The Influence of Alfarabi on the
Political Thought of Aquinas
Tracing the Development of Philosophy in the Latin West
and the Interaction between it and the Arabic East
Tim Urista
MA Thesis 3/21/2011
Advisers:
Professor Anselm Min
Ahmed Alwisha
1 Introduction
1.1 Expanding the Influence of Islamic Philosophy
We often think of the medieval period and its scientific development as a primarily Christo- Roman phenomena given such philosophers as Boethius, Cicero and the Aristotle. While important indeed, we often overlook the importance of Islamic philosophy in not simply the retransmission of Greek philosophy to the Western world, but as developing crucial metaphysical concepts which would prove quite important in the overall history of philosophy and science in general. More importantly, where this is acknowledged such as in the works of Aquinas, we are all too often seem quick to disregard or mildly gloss over the influence of Arabic philosophy in his reception of Aristotle. But this is a crucial mistake, and there is considerable justification not only for a simple interaction but a deep and conceptual legacy found in conceptual framework of Aquinas.
1.2 Aruging for the influence of Alfarabi on Aquinas
There is one crucial Islamic philosopher who perhaps has been most overlooked when considering the influence of Arabic philosophy on the political thought of Aquinas and other medieval theologians. This is the great political philosopher Alfarabi. Writing in the 10th century, it might seem that he is about three hundred years removed from more contemporary philosophers such as Avveroes, however there are three reasons which become most apparent when justifying the influence of this philosopher on Aquinas. First, one can see the historical context in which Aquinas found himself, where the great universities of Italy held copies of Islamic medical journals, and metaphysical treatises during the 13th century. Second, the literary works of Aquinas in many places bear quite similar phrasing and distinctions between the two thinkers. And finally, where these similarities cannot simply be explained by a common Aristotelian source, one can show that the conceptual nature of Aquinas work shows a great development and synthesis of some exclusively Alfarabian thought which may even lead to the development of his theory of natural law.
1.3 Two reasons why this matters
There are two reasons for undertaking such a project like this, which might seem highly speculative and conjectural. First, if we can show that Islamic philosophy was at the heart of some of the great developments of Christian theology, and might even have served as a catalyst, we can show that these two religious traditions had an intimate exchange during this period. Perhaps it might even acknowledge a kind of fidelity between two contemporary enemies. Moreover, the second reason is historiographical. This kind of in depth comparison will show that the history of political philosophy is largely indebted to the Islamic community, and that the scientific legacy of Western tradition is in fundamental ways shaped by the East. In turn, this would support further justification for studying the history Islamic philosophy itself. Therefore, while this project might at first seem purely academic, it is important contribution to understanding the interaction between these two traditions which during the same period would come to a violent clash and give up on collaborative, scientific endeavors.
1.4Following the work of Robert Hammond
Before we begin, it is important to acknowledge that the foundation of this comparative work was already done by Richard Hammond in his famous book the Philosophy of Alfarabi and its influence on Medieval Thought (1947). This work was fundamental and some of the following comparison will draw on Hammond's insights. In that work, he brought passages from Thomas Aquinas and Alfarabi into parallel tables for comparison. However, although he showed that Aquinas obviously repeats much of the same language as Alfarabi, subsequent studies have been forthcoming to further establish the link between these two thinkers. Moreover, the "evidence" between them has perhaps been written off much in the same way Alfarabi has, as little more than a derivation of Aristotelian thought.
For this reason, I identify three problems which have prevented more serious consideration of the influence of Alfarabi on Aquinas. First, the Scholastic tradition which had a great influence on Aquinas has long disavowed its intellectual heritage to the great writings of the Islamic philosophers. Second, since Aquinas read both Alfarabi and Aristotle in translation much of the parallels which were shown by Hammond, could have been dismissed as derivative incorporation of Aristotle's work. And third, Alfarabi was considered to be little more than a thinly veiled mimicry of Aristotle and Noe Platonism in early scholarship of this discipline. Thus, these problems will be addressed in turn to show not only that Aquinas knew Alfarabi, but he drew on his own unique thought, and not simply Aristotelian tradition.
2Historical Justification
2.1House of Wisdom Movement: Islamic translation of Greek Philosophy (8th century-13th century)
The history of Islamic Philosophy begins with the translation movement in 8th century. During this time, Persian Zoroastrians, along with Nestorian, Monophysite, and Jacobyte Christians were drawn into the fold as the Islamic empire expanded into Spain, upward into Byzantine territory, and eastward past the Caspian Sea. With the Umayyad government, this political conquest also culminated in a particular linguistic conquest with Arabic initiated as the national language of the Empire. Moreover, under the governance of the caliphate al-Mamun, a school of translation was established utilizing to full effect the works of Nestorian and Monophysite theological schools in order to begin translation of their medical and astronomic works into the national Arabic.
This initial translation movement led to an interest in Greek works of philosophy, including the revered works of Aristotle, Plato, and Platonius. According to the historian Majid Fakhry, the House of Wisdom (or Bayt al-Hikmah) is indebted to a particular dream in which Aristotle appeared before al-Mamun and engaged in a dialogue about the good of nature and then dispersed. This encounter ended with the advice of the Greek sage “to cling to the confession of unity [or monotheist creed]” (Fakhry, 11). This lead the caliph al-Mamun in the 8th ce to establish the House of Wisdom as an official institute and library for translation and research. In addition to this, he also sent out emissaries to retrieve books for translation as well as appointed officers and heads of the Institute. From this institute, great works of Greek thought would be translated and preserved including Theologia Aristotelias which radically influenced the concept of the Soul in the work of al-Kindi and others.
