Al-Farabi and the reconciliation of Plato and Aristotle.pdf

Al-Farabi and the Reconciliation of Plato and AristotleAuthor(s): Majid FakhrySource: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1965), pp. 469-478Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2708494 .

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AL-FARABI AND THE RECONCILIATION OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE

BY MAJID FAKHRY

The chequered history of Neo-Platonism, following the imperial edict ordering the 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 progressive defeat 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 succeed in writing the death-sentence but only the exile writ of Greek philosophy. Driven out of Athens, which had been its home intermittently for almost a thousand years, Greek philosophy was now forced to 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 across the border into Persia, lured by reports of the munificent patronage and 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 returned to Byzantium, where they were permitted to continue their studies unmolested, although the prohibition to 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 demonstrated in a dramatic way, when three centuries later it made an unexpected appearance, simultaneously in 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) addressed himself to the task of translating into Latin, at the order of Charles the Bald, the works of an anonymous Neo-Platonist of the Vth Century, the Pseudo- Dionysius the Areopagite,3 an otherwise unknown Athenian monk, in whose Divine Names and Celestial Hierarchy a Christianized version 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 approximately the same time, in translating into Arabic an equally anonymous Neo-Platonic treatise, the

1 Cf. E. Vacherot, Histoire Critique de 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 document 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 paraphrase by an unknown Greek writer of Books IV, V and VI of the Enneads of Plotinus,4 which had circulated under the lustrous name of Aristotle in the Near East.

Erigena's contemporary, al-Kindi, was the first major Muslim writer on philosophical questions. He is credited not only with a commentary on the Theologia Aristotelis, but also with a vast number of treatises on philosophical, scientific, and mathematical questions. Moreover, he appears to have played a key role in the introduction of Greek philosophy into the Muslim world, since the translation of the other major philosophical document to find its way into that world, the Metaphysics of Aristotle, is said also to have been patron- ized by him.6 Al-Kindi, however, had remained so committed to the system of Islamic beliefs, as interpreted chiefly by the rationalist theo- logians of the period, the Mu'tazilah,6 that his interest in Neo-Plato- nism appears to 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 philosophical system of the coherence and magnitude attained by subsequent philosophers of Islam.

Of the latter, al-Farabi (cir. 870-950), who belonged to the second generation of Islamic philosophers, must be recognized as the real founder of Islamic Neo-Platonism. This remarkable Xth-century philosopher is 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's logical works,7 but 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 comprehensive system in Neo-Platonic terms prior to Ibn Sina (d. 1037).

The measure of al-Farabi's acquaintance with 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,8 the 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 Geoffrey Lewis).

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 excellent translation of 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 Compendium of the Laws,9 a detailed account of the political thought of Plato, embodied in 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 graphically illustrated. A note- worthy feature of al-Farabi's conception of the philosophy of Aristotle is the close correlation between ethics or the theory of happiness, to which he devoted another treatise, the Attainment of Happiness,1 and the theory of knowledge, broached in this work as well as in his extant commentaries on the Isagoge of Porphyry, the Categories of Aristotle, the De Interpretatione, etc. This correlation between speculative philosophy and practical philosophy, as the two pre- requisites of man's happiness in this life, of which the life-to-come is represented as no more than an extension, became a characteristic feature of subsequent Islamic thought, in which ethical, religious and eschatological preoccupations loomed so large. Another feature is the organic unity of the Aristotelian scheme of the sciences. Thus the transition from logic to the philosophy of nature is no less natural than the transition from logic to ethics. The Summa Genera discussed in the Categories of Aristotle are there considered, according to al-Farabi, merely in their logical aspect, whereas in the Physics they are considered in their qualitative and quantitative aspects.'2

The Enumeration of the Sciences, which to some extent duplicates the former work, is perhaps the most crucial for the understanding of al-Farabi's conception of philosophy in relation to the other sciences, as indeed of the conception of the whole Islamic philosophical school of the nature and interrelation of the Greek and Islamic syllabus of the sciences, echoes of which still ring four centuries later in the writings of the anti-Hellenic historiographer and philosopher of his-

tory Ibn Khaldun of Tunis (d. 1406). It is not, however, with this aspect of al-Farabi's contribution

to Arab-Greek learning that we are concerned here, but rather with his attempt to bring together into a single whole the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. In this regard, al-Farabi's attempt should be viewed against the background of 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 interpretation of Aristotle, whatever divergences from Plato threatened to destroy the unity of Greek thought, as they

9Cf. Alfarabius Compendium Legum Platonis, Ed. and Latin tr. by F. Gabrieli

(London, 1952). 0o Cf. M. Mahdi, op. cit., 59-130. 11 Ibid., 13-50. 12 op. cit., 86ff.



