SOURCE: Lerner, Ralph. Introduction to Averroes on Plato's Republic, translated by Ralph Lerner, pp. xiii-xxviii. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974.

[In the following introduction to the medieval Arabic philosopher Averroes's commentary on Plato's Republic, Lerner discusses Averroes's approach to the text, noting that despite the differences in their religious backgrounds, Averroes exhibits a deep appreciation for Plato's philosophy.]

Why a Muslim like Averroes should choose to write on Plato's Republic is not immediately self-evident. Of what use is this pagan closet philosophy to men who already hold what they believe to be the inestimable gift of a divinely revealed Law, a sharī'a? Can that Law, which presents itself as complete and sufficient and which addresses all men, the Red and the Black, be in need of supplement or correction? Further, what has the “lawyer, imām, judge, and unique scholar” (as Averroes chooses to describe himself elsewhere) to do with those matters that Plato makes the theme of the Republic? We know that this list of titles exhausts neither Averroes' interests nor his qualifications. Aquinas and Dante have in mind no one else when they speak of the Commentator on Aristotle's works. Marrākushī, in his History of the Maghrib, repeats a first-person account in which Averroes explains to a pupil how he was led to summarize Aristotle's works in response to the wish of the ruler Abū Ya^cqūb and the urgings of the latter's chief physician and vizier, Ibn Tufayl. This epitome or paraphrase of the Republic is to be seen, then, as a part of that larger project, for as Averroes himself says at the beginning of this work, he has taken up Plato's book because Aristotle's Politics “has not yet fallen into our hands” (22.5). But all this, while it accounts for some things, leaves unanswered the earlier and more basic question: What is the standing of pagan philosophy in the Muslim community? We may say, with little exaggeration, that almost the first and last words of this work point to the utility, relevance, even necessity, of political science (21.7; 105.5-6). Again and again, Averroes quietly points out that this practical science, far from being superseded by the sharī'a, is no less needed in “these cities.” Just how badly needed is, in a way, one of the larger lessons of the work. Their very lack of awareness of their sickness is itself a measure of how sick these cities truly are.

Even if we accept the notion that Plato has something to teach the adherents of religious Law about the ways of preserving or restoring political health, it can hardly be said that the Plato who appears in these pages is altogether familiar. Only a detailed, point-by-point comparison of this work with the text of the Republic can disclose the many differences between the two. Least to be wondered at is the Islamization of the Republic; Greek divinities and examples are replaced by examples better known to Averroes' readers. More remarkable are the substantive discrepancies—elaborations where Plato is brief, omissions, changes in details, interpolations drawn from Aristotle or Farabi or others. How much weight ought to be given to these variations from our text of the Republic must remain a matter of controversy, complicated by the fact that not a single Arabic translation of a complete Platonic work is known to have come down to us. In the absence of the text that Averroes had before him when he sat down to compose this work, we can only hazard some guesses about the significance of the discrepancies. We cannot even be sure that they are departures from Plato. Judging from the Arabic translations of Greek texts that are extant, the translators did their work with intelligence and skill. Careful readers of this or of the Hebrew translation will have no difficulty in recognizing many passages that disclose great fidelity even to the nuances of Plato's text. In brief, we cannot know for a certainty whether whatever of Averroes' account strikes us as baffling or simply wrong in the light of our present-day understanding of Plato's text does so because of inadvertence or design. Averroes' thoughts may not be our thoughts.

In this age in which we are urged on all sides to flaunt whatever we believe we have, this restrained work of Averroes is triply strange. The falāsifa (as the medieval philosophers are called in Arabic) do not as a rule strut forth proclaiming their ingenuity, originality, and superiority over their predecessors. Quite the contrary: a good deal of their ingenuity and originality is devoted to concealing their singularities. The present text by Averroes is a fine case in point, for in truth it is no simple matter to tell in every instance whether Averroes is speaking in his own name. The gentle glidings from “he says” to “we say” and back again (with variations en route) lull the senses of the good-natured reader who nods along as Averroes repeats whatever Plato “says” or “asserts” or “holds” or “explains.” Every once in a while, however, that good-natured reader is jolted by various devices into wondering where Averroes himself stands on these matters. Sometimes Averroes tells him directly; sometimes he tells him indirectly. Sometimes Averroes merely plants the question. In all cases, however, Averroes moves with boldness and determination in setting before the attentive reader the problems that matter, the problems posed by the confrontation of classical political philosophy and the sharī'a. The more that attentive reader sees, the better trained he becomes in understanding those problems. Much of his training consists in discerning “what we ourselves had in mind to explain” (103.15). With a view to achieving that great good, a useful first step would be to consider some examples of the different modes in which Averroes chooses to speak in his own name.

