INTRODUCTION

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

The general practice of introducing a new work by placing it in the broader context of the tradition to which it belongs en- counters a peculiar difficulty in the case of Alfarabi's Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. That is because this work does not conform to the current view of the Islamic philosophic tradition. This view was developed in the nineteenth century and is based on a wide range of representative works and authors. It sees Islamic philos- ophy as a mixture, blend, or synthesis of Aristotelian, Platonic, Neo-Platonic, and, of course, Islamic doctrines. It represents Moslem philosophers as being guided by the belief in the harmony of various philosophic and religious ideas and traditions, with little awareness of the essential heterogeneity of the elements they sought to combine. The estimates of the extent to which indi- vidual Moslem philosophers were aware of possible conflict be- tween philosophy and religion may vary, but the prevailing view is satisfied that they were able to resolve this conflict in favor of their religious faith and the Islamic world-view. This conception of the general character of the Islamic philosophic tradition is not wholly erroneous. It was, in fact, propagated by the Moslem phi- losophers themselves in their effort to convince their fellow Moslems that the teachings of philosophy did not contradict the revealed teaching and that philosophic activity, far from under- mining religion, was undertaken in defense of the faith.

The labor of the last generation of scholars has presented con- vincing evidence that the founder of this tradition was Alfarabi (al-Färäbi, ca. 870-950). But as in the case of most other Moslem philosophers, Alfarabi is known primarily through his popular and political writings—the Harmonization of the Opinions of Plato and Aristotle, the Virtuous City, the Political Regime, and so on—all of which seem to bear out the common view of Islamic philosophy outlined above. This is particularly true of the first of these works. Alfarabi was aroused by public controversies over such issues as the creation of the world, the survival of the soul after death, and reward and punishment in the hereafter, in which it was claimed that the two leading philosophers had disagreed—that is, that Aris- totle, unlike Plato, denied that such things were possible and hence held views in conflict with religious beliefs. He responded by writ- ing the Harmonization of the Opinions of Plato and Aristotle in which he undertook to show that, properly understood, Aristotle's opinions on all such issues are in agreement with those of Plato and hence with religious beliefs. In general, exception can be taken to Alfarabi's mode of argumentation in that work. The reasoning is too flexible for a reader having first-hand acquaintance with the works of Plato and Aristotle or of Alfarabi's commentaries on them; in many instances his conclusions depend upon ones's ac- cepting as genuine some documents of questionable authenticity, notably the extracts from the Enneads of Plotinus that gained currency in Islamic thought as the Theology of Aristotle. As to the substance of his argument, it is sufficient to point out that when the great Moslem theologian and mystic al-Ghazäll (d. 1111) set out to expose the "intentions" of the philosophers, he refused to pay the slightest attention to this work and was able to assert that the real views of Aristotle and Alfarabi on these issues—that is, the views for which they believed they had proof and that they pre- sented in their scientific or philosophic works—were exactly the opposite of the ones defended by Alfarabi in the Harmonization of the Opinions of Plato and Aristotle.

Alfarabi's scientific or philosophic works proper—his com- mentaries, especially his large commentaries, on individual works by Plato and Aristotle—which established his reputation as the greatest philosophic authority next to Aristotle (Alfarabi was known as the "Second Master") and which could be expected to enlighten us on the principles underlying his popular and political works, have always remained inaccessible to the general public, and for the most part inaccessible even to the small scholarly circle interested in the history of Islamic philosophy. Many of these works seem to be lost; the ones that have survived remain for the most part unedited and hardly ever studied; and the few that have been edited deal with specialized subjects whose relevance to the general character of Alfarabi's thought and of Islamic philosophy is not easy to establish.

It is true that this situation can only partially be remedied by the present work, which presupposes extensive knowledge of the works of Plato and Aristotle that were available to Alfarabi and acquaintance with his specialized commentaries on them. Yet it has the distinct advantage of being Alfarabi's only comprehensive account of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle as well as of his own views on the nature of philosophy and religion. It can, there- fore, be expected to provide an answer to some of the problems raised by the works in which the harmonization of the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle through Neo-Platonism and the harmoniza- tion of philosophy and religion occupy the foreground.

