COMPARING PHASES OF SKEPTICISM IN AL-GHAZĀLĪ AND DESCARTES: SOME FIRST MEDITATIONS ON DELIVERANCE FROM ERROR

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2 COMPARING PHASES OF SKEPTICISM IN AL-GHAZĀLĪ AND DESCARTES: SOME FIRST MEDITATIONS ON DELIVERANCE FROM ERROR Omar Edward Moad Department of Philosophy, National University of Singapore There is much to consider in the positions occupied by Abū Hāmid al-ghazālī ( C.E.) and René Descartes ( C.E.) in the history of their respective traditions. Descartes is most widely considered in the West as having ushered in the modern age of Western philosophy. Al-Ghazālī, on the other hand, has been commonly blamed by some Western critics, as well as some Muslim modernists, for having single-handedly killed philosophy in the Muslim world, while others have considered him pivotal in a much more positive sense. In this latter assessment, al-ghazālī did not kill Muslim philosophy as such. Rather, his selective criticism of the Muslim peripatetic philosophers freed Islamic thought from the limitations of the Aristotelian framework. Descartes himself controversially rejected much of the Aristotelian baggage of his scholastic predecessors, who, in an interesting switch, actually represented the religious orthodoxy of his context. In this light, it is worth taking a close comparative look at the substance of the ideas of these thinkers. Arguably, the most comprehensive representation of al-ghazālī s mature thought (at least that part of it that he saw fit to disclose) is found in his magnum opus, Iḣyā ulūm ad-dīn (Revival of the religious sciences). His Persian abridgment of this work, Kīmiyā-yi sa ādat (Alchemy of happiness) is divided into four sections, dealing, respectively, with (1) knowledge of self, (2) knowledge of God, (3) knowledge of the world as it really is, and (4) knowledge of the next world as it really is. 1 This runs roughly parallel to the order of topics treated by Descartes in his Meditations on First Philosophy, with the exception that any section on knowledge of the next world as it really is is missing, and that, prior to knowledge of self, which is treated in the Second Meditation, Descartes takes up, in the First Meditation, the issue of knowledge per se. A much more comparable discussion of this latter topic by al-ghazālī occurs not in the Alchemy but in the beginning of al-munqidh min al- ḋalāl (Deliverance from error), in a manner strikingly similar in both structure and content to Descartes discussion in the First Meditation. The present essay aims to present the beginning of a close comparative analysis of the contents of these two pieces. I The general philosophical relationship between al-ghazālī and Descartes has drawn the attention of several scholars. In A History of Muslim Philosophy (1963), M. M. Sharif mentions a variety of similarities. Although, according to him, there is no 88 Philosophy East & West Volume 59, Number 1 January > 2009 by University of Hawai i Press

3 direct evidence that al-ghazālī s Deliverance had been translated into Latin by Descartes time, he asserts that the remarkable parallel between it and Descartes Discourse on the Method renders it impossible to deny its influence. 2 It is a bit curious that Sharif discusses only the Discourse, since the similarity between the Deliverance and the first and second Meditations is far more explicit and striking. Unfortunately, but as must be expected in the course of a brief historical entry, he does not offer much in the way of a detailed comparative analysis. Catherine Wilson took up the topic in her contribution to the more recent History of Islamic Philosophy (1996), where she cites V. V. Naumkin (1987) as claiming historical proof that Descartes did read al-ghazālī. Wilson concentrates on the comparison of the Deliverance to the Discourse and the first and second Meditations, calling both the parallel and the divergence unmistakable the latter consisting mainly in the fact that Descartes natural light leads not to fideism but to the exact sciences. 3 The implied charge of fideism against al-ghazālī seems based on Wilson s assessment that he was disenchanted by the exact sciences, which, associated with naturalism and materialism, bear a taint of impiety, and Sufism shows him that he must forsake his attachment to worldly things. 4 While, again, the short space and broad aim with which a historical entry such as Wilson s overall fine article is saddled naturally precludes the in-depth analysis one would like to see here, it is not necessarily unavoidable that this should result in a degree of oversimplification. Simple deployment of the term fideism to al-ghazālī in contrast to Descartes overlooks the more complex relation between faith and reason operative in both cases. In its preface, addressed to the Faculty of Sacred Theology of Paris, Descartes writes that the existence of God and the soul are chief among those that ought to be demonstrated with the aid of philosophy rather than theology. 