Isra Hikmat

Isra Hikmat

FĀRĀBĪ IV. FĀRĀBĪ AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Document Type : Research Paper

Author
10.22034/hi.2026.599991.2183
Abstract
This article examines al-Farabi’s relationship with Greek philosophy and shows how he succeeded in reconstructing this heritage in the form of a coherent philosophical system. Al-Farabi did not merely repeat the Greek heritage; rather, he organized its various elements within a new system. As Dimitri Gutas shows, four important principles played a fundamental role in this reconstruction: analysis by division, hierarchical classification, the classification of the sciences, and the theory of language. Al-Farabi transformed these principles, which in the Alexandrian neo-Aristotelian tradition were used mainly for the teaching of philosophy and the interpretation of Aristotle’s works, into tools for constructing a comprehensive system of reality, in which the hierarchies of being, intellects, the soul, the sciences, and human communities are interconnected within a hierarchical structure. According to Gutas, the theory of intellect, or noetics, lies at the center of this system and connects al-Farabi’s discussions of metaphysics, anthropology, happiness, and politics. On this basis, al-Farabi defines human perfection in terms of the actualization of the intellect and the attainment of happiness, and likewise explains society and the city in relation to this end. Consequently, politics in his thought is not an independent and self-sufficient discipline, but rather part of a system whose ultimate goal is the intellectual perfection of the human being. The article shows that by drawing on Platonic and Aristotelian elements and reconstructing them within the framework of his theory of intellect, al-Farabi transformed the meaning of pol
Keywords
Subjects