472 MAJID FAKHRY

understood it. Of these Neo-Platonic commentators, there can be little doubt that by far the best-known to the Arab philosophers and 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,13 stands out as a major link in the transmission of Neo-Platonism to the Arabs. His lost History of the Philosophers of which the Life of Pythagoras has survived,14 appears to be at the basis of the Arab histories of the Greek philosophers. His commentary on Aristotle's Ethics (said to be in 12 books and mentioned only in the Arabic sources)15 had a far-reaching influence on Islamic discussions of Peripatetic and Platonic ethics,'6 and is cited by al-Farabi himself in the Reconciliation of Plato and Aristotle.17 And so did the following commentaries on Aristotle ascribed to him in the Arabic sources: a commentary on the first Four Books of the Physics, a commentary on De Interpretatione and a commentary on the Categories.8 But much more significant in this regard is the identification of the apocryphal Theology of Aristotle with Porphyry's name. For whereas the Plotinian origin of this work is completely ignored, and the very personality of Plotinus is shrouded in obscurity in these sources, this important Neo-Platonic compilation is explicitly stated to consist of a commentary by Porphyry on the alleged text of Aristotle.'1 And whereas in al-Farabi's systematic exposition of the Philosophy of Aristotle and in the Enumeration of the Sciences the Theology is not included in the Aristotelian corpus, in the Reconcili- ation it is explicitly cited in support of Aristotelian theses.20 The inference is thus inescapable that this alleged commentary of Por- phyry greatly facilitated the task of reconciliation which 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 evat 17v A rXarwvos Kal 'ApwrPoreho-os apewlo." 21 Although no mention of this work occurs in the Arabic sources, as far as I know, and although apart from Suidas's statement we have no further information concerning this work, it is not excluded that this work had found its way either partially or in full into the Muslim world and was used by al-Farabi and his successors as the basis of the attempt to bring Plato and Aristotle into harmony. This supposition is strengthened by the

13 In Boethius's translation. Cf. Ueberweg, op. cit., 259. 14 Cf. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen (Hildesheim, 1963), III, pt. 2, 694-5. 15 Cf. Ibn al-Nadim, Fihrist, 366. 16 Cf. Walzer, op. cit., 220ff. and 240. 17 Cf. K. al-Jam' bain Ra'yi al-Hakimain, Nader ed. (Beirut, 1960), 95. Cf. Fr.

Dieterici, Alfarabis Philosophische Abhandlungen (Leiden, 1892), 27. 18 Cf. al-Fihrist, 361, 362, 364. 19 Cf. 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.




fact that the views ascribed to Plato and Aristotle in the Reconcilia- tion do not always agree fully with the views expounded in the other more systematic works, but agree instead with the Neo-Platonic exegesis of the later commentators, such as Simplicius, Syrianus and Philoponus. In any case, we shall set forth here the argument of al-Farabi, as embodied in his important treatise on the Reconciliation of the Views of the Two Sages, Plato the Divine and Aristotle, which should be reckoned among the major links in the Neo-Platonic tradition of Platonic-Aristotelian exegesis, whether or not it has a Greek precedent.

Al-Farabi's argument in this book is conducted against the background of an Islamic controversy which saw in the apparent discord of the two major proponents of Greek philosophy a serious challenge to their authority, as indeed to the reiterated claims of their followers that they were the two infallible spokesmen of the truth. If philosophy is defined as the "knowledge of existing things in so far as they exist," al-Farabi argues, then the alleged disharmony between the two philosophers, who not only laid down the foundations but also perfected the science of philosophy and are universally regarded as its two foremost exponents, can only be due to one of three things: (a) either the above-mentioned definition of philosophy is wrong; or (b) the universal regard in which these two philosophers are held is unwarranted; or (c) their alleged disagreement on essentials is due to an inadequate understanding of their teaching.22

Now this definition of philosophy is incontrovertible and 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 concerning the preeminence of Plato and Aristotle cannot be seriously questioned, since consensus is universally regarded as a positive criterion of truth.23 Thus only the third alternative (c) re- mains, viz. that their disharmony arises from an imperfect understanding of their doctrine, bound up with the ingrained tendency of most people to judge falsely from inessential differences, such as the different temperaments and manners of life of Plato and Aristotle, and sundry statements they make which appear to be incompatible with each other, etc.

Of these differences al-Farabi mentions Plato's other-worldliness and contempt for earthly possessions and worldly glory and his ad- monition against covetousness, in contradistinction to Aristotle's un- stinted concern for both material wealth and popular acclaim, as illustrated by his association with Alexander the Great, his family life, etc. These differences might give rise to the belief that their

22 Cf. Al-Jam' bain Ra'yai al-Hakimain, 80 (Dieterici, 3). 23 In Islamic doctrine, consensus (ijma') is one of the criteria of religious truth,

and one of the most potent factors in determining Muslim attitudes and beliefs.



