منهج الشك عند الغزالي وانعكاساته على التفكير

Abstract

This article aims at analyzing AlGhazzali’s  issue of skepticism and the attempt to read such skepticism from a new philosophical perspective.  The article will also shed light on the skepticism process and its various important stages.    We will try to prove that skepticism is a system in critical thinking which aims at arriving at the truth of things, which is also a research method which accompanied AlGhazzali from the start of his research until his death.  This skeptical approach wasn’t merely a vanishing crisis which he faced for a while.  Ghazzali tried to make one think again about inherited knowledge and acquired sciences thorugh imitation, the mind and the senses.  He basically does a critical review which can detect mistakes in such sciences and try to base them on true knowledge.  His attempt to dig through the accumulated layers of knowledge in order to arrive at the genuine, innate truth is the certain beginning on which he bases his science and knowledge.  Doing that, AlGhazzali cancels everything which exists, but he couldn’t cancel one thing, which is thinking, because he can’t doubt that he doubts.  Therefore, AlGhazzali is left with thinking alone, trying to restore confidence to mental sciences first, but in vain, because his doubt reached all preliminary sciences and axioms which could form a true foundation for wider and broader science.  Ghazzali discovers the existence of essential, permanent thoughts within the human consciousness, such as the thought of God, which hasn’t been received externally through thinking.  Ghazzali expressed that through the Divine Light which has been poured into his breast.  Such essential thoughts formed the basic certainty which is the foundation for genuine sciences and other existing knowledge.