But while this dream, and the pragmatic concerns within the Greek medical and astronomical texts, undoubtedly led to particular inquiries into Greek philosophy, there was another atmosphere within Islamic theology which created a culture willing and eager for philosophical texts about logic and human knowledge. Within Islamic theology prior to this period, there had been a growing division between the Mut’azalites and the Ahsarites on the position of human agency and God’s power. Famously, the Mu’tazalites argued that human will played certain agency in bringing about God’s will, while Asharites and Qaddarites fiercely opposed this by stating that God circumscribed even human will and action. The nature of the interaction between divine will and human will brought up complex questions about the nature of human life and the nature of being itself, for if God could circumscribe even human action, then what was the place of human action in relation to their deeds. In short, this raised the question that if human will, or human agency is relegated to God then where do we locate the role of human beings?
For these reasons we can see the interrelated and complex problem of ontology which Kalam, or Islamic theology, had begun to explore. Given that Greek philosophy, and especially Aristotle in this respect, provided systematic methodology in the form of logic for going about solving these problems, it seems that it was only a matter of time until the discovery of these philosophical texts would prompt an entire discipline devoted to the interpretation and elucidation of these philosophers. Moreover, because Greek philosophy also sought to define the realm of the soul and it’s relation to the material body it would again become not only relevant to the form of theological argumentation, but even on some of the key issues like the causality of God and nature of the soul. For these reason, it seems natural that such works would be appealing in later years, and would help “sharpen” the thinking of the early philosophers as well as help develop their own concepts of soul, cause and existence. Thus, there seemed to be a genuine hope that Greek philosophy could help provide tools to supplement theological discussions and perhaps solve some of the looming issues of the day.
Given this dual promise of philosophy, the first theologian or philosopher to truly assemble the works of Syriac translators and provide his own commentaries was al-Kindi. Al-Kindi’s work can be said to present its own unique contribution to tackling these theological questions. While al-Kindi begins by translating commentaries of Greek philosophers, he also began to develop his own ideas revolving around Qur’anic exegesis. In the Cambridge companion, Peter Adamson asserts that when “al-Kindi explains that the Qur’an (55:6) says that the heavens and trees prostrate themselves” before God, al-Kindi uses this as an opportunity to explain that the heavens are the instrument of the divine providence. Moreover when God wills something his command is “be and it is” provides al-Kindi an opportunity to argue for creation ex-nihilo or that being is brought forth from non-being, a radical opinion which draws on his conclusion about the impossibility of creation having eternal qualities. In this way, al-Kindi postulates his own theories of the universe as not being eternal, which conflicts with Islamic theology as well as some Greek philosophers and marks the beginning of Islamic journey into philosophy.
Furthermore, on the question of the role of philosophy and prophetic tradition, Adamson elucidates a subtle point in the writings of al-Kindi. While the prophet might seem to have an easier time coming at truth than the philosopher, the content of both of their knowledge is the same. While the ultimate aim of both is the same, al-Kindi according to Adamson wanted to utilize the power and coherence of Aristotelian thought in order to show how the methodologies themselves might be challenged. Such that even if the message is the same, the peripheral concerns set up the logical proofs needed to arrive at the kind of true knowledge provided by the Qur’an. Hence for the purposes of leading, guiding and presenting a coherent systematic framework connecting other disciplines and contexts, al-Kindi proved to be essential.
However, while this might seem slightly straightforward, al-Kindi’s insistence on metaphysical knowledge and the causality of nature would also prove dangerous to Islamic theology. In the development of his commentaries, al-Kindi insisted that the world was of one “eternal and homogeneous cause” (Nagel, 185) which he identified with the “True One” slightly modifying the Neo-Platonic name of “The One”. This cause was to be understood as undergirding all religions as the divine Being and revealed God within Islam. And therefore everything which unfolded in the universe was a “consistent causality” such that knowing the constellation of stars and planets let one predict the future, and the whole world could be said to united under one universal soul, or overlord mind (ibid, 186). And because the universe was essentially a causality, it could be known through the intellect, of which al-Kindi defines four aspects of ‘aql. In this respect then, it raised seriously problems for future theologians because it seemed to diminish God as ultimate creator of both being and essence into a kind of inspiring force, or first cause entirely, not the kind of absent and entirely other creator who guided and shaped the entire created world without the aid of human actions, or actions of any other intellect.
Moreover, this raised a serious concern about the agency of human endeavors. For al-Kindi, while revelatory and philosophic knowledge were essentially the same, “human beings were gradually able to increase their knowledge of the world by way of the four kinds of intellect” and in this respect these techniques cultivated by examining the world had to be applied to understand the divine knowledge which was so condensed. Moreover, The philosophers did not need to depend on these revelations but rather because everything existed had its own particular and unmistakable truth according to the first cause, the essential nature of all things could be known independently and in this knowing one might reach a deep connection with God (Napel, 187). This basic understanding of God while providing a strong basis for human inquiry and human direction also introduced a very difficult link between human endeavors within the world and human endeavors to live up to the contents of revealed law. For this reason, the question of knowledge became a central tension between philosophy and theology, or between the philosopher and the theologian.