5 Although faith suffices for believers with regard to these propositions, he explains, unbelievers cannot be persuaded of them unless they are proven by natural reason. Reference to scripture as proof of God s existence, he points out (in an intriguingly worded passage), would be regarded by unbelievers as circular. Interestingly enough, he proceeds thereafter to cite scriptural support for his project. He interprets a passage from Romans chapter 1 What is known of God is manifest in them to mean that everything that can be known about God can be shown by reasons drawn exclusively from our own mind. 6 While nearly all the arguments mustered by great men for the existence of God and the soul have the force of demonstration, and hardly any new arguments can be given, Descartes clarifies that his aim is simply to seek out, once and for all, the best of all these arguments and to lay them out so precisely and plainly that henceforth all take them to be true demonstrations. 7 Were al-ghazālī s position on the exact sciences thoroughly laid out, it would be clear that the slant of Wilson s assessment somewhat mirrors that of Cemil Akdogan, as expressed in a conference paper published by the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization. The main difference between them, he writes, is that al-ghazali works within the framework of Islamic theology in which there is no problem of God, whereas Descartes begins with the problem of God and Omar Edward Moad 89

4 places his emphasis upon human mind or secular philosophy. 8 On one reading, this seems just to say, with Wilson, that al-ghazālī was a fideist, while Descartes was not (except that in this case it is good to be a fideist). That al-ghazālī was no less concerned with presenting philosophical proofs for the existence of God than was Descartes is clear on a first perusal of the contents of his corpus. The notion that al-ghazālī s thought never ventured outside the established framework of Islamic theology in any attempt to evaluate the framework itself on independent grounds is dispelled in, among other places, the opening of the Deliverance itself, which he addresses to his brother in religion as his answer to a request for, among other things, an account of my travail in disengaging the truth from amid the welter of sects, despite the polarity of their means and methods, and my daring in mounting from the lowland of servile conformism to the highland of independent investigation. 9 This account culminates in an explanation and defense of his embrace of the Sufi path, which came about as the result of two crises: an earlier, epistemological crisis, and a later, more important, spiritual crisis. Our focus here is on al-ghazālī s account of the first. The thirst for grasping the real meaning of things was indeed my habit and wont from my early years and in the prime of my life, begins al-ghazālī s account. As a result, the fetters of servile conformism fell away from me and inherited beliefs lost their hold on me, when I was still quite young. 10 Descartes writes, similarly, that several years had 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 on them. 11 In this regard, al-ghazālī writes of how he had noticed that the children of Christians, Jews, and Muslims always grow up following the religion of their parents, and notes a saying of the Prophet Muhammad that every infant is endowed with the fitra: then his parents make him Jew or Christian or Magian : 12 Consequently, I felt an inner urge to seek the true meaning of the original fitra, and the true meaning of the beliefs arising through slavish aping of parents and teachers. I wanted to sift out these uncritical beliefs, the beginnings of which are suggestions imposed from without, since there are differences of opinion in the discernment of those that are true from those that are false. 13 Descartes, as we saw, aims in the Meditations to prove by natural reason not only the existence of God and the soul but also that of all the things that can be known by the human mind, these latter are most certain and most evident. 14 Moreover, he had developed a new method for solving all sorts of problems in the sciences, which he aimed to use to this end. 15 The general goal of the method itself was, as we just read, to establish something firm and lasting in the sciences, for which he had to raze everything to the ground and begin again from the original foundations. Al-Ghazālī describes himself as having had a thirst for grasping the real meaning of things, which, upon observation of the unreliability of inherited beliefs arising from slavish aping, gives him an urge to seek the true meaning of the original fitra. 90 Philosophy East & West

