SOURCE: Colmo, Christopher. “Theory and Practice: Alfarabi's Plato Revisited.” American Political Science Review 86, no. 4 (December 1992): 966-76.

[In the following essay, Colmo critiques Leo Strauss's studies of al-Fārābī, particularly concerning the relationship between science and philosophy.]

According to Leo Strauss, knowledge of the best way of life is crucial to political philosophy. In “Farabi's Plato,” Strauss asks, assuming that the theoretical life can be known to be the best way of life, what is the status of this knowledge? Is the knowledge of the best way of life itself theoretical knowledge or practical knowledge? Without a coherent answer to this question, we cannot be certain that we know what we mean when we claim to know that philosophy is the best way of life. Strauss answers clearly the question about the status of the knowledge of the best way of life by affirming that it is practical, not theoretical, knowledge. For a variety of reasons, this answer is not persuasive in the form in which Strauss gives it.

One of the most conspicuous themes of the work of Leo Strauss is the relationship between theory and practice. Whether Strauss regards this relationship as the highest, or one of the highest, themes of philosophy, he certainly sees it as one of the most urgent or necessary (1953, 162-63). In a recent book on Strauss, Heinrich Meier draws attention to the relatively early article “Farabi's Plato” (Strauss 1945), in which Strauss directly and specifically addresses this subject (Meier 1988a, 95-96). Despite the title, the article gives a strikingly explicit account not only of the views of Farabi, or Alfarabi, but also of Strauss himself, at least at that time, on what we can know about the dignity of philosophy as a way of life—the theoretical life—and about the practical alternatives to it.

Alfarabi (870-950 C.E.) was an Islamic philosopher with whom Strauss concerned himself for at least 20 years.¹ Strauss was interested in Alfarabi as a predecessor of Maimonides and as a representative of a kind of rationalism distinct from modern rationalism. While Strauss saw modern rationalism as somehow in the service of the conquest of nature and, as such, having an essentially practical aim, Alfarabi, as interpreted by Strauss, presented an alternative rationalism that was essentially theoretical or contemplative. Strauss, like Nietzsche, seems to have diagnosed a crisis of modern rationalism; but where Nietzsche is forced to turn away from reason in search of a cure, Strauss seeks a remedy in a return to an earlier form of rationalism. Meier finds in “Farabi's Plato” a significant statement of the philosophical position Strauss continued to elaborate over the following quarter of a century. Since Alfarabi's philosophy is of interest in its own right, we have two reasons for examining Strauss's early essay.

The full title of the short work that I, following Strauss, shall call the Plato is The Philosophy of Plato, Its Parts, the Ranks of Order of Its Parts, from the Beginning to the End. It is part 2 of the three-part Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, part 1 being The Attainment of Happiness and part 3, The Philosophy of Aristotle.² Strauss focuses his attention on the Plato because he believes that Alfarabi has been more candid in that work (where Alfarabi speaks through the mouth of Plato) than in works where he speaks in his own name—for example, The Attainment of Happiness (Strauss 1945, 371-75).

I shall consider three topics, with a view to reflecting on the proper relation between knowledge or science on the one hand and human life or practice and its aims, on the other: (1) Does the knowledge of the best way of life belong to what Strauss calls philosophy “in the precise sense” (1945, 365) or does it belong to moral and political philosophy? (2) How do Alfarabi and/or Strauss view the status of Plato's philosopher-king? Is political ability ultimately identical with philosophic ability? Could the two ever be combined in one individual? (3) Can philosophy change the world, as Marx hoped? Or does the philosopher necessarily exist in an imperfect world, now and always, as Strauss's Alfarabi contends? Is philosophy essentially practical or theoretical?

While I try to review several aspects of Strauss's argument, it may be helpful to state the most significant conclusion of the inquiry at this point. For Strauss, much depends on the question, What is the right way of life? The standard by which to judge the best political order depends on the right, or best, way of life. The practical question about the best political order can be answered only by answering the question about the best way of life. The question about the best way of life is also a practical question. It is a deeper—a more fundamental—practical question than the question about the best political order. For Strauss, the right or best way of life turns out to be philosophy “in the precise sense” of theoretical, not practical, inquiry. Philosophy as the right or best way of life is not a value. It is not an arbitrary belief, conviction, preference, or life-style. According to Strauss, philosophy can be known to be the best way of life. In “Farabi's Plato,” Strauss does not try to prove that philosophy is the best way of life. Rather, he devotes his attention to the question, Given that philosophy can be known to be the right way of life, what is the status of this knowledge? Is this knowledge itself theoretical knowledge or practical knowledge? Without a coherent answer to this question, we cannot be certain that we know what we mean when we claim to know that philosophy is the best way of life. This knowledge is crucial for political philosophy as it is understood by both Strauss and Alfarabi. Strauss answers the question clearly by affirming that the knowledge of the best way of life is itself practical, not theoretical, knowledge. I give reasons why this position is not persuasive.

In Strauss's classification of the forms of knowledge, practical knowledge is of lower rank or dignity than theoretical knowledge. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that practical knowledge is of lower cognitive status. Given that Alfarabi treats theoretical knowledge as certain knowledge, one must wonder whether practical knowledge is not less than certain. The consequences are obviously serious if the claim that philosophy is the best way of life is not more certain or true than rival claims on behalf of piety, honor, or pleasure. We are forced at least to raise the question how the classification of the knowledge of the best way of life as merely practical avoids decaying into the view that such “knowledge” is in fact a value judgment, preference, or mere conviction. It may seem ludicrous to suggest that Strauss ascribes to Alfarabi—and himself subscribes to—a position that collapses into a value judgment; but it may be equally ludicrous not to raise this question. Nietzsche would have us believe that all philosophers make such judgments, and Rosen singles out Strauss as being on this point a Nietzschean who regards philosophy as an act of the will (Rosen 1987, 110-11, 122-23, 127, 137). Clearly, Strauss does not intend to make philosophy an act of the will (see my earlier work, Colmo 1990). It is equally clear, however, that Strauss's own position collapses if he cannot give a coherent account of the knowledge by which he knows that philosophy is the best way of life. That account, as Strauss presents it in the totality of his writings, is by no means obvious. This problem is the motive for the critique of Strauss's view I now offer, of which the first section contains the most important results. I subsequently draw out further implications of Strauss's position and, in some cases, point to ways in which alternatives to Strauss's interpretation of Alfarabi suggest alternative answers to the basic philosophic questions at issue.

PHILOSOPHY PROPER AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Alfarabi makes it plain that the practical or political art (we would call it political philosophy) is concerned with discovering and providing for the “desired way of life” (1969, 60). Let us begin with the question whether the desired way of life, the life that makes man perfect or happy, can be the virtuous way of life (p. 54)? More specifically, can the virtues practiced in mosques and temples (i.e., the virtues inculcated by religion) make human beings perfect and happy (p. 61)?

