I think you are being a little unfair to Al Ghazali. He set out to
counter a school of teachings that in parts were directly opposed to
the contemporary understanding of Islam. The "Islamic philosophers"
used pure reason (not science as we would understand it) to arrive at
conclusions about religion that ran directly counter to the Qu'ran.
Al Ghazali was actually a believer in reason, but argued that
religious conclusions must begin with religious teachings and not
contradict that foundation. He was a man of faith with noble
intentions of preserving and passing on the truth of Islam. Very
different than, for example, trying to ensure corporate profits from
tobacco. Al Ghazali could not have forseen the unintended effects of
driving back the "excesses" of reason which had intruded into
religious studies.
-Robert Rohde
On Aug 1, 7:00 am, Tom Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I wonder if there are historical precidents for the gross misuse of
> skepticism concerning AGW?
>
> I know of a few examples from a broad philosophical prospective.
> Probably the greatest applied skeptic of all times was Al Ghazali. He
> is credited with stopping Islamic scientific progress around 1000 AD,
> playing a key role in starting a dark age that the Islamic world has
> not yet emerged from. Al Ghazali accepted mathematics as truth, but
> he took on Aristotle and Plato using their own logical tools. He
> attacked the very idea of cause and effect as being unprovable. He
> advocated mysticism and maintained that the concept of cause and
> effect was blasphemy since it limited the power of God.
>
> The Pragmatist philosophical school argued that skepticism was often
> misused in philosophy. They thought that the skeptical pose of
> Descartes and Hume was artificial and was not really that useful a
> tool in the theory of knowledge. They advocated more of a "take your
> best shot" approach to knowledge.
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