Al-Farabi and the Reconciliation of Plato and Aristotle

Author(s): Majid Fakhry

Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1965), pp. 469-478
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
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 AL-FARABI AND THE RECONCILIATION
OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE

BY MAJID FAKHRY

The chequeredhistory of Neo-Platonism, following the imperial

edict orderingthe School of Athens to be closed in 529, is one of the
most fascinating chapters in the history of the diffusion of Greek
culture in the Middle Ages. As a result of its progressivedefeat at
Alexandria,Greek philosophy sought in Athens its last stronghold,'
but was soon to be dislodged by action of the Emperor Justinian.
However,Justinian did not succeedin writing the death-sentencebut
only the exile writ of Greekphilosophy.Driven out of Athens, which
had been its home intermittently for almost a thousandyears, Greek
philosophywas now forcedto seek asylum abroad.Seven of the Neo-
Platonic teachers of philosophy, led by two illustrious scholars,Da-
mascius (d. 553), and Simplicius (d. 533), made their way acrossthe
borderinto Persia, lured by reports of the munificentpatronageand
the philhellenic cultural interests of the Just King, Chosroes I
(Anushirwan), at whose court they expected to find a more con-
genial climate for the pursuit of their philosophical studies. Their
hopes, however, were soon shattered, and in 533, scarcely two years
after they had set out for Persia, they returnedto Byzantium, where
they were permitted to continue their studies unmolested, although
the prohibitionto teach issued against them was never lifted.2
This reverse which Neo-Platonism in its strife against Christ-
ianity received in the VIth century was short-lived. Its resilience
was to be demonstratedin a dramaticway, when three centurieslater
it made an unexpected appearance,simultaneouslyin the Christian
West and the Muslim East, gaining a fresh lease of life at such dist-
ant posts as Paris and Baghdad. Around the middle of the IXth
Century, John Scotus Erigena (d. cir. 877) addressedhimself to the
task of translating into Latin, at the order of Charlesthe Bald, the
worksof an anonymousNeo-Platonistof the Vth Century,the Pseudo-
Dionysius the Areopagite,3an otherwise unknown Athenian monk,
in whose Divine Names and Celestial Hierarchya Christianizedver-
sion of Neo-Platonism, destined to dominate Scholastic thought for
centuries to come, was set out. By a strange historical coincidence,
a Hellenized Christian scholar, Abdul-Masih Ibn Na'imah al-Himsi
(d. cir. 835) was engaged,at approximatelythe same time, in trans-
lating into Arabic an equally anonymousNeo-Platonic treatise, the
1 Cf. E. Vacherot,Histoire Critiquede l'Ecole d'Alexandrie(Paris, 1846-51), II,
396f., and Ueberweg,History of Philosophy,Engl. tr. (New York, 1894), I, 259.
2 Cf. F. Ueberweg,op. cit., 259. 3 Ibid., 358f.
469
470 MAJID FAKHRY

