Auf der Suche nach Erkenntnis zwischen Asien und Europa: al-Ġazālī, Descartes und die moderne Forschungswissenschaft

The quest for an indisputable foundation of all knowledge has been one of the driving forces behind intellectual history. In the European tradition it is mainly connected to René Descartes (1596–1650) and his whereas in the Islamic world it was already expressed in a brilliant manner by Abū Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī (1058–1111) in his book entitled or. The article investigates both these texts by contextualizing them within the long history of intellectual autobiographies, which stretches from antiquity to the present and comprises many exciting examples from Asia and Europe.