Strauss argues persuasively that for Alfarabi, religion and the virtues based on religion do not provide the desired way of life (1945, 373). Strauss contends, more openly than Alfarabi, that the moral life (including, of course, the moral life based upon religion) cannot be the desired way of life because the moral life as such does not allow one to ask why one should be moral: “The moral life consists of the submission to the demands of honor and duty without reasoning why” (p. 388). The premise of Strauss's Alfarabi is that the desired way of life must be a reasoned way of life or a way of life of which a reasoned account can be given. The desired way of life cannot be based on mere choice be that choice inspired, mysterious, arbitrary, or irrational. The way of life acceptable to philosophy must be justified by reason. But morality that is rationally justified is no longer morality. Moral actions must be “choiceworthy for their own sake,” that is, because they are moral, not because they are rationally dictated (Strauss 1964, 27). The virtuous way of life cannot be the desired way of life because morality as such is inherently unphilosophic. Moral philosophy, if such a thing is possible, cannot be a part of philosophy in the precise sense. Of course, it is important to add that nothing stops Strauss or anyone else from moving outside the assumption made here in order to seek a morality that is rationally grounded.

The moral life by itself cannot be the best way of life because it is unphilosophic. That the best—or, as Alfarabi says, desired—way of life, is the philosophic becomes plain in Alfarabi's discussion of the Socratic way of life. Alfarabi asserts, in terms much harsher than those used by Plato's Socrates, that the unexamined life is not worth living (1969, 63-64). The philosophic life is the only desirable life. But what is the philosophic life? According to Socrates, philosophy includes the study of the moral, political, or practical things. For this reason, even Socrates does not escape Alfarabi's implicit criticism, according to Strauss (1945, 363-65, 382-83). The best way of life is not the one that examines practical matters. Man's perfection is to be found in the knowledge of “the substance of each of the beings,” “the beings,” or the “natural beings” (Alfarabi 1969, 54, 56, 60, 65). The way of life devoted to the pursuit of such knowledge is what Strauss calls philosophic in the precise sense (1945, 365). Whereas the moral or practical things are the products of human action or choice, philosophy in the strict sense seeks knowledge only of the natural things, which are not products of any human knowing, making, action, or choice. Philosophy in the precise sense is strictly theoretical.

If we go this far with Alfarabi, then we arrive at a pressing difficulty. The “difference between the truly virtuous way of life and all other ways of life is based, not on a difference of purpose, of quality of the will, but on a difference of knowledge” (Strauss 1945, 388-89). Philosophy, as the life of reason, cannot be based upon an arbitrary choice or an act of the will. The philosophic way of life must be known to be superior to the moral or political life. The difficulty arises when we try to classify the kind of knowledge by which we know that philosophy is the right, or desired, way of life. Alfarabi carefully distinguishes between the knowledge of the beings (whatever these may be) and the knowledge of the ways of life (1969, 56; Strauss 1945, 365). A way of life is not a being (Strauss 1945, 389). Strauss does not try to avoid the obvious conclusion that even knowledge of the best way of life is not philosophic or theoretical knowledge; knowledge of the best way of life is supplied by the highest practical art (p. 365).

Strauss's interpretation would eventually have to be brought into harmony with three works in which Alfarabi asserts or implies that “only the theoretical rational faculty can attain real knowledge of what happiness is” (cited in Galston 1990, 69). This amounts to saying, contra Strauss, that knowledge of the best way of life is theoretical knowledge. In general, Galston seems to take the view that Alfarabi blurs the traditional distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge so that the former includes much of the latter.

The assertion that the knowledge of the best way of life is not itself philosophic knowledge (strictly speaking) goes well beyond the assertion, discussed earlier, that the virtuous or moral way of life is not, as such, philosophic. This assertion is clearly based on philosophic knowledge. This knowledge in no way implies, however, that philosophy itself cannot be philosophically known to be the best way of life. Nor, certainly, does it imply that knowledge of philosophy as the best way of life is itself moral “knowledge,” rather than philosophic knowledge.

Strauss moves in a different direction. In keeping with the differentiation of theoretical and practical knowledge, he suggests that it would be foolish to assume that philosophy exhausts itself in the investigation of the relation between philosophy and happiness (1945, 363). In other words, it would be foolish to assume that philosophy exhausts itself in the quest for the best way of life or that the philosopher has no leisure for anything other than this quest (1964, 21, 29). Indeed, the quest for the best way of life and the knowledge of that way of life are “strictly speaking merely preliminary” (1945, 366). The study of “the human or political meaning of philosophy” does not belong “to the same level” as philosophy proper (pp. 366, 368). One is even a little surprised to find that in the course of explaining Alfarabi's remarks on the limitations of Plato's Socrates as compared with Plato himself, Strauss says that Socrates was “merely a moral philosopher” who “neglected natural philosophy” (1945, 383; see Alfarabi 1969, 66-67). The moral philosophy that is disparaged here seems to include reflection on philosophy as the best way of life; Socratic reflection surely included this subject.

Since it is not philosophy strictly speaking, what is the status of political philosophy understood as the investigation of the human meaning of philosophy? Strauss cannot deny that practical knowledge in this extended sense is really knowledge. The discovery of the philosophic life as the best way of life cannot be reduced to the level of an arbitrary choice or an act of the will. The superiority of the philosophic life must be known, not willed (1945, 389). This point is central to Strauss's position.³ Hence, Strauss's final formulation of the problem in “Farabi's Plato” seems to be that knowledge of the right way of life can “be described as philosophic since only the philosopher is competent to elaborate that question and to answer it” (p. 366). Such knowledge, however, is of a lower level than theoretical knowledge; even the highest practical knowledge is merely preliminary. Moreover, that the knowledge of the ways of life is not a proper subject of theory (because, to repeat, ways of life are not beings) is itself a theoretical insight (p. 389). To summarize in a way that may be more precise than clear, the knowledge that the theoretical life is the best way of life can be theoretically known to be merely practical knowledge.

Is merely practical knowledge certain knowledge? According to Alfarabi, theoretical knowledge is certain knowledge (Alfarabi 1969, 13; Mahdi 1973, 7-9). Strauss says that Alfarabi identifies philosophy with “the art of demonstration” (1945, 364). But in his Philosophy of Aristotle, Alfarabi calls the art of demonstration “the art of certainty” (1969, 87). If the distinguishing feature of theoretical knowledge is its certainty, is practical knowledge somehow uncertain? If it is, then how does philosophy ward off the rival claims of other ways of life? Ways of life that are openly based on faith, belief, or conviction would seem to be, at any rate, more consistent than a philosophic life dedicated to knowledge but itself based on faith or conviction (Strauss 1953, 75). The least one can say is that in “Farabi's Plato,” Strauss defines a position that entails this serious dilemma without, however, acknowledging it or dealing with it.