Averroes most evidently speaks in his own name when he speaks emphatically. On rare occasions he uses the first person singular, as when he reports, “I have seen many among the poets and those who grow up in these cities” who prefer tyrannical rule (101.16); or when he asserts that, despite the fact that an inquiry of a certain character would more fittingly be made in the first (i.e., scientific) part of political science, “I deem it appropriate that I mention some of it here” (65.8-9). Even rarer is Averroes' use of oaths, as when he swears—“upon my life!”—that the argument Plato has produced showing the pleasure of the intellect is the greatest pleasure is a demonstrative argument (104.25); or when he swears that another argument of Plato's is true although not demonstrative (104.29-30). The device Averroes most frequently uses for emphasis is his supplying the personal pronoun “we” to verbs whose suffixed pronominal particles already make unmistakably clear who the subject of the sentence is. The redundant pronoun may thus be understood as performing the function of italics: “We ourselves follow after him” (30.23) is tantamount to Averroes' insisting that the reader note his emphatic agreement with Plato's intention or method. Though the indication of emphasis is unmistakable in this usage, the identification of the speaker or speakers may be doubtful. “We,” whether emphatic or otherwise, usually means Averroes; it is a pluralis maiestatis. But “we” or “us” may also mean something like “we moderns” (35.12, 18-19) or “we investigators” (53.19, 29) or “we adherents of the sharī'a” (63.3; 66.15) or “us Muslims” (66.22; 81.4) or “us men” (72.8) or “we Andalusians” (66.21; 97.6) or “we Córdobans” (84.22; 96.24). Even this list is not exhaustive. In ruling out any sort of property for the guardians, Averroes considers briefly the possibility that possessing riches may be a virtue. However one decided, that question would have no bearing on the case of the guardians, “for we ourselves do not wish them to be simply virtuous but rather virtuous inasmuch as they are guardians” (42.21-22). Is it farfetched to say that a founder of cities or a teacher of founders speaks here?

Averroes confronts us in another way when, at least seven times, he momentarily puts aside his modest garb as a reporter of what Plato “said” and pronounces a certain problem or topic fit for inquiry or for penetrating investigation. Whether the bringer of the sharī'a ought also to be a prophet is a problem of the latter sort. Having stated the problem, Averroes leaves its resolution open, promising to “investigate it in the first part of this science, God willing” (61.17-18). What is not left in doubt is that, for Averroes, the requirements for the Lawgiver are identical with the requirements for the philosopher, namely, mastery of the theoretical and practical sciences as well as perfection of the moral and cogitative virtues (60.22-61.7; 61.11-13). One might well ask: What does prophecy add, or of what does it consist? Earlier passages suggest that prophecy is an instrument by which men are informed of what lies ahead (41.1-2) and of the details concerning “temples, prayers, sacrifices, and offerings.” But the prescribing of such details is not exclusively the province of religious Law (47.24-28). Further, by equating the philosopher and the bringer of the sharī'a (61.14), Averroes in effect denies that the sharī'a has any decisive superiority.

