## 1. The Origin and Nature of the Soul



In one of his best-known introductory works, *Enumeration of the
Sciences* (*Ihsa' al-Ulum*),
al-Farabi (ES: 87) explains that the eighth part of the
science of physics is devoted to what is common to the different kinds
of animals, namely, the soul, and is studied in Aristotle's
*Book of Animals* and in *On the Soul*.
Al-Farabi describes the soul as Aristotle did in *On
the Soul* 2.1, 412a19, that is, as the form or actualization
(entelekheia /
*antalashiya* or *at-tamam*) of a natural
organic body that potentially has
 life.[1]
 Living beings have different faculties: the nutritive, sensitive,
appetitive, and rational faculties. The presence of these capacities
in living beings is due to the different kinds of soul. The origin of
these souls and their capacities is explained by
al-Farabi from a metaphysical, cosmological, and
biological perspective.



In fact, al-Farabi's entire philosophy, including
his psychological and epistemological views, must be understood in
light of his ontological and cosmological worldview, a matter that has
been a source of considerable debate. In *The Political Regime*
and *The Virtuous City*, al-Farabi provides a
metaphysical and ontological explanation of the structure of the
universe, combining Neoplatonic emanationism and Aristotelian views on
the celestial spheres (M. Mahdi 2001: 6-11; 121-124).
Others have argued that al-Farabi's account
concerning these matters in both treatises should not be taken
literally, but as a political metaphor of the kind of regimes that can
be conceived in political philosophy. In contrast, P. Vallat and D.
Janos have rejected this view and have shown that far from a mere
rhetorical strategy, al-Farabi's cosmology
constitutes the foundation of his political thought. Though these
different approaches have motivated controversial interpretations of
al-Farabi's philosophy, this article concurs with
the interpretation of Vallat (2004: 85-128) and Janos (2012:
38-43). To take al-Farabi's cosmology as a
true component of his philosophy has serious implications for the
understanding of his philosophical psychology:
al-Farabi's conception of the soul and intellect
cannot be understood without taking into account his cosmological
model. In this way it becomes clear that his psychology and cosmology
taken together motivate his political philosophy. 



As D. Janos (2010: 19-44) has shown in depth,
al-Farabi's cosmology draws on the *Proclus
Arabus* (mainly the *Mahd al-khayr* [*Elements of
Theology*]), late ancient commentators such as Alexander,
Simplicius, Themistius, and in general from the *Neoplatonica
Arabica*, including the *Plotinus Arabus* (Janos 2012:
4-6; 11-37; D'Ancona 2014). Both *The Political
Regime* and *The Virtuous City* are key sources for the
reconstruction of al-Farabi's cosmology which
consists in a hierarchical emanationist model constituted by six
principles: (1) the First Existent or First Cause, (2) the second
intellects, (3) the active (or agent) intellect, (4) the soul, (5)
form, and (6) matter (al-Farabi KS: 31; PR: 29). The
First Cause is one and unique, precluding any multiplicity, whereas
all other principles are multiple. The first three principles are not
bodies, nor are in a body; they are immaterial and separate, whereas
the three last principles are not bodies but are connected to the
bodies. Notice that the soul is one of the principles that will be
originated through the emanative process and is described as a
principle that is not a body in itself but is in a body.
Al-Farabi explains that the universe contains six kinds
of body. In decreasing order of perfection, there are: (1) celestial
bodies, (2) rational animals, (3) non-rational animals, (4) plants,
(5) minerals, and (6) the four elements (al-Farabi KS:
31; PR: 29).



According to the emanation (*fayd*) process described by
al-Farabi, the existence of every being proceeds from
the First Existent (*mawjud al-awwal*), which is perfect,
eternal, everlasting, uncaused, free of matter and without form, with
no purpose or aim external to itself, with no partner or opposite, and
indivisible (al-Farabi VC: 56-89). The First
Existent is distinguished from all other beings due to its oneness,
which is its essence. This description seems very close to the
Neoplatonic conception of the One, but it is not exactly the same.
Al-Farabi instead argues that, given that this First
Existent is not in matter and has no matter, it should be an actual
intellect (*'aql bi'l fi'l*). The First
Existent is also intelligible (*ma'qul*) through its
substance, and its identity consists in simultaneously being the act,
the subject, and the object of its own intellection
(al-Farabi VC: 70-71). This description is based
on Aristotle's characterization of the unmoved mover in
*Metaphysics Lambda* as thought thinking itself.