apocryphal Theologia Aristotelis, the first major philosophical doc-

ument to find its way into the Arab world in the Middle Ages. This
work, translated at the request of the first Arab philosopher, al-
Kindi (d. cir. 866), was in fact a paraphraseby an unknown Greek
writerof Books IV, V and VI of the Enneads of Plotinus,4which had
circulated under the lustrous name of Aristotle in the Near East.
Erigena's contemporary,al-Kindi, was the first major Muslim
writeron philosophicalquestions.He is creditednot only with a com-
mentary on the Theologia Aristotelis, but also with a vast number
of treatises on philosophical,scientific, and mathematical questions.
Moreover,he appearsto have played a key role in the introduction
of Greek philosophy into the Muslim world, since the translation
of the other major philosophicaldocument to find its way into that
world,the Metaphysicsof Aristotle, is said also to have been patron-
ized by him.6Al-Kindi, however, had remainedso committed to the
system of Islamicbeliefs, as interpretedchieflyby the rationalisttheo-
logians of the period,the Mu'tazilah,6that his interest in Neo-Plato-
nism appearsto have been somewhat academic.In his philosophical
writings, as they have come down to us, he emerges as an eclectic
who, despite the vastness of his learning,fell short of the construction
of a philosophicalsystem of the coherenceand magnitude attained
by subsequent philosophers of Islam.
Of the latter, al-Farabi (cir. 870-950), who belongedto the second
generation of Islamic philosophers,must be recognized as the real
founder of Islamic Neo-Platonism. This remarkable Xth-century
philosopheris to be credited not only with the writing of the first
systematic exposition in Arabic of the philosophies of Plato and
Aristotle and of the earliest comprehensive commentaries on
Aristotle'slogical works,7but also with having revived the study of
Neo-Platonism in the East and with the formulation in his best-
known book, the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City,
of the most comprehensivesystem in Neo-Platonic terms prior to
Ibn Sina (d. 1037).
The measure of al-Farabi'sacquaintancewith the philosophy of
Plato and Aristotle can be gauged from the perusal of two of his
major works, which can now be studied in English,8the Philosophy
4 Cf. A. R. Badawi,Plotinus apud Arabes (Cairo, 1955) and P. Henry and H.-R.
Schwyzer,Plotini Opera,II (Paris & Bruxelles, 1959), 219ff., et passim-(English
Version by GeoffreyLewis).
5 Cf. Ibn al-Nadim,al-Fihrist (Cairo,n.d.) 366.
6 Cf. R. Walzer, Greek into Arabic (Oxford, 1962), 176f.
7 Cf. N. Rescher, Studies in the History of Arabic Logic (University of Pitts-
burgh Press, 1963) and JJ..., XXI (1960), 428-430 and XXIV (1963), 127-132.
8 See the excellenttranslationof Dr. Muhsin Mahdi, the Free Press of Glencoe,
1962. Cf. also F. Rosenthal and R. Walzer, At Farabius de Platonis Philosophia
(London, 1953).
 AL-FARABI ON PLATO AND ARISTOTLE 471

of Plato and Aristotle. In the first of these two books al-Farabi

mentions by name not only all the Dialogues but the Epistles of
Plato as well, and gives a succinct account of their subject-matter.
In another work, the Compendiumof the Laws,9a detailed account
of the political thought of Plato, embodiedin his Laws, is given.
In the second, the Philosophy of Aristotle,l?as well as in another
major treatise, The Enumeration of the Sciences, his knowledge of
the Aristotelian corpus is even more graphicallyillustrated. A note-
worthy featureof al-Farabi'sconceptionof the philosophyof Aristotle
is the close correlationbetween ethics or the theory of happiness, to
which he devoted another treatise, the Attainment of Happiness,1
and the theory of knowledge,broachedin this work as well as in his
extant commentaries on the Isagoge of Porphyry, the Categories
of Aristotle, the De Interpretatione, etc. This correlationbetween
speculative philosophy and practical philosophy, as the two pre-
requisites of man's happiness in this life, of which the life-to-come
is representedas no more than an extension, became a characteristic
feature of subsequent Islamic thought, in which ethical, religious
and eschatologicalpreoccupationsloomed so large. Another feature
is the organicunity of the Aristotelianscheme of the sciences. Thus
the transitionfrom logic to the philosophyof nature is no less natural
than the transition from logic to ethics. The Summa Genera
discussedin the Categoriesof Aristotleare there considered,according
to al-Farabi, merely in their logical aspect, whereas in the Physics
they are consideredin their qualitative and quantitative aspects.'2
The Enumerationof the Sciences,which to some extent duplicates
the formerwork,is perhapsthe most crucialfor the understandingof
al-Farabi'sconceptionof philosophyin relation to the other sciences,
as indeed of the conceptionof the whole Islamic philosophicalschool
of the nature and interrelationof the Greek and Islamic syllabus of
the sciences, echoes of which still ring four centuries later in the
writings of the anti-Hellenic historiographerand philosopherof his-
tory Ibn Khaldun of Tunis (d. 1406).
It is not, however, with this aspect of al-Farabi's contribution
to Arab-Greeklearning that we are concernedhere, but rather with
his attempt to bring together into a single whole the philosophies
of Plato and Aristotle. In this regard, al-Farabi'sattempt should be
viewed against the backgroundof the Neo-Platonic tradition as ex-
emplified in the eclecticism of Porphyry (d. after 301), Syrianus
(fl. 430), Simplicius (d. 533), and Damascius (d. 553), who tended
to eliminate,in their interpretationof Aristotle,whateverdivergences
from Plato threatenedto destroy the unity of Greekthought, as they
9Cf. AlfarabiusCompendiumLegum Platonis, Ed. and Latin tr. by F. Gabrieli
(London, 1952).
0oCf. M. Mahdi,op. cit., 59-130.
11Ibid., 13-50. 12op. cit., 86ff.
472 MAJID FAKHRY