Equally portentous in its implications for Islam is Plato's “opinion” that the Greeks are the people most disposed by nature to receive the human perfections, especially wisdom. This, too, Averroes declares to be a matter in need of penetrating investigation. He immediately brings forth evidence to contest Plato's opinion: in fact individuals disposed to wisdom are by no means limited to Greece, although such individuals are not distributed uniformly or universally. We might say that non-Greek nations are disposed to the several human virtues' being “broadcast and apportioned among them,” particularly the nations in the more equable climatic zones (27.1-13). The context of this discussion is a controversy over the virtue of courage and the art of war. Following Aristotle, Averroes holds that the case here is the fairly common one of a virtue serving as a preparation for an art, and of that art in turn serving to perfect or complete the virtue. Plato, on the other hand, holds that war (and hence the virtue on which it depends, courage) exists only on account of necessity (26.19-29). If, then, Plato is correct about the potentiality for virtue among the various non-Greek nations, there is no call for waging a war to bring civilization to them. They, or the adults among them at least, would be fundamentally uneducable. Against this view Averroes—with Aristotle at his side—takes his stand. In so doing, he both supports and alters the Muslim conception of the just war. He now sees that war as depending on the proper natural conditions, instead of being directed against all men. With nations in the moderate climes, “it … is not impossible that many of those who have passed the years of youth should receive the virtues to some extent. … Could this [degree of virtue] not be established in them, they would be worthy of being either killed or enslaved, and their rank in the city would be that of the dumb brutes” (27.19-23). Where the Koran sees the just war as leading to the conversion of all mankind to the true religion, Averroes views the just war as a mode of bringing wisdom to those who have the natural potentiality for it. With that as his point of departure, it is not surprising that Averroes holds out the possibility or probability that many of the conquered will be condemned to a life of brutishness.

A recurring theme in these pages—the express or implied comparison of “this city” with “these cities”—offers further evidence of Averroes' own views. Though these recurrent terms have more than one meaning in this work, their use by Averroes is generally free of ambiguity. “This city” may mean the timocratic city (82.15, 16) or the oligarchic city (83.10; 93.7) or the democratic city (83.19; 96.1) or the tyrannical city (85.22; 101.10) or the aristocratic city (79.8), but there is no mistaking Averroes' intention in any given case. The sum of such meanings of the demonstrative pronoun is easily surpassed by the number of instances in which “this city” means the city being founded in the Republic. Paired with “this city” for purposes of contrast is the term “these cities.” “These cities” are all too well known to Averroes, his addressee, and his readers: they are the cities that exist in deed, not in speech; they are “these cities of ours” (84.20). Only a few of these pairings can be mentioned here, but they should suffice to show how Averroes, with great economy of language, is able to illustrate and support his intention. (a) This city has no need for the arts of adjudication and medicine; “under no circumstances has it either judge or physician.” What are called adjudication and medicine in this city have only the names in common with the judging and curing practiced in contemporary cities and in the past. Only old-fashioned, Asclepian illnesses and cures are recognized in this city. “They will not make use in this city (and this is in accord with my cogitation) of most cures other than cures for external things such as wounds, dislocations, fractures, and the like.” The implications for the chronically ill—whether in body or in soul—are quickly drawn, though with a certain ambiguity as to whether killing or suicide is indicated (37.15-38.18). (b) Just as the wants are not autonomous in this city, so the arts that arise to serve those wants are subject to regulation. Averroes notes the alternating scarcity and glut attending a market in disequilibrium. Neither the kinds nor the numbers of artisans in this city will be “of any chance number.” Necessary utility is the touchstone that is applied to all production, be it of cloth or bridles or children (43.28-44.7). (c) “The women in this city will practice the [same] activities as the men.” Averroes brings forth evidence to show that women can hold their own in war. He sees nothing to rule out the possibility “that there be philosophers and rulers among them.” A contrast is then drawn between what the Laws or some Laws prescribe regarding the status of women and what an investigation of the animals indicates. From natural history we are led to see how unnatural is the prevailing treatment of human females. “Since women in these cities are not prepared with respect to any of the human virtues, they frequently resemble plants in these cities.” By narrowing or nullifying the capabilities of women, men contribute to the further impoverishment of these cities (53.14-54.10). (d) In establishing community of property, women, and children, this city does away with the major inducements for people to set themselves apart from the concerns and good of the whole. “It is evident that if all the things in this city” correspond to this arrangement abolishing privacy, “then it will remove envy and hatred from them as well as poverty and the other evils found in these cities.” Of the citizens of this city, Averroes says: “They are indeed happy. They are beset by none of the evils besetting the citizens of these cities” (58.1-14). (e) Unlike this city, whose “existence necessitates that those ruling over it be wise, … these cities, presently existing, do not receive any advantage from philosophers and the wise” (63.6-8). Indeed, if perchance “a true philosopher grows up in these cities, he is in the position of a man who has come among perilous animals.” For the sake of immediate self-preservation, he does well to isolate himself from others; but in doing so he remains in some sense incomplete, for his perfection is attainable “only in this city that we have described in speech” (64.23-27). We may generalize from these examples and say that for Averroes “this city” is “the virtuous city,” Plato's city (79.9, 12, 19, 20; 45.3; 52.21; 87.19; 93.31-32). In contrast to it are “these cities,” which are “the ignorant cities” or “the erring cities” (52.13-14, 22; 45.11; 79.11-18). In going as far as he does in using “this city” as the rule or measure, Averroes goes very far indeed in judging contemporary practice and even the norms of the sharī'a itself by the standards of Plato's philosophic communism.