Every existent comes to be, according to al-Farabi, by
the First Existent. This takes place through a sort of expansion or
emanation through which the First Existent necessarily gives existence
to every being in the universe. Yet this does not imply any addition
to its own perfection. In the initial emanation, from the First
Existent proceed the second intellects. These intellects themselves,
through the apprehension of themselves and the First Existent, are in
turn the cause of the celestial bodies. In *The Political
Regime* al-Farabi mentions that the number of
second intellects or second causes is identical to the number of
celestial spheres from the highest, the first heaven, to the last,
namely, the sphere of the moon (al-Farabi KS: 32; PR:
29). In *The Virtuous City* he explicitly enumerates nine
spheres starting with the first heaven, and then the fixed stars,
Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the sun, Venus, Mercury, and the moon
(al-Farabi VC: 100-105). There is a tenth
intellect, namely, the active intellect (*'aql al-fa
''al*), whose activity is very relevant mainly
for two reasons: (1) this intellect governs together with the
celestial spheres the sublunary world, and is even involved in the
processes of generation and corruption (al-Farabi LI:
29-30; OI:
 75);[2]
 (2) furthermore, as will be explained in the fourth section, this
intellect also provides the first principles of understanding through
which human beings can attain happiness (al-Farabi VC:
204-205).



Thus far we have explained the first three principles in
al-Farabi's emanationist model (the First Cause,
the second intellects, and the active intellect). The other three
principles (the soul, the matter and the form) have in common their
connection to the different bodies that comprise the universe. In
*The Political Regime* al-Farabi explains these
principles following a particular order: first the soul, then the
matter, and finally the form; in *The Virtuous City*, however,
he first explains what matter and form are and subsequently gives a
precise account of the soul and its faculties
(al-Farabi VC: 134-163). This latter approach is
clearer for two main reasons: (1) the long explanation that
al-Farabi provides concerning the origin of matter from
the most imperfect, that is, prime matter, to the most excellent,
namely, rational animals, sets forth a precise framework for the
understanding of the rational human soul; (2) the explanation
concerning the relation between matter and form gives us a better
understanding of the relation between body and soul. Matter is the
substratum of the form and, hence, the form does not have subsistence
by itself since it needs matter; however, matter only exists due to
the form (al-Farabi VC: 108-109).



Concerning the origin and composition of matter,
al-Farabi explains that the circular motion of the
celestial spheres generates prime matter (*al-madda
al-ula*), which is common to all bodies in the sublunary
world. The four elements proceed from prime matter and, when these
elements combine and mix in different ways and undergo the influence
of the heavenly bodies, they generate numerous kinds of bodies:
minerals, plants, non-rational animals, and rational animals
(al-Farabi VC:
 112-115).[3]
 Given that matter is the substratum of form, the different forms
appear when the combination of the elements takes place, giving rise
to different kinds of bodies. As there are different kinds of bodies,
there are also different kinds of forms, some of them of lower
perfection, as the form of minerals or plants, and others more
perfect, as the form of rational animals. This perfection is given by
the faculties that each body has according to its natural disposition:
while plants have basic faculties such as nutrition or reproduction,
rational animals have a higher faculty, the intellect, which enables
human beings to attain intelligibles in act.



In *The Political Regime* al-Farabi deals with
the relation between matter and form, and explains that form is the
actualization of matter in the sense that form is more excellent than
matter; however, matter is the substratum of form and without matter
there is no form (al-Farabi KS: 39; PR: 36). As can be
seen, al-Farabi is a partisan of Aristotelian
hylomorphism. This relates to his understanding of the soul as the
form or actualization of the body and thus perishable with the body.
For al-Farabi, as for Aristotle, the soul is
responsible for the capacities or operations of the human body. When
referring to the human soul, al-Farabi holds that the
rational part can come to realize itself to such a degree of
perfection that it no longer has need of the body, and can come very
close to reaching the status of a separate being
(al-Farabi KS: 42; PR: 38). In other words, the
rational part is able to separate itself from its other
faculties--sensitive, appetitive, and imaginative--in order
to attain perfection by transforming itself into an eternal
imperishable intellect. As can be seen, al-Farabi
renders an account on the origin of the soul and its faculties by
means of a rather complex ontological and cosmological process,
through which the human soul progressively attains greater perfection.
Nevertheless, before explaining what this perfection consists in, I
shall discuss al-Farabi's understanding of the
faculties of the soul and their function. 


## 2. The Soul and its Faculties



In *The Virtuous City* al-Farabi devotes an
entire chapter to the faculties of the human soul, from the most basic
and lowest, namely nutrition, to the most perfect and highest, that
is, the rational or intellective faculty (al-Farabi VC:
164-175). Nutrition is shared among plants, animals and human
beings; next there is a group of faculties, the external senses
(touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight). Animals and human being
share these senses. Along with these sensitive faculties there is also
the appetitive faculty through which humans and animals experience
desire or aversion towards the objects they perceive through the
senses. Then, proceeding with the internal senses, there is the
imaginative faculty whose function is to retain the sensible
impressions when these are no longer present to the external senses.
This faculty also has the capacity to combine sensibles with each
other, to connect and disconnect them in different compositions and
divisions, some of them being false, and some true
(al-Farabi VC: 168-169). The imaginative faculty
is also linked to the appetitive faculty given that it is possible to
desire imaginative representations. The role of this faculty in human
cognition is particularly relevant and is given separate attention in
the next section. Last and highest in al-Farabi's
account is the rational or intellective faculty
(*'aql*).



