Bayraktar, MehmetVural, Mehmet2022-05-272022-05-271998http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12575/80535According to Ghazali, various methods can be used to acquire and use knowledge, as he professed in his innumerous works. In doing this, he adopted the Aristotelean logic as the primary principle and sought to reconcile it with Islamic sciences. He is apparently the first in the Islamic thought to use Aristo's logic as a methodology of Islamic sciences. According to Ghazali, logic was independent of philosophy, while it wasn't directly related to religion. To him, logic was merely an "instrument" to receive correct knowledge and to discover the path of true sciences. Ghazali claimed that the origins of logic lay in religion, and it was therefore necessary to look into logic to grasp the meaning of religion. This assertion of Ghazali has been influential in the Islamic world, as the spread of Aristotelean logic, contained in many works on the subject, indicates. The main concern of Ghazali's philosophy is the problematique of "precision" in knowledge, especially in the area of metaphysics. To him, reason was not adequately equipped to understand metaphysics which the philosophers saw as the climax of all sciences. Therefore, Ghazali suggests that, knowledge in this area can be obtained by religious experimentation, such as inspiration ("ilham"), intuition ("sezgi") and divination ("keşf"). Among the methods Ghazali used, he perceived dialectics as the art of discussion which did not generate precise knowledge. We can meanwhile see his hermeneutic method ("tevil") as "faith-based hermeneutics" which seeks to base everything in God. One of his originalities undoubtedly lies in his methodological finding which may be entitled as "methodological scepticism". He claimed to have found the precise knowledge through this method, and then linked precision/truth ("yakîn") with faith. His "methodological scepticism" is the forerunner of Ibn Heysem and Descartes. The search for absolute inner integrity lies at the heart of Ghazali's books and colourful world. He tried his utmost to absorb the totality of knowledge before him, analysed it critically, and sought to systematize this knowledge with the contribution of his own learning. His was an attempt to demonstrate the discord between Islam and the Greek metaphysics, which led him to lay the foundations of an "Islamic" method of philosophical inquiry. Therefore his life, thought and method serve as a good model for us today.trBilgidoctoralThesis