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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: al- Farabi |
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| Biography: Al-Farabi |
During the tenth-century, philosopher, scholar, and alchemist Al-Farabi (c. 870-c. 950) popularized the philosophical systems of Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato. He integrated their views into his Islam-based metaphysical, psychological, and political theories. Al-Farabi was among the first philosophical theologians of the Islamic faith.
Historians classify Al-Farabi as a member of the eastern group of Moslem philosophers who were influenced by the Arabic translations of Greek philosophers by Nestorian Christians in Syria and Baghdad. During his life, he placed a heavy emphasis on logic and believed that each human individual possesses the ability to discern between good and evil, which he considered the basis for all morality. He is credited by historians for preserving the works of Aristotle that otherwise might have been forgotten and subsequently destroyed during the Dark Ages. He earned the nickname Mallim-e-Sani, which often is translated as "second master" or "second teacher" after Aristotle, who was considered the first master.
By 832, Baghdad contained a group of translators dedicated to converting Greek texts by Plato, Aristotle, Themistius, Porphyry, and Ammonius into Arabic. These efforts resulted in the progenitors of Islamic philosophy adopting a Neo-platonic approach to religious thought, of whom Al-Farabi is considered the first. Influenced by Islamic Sufism and his reading of Plato, Al-Farabi also explored mysticism and metaphysics and placed contemplation above action. In his interpretations of Islamic religious suppositions based upon his readings of Plato and Aristotle, Al-Farabi attempted to provide rational explications of such metaphysical concepts as prophecy, heaven, predestination, and God. Al-Farabi also believed that prophets developed their gift by adhering to a rigidly moral lifestyle, rather than simply being born with divine inspiration. In addition to his philosophical theology, Al-Farabi is considered a preeminent musical theorist. Among his works on musical theory are Kitab Mausiqi al-Kabir (Grand Book of Music), Styles in Music, and On the Classification of Rhythms in which he identified and provided detailed descriptions of musical instruments and discussed acoustics. Among the many works attributed to him, including such scientific examinations as The Classification of the Sciences and The Origin of Sciences, Al-Farabi also wrote respected works on mathematics, political science, astronomy, and sociology.
Al-Farabi was born in Faral in Asia Minor, in what is known now as Othrar, Turkistan. His father is reported to have been either a Turkistan general or a bodyguard for the Turkish Caliph, and Al-Farabi's parents raised him in the mystical Sufi tradition of Islam. He was schooled in the towns of Farab and Bukhara, before continuing his studies of Greek philosophy in Hanan and Baghdad. He spoke seventy languages and traveled widely throughout the Arabian kingdoms of Persia, Egypt, and Asia Minor. Al-Farabi studied with the Nestorian Christian physician Yuhanna ibn-Haylan, a noted logician, and Abu-Bishr Matta ibn-Yunus, a Christian scholar of Aristotle.
Al-Farabi relied on the writings of Aristotle and Plato in what is considered to be his major work of political science and religion, On the Principles of the Views of the Inhabitants of the Excellent State, also titled The Ideal City. In this work, he borrows freely from Plato's Republic and Laws to construct a treatise on his idea of a utopian society. In such a society, Al-Farabi reasoned that a political system could be made to adhere to Islamic beliefs through the combined study of philosophy, hard sciences, mathematics, and religion. Such a political theology would result in an ordered society that recognizes the need for community and a hierarchal structure that revolves around the received knowledge of divine law by the community's prophets and lawgivers. Divided into three sections, The Ideal City begins with a section on metaphysics, in which he elaborated upon his concepts of philosophy and religion. The second section is a discussion of psychology, and, in the third section, Al-Farabi presented his views on the qualities he believed identify the perfectly governed and populated state.