To look for that answer, it is advisable to begin with the most apparent and striking features. Alfarabi presents here three sepa- rate and largely independent accounts of philosophy—one in his own name, another in the name of Plato, and a third in the name of Aristotle—without attempting to harmonize any of the doc- trines or teachings of the two masters. He departs from this course in two instances. (1) At the end of the Attainment of Happiness (I, sec. 64) he requests the reader to make clear to himself that Plato's philosophy and Aristotle's philosophy have the same aim or purpose and that Plato and Aristotle "intended" to pre- sent the same philosophy or had the same end in view when pre- senting their philosophy. (2) At the beginning of the Philosophy of Aristotle (III, sec. 1) Alfarabi says that Aristotle had the same view of the "perfection of man" as Plato, but was dissatisfied with the lack of sufficient evidence for that view; hence he chose to "begin" from a different position, proceed differently, and so forth. Readers may differ on the interpretation of these two pas- sages and on their significance for the understanding of Alfarabi's view of the relation between Plato and Aristotle. But Alfarabi's reticence on the area of agreement between Plato and Aristotle (as regards either their explicit or implicit doctrines) is certainly striking.

Furthermore, nowhere in the Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle

do we find any reference to the writings, or any traces of the doctrines, commonly associated with Neo-Platonism. There is, for instance, no reference to the Theology of Aristotle and no trace of the theory of emanation. Many questions come to mind with respect to Alfarabi's account of some of the Platonic dialogues. We are not certain how many of them he had access to, and his account of quite a few seems rather fanciful. What is important in the present context, however, is that he nevertheless was able to re-present the entire philosophy of Plato in its political frame- work and that nowhere does he resort to the typically Neo-Platonic (metaphysical or mystical) interpretations of Plato in order to fill the gaps in his information.

We turn now to the more difficult issue of the relation between philosophy and religion. Since the student who attempts to clarify this issue on the basis of Alfarabi's published popular and politi- cal works must admit that it is not treated directly and explicitly in any one of them, the fact that it is so treated in the Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle is of particular importance, especially when it occurs in the Attainment of Happiness where Alfarabi presents his own views. The main argument of the A ttainment of Happiness (I, sees. 1-49) is so constructed as to lead inevitably to a view of the relation between philosophy and religion that Alfarabi sub- sequently attributes to the "ancients." But throughout this argu- ment, he does not speak of philosophy at all, and refers to religion in a single passage (I, sec 33) and only in passing. However, in a kind of epilogue to the Attainment of Happiness (I, sees. 50 ff.) Alfarabi asserts that "philosophy is prior to religion in time," and explains and defends the view that "religion is an imitation of philosophy." When the term "philosophy" is intro- duced for the first time (I, sec. 53), it is defined as the scientific state of the soul or of the mind—the quest and love for the highest wisdom or for theoretical perfection. Alfarabi adds, however, that theoretical perfection alone is qualified, incomplete, or partial perfection, and that the man who limits himself to the theo- retical sciences is not a perfect or true philosopher. The per- fect philosopher, like Alfarabi's "supreme ruler," must also have the capacity for teaching all the citizens and for forming their character so as to enable everyone to achieve the happiness or perfection he is capable of attaining by nature. This, in turn, requires the ability to demonstrate as well as to persuade, to present the beings as they are as well as to represent them through images. But reverting thereafter to the restricted definition of philosophy, he now identifies it with the demonstrative knowl- edge of the beings, conceived in themselves, while religion is defined as the assent, secured by persuasion, to the images of these beings. Religion is an imitation of philosophy in the restricted sense inasmuch as both comprise the same subjects and both give an account of the ultimate principles of the beings, or insofar as religion supplies an imaginative account of, and employs per- suasion about, things of which philosophy possesses direct and demonstrative knowledge. The conception of the relation between philosophy and religion that Alfarabi attributes to the "ancients" dissolves, however, as soon as we turn to Alfarabi's definition of perfect philosophy and of the perfect philosopher. Now a new rela- tion emerges in which religion is part of the function of the philosopher as supreme ruler and lawgiver; it is one of the things he needs as ruler and teacher of the nonphilosophic multi- tude. Only the perfect philosopher knows the beings, represents them properly, and can judge whether the images do in fact come "as close as possible to the essences" of the things imitated. Alfarabi assigns to the philosopher a function ordinarily associated with the prophet. However, the philosopher promulgates religions by virtue of his theoretical knowledge and prudence, and through his mastery of the arts of rhetoric and poetry. The only example offered by Alfarabi in this context is what Plato does in the Timaeus.