understood it. Of these Neo-Platonic commentators,there can be

little doubt that by far the best-knownto the Arab philosophersand
historians of ideas was Porphyry. This Porphyry, whose Isagoge, or
Introduction to Aristotle's Categories, circulated freely among the
Syriacs, the Arabs and the Latins,13stands out as a major link in the
transmissionof Neo-Platonism to the Arabs. His lost History of the
Philosophersof which the Life of Pythagorashas survived,14appears
to be at the basis of the Arab histories of the Greek philosophers.
His commentaryon Aristotle's Ethics (said to be in 12 books and
mentioned only in the Arabic sources)15had a far-reachinginfluence
on Islamic discussionsof Peripateticand Platonic ethics,'6and is cited
by al-Farabi himself in the Reconciliation of Plato and Aristotle.17
And so did the following commentarieson Aristotle ascribedto him
in the Arabic sources: a commentaryon the first Four Books of the
Physics, a commentary on De Interpretatione and a commentary
on the Categories.8But much more significantin this regard is the
identificationof the apocryphalTheologyof Aristotlewith Porphyry's
name. For whereas the Plotinian origin of this work is completely
ignored,and the very personalityof Plotinus is shroudedin obscurity
in these sources,this importantNeo-Platonic compilationis explicitly
stated to consist of a commentaryby Porphyry on the alleged text
of Aristotle.'1And whereasin al-Farabi'ssystematic expositionof the
Philosophy of Aristotle and in the Enumerationof the Sciences the
Theologyis not includedin the Aristoteliancorpus,in the Reconcili-
ation it is explicitly cited in support of Aristotelian theses.20The
inference is thus inescapable that this alleged commentaryof Por-
phyry greatly facilitated the task of reconciliationwhich al-Farabi
sets himself, and in this respect he was indirectly assisted by Por-
phyry. Also, according to the Xth-century lexicographer,Suidas,
Porphyry did indeed write a work in seven books entitled: "rep'roZ
fdav rXarwvosKal
evat17vA'ApwrPoreho-os apewlo." 21 Although no mention of
this workoccursin the Arabicsources,as far as I know, and although
apart from Suidas's statement we have no further information con-
cerningthis work,it is not excludedthat this workhad found its way
either partially or in full into the Muslim world and was used by
al-Farabiand his successorsas the basis of the attempt to bring Plato
and Aristotle into harmony.This suppositionis strengthenedby the
13In Boethius'stranslation.Cf. Ueberweg,op. cit., 259.
14 Cf. Zeller,Die Philosophieder Griechen(Hildesheim,1963), III, pt. 2, 694-5.
15Cf. Ibn al-Nadim,Fihrist,366. 16Cf. Walzer,op. cit., 220ff.and 240.
17Cf. K. al-Jam' bain Ra'yi al-Hakimain,Nader ed. (Beirut, 1960), 95. Cf. Fr.
Dieterici, Alfarabis PhilosophischeAbhandlungen(Leiden, 1892), 27.
18Cf. al-Fihrist,361, 362, 364. 19Cf. Plotinus apud Arabus,3.
20
Op. cit., 101 (Dieterici, 37), 109 (Dieterici, 50), et passim.
21
Suidas, Lexicon, II, 2, 373. Cf. Ueberweg,op. cit., 251.
 AL-FARABI ON PLATO AND ARISTOTLE 473