2.2Short Biography of Alfarabi
Following al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, an Islamic philosopher born in 870 ce in Turkestan, would consider himself to be following in a tradition quite distinct from that of al-Kindi even though he would essentially elaborate on the role of the philosopher in prophetic discourse. According to David C. Reisman in the Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy chapter 4, al-Farabi did not seem to conceive of his predecessors as al-Kindhi or al-Razi. To demonstrate this, Reisman displays a quote from Alfarabi’s Rise of Philosophy to with the phrase “[teaching the] rest [of the logical works] remained private until the coming of Islam [when] the teaching was transferred from Alexandria to Antioch. There it remained for a long time [until] only one teacher was left…” (Reisman, 55). Surprisingly, there is no mention of the supposed first philosopher al-Kindhi, or al-Razi in this history even though they were engaged in utilizing Aristotelian as well as Neo-Platonic ideas. While disagreement alone would not place someone outside of the bound of philosophy, the sheer absence of al-Kindi is troubling for seeing Islamic philosophy as one monolithic body advanced in a singular trajectory.
2.2.1Philosophical life
Although little is known of the early biography of Alfarabi, the formative period for his thought occurred after his move from his home town in the district of Farab to pursue studies in Baghdad by Yuhanna b. Hailan (Fahkry, 112). In the subsequent years which followed, Alfarabi made contact with "Christian clerics who traced the origin of their studies to the school of Alexandria, the pagan Platonic philosophic school of philosophy that had Christianized during the later Roman period" and the remnants of this school scattered across Central Asia (Mahdi, 1). Although heavily steeped in Neoplatonic thought of his day, in fundamental ways Alfarabi seems to reject their main tenets and opts instead for a return to "pre-Neoplatonic" and Aristotelian works for his commentaries. Moreover, he also built political philosophy which challenged Greek philosophy to “investigate and make intelligible the political order based on prophecy, revelation, and the divine law” (Mahdi, 1). He died in 950 on the road to Damascus but nevertheless he grew very influential with Ibn Sina (Aviccena) his contemporary and Avveroes. Two later thinkers who would exert a great influence on the University in the West.
2.2.2Philosophical Development, Alfarabi's Writings and Commentaries
During his time in Baghdad under Hailin, Alfarabi became known by many as the “Second Teacher” and as the leading logician and expositor of Plato and Aristotle during his day. He was instructed in Book of Demonstration which was also known as Posterior Analytics, and in a short time he composed many commentaries on logical works which gained him incredible prestige and notoriety for his day (Fahkry, 113). Similarily, Alfarabi also made many contributions to metaphysics, politics and physics with the culminating point being his Enumeration of the Sciences which provided “the most comprehensive general introduction to Aristotelianism and Platonism in Arabic” (Fahry, 114). His political work called the Attainment of Happiness was also held in high esteem and Ibn Sinna, or Avicenna, also took special note of these two works. Undoubtedly Alfarabi heavily influenced the logic and political philosophy of his day, because he developed the logic of Aristotle, and further utilized practical reason in his search to understand political science and the nature of ethics. There are even reports that he maybe have developed his own school which included Avicenna, and Averroes (Glick, 171). Clearly Avicenna is indebted to the theory of universals knowledge which inform practical reason as a doctrine of Alfarabi. Thus, not only was his thought central in and around Baghdad but it spread across the divide between the Umayadd and Abbasid governments, and left a lasting impact on Islamic as well as Christian thought.
2.2.3Lasting Influence
While his logical and political thoughts survived in the works of Avicenna and Avverroes, his Enumeration of the Sciences was also circulated throughout the Latin West, and became a foundational work for understanding and classifying scientific knowledge. One of the most prolific twelfth-century translators, Domingo Gundisalvo, combined parts of Alfarabi's works on the sciences to produce a Latin pastiche called De Divisone Philosophiae (Glick, 171). Other research also suggested that “the text was instrumental in guiding the twelfth-century Christian translators in Toledo and elsewhere in Spain to the very books they needed as they sough togain the doctrina Arabum” (ibid). Moreover, the new Universities of Europe were requiring readings in these new sciences and in the “new” Aristotle (ibid). A new “Alfarbi” school was even established which include al-Tawhidi, al-Sijistani, and al-'Amri. And finally, there are also reports that he was read by the Jewish philosopher Maimonides and was still used as a reference for poltiical and scientific thought fifty years after his reception in the West. Thus what becomes clear is that not only was Alfarbi read, but his thoughts on the classification of sciences which includes of course his commentaries on Aristotle survived in the Latin West and in the libraries of the new European Universities.
2.3Heritage of Islamic thought in Europe
2.3.1Islamic Centers of Learning: Birth of the University
It has already been mentioned that Islamic medical journals and scientific treatises were integrated into the universities of the West. However, they were also incorporated into the very fabric of course learning. As Abu al-Fazl explains, during the subsequent years following the crusades, Western world became aware of the riches of Islamic philosophy and Islamic scholars. During the waning years of the Crusades, the “Islamic centers of learning, specially the Courts of Toledo, Cordova and Palermo, attracted Christian scholars” (al-Fazl, 153). There the scholars came to learn philosophy, mathematics, astronomy and medicine, all of which during the middle ages were deeply interwoven with philosophy and logical expositions of the Islamic philosophers. 9th century Spanish Christians came to these locations in droves, and so much so that Alvaro in 854 complains and deplores their attraction to Islamic culture, tradition, etc.
The availability of Latin translations of Islamic-Greco works combined with the enrollment and integration of Western thinkers into Islamic centers of learning also played a large part in the overall birth of European University. This is evident in the fact that courses in these early institutions held required courses in logic, natural philosophy, geometry, music, arithmetic, and astronomy for anyone attempting to gain qualification for one of these universities (McGrath, 2). There were four faculties, one of the arts and the other “higher ones” including medicine, law, and theology (McGrath, 2). Aristotle became the source of much “natural philosophy” for discovery into the mystery of how God's creation functioned within the world. Thus, Aristotle and scientific inquiry became the basis of a new kind of biblical revolution which included investigation and logical demonstration, this tradition known took shape in the 11/12h century as Scholasticism (Cun-Liffe Jones, 266).
