SOURCE: Colmo, Christopher. “Alfarabi on the Prudence of Founders.” The Review of Politics 60, no. 4 (fall 1998): 719-41.

[In the following essay, Colmo examines al-Fārābī's advice to rulers in the Book of Religion, comparing and contrasting it with the advice given by Nicolo Machiavelli in The Prince.]

INTRODUCTION

The founder of a religious community can use religion to bind the community together, uniting it towards a single goal.¹ To affirm this truth while placing prudent limitations on the universal claims of religion is Alfarabi's intention in the Book of Religion.² Machiavelli's teaching on prudence and political founders, while not primarily concerned with the founding of religious communities, is in important ways anticipated by Alfarabi. It is, then, convenient to use Machiavelli as a helpful bridge to the unfamiliar territory of the Book of Religion.

Readers of the Prince will be aware that Machiavelli saw the consistent practice of the virtues inculcated by Christianity as leading in some circumstances to the ruin of their practitioners. Machiavelli sees no need to distinguish between our ruin and our ruin in this world, but he does see a need to ground his reservations about the universal applicability of Christian virtue on assumptions about the universality of any maxim of conduct. When, toward the end of the Prince, Machiavelli shares with the reader “a general rule that never fails,” he states in the same sentence an exception to that rule.³ Machiavelli confirms the politician's dictum that “all politics is local politics” while adding the stipulation that it is also temporal. To avoid the ruin that comes from doing good, the universals of religion must be subordinate to the rule of one who understands the particulars of time and place. The power not only to anticipate changing circumstances but to judge of them correctly and determine policy accordingly is prudence. Neither universal rules nor the imitation of great deeds can overcome the flux of fortune, for in the imitation of greatness one must know what to imitate under what circumstances. Hence, prudence is possible only for one of the “three kinds of brains,” namely, the one that understands by itself.⁴ The one who understands by himself is either the founder of something new or the equal of a founder. In the nature of things, the universals of religion must be subordinate to the prudence of founders.

In the following exposition of the Book of Religion, we will try to sustain the thesis that the teaching concerning prudence and founders known in the Christian world primarily through Machiavelli was known among the Muslims through Alfarabi. While the thesis is true, it is only a partial truth. The easiest or simplest way to see the contrast between Alfarabi and Machiavelli begins from the observation that Alfarabi retains the distinction, stemming from Plato and Aristotle, between the prudent man and the merely shrewd or cunning man.⁵ While Alfarabi sees that a faculty very much like prudence can be used for low or wicked ends, he distinguishes it from prudence because of the end. Machiavelli does not make this crucial distinction.

In explaining the distinction between prudence and cunning, Alfarabi makes the puzzling statement that the cunning ruler has no need of philosophy in order to achieve the ends that he seeks. The statement is puzzling because it seems to deny the Socratic wisdom that all men desire the good and for this the cunning man would be no less in need of philosophy than any other man. Machiavelli's discussion of prudence and founders is silent about philosophy; his prudent man seems to be no more in need of philosophy than is Alfarabi's cunning man. Alfarabi has grasped the possibility of a Machiavellian prince whose virtue is sufficient without philosophy, and yet he identifies the founder or supreme ruler with one who has both theoretical knowledge and prudence. Alfarabi does not exclude philosophy from the discussion of politics and religion in the way that Machiavelli does. This superficial fact requires explanation. Why does Alfarabi draw back from Machiavelli's ultimate conclusion, namely, that political wisdom is autonomous and has no need of philosophy?

One possible answer to this question is that cunning is limited to knowledge acquired from experience. Prudence, on the other hand, is at least susceptible of being united with the kind of universal insights gained only through theoretical philosophy. It is for the sake of access to the universals of philosophy that politics must be made open to philosophy. The existence and nature of the universals to which philosophy has access must lie at the core of an interpretation of Alfarabi. Miriam Galston's penetrating study of Alfarabi, as I understand it, takes as a premise Alfarabi's assumption that such universals are knowable by philosophy.⁶ Galston takes this position at the same time that she argues at length for the possibility, in Alfarabi's view, of a kind of nonphilosophic statesman or ruler (in addition to the cunning ruler). Since it is the central intention of this article to support by argument a highly skeptical stance towards Alfarabi's belief in universals, we must address Galston's contrary view in some detail (especially in section five below).

Alfarabi's skepticism about universals puts him in inevitable conflict with the universal claims of Islam. One central intention of the Book of Religion is to state this disagreement in a tactful but effective way. While Alfarabi's purpose is in tension with the claims of Islam, it is by no means without roots in the classical Greek tradition as it was known to him. One of the key arguments in Plato's Statesman (292a-302b) attacks universal rules as inferior to the judgment of a wise man on the spot, since only the latter can take account of circumstances. Plato's Eleatic Stranger buttresses his point by displaying a series of divisions into universal categories that eventually appear to be as arbitrary as they are inconsistent. The Book of Religion makes the same point in the same way (section five below).

As Alfarabi shows in the Book of Religion by his analogies between human rule and the divine rule of the universe, he does not see the human things as a kingdom within a kingdom. If prudence is necessary because human circumstances change, then Alfarabi is willing to consider the possibility of a similar flux in all things. Whether or not the prudent man needs philosophy in order to achieve his political goals, the philosopher needs to study and understand prudence in order to understand the nature of things (section eight below).