It is interesting to compare Strauss's 1945 essay with his later writings. In The City and Man, Strauss raises the question whether it is possible to know that the philosophic life is the best life:

Socrates could not know this if he did not know that the only serious alternative to the philosophic life is the political life and that the political life is subordinate to the philosophic life: political life is life in the cave which is partly closed off by a wall from life in the light of the sun; the city is the only whole within the whole or the only part of the whole whose essence can be wholly known.

(1964, 29)

Knowledge of the best way of life comes from understanding the relationship between the philosophic life and political life, or life in the cave. But Strauss does not tell us whether this understanding is theoretical or practical, though the last clause in the passage just quoted seems to invite the conclusion that understanding of politics is a very high, if not the highest, kind of understanding. Does Strauss here mean to suggest the possibility that practical knowledge is more certain than theoretical knowledge? From this perspective, there would seem to be no longer any reason to exclude practical knowledge (as being the most certain knowledge) from philosophy in the precise sense.

In an essay first published toward the end of his life (1971), “Philosophy as Rigorous Science and Political Philosophy,” Strauss returned to the issue of this relationship (1983, chap. 1). The closest equivalent to what Strauss calls moral philosophy in “Farabi's Plato” is what he calls Weltanschauungsphilosophie (ibid.)—assuming it is not closer to what Farabi calls the religious investigation of the beings (1945, 373, n. 42). Weltanschauungsphilosophie conceptualizes religious, aesthetic, ethical, political, and practical-technical experience. Although this kind of philosophy “presents the relatively most perfect solution of the riddles of life and the world,” it is nevertheless to be distinguished from philosophy as rigorous science for the same reason that Alfarabi distinguishes between moral philosophy and theoretical philosophy. Weltanschauungsphilosophie is the “philosophy” of the cave because in one way or another it presents, as true, things about which we cannot be certain, no matter how much we may want that certainty. If this is so, then the thought from The City and Man can be restated by saying that Socrates can know that the philosophic life is the best way of life only because he can know that philosophy as rigorous science is unqualifiedly superior to Weltanschauungsphilosophie. Moreover, the superiority of philosophy as rigorous science seems to depend on its more stringent standard of certainty.

Our primary question now becomes whether knowledge of the competing claims of the two kinds of philosophy is itself practical knowledge or theoretical knowledge. This time Strauss gives us a fairly straightforward answer:

Reflection on the relation of the two kinds of philosophy obviously belongs to the sphere of philosophy as rigorous science. It comes closest to being Husserl's contribution to political philosophy. … In order to see the relation between philosophy as rigorous science and the alternative to it clearly, one must look at the political conflict between the two antagonists, i.e., at the essential character of that conflict.

(1983, 36-37)

I take it that knowledge of the essential character of the conflict between the two kinds of philosophy includes knowledge of the superiority of philosophy as rigorous science. According to Strauss, it is only through such knowledge that Socrates could know the philosophic life to be the best life. Finally, Strauss makes it clear that such knowledge (knowledge of the best way of life) belongs to the sphere of philosophy as rigorous science. But it is equally clear that in “Farabi's Plato” this is not the case. There, reflection on the practical issue of the relation between theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy or reflection on the human meaning of philosophy does not belong to philosophy strictly speaking or to philosophy as rigorous science.

“Farabi's Plato” leaves the reader in some uncertainty concerning the status of reflection on the best way of life. Knowledge of the best way of life, the philosopher's self-knowledge (1945, 366), seems to be neither knowledge strictly speaking, nor religion, nor morality. But if it is none of these, what is it? Plato suggests that what lies between knowledge and ignorance is opinion or right opinion. There is considerable doubt as to whether even right opinion—much less, mere opinion—“can nevertheless be described as philosophic” (ibid.). Yet Strauss cannot settle for less if the superiority of the philosophic life is to be known, rather than merely willed. Such difficulties may have moved Strauss to elevate political philosophy—understood as comprehending the question of the best way of life—to the level of philosophy as rigorous science. While this clarifies the epistemological status of political philosophy, it seems paradoxical. How can the knowledge of the best way of life fail to be a kind of practical knowledge? Alfarabi, for one, always identifies the knowledge of the desired way of life as practical knowledge. Strauss insists upon this point and Miriam Galston reinforces it when she argues that for Alfarabi, the practical differs from the theoretical not in subject matter but in purpose, namely, a concern with human happiness (1990, 55, 69). Even if we reclassify knowledge of the best way of life as theoretical knowledge, some problems remain.

In making use of “Farabi's Plato,” Meier runs the risk (as he is no doubt aware) that Strauss may have partially changed his mind in later years. But the risk may not be as great as we have made it seem. The difference between “Farabi's Plato” and “Philosophy as Rigorous Science and Political Philosophy” hides a basic agreement concerning one of the problems Strauss must surely have had in mind when he spoke of “the fundamental and permanent problems” (1959, 39). What is consistent in the two essays is the supremacy of theoretical knowledge over self-knowledge or practical knowledge.⁴ The knowledge of the best way of life is either practical and therefore the lowest level of philosophy (as in the former essay) or given full theoretical status (as in the latter essay).⁵ Strauss never adopts the view that philosophy proper consists of theoretical and practical philosophy on an equal level (1945, 366). He never suggests that if knowledge of the best way of life is to be ranked higher among levels of knowledge then this should be accomplished by elevating the rank of practical knowledge, rather than by removing the knowledge of the best way of life from the level of the practical altogether. The two essays share a fundamental assumption or tendency.

THE PHILOSOPHER-KING

Strauss's interpretation is based on the distinction that Alfarabi obviously makes between the science of the beings and the science of the ways of life (Alfarabi 1969, esp. 56). But Alfarabi makes another statement that is difficult to reconcile with the implications of this distinction. Alfarabi explicitly identifies philosophy with the royal art. Indeed, he follows Plato in making human happiness dependent on the existence of a philosopher-king. The passage in question is worth quoting in full as Strauss translates it:

[According to Plato,] the homo philosophus and the homo rex are the same thing. (1) [According to Plato,] each of the two (sc. the philosopher and the king) is rendered perfect by one function and one faculty. (2) [According to Plato,] each of the two (sc. the philosopher and the king) has one function which supplies the science desired from the outset and the way of life desired from the outset; (3) each of the two (sc. functions) produces in those who take possession of it, and in all other human beings, that happiness which is truly happiness.

(Strauss 1945, 367)

For Strauss, none of the statements in the passage he quotes strictly identifies philosophy with kingship or the royal art. The statements do no more than assert that philosophy and the royal art exist together in the same man; the two things are not identical.⁶ Because the third statement goes so far, however, as to assert that philosophy produces the happiness of all human beings, it does “practically” identify philosophy with the royal art (p. 367). But Strauss regards this “extravagantly philanthropic remark,” when taken literally, to be a “sheer absurdity” (p. 378). According to Strauss, such an extravagant remark on Alfarabi's part has three purposes.