Averroes is not always so reserved in making such comparisons and judgments. Occasionally he digresses a bit to elaborate on the implications of his analysis. Thus, for example, the transformation of the timocratic man into the oligarchic man is illustrated by a lesson drawn from more or less contemporary history. The dynasty preceding the Almohad in Andalus was known as the Almoravid. “At first they imitated the governance based on the nomos; this was under the first one of [the Almoravids].” But his successors presided over a continuing decay—first timocracy, tinged with oligarchy; then, finally and fatally, a regime devoted to the pleasures. The overthrow of this last was effected “because the governance that opposed it at that time resembled the governance based on the nomos” (92.4-8). These beginnings, however, are not the only similarity between the Almoravids and the Almohads. There are also analogous or nearly analogous patterns in their subsequent decline in laws and morals. “You can make this clear from what—after forty years—has come about among us in the habits and states of those possessing lordship and status” (103.8-10). That the present, Almohad, rule has decayed is suggested by Averroes more than once. But from what level of excellence has it fallen? The several founders of dynasties to whom Averroes alludes in this work appear to have this in common: their rule originally “resembled the governance based on the nomos” or “used to imitate the virtuous governance” (92.7-8; 89.30-31). Their excellence was at best a quasi excellence, though even this would be a great improvement over the baseness that currently prevails. What remains is hardly a vestige: “Only he among them who is virtuous according to the Legal prescriptions remains in an excellent state [of soul]” (103.11). To follow in the ways of the sharī'a is to move in the direction of recovering the earlier resemblance or imitation.