HEREDITARY PRINCES, TRADITIONAL KINGS, AND TIME

Alfarabi's Book of Religion investigates the problems faced by the founder or first ruler of a religion or a religious community. The problems are similar to those faced by what Machiavelli calls a new prince in a new principality. Anticipating what is essential in Machiavelli's distinction between a new prince and an hereditary prince, Alfarabi distinguishes between the first ruler and the ruler or king of the tradition (p. 56). The traditional king who needs to follow in the footsteps of the first ruler should not try to change anything or to determine actions and opinions “on his own” (p. 50). Alfarabi makes known that the king of the tradition is forced to depend upon the way established by the first ruler because the former lacks the prudence that would allow him to act on his own. In the language of Machiavelli, lacking his own arms and virtue, the king of the tradition is forced to depend on the arms and virtue of others. Needless to say, Alfarabi does not use the word virtue in the way that Machiavelli does.⁷

While the one who lacks the ability necessary to the first ruler is advised by Alfarabi to follow in the footsteps of the first ruler, he makes known that this solution is not entirely satisfactory. The first ruler cannot adequately determine all things. He may determine only the most fundamental things or the most useful things (p. 49). His successor will then need to determine what he has left out. But this is not all. The successor may even change much of what the first ruler has established because the first ruler established what was best for a particular time. In a different time it will be necessary to determine different opinions and actions. Alfarabi does not try to exclude the possibility that the successor will change the fundamentals. Unlike Thomas Aquinas, Alfarabi suggests that possibility: the successor will not only legislate what was neglected by the first ruler who prescribed only the fundamentals, but he will also change some of those fundamentals.⁸ This is not because the first ruler erred, but because both the first ruler and his successor will determine what is best for their own time.⁹

If the successor lacks the abilities of the first ruler then he should follow in the footsteps of the first ruler without trying to change anything. The art of following the precedents of the first ruler Alfarabi calls jurisprudence (p. 50). Starting from what was established by the first ruler, the jurist must be able to figure out or infer how to meet a novel situation in a way that departs as little as possible from what the first ruler did in his time.¹⁰ Obviously, this solution leaves something to be desired, since the jurist is no longer living in the time of the founder. His attempt to follow in the footsteps of the first ruler will inevitably produce the right song for the wrong time of year. The more closely the jurist or the king of the tradition follows in the footsteps of the first ruler, the more out of step he will be with the needs of the times. This is certainly a candidate for being one of the unnamed dangers that Alfarabi says transform virtuous regimes into nonvirtuous regimes (pp. 59-60).

INDIVIDUAL GOOD AND COMMON GOOD

The danger can be avoided only if the successor has the ability to determine on his own what is right for the time and place in which he rules. Alfarabi compares the problem to that of a physician who has learned the universals or general things of his art from medical books. Medical books tell the physician that opposites must be combatted by opposites and that fever is to be combatted by chill; they even explain that jaundice is combatted by barley water or by tamarind water. Such universal rules cannot determine, however, what is best for the fever of this individual, Zayd.¹¹ The quantity, quality, and timing of Zayd's treatment must be determined through direct observation of the patient by one with long experience in the practice of the medical art. “And the first kingly craft is like that” (pp. 57-58).

The first kingly craft is like the medical art not because they both deal with body but because the things that they deal with are all particular.

For the actions of the kingly craft are only concerned with particular cities: I mean this city and that city, this nation and that nation, or this human being and that human being.

(p. 58)

Only “long experience and observation” enable either physician or king to determine actions with respect to “quantity, quality, and time” (pp. 57-58). It is the temporality of particular things that requires the king to learn his craft from long observation and experience. The faculty by which to “infer the conditions with which to determine actions with respect to what [one] observes” in a city, a nation, or a person is what the ancients call prudence (pp. 58-59). Alfarabi speaks of “universals made determinate by conditions restricting them” (p. 47). For example, “the army” is an unqualified universal, but the first ruler must know whether the particular circumstances require “the small army that moves quickly” or “the large army that moves slowly.”¹² The faculty for determining these particulars is what the ancients call prudence.

This faculty is also—for the most part—what Alfarabi calls prudence. His definition is worth quoting in full.

Prudence is the faculty acquired from experience developing through long pursuit of the actions of the art with respect to single cities and nations and with respect to each single community: it is the ability excellently to infer the conditions by which the actions, ways of life, and positive dispositions are determined with respect to each community, each city, or each nation, either with respect to a short period of time, with respect to a long but limited period of time, or—if possible—with respect to a particular time (aw bi-hasab al-zaman in amkan),¹³ and to determine them as well with respect to each state that may emerge and each occurrence that may happen in a city, nation, or community.

(p. 60)

The definition has much in common with the definition that Alfarabi ascribes to the ancients. In both cases prudence is the ability “to infer the conditions by which actions are determined.” The ability to infer comes from “long experience and observation” or from “long pursuit of the actions of the art.” Of course, without some power to infer correctly, one could not profit from one's experience. Prudence as the power to infer correctly must be to some extent a natural faculty that can be developed through “long pursuit.” The jurist also has the power “to infer” (p. 50), but the starting point of his inference is not his own experience but, instead, the model provided by the legislation of the first ruler in whose footsteps he follows.¹⁴