474 MAJID FAKHRY

conceptions of the good life were different, whereas nothing could be further from the truth. For was it not Plato who laid down the rules of political association and the just mode of life, as well as the evils attendant upon the repudiation of political association? 24 However, in so far as the rectitude of the soul was deemed by him to be man's primary objective, he not unnaturally bent his efforts to this end, re- solving that once he had attended to this duty he would turn next to the edification or direction of others. Aristotle, though he agreed with this sentiment of Plato's, as shown by his political writings, felt nevertheless competent to embark on an active political life.

Equally significant is Plato's tendency to use allegory or parable in his writings in order to bar the undeserving and slothful from too ready an understanding of his intent; unlike Aristotle, whose idiom was so lucid and straightforward that he was chided by his master, but defended himself-in his Epistle to Plato 25-in these words: "Although I have written down these sciences and the philosophies which they corroborate, I have nevertheless arranged my discussion in such a way that only the perspicacious few will get at them, and expressed myself in an idiom which only those qualified to do so will comprehend." From this statement it appears that despite Aristotle's customarily systematic method, his writings are not altogether free from obscurities and complexities, which his commentators are 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's use of his favorite method of syllogism. For Aristotle does not neglect altogether the method of division. In- deed the latter method presupposes the former, in so far as in seeking the species of the definiendum, it is necessary to divide the genus, by the introduction of two essential differentiae, and the division of these in turn, until we arrive at the infima species of the definiendum and the differentia which marks it off from other entities.2

Of the substantive differences between Plato and Aristotle, al- Farabi mentions their apparently incompatible views of substance. For Plato, in the Timaeus and the Politicus,27 maintains that the noblest and most primary substances are those nearest to the nature of thought and farthest from that of sense, whereas Aristotle, in the Categories and the Analytica Priora, argues that the most primary substances are the 'first substances,' i.e. individuals. However, since philosophy is concerned with describing things 'secundum quid' 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 careful not to overlook the locus loquendi of the given proposition. In the case at issue, Aristotle does indeed state individuals to be pri-

24Ibid., 83. (Dieterici, 7). 2 Ibid, 85 (Dieterici, 11). 28 Ibid., 88 (Dieterici, 14f.). 27 In the text in Politeia Minor, which appears to refer to Politicus, 286A et seq.




mary, but only in his logic and physics, where the conditions of 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 examine the alleged incompatibility of their theory of vision. Aristotle, it is argued, believed vision to result from an affection of sight, whereas Plato believed it to be the outcome of an effluence emanating from our body and meeting the visible object.29 The concept of such an effluence, however, involves numerous absurd- ities, for if we assume it to be light or air, then it would be quite un- necessary or superfluous, considering the air and light surrounding us. If fire, then it will cause the burning of objects seen. If something else less subtle, then it would obstruct vision altogether.

The same might be said about the concept of an affection. For affection involves change either in the retina of the eye or in the diaphanous medium (air), and this involves the absurd consequence that the eye is susceptible of infinite change corresponding to the succession of colors, and that the air can receive contrary impres- sions.30 But the controversy between the Platonists and Aristotelians arises from a misconception of the nature of effluence, as conceived by Plato, and that of affection, as conceived by Aristotle, who use such ambiguous and incongruous expressions owing 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 process in question and the inadequacies of language that the two sages have been led to use the analogy of effluence and affection, which fail nevertheless to describe the process adequately.31

Equally unwarranted is the claim that Plato and Aristotle disagree in their conception of 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 general terms, believed those traits to be rooted in so many dispositions or aptitudes with which the child is born, and which as such are dependent upon education or training. Plato, on the other hand, is concerned in the Republic and Statesman with political regimes, in which the indi- vidual becomes accustomed to 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 knowledge as recollection; the fate reserved to the soul after death;

28 Cf. al-Jam', 86 (Dieterici, 12f.). 29 Cf. Theaetetus, 156D. 30 Cf. Jam', 97f (Dieterici, 22f.). On the diaphanous, compare De Anima, II,

418b-7. 81 Ibid., 94 (Dieterici, 24f.). 82 Ibid., 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 reiterates there the view of Socrates.33 This 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 precedes instruction, whereas in other cases it is con- temporaneous with it.84

Moreover, universals are either known directly, in which case they are called the principles of demonstrations or mediately through in- duction from particulars. Owing to the progressive nature of our apprehension of universals, we are not fully conscious of 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 consequent upon discovery, might be compared to recollection, in so far as such discovery corresponds to knowledge preexisting in the soul; e.g., when the soul acquiesces in the judgment that such and such an object is animate or inanimate, it does so by virtue of its preexisting notion of animate.35