5 While a close comparative study between this original fitra and Descartes conception of original foundations is certainly called for, it cannot be done justice in the limited space of this article. A valuable contribution toward this end has recently been made by Tamara Albertini. The actual philosophical interest of comparing these two great minds, she writes, lies not in exploring their skeptical periods but, on the contrary, in discovering how they thought that doubt could be defeated, namely by creating what one could call an epistemological platform that is grounded in subjectivity. 16 Without disparaging her insights in this regard, it may yet be considered that the distinctive features of their solutions to doubt may be more deeply understood in light of a close look at the precise nature of their respective skeptical periods. A focus on the latter can be found in an earlier paper by Sami M. Najm. He presents a closer analysis of the skeptical periods in question than any of the previously mentioned scholars, concluding that the two cases of dealing with the problem of doubt are profoundly comparable, and that the solution of the problem of doubt is essentially the same. 17 While Ibrahim Musa, in a recent treatment of this topic, also concentrates on the outcome of al-ghazālī s process of doubt as compared to that of Descartes, he cites Mahmūd Hamdī Zaqzūq as maintaining, contrary to Najm, that both took recourse to doubt at first but then followed different paths to ascertain what knowledge is and how we come know with certainty. 18 In what follows, I will concentrate solely on the skeptical periods, that is, the processes of dealing with the problem of doubt that al-ghazālī and Descartes describe, respectively. In the course of doing this, I will bring to light some subtle differences between them in this regard that are relevant to the comparative issue of the respective solutions, or epistemological platforms, at which they arrive. I will not touch on the latter issue here, although I do intend the present discussion as a prelude to a future treatment of that topic and, I hope, as a complement to the work being done by others. II In the Deliverance, after having described his urge to seek the true meaning of the original fitra, al-ghazālī writes: 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. 19 On first reading, one might understand al-ghazālī to be defining sure and certain knowledge (al- ilm al-yaqīnī) as that in which the thing known is made so known that no doubt clings to it. In this case, he would be defining a certain sort or degree of knowledge, rather than knowledge per se as suggested by his stated aim of inquiring into the true meaning of knowledge. Otherwise, we would have a rather Omar Edward Moad 91

6 circular definition of knowledge as a certain kind of knowledge (the certain kind, at that). Importantly, though, the object of al- ilm al-yaqīnī is not described as made so known, but as made so manifest (żahīr) that no doubt clings to it. This resonates with a theme that al-ghazālī presents in Mishkāt al-anwār (Niche of lights). In the beginning of this work, he mentions three senses of the term light the common, the elect, and the elect of the elect and says that when the degrees of these lights become manifest, one would know that God alone is the real light: Regarding the first sense of the word, for the common people, light alludes to manifestation. Manifestation is a relative affair, since without doubt a thing may be manifest to one person while remaining non-manifest to another; hence, a thing is relatively manifest and relatively non-manifest. 20 To know the thing with al- ilm al-yaqīnī is for the thing to be manifest to a certain maximal degree (such that no doubt clings to it). Knowing per se, we may naturally conclude, is for a thing to be manifest to one in some degree or another. This suggests that we are not to understand manifestation as relative to the perceiver simply in the sense that the same thing can be manifest to one person and nonmanifest to another. Since there are degrees of manifestation, a thing can be manifest to a person at a given time to a lesser or greater degree than the degree to which it is manifest to another person, or to the same person at a different time. In this case, from the perspective of one to whom the thing is manifest to a greater degree, a lower degree of manifestation would be a relative non-manifestation or concealment thereof. Al- ilm al-yaqīnī emerges, then, as a degree of manifestation of a thing, such that the mind cannot suppose the possibility of another degree of manifestation of the thing, in relation to which the former degree of manifestation would be a concealment of it. The uncritical beliefs from which al-ghazālī seeks to sift this ilm should be easy to identify; as Descartes states in the Meditations: it will suffice for the rejection of all these opinions, if I find in each one of them some reason for doubt. 21 On first scrutiny, al-ghazālī finds that, of his cognitions, all that seem to answer to this standard of sure and certain knowledge are sense-data and self-evident truths : 22 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. 23 Descartes assessment is parallel here. Surely whatever I had admitted until now as most true I received either from the senses or through the senses, he writes. However, I have noticed that the senses are sometimes deceptive; and it is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once. 24 Al-Ghazālī describes his soul interrogating him on his trust in the senses, reminding him that the strongest of the senses sight is quite prone to error: Sight 92 Philosophy East & West