fact that the views ascribedto Plato and Aristotle in the Reconcilia-
tion do not always agree fully with the views expoundedin the other
more systematic works, but agree instead with the Neo-Platonic ex-
egesis of the later commentators,such as Simplicius, Syrianus and
Philoponus. In any case, we shall set forth here the argument of
al-Farabi,as embodiedin his importanttreatise on the Reconciliation
of the Views of the Two Sages, Plato the Divine and Aristotle, which
should be reckonedamong the major links in the Neo-Platonic tra-
dition of Platonic-Aristotelianexegesis,whether or not it has a Greek
precedent.
Al-Farabi'sargumentin this book is conductedagainst the back-
groundof an Islamic controversywhich saw in the apparentdiscord
of the two major proponentsof Greek philosophya serious challenge
to their authority,as indeed to the reiteratedclaims of their followers
that they were the two infallible spokesmenof the truth. If philoso-
phy is defined as the "knowledgeof existing things in so far as they
exist," al-Farabi argues, then the alleged disharmonybetween the
two philosophers,who not only laid down the foundationsbut also
perfected the science of philosophy and are universally regardedas
its two foremost exponents, can only be due to one of three things:
(a) either the above-mentioneddefinitionof philosophyis wrong; or
(b) the universalregardin which these two philosophersare held is
unwarranted;or (c) their alleged disagreementon essentials is due
to an inadequate understandingof their teaching.22
Now this definitionof philosophyis incontrovertibleand is borne
out both by Plato, who resorts to the method of dichotomy in the
matter of definition, and by Aristotle, who resorts to the syllogistic
method. As to alternative (b), the consensus of the general run of
mankind concerningthe preeminenceof Plato and Aristotle cannot
be seriously questioned,since consensusis universally regardedas a
positive criterionof truth.23Thus only the third alternative (c) re-
mains, viz. that their disharmony arises from an imperfect under-
standing of their doctrine,bound up with the ingrainedtendency of
most people to judge falsely from inessential differences,such as the
different temperamentsand manners of life of Plato and Aristotle,
and sundry statements they make which appear to be incompatible
with each other, etc.
Of these differencesal-Farabi mentions Plato's other-worldliness
and contempt for earthly possessions and worldly glory and his ad-
monition against covetousness,in contradistinctionto Aristotle'sun-
stinted concern for both material wealth and popular acclaim, as
illustrated by his association with Alexanderthe Great, his family
life, etc. These differencesmight give rise to the belief that their
22 Cf. Al-Jam' bain Ra'yai
al-Hakimain,80 (Dieterici, 3).
23In Islamic doctrine,consensus(ijma') is one of the criteriaof religioustruth,
and one of the most potent factors in determiningMuslim attitudes and beliefs.
474 MAJID FAKHRY

conceptionsof the good life were different,whereasnothing could be

further from the truth. For was it not Plato who laid down the rules
of political associationand the just mode of life, as well as the evils
attendant upon the repudiationof political association?24 However,
in so far as the rectitudeof the soul was deemed by him to be man's
primaryobjective,he not unnaturallybent his effortsto this end, re-
solving that once he had attended to this duty he would turn next
to the edificationor direction of others. Aristotle, though he agreed
with this sentiment of Plato's, as shown by his political writings, felt
neverthelesscompetent to embarkon an active political life.
Equally significantis Plato's tendency to use allegory or parable
in his writings in orderto bar the undeservingand slothful from too
ready an understandingof his intent; unlike Aristotle, whose idiom
was so lucid and straightforwardthat he was chided by his master,
but defended himself-in his Epistle to Plato 25-in these words:
"AlthoughI have written down these sciences and the philosophies
which they corroborate,I have nevertheless arrangedmy discussion
in such a way that only the perspicaciousfew will get at them, and
expressedmyself in an idiom which only those qualifiedto do so will
comprehend."From this statement it appearsthat despite Aristotle's
customarilysystematic method, his writings are not altogether free
from obscuritiesand complexities,which his commentatorsare often
hard put to it to smooth out.
The same might be said of Plato's use of the method of division
(dichotomy), and Aristotle'suse of his favorite method of syllogism.
For Aristotle does not neglect altogetherthe method of division. In-
deed the latter method presupposesthe former,in so far as in seeking
the species of the definiendum,it is necessaryto divide the genus, by
the introductionof two essential differentiae,and the division of these
in turn, until we arrive at the infima species of the definiendumand
the differentiawhich marks it off from other entities.2
Of the substantive differencesbetween Plato and Aristotle, al-
Farabi mentions their apparently incompatible views of substance.
For Plato, in the Timaeus and the Politicus,27maintains that the
noblest and most primarysubstancesare those nearest to the nature
of thought and farthest from that of sense, whereasAristotle, in the
Categoriesand the Analytica Priora, argues that the most primary
substances are the 'first substances,'i.e. individuals. However, since
philosophy is concernedwith describingthings 'secundumquid' and
via categories, so that Socrates qua man falls under the category
of substance,qua white or virtuous under that of quality, we should
be carefulnot to overlookthe locus loquendiof the given proposition.
In the case at issue, Aristotle does indeed state individualsto be pri-
24Ibid., 83. (Dieterici, 7). 2 Ibid, 85 (Dieterici, 11).
28 Ibid., 88 (Dieterici, 14f.).
27 In the text in Politeia
Minor, which appearsto refer to Politicus,286A et seq.
 AL-FARABI ON PLATO AND ARISTOTLE 475