Perhaps the most interesting, ambiguous, and provocative of Averroes' speeches are those which present a controversial Platonic teaching. By “controversial” I mean one that runs counter to either generally accepted notions or the prescriptions of the sharī'a. A few examples of Averroes' presentations of these unsettling thoughts show his different responses to controversy. (a) At times Averroes openly concurs with Plato. The subject of base stories is dealt with at length by Plato, and Averroes emphatically follows in his steps in condemning them. Among the instances of base stories “generally accepted among us,” Averroes singles out for censure the custom of saying that God is the cause of good and evil, that angels can miraculously transform themselves, that happiness is to be understood as a reward and suffering as a punishment for men's deeds (30.22-31.25). This entire theme of base stories ought properly to be considered in the larger context of Averroes' discussion of untrue stories as such—that is, representations or imitations—where the reference to Plato is veiled or at least uncertain and where the lessons to be drawn are that fictions are indispensable for ruling and teaching the citizens and that whatever the multitude can learn of the speculative truth through nondemonstrative means—namely persuasive and affective arguments—is, strictly speaking, no knowledge at all (25.14-26.2). (b) At other times, Averroes dissents from what he presents as Plato's position. I have referred earlier to Averroes' parting from Plato on the problem of courage and adopting a view he reports as attributed to Aristotle. Some implications of this controversy for the conception of the just war have been touched upon. A further and necessary implication of Plato's position is the rejection of a universal society, a society envisioned in the remark in which tradition has Muhammad say, “I have been sent to the Red and the Black.” Averroes can hardly conceal that such universalism does not accord with Plato's opinion; but he is careful to avoid letting this disagreement become an open conflict between philosophy and the sharī'a by asserting that the sharī'a view, which is “the indubitable truth,” is also shared by Aristotle (46.19-21). In siding with Islam against Plato, Averroes appears to retract whatever concessions he has earlier made to Plato's view that all nations are not equally disposed by nature to virtue. A universal society of true believers again appears to be both desirable and possible. Yet that this is not Averroes' last indication of his views on the matter can be seen from his treatment of a related controversy. (c) Not all of Plato's controversial statements are acknowledged as such by Averroes. In view of the fact that Averroes sometimes concurs and sometimes dissents, his occasional silences may also be regarded as meaningful. Though Plato's eugenics is notoriously at odds with the sharī'a of the Muslims, Averroes manages to discuss “the arrangement of [the guardians'] procreation” in such an exceedingly guarded fashion that we are compelled to say that he is silent about the conflict (54.23-55.27). Shortly thereafter, he appears to accept the notion of a fixed size for this city (56.23), which implies some kind of birth control (56.18-21) or colonization or both. Averroes does in fact speak of “virtuous cities” (97.13; 79.24-25; 57.6), and in that plurality we may discern an alternative to the universal society that would result from a successful war waged against the Red and the Black. In discussing Plato's condemnation of unlimited warfare against enemies of the same stock and place and language, Averroes writes: “These are to be called ones who have gone astray, not unbelievers. What Plato asserts differs from what many Law-givers assert” (59.20-60.5). Averroes leaves the matter by remarking on the difference between what Plato teaches and what Islam, among others, teaches. Averroes does not blur the contradictory statements by asserting the congruence of the Koran's views and Aristotle's; nor, for that matter, does Averroes declare where he himself stands. He remains silent on one of the great points of contention between philosophy and the sharī'a: whether racial and linguistic unity ought to prevail over religious diversity.

These examples are only meant to be suggestive of the richness and many-sidedness of Averroes' discussion. It is a work laden with nuances and ambiguities as well as startling assertions. Without a hint of criticism or misgiving, Averroes not only reports Plato's requirement that there be absolute communism of women and children, but then goes on to treat the necessity of that communism as proved (57.4-5). Finally, Averroes himself accepts this communism, along with community of property, concluding that the necessity, propriety, and utility of all this is self-evident (57.23-58.14). As was stated earlier, the word “we” may well represent different voices. In support of a tentative identification suggested earlier, I now add this evidence. Averroes says that “there is no city that is truly one other than this city that we [anaḥnū] are involved in bringing forth” (44.28-29). That this “we” is, or includes, Averroes himself is suggested by the repetition of the last phrase a few lines later: “Hence, this city that we are involved in bringing forth is in itself great in size and possessed of great power notwithstanding that it has, as Plato says, but one thousand warriors” (45.13-14). Our suspicions and impressions are further aroused and perhaps confirmed when, toward the end of his paraphrase, Averroes invites us to cast our thoughts back to “the things that we ourselves were praising when we were attending to the virtuous city” (93.31-32). This sentence happens to be preceded by “He said.” The line separating Averroes and Plato is momentarily—but totally—blurred.

In one fashion or another, the question with which this introduction begins is a question for every serious reader of Plato's Republic: Of what use is this philosophy to me? Averroes clearly finds that the Republic speaks to his own time and to his own situation. Now, whatever that relevance may consist of, it cannot be based on any simple, obvious congruence of Platonic and Koranic teachings. But if, from the fact that Averroes seems to accept the Republic's teaching (at least as far as the practical part of political science is concerned), we hasten to the conclusion that he has thereby effected a complete break with Islam, we would have asserted something undemonstrable in itself and terribly damaging to Averroes. He does, to be sure, accept that philosophic teaching, by and large; but as the earlier examples are meant to show, he uses that teaching critically, selectively.