Most striking is Alfarabi's failure to mention, “on his own,” so to speak, the single individual as a concern of prudence, though he explicitly refers to the single individual as an object of what the ancients call prudence.¹⁵ Alfarabi's definition describes the prudence that is attached to the first virtuous kingly craft along with “knowledge of the universals of this art” (p. 60). Perhaps it is the addition of the “universals of the art” that makes it impossible to deal with single individuals. In that case, the analogy between the first ruler and the physician breaks down, for no good physician would subordinate the good of the single patient to the general rules of his art, as Alfarabi makes known in his surprisingly detailed account of the treatment of Zayd. The first ruler, however, must of necessity be a lawgiver, and laws are of necessity universal rules. Laws share the defect of all universal rules: they cannot take account of the individual case. More exactly, laws can take account of individual cities and nations, but not of individual human beings.¹⁶ The scope of prudence in the definition that Alfarabi gives in his own name is somewhat narrower than the scope of prudence in the account that Alfarabi ascribes to the ancients: only the latter covers individual human beings as well as groups of human beings. It is possible to treat the two accounts as representing two different views of prudence. At least to this reader, however, it seems more likely that “the ancients” are merely one of the many voices in which Alfarabi himself speaks. Alfarabi's own view comprehends both the view he ascribes to unnamed ancients and the view he states in his own name. Taken together, the two definitions of prudence articulate the problem of reconciling prudent care for the community with prudent concern for the good of the individual.

POLITICAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

Three recent commentators on the Book of Religion—Butterworth, Galston, and Mahdi—describe Alfarabi as there giving two accounts of political science, just as he does in the parallel section of chapter five of the Enumeration of the Sciences. They also agree that Alfarabi does not explicitly note the presence of two different accounts or explain the purpose of the repetition or the new beginning. There is even some disagreement among commentators as to where the second account begins. Alfarabi introduces the first account by speaking of political science simply or without qualification (p. 52). Following this statement, the first account of political science includes within it the discussion of the medical art and the necessity for the physician to go beyond the universals learned from books. According to Galston, the second account of political science begins immediately after the section describing the prudence of the ancients. If one makes the cut between the two accounts in this way, Alfarabi begins the second account of political science by introducing the “political science that is part of philosophy.”¹⁷ Thus, Galston distinguishes between political science and the political science that is a part of philosophy. Alfarabi treats political science as knowledge necessary to the first ruler, which Galston translates as supreme ruler.¹⁸ Hence she can distinguish two kinds of political science by distinguishing two kinds of supreme ruler: “it appears that the supreme ruler described in the first account [of political science in the Enumeration of the Sciences and in the Book of Religion] is the nonphilosophic statesman discussed in the opening aphorisms of Fusul Muntaza ah, while the supreme ruler depicted in the repetition is a king equipped with a combination of philosophy and practical wisdom—the Platonic philosopher-king who dominates most of Alfarabi's political writings.”¹⁹

The middle section of the Book of Religion (pp. 52-58), the part describing the first form of political science, makes no mention of philosophy. This strongly supports Galston's contention that the ruler whose knowledge is limited to this kind of political science is a nonphilosophic statesman. On the other hand, this same section contains the only two references to the ancients in the Book of Religion. Moreover, the kind of prudence described in this middle section extends to individuals as well as cities and nations. Galston in a way points to this same fact when she says that “the supreme ruler described in the original statement must know ‘all’ of the actions that establish or preserve the desired attributes of cities and nations (Millah 53:1-2, 56:14-16).”²⁰ The prudence described in the first account of political science is more comprehensive: it takes account of “all” of the actions of the supreme ruler, including those concerned with the good of the individual.²¹ It is surely paradoxical to identify the more comprehensive prudence of this middle section with the nonphilosophic statesman. Conversely, the second kind of political science that covers cities and nations but stops short of the individual good is compatible with the limitations of law but, for just this reason, cannot be identified with the prudence of the Platonic philosopher-king. Seen in this light, Alfarabi's silence about philosophy in the middle section of the Book of Religion forces one to raise the question whether the prudence that extends to the good of the individual does not obviate the need to mention philosophy in that section or whether in that section prudence in the most comprehensive sense does not serve as an altogether adequate name for philosophy.

Galston uses the phrase “practical wisdom” to translate what we have been calling prudence. She distinguishes prudence from practical philosophy, which she equates with political philosophy or with the political science that is a part of philosophy. Practical philosophy differs from theoretical philosophy not necessarily in subject matter but rather in that only practical philosophy makes its inquiries primarily from the perspective of a concern with human happiness and misery.²² Practical philosophy is similar to theoretical philosophy in its level of generality or universality: “the practical sciences partake of the theoretical character of inquiries into nonhuman things as long as they remain on a universal level (see Millah 47:2 …).”²³ Prudence, as deliberation towards a good end, deals with particulars in a way that practical philosophy does not. The conclusion Galston draws from the discussion of deliberation in Alfarabi's Attainment of Happiness is consistent with her view of philosophy and prudence in the Book of Religion.

The picture evoked by these passages is of a person who begins with a theoretical grasp of the essential nature of something that can be made, done, or otherwise willed, and then adds further information about its nonessential characteristics to the intelligible account of the thing. It is because practical reason achieves its grasp of the object by joining the observations specific to it to the insights specific to theoretical reason that action needs philosophy to ensure its rightness.²⁴

In the language of the Book of Religion, the royal craft of the first ruler needs the universals of theoretical philosophy and, because these are too universal for the purpose of founding or ruling a particular city or nation, he needs to add to them the particulars supplied by prudence. As I will try to show in the next section, what prudence supplies is not merely added to the theoretical understanding of universals; instead, it profoundly modifies that understanding.