First, if philosophy is the best way of life or the only true happiness, most human beings would be excluded from happiness (Strauss 1945, 381). The identification of philosophy with kingship helps to avoid or hide this conclusion, since the philosopher-king makes possible the happiness of “all,” or of the nonphilosophic many.

Second, the royal art is the practical art that provides the desired, or right, way of life (Alfarabi 1969, 60). From this point of view, the identification of philosophy with kingship is a “pedagogic device” leading the reader toward the view that philosophy supplies not only the science of the beings but also the right way of life (1945, 370). Philosophy is self-sufficient. If philosophy is itself the royal or political art, then it is in no way dependent upon politics for guidance toward the desired way of life.

Alfarabi's third point, as Strauss sees it, derives from the fact that the philosopher necessarily lives in political society and that his relations with his nonphilosophic fellow citizens are “naturally difficult” (1945, 382). The philosopher needs a kind of political art in order to deal with these difficulties. Another way to say this is that philosophy, or wisdom, on the one hand and self-knowledge, or moderation …, on the other “cannot be separated from each other” (p. 366). The recognition that philosophy and the royal art cannot be separated does not require, however, that we take the identification of philosophy with kingship literally.

Alfarabi, Strauss says, “leaves no doubt … that philosophy and the royal art are coextensive” (1945, 368). Philosophy and the royal or political art necessarily exist together in the same human being: “A human being cannot acquire the specific art of the philosopher without at the same time acquiring the specific art of the king and vice versa” (p. 367). Strauss thinks that this view is an acceptable alternative to the view that philosophy and kingship are identical.

Strauss provides the following gloss on statements 2 and 3 of the quoted passage in which Alfarabi describes the relationship between philosophy and the royal art:

The function of the philosopher supplies by itself both the science of the beings and the right way of life and thus produces true happiness in both the philosophers and all other human beings; the function of the king supplies by itself both the science of the beings and the right way of life and thus produces true happiness in both the kings and all other human beings.

(1945, 367)

This restatement of Alfarabi's text brings out the fact that the text is quite compatible with the view that the function of the philosopher and the function of the king are two separate functions. Since there are two distinguishable functions, Strauss is able to preserve “the difference of level between philosophy proper and moral or political investigations” (p. 368). The reference to “all human beings” falls under the heading of philanthropic extravagance explained above.

Strauss's restatement, however, does not bring out the fact that the function of the philosopher is “one function”—or “a single skill,” as Mahdi translates it (Alfarabi 1969, 60)—just as the royal function is “one function.” Even allowing for some kind of distinction between the philosopher and the king, it is still the case that one function or a single skill supplies both the desired science (the science of the beings, according to Strauss) and the desired way of life.⁷ We would have to admit that the one function or the single skill somehow combines theory and practice. Since Strauss sees theory as being on a different level from practice, the notion that one function or a single skill supplies the desired theory and the desired practice requires clarification.

Strauss offers the following explanation. Philosophy, while primarily and essentially directed toward the science of the beings, “cannot be exercised fully without producing the right way of life”; kingship cannot be exercised fully without producing the science of the beings, but it remains “primarily and essentially concerned with the right way of life” (1945, 368). In the best case, philosophy and kingship cannot be separated; but they are not identical.

It is certainly not unfair to ask why, if philosophy is essentially concerned with one thing and kingship is essentially concerned with another thing, Alfarabi emphasizes that the single function—philosophy—is concerned with two things (one theoretical and one practical) and the single function—kingship—is likewise concerned with two things? To speak only of philosophy, it can supply both the desired knowledge and the desired way of life only if it supplies both theory and practice. Strauss himself draws the necessary conclusion from his own premises: “The identification of philosophy as the highest theoretical art with the royal art as the highest practical art can be literally valid … if contemplation itself is the highest form of action” (1945, 386).

Strauss does not indicate whether the single function or art that supplies both the desired science and the desired way of life also supplies the knowledge of the desired way of life. With this question, I return to the first topic of the essay. Alfarabi's (1969) ambiguous expression desired science or desired knowledge certainly seems to suggest the possibility that the desired science might include not only the science of the beings, mentioned by Strauss in his gloss to the text but also “the science of the ways of life,” which Strauss mentions elsewhere (1945, 365). The knowledge of the right way of life would certainly seem to be some part of the desired science. The least one could say is that while Strauss emphasizes the difference of level between the theoretical and the practical, Alfarabi emphasizes the unity of the function or skill that supplies both theory and practice.

For Strauss, a unity of theory and practice can occur only on the plane of the theoretical: theory or contemplation itself is the highest form of action. There is a place where Alfarabi, in a somewhat different way, considers the possibility of a man who combines theoretical science and practical science; but he does not there say whether the combination itself ought to be regarded as theoretical or practical (1969, 66). On the latter point, there is only one explicit statement in the Plato: Alfarabi treats the practical arts as the arts that combine knowledge and action (p. 58). He is silent about the possibility of a combination of knowledge and action on the level of the theoretical. Indeed, shortly before the passages suggestive of a philosopher-king, Alfarabi lists three possibilities: a scientific art that supplies the desired knowledge, a practical art that supplies that knowledge, or a practical art that supplies the desired way of life (p. 59). While Alfarabi at least entertains the possibility of a practical art that supplies the desired knowledge, he does not entertain the possibility of a scientific or theoretical art that supplies the desired way of life.⁸

Statements by Alfarabi relevant to the subject of the philosopher-king do more than open the question whether theory is not itself the highest form of practice. As we have seen, under Strauss's scrutiny, Alfarabi's statements also raise the question whether philosophy is coextensive with practice in the sense of political kingship. Could both functions exist in the same human being? Would the excellence of the philosopher complement that of the king and vice versa? Or would the attempt to perform both functions diminish the performance of each in itself? In the latter case, is division of labor—one person, one function—superior to any attempt at the coexistence of the two functions in one human being? Or does the perfection of any one function fall short of being the perfection of the whole person?

As Strauss explains (and as we have seen), Alfarabi “leaves no doubt” that in the best case philosophy and kingship coexist in the same human being. This does not mean that the best philosopher must rule a specific city or nation but, rather, that the best human being combines the two capacities. Strauss goes so far as to suggest that the philosopher and the king have the same nature (1945, 368, n. 28).

Here, again, it is instructive to compare “Farabi's Plato” with a later statement by Strauss. In “Xenophon's Anabasis,” Strauss makes the following observation:

Xenophon stands somewhere in between the older Cyrus [a manly or political man] and Socrates. By this position he presents to us not a lack of decisiveness but the problem of justice: justice requires both the virtue of a man … and the virtue of Socrates; the virtue of the [manly or political] man points to Socratic virtue and Socratic virtue requires as its foundation the virtue of the man; both kinds of virtue cannot coexist in their plenitude in one and the same human being.