2.3.2Scholastic Tradition; Spread of Islamic Influence into Paris
As Islamic philosophical influence spread into the University, Christianity developed two responses to both Aristotle and the Islamic philosophers. The first was a skepticism towards the tainted works of the Greek philosophers, and a strong reaction against the phenomena of “Averroism.” Many Church leaders felt that the teachings of Averroes went against the immortality of the soul (a corruption of his actual teaching) and they condemned his teachings. But there was also a strong backlash against the censorship of Averroes, by “mostly educated people” who wanted to be free of religious restrictions (Al-Joubori, 402). This second camp made up the growing Scholastic movement which sought the acquisition of truth, and the pursuit of reason to shine on the light of doctrine.
Of central importance to Scholastic pursuit was understanding the tenets of logic, and logical reasoning. As Paris became one of the paramount Universities, it began to include courses not only in mathematics and medicine, but also grammar and rhetoric (Cunliffe-Jones, 266). By 1150, the art school in Paris became the most inflectional in Northern Europe for pursuit not just for preparation in grammar studies, which had been the classical Roman model, but now for the development of logic under pressure of the growing Scholastic movement for this new science (Cunliffe-Jones, 267). Before the 15th century, “Aristotle, beginning with a long series of works, became progressively familiar to the schools and universities over a long period of two centuries (1050-1250) and as they became available they became and remained the basic text-books of all secondary education” including the curriculum in Paris (ibid, 267). Thus, the “Arabic commentaries” which came along with Aristotle also lined the shelves of the institution and became deeply integrated into the Parisian study and educational experience. For this reason, it is hard to argue that Alfarabi, the master logician who was translated and even referenced by Maimonides and other Christian authors, did not at least survive in pieces in the medieval university of Paris, and no doubt his words were carried over through the writings of Avicenna and Averroes.
2.4When Aquinas came to Paris
In order to pursue theology, Aquinas was sent by the Dominican Order to Paris, which was the intellectual center of Christendom (Kretzmann, 12). Aquinas left for a period but then returned and eventually became a Professor of theology at this institution where he would go on to compose his fundamental work on logic and natural law. However, shortly after his death, 218 of his propositions were brought under scrutiny by the bishop of Paris not only for going against philosophy but also for the apparent influences of Islamic thought (Torrell, 87: Marenbon, 377). This shows that although Aquinas was considered an incredibly important force, he did not escape the controversy nor the suspicion of Islamic influence in his thinking. But this is not actually that surprising since Aquinas makes explicit reference in Summa Thoelogica to Averroes and Avicenna. However, the importance of showing this controversies is that many thought he was not simply in denial of these philosophers but picked from them and integrated their thoughts into his own.
However, although it might seem easier to make the case of Avicenna or Averroes, since they were more popular contemporaries, there is still great reason to suppose that Alfarabi was also read by the voracious Aquinas. There are two reasons to support this view. First, since Alfarabi was one of the most influential writers on logic, and part of his works were translated into Latin and survived the great conflagration of books in the Spanish University, it would make sense that he would be included among the cannon of logical works that proliferated the medieval University in Paris. The fact that Paris is also quite close to Spain makes the travel of these works into the Parisian libraries not an impossibility if they survived until the 12th century. Secondly, we know that there appear to be direct quotations from the work of Alfarabi in the work of Aquinas. For instance, in the Summa Contra Gentiles Aquinas writes “being itself, considered absolutely, is infinite... hence if we take a thing with finite being, this being must be limited by some other thing which is in some way the cause of that being. Now here can be no cause of God's being, since He is necessary of Himself. Therefore he was infinite being.” In Alfarabi's Political Regime the semantics of this statement are nearly identical; “The uncaused being is infinite. For if He were not, he would be limited and therefore, caused, since the limit of a thing is the cause of it. But God is uncaused.”1 This linguistic similarity is also found in comparison to their doctrine of the immutability of God, where Alfarabi writes “God as the first cause is pure act, without admixture of any potentiality, and for this reason He is not subject to any change” in Political Regime, Aquinas seems to parody this thought in the Summa Theologica by stating “it is shown that God is altogether immutable... this first being must be pure act, without admixture of any potentiality for the reason that absolutely, potentiality is posterior to act... hence it is impossible for God to be in any way changeable.” Thus we can see not only was Alfarabi available for Aquinas to read in the Medieval Unviersity, but there are also syntactical indications that he actually did so.
Therefore, given the history of the spread of Islamic thought into the Western University we can build a strong case that Aquinas read Alfarabi for three reasons. It has been shown that the work of Alfarabi was foundational to Islamic philosophy and he may have developed his own school which spread his ideas to the West. His works including parts of his scientific classification were translated and even referenced by the 12th century. For these reasons he would have been included in the corpus of Islamic centers of Learning in Spain. Because these universities became the model for Western centers, we know that they took works in Logic including Aristotle and his “Arabic commentators” to make up their curriculum. And we know specifically the University in Paris was both proximate to Islamic centers of learning in Spain and rigorously employed the study of logic and filled its libraries with Islamic commentaries and Aristotelian works. And finally we even know that some sentences in Aquinas' writings bear strong similarity to Alfarabi. Thus, it is highly probable that Aquinas knew of Alfarabi and read him. Furthermore, if Aquinas read Alfarabi, this would no doubt leave a lasting impression on his thought, and we can trace this development by using Aquinas as a starting point and showing to what degree he is in accord with Aristotle and what appears to be unique to his thinking but similar or even the same in Alfarabi's work.