UNIVERSALS AND PARTICULARS

Galston confirms that “Alfarabi leaves the source of universal rules ambiguous.”²⁵ She is puzzled by, and tries to explain, the existence of principles and universals in a political science that is not part of philosophy, but she takes it for granted that philosophy has access to intelligibles that are somewhat like the Platonic ideas, indeed, that philosophy is confined to these essential, intelligible natures. She sometimes explains the existence of universals in nonphilosophic political science as being somehow borrowed from philosophy.²⁶ Apart from the very real question of how this borrowing could take place without reducing political science to the level of jurisprudence or of merely traditional kingship, Galston never goes on to question the source of “the insights specific to theoretical reason,”²⁷ or whether it is possible to give a coherent account of these insights as universals. She does, however, treat the universals of philosophy in contrast to principles arrived at by empirical observation and generalization. “As far as the principles arising out of observation and experience go,” she writes, “the empirical nature of the process involved would seem to preclude a dominant role for philosophy. … One cannot simply deduce the variable, practical principles from philosophic insights, because practical principles describe a stratum of existence outside the purview of philosophy.”²⁸

Our understanding of prudence will gain from further reflection on the subject of universals. Early in the Book of Religion, we are told that the virtuous first ruler “determines the actions and opinions in the virtuous religion by means of revelation” (p. 44). The reader is bound to inquire whether revelation may not clear up the mystery of the source of the universals in philosophy. But Alfarabi goes on to say that revelation may give either a direct determination of particular actions or it may provide a “faculty” by which these are determined. How all this takes place “has already been explained in theoretical science.” Alfarabi traces particulars, not universals, back to revelation; indeed, the universals of virtuous religion have quite a different source.

Alfarabi's account of the relation between religion and philosophy can serve here to illustrate the puzzling use of universal categories in the Book of Religion. Observation of Alfarabi's use of universals provides a clue to his theory about them. Religion, we are told, consists of two parts, opinions and actions. “The determined opinions in the virtuous religion are either the truth or a likeness of the truth” (p. 46). The two parts of religion are similar to the two parts of philosophy, theoretical and practical. This might make the reader think that theoretical things are opinions and practical things are actions, had we not already been made to distinguish between theoretical things and the opinions about those things: the theoretical opinions in virtuous religion concern theoretical things. Apparently, not all opinions are theoretical in the sense of dealing with theoretical things. How then can the part of religion dealing with opinions parallel the theoretical part of philosophy? Opinions can be divided into theoretical and voluntary, but how can the theoretical things be subsequently divided along the same lines? Can there be a nontheoretical subset of the theoretical? The account of the difference between opinions and actions is itself not without complications. Opinions for the most part “describe” either theoretical or voluntary things, while actions for the most part “praise and blame.” Does theoretical philosophy describe, while practical philosophy metes out praise and blame? The list of things described in the opinions of the virtuous religion itself contains praise and blame without which those things (for example, “God, may he be exalted”) could not be described, while the list of actions of praise and blame includes “speeches” as a kind of action and ends with what could easily be taken to be an opinion or description “making known what justice is.” The explicit discussion of universals in the Book of Religion is prefaced by a series of diremptive classifications that upon reflection fail to hold securely the particulars subsumed beneath them.²⁹

On the basis of the similarity between religion and philosophy, Alfarabi proceeds to replace opinions and actions as the two parts of religion with theoretical things and practical things as the two parts of religion. His earlier division of opinions into theoretical and voluntary makes us wonder if the voluntary has been squeezed out of the category of opinions and into the category of actions that praise and blame, so that voluntary opinions and actions now form one category, that is, the practical. However that may be, he makes known that “The practical things in religion are those whose universals are in practical philosophy” (p. 47). The demonstrations of the theoretical things in religion are to be found in theoretical philosophy. “Therefore, the two parts of which religion consists are subordinate to philosophy.”³⁰ Revelation cannot be the source of the universals since, in fact, the universals of religion are derived from philosophy.³¹ When the virtuous ruler acquires theoretical philosophy, the implication is that religion is subordinate not only to philosophy but to the political sovereign as well.

Ruling out revelation as the source of the universals of philosophy is only a modest step toward the goal of determining what the source of the universals of practical philosophy in fact is. Perhaps we need to change our focus from asking about the source of universals to trying to understand their nature. The series of divisions and subdivisions with which Alfarabi begins the Book of Religion, while at first seeming orderly and systematic, appears upon reflection to be full of ambiguity and confusion, as noted above. Is the problem in Alfarabi's lack of skill or in the nature of things? The method of division is one introduced by Plato in the Sophist and the Statesman. The Eleatic Stranger seems to have as much trouble as Alfarabi in getting his method to produce the result he wants. When Aristotle comments on this method, he observes that it fails because “there is no order in the substance” of a thing, and he asks, “How are we to think the one element posterior and the other prior?” (Metaphysics 1038a33-34). For example, if we make the division between speech and deed prior to the classification of different kinds of speech, then we have no way to describe the speech that is itself an action. The division between speech and deed is one of many that leads to difficulty in Alfarabi's attempt to present the human things in an orderly array of sets and subsets. The issue is hardly one we can resolve within the confines of this article, but that it is an issue bearing upon the question of universals helps to explain the otherwise puzzling beginning of the Book of Religion.

An easier way to cast doubt on the knowability of universals may be by reflecting on the problem of induction. In the middle section of the Book of Religion, Alfarabi says of political science:

it investigates the voluntary actions, ways of life, moral habits, states of character, and positive dispositions until it gives an exhaustive account of all of them and covers them in detail.