Alfarabi's account of what one might call the philosophic religion leaves unanswered the more immediate question of what he thought of nonphilosophic religions or about the religions not originated by philosophers, which could not be understood as imi- tations of philosophy in the strict sense and which did not follow philosophy in time. Alfarabi does not discuss this question in his own name. It is, however, raised and answered in his account of the philosophy of Plato (II, sec. 7) . Alfarabi's Plato begins by investigating what constitutes the perfection of man as man, which he finds to consist in a certain kind of knowledge and in a certain way of life. After finding out what that knowledge is, that man is "naturally" capable of attaining it, and that man has a faculty by which he can pursue an art that investigates that knowledge "to the point of achieving it," Alfarabi's Plato searches for the art in question and begins his search by investigating the arts "gen- erally accepted" among the citizens of cities and nations. The first art, or group of arts, to which he turns his attention is "religious speculation," the "religious investigation of the beings," and the "religious syllogistic art." According to Alfarabi, this investigation of Plato takes place in the Euthyphron, a dialogue whose subject is "piety" or "that which is to be feared." But the "religious syllogistic art" recalls Islamic dialectical theology and Islamic jurisprudence rather than any of the arts investigated in the Euthyphron. In any case, Alfarabi's Plato is perfectly open-minded about religion and the claims of the religious arts, which is shown by the fact that he pursues three alternative investigations to discover whether they (a) supply the knowledge he is looking for,

(b)  do not supply it at all, or (c)  are not adequate in this

respect. Having considered these alternatives, he determines exactly "how much" knowledge these religious arts supply and concludes that the amount they supply is "not sufficient." He is thus forced to proceed and investigate other arts, until he dis- covers the one that is adequate and sufficient for attaining the knowledge he is seeking.

In the Philosophy of Plato the art in question remains name- less: it is "another" art, that is, other and higher than dialectic. In the  Philosophy of Aristotle the art that leads to knowledge in the unqualified sense is called the "art of demonstration." Alfarabi's Aristotle, who observes a grave silence about religion, simply identifies the art of demonstration with the highest wisdom (III, sec. 9). In the Attainment of Happiness, too, the highest science is theoretical knowledge or the knowledge attained through the art of demonstration; the other sciences and arts that employ persuasion and imitation are given subordinate positions (I, sec. 50). Alfarabi's Aristotle, whose chief concern is to find what is self-evident or admits of demonstration, is presented as pursuing his investigations of nature and the cosmos without paying attention to the claims of the religious arts. Similarly, Alfarabi is able to offer a comprehensive account of how the citizens of cities and nations can attain the lower happiness in this life and the highest happiness in the world beyond by discussing only human virtues and arts. When he Anally comes to speak of religion, he presents it as a subject that had already been known, defined, and assigned its proper function by the "ancients." He does not question their judgment or conclusions. The result of Plato's investigation of the religious arts in the Euthyphron seems to be accepted by Alfarabi's Aristotle and by Alfarabi himself as having supplied an adequate answer to the question; the cognitive value of religion is no longer in need of discussion.

On every one of these issues, the Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle presents a position that seems to stand in sharp contrast with, if not to contradict, Alfarabi's teachings in his popular and political works. This makes it mandatory that one should under- take a more thorough investigation of the present work and a fresh examination of the popular and political works in the light of the results of this investigation. The fact that Alfarabi's popular and political works have been accessible long before the present work should not be allowed to obscure the fact that it is here that he gives an account of the theoretical foundation on the basis of which those other works should be understood, and of the philo- sophic principles that are applied in the other works. Although not wholly erroneous, the generally accepted view of Alfarabi's thought and of the philosophic tradition he founded must be seen in the new perspective provided by the Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle.

 

Such readers as are not able to consult the Arabic original may be curious to know whether this version is literal and may wonder about some peculiarities of its style, especially such as are not in keeping with perfectly flowing English. It is necessary to state that in the present translation the requirement of intelligi- bility has been given precedence over literalness and that idio- matic niceties have been subordinated to the requirement of remaining faithful to the style of the Arabic text. This choice was imposed by the text itself. Alfarabi's style is never obscure. In many places, however, it is extremely compressed and difficult to comprehend without adequate preparation and effort. Because a translation cannot escape interpreting the original to some extent, this version may be somewhat easier to read (partly because of the divisions, symbols, and punctuation marks, none of which are to be found in the Arabic manuscripts of the text). But no effort was made to cover up the many difficulties and prob- lems with which the text is riddled. Alfarabi's style has been justly characterized by Pico della Mirandola as grave et meditatum. As if to insure that the impatient reader turn away to what for him would be more profitable tasks, Alfarabi tries his patience at the very beginning of this work.