Al-Farabi gives a complete explanation of the way in
which all the faculties of the soul work together. Each faculty has a
ruling organ and others that are auxiliaries and subordinates
(al-Farabi VC: 174-187). He holds that the ruling
organ in the human body is the heart; the brain is a secondary ruling
organ subordinated to the heart; however, all the other organs and
limbs are subordinated to the brain. The heart rules every faculty
through subordinate organs and limbs. Thus, the ruling organ of
nutrition is the heart and the subordinates are the other organs that
intervene in the process of nutrition, that is, the stomach, the
liver, the spleen, etc. The faculty of sensation is explained
following the same model: the heart rules sensation, and its
subordinates or auxiliaries are the five senses whose function is to
apprehend sensibles. The imaginative faculty is located in the heart
and has no auxiliaries distributed in other organs, but it controls
what is provided by the five senses. According to
al-Farabi, the imaginative faculty is able to separate
and connect what is provided by the five senses in different ways,
sometimes attaining an image in agreement with what has been
perceived, sometimes something different (al-Farabi VC:
168-169). Concerning the rational faculty,
al-Farabi explains that it is also located in the heart
and has neither auxiliaries nor subordinates, but rules the other
faculties, namely, the imaginative, the sensitive, and the nutritive
(al-Farabi VC: 169-171).



The appetitive faculty makes the will (*irada*) arise once
the sensitive, the imaginative, or the rational faculties have
apprehended something. Appetite, according to
al-Farabi, may be towards knowing or doing a thing,
either with the whole body or with some limb or organ. The auxiliaries
and subordinates of this faculty are, therefore, all the organs
involved in the motion of the body. In other words, the limbs, nerves,
and muscles spread throughout the body serve as instruments and
subordinates of the appetitive faculty (al-Farabi VC:
170-171).



Notice that al-Farabi is following Aristotle according
to whom the heart is the center of the biological and even perceptive
capacities of animals and human beings. The heart is relevant because
it is the source of innate heat or the vital innate spirit, which
spreads through the blood vessels sustaining and preserving all the
parts of the body. The second major organ, the brain, regulates the
heat disseminated by the heart (al-Farabi VC:
176-177). This innate heat is the principle of life. This
biological account helps explain the origin and nature of the soul. In
the previous section I explained al-Farabi's
understanding of the origin and composition of matter and its relation
to the form. When referring specifically to the conformity of the
human body and the origin of the rational soul,
al-Farabi holds that the conformity of this kind of
body with its corresponding set of faculties is only possible when the
heat of the heart reaches a certain temperature.



Following Aristotle, al-Farabi explains the role of the
reproductive faculty (al-Farabi VC: 186-197) in
the origin of the body and the soul. He holds that the female prepares
the matter while the male prepares the form. Once again, he insists on
the centrality of the heart, which provides the matter of the living
being through the womb and the form through the organ that generates
the semen. The semen, once entering the womb, finds inside of it the
blood that had been previously prepared by the womb in order to
receive the human form contained in the semen. The semen in turn
endows this blood with a capacity that enables the blood to move and
start forming the different organs that make up the human body. Hence,
the blood from the womb serves as the matter that receives the human
form contained in the semen, which is to say that the semen serves as
the rennet by which the milk is curdled. Just as the rennet is that by
virtue of which fresh milk curdles, while not being part of the
curdled milk nor of its matter, so it happens with the semen, which is
not part of the clogged blood or of its matter. Hence, the embryo is
constituted in the same way that fresh milk is curdled by the action
of the curdling principle, that is, the rennet.



When the blood in the womb receives the form from the semen, the first
thing that arises is precisely the heart (al-Farabi VC:
186-187). The other organs in the body emerge only once the rest
of the faculties, beginning with the nutritive faculty, are present in
the heart. The developing organs include those that are endowed with
specifically female or male procreative faculties. Therefore, male and
female individuals share all organs but those with reproductive
functions and, similarly, both share all the faculties of the soul,
that is, the sensitive, the imaginative, and the rational faculties
(al-Farabi VC: 196-197).