(1983, 128)

In “Farabi's Plato,” Strauss presents the coexistence of political and philosophic excellence in one human being as an alternative to the identification of those two excellences. One cannot acquire the one “without at the same time” acquiring the other (1945, 367). In his essay on Xenophon, he presents the two virtues as incompatible “in their plenitude.” These two statements contradict each other. What remains constant between the two essays is the superiority of the virtue of Socrates, the theoretical human being, to the virtue of Cyrus, the political being. Indeed, the gulf between the two has widened from the first essay to the second; theory remains supreme.

Galston presents evidence that Alfarabi shared the view espoused by Strauss in his article on Xenophon (1990, 84). The activities presupposed by practical perfection could be understood “to be incompatible with, and possibly to undermine, the activity comprising theoretical perfection.” This problem arises because of passages in Alfarabi in which theoretical perfection requires the complete transcendence of the body. On balance, Galston (1990, 53-94, esp. 56 and 91, n. 69) rejects this view in favor of what she calls the comprehensive understanding of happiness, wherein theoretical and practical activity are both part of the essential nature of happiness.

My own view is that practical activity is somehow fundamental—though by this I do not mean to imply that public service for the benefit of others is necessarily fundamental (see Galston 1990, 87). Nor do I at all mean that one must actually win an election and hold public office in order to actualize one's full potential as a human being. Rather, the effectual truth (to borrow a phrase from Machiavelli) of the notion that theoretical perfection requires the transcendence of the body is that one must write (Walzer 1985, 261). Writing is a practical activity in that it both aims at the author's own happiness and is a creative activity. I can think of no compelling reason why legislative activity (writing the laws of a people) or, at any rate, preparing the ground for such legislative activity should not be included in the kind of writing that is essential to the philosopher's practical activity. Nor do I see this practical activity as ultimately incompatible with theoretical perfection. On the contrary, if we know only what we make, then some kind of creative activity is essential to theoretical activity.

I am aware that for many scholars, the notion that we know only what we make is a distinctively modern notion, certainly not one to be found in Plato or Alfarabi. For reasons that go well beyond the scope of this paper, I reject this view. Plato and Alfarabi (in contrast to Socrates, who wrote nothing) show by their deeds the importance of creativity to the highest human life. It is not necessary to separate knowing from making, theory from practice, in order to discover the difference between ancients and moderns. The distinction between ancients and moderns would be sufficiently established if it could be shown that only for the moderns does the knowability of what we make lead to the possibility of wisdom. Nowhere do Plato or Alfarabi reach the conclusion that through knowing (so far as we are able) the things that we have made, we may thereby hope to know everything, because we have in principle made everything. On the contrary, the admission that we know only what we have made is a recognition of human finitude. There is no necessity to follow Strauss in separating theory from practice, knowing from making, in order to avoid the hubris of trying to turn philosophy into wisdom (see Colmo 1990, 158).

THE JUST CITY

According to Strauss, Alfarabi clearly distinguishes between theory and practice, with theory ranking higher. The goal of the best way of life is essentially theoretical, not practical. Yet Strauss also insists that philosophy cannot be separated from self-knowledge or from moderation. Self-knowledge includes the realization of the need for the truth about the whole, as well as “of the difficulties obstructing its discovery and its communication” (1945, 366). Self-knowledge is essentially practical or political knowledge. Strauss seems to separate the theoretical and the practical while at the same time tying them together.

The contradiction in Strauss's position (at least within the Alfarabi essay) is merely superficial. With the problem of communication, which Strauss raises in this context, we are clearly in the realm of politics—not in the esoteric sense of the practical knowledge that leads to philosophy but in the ordinary sense of one's political relations with one's fellow human beings. The philosopher's self-knowledge is essentially practical or political knowledge in a sense that includes knowing how to get along with one's fellow citizens. The philosopher knows that his knowledge as a philosopher is strictly theoretical; for it is knowledge about the things that are independent of human choice or action, not about the objects of choice and action that concern the vast majority of the philosopher's fellow citizens. The philosopher is not an expert of the sort that knows how to get things done. Only the fellow citizen who is a potential philosopher might benefit from the philosopher's practical knowledge that philosophy is the best way of life. But this very knowledge might be harmful to most citizens, since it “is tantamount to closing the very prospect of happiness to the large majority of men” (1945, 378). Most human beings cannot be philosophers and are, hence, barred from the best way of life. But the philosopher must not communicate this knowledge, lest he drive his fellow citizens to anger or despair. For this reason, the philosopher's self-knowledge, in so far as it governs his relations with other citizens, is primarily a knowledge of the need for moderation.

Strauss does not go so far as to advocate, in the name of moderation, a philosophic withdrawal from political life, although he does mention this alternative (1945, 362). What he suggests is the abandonment of what he calls Socrates' “revolutionary” quest for the just city. It is not necessary for the philosopher openly to challenge the city, as Socrates did, thereby incurring, as Strauss puts it, “persecution and violent death” (p. 383), a phrase that seems to owe more to Hobbes than to Alfarabi. Alfarabi's Plato offers an alternative to the revolutionary way of Socrates:

Plato substituted for [the revolutionary quest] a much more “conservative” way of action, viz., the gradual replacement of the accepted opinions by the truth or an approximation to the truth. The replacement, however gradual, of the accepted opinions is of course a destruction of the accepted opinions. But being emphatically gradual, it is best described as an undermining of the accepted opinions.

(ibid.)

In keeping with this “conservative” line of action, the philosopher-king who rules openly is replaced by the “secret kingship of the philosopher who lives privately as a member of an imperfect community” (p. 384). Although the philosopher lives privately, this does not necessarily mean that he altogether withdraws from politics. He will not openly confront the city, but he still may exercise a kind of “secret kingship”—through his writings, for example.

Strauss and Alfarabi are in full agreement that any political influence exercised by this private or secret rule will be “emphatically gradual,” but it is still necessary to ask what the goal is of this gradual philosophic political action. Strauss answers,

The goal of the gradual destruction of the accepted opinions is the truth, as far as the elite, the potential philosophers, is concerned, but only an approximation to the truth (or an imaginative representation of the truth) as far as the general run of men is concerned.

