al-Farabi   Avicenna  Averroes  Maimonides  Gersonides  Ibn Gabirol  Augustine  Aquinas  Scotus

“Making Sense of Afarabi’s Political Regime”

(Video link forthcoming)

Abstract

The Political Regime begins abruptly with a detailed account of the universe.  There is no introduction, nor any attempt to explain what the book is about.  The universe is presented as a thoroughly ordered whole in which all parts have a precise function.  An explanation of how human beings fit into that order follows, including the way political life allows them to fulfill their purpose and a taxonomy of imperfect cities.  Cities are imperfect because their inhabitants turn away from conduct that would allow them to achieve human perfection and thus be in accord with the order so thoroughly detailed in the earlier parts of the treatise.  Yet simple reflection reveals that no regime adheres to that order.  Nor does the alternative – a regime in which the souls of the citizens unite with the active intellect and lose their bodies – appear likely.  To make sense of the treatise, then, a healthy dose of skepticism is needed.

Suggestion of Selected Readings for Workshop Preparation

Primary Sources

Alfarabi.  Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī, Kitāb al-Siyāsa al-Madaniyya, al-Mulaqqab bi-Mabādi‘ al-Mawjūdāt.  Ed. Fauzi M. Najjar.  Beirut:  al-Maṭba‘a al-Kāthūlīkiyya, 1964.

_____.  Kitāb al-Siyāsa al-Madaniyya.  H.aidar Ābād al-Dukn:  Maṭba‘a Majlis Dā’irat al-Ma‘ārif al-‘Ūthmāniyya, 1346 AH [1927].

_____.  Alfarabi, The Political Writings:  Political Regime and Summary of Plato’s Laws.  Trans. Charles E. Butterworth.  Ithaca, NY:  Cornell University Press (forthcoming).

_____.  Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī:  Le régime politique.  Trans. Philippe Vallat.  Paris:  Les Belles Lettres, 2012.

_____.  Abū Nasr al-Fârâbî:  La politique civile ou les principes des existants.  Trans. Amor Cherni.  Paris:  al-Bouraq, 2012.

_____.  “Alfarabi:  The Political Regime” [Part Two].  Trans. Charles E. Butterworth.  In Medieval Political Philosophy:  A Sourcebook.  2nd ed.  Ed. Joshua Parens and Joseph C. Macfarland.  Ithaca, NY:  Cornell University Press, 2011.  Pp. 36-55.

_____.  The Principles of Existing Things.  In Classical Arabic Philosophy:  An Anthology of Sources.  Trans. Jon McGinnis and David C. Reisman.  Indianapolis:  Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2007.  Pp. 81-104.

_____.  Al-Fārābī:  The Political Regime (Al-Siyāsa al-Madaniyya, also known as the Treatise on the Principles of Beings.  Trans. Thérèse-Anne Druart.  Translation Clearing House, Department of Philosophy, Oklahoma State University, 1981.  Ref. no. A-30-50d.

_____.  “Alfarabi:  The Political Regime” [Part Two].  Trans. Fauzi M. Najjar.  In Medieval Political Philosophy:  A Sourcebook.  1st ed.  Ed. Ralph Lerner and Muhsin Mahdi.  Glencoe, IL:  The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963.  Pp. 31-57.

_____.  Alfarabi:  The Political Regime, I.  Trans. Miriam Galston.  N.P.  N.D.

Secondary Sources

Butterworth, Charles E.  “Alfarabi’s Goal:  Political Philosophy, not Political Theology.”  In Islam, The State, and Political Authority:  Medieval Issues and Modern Concerns.  Ed. Asma Afasaruddin.  New York:  Palgrave-MacMillan, 2011.  Pp. 53-74.

Campinini, Massimo.  “Alfarabi and the Foundation of Political Theology in Islam.”  In Islam, The State, and Political Authority:  Medieval Issues and Modern Concerns.  Ed. Asma Afasaruddin.  New York:  Palgrave-MacMillan, 2011.  Pp. 35-52.

Colmo, Christopher A.  Breaking with Athens:  Alfarabi as Founder.  Lanham:  Lexington Books, 2005.

Mahdi, Muhsin.  “Philosophy and Political Thought:  Reflections and Comparisons.”  In Arabic Sciences and Philosophy.  Vol. 1, no. 1, 1991.  Pp. 9-29.

Rudolph, Ulrich.  Islamische Philosophie:  Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart.  Third Edition; Munich:  C. H. Beck, 2013.

_____.  “Abû Nasr al-Fârâbî.”  In Die Philosophie in der islamischen Welt, Band I:  8. - 10. Jahrhundert.  Ed. Ulrich Rudolph with Renate Würsch.  Basel:  Schwabe, 2012.  Pp. 363-457.

Strauss, Leo.  “Farabi’s Plato.”  In Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume.   New York:  American Academy for Jewish Research, 1945.  Pp. 357–393.

_____.  “Quelques Remarques sur la Science Politique de Maïmonide et de Fârâbî.”  In Revue des Études Juives.  No. 197, 1935.  Pp. 1-37.  Reprinted in Leo Strauss, Gesammelte Schriften:  Philosophie und Gesetz – Frühe Schriften.  Ed. Heinrich Meier.  Stuttgart:  Verlag J. B. Metzler, 1997.  Pp. 125-166.