All of this detailed biological discussion helps explain the emergence
of the perceptive faculties in animals and human beings. Both have
sensation so that they can receive the impressions produced by
external objects and, through the imaginative faculty, they can retain
sensibles while no longer being in contact with the exterior world.
Animals are able to react to the external world because they possess
sensation and imagination, so they can experience pleasure and pain,
or detect those situations that are damaging or dangerous for them. In
the case of human beings, in addition to the imaginative faculty, the
rational faculty is essential for cognition: human cognition is
characterized not by the mere attainment of sensible forms but,
rather, by the attainment of intelligibles. Furthermore, it is the
faculty through which human beings attain the sciences and the arts,
and through which they are able to discern between good habits and
good deeds from those that are bad. By this faculty humans are able to
reflect on whether something should be done and they can recognize
what is useful, pleasant, and harmful (al-Farabi VC:
165).



The rational faculty is both theoretical and practical
(al-Farabi KS: 32-33; PR: 29-31). In its
theoretical aspect, the rational faculty allows humans to attain the
knowledge of things that are in a certain way and cannot be otherwise;
that is, humans are not able to act upon them or alter them. For
example, we cannot do anything to alter the fact that three is an odd
number and four an even number (al-Farabi SA: SS7,
15-16). In contrast, in its practical aspect, the rational
faculty deals with those things humans can act upon and alter. In this
practical dimension, the rational faculty involves skills and
calculation. Skills refer to acquired abilities for practicing
activities such as carpentry, farming, medicine, or sailing, while
calculation is related to those situations where we need to deliberate
about something we want to do, when we want to do it, whether it is
possible to do it and, if possible, how it should be done
(al-Farabi VC: 208-209; SA: SS7,
15-16).



As can be seen, the rational faculty is responsible for human
cognition in all its aspects. However, though al-Farabi
gives much importance to this faculty, he also devotes much attention
to the imaginative faculty in itself and its interactions with the
rational faculty. The two following sections review in more detail the
role of the imaginative and the rational or intellective faculties in
human cognition, respectively.


## 3. The Relevance of the Imaginative Faculty



According to al-Farabi the imaginative faculty is very
active in human cognitive acts. As outlined above, its function is to
retain sense impressions when they are no longer perceived as external
stimuli, and also to combine, compose, and even reproduce, those
impressions. Following the Aristotelian account,
al-Farabi thinks that the imaginative faculty is
intermediate between the sensitive and rational faculties. In fact, in
the case of human beings, its function is to provide reason with the
impressions attained through the senses, but it also serves the
rational faculty in other ways, as will be shown.



In the waking state the imaginative faculty is permanently engaged
with the rational, appetitive, and sensible faculties. In such a state
the sensible faculty is actively working in interaction with sensibles
and sense impressions. Likewise, as mentioned, the imaginative faculty
provides both the rational and appetitive faculties with these sense
impressions. Nevertheless, when in the sleeping state, the sensitive,
appetitive, and rational faculties cease their activities, and this is
when the imaginative faculty performs a distinctive action of its own.
Given that the sensitive faculty is at ease and no longer receiving
fresh sense impressions, the imaginative faculty turns now to the
impressions preserved in itself, and acts upon them by means of
composition and division. Hence, the imaginative faculty has the power
to preserve and manipulate sense impressions through composition or
division, both in the case of those freshly offered by the senses
while in the waking state and those that have been stored in it
(al-Farabi VC: 210-227).



In addition to the powers described above, the imaginative faculty has
a distinctive capacity, that is, "reproductive imitation"
or mimesis (*muhakat*). Reproductive imitation refers
to the capacity displayed by the imaginative faculty to imitate a
series of elements by means of the sensibles stored in it. Through
these sensibles, the imaginative faculty can imitate impressions that
pertain to the sensitive faculty, intelligibles that pertain to the
rational faculty, desires that pertain to the appetitive faculty, and
also aspects proper to the nutritive faculty and even the temperament
of the body (al-Farabi VC: 210-213). This is why
the imagination has the capacity to stimulate particular emotions,
humors, desires, and temperaments that move the body and put it into
action (al-Farabi VC: 216-219).



Regarding the relation between the imaginative and rational faculties,
since the imaginative faculty only deals with sensibles, in order to
relate to the intelligibles it must imitate them by means of
sensibles. For this reason, when providing his theory of prophecy and
divination, al-Farabi argues that while the active
intellect usually enables the actualization of the potential
intelligibles in the material intellect, in some special cases the
active intellect directly provides intelligibles that are accessible
to the imaginative faculty in the form of particular sensibles. These
events can take place both in the waking and sleeping states, but are
rather rare while waking and restricted to a few people
(al-Farabi VC: 220-223).