7 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. 25 In such cases, the sense-judge makes its judgments, but the reason-judge refutes it and repeatedly gives it the lie in an incontrovertible fashion. 26 Interestingly, Descartes uses a nearly identical example, in the Third Meditation, to demonstrate that sense perceptions that proceed from external things need not resemble them. 27 In the First Meditation, of course, his skeptical concern with regard to the senses is much broader in scope: But perhaps, even though the senses do sometimes deceive us when it is a question of very small or distant things, still there are many other matters concerning which I simply cannot doubt, even though they are derived from the very same senses: for example that I am sitting here next to the fire, wearing my winter dressing gown, that I am holding this sheet of paper in my hands, and the like. But on what grounds could one deny that these hands and this entire body are mine? 28 This could be denied, famously, on the grounds of the possibility that I could be dreaming at that moment, coupled with the fact that there are no definitive signs by which to distinguish being awake from being asleep, for how often does my evening slumber persuade me of such ordinary things as these: that I am here, clothed in my dressing gown, seated next to a fireplace when in fact I am lying undressed in my bed! 29 Recalling the consequence of this possibility in the Third Meditation, Descartes writes: But even now I do not deny that these ideas are in me. Yet there was something else I used to affirm, which, owing to my habitual tendency to believe it, I used to think was something I clearly perceived, even though I actually did not perceive it at all: namely, that certain things existed outside me, things from which those ideas proceeded and which those ideas completely resembled. 30 The dream hypothesis here is understood by Descartes as calling into question his belief in the very existence of the external world. Al-Ghazālī, as we saw, had simply called to mind specific instances whereby the judgment of the senses was corrected by that of reason. This seems to fall short of explicitly raising the possibility that nothing external exists. The judgment of reason gives the lie to the judgment of sense, showing the star to be much larger than it previously appeared, but entailing that the object of both judgments is the same star. The object of a judgment that I am only dreaming of a star would be, in Cartesian terms, not the star itself but the idea, judged as not proceeding from or resembling any external object. Al-Ghazālī does make reference to the phenomenon of dreaming, as we shall see, but not in his consideration of the reliability of the senses. In this case, the hypothesis underwriting skepticism is the possibility, for any given sense judgment, that reason may give it the lie but, interestingly, by actually increasing the extent to which the object is manifest, rather than shrouding it in perpetual concealment, as Descartes dream hypothesis does with external reality. Al-Ghazālī writes: Omar Edward Moad 93

8 Perhaps, therefore, I can rely only on those rational data which belong to the category of primary truths, such as our asserting that Ten is more than three, and One and the same thing cannot be simultaneously affirmed and denied, and One and the same thing cannot be incipient and eternal, existent and non-existent, necessary and impossible. 31 Of course, Descartes, too, sees that these rational data survive the skeptical onslaught of the dream hypothesis. For whether I am awake or asleep, two plus three make five, and a square does not have more than four sides, he writes. It does not seem possible that such obvious truths should be subject to the suspicion of being false. 32 But the possibility nevertheless exists of being mistaken in such matters: [S]ince I judge that others sometimes make mistakes in matters that they believe they know most perfectly, may I not, in like fashion, be deceived every time I add two and three or count the sides of a square, or perform an even simpler operation, if that can be imagined? 33 The suggestion here is not, for instance, that every time I add two and three some glitch in my mind causes me to think that they are six (or any sum other than five). Rather, it is that I am mistaken in believing that two and three are five, despite the self-evidence with which I find it to be true and my inability to conceive it as being otherwise. Descartes suggestion is that the seeming indubitability of the results of such operations might simply be a matter of how God has created my faculties. Nevertheless, if it were repugnant to His goodness to have created me such that I be deceived all time, he writes, it would also seem foreign to that same goodness to permit me to be deceived even occasionally. 