Perhaps the greatest use he makes of the Republic is to understand better the sharī'a itself. The Koran contains laws that transcend ordinary human laws—we shall call them the higher part—even as it contains laws that are analogous to ordinary human laws. This latter part, according to Averroes, presents two ways that lead to God: “One of them is through speech, and the other through war.” The higher part of the Law, which consists of those regulations and details made known to the adherents of a sharī^ca or nomos by a prophet, would appear to lead men to God through silence rather than speech and through peaceful actions rather than war. Whether or not the Republic may be helpful in such matters as well (e.g., by helping men understand better what it means to act justly toward one's fellows), there is at least a strong presumption that the Republic can help them perceive “the way in which matters are arranged in those Laws belonging to this our divine Law that proceed like the human Laws” (26.16-18).

Of physical coercion, or the war of civilization, we need say little here: it is not the preponderant mode of instruction followed within the virtuous city. How, then, are men led to God by speech? In two ways, Averroes says: either through rhetorical and poetical arguments, or through demonstrative arguments. The former way is used in presenting the theoretical sciences (or rather, certain conclusions reached by those sciences) to the multitude. The elect few, on the other hand, learn these matters in “the true ways.” In an apparent reference to Plato, Averroes goes on to say: “In teaching wisdom to the multitude he used the rhetorical and poetical ways because they [sc., the multitude] are in this respect in one of two situations: either they can know them [sc., the speculative truths] through demonstrative arguments, or they will not know them at all. The first [situation] is impossible [for the multitude]. The second is possible—since it is fitting that everyone obtain as much of human perfection as is compatible with what is in his nature to obtain of this and with his preparation for it” (25.14-23). Since it is by no means impossible that the multitude know nothing of the speculative truths, and since it is categorically asserted that they cannot come to know these matters through demonstration, we are left to deduce that whatever the multitude may come to know of these speculative truths through persuasive and affective arguments is, strictly speaking, not knowledge at all, but belief. Such belief may be useful, even indispensable, but it is no more to be confused with knowledge than moral virtue is to be mistaken for intellectual virtue.

If then, knowledge, strictly speaking, or the way to scientific truth, is the preserve of the few, untruth would seem to be the legacy of the many. In a certain respect the young potential guardians and the multitude of citizens are similarly situated. Neither group can digest a demonstrative argument—the one because of the temporary underdevelopment of its members, the other because of its intrinsic nature. Each member of both groups requires an education in “music” (as well as gymnastic), an education that will “represent” or “imitate” a truth that can be known demonstratively, albeit not by him. Such imitations render accessible what otherwise would be inaccessible; but, being imitations, what they convey is not the real thing. Quoting Farabi, Averroes proposes an education in which true happiness “will be imitated by what is believed to be happiness.” It is safe to say that, according to this argument, the multitude will never know any better, that their education is, strictly speaking, an education in an untruth (29.9-30.13; 60.7-12). Averroes reports Plato's condemnation of untrue and base stories but says nothing in this context to preclude the use of noble lies. The subsequent discussion (30.22-32.22) is a subtle interplay between reports of Plato's views and expositions of Averroes' own views, culminating in a defense of kingly lying on the grounds that “untrue stories are necessary for the teaching of the citizens. No bringer of a nomos is to be found who does not make use of invented stories, for this is something necessary for the multitude to reach their happiness.” Although Averroes reports in this context Plato's view that “lying does not befit God's rulership,” he does not preclude the use of invented stories in the sharī'a, or in that part of it that proceeds like the human Laws.

Plato's Republic teaches that the best regime will be ruled by philosophers and that human rulers, or rulers simply—that is, all rulers—must lie. No work speaks more cogently or more pertinently on the theme of the lying philosopher than Plato's Republic. If Averroes believed that Islam had been or was on the verge of becoming the best regime, there was every reason to consider with all deliberation what Plato had to teach concerning the ruling—and hence lying—philosopher. Alternatively, if Averroes believed that Islam was not the best regime, there was every reason to consider with all deliberation what Plato had to teach concerning the exposed, vulnerable—and hence lying—philosopher (64.23-27). Averroes, like kindred souls before and after him, found utility, relevance, and value in Plato's Republic for various reasons. Not the least of these was Plato's truth about lying.