When an individual has a very powerful imaginative faculty, to such a
degree that it is no longer restricted to the supply of images to the
other faculties, it is thus free to experience sensibles of extreme
beauty and perfection by means of imitation. The highest rank of
perfection that the imaginative faculty can achieve is precisely when
an individual attains prophecy or awareness of present or future
events, as well as the capacity to see glorious or divine beings. This
can be achieved by means of present and future particulars and the
transcendent intelligibles of divine beings, both granted by the
active intellect. However, al-Farabi also expounds a
series of inferior ranks below this most perfect attainment of vision,
each progressively more imperfect than the precedent in terms of
whether the vision takes place during waking or sleeping states, and
whether the individual has access to particulars or intelligibles.
According to al-Farabi, the most common kind of vision
is that of individuals who receive particulars while in the sleeping
state.



Although al-Farabi's conception of the
imaginative faculty departs from Aristotle's view, it combines
some elements coming from the Hellenistic and the Middle Platonist
traditions that, as Walzer (1957: 142-148) points out, may have
been taken from Porphyry and Proclus. The result is a psychological
explanation of prophecy and divination. In recent years, scholars
working on the Arabic version of Aristotle's treatise *On
Divination in Sleep* (Hansberger 2008: 73-74; 2010: 158)
have suggested that this work is a relevant source for the
understanding of the Islamic philosophical conception of prophecy,
including that of al-Farabi. The Arabic *On
Divination in Sleep* is an adulterated version of
Aristotle's text and provides a different explanation of
veridical dreams within a Neoplatonic metaphysical framework, where a
universal intellect distributes veridical dreams and some people with
outstanding psychological capacities are able to receive them and
interpret
 them.[4]
 Even though no explicit references are made to *On Divination in
Sleep* in al-Farabi's *The Virtuous
City*, there are noticeable similarities between the two
treatises.


## 4. Doctrine on the Intellect



It has been mentioned that it is through the intellect that human
beings know intelligibles, attain the sciences and the arts, and
discern and reflect on practical matters. In *The Treatise on the
Intellect*, known in Latin as *De intellectu*,
al-Farabi provides a complete account of the different
senses of the term *'aql* (nous,
intellect or reason) starting with (1) the use that most people have
given to the term, then (2) the way in which Islamic theologians have
used it and, (3) finally, the different senses it has in
Aristotle's works, concretely, in *Posterior Analytics*,
*Nicomachean Ethics*, *On the Soul*, and
*Metaphysics* (al-Farabi LI: 3-4; OI: 68).




Most people use the term *'aql* to describe the capacity
that enables a person to discern which deeds are virtuous and which
are not by means of deliberation. This first sense is very close to
Aristotle's conception of prudence. Similarly, Islamic
theologians use this term to refer to those actions that are accepted
or repudiated in general or by the majority. More important for our
purposes in this article are the different senses of the term in the
Aristotelian corpus. According to al-Farabi, in
*Posterior Analytics* 2.19, *'aql* is understood
as a faculty of the soul by means of which certainty about necessary,
true, and universal premises is attained. Premises of this kind are
not arrived at by means of syllogisms, but are present in the subject
in a prior way, either by nature or without one being aware of how
these premises were acquired. Hence, this faculty is some part of the
soul by which humans have access to the first principles of the
theoretical sciences. I shall refer to this use of the term in detail
in the final section of this article (al-Farabi LI:
5-9; OI: 69-70).



In *Nicomachean Ethics* 6.6, Aristotle uses the term
nous to refer to a part of the soul, namely
prudence (phronesis /
*ta'aqqul*), the ability to apprehend through experience
the principles of practical matters. Certainly, just as Aristotle
refers to the first principles of the theoretical sciences, he
holds--and al-Farabi after him--that there
are also first principles of the practical
 sciences.[5]
 Another sense is found in *On the Soul* 3.4 where, according
to al-Farabi, Aristotle divides the intellect into (1)
potential (also known as material or passive) (*'aql
bi-l-quwah*), (2) actual or intellect in actuality (*'aql
bi'l-fi'l*), (3) acquired intellect (*'aql
al-mustafad*), and (4) active or agent intellect
(*'aql al-fa ''al*)
(al-Farabi LI: 9-11; LC: 215; OI: 70-71).
Notice that these stages are not present in Aristotle's *On
the Soul*, but in Alexander's *On the Intellect*.
This is one of the aspects that show evidence that
al-Farabi draws extensively upon Alexander, as several
scholars have noticed (Davidson 1992: 48-63 & 65-70;
Geoffroy 2002: 191-231; Vallat 2004: 33-42). Finally, in
*Metaphysics Lambda*, according to
al-Farabi's account, Aristotle refers to the
First Principle of existing things as the First Intellect
(al-Farabi LI: 35-36; OI: 78). 