34 That occasional deception occurs has already been established, and skeptical worries about the rational faculties are all the more palpable given naturalist presuppositions: Now they suppose that I came to be what I am either by fate, or by chance, or by some connected chain of events, or by some other way. But because being deceived and being mistaken appear to be a certain imperfection, the less powerful they take the author of my origin to be, the more probable it will be that I am so imperfect that I am always deceived. 35 Indeed, if our minds have emerged, not by design but by the blind force of natural causes, it seems not only possible but even more likely that there should not be any special connection between the modus operandi of the mind and the truth. To underwrite the possibility of being globally mistaken in this regard, Descartes entertains the evil genius hypothesis, thereby justifying (temporarily) his universal suspension of belief: 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. 36 This hypothesis, like the dream hypothesis, proposes that a state of affairs ontologically independent of me obtains by virtue of which all the information that my perceptual and rational faculties provide me with is false, and which is, therefore, 94 Philosophy East & West

9 impossible for me to disprove. Like the dream hypothesis, it proposes the possibility of it being impossible to know anything. Al-Ghazālī s skeptical hypothesis about reason differs here by proposing, instead, the possibility of yet another means of knowing: III 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 non-appearance of that further perception does not prove the impossibility of its existence. 37 So, while al-ghazālī s skepticism is, in each case, underwritten by the possibility of deeper forms of knowledge that might reveal the limitations or falsehoods in what is currently taken as known, Descartes is underwritten by the possibility of a state of affairs that would undermine any possible epistemic faculty, rendering all equally false and misleading. In light of this, al-ghazālī s hypothesis raises the following question. If the judgment of reason would be corrected by the newly emerging judge in the way that reason had corrected the senses, on what basis are we now justified in believing that reason actually ever did correct the senses in the first place, when reason itself is not a trustworthy faculty? Second, how can we guarantee that, beyond this other judge, there is not yet another judge that would correct it, and so on? In the absence of any such guarantee, none of the faculties are trustworthy, and it seems there is really no basis for proposing that any of them corrects or gives the lie to any other. Given the evil genius hypothesis, for example, the star is neither the size of a dinar nor larger than the earth. In fact, it does not exist. Therefore, neither the senses nor reason can be considered any more or less accurate than the other in judging its size. Any sort of judge beyond reason could be justifiably construed as falsifying or correcting the others only if it were capable of revealing any such evil genius and his deceptive ways, thus being immune to his tricks. While one could propose the possibility of additional latent faculties ad infinitum, unless it can be conceived in such a way as to logically eliminate the evil genius possibility, none can be justifiably described as correcting or falsifying any other. At first glance, this only augments the skeptical conundrum that al-ghazālī is describing. However, the possibility of another judge, beyond reason, had been illustrated by recalling the alleged discovery, about reason and the senses, that the former refutes it (the senses) and repeatedly gives it the lie in an incontrovertible fashion. Having placed the veracity of reason in question, we can no longer consider the accuracy of this description of the phenomenon of discovery as incontrovertible as all that. Perhaps it was reason that was mistaken all along. More Omar Edward Moad 95

10 generally, if coming to know that some belief we held was false entails discovering some truth about how things stand in that regard, then the fact that we have never known a truth entails that we have never discovered that a belief was false. Thus, reference to the fact of previous mistakes to show the probability of present and future mistakes is moot; so far as we know, there is no such fact at all. Consider, however, al-ghazālī s reference to the phenomenon of dreaming, in illustrating the possibility of another judge: Don t you see that when you are asleep you believe in 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. 