(1945, 384)

The aim of the philosopher's gradual political action with respect to the potential philosophers is to undermine—and ultimately to destroy—their belief in the accepted opinions of their community. But why does Strauss call this way of acting “conservative”? The fact that it is gradual and secretive merely makes it conspiratorial, not conservative. It is conservative, however, with respect to the accepted opinions of the vast majority of citizens. These opinions can be at best only approximations to the truth. This might suggest that the activity of liberating the philosophers is merely a more extreme version of the activity of approximating the truth for the majority of people. The two activities might seem to go hand in hand; but in fact, they are opposed to one another. No matter how close the accepted opinions might be brought to the truth, these opinions are false. For example, the political truth is that one should act morally because moral action is good for its own sake—or so says Strauss, though Galston reports that “the doctrine that actions must be chosen for their own sake to qualify as moral does not appear in Alfarabi's writings” even where one would expect it for moral and political reasons (1990, 172).⁹ For the philosopher, however, morality is, in Strauss's words, “merely a means toward” the true happiness of the philosophic life (1945, 387). The potential philosopher must somehow be taught the philosophic truth about morality in such a way that teaching does not corrupt the nonphilosophic many. A parallel situation exists with respect to religion: “Conformity with the opinions of the religious community in which one is brought up is a necessary qualification for the future philosopher” (p. 383)—even though an equally necessary qualification is that these opinions not retain their grip on the mind. Certainly, no philosopher would expose the religious errors of his community in an irresponsible attempt to create a secular society in which error does not exist. Every philosopher recognizes the need for moral and religious belief in a healthy political community. He also recognizes that these beliefs can never be converted into rational knowledge. The philosopher, as secret king, will do his best publicly to promote the accepted opinions with respect to morality and religion while esoterically working through his books to destroy the hold of those opinions over the minds of potential philosophers. This is the goal of the gradual, secret political activity of the philosopher as understood by Strauss.

The political activity of the philosophers aims at the benefit of potential philosophers, but what of the philosopher's duty to the community as a whole? Certainly, the philosopher tries to avoid hurting the nonphilosophers through any action that would undermine the moral and political opinions of the community; but does the philosopher have a desire or an obligation to benefit the community as a whole in a positive way? Reforming the tax structure or improving the school system certainly are not the duty of the philosopher as philosopher; nor are they goals that are amenable to the secret, gradual activity of the philosopher. Strauss is altogether silent about this kind of political reform. Gradual improvement of the tax structure or of the school system are certainly possible; but they are not the business of the philosopher, and it is not likely that they could be brought about through esoteric writing (unless we are to interpret the Platonic dialogues as a massive contribution to school reform). Such reforms require just the kind of open, public participation in political affairs that Strauss's philosopher eschews. Gradual reform of the moral and religious beliefs of his community might be more in the philosopher's line of work, but this could only be done for the ultimate benefit of the potential philosopher. Altering the religious beliefs held by the vast majority of citizens can only mean the exchange of one darkness for another, for these beliefs can never be converted into rational knowledge.

In the light of this philosophic conservatism with respect to political action, how are we to understand Plato's claim that the just city comes into being through the rule of the philosopher (Republic 473d-e)? Alfarabi tells us that the rule of the philosopher is not possible in imperfect cities (1969, 62), and Strauss adds that imperfect cities constitute “the world as it actually is and as it always will be” (1945, 381). In other words, “there are examples of men of the highest excellence whereas there are no examples of cities of the highest excellence” (1964, 49). Hence, the philosopher must learn to live in the nonphilosophic city, a place in which he is always “in grave danger” (Alfarabi 1969, 67; Strauss 1945, 382). Part of the philosopher's self-knowledge involves learning to cope with this danger. He must learn to “adjust himself to the requirements of political life, or to the ways and opinions of the vulgar” (1945, 383). To some extent, then, the philosopher must, after all, assimilate himself to the ways of the vulgar (see p. 362). The philosopher's self-knowledge is moderation. Precisely because the theoretical way of life can never be translated directly into moral or political practice, it is necessary that theory not be separated from practical wisdom (though Strauss does not say whether philosophy and moderation can “coexist in their plenitude”). Strauss's moderate conclusion is that there can be no revolution leading to the just city.

I shall try to summarize Strauss's interpretation of Alfarabi on the subject of the political activity of the philosopher. The philosopher will not confront the nonphilosophic community in which he lives. Indeed, because he is a philosopher, he is in danger from the moral and believing community. He may consider himself lucky just to be left alone. Moreover, his greatest pleasure and happiness is not political activity of any kind but, rather, theoretical contemplation. For these reasons, the complete withdrawal from political life must be tempting. If he does not succumb to this temptation, it can only be because of his interest in and care for those in the community who are potential philosophers (but see Galston 1990, 87). His attempt to communicate with these future philosophers poses a grave threat to the moral and religious beliefs of the community. Hence, the philosopher must undertake to communicate the most daring or radical thoughts in a way that minimizes their political impact.¹⁰ In this respect, the political action of the philosopher can correctly be described as conservative.

It is probably not possible in this case to repeat my approach of contrasting these sentiments with anything Strauss said later. He did not change his views. It is, however, instructive to compare Strauss's statement with the last page of Alfarabi's Plato, upon which he bases it. Alfarabi says that Plato

mentioned the Athenians (his own people) and their ways of life. He described how to abolish their laws and how to turn them away from them. He described his view regarding the way in which they could be moved gradually, and he described the opinions and the laws toward which they should be moved after the abolition of their ways of life and laws.

(1969, 67)

Nothing could be more striking than the contrast between Strauss's “conservative” way of action (which is not to be confused with a conservative way of thinking) and the revolutionary tone of Alfarabi's closing paragraph.¹¹ Strauss and Alfarabi agree that change must be gradual, but Alfarabi mentions as the ultimate goal much more sweeping changes than anything even hinted at by Strauss. Indeed, Strauss does what he can to soften Alfarabi's language. For example, while Alfarabi refers, in the full passage, three times to the destruction or abolition of the generally accepted ways of life and corrupt laws, Strauss says that this destruction is “best described as an undermining” (1945, 383). The best description, it would seem, was not Alfarabi's. Strauss's wording made it less shocking. Instead, Alfarabi goes out of his way, as it were, to alarm the reader with the thought that at least one philosopher, Plato, sought to abolish the way of life of his own people. Moreover, Plato sought to act as a legislator, replacing the old laws with new laws.

Strauss's esoteric reading of the passage just quoted tends to make it more conservative, more moderate, than it appears to be on the surface. By Strauss's own account of esoteric writing, however, one would expect the surface of a statement to be more moderate than the hidden truth. At least one detail of the passage suggests that Alfarabi's true intention is more radical than what he says on the surface. We notice that Alfarabi explains that the Athenians are Plato's own people. Is it possible to conceive of a student of the Plato who did not know this? And if this knowledge is helpful, why withhold it until the end of the book? Strauss is surely right in thinking that the Plato is an esoteric work; it teaches by implication and insinuation. Under the circumstances, the notion that a philosopher might attempt to destroy or abolish the way of life and the laws of his own city or nation can only be taken as a subtle (but not too subtle) challenge by Alfarabi to his own people and to the Islamic law, the shari'a (1945, 372, n. 40). Naturally, in relation to Plato, Alfarabi speaks of changing the Athenian nomoi (laws); but he also uses the comprehensive expression “ways of life,” which in the case of his own people would surely extend to the shari'a.¹² I do not think that Strauss's overall interpretation of the Plato allows him to notice the possibility that Alfarabi may here be making an amazingly bold declaration of his own political purpose (see Mahdi 1973, 25, n. 10). Strauss certainly does not mention this point.