For this reason, the subsequent pages will trace the influence of Alfarbi on Aquinas in an area which has been in some respects overlooked, his political philosophy. While some work has been done on the metaphysics of Aristotle in relation to Avicenna or Averroes, I suggest that one of the most notable and greatest Political philosophers of Islam should be put in full comparison with Aquinas. This will show no doubt the unique contribution of Islamic philosophy but because Alfarabi incorporates his understanding of juridical law and God in his reading of Aristotle, it will no doubt also bear the hallmarks of Islamic thought. Thus we begin the discussion with the topic of government and move to natural law, comparing each thinker on this subject along the way.
3Aquinas and the Theory of Government
3.1Why have a government?
3.1.1Aquinas View
To start the discussion of politics, the preliminary questions which Aquinas deals with, is why and what purpose does a government serve. First, Aquinas tackles the question of whether or not dominion is a justified relationship between two men, and following such a relationship what would be the ultimate aim of such an institution?
In the Summa Theologica I.96.3, he argues that dominion in one sense is abhorrent while in a second sense it is necessary and good. First, he argues that dominion can be understood as the relation between a master and slave, in which the slave does not “exist for his own sake” but for the use of his master. Hence, a human being's existence and consequently his desirable end (the purpose why he exists at all) is found in and through the use of his master. In essence, his value is a means to someone else's end only (Kant would also on similar grounds find slavery abhorrent). This is a sorrowful state because it means that the proper good of man is not able to be pursued, and he is forced to yield his end, and the fulfillment of his existence to another. Thus, Aquinas abhors this kind of rule.
In the second more general sense, dominion is the relationship between free subjects and their master, and can be said of governing offices and citizens. These offices exercise dominion over other citizens and other workers, but the citizens are not simply a means to the fulfillment of the government's ends but the government “directs” them to the attainment of their own end. Hence Aquinas writes that this kind of dominion is justified because the master works by directing his subject “either towards his proper welfare, or to the common good.” Moreover, he claims that during the “state of innocence between man and man” or the state of nature, this kind of dominion is necessary for two reasons. First, man exists as a social being and so his interaction between other men is inevitable and required by his nature. Second, people have various desires which are not always in keeping with the good of each other or the group, and consequently this requires one to have governance over the rest so as to “look after the common good” of all. In citing Augustine, Aquinas claims that this is the dutiful role of the ruler no mater how smart or how strong, not to strive for power but to look after the best interest of each member. He rules by using his powers in the interest of others.
But while this view explains that dominion exists to unite and coordinate the pursuit of “proper welfare” with the interest of the “common good,” it does not really explain what these two things are. One could ask, does the good end exist in primarily a material fashion, as in wealth, property, etc. or is it something found on this earth? In response to these questions on the nature of the purpose of government, Aquinas writes in ST I.103.2.a that “the end of a thing corresponds to its beginning... therefore, since the beginning of all things is something outside the universe, namely, God, it is clear from what has been expounded above (Q44, A1,2), that we must conclude that the end of all things is some extrinsic good.” But, every particular good necessarily has a particular end, so the only universal end is truly good, and so a universal goodness “is good of itself by virtue of its essence.” All the other particular goods receive their goodness by participation in this final goodness, or in other words partially they grasp at goodness in their specific and temporal existence.
Unfortunately all goods we observe including love for one's neighbor, charity, courage, etc. exist only in particularity in this universe. For instance, when you observe a charitable donation or sacrifice from one person to another, you see someone who exists here and now giving a specific and material gift to another specific person. While you might talk with both individuals and discover that this “good” is understood to be an intentional act of giving, any universal notion of good is really hard to observe from this specific instance. The human act stands within a context, for had it been rainy that day the observed “good” might not have come about. Similarly change any one of those variables, including time, mental state of the giver, type of donation and the “good” changes to such an extent that it becomes unrecognizable. There is no ultimate repeatability or stability to the variables in such an observation, and while on can infer aspects of a universal “good” from it, such an observation cannot itself be used to properly understand the nature of that universal good. Thus, we observe the twofold particularity of the good act but also we glimmer at something good which is not simply limited to that act alone but stems from an intentional display of love, and this can only be found “outside” the universe, or in an extrinsic God.
The government for Aquinas then exists to direct men to their proper welfare which although consisting in equitable material relations between individuals, ultimately consists in something outside this material universe, which is God. This ultimate goodness, elsewhere Aquinas describes as “happiness” must be uncreated. As he maintains in II.I.2.8.a, “happiness is the perfect good, which lulls the appetite altogether; else it would not be the last end, if something yet remained to be desired.” All created things in this world are merely good by participation in ultimate goodness which is extrinsic and divine. So, while the government's responsibility is to maintain the common good of its citizens in the material sense, and it cannot ignore that the ultimate happiness of its citizens is found through God.
However, here it is important to remember the distinction made before between master-slave dominion and governor-citizen dominion. The former viewed the slave as simply a means to an end, while the second form of dominion maintains the rational freedom of its' subject to choose for itself and pursue its own welfare. Hence this is why Aquinas denies that the children of Jewish parents should be forced to be baptized against their parents will (II.III.10.12). And it is also why he maintains that Jews and heathens who have not accepted the faith should be compelled to do so (II.III.10.8). But there are limits to free will since renouncing a previous faith commitment to Christ justifies compulsion to belief (ibid). However, it seems clear that while Aquinas acknowledges the government is necessary, it serves to “direct men” to external good, which is from God and thus respects in so far as they exist as rational creatures, their willful choice to pursue such ends. Thus, the government seems to take seriously the intrinsic right of human beings to make rational decisions, but it also holds the government and governor accountable for pursuing the common good of the overall public body and just their own self interest.
