Al-Ghazzali Deliverance From Error Summary

In Al-Ghazzali’s text, Deliverance from Error, ideas of knowledge and ways to understand knowledge are brought to attention. Questions are asked if what we know is actually knowledge and is it truthful. Are the ways we search and comprehend knowledge the same way other people do, and which way is right? Defining knowledge is up to each person individually, but in this specific text, Al-Ghazzali explains his personal journey into defining knowledge. The ways groups of people seek knowledge are dependent on views of how they judge information. Al-Ghazzali starts his text with his realization that all of his knowledge could be wrong and uncertain and that there is error with thinking everything you know to be true is uncertain. To begin searching for true knowledge you have to convince yourself that you seek not just knowledge, but the true meaning of knowledge (Page 3). There are parts of knowledge that you don’t know, therefore …show more content…
In the beginning of Al-Ghazzali’s text he mentions questioning self-evident truths. Using the idea of star size to give an example about a self-evident truth, one might think that stars are very small and believe that without any doubt, however others will speculate if that is true or not. This brings up a new idea about self-evident truths; anything that we think is self-evident can now be speculated and/or further analyzed by someone else to find the true meaning. Our senses also contribute to self-evident truths. When you hear, taste, touch, smell, or see something to be “true” you have to immediately consider the uncertainty that goes along with it. Relying on sense-data alone is untenable (page 4). Al-Ghazzali goes through a period where he doesn’t recognize his sense-data in order to discover real meanings. He decides that he can rely on his sense-data as long as he further examines the meaning to why it’s