Al-Farabi divided his studies into two distinct categories, which he labeled physics and metaphysics. Physics applied to the physical sciences and phenomenology, and metaphysics applied to ethics, philosophy, and theology. Al-Farabi also divided the study of logic into two categories, which he labeled imagination and proof. He believed religious faith was an example of the former and that philosophy represented the latter. Al-Farabi ultimately believed that philosophy was purer than religion because philosophy represented the study of verifiable truths by an intellectual elite. The truths that have been identified by the philosophers are subsequently converted into religious symbols that can be easily interpreted by the imaginations of the general populous. Al-Farabi explained that a religion's validity lay in its ability to accurately convey philosophical concepts into readily identifiable religious symbolism. He further noted that each culture employed its own symbols to interpret the same philosophical truths. Although he believed that philosophy was superior over religion, he also contended that religion was necessary in order to make philosophical concepts understandable to the uneducated.
Al-Farabi inverted previous theological methodology by insisting on the study of philosophy before attempting religious understanding, whereas philosophers previously had developed philosophical systems to support preexisting religious dogma. Applying Aristotelian notions of logic to the Muslim faith, Al-Farabi concerned himself with such theological issues as proving the existence of God; God's omnipotence and infinite capacity for justice in meting out punishment or rewards in the afterlife; and the responsibilities of the individual in a moral and social context. Al-Farabi believed that a thorough grounding in logic was a necessary introduction for the continued study of philosophy, and he was instrumental in separating the study of philosophy as an inherently theological enterprise. Employing Aristotle's notion that a passive force moves everything in the world, Al-Farabi concluded that the First Movement emanates from a primary source, God, which aligns Greek philosophy with the Islamic belief that God imbues all things with existence. If all existence emanates from God, Al-Farabi argued, then all human intelligence proceeds directly from God in the form of inspiration, illumination, or prophecy as it did when the angel Gabriel imparted cosmic wisdom to the prophet Mohammed.
Predisposed to mysticism through his Sufi upbringing, Al-Farabi also integrated Platonic thought into his cosmology by asserting that the highest goal of humankind should be the attainment of the knowledge of God. If all worldly material emanates from God, Al-Farabi reasoned, then enlightened humans should aspire to a return to God through the study of religious texts and moral acts. Al-Farabi's writings since have influenced a wide range of subsequent religious, philosophical, and sociological thought. The Moslem philosopher Avicenna (980-1037) credits Al-Farabi's analysis of Aristotle's Metaphysics with his own understanding. Avicenna claimed he had read the Greek philosopher's work forty times but was unable to comprehend the work's meaning until he read Al-Farabi's explication. By asserting the metaphysical concept that a higher being contributes knowledge to the intellectual pursuits of humankind, Al-Farabi anticipated Henri Bergson's theory of philosophical intuition. Al-Farabi's theory that individuals make the conscious decision to group together according to their beliefs and needs anticipated the social contract of Henri Rousseau. In his History of Philosophy, Frederick Copleston noted that Al-Farabi's concept of God as the First Mover of all physical essence has been appropriated also by the Jewish philosopher Maimonides and such Roman Catholics writers as St. Thomas Aquinas and Dante Alighieri. Al-Farabi believed that the distinction between essence and existence proved that existence is an accidental byproduct of essence. His adherence to philosophical rationalism has been detected also in the works of Immanuel Kant.
Al-Farabi is also considered by many historians and critics to be the most important musical theorist of the Muslim world. He claimed to have written Kitab Musiqi al-Kabir (Grand Book of Music) to dispel what he felt was the erroneous assumptions of Pythagoras's music of the spheres. Instead, Al-Farabi asserted that sound emanates from atmospheric vibrations. Other works of music theory include Styles in Music. Several of his scientific works, including The Classification of the Sciences and The Origin of the Sciences, contain essays focused on the physical and physiological principles of sound, including harmonics and acoustical vibrations. He is credited also for inventing the musical instruments rabab and quanun.