3.1.2Contrast with Aristotle's view
Because Aquinas repeatedly draws parallels with Aristotle, there are many apparent similarities with regards to his view of the final end of a government, and the make up of the human being. The first of these comparisons includes how Aquinas views political government to be a natural disposition of human life. Similarly to Aquinas, Aristotle maintains that men are brought together because of certain dispositions, or instincts (Ross, 238). The instinct for self-preservation brings together master and slave, the paradigmatic representations of the soul an the body, in order to determine which work will fulfill bodily needs and to pursue it with vigor. In this respect then, both need each other but the subordinate relationship is important since it means that the master can coordinate while the activities of the slave (which is what he is naturally suited for) while the slave need not worry about why he acts, but can act perfectly (which is what he is naturally suited for). The procreative instinct also brings together men and women for the same reason. Although today this understanding of human nature is quite abhorrent, there are several ways in which he still hold to the subordination of natural bodies that seem completely honorable to us. For instance, we don't often think of the care for persons of “intellectual disability” as subordination, but we might do things against their will, or screaming, but which preserves their experience of life. Nevertheless, Aristotle maintains that our social institutions (like work, marriage, government) consist of natural instincts which separate and define its relationship.
Aristotle does clarify the types of associations which constitute life, and not all of them are qualitatively the same. First, a household is distinct from a polis or city not simply because its size, but because of the ends to which it seeks. The primary aim of the households is to secure life itself (Politics, I, ii, 1252b27ff). The polis by contrast does not merely aim at preserving the bare necessities of life, but it strives for the securing the good life of its members (Coleman, 176). This means that when one lives in a polis, they live by constraint under laws which promote proper moral behavior, and so while bare necessities are taken care of, the government is focused on more than simply providing this. Because it has to take account of the achieving the higher ends of life, the polis relies to the highest degree on reciprocal and proportionate relations and not simply establishing equitable ones among its members (Coleman, 177). Here, Aristotle turns over what commonly is assumed to be justice, in the reciprocal eye-for an eye exchanges. Rather the response must be proportional in terms of weight to what was done. Just like in Euclidean geometry, the mean of a line is not some arbitrary number, but it weighs the side of one line with the other side thereby establishing equality and correct values. As an example, the Governor who is struck by a citizen cannot simply strike back, but he must invoke harsher punishment befitting the offense committed to his office.
The Proportional quality of justice is also why Aristotle attempts to limit the number of members who make up a city. For Aristotle the size of the population should be limited by the number of available resources for the care of life. One should limit population based on “calculating the chances of mortality in the children, and of sterility in married persons” because poverty, or limited resources was the “the parent of revolution and crime” (Politics, 2.v.380). In this sense, the city must maintain a proportional relationship between the resources available to its citizens, including food, labor, jobs, and the actual number of citizens available to use these resources. Unlike Aquinas who does not qualify or limit the number of citizens required to make a function of the city, Aristotle believes that the real threat of overthrow and public revolution accompanies economic disparities and disproportionate exchanges of food and citizenry.
Finally, the understanding of what constitutes a “good” end for the government is quite different from Aquinas. It might be said that for Aristotle “sensation is an indispensable precondition of knowledge,” but this does not mean he completely understands the final end of life to be purely sensual. Rather contemplation is to be the end of life for man, but the sensations ground one's knowledge and can bring an awareness of actuality however vague. As he writes in Posterior Analytics, “the states of knowledge are neither innate in a determine form [contra Socrates] nor developed from more cognitive states of mind [contra Plato], but from perception... for that is how perception, also implants the universal in us” (99b15-100b17). When we consider what is morally good, it involves this process of induction or argumentation from patterns in perception, and it seeks to define what is particular to each species. Thus, what the ultimate good is for a seed, is what is commonly observed to be its proper end, turning into a unique tree which bears a wholesome amount of fruit.
The unique quality of the seed to become tree, is what only it can do. For human beings, we share with animals the reproductive capacity as well as sensations. However, what is unique to our existence is that we have superimposed on us “a higher faculty which Aristotle here calls (ton logon ekon) 'that which has a plan or rule'... [and a] sub-faculty which understands the plan, and one which obeys it” (Ross, 191). In full actuality, when we utilize the process of understanding and obeying the innate plans, we must be doing the ultimate good of human life. While contemplation might describe this kind of action which characterizes our ultimate good, it is more accurate to describe this process as the realization of our intellectual capacities, or thinking in a timeless, infinite, or self-sufficient sense. Thus, the process of thinking characterizes the final end of human life, and the ability to do this perfectly, self-sufficiently means that while not all governments can achieve this, they aim towards instilling this good in their citizens (Pol. I.2.1252b27–30).
In comparison with Aquinas we can see that the good of the government derives from the realization of human faculties and activities rather than cultivate the divine disposition of the human being. Aristotle places a strong emphasis on the act of thinking, whereas Aquinas stresses the visitation of God and the actualization of his presence to perfect the members of the community. Or in short, perfection of human activity such as thinking or contemplating, prepares the way for God to enter in a visitation to man's soul. Just like the sun, God is what illuminates the earth, but we cannot see the earth without proper eyes, which is our disposition. We cannot bring forth light, we can merely harvest it, and come to utilize it with our senses in order to understand the earth. But the light, which is actuality, comes from the unmitigated grace of God, and not human action per-say. For this reason, the perfect city should condition us and bring alive our capacity to see the earth, or our innate disposition for divine vision and subsequent moral judgment. Thus, the end of human life consists and derives meaning from the free act of God to visit upon us actuality and make the rock, the tree, or the goodness of life visible.