Given the purpose of this article, the account of the intellect as
used in the psychological context of the *On the Soul* deserves
deeper consideration (al-Farabi LI: 12-35; LC:
215-221; OI: 71-78). This approach is exhaustively
examined both in *The Treatise on the Intellect* and in *The
Virtuous City*. In the latter there is a complete account of the
way in which the rational or intellectual faculty acts
(al-Farabi VC: 196-211). Once
al-Farabi has explained the role of the imaginative
faculty as that which provides the intellect with impressions attained
through the senses, he next explains the process whereby they become
intelligibles in act. Following Aristotle and the Aristotelian
tradition, al-Farabi describes the intellect as being
itself potential or, using Alexander's terminology, an innate
"natural disposition"
(epitedeiotes
/ *isti'dad*) (al-Farabi VC:
198-199; Geoffroy 2002: 204). This kind of intellect is
frequently called "potential", "material", or
"passive", and is simply the rational faculty with which
all human beings are endowed.



In *The Treatise on the Intellect* al-Farabi
refers to the material intellect (nous
ulikos, a Greek term coined by
Alexander) as a soul or part of the soul, or one of the faculties of
the soul, or something that is in potency to abstract the forms from
their matter and turning these into forms for itself
(al-Farabi LI: 12-16; LC: 215; OI:
 71-72).[6]
 When these forms are abstracted, they become intelligibles or forms
for the material intellect. It can be rightly said that for
al-Farabi the material intellect is like the matter
where the abstracted forms come to be, where the material intellect
itself becomes the abstracted forms, just as the imprinted object
leaves its mark on a piece of wax.



Before a form of the objects outside the soul has been abstracted, the
material intellect is just in potency to receive those forms or
potential intelligibles; but when these latter come to be in the
material intellect, the material intellect becomes an actual
intellect, and the potential intelligibles are actualized. Now, the
existence of actual intelligibles is different from their existence as
potential intelligibles or forms in matter. When external to the soul
and linked to matter, forms are affected by place, time, position,
quantity, and the like. But when forms are actualized in the soul,
many of these qualities are removed and their existence thus becomes
different from their former existence as forms of bodies outside the
soul (al-Farabi LI: 16-17; LC: 216; OI: 72).



Since the actual intellect becomes itself the actual intelligibles,
then they are one and the same thing: what is understood is not
different from the intellect itself, since the actual intelligible has
become the form of the actual intellect. If other intelligibles come
to be in the actual intellect, they will also be actualized. As a
consequence, the actual intellect will be able to understand on its
own and not by means of forms in matter outside from itself. When this
stage of intellection is attained, the actual intellect becomes the
so-called "acquired" intellect (al-Farabi
LI: 19-21; LC: 216-217; OI: 72-73).



Whereas forms linked to matter have to be abstracted in order to
become actual intelligibles in the actual intellect, the process of
abstraction is not required in the case of forms separate from matter,
that is, the separate entities that belong to the supralunar realm.
These separate forms are grasped by the intellect not as actual
intellect but as the acquired intellect, and thus become forms for it.
Moreover, the acquired intellect is a perfection of the human
intellect because it has no need to perform the activity of
abstraction in order to grasp forms existing separately from matter.
In other words, it is the acquired intellect that enables the grasping
of separate forms through the assistance of the active intellect.
Evidently, this view differs from Aristotle's original stance,
since al-Farabi, once again following Alexander, links
psychology and cosmology, that is, the acquired intellect and the
active intellect. 



Regarding the active intellect, as mentioned in the first section,
this intellect is a separate form, which is not linked to matter, and
has never been and never will be. According to
al-Farabi, in its species the active intellect is an
actual intellect quite similar to the acquired intellect. The active
intellect is what turns the material intellect into an actual
intellect and what turns the potential intelligibles into actual
intelligibles. To describe the assistance of the active intellect in
this process, al-Farabi resorts to the well-known
analogy of light, used by Aristotle in *On the Soul* 3, which
raised a great deal of discussion among late ancient and medieval
commentators of Aristotle.



The way al-Farabi builds the referred analogy echoes
Alexander and Themistius (Davidson 1992: 50). Al-Farabi
describes the relationship of the active intellect and the material
intellect as that held between the sun and sight
(al-Farabi LI: 24-27; LC: 218-219; OI:
74-75). As H. A. Davidson (1992: 50-51) states, the
analogy is built upon Aristotle's theory of vision, but
al-Farabi stresses the sun as the source of the
 light.[7]
 Therefore, al-Farabi equates the sun as the source of
light with the active intellect, and not with the light itself. In
this sense, following Davidson's description, the light from the
sun does four things: (1) it enters the eye and turns its potential
vision into actual vision; (2) it enables potentially visible colors
to become visible in actuality; (3) it itself becomes visible to the
eye; and (4) it renders the sun, its source, visible to the eye. The
analogy works as follows: (1) the active intellect turns the material
or passive intellect into intellect in actuality; (2) it transforms
potential intelligibles (sense impressions stored in the imaginative
faculty) into actual intelligibles; (3) it itself becomes an
intelligible object for the human intellect; and (4) it renders the
active intellect as an intelligible object for the human intellect.
With this analogy al-Farabi suggests that the active
intellect provides some sort of illumination or flow of light by which
the human intellect is actualized enabling it to grasp the forms by
abstraction.