(p. 54)

In the last third of the work, at the beginning of what Butterworth and Galston regard as the second account of political science, Alfarabi says that political science, in its investigation of voluntary actions, etc., confines itself “to universals and to giving their patterns” (p. 59). The “exhaustive account” of the first statement is replaced by the “universals” of the second statement. Does Alfarabi wish us to consider the possibility that universals in the strict sense could be known only through an exhaustive account of all of the particulars in detail? If we do raise the question, Alfarabi very promptly gives us an answer, indicating that the “states and accidents” of particular things are “perhaps infinite and without limitation” (p. 59). An exhaustive account of infinite particulars is, of course, impossible.³² One is bound to wonder whether the question of the source of philosophic universals in Alfarabi is a question worth pursuing. Any answer that did not somehow include a survey of particular cases would seem to amount to a kind of direct insight that would be difficult to distinguish from revelation. But recourse to revelation would involve us in a vicious circle, since we have already seen that Alfarabi makes the universals of religion depend upon the universals of philosophy.

In describing the attempt to cure Zayd of his fever, Alfarabi notes that the cure of fever by chill is “a mean between the more general and the more particular,” namely, the more general notion that opposites should be combatted by opposites and the more particular notion that jaundice should be combatted by barley water (p. 57). In commenting on this passage, Galston says that Alfarabi “illustrates what he means by the requisite universal knowledge by offering an example of the kind of general knowledge a doctor should have if he is to cure individual sick people.”³³ She does not hesitate to equate general knowledge with universal knowledge. Following the last mention of Zayd, but still on the same page, Alfarabi himself refers to “universals and general things” (p. 57). If we follow Galston in substituting universal for general, we are led to the strange notion that one universal can be a mean between two other universals, which implies that each of them is only more or less universal in relation to the more or less particular. But this means that it is impossible for the physician “to know unqualifiedly the universals that are parts of his art” just as it is impossible for him to know them “exhaustively so that nothing escapes him,” even though this is what Alfarabi demands of the “perfect physician” whose craft has become “complete” (p. 58).³⁴ We conclude—if so Sisyphean a thinker as Alfarabi will ever allow us to conclude anything—that the universal is not the same as the general and that for just this reason the general is available to human knowledge but the universal is not.³⁵

UNIVERSAL RELIGION AND NATURAL LAW

The critique of universals helps to explain why, in an important passage where he does attribute to philosophy an understanding of the universals and of the general patterns, Alfarabi says that philosophy does not try to determine the particular case (pp. 46, 59). There is for Alfarabi no apriori way to know a universal rule or to derive from such a rule a particular judgment or prescription for action. Indeed, Alfarabi writes in large part to correct the error of a religion that tries to determine particular justice for all time through a revelation to one man. Philosophy has learned the limits of the universal.

Joshua Parens has written at length on the relation of Alfarabi's teaching to doctrines of natural law.³⁶ He finds, as we do, that Alfarabi cannot be taken to be a natural law theorist: there are in Alfarabi no universally valid rules of action. Parens supplements this interpretation of Alfarabi with the theory that, while there are no universal rules of action, Alfarabi does admit, indeed, insists upon, a “permanent hierarchy of ends” or, in other words, a hierarchy of ways of life.³⁷ The ends are permanent, even if the rules of action leading to those ends cannot be fixed since rules of action must adjust to the infinite variety of circumstance.

The theory Parens offers is plausible in itself, but I cannot find it in Alfarabi. An equivalent theory is, however, presented by Leo Strauss in Natural Right and History. “There is a universally valid hierarchy of ends, but there are no universally valid rules of action. … The only universally valid standard is the hierarchy of ends.”³⁸ Parens's “permanent hierarchy of ends” is a variation on Strauss's “universally valid hierarchy of ends.” As I interpret it, Alfarabi's critique of universals is quite general. From Alfarabi's point of view, a universal hierarchy of ends survives critical scrutiny no better than do universal rules of action. Perhaps this is why Parens changes Strauss's formulation. This change hides a difficulty without resolving it. Strauss does not attribute the distinction between “a universal hierarchy of ends” and “universally valid rules of action” to Alfarabi. On the contrary, he introduces the distinction in order to answer the question “How, then, can we find a safe middle road between these formidable opponents, Averroes and Thomas?”³⁹ Strauss's theory is meant to be an alternative not only to Thomas, but also to Averroes, whom Strauss took to be a student of Alfarabi. Strauss's invention of “a universal hierarchy of ends” is meant to provide an alternative to the tradition stemming from Alfarabi. Parens does not comment on any of these difficulties nor does he cite the passages from Strauss that parallel his own.⁴⁰

PRUDENCE AND CUNNING

We need to look at the kinds of rulers enumerated in the Book of Religion in order to better understand the relation between universals, prudence, and philosophy in the knowledge that guides the ruler. At the beginning of the book, Alfarabi lists four kinds of rulers all of whom can be first rulers: virtuous rulers, ignorant rulers, errant rulers, and deceitful rulers. As Alfarabi eventually makes clear, every prudent ruler is a first ruler whether or not he is a founder in the sense of setting up a new community for the first time. Because times change, every prudent ruler must act with the same discretionary authority as the founder.⁴¹ The errant ruler is defined as one who thinks he has virtue and wisdom without having them in fact. The errant ruler lacks self-knowledge. Is prudence possible without self-knowledge? If this question must be answered in the negative, then it seems obvious that the errant ruler could not in fact be a first ruler, certainly not a virtuous first ruler. In the middle of the book, Alfarabi distinguishes two kinds of virtuous ruler: the first ruler and the king of the tradition. In making this classification, Alfarabi is using “virtuous” in two different senses, only one of which includes the idea of prudence.