As we have seen, Strauss does notice and make use of a statement in the Attainment of Happiness in which Alfarabi counsels that “conformity with the opinions of the religious community … is a necessary qualification for the future philosopher” (Strauss 1945, 383-84 and 373, n. 41). The philosopher accepts the world as he finds it; and this, certainly, is in some sense true. Strauss supports his “conservative” interpretation of Alfarabi by citing a reference in the Attainment of Happiness to outward conformity in matters of religion. Strauss interprets the last page of the Plato in the light of a statement made in the Attainment of Happiness and uses that statement to make the conclusion of the Plato seem more moderate or conventional than it might otherwise seem. This is surprising, to say the least, given the “canon of interpretation” that Strauss wishes the reader “scrupulously to follow”: “Apart from purely philologic and other preliminary considerations, one is not entitled to interpret the Plato, or any part or passage of it, by having recourse to Farabi's other writings. One is not entitled to interpret the Plato in the light of doctrines, expounded by Farabi elsewhere, which are not mentioned in the Plato” (p. 375). Strauss explicitly mentions that one must favor the Plato in any place where its teaching conflicts with the Attainment of Happiness. Moreover, it is clear that Strauss particularly has in mind the priority of the Plato on religious matters. He is aware of the “deep silence” of the Plato with respect to the other life, the immortality of the soul, the soul itself, and even the Platonic ideas and the nous (intellect) by which the ideas are known (pp. 364, 371-72).¹³ He is aware—and he has made us aware—that by this silence Alfarabi rejects these ideas or beliefs. But the Plato observes a deep silence (or, at any rate, a direct or explicit silence) on the issue of religious conformity. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that by introducing the idea of the necessity of religious conformity into his interpretation of the Plato, Strauss does not pursue the implications of his own canon of interpretation.¹⁴

What are those implications? How will we understand the last page of the Plato if we do not read it in the light of pious statements that Alfarabi makes elsewhere? Certainly, the Plato does not deny that the philosopher must be circumspect; he is, after all, in grave danger. Indeed, Alfarabi makes it clear that the art of Thrasymachus (i.e., the art of the sophist) may be most useful to the philosopher in speaking to the multitude (1969, 66; Strauss 1945, 383). Alfarabi translates the title of the Platonic dialogue Sophist as “falsifier.” One of the most necessary aspects of such falsification in Alfarabi's circumstances must surely have been outward conformity in matters of religion.¹⁵

Even so, it is clear that the Plato is much more reticent than the Attainment of Happiness in stating the need for conformity in religious matters. I do not believe that this difference of emphasis can be understood on the basis of Strauss's interpretation of the Plato. Strauss is primarily concerned, in “Farabi's Plato,” with the fact that most people “are eternally barred, by the nature of things,” from philosophy (1945, 381). Hence, if philosophy is to be possible at all, then it must be possible in imperfect, nonphilosophic cities. According to Strauss, Alfarabi's “last word” on this subject is that philosophy and the perfection of philosophy do not require the establishment of the perfect political community (ibid.). Consequently, Strauss turns the focus of his attention away from the question of how to improve political life and toward the question of how the philosopher can survive and continue to philosophize in imperfect cities taken as they are. In trying to deal with this problem, Strauss pursues his inclination or tendency to separate the philosophic, or theoretical, from the practical, or political. Indeed, separation becomes opposition as philosophic radicalism is juxtaposed with political conservatism. Turning to Alfarabi, we see that he also recognizes the severe limits of political change (see, e.g., p. 384, n. 69). He recognizes that the philosopher will never be glorified or exalted by the citizens (i.e., will never rule openly or officially) and that all change must be gradual (1969, 67). Strauss's interpretation notwithstanding, however, the Plato emphasizes the political change that is possible.¹⁶ Outward conformity is not always necessary, at least not to the same degree or to the same kinds of laws. If anything, the Plato makes clear that Alfarabi may have overestimated, in a particular case, his ability to abolish the ways of life and the laws of “his own people.”

Strauss suggests that when Alfarabi talks about the legislator who will bring into being the just city of the philosopher, Alfarabi means, by legislator a prophet, “the founder of a revealed religion” (Strauss 1945, 380; see Alfarabi 1969, 66). On this interpretation, the just city would not be possible except on the basis of revelation. Strauss leaves no doubt that since the just city is possible only on this basis, it is not possible as an actual city, or the just city is possible only “in speech” (1945, 379).

My own suggestion is that Alfarabi himself is an example of the kind of legislator he has in mind as the founder of what he always calls “the other city”—that is, other than the cities existing in his time but certainly not otherworldly.¹⁷ If this makes Alfarabi a prophet—a subject nowhere explicitly mentioned in the Plato (but see Alfarabi 1969, 61)—then so be it. Alfarabi's “prophecy,” or legislation, is clearly not based on divine revelation. The only plausible source of Alfarabi's legislative authority is his philosophic insight. Alfarabi's efforts to be the founder of “the other city” presuppose less opposition and more cooperation between the theoretical life and the practical, political life than Strauss seems to grant.

Notes

1. Published works dealing with Alfarabi span the period from Strauss 1935 to Strauss 1957.

2. I have used the English translation of all three works by Mahdi (1969). Unless otherwise indicated, all parenthetical citations in the text are to pages of Mahdi's translation of Alfarabi with the exception of references between 357 and 393, which refer to pages in Strauss 1945.

3. See, e.g., Strauss 1965, 29-30. I have no explanation for Strauss's statement, in the last paragraph of “Farabi's Plato,” that philosophy is animated by a “conviction” about the life worth living—a word that seems to imply belief and will, rather than knowledge.

4. Meier correctly represents Strauss's theoretical emphasis when he quotes Strauss's reference to “the necessarily anonymous truth” (Meier 1988b, 765; cf. Strauss 1945, 377). On Farabi's view of the “anonymous truth,” contrast the relatively lengthy account of Protagoras' view (i.e., that the knowledge natural to man is not anonymous but relative to each individual) with the brief and obscure account of Plato's rejection of Protagoras' view (Alfarabi 1969, 54). This is one of only two places in the Plato (not counting the title) where Plato is mentioned by name. In the place where the anonymity of thinking is the issue, Alfarabi does not allow the philosopher to remain anonymous.

