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SpiritualRoadmapbyGhazali, page : 37
outcome of this extended effort to induce doubt was that I could no longer trust
sensible knowledge either. Doubt began to spread here and say: “From where
does this reliance on sensible knowledge come? The most powerful sense is that
of sight. Yet when it looks at the shadow it sees it standing still, and judges that
there is no motion. Then by experiment and observation after an hour it knows
that the shadow is moving and moreover, that it is moving not by stops and starts,
but gradually and steadily by infinitely small distances in such a way that it is
never in a state of rest. Again, it looks at the sun and sees it small, like the size of
a quarter; yet geometrical calculations show that it is larger than the earth”.
In this and similar cases of sensible knowledge, the sense is a judge making
his judgments, but another judge, the intellect, shows him repeatedly to be wrong;
and the charge of falsity cannot be rebutted.
To this I said: “My reliance on sensible knowledge also has been destroyed.
Perhaps only those intellectual truths which are first principles (or derived from
first principles) are to be relied upon, such as the assertion that ten is more than
three, that the same thing cannot be both affirmed and denied at one time, that
one thing is not both generated in time and eternal, nor both existent and non-
sensible knowledge either. Doubt began to spread here and say: “From where
does this reliance on sensible knowledge come? The most powerful sense is that
of sight. Yet when it looks at the shadow it sees it standing still, and judges that
there is no motion. Then by experiment and observation after an hour it knows
that the shadow is moving and moreover, that it is moving not by stops and starts,
but gradually and steadily by infinitely small distances in such a way that it is
never in a state of rest. Again, it looks at the sun and sees it small, like the size of
a quarter; yet geometrical calculations show that it is larger than the earth”.
In this and similar cases of sensible knowledge, the sense is a judge making
his judgments, but another judge, the intellect, shows him repeatedly to be wrong;
and the charge of falsity cannot be rebutted.
To this I said: “My reliance on sensible knowledge also has been destroyed.
Perhaps only those intellectual truths which are first principles (or derived from
first principles) are to be relied upon, such as the assertion that ten is more than
three, that the same thing cannot be both affirmed and denied at one time, that
one thing is not both generated in time and eternal, nor both existent and non-