Later in life, during a pilgrimage to Mecca, Al-Farabi arrived at Aleppo, in modern-day Syria, where he encountered the country's ruler, Saifuddawlah. When Saifuddawlah offered him a seat, Al-Farabi broke Aleppo custom by taking Saifuddawlah's seat. Speaking in an obscure dialect, Saifuddawlah told his servant that Al-Farabi should be dealt with severely. Speaking in the same dialect, Al-Farabi responded, "Sire, he who acts hastily, in haste repents." Impressed with Al-Farabi, Saifuddawlah allowed him to speak freely on many subjects. When Al-Farabi finished speaking, the ruler offered him food and drink, which Al-Farabi refused. Instead he played a lute masterfully, reputedly moving his audience from tears to laughter depending on the music. Saifuddawlah invited Al-Farabi to stay at his court, where he remained for the rest of his life. Despite the fact that Saifuddawlah belonged to the Suni sect of Islam, Al-Farabi retained his Sufi affiliation.
Reports on Al-Farabi's death are unclear but often note he died around 950. Some historians believe that Al-Farabi died in Damascus, where he was traveling with Saifuddawlah's court. Others write that he was killed by robbers while searching for the philosopher's stone. The philosopher's stone was a legendary substance sought by alchemists, which was believed to possess the properties to transform base metals into gold or silver. Regardless, he is believed to have written more than one-hundred books on a wide-range of scientific, musical, religious, and philosophical topics during his lifetime. Of these works, only one-fifth are believed to have survived.
Books
Ahmad, K. J., Hundred Great Muslims, Library of Islam, 1987.
Copleston, Frederick, S. J., A History of Philosophy, Volume II: Medieval Philosophy from Augustine to Duns Scotus, Doubleday, 1993.
Edwards, Paul, editor, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volume 3, Macmillan and the Free Press, 1967.
Eliade, Mircea, editor, The Encyclopedia of Religion, Volume 5, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987.
Melton, J. Gordon, editor, Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, Fifth Edition, Volume 1, A-L, Gale Group, 2001.
| Philosophy Dictionary: Abu Nasr al-Farabi |
Al-Farabi, Abu Nasr (or Abunaser) (c. 870-950) The ‘second teacher’ after Aristotle of Islamic philosophy. Al-Farabi was one of the first philosophers to transmit Aristotelian logic to the Islamic world. He wrote extensively on logic, and expanded Aristotle's description of the intellect. He also exhibits the influence of Neoplatonism: creation is an emanation, and it is the images of the world-soul or anima mundi that become bodies in space. His work The Virtuous City is a version of Plato's Republic, a description of the ideal civic society in which all the virtues flourish.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: al- Farabi |
Bibliography
See bibliography by N. Rescher (1962).
| Artist: Al Farabi |
| Wikipedia: Al-Farabi |
| Muslim scholar |
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An Iranian stamp from 1950 with Al-Farabi's imagined face.
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| Name: | Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn al-Farakh al-Fārābi[1] |
| Title: | The Second Teacher[2] |
| Birth: | c. 872[2] |
| Death: | c. 950[2] |
| Region: | Central Asia, Iran, Egypt and Syria |
| Maddhab: | Twelver Shi'a Muslim[2] |
| School tradition: | known as "Father of Islamic Neoplatonism"; gave rise to the Farabian school[1] |
| Main interests: | Metaphysics, Political philosophy, Logic, Music, Science(Tabi'iat), Ethics, Mysticism[2], Epistemology and Medicine |
| Works: | kitāb al-mūsīqī al-kabīr ("The Great Book Of Music"), ārā ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila ("The Virtuous City"), kitāb iḥṣāʾ al-ʿulūm ("On The Introduction Of Knowledge"), kitāb iḥṣāʾ al-īqā'āt ("Classification Of Rhythms")[2] |
| Influences: | Aristotle, Plato, Porphyry, Ptolemy,[citation needed], Al-Kindi |
| Influenced: | Avicenna, Yahya ibn Adi, Abu Sulayman Sijistani, Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, Ibn Bajjah, Mulla Sadra[2]
Al Amiri, Averroes, Maimonides and Abū Hayyān al-Tawhīdī, Leo Strauss[citation needed] |
Abū Naṣr al-Fārābi (أبو نصر محمد الفارابي - Abū Naṣr Muḥammad al-Fārābi;[1] in some sources also mentioned as محمد بن محمد بن أوزلغ الفارابي - Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad (ibn Tarḫān) ibn Awzlaġ al-Fārābi),[2] known in the West as Alpharabius[3] (c. 872[2] – between 14 December 950 and 12 January 951), was a Khorasani[4] polymath and one of the greatest scientists and philosophers of Persia and the Islamic world in his time. He was also a cosmologist, logician, musician, psychologist and sociologist.
