According to Al-Ghazali truth-apt prophecy is not entirely uncommon: it also occurs, for example, in the context of scientific discovery, when scientific theories (that go beyond the direct empirical data) are developed. I argued that Al-Ghazali's main argument is abductive.
In the context of discussion of prophecy, Al-Ghazali introduces the man born blind as a thought experiment. This person has no sense experience of colors.* Notably, this blind man also does not accept the authority of testimony. (Anachronistically: the blind man is a hard-core empiricist.) The blind man stands for those of use who lack first hand knowledge of prophecy and who may doubt testimony about it.
We are, however, given indirect access to the plausibility of prophecy by the existence of dreams which foretell the "unknown...either plainly, or in the guise of an image the meaning of which is disclosed by interpretation." I ignore here how plausible this really is. By analogy, if dreaming were in color perhaps we are supposed to understand that the blind man would then accept the testimony about the existence of colors on faith (or treat it as evidence). What is notable is that Al-Ghazali does not return to the blind man despite the significance of vision metaphors and analogies in his overall discussion. One could stop here and just remark that Ibn Tufayl saw better what to do with the underlying idea.
That unperceived colors stand for a potential vision of reality is, of course, not wholly original with Al-Ghazali. In fact, it has been developed by one of his explicit targets. For, when, Al-Farabi explains the role of the active intellect in human life, he writes the following in the Political Regime:
The status of the active intellect with respect to the human being is that of the sun with respect to vision. For the sun gives light to vision so that, through the light procured from the sun, vision becomes actual viewing after having been potential viewing. By that light, it views the sun itself, which is the cause for it having vision in actuality. Moreover, the colors that were potentially seen become seen in actuality, and the vision that was potential becomes actual vision. Similarly, the active intellect provides a human being with something it traces on his rational faculty, the status of that thing with respect to the rational soul being the status of light with respect to vision. (Par 9), translated by Butterworth.
Without the active intellect we are like men in the dark, or like a blind; either way, colors are merely potentially visible. Now, as I have noted before, according to Al-Farabi one may call the active intellect that "it is the trustworthy spirit and the holy spirit." (Political Regime 3) And when a great soul joins the active intellect, and thereby founds the laws that guide society, "he is the one of whom it ought to be said that he received revelation." (Recall also here.)
So, perhaps Al-Ghazali decided not to develop the example of the blind man because it would have brought him a bit too close to his target.**
*I am also interested in this case for its role in the pre-history to Ibn Tufayl's thought experiment about the transformative experience of seeing colors after being born blind. In his translation of Ibn Tufayl, Lenn Goodman had called attention to Al-Ghazali's Deliverance.
**Al-Farabi and Al-Ghazali differ about the faculty that makes revelation possible.
The paragraph from Farabi has a prehistory itself: Aristotle's De Anima 3.5 and, I would guess, ultimately the Republic.
Ps-excited that you will be contributing to my and Anthony's volume on the history of transformation!
Posted by: Justin Vlasits | 09/18/2019 at 01:00 PM