Descartes and Al-Ghazali

Doubt, Certitude and Light

Abstract

The epistemologies of René Descartes (d. 1650) and Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111) have frequently been compared both by Muslim and Western scholars. The basis of comparison in the author’s view is immense similarities between Descartes and al-Ghazali as demonstrated by the structure, arguments, and the method in their respective Discours de la méthode and al-Munqidh min al-Dalal.The debate that revolves around al-Munqidh continues to present al-Ghazali as an anti-authoritarian character, much akin to modern thinking, and his doubt is, at best, pretentious. In this essay, we take issues with both conclusions. We attempt to show that neither al-Ghazali is opposed to acceptance of authority in knowledge (taqlid) nor his doubt plays any central role in his epistemology. A lot that has been said about al-Munqidh rests on interpreters’ failure to understand his explicit arguments and in tendentiously seeing him as a pre-modern skeptic. Any comparison of Descartes’ Discours de la méthode and al-Munqidh min al-Dalal cannot be faithfully made unless the confusions that surround the interpretation of the latter are clarified. Through an analysis of Descrates’ First Meditation and the conclusions drawn from our reading of al-Ghazali’s al-Munqidh we compare their epistemologies and show that not only their conclusions are very different, but even the initial skeptical moves are poles apart. This is accomplished by comparing Descartes’ “natural light” to al-Ghazali’s “divine light,” a comparison which provides us with the essential insight needed in our inquiry.