mary, but only in his logic and physics,where the conditionsof things
nearest to sense are considered,whereas Plato states the universals
to be prior in his metaphysics and his 'theology,' which deal with
immutable and eternal entities.28
Next we might examinethe allegedincompatibilityof their theory
of vision. Aristotle, it is argued,believed vision to result from an af-
fection of sight, whereasPlato believed it to be the outcomeof an ef-
fluence emanating from our body and meeting the visible object.29
The conceptof such an effluence,however,involves numerousabsurd-
ities, for if we assumeit to be light or air, then it would be quite un-
necessaryor superfluous,consideringthe air and light surroundingus.
If fire, then it will cause the burningof objects seen. If somethingelse
less subtle, then it would obstruct vision altogether.
The same might be said about the concept of an affection. For
affectioninvolves change either in the retina of the eye or in the dia-
phanous medium (air), and this involves the absurd consequence
that the eye is susceptible of infinite change correspondingto the
succession of colors, and that the air can receive contrary impres-
sions.30But the controversybetween the Platonists and Aristotelians
arises from a misconceptionof the nature of effluence,as conceived
by Plato, and that of affection, as conceived by Aristotle, who use
such ambiguousand incongruousexpressionsowing to the inadequacy
of language. Despite their verbal disagreement,however, both Plato
and Aristotle concur in the view that a medium serving as a link
between sight and its object is essential. However, it is owing to the
subtlety of the processin question and the inadequaciesof language
that the two sages have been led to use the analogy of effluenceand
affection,which fail neverthelessto describethe processadequately.31
Equally unwarrantedis the claim that Plato and Aristotle dis-
agree in their conceptionof ethical traits, since Aristotle holds them,
it is maintained, to be a matter of habituation, whereas Plato holds
them to be inborn, and hence difficult to alter. But Aristotle, who
speaks of moral traits in his Ethics in abstract and generalterms, be-
lieved those traits to be rooted in so many dispositionsor aptitudes
with which the child is born, and which as such are dependentupon
education or training. Plato, on the other hand, is concernedin the
Republic and Statesman with political regimes, in which the indi-
vidual becomesaccustomedto a certain mode of life which is hard to
change later on. But, obviously, what is hard is not impossible.32
Three cognate questions are next broached:the Platonic concept
of knowledgeas recollection;the fate reservedto the soul after death;
28 Cf. al-Jam',86 (Dieterici, 12f.). 29 Cf. Theaetetus,156D.
30Cf. Jam', 97f (Dieterici, 22f.). On the diaphanous,compare De Anima, II,
418b-7.
81 Ibid., 94 (Dieterici, 24f.). 82Ibid., 96 (Dieterici, 28f.).
476 MAJID FAKHRY