It is fair to say that in deciding to paraphrase the Republic, Averroes is asserting that his world—the world defined and governed by the Koran—can profit from Plato's instruction. Plato is the standard—certainly not “these cities,” not even the period of early Islam. What now prevails is distinctly second best: the rule of laws and of interpreters of laws, the parceling of political governance to the separate hands of warrior and judge (81.1-8). What might prevail is the true unity of the virtuous city, the city that Plato constructs in speech. But is its actualization a genuine possibility? Or does Plato's city require that very rule of philosophers which only the prior existence of Plato's city can bring about?

The answer is that it is possible for individuals to grow up with these natural qualities that we have attributed to them—developing, moreover, so as to choose the general common nomos that not a single nation can help choosing; and besides, their particular Law would not be far from the human Laws; [if these conditions are fulfilled] wisdom would have been completed in their time. This is as matters are in this time of ours and in our Law. If it should happen that the likes of these come to rule for an infinite time, it is possible for this city to come into being.

[62.28-63.5]

The human Laws under which the philosophers now live are not very different from the private Laws of the philosophers. The Koran does not preclude the possibility of the rule of philosophers. But that rule or succession of rulers must go on to the end of time before the truly good governance comes into being. It is this chain of circumstances that Averroes holds out as the alternative to Plato's expulsion from the city of all those over ten years of age (78.24-29). It is, however, an alternative fraught with difficulties. Not least of these is that “in this time” men and cities are more easily inclined to good deeds than to good beliefs. Those who have reflected on these matters will know that these men and cities are no better than their beliefs. “The cities that are virtuous in deeds alone are those called aristocratic” (79.1-8). But it is precisely in the realm of intractable beliefs that the most radical transformation needs to be effected. All things considered, Averroes has not exaggerated in declaring that Plato's manner of bringing about the emergence of the best regime is “quickest, easiest, and best.”

I conclude that Averroes is—and deserves to be regarded as—the faithful companion of Plato.

Abbreviations and Symbols

Hebr. Üb.: Moritz Steinschneider, Die hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher (Berlin, 1893; reprint ed., Graz: Akademischen Druck- u. Verlaganstalt, 1956).

MPP: Ralph Lerner and Muhsin Mahdi (eds.), Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963; Ithaca: Cornell University Press, Agora Paperback Editions, 1972).

Rosenthal: E. I. J. Rosenthal (ed. and trans.), Averroes' Commentary on Plato's “Republic,” University of Cambridge Oriental Publications, no. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956, 1966, 1969).

uu Readings adopted from MSS other than MS A.

[] My interpolations.

For full bibliographic information on short-title citations in footnotes, see [below].

Short Titles and Editions Cited

This list is limited to Arabic and Hebrew texts and their translations that are cited in abbreviated form in the footnotes. Where there is a translation, it is listed immediately after the original-language work. P indicates that the translation is not of the entire work, but only of a part.

Avempace, Governance

Ibn Bājjah, Tadbīr al-mutawaḥḥid, El Régimen del Solitario, ed. and Spanish trans. by Miguel Asín Palacios (Madrid-Granada: Escuelas de Estudios Árabes, 1946).

The Governance of the Solitary, trans. Lawrence Berman, in MPP, pp. 122-133 (P).

Averroes, Decisive Treatise

Ibn Rushd, Kitāb faṣl al-maqāl, ed. George F. Hourani (Leiden: Brill, 1959). The page numbers of the editio princeps of Marcus Joseph Mueller, Philosophie und Theologie von Averroes (Munich, 1859), appear in the margins of this edition.

The Decisive Treatise, trans. George F. Hourani, in MPP, pp. 163-185.

———, Exposition

Kitāb al-kashf 'an manāhij al-adilla [“Exposition of the Methods of the Proofs in the Dogmas of Religion”], in Marcus Joseph Mueller (ed.), Philosophie und Theologie von Averroes, Monumenta Saecularia, I. Classe, 3 (Munich, 1859), pp. 27-127. (German trans. in Mueller's book of the same title [Munich, 1875], pp. 26-118.)

———, Incoherence

Tahāfot at-tahāfot (Incohérence de l'Incohérence), ed. Maurice Bouyges, Bibliotheca Arabica Scholasticorum, Série Arabe, vol. 3 (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1930).

Averroes' Tahafut al-tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence), trans. Simon Van den Bergh, Unesco Collection of Great Works, Arabic Series, and E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series, n.s. 19 (2 vols.; London: Luzac, 1954).