Contents |
The existing variations in the basic accounts of al-Farabi's origins and pedigree indicate that they were not recorded during his lifetime or soon thereafter by anyone with concrete information, but were based on hearsay or guesses (as is the case with other contemporaries of al-Farabi). But what is known with certainty is that after finishing his early school years in Farab and Bukhara, Farabi moved to Baghdad in 901 to pursue higher studies. He studied under a Nestorian Christian cleric Yuhanna ibn-Haylan in Harran who abandoned lay interests and engaged in his ecclesiastical duties, and he remained in Baghdad for more than 40 years and acquired mastery over several languages and fields of knowledge.[1] He left Baghdad in 941 and went to Aleppo. There, he was supported and glorified by Saif ad-Daula, the Hamdanid ruler of Syria. He had some other journeys and traveled to Cairo[2] Finally Farabi died in Damascus sometime between 14 December 950 and 12 January 951.[1]
There is no consensus on the ethnic background of Farabi. All sources on his ethnic background have been written at least 300 years after Farabi and these few classical primary sources have described his ethnicity differently. Among notable scholars who have done extensive research on Farabi's life and works is Prof. Dimitri Gutas who has examined primary sources dealing with Farabi's background.[1]
The oldest known document regarding his background, written by the medieval Arab historian Ibn Abī Uṣaibiʿa (died in 1269), mentions that al-Farabi's father was of Persian descent.[5] Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd al-Shahrazūrī who lived around 1288 A.D. and has written an early biography also has stated that Farabi hailed from a Persian family[4][6]. Ibn al-Nadim, a younger contemporary of Farabi and a close friend of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (Farabi's closest and most successful student), states Farabi's origins[1][7] to lie in Faryāb in Khorasan. Faryāb is also the name of a province in today's Afghanistan. The Dehkhoda Dictionary - based on Ibn Abī Uṣaibiʿa's accounts - also calls him Persian (فارسی المنتسب), mentioning the fact that his father was a member of the Persian-speaking Samanid court of Central Asia. The older Persian form Pārāb (Persian word meaning cultivated land by streams)[8] is given in the historical account Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam for his birthplace. Additionally, Farabi has in a number of his works references and glosses in Persian and Sogdian,[9][10] pointing to an Iranian-speaking Central Asian origin.[11] A Persian origin is also discussed by Peter J. King[12] and some other western scholars,[13] as well as in a comprehensive source on Islamic Philosophy written in Arabic by the Egyptian scholar Prof. Hanna Fakhuri.[14].
The oldest known reference to a possible Turkic origin is given by the medieval historian Ibn Khallekān (died in 1282), who claimed that Farabi was born in the small village of Wasij near Farab (in what is today Otrar, Kazakhstan) of Turkic parents, and in the following decades and centuries, many others copied his work.[15] But scholars criticize Ibn Khallekān's statement, as it is only aimed to ridicule the earlier reports of Ibn Abī Uṣaibiʿa, and seems to have the sole purpose to prove that Farabi was a Turk.[1] In this context, it is criticized that Ibn Khallekān was also the first to use the additional nisba (surname) "al-Turk" - a nisba Farabi never had.[1] Ibn Khallekān's statement also contradicts Ibn al-Nadim and Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, both contemporaries of Farabi, who had reported that Farabi's birthplace was Faryāb in Khorasan (in modern Afghanistan). Ibn Khallekān's accounts are also partially contradicted by the above mentioned fact that Farabi has in many of his writings references and glosses in Persian, Sogdian, and Greek, but not in Turkish.[1] In this regard, Oxford professor C.E. Bosworth notes that "great figures [such] as al-Farabi, al-Biruni, and ibn Sina have been attached by over enthusiastic Turkish scholars to their race".[16]
Farabi made notable contributions to the fields of logic, mathematics, medicine, music, philosophy, psychology and sociology.
