An Islamic Philosophy of Virtuous Religions: Introducing Alfarabi

Three. The A Fortiori Argument

29 If the Republic’s virtuous city is impossible, then a fortiori Alfarabi’s regime of the inhabited world in the Attainment of Happiness (AH)—composed of virtuous nations, each of which is composed in turn of virtuous cities—is impossible (cf. AH, Mahdi, ed., secs. 44–47; Yasin, ed., 81–85; VC, Walzer, ed., 15.3). After our look at the Republic, where Socrates never went so far as to admit explicitly the impossibility of the virtuous city, the reader will not be surprised that Alfarabi in AH never states explicitly that the world regime he envisions is impossible. In the Republic, Socrates considers it a necessary part of Glaucon’s education that he believe this city is possible, at least for the majority of their conversation.1 After all, Glaucon is a man of action who does not care much for “castles in the sky.” Matters are similar, though not identical, in Alfarabi’s setting. In his religious community the possibility of a virtuous world regime is assumed—indeed, such a possibility is assumed by all monotheistic communities, even if only as achievable in the end of days.2 Within such a context, it would be not only surprising but also foolhardy to declaim loudly from the rooftops that a virtuous world regime is impossible. Without an explicit statement that it is impossible, however, it will not be possible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Alfarabi considers it so. Indeed, most scholars assume Alfarabi is in earnest .3 Nevertheless, I will be able to prove—within the limits of the kind of inquiry we are presently engaged in—that Alfarabi means to suggest, at least to some of his most ambitious readers, that this regime is impossible. If our only purpose were to prove this, then our inquiry might be rather Three The A Fortiori Argument 30 An Islamic Philosophy of Virtuous Religions dull. As in the Republic, however, an inquiry into this kind of possibility is necessarily an inquiry into one of the deepest problems of all, namely, human nature—its great promise as well as its limits. An important part of our effort to show that Alfarabi holds that the world regime is impossible will be to show how extensive his knowledge of the Republic is. Some scholars will attempt to dismiss the argument of this book because they lack positive evidence about how much of Plato’s Republic Alfarabi might have had access to. Our discussion of Alfarabi’s familiarity with the Republic will seek to forestall such a line of interpretation. At the same time that we inquire into Alfarabi’s familiarity with the Republic, we will find problems that appeared significant in the Republic, such as the tension between being a stalwart king and warrior and a philosopher , grow to enormous proportions in Alfarabi’s AH. After all, as the regime grows, the need to divide labor and delegate authority only increases. Virtues that might have seemed upon first reading to be in harmony in the Republic show just how at odds they can be in AH. Alfarabi also has recourse to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, in what appears at first to be an effort to draw on the resources of Aristotle to overcome tensions within Plato’s account of the virtues. Alfarabi weaves into his Platonic account of philosophic virtues various elements of the Aristotelian account of natural, moral, deliberative, and theoretical virtues. As many undergraduates know, for Aristotle, moral and deliberative virtues are inextricably bound together. In Alfarabi’s a fortiori argument, however, even these deep bonds prove to be less than adamantine. An appeal to Aristotle that should have made Plato’s philosopher-king more conceivable renders it even more problematic. Alfarabi’s a fortiori argument is not, as one might expect, an argument about how Socrates’ kallipolis when transferred to the world stage is unwieldy—merely a problem of scale. Rather, it is an argument about the heart and soul of kallipolis, philosopher-kings.4 The third wave of the Republic, the highest wave, appears in all of its titanic proportions in AH. Human nature cannot support the weight of this task, especially when the philosopher-ruler’s task is to rule the inhabited world. ALFARABI ON THE REPUBLIC IN THE ATTAINMENT OF HAPPINESS: EDUCATING PHILOSOPHER-KINGS TO RULE THE INHABITED WORLD, THE CHALLENGE We begin our inquiry by considering Alfarabi’s more or less direct references to Plato’s Republic in AH. Muhsin Mahdi...