Through the intellective process described, the active intellect makes
the forms that are in matter progressively more immaterial and brings
about the acquired intellect. Since the acquired intellect is of the
same sort as the active intellect, the human intellect thus becomes
progressively closer to the active intellect. In the view of
al-Farabi, this is precisely the ultimate goal and
happiness (*sa'adah*) of human beings, and
constitutes the way in which they attain definitive perfection:
through the intellectual process the acquired intellect gradually
becomes a substance that performs the action by virtue of which it
realizes itself fully as substance and, in this way, remains in
existence in the afterlife (*hayah al-akhirah*)
(al-Farabi LI: 27; 31-32; LC: 219-220; OI:
75-76). Through this gradual process of perfection, the acquired
intellect ends up acting only within itself, equating its own action
with its own existence. When this stage is reached, the body is no
longer needed as its matter in order to subsist, whereas it was
initially needed for actions such as sensation and imagination to take
place. Hence, the most perfect state the intellect can achieve is when
it can subsist independently from the body. Nevertheless, the way in
which al-Farabi understood the relation between the
acquired and agent intellects, was harshly criticized by Averroes who
judged it impossible to conceive the transformation of the material
intellect within the perishable human being into an immaterial and
eternal substance at the level of the agent intellect (Averroes LCD:
387-388). 


## 5. Theory of Scientific Knowledge



As mentioned in the previous section, the term *'aql*
(intellect) is used in different ways. We have dealt with the way in
which al-Farabi uses it in the psychological context of
Aristotle's treatise *On the Soul*. However, in his
account of the different senses of the term, al-Farabi
also refers to its use in *Posterior Analytics* 2.19, where
Aristotle uses the term nous in an
epistemological context when he talks about a faculty of the soul by
means of which certainty about necessary, true, and universal premises
is attained. In his *Aphorisms* al-Farabi
describes the theoretical intellect in the same terms when he says
that this intellect 



> 
> 
> is the faculty by which we attain by nature, and not by examination or
> syllogistic reasoning, certain knowledge concerning the necessary,
> universal premises that are principles of the sciences.
> (al-Farabi SA: SS34, 28-29)
> 
> 
> 



By "principles of the sciences", al-Farabi
refers to principles such as 'the whole is greater than the
part,' 'amounts equal to a single amount are mutually
equal,' and premises of this kind, following Aristotle
explicitly once again. These premises are the first point from which a
thing is known or comes to be known (Aristotle *Metaphysics* 5,
1013a18). As explained earlier, the human intellect passes from
potency to act through the assistance of the active intellect, and
when the intellect in act becomes acquired intellect and reaches the
capacity to understand on its own, this means that it already has the
actual disposition to infer and reason by itself. In other words, the
intellect has attained the habit of knowledge, and therefore is able
to attain scientific knowledge (*'ilm*).
Al-Farabi's understanding of "scientific
knowledge", has nothing to do with the modern notion of
"science"; rather he is using Aristotle's notion of
*apodeixis*, that is, a type of knowledge that guarantees
certainty, and is confined to mathematics and metaphysics. In this
respect, Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition after him are far
from modern experimental science, since the main concern of the former
is the attainment of absolute certainty. According to
al-Farabi, scientific knowledge is a virtue of the
theoretical intellect that enables the rational soul to attain
certainty about those beings whose existence and constitution do not
depend on human artifice, as well as what those beings are and how
they are, 



> 
> 
> from demonstrations composed of accurate, necessary, and primary
> premises of which the intellect becomes certain and attains knowledge
> by nature. (al-Farabi SA: SS35, 29) 
> 
> 
> 



This language resembles that found in *Posterior Analytics*
2.19, and also in *Nicomachean Ethics* 6.3.



Following al-Farabi's explanation of
*'ilm* in his *Aphorisms*, there are two types of
scientific knowledge: (1) becoming certain of the existence and the
reason of the existence of a thing, and why it cannot possibly be
otherwise; and (2) becoming certain of the existence of a thing and
why it cannot be something else, but without considering the reason
for its existence.