Alfarabi describes two kinds of king or ruler who do not need philosophy. One is the king of the tradition; the other is the king of an ignorant city (pp. 60-61). The king who depends on tradition “does not by nature need philosophy.” He does not need philosophy because, given his nature, philosophy would be useless to him. In the language of Machiavelli, he lacks “a brain that can understand by itself.” Philosophy does not ultimately depend on the authority of tradition, and it is not useful to one who by nature needs to depend on tradition. The other kind of ruler who does not need philosophy, the king of the ignorant city, is said not to need one other thing besides philosophy, namely, the universals of this art. Does Alfarabi mean to imply that the king of the tradition does need universals? This is necessary if he is to follow in the footsteps of the first ruler, using the legislation of the first ruler as the universals from which he infers his own actions. Is the ignorant ruler who does not need universals a first ruler, a founder? We recall that one of the four kinds of first ruler enumerated at the beginning of the Book of Religion was the ignorant ruler of the ignorant city. Alfarabi does not suggest that this ruler is by nature incapable of philosophy, only that he does not need it. Such a king can reach his goal with respect to the city by means of “the experiential faculty.” Alfarabi does not call this experiential faculty prudence; rather, he calls it “cunning” or “a thoroughly evil genius” (Butterworth's translation). It seems to be similar to prudence, however, in that it infers the principles it needs from experience or from close observation of the experience of others. Prudence, too, is an experiential faculty. Does Alfarabi mean to imply that prudence is as self-sufficient as cunning is stated to be? Is prudence here elevated to the level of an autonomous principle or, alternatively, is it being debunked as something quite compatible with low ends?⁴²

Why does the cunning ruler of the ignorant city not need philosophy? We recall that the ignorant city aims at goods such as wealth, pleasure, and honor. Do these ends create a closed horizon in which the experiential faculty is autonomous and independent? If cunning is autonomous in the political sphere, then it is surprising that the first virtuous kingly craft and the first ruler of the virtuous city are explicitly said to need theoretical philosophy (pp. 60, 66). Why? We recall that the ignorant city does not practice a false religion. “Errant religion,” as Alfarabi calls it, belongs to the errant city, not to the ignorant city (p. 46). Alfarabi does not say that the ruler of the errant city does not need philosophy. Do the virtuous ruler and the errant ruler both need to deal with religion in a way that makes them dependent on philosophy? Machiavelli's implicit answer to this question is “no.” In one of his rare references to philosophy in the Discourses (I 56), philosophers are presented as having either no knowledge of supernatural things or a kind of knowledge that is little better than childish superstition. Alfarabi, by contrast, is quite insistent that the ruler of a virtuous religious community needs theoretical philosophy.

The first ruler of the virtuous city needs to imitate God's governance of the world. It is for this reason that he needs theoretical philosophy, because “he cannot understand anything pertaining to God's, may He be exalted, governance of the world so as to follow it except from that source” (p. 66). Even the most virtuous of the ignorant rulers—Alfarabi explicitly speaks of such (p. 43)—do not need philosophy as long as their cities do not have or need to have religion. The experiential faculty rules supreme in the political sphere narrowly defined. At least in the case of “the most virtuous” of the rulers of ignorant cities, there is no reason not to call this experiential faculty prudence. The ruler of the virtuous religious community needs, in addition to prudence, theoretical philosophy.

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Do all cities and nations need religion? According to Alfarabi, political science explains that no human being is self-sufficient. We all have many needs. The farmer, for example, needs the carpenter, the blacksmith, and the cowherd to provide the things needful for the practice of agriculture (p. 53). Division of labor, the need for mutual support, and self-interest hold the political association together.⁴³ Alfarabi extends this line of argument to the universe as a whole.

The Governor of the world places natural traits in the parts of the world by means of which they are made harmonious, organized, linked together, and mutually supportive in actions in such a way that, despite their multiplicity and the multiplicity of their actions, they become like a single thing performing a single action for a single goal.

(p. 65)

This is the design that the first ruler of the virtuous city ought to imitate. Along with this mutually supportive design, the Governor of the world provided “other things” in order to preserve in it the constitution that he gave it “for very long periods of time.” Alfarabi does not say that the world or the species in it are eternal. Species are, after all, a kind of universal, and Alfarabi's radical reflections on prudence have made him skeptical that such species even exist. This is a theoretical lesson learned by the application of prudence to the flux of the human things and here applied by Alfarabi in his understanding of the world as a whole.

For the present purpose (i.e., investigating the city's need for religion), it is more germane to inquire about the “other things” by which God holds the world together for as long as he can. We admit to being at a loss concerning the means God might employ to this end other than “the natural constitutions and instincts” of the parts of the world; but these are the things to which Alfarabi adds “other things” (p. 65). Ever mindful that there is no “single goal,” no common good, that holds the parts of the city together, Machiavelli falls back on the cohesive effects of force and fraud. Alfarabi has another answer in mind, which he makes explicit in the last sentence of the book.

It is clear, in addition, that all of this is impossible unless there is a common religion in the cities that brings together their opinions, beliefs, and actions; that renders their divisions harmonious, linked together, and well ordered; and at that point they will support one another in their actions and assist one another to reach the goal that is sought after, namely, ultimate happiness.

Mutual cooperation in order to gain the advantages of division of labor is not enough to hold together the political association. Shared opinions in the form of a common religion are necessary to unify the city. The first ruler needs theoretical philosophy because the virtuous religion as religion is not for philosophers (p. 47). Without theoretical philosophy that has benefited from the lessons of prudently observed experience, the would-be first ruler cannot liberate himself from belief in order to appreciate the political utility of religion. The prudence of the founder may, under certain circumstances, dictate the political use of religion in binding together the community. To affirm this truth while placing prudent limitations on the universal claims of religion is Alfarabi's intention in his curiously titled Book of Religion.