   I am reminded that the Socratic ideas make the human good anonymous. It is indeed strange that Socrates and Descartes should share in their thinking the common feature that what is truly intelligible (the ideas in one case, body as extension in the other) is not alive. It is not surprising that a rift between the intelligible and the good has become a problem (the problem?) in Western thought. The mature Strauss points out a similar or related “defect” in the mature Socrates (1966, 59). In my view, one would expect Strauss to share this “defect” and hence not to notice it in Socrates. Obviously, my net does not catch all the fish in Strauss's waters.

5. These two alternatives are, in a way, present within “Farabi's Plato.” Early in that essay, realization of the need to adjust to the requirements of political life belongs to “self-knowledge” (Strauss 1945, 366), while, later, that realization seems to derive from “insight into the nature of beings” (p. 383). The latter view seems very close to the position Strauss takes in “Philosophy as Rigorous Science and Political Philosophy.”

6. While she does not offer an interpretation of the passage just quoted, Galston cites with approval the passage in which Strauss says that philosophy and kingship are not the same art. But this observation is appended to a paragraph stating that “Alfarabi appears to maintain the more extreme thesis that [practical rational excellence and moral virtue] are constitutive parts of philosophy itself” (1990, 64).

7. Alfarabi's Enumeration of the Sciences confirms the thought that the highest royal craft is supplied by one faculty, not two. See Mahdi 1975, 131-37.

8. Alfarabi says that the practical arts are not adequate for obtaining the desired knowledge or the desired way of life (1969, 59). But the desired way of life is by definition the product of a practical art (p. 60). The first statement makes sense only if it is limited to the generally accepted practical arts or to the practical arts practiced by the multitude (p. 59).

9. See n. 13.

10. Strauss's own publications from the last decade of his life might be thought to exemplify this kind of writing.

11. The contrast between the end of the Plato and Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed 2.17 is also striking. Maimonides presents himself as building “a great wall” around the Law to protect it, a project that certainly sounds conservative. Strauss tells us that he studies Alfarabi in order to have the necessary background for understanding Maimonides (1945, 357, 393). Is it not possible, however, that Strauss's understanding of Alfarabi is colored by reading Alfarabi under the influence of a knowledge of Maimonides' intention to protect and preserve the Jewish law? Does Maimonides in fact become the background for Strauss's interpretation of Alfarabi? However that may be, the contrast I am suggesting between Alfarabi and Maimonides need not be explained in terms of basic philosophic differences. It is one thing to attack the shari'a at a time of Muslim power; it would have been quite another thing to attack the halakha during the Diaspora. On Alfarabi and Maimonides, see Berman 1974, esp. 163.

12. On the distinction between nomoi and shari'a, see Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed 2.40. Galston comments that there is no reason “to assume that Alfarabi must have viewed the conventions of his time as disparagingly as Socrates regarded the way of life of the Athenians,” but she offers no Alfarabian text as support for this claim or for her own view that “many features of Islam were a vast improvement over Greek morality and opinions” (1990, 173).

13. As Strauss points out, Alfarabi is silent about immortality while mentioning the Phaedo, in which immortality is, of course, a major theme. Strauss concludes, rightly I think, that this silence amounts to a rejection of the doctrine of immortality. According to Alfarabi's summary, the Phaedo seems to be a book about whether a man should be willing to die for the sake of the practice of the true moral virtues, this alone being sufficient reason to sacrifice one's life if need be (1969, 63). I take it that there is a connection between Alfarabi's rejection of immortality and his refusal to give a clear affirmative answer to the moral question he raises here. Alfarabi and Kant seem to agree that if morality is to be treated as an end in itself and if human beings are to be expected to make sacrifices commensurate with such an end, then it is necessary to assume that the soul is immortal. Alfarabi does not agree, however, in making this last assumption.

14. One could avoid this conclusion if one assumed that Strauss is here writing esoterically. Given that Strauss is an esoteric writer, does that fact dispose of the present case? In this instance, we could avoid what seem to be contradictions in Strauss's argument by ignoring his “conservative” remarks about political action, just as we are inclined to ignore Alfarabi's admonitions to religious conformity or, at any rate, to minimize their significance. But the weight of the evidence is against this view of Strauss's intention in the case in point. For one thing, it is possible to discover in Alfarabi a political alternative to the acceptance of the imperfect communities existing in his time. Strauss's “conservative” remarks, however, seem to be his “last word” on the subject. I have placed the word conservative in quotation marks as a reminder that it applies only to Strauss's attitude toward political action; there is nothing conservative about Strauss's thinking.

15. This certainly does not mean that one compartmentalizes one's thinking so that one is a believer on holy days and a philosopher on other days (Strauss 1945, 374). See Alfarabi's criticism of the sophist Hippias, whom Alfarabi speaks of as if he were in fact two men (1969, 59). This passage helps us to understand how Alfarabi would distinguish between the philosopher and the sophist. The sophist is somehow a man in contradiction with himself. But then, we may ask, does anyone ever fully escape contradiction?

16. Muhsin Mahdi sees the realization of the political good as being Alfarabi's “central concern.” Concerning the view that philosophers “should tend only their private gardens,” Mahdi writes: “Perhaps there are times and places which necessitate these views. But one need not make a virtue out of necessity” (1981, 19-21).

17. According to Alfarabi, the title of the book dealing with the legislator (the Epinomis) means “investigator.” In the Plato, the one who is repeatedly said to investigate is Plato himself. Alfarabi is, of course, also such an investigating legislator.

Works Cited

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Berman, Lawrence V. 1974. “Maimonides, the disciple of Alfarabi.” Israel Oriental Studies 4:154-78.

Colmo, Christopher A. 1990. “Reason and Revelation in the Thought of Leo Strauss.” Interpretation 18(1):145-60.

Galston, Miriam. 1990. Politics and Excellence: The Political Philosophy of Alfarabi. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Mahdi, Muhsin. 1973. “Alfarabi on Philosophy and Religion.” Philosophic Forum 4:5-25.

Mahdi, Muhsin. 1975. “Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Alfarabi's Enumeration of the Sciences.” In The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning, ed. John Emery Murdoch and Edith Dudley Sylla. Boston: Reidel.

Mahdi, Muhsin. 1981. “Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Philosophy.” In Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism, ed. Parviz Morewedge. Delmar, NY: Caravan Books.

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Strauss, Leo. 1953. Natural Right and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Strauss, Leo. 1957. “How Farabi Read Plato's Laws.” Melanges Louis Massignon. Damascus: Institut Francais de Damas.

Strauss, Leo. 1959. What Is Political Philosophy? Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

Strauss, Leo. 1964. The City and Man. Chicago: Rand McNally.

Strauss, Leo. 1965. Spinoza's Critique of Religion. New York: Schocken Books.

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Walzer, Richard. 1985. Al-Farabi on the Perfect State. Oxford: Clarendon.