38 Al-Ghazālī does not question, as does Descartes, whether he ever knows that he is not dreaming. The difference between the third state and waking, here, is described by analogy to that between waking and dreaming; that is, in relation to the former, the beliefs of the latter are groundless and unsubstantial. This depends on my actually understanding a difference between the two. If they are, in fact, indiscernible, then I certainly cannot know that I have ever woken from a dream, or even that I have ever dreamed, and I should not be able, as Descartes is, to recall having been deceived on other occasions even by similar thoughts in my dreams! 39 My real circumstance should be more like that of Chuang Tzu, who wakes from a dream that he is a butterfly to find that he is Chuang Tzu, only to question whether he is not really a butterfly now dreaming that he is Chuang Tzu. Indeed, if dreaming were truly indiscernible from waking experience, then he should also have as much reason to believe that he is either dreaming both times or awake both times, and his idea of the difference between the two with the one being real and the other unreal most certainly could not have been derived from any past discoveries, upon waking up, that he had been dreaming. Descartes, on the other hand, concludes that there is no way to discern the dreaming from the waking experience, immediately after referring to previous experiences of waking up to realize that what he had previously thought to be waking reality was only a dream. How is such an experience possible, if the two are indiscernible? The key here is that the question has shifted. Descartes is, in fact, in search of something that would guarantee the accurate representation, by his experience, conceived as consisting of sensible ideas, of an external world from which those ideas proceeded and which those ideas completely resembled. Upon waking from a dream, one does not find such a guarantee; but this means that dreaming and waking reality are indiscernible only on the presupposition that the difference between the two is simply that one set of ideas resembles the external world while the other 96 Philosophy East & West

11 does not. Therefore, either experience gives us absolutely no reason to believe that we have ever even had a dream, or that the real difference between dreaming and waking experience does not lie in the resemblance, or otherwise, of internal ideas to external objects. Al-Ghazālī s underlying presuppositions here are different. Indeed, he describes the beliefs of the dream state as being revealed, by the waking state, to be groundless and unsubstantial. However, he suggests that the beliefs of the waking state themselves would be revealed to be unsubstantial, were you to find yourself in the third state. So the difference between the dream state and the waking state cannot be that the former is groundless, in the sense of its not appropriately resembling an external reality that the latter does. 40 Indeed, he explicitly states that while what is believed in your waking state may be true in relation to that state, it would, in relation to the third state, be like the dream state is in relation to the waking state groundless and unsubstantial. While dreaming, however, one may believe these things to be, as he says, fixed and lasting. The difference between the objects perceived in these states, then, is one of relative fixity and continuity on the one hand, and groundlessness and insubstantiality on the other, at least between the dreaming and waking states. This opens the possibility that the same holds for any third or additional state, and that truth, consequently, is relative to the state. But the proposition that all my beliefs are simply and absolutely mistaken entails reference to an absolute truth (e.g., an evil genius scenario), in relation to which beliefs in all possible states are false, in which case the possibility of absolute knowledge is that of a state the objects of which are absolutely grounded and substantial. This need not be conceived as a state in which internal ideas appropriately resemble external objects. A very important passage in al- Ghazālī s Tahāfut al-falāsifa (The incoherence of the philosophers) is illuminating in this regard. In demonstrating that, in his words, existence with a thing does not prove that it exists by it, he writes: Indeed, we will show this by an example. If a person, blind from birth, who has a film on his eyes and who has never heard from people the difference between night and day, were to have the film cleared from his eyes in daytime, [then] open his eyelids and see colors, [such a person] would believe that the agent [causing] the apprehension of the forms of the colors in his eyes is the opening of his sight and that, as long as his sight is sound, [his eyes] opened, the film removed, and the individual in front of him having color, it follows necessarily that he would see, it being incomprehensible that he would not see. When, however, the sun sets and the atmosphere becomes dark, he would then know that it is sunlight that is the cause for the imprinting of the colors in his sight. 41 Here, the person s original judgment that clear, open eyes and a colored object, alone, bring about the seeing of colors is corrected by the experience of nightfall: the seeing of colors with the clearing of the eyes is distinguished from its happening by it. The operative principle to be inferred here, however, also entails that the disappearance of colors with the setting of the sun, and their reappearance with its rising, is, likewise, no proof that one sees them by the sun. Indeed, al-ghazālī s Omar Edward Moad 97