Al-Farabi was also the first Muslim logician to develop a non-Aristotelian logic. He discussed the topics of future contingents, the number and relation of the categories, the relation between logic and grammar, and non-Aristotelian forms of inference.[17] He is also credited for categorizing logic into two separate groups, the first being "idea" and the second being "proof."
Farabi wrote books on early Muslim sociology and a notable book on music titled Kitab al-Musiqa (The Book of Music). According to Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Mehdi Aminrazavi[18]: the book of Kitab al-Musiqa is in reality a study of the theory of Persian music of his day although in the West it has been introduced as a book on Arab music. He presents philosophical principles about music, its cosmic qualities and its influences. Al-Farabi's treatise Meanings of the Intellect dealt with music therapy, where he discussed the therapeutic effects of music on the soul.[19]
As a philosopher, Al-Farabi was a founder of his own school of early Islamic philosophy known as "Farabism" or "Alfarabism", though it was later overshadowed by Avicennism. Al-Farabi's school of philosophy "breaks with the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle [... and ...] moves from metaphysics to methodology, a move that anticipates modernity", and "at the level of philosophy, Alfarabi unites theory and practice [... and] in the sphere of the political he liberates practice from theory". His Neoplatonic theology is also more than just metaphysics as rhetoric. In his attempt to think through the nature of a First Cause, Alfarabi discovers the limits of human knowledge".[20]
Al-Farabi had great influence on science and philosophy for several centuries, and was widely regarded to be second only to Aristotle in knowledge (alluded to by his title of "the Second Teacher") in his time. His work, aimed at synthesis of philosophy and Sufism, paved the way for the work of Ibn Sina (Avicenna).[21]
Al-Farabi also wrote a commentary on Aristotle's work, and one of his most notable works is Al-Madina al-Fadila where he theorized an ideal state as in Plato's The Republic.[22] Al-Farabi represented religion as a symbolic rendering of truth, and, like Plato, saw it as the duty of the philosopher to provide guidance to the state. Al-Farabi departed from the Platonic view in that he regarded the ideal state to be ruled by the prophet-imam, instead of the philosopher-king envisaged by Plato. Al-Farabi argued that the ideal state was the city-state of Medina when it was governed by the prophet Muhammad as its head of state, as he was in direct communion with Allah whose law was revealed to him. In the absence of the prophet-imam, Al-Farabi considered democracy as the closest to the ideal state, regarding the republican order of the Rashidun Caliphate as an example within early Muslim history. However, he also maintained that it was from democracy that imperfect states emerged, noting how the republican order of the early Islamic Caliphate of the Rashidun caliphs was later replaced by a form of government resembling a monarchy under the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties.[23]
Influenced by the writings of Aristotle, in The Ideas of the Citizens of the Virtuous City and other books, Al-Farabi advanced the view that philosophy and revelation are two different modes of approaching the same truth.[citation needed]
Al-Farabi is also known for his early investigations into the nature of the existence of void in Islamic physics.[22] In thermodynamics, he appears to have carried out the first experiments concerning the existence of vacuum, in which he investigated handheld plungers in water.[24] He concluded that air's volume can expand to fill available space, and he suggested that the concept of perfect vacuum was incoherent.[22]
In psychology, al-Farabi's Social Psychology and Model City were the first treatises to deal with social psychology. He stated that "an isolated individual could not achieve all the perfections by himself, without the aid of other individuals." He wrote that it is the "innate disposition of every man to join another human being or other men in the labor he ought to perform." He concluded that in order to "achieve what he can of that perfection, every man needs to stay in the neighborhood of others and associate with them."[19]
His On the Cause of Dreams, which appeared as chapter 24 of his Book of Opinions of the people of the Ideal City, was a treatise on dreams, in which he was the first to distinguish between dream interpretation and the nature and causes of dreams.[19]
The main influence on al-Farabi's philosophy was the neo-Aristotelian tradition of Alexandria. A prolific writer, he is credited with over one hundred works.[25] Amongst these are a number of prolegomena to philosophy, commentaries on important Aristotelian works (such as the Nicomachean Ethics) as well as his own works. His ideas are marked by their coherency, despite drawing together of many different philosophical disciplines and traditions. Some other significant influences on his work were the planetary model of Ptolemy and elements of Neo-Platonism,[26] particularly metaphysics and practical (or political) philosophy (which bears more resemblance to Plato's Republic than Aristotle's Politics).[27]