and the status of universals. On the first score, al-Farabi cites the
Platonic argument in the Phaedo, but observes that Plato simply
reiteratesthere the view of Socrates.33This view, however,is not in-
consistent with the view of Aristotle, who urges at the opening of
the Analytica Posteriora that all instruction rests upon preexistent
knowledge,and shortly thereafter that the acquisition of knowledge
in some cases precedesinstruction, whereas in other cases it is con-
temporaneouswith it.84
Moreover,universalsare either known directly,in which case they
are called the principlesof demonstrationsor mediately through in-
duction from particulars. Owing to the progressive nature of our
apprehensionof universals,we are not fully consciousof the fact that
these universals existed potentially in the soul and became elicited
through experience.Further, the urge to know, as well as the satis-
faction consequentupon discovery,might be comparedto recollection,
in so far as such discovery correspondsto knowledge preexisting in
the soul; e.g., when the soul acquiescesin the judgment that such
and such an object is animate or inanimate, it does so by virtue of
its preexistingnotion of animate.35
With regardto the Forms or Ideas, Aristotle was relentless in his
criticism of Plato, as is well-known. However, in his Theology, he
reaffirmsthe existenceof "SpiritualForms"in the 'divineworld.'Now
unless one of these two seemingly contradictoryviews is spurious
(which our philosopherhastens to rule out on the groundof the uni-
versally accepted authenticity of these two works),86the incompati-
bility of these two views must be accountedillusory. Nor should we
be misled by Plato's metaphorical allusions to hierarchicalworlds,
in which the Ideas or the soul, as the intermediarybetween the world
of reasonand that of nature,are dwelt upon in the Timaeus.For such
metaphorsshouldnot be taken literally, since they refer simply to the
order of preeminencein which God, Reason, the Soul and Nature
stand one to the other. Aristotle himself has used such metaphorical
languagein the Theology,where he speaks of the soul's vision of the
beauty of the intelligible world.However,neither he nor Plato meant
to assign to the soul or the Ideas a local site, as even the beginnerin
philosophy will at once perceive. The role which the Forms were
meant to play was to serve as the eternal archetypes of creation
existing in God'smind. For otherwisethings would either have been
producedpurely arbitrarilyand fortuitously,without any preexisting
pattern; or would have been generatedsimultaneouslywith the par-
ticularswhich God created; and this latter alternative would involve
a change in the essence of God, which is absurd.87
SS Ibid., 98
(Dieterici, 31.).
Cf. Post. Analyt. I, 71a If. & 71a 16f.
34 35 Cf. Jam', 99f (Dieterici, 32f.).
86 Ibid., 106 (Dieterici, 45). However,neither in the Philosophyof Aristotlenor
in the Enumerationof the Sciences is the Pseudo-Theologyincluded in the Aris-
totelian corpus, as mentionedabove. 7 Ibid., 106 (Dieterici, 45f.).
 AL-FARABI ON PLATO AND ARISTOTLE 477

Even the survival of the soul after death and its susceptibilityto
reward and punishment, on which Plato dwells in the Republic, is
not ruled out by Aristotle, as can be seen from his letter to Alexan-
der'smother on the occasionof the latter's death, in which he writes:
"Godwill not mete out to any one what he has meted out to Alexan-
der in point of election or favor. The righteous is he whom God has
elected. In some, the signs of election attest to their rectitude,whereas
in others they are invisible."38
On the crucial question of the eternity of the world, alleged to
have been affirmedby Aristotle and denied by Plato, the disagree-
ment is only apparent.Those who advancein support of the eternity
of the world accordingto Aristotle, the statement in Topica that in
the case of some propositionsboth thesis and antithesis might be
supported by syllogistic proofs, which rest upon generally received
premisses,e.g. the worldis eternal or the worldis not eternal,39forget
that an instance cited in a formal logical context does not necessarily
entail assent to what the statement purports to assert. Moreover,
those who subscribeto this view have been misled by Aristotle'sstate-
ment in De Caelo40that the whole has no temporalbeginning,from
which they have inferredthat it must thereforebe eternal. However,
this is far from being the case, since Aristotle has shown in the Phy-
sics and Metaphysics that time is the number of the motion of the
heavens and is generated therefrom.Now what is generated by an
agent does not contain that agent within itself. Thus his statement
that the worldhas no temporalbeginningmust be understoodsimply
to mean that it has not come into being in successive stages, a part
of it coming after the other, as the parts of a house come one after
the other in time. Now "since time results from the movement of
the heavens it is impossible that it should have had a temporal be-
ginning. From which it follows that the heavens are createdby God,
most High, instantaneously, in no time, and from the movement
thereof time results."41 Hence on the twofold question of the exist-
ence of God and the creation of the world in time, Aristotle'sworks
speak eloquently in no uncertainterms. Indeed, we owe it to the two
Greek Sages, Plato and Aristotle, to have lighted upon the notion of
creationin the first instance.For all the ancient philosophers,Pagan,
Jewish or Magian, speak of natural processesin terms of becoming
and development. These processes, it need hardly be observed, are
logically at variancewith the doctrineof creationex nihilo, advanced
by Plato and Aristotle and confirmedby revelation. The difference
between the two doctrines,however, is that the latter addressesthe
masses at large in a manner proportionateto their degree of under-
standing,42whereasthe formeris reservedfor the philosophicallyini-
tiated few.
38Ibid., 110 (Dieterici,52). 39 Cf. Top. 104b 15. 40 De Caelo, I, 279b.

