Alfarabi On Emanation, The Active Intellect, And Human Intellect

Abstract The present chapter deals primarily with four works of Alfarabi which offer a more or less full treatment of the subjects I am considering: al-Madina al-Faq,ila and al­ Siyasa al-Madaniyya, which will be treated as representing one position; a work entitled The Philosophy of Aristotle, which suggests a second position; and the Risāla ft az-cAql (known in Latin as De intellectu, De intellectu et intellecto, or De intelligentiis), which represents yet another. Alfarabi’s lost commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics will also be touched on briefly. Works attributed to Alfarabi but expressing views very similar to Avicenna’s should be omitted from any discussion of Alfarabi, since they are almost certainly not his.