Al-Farabi as well as Ibn Sina and Averroes have been recognized as Peripatetics(al-Mashsha’iyun) or rationalists(Estedlaliun) among Muslims.[28][29][30] However he tried to gather the ideas of Plato and Aristotle in his book "The gathering of the ideas of the two philosophers".[31]
According to Adamson, his work was singularly directed towards the goal of simultaneously reviving and reinventing the Alexandrian philosophical tradition, to which his Christian teacher, Yuhanna bin Haylan belonged. His success should be measured by the honorific title of "the second master" of philosophy (Aristotle being the first), by which he was known. Interestingly, Adamson also says that he does not make any reference to the ideas of either al-Kindi or his contemporary, Abu Bakr al-Razi, which clearly indicates that he did not consider their approach to Philosophy as a correct or viable one.[32]
In contrast to al-Kindi, who considered the subject of metaphysics to be God, al-Farabi believed that it was concerned primarily with being qua being (that is, being in of itself), and this is related to God only to the extent that God is a principal of absolute being. Al-Kindi's view was, however, a common misconception regarding Greek philosophy amongst Muslim intellectuals at the time, and it was for this reason that Avicenna remarked that he did not understand Aristotle's Metaphysics properly until he had read a prolegomenon written by al-Farabi.[33]
Al-Farabi's cosmology is essentially based upon three pillars: Aristotelian metaphysics of causation, highly developed Plotinian emanational cosmology and the Ptolemaic astronomy.[34] In his model, the universe is viewed as a number of concentric circles; the outermost sphere or "first heaven", the sphere of fixed stars, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and finally, the Moon. At the centre of these concentric circles is the sub-lunar realm which contains the material world.[35] Each of these circles represent the domain of the secondary intelligences (symbolized by the celestial bodies themselves), which act as causal intermediaries between the First Cause (in this case, God) and the material world. Furthermore these are said to have emanated from God, who is both their formal and efficient cause. This departs radically from the view of Aristotle, who considered God to be solely a formal cause for the movement of the spheres, but by doing so it renders the model more compatible with the ideas of the theologians.[35]
The process of emanation begins (metaphysically, not temporally) with the First Cause, whose principal activity is self-contemplation. And it is this intellectual activity that underlies its role in the creation of the universe. The First Cause, by thinking of itself, "overflows" and the incorporeal entity of the second intellect "emanates" from it. Like its predecessor, the second intellect also thinks about itself, and thereby brings its celestial sphere (in this case, the sphere of fixed stars) into being, but in addition to this it must also contemplate upon the First Cause, and this causes the "emanation" of the next intellect. The cascade of emanation continues until it reaches the tenth intellect, beneath which is the material world. And as each intellect must contemplate both itself and an increasing number of predecessors, each succeeding level of existence becomes more and more complex. It should be noted that this process is based upon necessity as opposed to will. In other words, God does not have a choice whether or not to create the universe, but by virtue of His own existence, He causes it to be. This view also suggests that the universe is eternal, and both of these points were criticized by al-Ghazzali in his attack on the philosophers[36][37]
In his discussion of the First Cause (or God), al-Farabi relies heavily on negative theology. He says that it cannot be known by intellectual means, such as dialectical division or definition, because the terms used in these processes to define a thing constitute its substance. Therefore if one was to define the First Cause, each of the terms used would actually constitute a part of its substance and therefore behave as a cause for its existence, which is impossible as the First Cause is uncaused; it exists without being caused. Equally, he says it cannot be known according to genus and differentia, as its substance and existence are different from all others, and therefore it has no category to which it belongs. If this were the case, then it would not be the First Cause, because something would be prior in existence to it, which is also impossible. This would suggest that the more philosophically simple a thing is, the more perfect it is. And based on this observation, Adamson says it is possible to see the entire hierarchy of al-Farabi's cosmology according to classification into genus and species. Each succeeding level in this structure has as its principal qualities multiplicity and deficiency, and it is this ever-increasing complexity that typifies the material world.[38]