41 Al-Jam', 101 (Dieterici,3f.). 42 Ibid., 101f (Dieterici,41f.).

478 MAJID FAKHRY

With this classic distinction in philosophicalcircles, both during

the Hellenistic and the Islamic periods, between the philosophically
privilegedfew and the masses at large, I do not proposeto deal here.
I will close, however, with a note on the chequeredhistory of the
two key-passagesfrom Topica and De Caelo, invoked by both Mus-
lim and Latin authorsin the context of the discussionof the eternity
of the world. Both Maimonides (d. 1204), the leading Jewish Aris-
totelian theologian of the XIIth Century, and St. Thomas Aquinas
(d. 1274), who follows his lead in this particular,base their attempt
to remove the sting of heresy from the thesis of eternity as ascribed
to Aristotle on these two passages.43
An interesting textual question, however, is raised by the fact
that al-Farabiappearsto place upon the passagesfrom Topica a con-
struction almost diametrically opposed to that of Maimonides and
Aquinas,who understoodit to mean that the assertionof the eternity
of the world was not, accordingto Aristotle, a 'demonstrative,'but
rather a 'dialectical'question, which could not be logically settled.
The latter constructionis borne out both by the most recent English
translation44and the ancient Arabicversion of Topica, attributed to
the IXth Centurytranslator,al-Dimashqi,45as indeed by the obvious
sense of the Greek of Bekker's edition. In both the Arabic and the
English versions Aristotle is understoodto mean that, as the Arabic
translatorputs it, "There are contradictoryarguments,with regard
to which the questionmight be asked: Are they such or not? because
convincingargumentscan be advancedin either sense; and concern-
ing which we have no (demonstrative) proofs, because they are too
lofty for us.... For instance, is the world eternal or not?"46
Al-Farabi,who was doubtlessacquaintedwith al-Dimashqi'strans-
lation, may have been drawingon a Neo-Platonic tradition in which
this vexed passage in Topica had been interpreted in this entirely
differentspirit, to bear out the Neo-Platonic thesis of the eternity of
the world,to which Plotinus, possibly even more than Aristotle him-
self, had subscribed.
AmericanUniversity, Beirut, Lebanon.
4s Cf. Th. Aquinas, Summa Theologica,I, Q. 46, a. 1 & 2, and Maimonides,
Guide of the Perplexed,Eng. tr. by I. Friedlander,(London, 1947), 176. See also
the author's"The Antinomyof the Eternity of the World in Averroes,Maimonides
and Aquinas,"Le Museon (1953), LXVI, 143ff.
44Cf. Topica,loc. cit., translatedby W. A. Pickard, Works of Aristotle, ed. by
W. D. Ross (Cambridge,1930).
45Cf. Mantiq Avistu, ed. by A. R. Badawi (Cairo, 1948), II, 485.
46Loc. cit.