Abu Nasr al-Farabi
c.872–950 · Islamic Philosophy · Prominent
Farabi belonged to the Baghdad school of Islamic philosophy, and later tradition called him the Second Teacher, ranking him behind only Aristotle. His Virtuous City rebuilds Plato's ideal state under a ruler who is philosopher and prophet at once. He set it in a cosmos flowing out from one First Cause down a chain of minds to the last of them, the Active Intellect, which switches on human thinking.
Signature
The position Farabi is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Order
- leans Vertical
- Government
- Epistocracy / Monarchy
Positions on the 5 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Universals
- leans Realism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (12 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Unity (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
15 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Farabi refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Epistocracy / Monarchy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Knowledge / Union with God
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Indirect Realism / Eidetic Intuition
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Pure Reason / Receptive Intellect
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Divine Providence
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Emanation
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Block Universe
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Rational Expertise
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Representation
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Obstacle to Reason
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Innate Good
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Humanity
What is your primary bond and loyalty?