Al-Farabi Quotes

Al-Farabi Quotes

Al-Farabi was a renowned philosopher and jurist who wrote in the fields of political philosophy, metaphysics, ethics and logic. He was also a scientist, cosmologist, mathematician and music scholar.In Islamic philosophical tradition, he is known with the honorific "the Second Teacher", after Aristotle being known in the East as "the First Teacher". He is credited with preserving the original Greek texts during the Middle Ages because of his commentaries and treatises, and influencing many prominent philosophers, like Avicenna and Maimonides. Through his works, he became well-known in the East as well as the West.

✵ 10. January 872 – 17. January 951

“Farabi followed Plato not merely as regards the manner in which he presented the philosophic teaching in his most important books. He held the view that Plato’s philosophy was the true philosophy. To reconcile his Platonism with his adherence to Aristotle, he could take three more or less different ways. First, he could try to show that the explicit teachings of both philosophers can be reconciled with each other. He devoted to this attempt his Concordance of the opinions of Plato and Aristotle. The argument of that work is partly based on the so-called Theology of Aristotle: by accepting this piece of neo-platonic origin as a genuine work of Aristotle, he could easily succeed in proving the substantial agreement of the explicit teachings of both philosophers concerning the crucial subjects. It is however very doubtful whether Farabi considered his Concordance as more than an exoteric treatise, and thus whether it would be wise of us to attach great importance to its explicit argument. Secondly, he could show that the esoteric teachings of both philosophers are identical. Thirdly, he could show that “the aim” of both philosophers is identical.”

Al-Farabi

Leo Strauss, Farabi's Plato http://contemporarythinkers.org/leo-strauss/essay/farabis-plato/, Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume, American Academy for Jewish Research, 1945. Reprinted, revised and abbreviated, in Persecution and the Art of Writing.