12 main contention here is that God is the only causal agent a position shared by Descartes. Our point here is that the experience that may elicit the conclusion that the sun is the agent of seeing, although itself mistaken, does indeed correct the judgment based on the previous experience, that the removal of the film is the agent. Furthermore, the relation that this experience bears to the first judgment leads one to the insight by which one becomes aware that the second judgment that the sun is the agent is likewise groundless. The result here is an entirely new level of thinking about causal agency. Thus, while each judgment in this series is indeed mistaken, it is not the case that they are absolutely devoid of truth, and from this it is clear in what sense one can say that a judgment is true in relation to one state and false in relation to another. In the example above, an ontological connection remains between both the removal of the film, the setting of the sun, and the sight of colors. Each new experience simply augments one s understanding of this relation, revealing the manifestation of the preceding experience as in itself groundless and unsubstantial, by revealing the deeper reality in relation to which it alone exists. Thus, considered in itself, it is false that the clear eyes and a colored object are that by which colors are seen; but considered in relation to the sun, it is true. Simultaneously, considered in itself, it is false that clear eyes, a colored object, the sun, and anything else that seeing colors occurs with, are that by which colors are seen; but considered in relation to that by which these occur with each other, it is true. The manifestation, at each level of awareness, is simultaneously a veil over the one beyond it and, in a certain sense, an effect thereof; so the truth provides clues to its discovery in the manner by which it hides itself. It manifests itself in its concealment. Thus, when the sun is revealed, by reason, to be larger than the earth, its appearance to the senses is not thereby wholly dispensed with. Rather, it is shown for what it is: that is, not the sun itself, but the veil behind which the sun is presented to one whose awareness is limited to the level of sense perception. Reason does not simply disregard the veil. Rather, recognizing it as an effect of the veiled, it uses it as a point of reference by which to peer behind. The mathematical calculations employed in ascertaining the size of the sun are not applied but to the very sense perceptions that would, of themselves, misrepresent it. In the process, the sense perception is both falsified and confirmed. In showing it as merely the appearance of the sun, reason falsifies it; but in explaining the manner in which it is ontologically connected to the sun, reason confirms it. This, of course, raises the question as to whether the object, as it appears to reason, is itself the ground, the substance, and the agent, or simply another veil through which it conceals itself from, and manifests itself to, the subject in that state of awareness. Second, this raises the question as to how the first could possibly be answered. Al-Ghazālī writes: When these thoughts occurred to me, they penetrated my soul, and so I tried to deal with that objection. However, my effort was unsuccessful, since the objection could be refuted 98 Philosophy East & West

13 only by proof. But the only way to put together a proof was to combine primary cognitions. So if, as in my case, these were inadmissible, it was impossible to construct the proof. 42 Descartes is commonly understood to have constructed a proof by which to escape the skeptical clutches of his evil genius hypothesis: I think, therefore I am. Yet, one may wonder how such a proof could be effective in that regard when, in light of the hypothesis, it is quite possible that an evil genius is simply deceiving us into believing that the argument is sound. The argument itself depends on the hidden premise that that which does not exist cannot think, behind which there lies of course the fundamental principle of non-contradiction. As al-ghazālī points out, primary cognitions such as these cannot be appealed to when reason itself is in question. In conclusion, and as an indication of future investigation, I suggest that there are certain primary cognitions that Descartes could not discard, despite the apparent implications of the evil genius hypothesis. Second, I believe that these items are entailed in the skeptical hypothesis itself. Third, I project that, although this fact seems to constitute a significant difference between al-ghazālī and Descartes on this point, when the precise nature of these primary cognitions that Descartes retains are clarified, there will emerge, at a deeper level, a similarity through which continued reflection can yield both a deeper understanding of both thinkers and a new perspective on the relation between classical Islamic and modern Western philosophy. Notes 1 Abu Hamid al-ghazālī, The Alchemy of Happiness [Kimiyā al-sa adat], trans. Claud Field (London: Octagon Press, 1980). 