3.1.3Comparison with Alfarabi
The first most interesting thing about Alfarabi's reading of Aristolte's Politics is that he distinguishes between two kinds of human needs in society. He distinguishes between people's need “to be near and associate with others in order to achieve perfection, on the one hand, and their impulse to seek shelter and to dwell near their own kind, or the other” (Galston, 148). The first innate characteristic of needing to be near to achieve perfection, is part of what constitutes human nature while the second is perhaps accidental, the result of our physical make up and association with the animal class. Along this line there appear to be two kind of perfections for the human being. The first is the “ultimate perfection” for which he came into existence to achieve, his raison d'etre, and the second perfection which “renders human beings truly substantial,” a kind of material perfection. (Galston, 148). These two things come together in the human need for society, and for political association. In a sense then, human nature consists of two potential principles which need to be actualized, the potential human creature and the potential perfection of human intellect.
This allows Alfarabi to distinguish the function of government from Aristotle in two important respects. First, the government allows for the perfection of the human creature where “human beings come together and cooperate with the aim of becoming virtuous, performing noble activities, and attaining happiness” (Mahdi, 129). Although men are distinguished from each other by their nature, it is not as Aristotle maintains because of an essential characteristic, but it is a disposition for the virtue which sets the members of each society apart. As Mushin Mahdi notes, “the sole criterion for the rank of a citizen is the character of virtue of which he is capable and that he is able to develop through his participation in the regime and obedience to its laws” (Mahdi, 130). For this reason, no one can be said to possess virtue naturally, but they possess the disposition towards such characteristics innately.2 Moreover, because of this distinction the ruler functions more as a guide helping direct the “aim” of human beings, rather than a superior being by virtue of instinct. This is important distinction affords the members of the government kind of natural equality with respect to each other, even though their differences do exist. Moreover, because morality can be learned in principle it cannot be argued that it is innately driven. This is important to mention since it appears that Aquinas having the opportunity to read Alfarabi seems to make a similar distinction.
The second important respect that Alfarabi distinguishes the government from Aristotle is with respect to how the city provides intellectual perfection. While Aristotle maintains that universals are impregnated into the human mind by perception, and this forms the basis for understanding the ultimate end of humanity (and hence virtue), Alfarabi maintains that the human intellect has the universal scaffolding for attaining universals from a divine source. Arguably while this idea bears the mark of Neo-Platonic thought, it still shows that Alfarabi does not agree with the epistemological and moral empiricism which Aristotle maintains. Moreover, he also does not attribute the end of human life to a purely abstract formal soul. Human beings are instead endowed with something called primary principles, or the grasp of universal intelligibles from the outset “without his being aware of it and without perceiving where it comes from” (AH, I.2.10). The intelligibles are both theoretical distinct from moral or deliberative virtues, but they nevertheless ground our “certain truth” and serve however partially as our basis for demonstrative proofs towards gaining certain knowledge. Thus, the ultimate good of man is imbedded within him (a theme which will become important in Aquinas formation of natural law) but in a way that can only be realized by connecting with an extrinsic source of his intellect, i.e. God.
Moreover, Alfarabi extends the proportional notion of justice which pertains to Aristotle, to talk about how the king instills morality. In Aphorism 3 of the Selected Aphorisms, Alfarabi uses the analogy of the doctor to explain that just as “sickness is a deviation from the equilibrium [of the temperament of the body], so too, is the health of the city and its' uprightness an equilibrium of moral habits of its' citizens and its sickness a disparity from equilibrium in its temperament” (PW, Selected Aphorisms, 12.3). This is an interesting combination between the doctor metaphor employed by Plato, with the theory of proportion which Aristotle uses to describe and justify the limitation of city size, and explain reciprocal justice. What Alfarabi does is to modify the notion of morality from a singular substance to a mixture of traits which must be maintained in the body. Because humans are so disposed to particular kinds of traits, they do not possess any of them distinctly. This changes how one views vice, from simply doing of a particular wrong act, to the possession of a set of unbalanced traits. The act itself becomes subordinate, and so justice is relegated to the composition of internal moral states. While habituation, or the repeated practice of what are considered to be moral traits, might instill moral traits in a citizen, it is an interanl and deliberate choice to seek the moderate and mediate mental state which transforms traits into virtues. Hence the physician analogy means that Alfarabi holds that human volition is a necessary and fundamental part to the proper functioning of the virtuous city, so much so that even becomes a separate virtue which compliments morality.
The final similarity between Aquinas and Alfarabi is that the size of the government seems to be a hindrance to attaining the excellent city. Whereas it mattered a great deal for the economic maintenance of political order, Alfarabi simply rejects the necessity of a limited city-size. In part this a historical response to the reality of the great Islamic Empire, and its' proper functioning was almost living proof that Aristotle and Plato were wrong in maintaining specific limitations on the number of citizens within a city. But for Alfarabi this also signals an expansion of the concept of governance and human happiness. The city while it functions to coordinate members with natural dispositions for the good to work together and become truly happy, these men can exist in other ignorant cities. They can be members of the virtuous city even though they exist in a ignorant one. Thus, we can begin to see the further break down of divisions between human beings. It can be said that this is one of the first marks of a kind of universal government, and subsequently the presence of natural rights which pertain to sojourn citizens of this virtuous city. Although Aquinas perhaps drew on a combination of Augustinian principles for this understanding, nevertheless the deliberate expansion of the notion of government can be seen as a clear similarity between the two thinkers.
