An Islamic Philosophy of Virtuous Religions: Introducing Alfarabi

Six. The Limits of Knowledge and the Problem of Realization

103 Muhsin Mahdi’s felicitous translation of the Attainment of Happiness (as well as his revised introduction) has served as our greatest aid in understanding AH throughout. If I take issue with the translation of a key word here, then, I do so only because of the myriad of other things his translation has enabled me to see. Of course, in the title, TaÓhÓsîl al-sa⁄âdah, Mahdi renders taÓhÓsîl as “attainment.” Yet on many occasions he renders it as “realization .”1 Of course, both meanings are within the range of denotations of the Arabic word. Mahdi stresses that he has not stuck to a rigid literalism in his translation, because the text does not lend itself to one. And he acknowledges that all translations engage to some extent in interpretation.2 He cannot possibly be faulted for a “mistaken” translation. Indeed, I do not intend to fault his choice of the word “realization” so much as the interpretation underlying it. Even more than in his introductions to and translation of PPA, Mahdi has dwelt at some length on Alfarabi’s focus on “realization” in his authoritative interpretation of Alfarabi in AFIPP.3 I question the choice of “realization,” because I doubt Alfarabi’s intention to realize the regime of the inhabited world described in AH. I believe it is more accurate to think of AH, like the Republic, as a standard and cautionary tale. The difficulty with “realization” is that it has too much of the air of “reality” or concreteness about it. Comparison with Mahdi’s choice to use “attainment” or a cognate word in other instances will clarify my reservation . For example, consider the opening sentence of AH: “The human things through which nations and cities attain earthly happiness in this life and supreme happiness in the life beyond are of four kinds.” It is readily Six The Limits of Knowledge and the Problem of Realization 104 An Islamic Philosophy of Virtuous Religions apparent why Mahdi chooses “attain” here rather than “realize.” The suggestion that supreme happiness in the life beyond is capable of “realization ” would strike any reader as perverse. Since time immemorial, that life beyond has been contrasted with this “reality.” The choice of “attain” here as in the “attainment” of the title suggests an important connotation to taÓhÓsîl at least as it is used in some passages in AH: attainment is more something we aim toward than a reality we expect to realize here and now.4 As we saw at the end of chapters 3 and 5, the realization or attainment of the virtuous regime of the inhabited world would entail the “exploitation ” (isti⁄mâl)5 of untold numbers of beings, both human and nonhuman. Such exploitation would require comprehensive knowledge of the whole. According to Alfarabi, such knowledge eludes humankind. We need to explore and clarify here the connection between the limits of human knowledge and the problem of exploitation or, more broadly, of realization of the virtuous regime of the inhabited world. I have already mentioned an important area of human ignorance or uncertainty, our lack of knowledge about the extent and interrelation of various final causes. The other significant area of ignorance concerns particulars , especially future particulars. Islam as a monotheistic faith attributes knowledge of every particular to God, who can reveal them miraculously in turn to His Prophet. In contrast, Aristotle, in part because of his reliance on reason alone, limits human knowledge of particulars to the extrapolations or guesses of prudence. Alfarabi’s account as a philosophic one seeks to make sense of the conflict between the certainty of revelation and the uncertainty of philosophy. Although Alfarabi does not refer explicitly to the problem of universals and particulars in AH, it is a crucial source of the divergence between philosophy and revelation regarding certainty, which he does refer to explicitly. KNOWLEDGE AND EXPLOITATION To begin with, I will clarify the connection between knowledge of final causes and the exploitation of human and nonhuman beings. Then we will inquire into the details of Alfarabi’s views on and arguments about the limits of our knowledge of final causes. At the same time, we will consider whether Alfarabi’s views are similar to or different from those of other philosophers , especially Aristotle. So far I have devoted little attention to part i of AH. It is here that the themes of certainty of knowledge and exploitation of...