Al-Farabi goes on to define scientific knowledge as
being accurate, certain, and steadfast in any given moment, which
means it does not change through time and does not go in and out of
existence. Certainty cannot contain doubt and falsehood, since what
can in any way be false cannot be considered certain or be said to be
knowledge. For this very reason, al-Farabi points out
that the ancients did not consider sensation of what can change as
knowledge; rather, scientific knowledge is confined to the
"certainty" about the existence of things that cannot
possibly change. In order to explain this al-Farabi
offers the example of the number three being always an odd number, and
how it cannot be otherwise.



The notion of "certainty" (*yaqin*) has a
relevant place in al-Farabi's epistemology and is
linked also to his conception of the logical arts. In fact, he
understands logic (*mantiq*) as a tool
(*alah*) that leads to certainty when used correctly. He
conceives five logical arts: demonstration, dialectic, sophistry,
rhetoric, and poetics (al-Farabi ES: 37-45).
Dialectic engenders belief (*zann*) through arguments
built upon generally-accepted opinions; sophistry is a logical art
that makes general opinions appear true; rhetoric persuades by means
of appealing elocutions; poetics persuades by means of alluring or
repulsive images; finally, demonstration, the highest of the logical
arts, leads to certainty by means of universal and necessary
 premises.[8]
 The non-demonstrative logical arts--dialectic, sophistry,
rhetoric, and poetics--engender opinion in different degrees
whereas, in contrast, demonstration engenders certainty. However, in
some places al-Farabi admits that it could be the case
that these non-demonstrative arts would lead to assent to beliefs in a
way very close to certainty (al-Farabi KB: 20-21;
BD: 64-65). For this reason, as D. Black (2006: 11-45) has
pointed out, it is important to distinguish in
al-Farabi between "certainty"
(*yaqin*) and "absolute certainty"
(*al-yaqin 'ala al-itlaq*). 



There are two works where al-Farabi treats the notion
of absolute certainty in detail. The first is his *Book of
Demonstration* (*Kitab al-burhan*) and the second
is the *Book on the Conditions of Certitude* (*Kitab
Sara'it al-yaqin*). In both treatises
al-Farabi provides some conditions for absolute
certainty. The second treatise contains an exhaustive account of these
conditions, six in number: (1) to believe that something is in some
way and not another, (2) to agree that this belief corresponds and is
not opposed to the external existence of the thing, (3) to know the
correspondence between the belief of the existence and the existence
of the thing in reality, (4) to know that it is not possible for this
correspondence to happen and there to be opposition, (5) to know that
opposition between belief and reality cannot happen at any time, and
(6) to know that all this is not accidental, but essential
(al-Farabi KY: 98). According to D. Black (2006: 16),
these conditions can be understood as follows:


* *S* believes that *p* (the belief condition);
* *p* is true (the truth condition);
* *S* knows that *p* is true (the knowledge
condition);
* it is impossible that *p* not be true (the necessity
condition);
* there is no time at which *p* can be false (the eternity
condition); and,
* conditions 1-5 hold essentially, not accidentally (the
non-accidentality condition).



D. Black realizes that al-Farabi's first three
conditions for certainty seem to evoke the traditional tripartite
definition of knowledge as "justified true belief", an
essential and debated notion in contemporary epistemology. However, as
D. Black herself notices, in al-Farabi the
justification condition, that is, 'having good reasons or
sufficient evidence to believe something,' is replaced by the
knowledge condition and, in this sense, knowledge itself becomes a
necessary ingredient within certainty, and therefore is insufficient
for raising a belief to the status of absolute certainty. For this
reason, certainty for al-Farabi requires two conditions
from the knower: (1) to know that a proposition *x* is true, and
(2) to know that she knows. This is very close, as D. Black notices,
to what contemporary epistemology calls "second
order-knowledge" (Black 2006: 19-21). 



In the *Book of Demonstration* al-Farabi states
that the goal of scientific demonstration is precisely absolute or
necessary certainty (al-Farabi KB: 26; BD: 68). In a
very short treatise entitled *Introductory Letter on Logic*
(*Risalah sudira biha al-kitab*)
al-Farabi writes: 



> 
> 
> Philosophical discourse is called demonstrative. It seeks to teach and
> make clear the truth in the things which are such that they afford
> certain knowledge. (al-Farabi IR: 231) 
> 
> 
> 



It seems, therefore, that al-Farabi has a strict
conception of demonstrative science inspired by Aristotle's
*Posterior Analytics*. Nevertheless, although
al-Farabi gives demonstration and absolute certainty a
relevant place in his conception of philosophy, he also considers that
our knowledge is not limited to absolute certainty. He also takes into
consideration other forms of knowledge that can lead us to what should
be called non-necessary certainty, as is the case with the different
kinds of knowledge we attain by means of the non-demonstrative logical
arts. In this regard, al-Farabi considers that from the
different kinds of arguments we can conceive different degrees of
certainty and therefore, different kinds of beliefs (from absolute
certainty to non-necessary certainty or strong belief).