2 M. M. Sharif, Influence of Muslim Thought on the West, in A History of Muslim Philosophy, ed. M. M. Sharif (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1963), p Catherine Wilson, Modern Western Philosophy, in History of Islamic Philosophy, ed. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman (London: Routledge, 1996), p Ibid. 5 René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993), p Ibid. 7 Ibid., p Cemil Akdogan, The Al-Ghazālīan Origins of Modern Philosophy (paper presented at the International Conference on al-ghazālī s Legacy: Its Contemporary Relevance, October 24 27, 2001, at the International Institute of Omar Edward Moad 99

14 Islamic Thought and Civilization), p. 4. A somewhat different reading of Akdogan s cited statement is possible, however, if we understand his problem of God as a reference to the problem of God discussed by Syed Muhammad Naquib al-attas; that is, a specific philosophical problem al-attas sees as having emerged in the history of western thought as a result of a real distinction between essence and existence, traced back to Thomas Aquinas and diagnosed as a misunderstanding of Ibn Sīnā s position on the issue (see al-attas, Islam and Secularism). This is not insignificant, as further investigation may reveal that a fundamental difference between al-ghazālī and Descartes in their respective approaches and solutions to doubt may be linked to just this problem. To examine the question at this stage, however, would be premature. 9 Abu Hamid al-ghazālī, Deliverance from Error [al-munqidh min al-ḋalāl], trans. R. J. McCarthy (Louisville: Fons Vitae, 1980), p Ibid., pp Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Meditation On the meaning of fitra, in a footnote to his translation of Deliverance from Error, R. J. McCarthy writes: The word is from a root meaning to cleave or split and to create (God). So fitra means: creation, nature, natural disposition, constitution, temperament, etc., i.e. what is in a man at his creation. 13 Al-Ghazālī, Deliverance from Error, p Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, p Ibid., p Tamara Albertini, Crisis and Certainty of Knowledge in Al-Ghazālī ( ) and Descartes ( ), Philosophy East and West 55 (1) ( January 2005): Sami Najm, The Place and Function of Doubt in the Philosophies of Descartes and Al-Ghazālī, Philosophy East and West 16 (3 4) (July October 1966): Ibrahim Musa, Ghazālī and the Poetics of the Imagination (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), p. 14 (see also p. 177). 19 Al-Ghazālī, Deliverance from Error, p Abu Hamid al-ghazālī, The Niche of Lights [Mishkāt al-anwār], trans. David Buchman (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1998), p Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, p Al-Ghazālī, Deliverance from Error, p Ibid. 24 Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, p Al-Ghazālī, Deliverance from Error, p Philosophy East & West

15 26 Ibid. 27 Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, p. 27: For example, I find within myself two distinct ideas of the sun. One idea is drawn, as it were, from the senses. Now it is this idea which, of all those that I take to be derived from outside me, is most in need of examination. By means of this idea the sun appears to me to be quite small. But there is another idea, one derived from astronomical reasoning, that is elicited from certain notions that are innate in me, or else is fashioned by me in some other way. Through this idea the sun is shown to be several times larger than the earth. 28 Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, p Ibid. 30 Ibid., pp Al-Ghazālī, Deliverance from Error, p Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, p Ibid. 34 Ibid., p Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Al-Ghazālī, Deliverance from Error, p Ibid., p Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, p In this respect, Al-Ghazālī firmly believes in the revelatory significance of dreams. So, he cannot ultimately consider them false in the sense of not relating to any reality whatsoever. However, in the context of this particular epistemological discussion, the significance of this fact is admittedly open to question. 41 Abu Hamid al-ghazālī, The Incoherence of the Philosophers [Tahāfut alfalāsifah], trans. Michael Marmura (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1997), pp Al-Ghazālī, Deliverance from Error, p. 57. Omar Edward Moad 101