Tahafut_al-Tahafut-transl-Engl-van-den-Bergh

I say:
upsetting their theories, and to showing the faults in the
consequence of their proofs so as to demonstrate their
incoherence. We do not seek to attack from any definite
point of view, and we shall not transgress the aim of this
book, nor give full proofs for the temporal production of the
world, for our intention is merely to refute their alleged
knowledge of its eternity. But after finishing this book we
shall, if it pleases God, devote a work to establishing the
doctrine of truth, and we call it ‘The Golden Mean in
Dogmatic Beliefs’,’ in which we shall be engaged in building
up, as in this book we have been in destroying.
To oppose difficulty with difficulty does not bring about destruction, but
only perplexity and doubts in him who acts in this way, for why should he
think one of the two conflicting theories reasonable and the opposite one
vain? Most of the arguments with which this man Ghazali opposes the
philosophers are doubts which arise when certain parts of the doctrine of
the philosophers come into conflict with others, and when those
differences are compared with each other; but this is an imperfect
refutation. A perfect refutation would be one that succeeded in showing
the futility of their system according to the facts themselves, not such a
one as, for instance, his assumption that it is permissible for the
opponents of the philosophers to claim that possibility is a mental concept
in the same way as the philosophers claim this for the universal. For if the
truth of this comparison between the two were conceded, it would not
follow that it was untrue that possibility was a concept dependent on
reality, but only either that the universal existed in the mind only was not
true, or that possibility existed in the mind only was not true. Indeed, it
would have been necessary for him to begin by establishing the truth,
before starting to perplex and confuse his readers, for they might die
before they could get hold of that book, or he might have died himself
before writing it. But this book has not yet come into my hands’ and
perhaps he never composed it, and he only says that he does not base
this present book on any doctrine, in order that it should not be thought
that he based it on that of the Ash’arites. It appears from the books
ascribed to him that in metaphysics he recurs to the philosophers. And of
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