With regard to the Forms or Ideas, Aristotle was relentless in his criticism of Plato, as is well-known. However, in his Theology, he reaffirms the existence of "Spiritual Forms" in the 'divine world.' Now unless one of these two seemingly contradictory views is spurious (which our philosopher hastens to rule out on the ground of the universally accepted authenticity of these two works),86 the incompatibility of these two views must be accounted illusory. Nor should we be misled by Plato's metaphorical allusions to hierarchical worlds, in which the Ideas or the soul, as the intermediary between the world of reason and that of nature, are dwelt upon in the Timaeus. For such metaphors should not be taken literally, since they refer simply to the order of preeminence in which God, Reason, the Soul and Nature stand one to the other. Aristotle himself has used such metaphorical language in 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 beginner in 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's mind. For otherwise things would either have been produced purely arbitrarily and fortuitously, without any preexisting pattern; or would have been generated simultaneously with the particulars which God created; and this latter alternative would involve a change in the essence of God, which is absurd.87

SS Ibid., 98 (Dieterici, 31.). 34 Cf. Post. Analyt. I, 71a If. & 71a 16f. 35 Cf. Jam', 99f (Dieterici, 32f.). 86 Ibid., 106 (Dieterici, 45). However, neither in the Philosophy of Aristotle nor

in the Enumeration of the Sciences is the Pseudo-Theology included in the Aris- totelian corpus, as mentioned above. 7 Ibid., 106 (Dieterici, 45f.).




Even the survival of the soul after death and its susceptibility to 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's mother on the occasion of the latter's death, in which he writes: "God will 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 affirmed by Aristotle and denied by Plato, the disagreement is only apparent. Those who advance in support of the eternity of the world according to Aristotle, the statement in Topica that in the case of some propositions both thesis and antithesis might be supported by syllogistic proofs, which rest upon generally received premisses, e.g. the world is eternal or the world is not eternal,39 forget that an instance cited in a formal logical context does not necessarily entail assent to what the statement purports to assert. Moreover, those who subscribe to this view have been misled by Aristotle's statement in De Caelo 40 that the whole has no temporal beginning, from which they have inferred that it must therefore be 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 world has no temporal beginning must be understood simply 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 beginning. From which it follows that the heavens are created by God, most High, instantaneously, in no time, and from the movement thereof time results." 41 Hence on the twofold question of the existence of God and the creation of the world in time, Aristotle's works speak eloquently in no uncertain terms. Indeed, we owe it to the two Greek Sages, Plato and Aristotle, to have lighted upon the notion of creation in the first instance. For all the ancient philosophers, Pagan, Jewish or Magian, speak of natural processes in terms of becoming and development. These processes, it need hardly be observed, are logically at variance with the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, advanced by Plato and Aristotle and confirmed by revelation. The difference between the two doctrines, however, is that the latter addresses the masses at large in a manner proportionate to their degree of understanding,42 whereas the former is reserved for the philosophically ini- tiated few.

38 Ibid., 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 philosophical circles, both during the Hellenistic and the Islamic periods, between the philosophically privileged few and the masses at large, I do not propose to deal here. I will close, however, with a note on the chequered history of the two key-passages from Topica and De Caelo, invoked by both Mus- lim and Latin authors in the context of the discussion of 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-Farabi appears to place upon the passages from Topica a construction almost diametrically opposed to that of Maimonides and Aquinas, who understood it to mean that the assertion of the eternity of the world was not, according to Aristotle, a 'demonstrative,' but rather a 'dialectical' question, which could not be logically settled. The latter construction is borne out both by the most recent English translation 44 and the ancient Arabic version of Topica, attributed to the IXth Century translator, al-Dimashqi,45 as indeed by the obvious sense of the Greek of Bekker's edition. In both the Arabic and the English versions Aristotle is understood to mean that, as the Arabic translator puts it, "There are contradictory arguments, with regard to which the question might be asked: Are they such or not? because convincing arguments can be advanced in either sense; and concerning 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 doubtless acquainted with al-Dimashqi's translation, may have been drawing on a Neo-Platonic tradition in which this vexed passage in Topica had been interpreted in this entirely different spirit, to bear out the Neo-Platonic thesis of the eternity of the world, to which Plotinus, possibly even more than Aristotle himself, had subscribed.

American University, 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 Antinomy of the Eternity of the World in Averroes, Maimonides and Aquinas," Le Museon (1953), LXVI, 143ff.

44 Cf. Topica, loc. cit., translated by W. A. Pickard, Works of Aristotle, ed. by W. D. Ross (Cambridge, 1930).

45 Cf. Mantiq Avistu, ed. by A. R. Badawi (Cairo, 1948), II, 485. 46 Loc. cit.



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