CONCLUSION

To the wisdom of the ward boss who declared that “all politics is local politics,” Alfarabi and Machiavelli would add that it is also temporal. Both Alfarabi and Machiavelli seek to buttress the claims of prudence and a prudent regard for circumstance against the claims of a universal religion. In this endeavor, Alfarabi makes philosophy the ally of politics.⁴⁴ While facing the same problem, Machiavelli does not adopt the same means. Perhaps in Machiavelli's world, Thomas Aquinas had been far too successful in making philosophy the handmaid of theology for Machiavelli to be able to reclaim it as the ally of politics and prudence. In Alfarabi's founding vision, theology is the handmaid of philosophy, and religion is subordinate to the alliance between politics and philosophy.

Notes

1. I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a Summer Stipend in 1997, which supported work on the original version of this essay.

2. All references are to pages of the Arabic text as it appears in Muhsin Mahdi, ed., Kitab al-Millah wa Nusus Ukhra (The book of religion and related texts) (Beirut: Dar al-Machreq, 1968). I have used throughout the translation of the Kitab al-Millah generously made available to me by Charles Butterworth of the University of Maryland at College Park. All quotations are from Butterworth's version. A translation of the Book of Religion by Lawrence Berman, under the title On Religion, Jurisprudence, and Political Science, is available through the Translation Clearing House, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078-0220. Catalog reference number: A-30-55b.

3. “For this is a general rule that never fails: that a prince who is not wise by himself cannot be counseled well, unless indeed by chance he should submit himself to one person alone to govern him in everything, who is a very prudent man” (Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985], p. 95, italics not in original).

4. Machiavelli, Prince, p. 92.

5. Aristotle distinguishes between prudence and shrewdness at Nicomachean Ethics 1144a24-1144b1. The issue is more complicated in Plato's Republic because Socrates there speaks of prudence as one power that can be turned toward good or ill (Republic 518e-519a).

6. Miriam Galston, Politics and Excellence: The Political Philosophy of Alfarabi (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 98-99.

7. Alfarabi does, however, treat virtue as a means to something higher, namely, ultimate happiness (p. 54). See Galston, Politics and Excellence, pp. 94, 172. Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1120a25.

8. Yusuf K. Umar, “Strauss and Farabi: Persecution, Esotericism, and Political Philosophy” (Ph.D. diss., University of Calgary, 1987, p. 301n.21), disputes this, arguing instead that “The principles of faith in [Alfarabi's] al-Madinah al-Fadilah amend openly the traditional Islamic conception of God, but those principles are not susceptible to change.” See also Umar, pp. 293-94. I am grateful to Professor Jene M. Porter of the University of Saskatchewan for my knowledge of this thoughtful and important dissertation. On Thomas, see Ross A. Armstrong, Primary and Secondary Precepts in the Thomistic Natural Law Teaching (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1966).

9. Galston, Politics and Excellence, pp. 78, 96-7, 107. Umar points out the similarity between the discretion Alfarabi deems necessary in the first ruler and the discretion appropriate to the Imam in Shi'i Islam. “Shi'i theology and political theory allow the imam to annul what he deems to be incongruent with the present. Farabi's reference to malek al-Sunnah [traditional king] is an indirect critique of Sunni political theory which, deifies the past as tradition that is both inviolable and eternal.” Umar, “Strauss and Farabi,” p. 163n.5, which cites Alfarabi, Al-Siyasah al-Madaniyyah (The political regime), ed. F. M. Najjar (Beirut: Catholic Press, 1964), p. 81, but the limits of the traditional king are the same there as in the Book of Religion. See Umar, pp. 173, 269, 300-301, 307, 344, 345n.115, 385, 394n.68, for his view of Alfarabi's relation to Shi'ism. See also, Fauzi M. Najjar, “Farabi's Political Philosophy and Shi'ism,” Studia Islamica 24 (1961): 57-72.

10. Alfarabi never precisely clarifies the relation between the king of the tradition and the jurist.

11. It is not quite clear from Alfarabi's text whether Zayd is being treated for jaundice or fever or both.

12. This is my example, not Alfarabi's. Alfarabi's own example is that “the human being who is writing” is more particular, that is, more restricted by conditions that determine it, than “the human being” (p. 47). One is bound to wonder what Alfarabi intended by this strange example. Is the one who writes the legislator? Or is the reader intended to recall Alfarabi's own art of writing? On the example, see Galston, Politics and Excellence, pp. 115-16. On the art of writing, see Galston, pp. 166, 168. On Alfarabi's use of the word “determined” (muqaddar), see Galston, p. 110.

13. Butterworth notes that the phrase is elusive. He gives, alternatively, “or with respect to all time—if possible.” I take the phrase to mean that, if possible, the prudent ruler determines the conditions that are in accordance with the time, that is, the particular occasion.

14. In Islamic jurisprudence, one of the four roots of the law is reasoning by analogy or analogical inference. John L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 83, offers the following illustration. “The determination of the minimum rate of dower offers a good example of analogical deduction. Jurists saw a similarity between the bride's loss of virginity in marriage and the Quranic penalty for theft, which was amputation. Thus, the minimum dower was set at the same rate that stolen goods had to be worth before amputation was applicable.” Thus, analogical reasoning allowed the jurist to move in an authoritative way from what was determined in the Quran and the traditions to what was not determined.

15. Galston, Politics and Excellence, p. 125, sees the difference between the two accounts of prudence in terms of the “implied” reference to moral virtue in the first account. On my reading, if moral virtue is implied here at all, it would fit better in the second account, where the emphasis is on the good of cities and nations and, hence, on something compatible with law-abidingness.

