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The Essential Ideas of Islamic Philosophy

A Brief Survey
By
Prof. Mashhad Al-Allaf
The Edwin Mellen Press, USA, 2006, ISBN: 0-7734-5848-4, HC, 345 pp.


The Influence of al-Ghazl on Descartes
The philosophical writings of al-Ghazl influenced the French
philosopher Rene Descartes (15961650 AD). In his book Meditations,
Descartes discusses a method of doubt very similar to that of al-Ghazl,
doubting sensory experience and proceeding to doubt ideas that come
from reason. Under the influence of al-Ghazl, Descartes set requirements
according to which ideas can be accepted. In his methodological doubt he
emphasized that he will only accept ideas that are clear and distinct. In
this section I present short portions of the writings of Descartes, from his
book Meditations (1, 2, and 6).
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40
Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins, eds. Readings in modern philosophy, 2 vols.
(Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000), 1:2729 and 1:5051.
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Al-Ghazl, al-Munqi dh (10581111 AD)
1. For nearly ten years I assiduously cultivated seclusion and
solitude. During that time several points became clear to me, of
necessity and for reasons I cannot enumerateat one time by fruitional
experience, at another time by knowledge based on apodictic proof, and
again by acceptance founded on faith. These points were that man is
formed of a body and a heart.
Descartes, Medi tations (15961650 AD)
1. Several years have now passed since I first realized how numerous
were the false opinions that in my youth I had taken to be true, and thus
how doubtful were all those that I had subsequently built upon them.
And thus I realized that once in my life I had to raze everything to the
ground and begin again from the original foundations, if I wanted to
establish anything firm and lasting in the sciences. But the task seemed
enormous, and I was waiting until I reached a point in my life that was
so timely that no more suitable time for undertaking these plans of
action would come to pass.
Al-Ghazl
2. So I began by saying to myself: What I seek is knowledge of the
true meaning of things. Of necessity, therefore, I must inquire into just
what the true meaning of knowledge is. Then it became clear to me that
sure and certain knowledge is that in which the thing known is made so
manifest that no doubt clings to it, nor is it accompanied by the
possibility of error and deception, nor can the mind even suppose such a
possibility.
Descartes
2. I should withhold my assent no less carefully from opinions that
are not completely certain and indubitable than I would from those that
are patently false. For this reason, it will suffice for the rejection of all
these opinions, if I find in each of them some reason for doubt.
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Al-Ghazl
3. I then scrutinized all my cognitions and found myself devoid of
any knowledge answering the previous description except in the case of
sense-data and the self-evident truths. So I said: Now that despair has
befallen me, the only hope I have of acquiring an insight into obscure
matters is to start from things that are perfectly clear, namely sense-data
and the self-evident truths.
Descartes
3. But at least they do contain everything I clearly and distinctly
understand. First, I know that all the things that I clearly and distinctly
understand can be made by God such as I understand them.
Al-Ghazl
4. With great earnestness, therefore, I began to reflect on my sense-
data to see if I could make myself doubt them. This protracted effort to
induce doubt finally brought me to the point where my soul would not
allow me to admit safety from error even in the case of my sense-data.
Rather it began to be open to doubt about them and to say, Whence
comes your reliance on sense-data?
Descartes
4. But now, having begun to have a better knowledge of myself and
the author of my origin, I am of the opinion that I must not rashly admit
everything that I seem to derive from the senses, but neither, for that
matter, should I call everything into doubt.
Al-Ghazl
5. The strongest of the senses is the sense of sight. . . . Sight also
looks at a star and sees it as something small, the size of a dinar; then
geometrical proofs demonstrate that it surpasses the earth in size.
Descartes
5. But perhaps even though the senses do sometimes deceive us
when it is a question of very small and distant things.
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Al-Ghazl
6. Then sense-data spoke up, What assurance have you that your
reliance on rational data is not like your reliance on sense-data? Indeed,
you used to have confidence in me. Then the reason-judge came along
and gave me the lie. But were it not for the reason-judge, you would still
accept me as true. So there may be, beyond the perception of reason,
another judge. And if the latter revealed itself, it would give the lie to the
judgments of reason, just as the reason-judge revealed itself and gave
the lie to the judgments of sense. The mere fact of the nonappearance of
that further perception does not prove the impossibility of its existence.
Descartes
6. Still there are many other matters concerning which one simply
cannot doubt. For whether I am awake or asleep two plus three makes
five.
Al-Ghazl
7. For a brief space my soul hesitated about the answer to that
objection, and sense-data reinforced its difficulty by an appeal to
dreaming, saying, Do you not see that when you are asleep you believe
certain things and imagine certain circumstances and believe they are
fixed and lasting and entertain no doubts about that being their status?
Then you wake up and know that all your imaginings and beliefs
were groundless and unsubstantial. So while everything you believe
through sensation or intellection in your waking state may be true in
relation to that state, what assurance have you that you may not
suddenly experience a state which would have the same relation to your
waking state as the latter has to your dreaming, and your waking state
would be dreaming in relation to that new and further state? If you
found yourself in such a state, you would be sure that all your rational
beliefs were unsubstantial fancies.
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Descartes
7. Let us assume then, for the sake of argument that we are
dreaming and that such particulars as these are not true: that we are
opening our eyes, moving our head, and extending our hands.
Accordingly, I will suppose not a supremely good God, the source of
truth, but rather an evil genius, supremely powerful and clever, who has
directed his entire effort at deceiving me.
Moreover, I find myself faculties for certain special modes of
thinking, namely the faculties of imagination and sensing. I can clearly
and distinctly understand myself in my entirety without these faculties,
but not vice versa: I cannot understand them clearly and distinctly
without me, that is, without a substance endowed with understanding in
which they inhere, for they include an act of understanding in their
formal concept.