Human beings are unique in al-Farabi's vision of the universe because they stand between two worlds: the "higher", immaterial world of the celestial intellects and universal intelligibles, and the "lower", material world of generation and decay; they inhabit a physical body, and so belong to the "lower" world, but they also have a rational capacity, which connects them to the "higher" realm. Each level of existence in al-Farabi's cosmology is characterized by its movement towards perfection, which is to become like the First Cause; a perfect intellect. Human perfection (or "happiness"), then, is equated with constant intellection and contemplation.[39]
Al-Farabi divides intellect into four categories: potential, actual, acquired and the Agent. The first three are the different states of the human intellect and the fourth is the Tenth Intellect (the moon) in his emanational cosmology. The potential intellect represents the capacity to think, which is shared by all human beings, and the actual intellect is an intellect engaged in the act of thinking. By thinking, al-Farabi means abstracting universal intelligibles from the sensory forms of objects which have been apprehended and retained in the individual's imagination.[40]
This motion from potentiality to actuality requires the Agent Intellect to act upon the retained sensory forms; just as the Sun illuminates the physical world to allow us to see, the Agent Intellect illuminates the world of intelligibles to allow us to think.[41] This illumination removes all accident (such as time, place, quality) and physicality from them, converting them into primary intelligibles, which are logical principles such as "the whole is greater than the part". The human intellect, by its act of intellection, passes from potentiality to actuality, and as it gradually comprehends these intelligibles, it is identified with them (as according to Aristotle, by knowing something, the intellect becomes like it).[42] Because the Agent Intellect knows all of the intelligibles, this means that when the human intellect knows all of them, it becomes associated with the Agent Intellect's perfection and is known as the acquired Intellect.[43]
While this process seems mechanical, leaving little room for human choice or volition, Reisman says that al-Farabi is committed to human voluntarism.[42] This takes place when man, based on the knowledge he has acquired, decides whether to direct himself towards virtuous or unvirtuous activities, and thereby decides whether or not to seek true happiness. And it is by choosing what is ethical and contemplating about what constitutes the nature of ethics, that the actual intellect can become "like" the active intellect, thereby attaining perfection. It is only by this process that a human soul may survive death, and live on in the afterlife.[41][44]
According to al-Farabi, the afterlife is not the personal experience commonly conceived of by religious traditions such as Islam and Christianity. Any individual or distinguishing features of the soul are annihilated after the death of the body; only the rational faculty survives (and then, only if it has attained perfection), which becomes one with all other rational souls within the agent intellect and enters a realm of pure intelligence.[43] Henry Corbin compares this eschatology with that of the Ismaili Neo-Platonists, for whom this process initiated the next grand cycle of the universe.[45] However, Deborah Black mentions we have cause to be skeptical as to whether this was the mature and developed view of al-Farabi, as later thinkers such as Ibn Tufayl, Averroes and Ibn Bajjah would assert that he repudiated this view in his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, which has been lost to modern experts.[43]
In his treatment of the human soul, al-Farabi draws on a basic Aristotelian outline, which is informed by the commentaries of later Greek thinkers. He says it is composed of four faculties: The appetitive (the desire for, or aversion to an object of sense), the sensitive (the perception by the senses of corporeal substances), the imaginative (the faculty which retains images of sensible objects after they have been perceived, and then separates and combines them for a number of ends), and the rational, which is the faculty of intellection.[46] It is the last of these which is unique to human beings and distinguishes them from plants and animals. It is also the only part of the soul to survive the death of the body. Noticeably absent from these scheme are internal senses, such as common sense, which would be discussed by later philosophers such as Avicenna and Averroes.[47][48]