16. This is a crucial point for the argument presented in Joshua Parens, Metaphysics as Rhetoric: Alfarabi's Summary of Plato's “Laws” (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995), pp. xxxvi, 7, 39, 89, and 98.

17. Galston, Politics and Excellence, p. 103, cites Millah 59:3. Muhsin Mahdi begins the second account of political science at the phrase “This science has two parts.” See M. Mahdi, “Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Alfarabi's Enumeration of the Sciences,” in The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning, ed. E. J. Murdoch and E. D. Sylla (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1975), pp. 132-36. The paragraph that Galston treats as introducing the second kind of political science is apparently treated by Mahdi as a concluding statement of the first kind of political science. Galston does not discuss the problem, but Butterworth, who divides the text as Galston does, discusses his disagreement with Mahdi in Charles Butterworth, “Al-Farabi's Statecraft: War and the Well-Ordered Regime,” in Cross, Crescent, and Sword: The Justification and Limitation of War in Western and Islamic Tradition, ed. James Turner Johnson and John Kelsay (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990), pp. 94-95, n.4.

18. Galston, Politics and Excellence, p. 96.

19. Ibid., p. 103.

20. Ibid., p. 104.

21. Of course, when Alfarabi speaks of a political science that would take account of all of the actions of the supreme ruler, he is not unmindful of the fact that the actions in question are infinite in number and the political science that could take account of all of them is utopian.

22. Galston, pp. 55, 69-70, 77, 99n.9.

23. Ibid., p. 69.

24. Ibid., pp. 98; see also pp. 111-12.

25. Ibid., p. 123.

26. Ibid., p. 105, 126.

27. Ibid., p. 98.

28. Ibid., p. 115-16, italics not in original; see also pp. 78-79.

29. Alfarabi draws obvious attention to this aspect of the Book of Religion in the short paragraph in which “religion” and “creed” are said to be “almost synonymous,” as are “law” and “tradition” (p. 46). Alfarabi follows up on this division by saying that “law” and “tradition” signify “most often” one of the two parts of religion, namely, actions. The synonyms, “law” and “tradition,” appear to describe one of the two parts of religion, namely, actions. Is the other part of religion “creed”? If Alfarabi intends to imply that “law” and “creed” are the two parts of religion, why does he first say that “creed” and “religion” are (almost) synonymous? Instead of reducing “creed” to a subdivision of “religion,” as one might expect, Alfarabi adds that the part of religion that is opinions may also be called law, so that “law,” “religion,” and “creed” are synonymous. Paradoxically, each of the parts somehow contains the whole. Why then does Alfarabi hold back from saying that “tradition” too is a synonym for “creed” and “religion,” a conclusion that would seem to follow from his assertion that “law” (=creed=religion) is a synonym for “tradition”? This way of drawing readers to the thought that religion need not be traditional—it can be the novel work of a founder—would be needlessly confusing; Alfarabi says this without any need for the reader to infer it. His method here draws attention to the possibility that our attempts to identify and differentiate using clearly defined concepts are never fully successful: terms that are “almost synonymous” are, in fact, equivocal. Religion is law, tradition, and creed, but the removal of one element, for example, tradition, does not mean that what is left is no longer religion. To communicate his thought while self-consciously acknowledging the equivocality of all language is the burden of Alfarabi's art of writing.

30. See Galston, Politics and Excellence, p. 99, for a discussion of this idea.

31. Alfarabi does not restrain himself from explicitly drawing the conclusion that virtuous religion is not for philosophers (p. 47). The Book of Religion is sometimes referred to as The Virtuous Religion, so it is striking that this passage, the last explicit mention of virtuous religion, occurs in the first third of the book.

32. See the helpful discussion of induction in Galston, Politics and Excellence, pp. 79n., 80, 90, 104, and 117n.

33. Ibid., p. 103.

34. Cf. the complete craft of the complete king (p. 60).

35. Maimonides denies, not the knowability of universals, but their existence as anything outside the mind: “every existent outside the mind is an individual or a group of individuals” (Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963], III 18, pp. 474 and 476; cf. 151, p. 114). Since Judaism sees itself as a particular community, Maimonides, to the extent that he is addressing only that community, need not mount a challenge to universalism in the way that Alfarabi does.

36. Parens, Metaphysics as Rhetoric, pp. 29-36.

37. Ibid., pp. 78, 84.

38. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp. 162-63.

39. Ibid., p. 159.

40. Parens, Metaphysics as Rhetoric, p. 161n.5, cites a passage from Natural Right and History occurring in the same chapter as the parallel passages.

41. This does not mean that any prudent man has the same latitude of action as the founder. Precisely one of the circumstances of which one needs to be aware is that one may lack the opportunity that made the founder's actions possible. One may need to work within a much more restricted sphere.

42. Mahdi, “Science, Philosophy, and Religion in the Enumeration of the Sciences,” p. 135.

43. Durkheim calls this “organic solidarity.” When Alfarabi begins to talk about opinion as another way of holding a society together, he implies what Durkheim would call “mechanical solidarity.” Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society (New York: Free Press, 1964), pp. 70-132. Alfarabi sees the two kinds of societal bond Durkheim describes as supplemental to each other rather than as alternatives.

44. Alfarabi “substitutes politics for religion. He thus may be said to lay the foundation for the secular alliance between philosophers and princes friendly to philosophy, and to initiate the tradition whose most famous representatives in the West are Marsilius of Padua and Machiavelli” (Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing [Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1952], p. 15). Because Machiavelli is nearly silent about philosophy, the “secular alliance” Strauss describes is, in fact, characteristic of Alfarabi but not of Machiavelli.