———, Rhetoric

Talkhīṣ al-khaṭābah [Paraphrase of Aristotle's Rhetoric], ed. Muhammad Salīm Sālim (Cairo, 1967).

Avicenna, Metaphysics

Ibn Sīnā, al-Shifā': al-Ilāhiyyāt, ed. G. C. Anawati et al. (2 vols.; Cairo, 1960).

Healing: Metaphysics X, trans. Michael E. Marmura, in MPP, pp. 98-111 (P).

Farabi, Aphorisms

Al-Fārābī's Fuṣūl Muntaza'ah (Selected Aphorisms), ed. Fauzi M. Najjar (Beirut, 1971).

The Fuṣūl al-Madanī of al-Fārābī (Aphorisms of the Statesman), ed. and trans. D. M. Dunlop, University of Cambridge Oriental Publications, no. 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961).

———, Attainment

Kitāb taḥṣīl al-sa'āda, in Rasā'il (Hyderabad, 1345/1926).

The Attainment of Happiness, Part I of Alfarabi's Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, trans. Muhsin Mahdi, rev. ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, Agora Paperback Editions, 1969).

The Attainment of Happiness, trans. Muhsin Mahdi, in MPP, pp. 52-82 (P).

———, Enumeration

Iḥṣā'al-'ulūm, La statistique des sciences, ed. Osman Amine (2d ed.; Cairo, 1948).

The Enumeration of the Sciences, trans. Fauzi M. Najjar, in MPP, pp. 22-30 (P).

———, Plato

Falsafat Aflāṭun, Alfarabius De Platonis Philosophia, ed. (with Latin version) Franz Rosenthal and Richard Walzer, Corpus Platonicum Medii Aevi, Plato Arabus, ser. 2, vol. 2 (London: Warburg Institute, 1943).

The Philosophy of Plato, Part II of Alfarabi's Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, trans. Muhsin Mahdi, rev. ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, Agora Paperback Editions, 1969).

———, Plato's Laws

Talkhīṣ nawāmīs Aflāṭūn, Alfarabius Compendium Legum Platonis, ed. (with Latin version) Francesco Gabrieli, Corpus Platonicum Medii Aevi, Plato Arabus, ser. 2, vol. 3 (London: Warburg Institute, 1952).

———, Political Regime

Kitāb al-siyāsā al-madaniyya, Al-Fārābī's The Political Regime, ed. Fauzi M. Najjar (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1964).

The Political Regime, trans. Fauzi M. Najjar, in MPP, pp. 31-57 (P).

———, Virtuous City

Risāla fī ārā' ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, Alfarabi's Abhandlung der Musterstaat, ed. Friedrich Dieterici (Leiden: Brill, 1895; reprinted 1964).

Der Musterstaat von Alfārābī, German trans. by Friedrich Dieterici (Leiden: Brill, 1900).

Ibn Tufayl, Hayy

Ibn Tufayl, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, Hayy ben Yaqdhân, Roman Philosophique d'Ibn Thofaïl, ed. and French trans. by Léon Gauthier (2d ed.; Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1936).

Hayy the Son of Yaqzan, trans. George N. Atiyeh, in MPP, pp. 134-162 (P).

Maimonides, Astrology

“The Correspondence between the Rabbis of Southern France and Maimonides about Astrology,” ed. Alexander Marx, Hebrew Union College Annual, 3 (1926): 311-358. The text of Maimonides' letter appears on pp. 349-358.

Letter on Astrology, trans. Ralph Lerner, in MPP, pp. 227-236.

———, Guide

Dalālat al-ḥā'irīn (Sefer Moreh nebhukhim), ed. S. Munk, rev. Issachar Joel (Jerusalem: Junovitch, 5691/1931). The page numbers of the editio princeps of S. Munk, Le Guide des Égarés (Paris, 1856-1866), appear in the margins of this edition.

The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963).

———, Yemen

Moses Maimonides' Epistle to Yemen, ed. Abraham S. Halkin, English trans. by Boaz Cohen, Louis M. and Minnie Epstein Series, vol. 1 (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1952).