Special attention must be given to al-Farabi's treatment of the soul's imaginative faculty, which is essential to his interpretation of prophethood and prophetic knowledge. In addition to its ability to retain and manipulate sensible images of objects, he gives the imagination the function of imitation. By this he means the capacity to represent an object with an image other than its own. In other words, to imitate "x" is to imagine "x" by associating it with sensible qualities that do not describe its own appearance. This extends the representative ability of the imagination beyond sensible forms and to include temperaments, emotions, desires and even immaterial intelligibles or abstract universals, as happens when, for example, one associates "evil" with "darkness".[49][50] The prophet, in addition to his own intellectual capacity, has a very strong imaginative faculty, which allows him to receive an overflow of intelligibles from the agent intellect (the tenth intellect in the emanational cosmology). These intelligibles are then associated with symbols and images, which allow him to communicate abstract truths in a way that can be understood by ordinary people. Therefore what makes prophetic knowledge unique is not its content, which is also accessible to philosophers through demonstration and intellection, but rather the form that it is given by the prophet's imagination.[51][52]
The practical application of philosophy is a major concern expressed by al-Farabi in many of his works, and while the majority of his philosophical output has been influenced by Aristotelian thought, his practical philosophy is unmistakably based on that of Plato.[53] In a similar manner to Republic (Plato), al-Farabi emphasizes that philosophy is both a theoretical and practical discipline; labeling those philosophers who do not apply their erudition to practical pursuits as "futile philosophers". The ideal society, he says, is one directed towards the realization of "true happiness" (which can be taken to mean philosophical enlightenment) and as such, the ideal philosopher must hone all the necessary arts of rhetoric and poetics to communicate abstract truths to the ordinary people, as well as having achieved enlightenment himself.[54] Al-Farabi compares the philosopher's role in relation to society with a physician in relation to the body; the body's health is affected by the "balance of its humours" just as the city is determined by the moral habits of its people. The philosopher's duty, he says, is to establish a "virtuous" society by healing the souls of the people, establishing justice and guiding them towards "true happiness".[55]
Of course, al-Farabi realizes that such a society is rare and will require a very specific set of historical circumstances in order to be realized, which means very few societies will ever be able to attain this goal. He divides those "vicious" societies, which have fallen short of the ideal "virtuous" society, into three categories: ignorant, wicked and errant. Ignorant societies have, for whatever reason, failed to comprehend the purpose of human existence, and have supplanted the pursuit of happiness for another (inferior) goal, whether this be wealth, sensual gratification or power. It is interesting to note that democratic societies also fall into this category, as they too lack any guiding principle. Both wicked and errant societies have understood the true human end, but they have failed to follow it. The former because they have willfully abandoned it, and the latter because their leaders have deceived and misguided them. Al-Farabi also makes mention of "weeds" in the virtuous society; those people who try to undermine its progress towards the true human end.[56].
Whether or not al-Farabi actually intended to outline a political programme in his writings remains a matter of dispute amongst academics. Henry Corbin, who considers al-Farabi to be a crypto-Shi'ite, says that his ideas should be understood as a "prophetic philosophy" instead of being interpreted politically.[57] On the other hand, Charles Butterworth contends that nowhere in his work does al-Farabi speak of a prophet-legislator or revelation (even the word philosophy is scarcely mentioned), and the main discussion that takes place concerns the positions of "king" and "statesmen".[58]. Occupying a middle position is David Reisman, who like Corbin believes that al-Farabi did not want to expound a political doctrine (although he does not go so far to attribute it to Islamic Gnosticism either). He argues that al-Farabi was using different types of society as examples, in the context of an ethical discussion, to show what effect correct or incorrect thinking could have.[59] Lastly, Joshua Parens argues that al-Farabi was slyly asserting that a pan-Islamic society could not be made, by using reason to show how many conditions (such as moral and deliberative virtue) would have to be met, thus leading the reader to conclude that humans are not fit for such a society.[60] Some other authors like Mykhaylo Yakubovych attest that for al-Farabi religion (milla) and philosophy (falsafa) constituted the same praxeological value (i.e. basis for amal al-fadhil - "virtuos deed"), while its epistemological level (ilm - "knowledge") was different.
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