The tree of the heart (Al-Ghazâlî)
Al-Ghazâlî's model: three faculties of the heart and four cardinal virtues, each held between a deficit and an excess.
The tree of the heart (Al-Ghazâlî)
Al-Ghazâlî (1058–1111), a Persian theologian and philosopher, describes the balance of the heart as the art of holding each of our faculties between two extremes. Each faculty has a vice of deficit, a virtue (the golden mean), and a vice of excess. Reason, which governs these forces, draws the cardinal virtues from them.
The three faculties of the heart:
- Sciences — telling the true from the false. Golden mean: Wisdom. Deficit: ignorance; excess: cunning (trickery, scheming).
- Spirit (the irascible faculty) — pushing back and defending. Golden mean: Courage. Deficit: cowardice; excess: tyranny.
- Desire (the concupiscible faculty) — wanting and being drawn toward. Golden mean: Temperance. Deficit: apathy; excess: overflow.
From these golden means are born the four cardinal virtues — Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, Justice — which each chapter draws on to place a behaviour on the deficit — balance — excess axis. Rather than redrawing this spectrum every time, the chapters refer back to it here.
The Heart's Balance — Al-Ghazâlî
A thousand years ago, Al-Ghazâlî described character with a very simple idea: we have three inner faculties, and each can be too weak, too strong, or well tuned. It is not the faculty itself that causes problems — it is its tuning.
The deficit sits on the left, the excess on the right. The virtue sits at the centre.
Do I see things as they really are?
The faculty that tells truth from falsehood. Too little, and we deceive ourselves. Too much, and we use our intelligence to manipulate.
And the fourth: Justice
It is not a fourth faculty. It is what happens when the other three are well tuned at the same time: each in its place, none commanding at the others' expense. Its opposite: an unbalanced heart, where a single faculty steers the boat.
How to correct yourself — 4 steps
Notice which way you leanToo little, or too much? That is the only starting question.
Pull toward the opposite sideToo quick-tempered? Train yourself to absorb. Too withdrawn? Train yourself to say no.
Accept that it feels unpleasantAt first, the remedy hurts. That is normal — it is even the sign it is working.
Go in small incrementsOne notch at a time, regularly. Not one big push once.
Source and credits
Al-Ghazâlî (d. 1111), Iḥyâ' 'Ulûm ad-Dîn, Book XXII “On the discipline of the soul…”, 7th exposition, pp. 119–128. Éd. du Cerf (2007), ISBN 978-2-204-08091-0.
Original mindmap: A. Hamzaoui (AFCL). Layout: V. Shanmugathas.
References & Sources
Philosophical and scientific sources drawn on in the book, a methodological note, a warning, and resources for going further.
The explorer of the mind (Carl Jung)
Jung's map of the psyche: Persona, Shadow, Ego, Self, Anima/Animus — and the projection mechanism that fuels toxic dynamics.