The gap between universality and particularity being filled, the virtuous city becomes an achievable program, its goal being to remove evitable contingencies, alleviate those that are inevitable, and supply the pedagogical conditions for the Active Intellect to act upon people’s minds and set them free from matter. The philosopher’s main task is to relay the plan of the Active Intellect by means of the appropriate education. Becoming human implies acquiring knowledge. Education is the substitute pro tempore of the Active Intellect whose activity is mainly that of a final cause. And since this activity concerns all human beings of sound constitution, the city-state can in theory encompass all the temperate climates on earth where sound human beings live.
In brief, man, however corruptible like other generated and composed substances, can become a perpetual reality thanks to the philosophical knowledge dispensed within the virtuous city. Only a philosopher-legislator can shape the civic religion capable of dispensing this knowledge in the appropriate fashion and of preparing nonphilosophers’ souls for immortality. The philosophical religion contains in an analogical form the same salvific knowledge as the one in theoretical teaching. This implies that all the city’s institutions, whether cultic, legal, or cultural, are pedagogically oriented to fit the philosopher’s aim.
The systematic nature of al-Farabl’s thought lies in the link established between (a) the physical definition of human nature; (b) the metaphysical definition of its ultimate end, immortal felicity; and (c) politics, which is the primary means of realizing this end: to enable each citizen to partake of immortality when he/she does not possess it by nature. Consequently, politics deals with worldly goods in so far as the allocation of goods within the city is the material condition for supreme felicity to be attained, their just allocation being possible only if felicity remains the Law’s goal. Felicity represents the common good.
Starting from the working hypothesis that what man desires the most is to satisfy his bodily needs, al-FarabI comes to the conclusion that one other desire more specifically characterizes humanity: the desire to ascertain the ultimate causes of phenomena and human experience. Philosophy’s role is to provide this knowledge and philosophy is therefore the most desirable thing. In turn, philosophy teaches that its own acquirement is what allows human beings to escape their fate and become immortal souls. Thus, each individual should be given the opportunity to assimilate philosophy in a way possible to him - or herself (Philosophy of Aristotle). To make this teaching possible is the very purpose of the virtuous regime.
Nowhere does Aristotle put forward the idea that everyone needs to assimilate philosophy, especially if “philosophy” is taken to mean ‘‘first philosophy” and if this knowledge is seen as the condition of becoming immortal. The epistemological pattern and general architecture of Farabi’s thought are in fact a new elaboration of the Alexandrian philosophers’ pedagogical doctrine and a generalization of the ideal of contemplative life as put forward in the tenth book of the Nicomachean Ethics - a generalization which al-FarabI conceives as the true purpose of the philosopher’s return into the Cave and as a form of reconciliation between leisure and active life, theory and practice, scientific and political activities.
Al-FarabI genuinely hoped for this program to be applied by sovereigns-philosophers. The main evidence for this is the repeated claim that a philosopher incapable of accomplishing the political end of philosophy is an impostor who demotes philosophy to a trifling endeavor. Moreover, his writings mention the constitution of armies attended by pedagogues and, as mentioned in the quotation below (see p. 350), the fight to the death which will inescapably occur between philosophy and historical religions for the control of people’s souls. In order to bring in the new political order, he advises the Prince to convince people of the corrupt form of the existing Law and of the need to restore it to its original true version. Stratagems, persuasion, and compulsion must combine for the philosopher’s political plan to materialize. Such concrete proposals suggest that he may have wanted to suit his actions to his words. Ultimately, he views suicide as preferable to living in a world where the philosophical way of life cannot become a reality.
World History