In conclusion, there seem to be a great deal of similarities between Aquinas and Alfarabi which appear to be distinct from Aristotle on the question of government. The natural state relation of human beings for both Alfarabi and Aquinas is not a question of different classes of humans with different natural instincts, but of universal humans endowed with different natural dispositions. One human is thus no more good than another, but just similarly disposed to be good. For this reason, the government exists to perfect both the material welfare of each inhabit, but fosters the development of his natural disposition for virtue through instruction. This also means that the distinction between a household and a city falls apart, because human nature shares an underlying commonality which makes the differences between the various institutions only a quantitative one. But while there might appear to be some similarities with respect to the purpose of government, there are even more striking ones with respect to the concept of law.
4The Ethical Foundation of Politics and the Concept of Law
4.1 Eternal and Natural Law
4.1.1Reason as foundation for Law
While we have briefly touched on the concept of law for Aquinas, there are incredibly important developments in his thought which will come to influence the history of later Western philosophy. It revolves around his development of the category of law, and the the ethical implications which come from having an innate law which is essential to our experience of the world. But how exactly does this law function, and how does a human government pursue the good of man by taking account of these two kinds of laws?
In the Summa theologica Aquinas responds to the question of what kinds of law govern human action by claiming that there are two laws, the eternal unchanging law, and the imprint of this law on all creatures, also known as the natural law. The first kind of law, is related to practical reason initially because “law is a rule and measure of acts, whereby man is induced to act or is restrained from acting,” and for human beings, the law or “rule and measure of human acts is the reason” (ST, I.II.94.a). In this sense the law is analogous to how reason functions in determining human actions. Moreover, it is also providential because it comes from God and communicates the exercise of his divine will on the earth. It is also good, because it participates in something called an ontological goodness. For Aquinas there are two forms of good, transcendent being and transcendent good. In a Platonic sense, any actuality can be good simply because they participate in Being. So just simply living or doing anything even murder, “participates” in actuality or transcendent Being. In this way it is good because it is part of God's plan. But because eternal law is perfect reason, and perfect measurement of all actualities, it is more than simply ontologically good, it is morally good as well and grounds our ethical actions.
For this reason, the imprint of this eternal law on our minds grants us a responsibility which is different than other creatures. Other creatures merely participate in the ontological goodness of God by living, eating etc. In living as they do, they fulfill their ends and so can be said to be living in perfect accord with divine law. But the good of human beings must take account of our intentions, because by virtue of our ability to choose and weigh the world, our reason must needs conform to God's will. More specifically Aquinas writes that “among all others the rational creature is subject to divine providence in the most excellent way, in so far as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident both for itself and for others. Wherefore it has a share of the eternal reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law...” (ST, Q 90, A. I ad I). In this way, Aquinas sets practical reason as the way in which human beings share in the divine, or eternal precepts which are alone from God. This also means that human reason is not simply a descriptive aspect of human life, but it functions in a perspective manner for human ethical action. Thus, Human practical reason functions apriori as the grounding of universal moral virtues.3
Here, Aquinas breaks with Aristotle who holds that moral “intuition” cannot be separated from the doing of good deeds. For Aristotle, although the ultimately good end of human life, eudomia can be perceived by speculative reasoning and theoretical argumentation, the universal moral norms which govern human living in accordance to that end are found through the “induction” or earlier mentioned perception of ordinary experience. For example, the repeated experience of the pain felt after the murder and the death of one's children can lead to the conclusion that it is morally wrong to kill an enemy's children (Bradley, 228). This kind of reasoning via induction means that the precepts of moral reasoning will involve the deliberative aspect of human reason, and the process of logical construction from observation to conclusion. However, human beings are not born with an understanding of specific universal moral norms, rather it is habituation and education which form the basis of their beliefs about “good” and “bad” which can then be verified via experience throughout an individuals life (Bradely, 230).
Although Aquinas will also hold that habituation and education are important for instilling moral virtue, he maintains that human reason has a special relation to moral virtue unlike other creatures. In Sententia libri Politicorum, Aquinas writes that “the perfection of moral virtue.... consists in this: that the appetite is regulated in accordance with reason. The first principles of reason, however, are naturally implanted in us in regard to both practical and specultive matters. Therefore, just as through principles already known, a man makes himself already known by discovery, so too by acting in accordance with the principles of practical reason, a man makes himself actually virtuous” (SLE, II, 4, 1105b5, 99-106). Here, the disctinction between simply being habituated into the virtuos action, and being self realized as the virtuos and good agent with regards to the mandates of practical reason is important. There is a certain and particular divine tinge to the idea of moral habituation. Not all creatures, in their creation have the principles which make moral virtue possible. The effectiveness of becoming a good and virtuous person via habit and discipline cannot be afforded to other creatures since it does not originate in the practices themselves, but through a revelation of inherent principles.
In this respect, practical wisdom can be said to be potential in a way which is distinct in relation to Aristotle. In the Origins of Creatures, Aquinas clarifies this distinction between human creatures and other kinds of created things. Since God is absolute actuality, which is both truth (end of act) and act itself (perfection of the efficient cause, or pure movement), every creature owes its existence to God, and relys upon God in order to share in its own becoming ie its movement. As Aquinas maintains, “every other being is being by participation” in God, who is the pure being (Of God and His Creatures, Book 2,xv, 4). However, each creature operates as a mixture of potential likeness and actual likeness to the qualities of God, which are found within God to be absolute. Human beings however, are divine agents and have a different likeness to God. In Chpater XLVI, Aquinas writes that “5. Nothing else moves God to the production of creatures but His own goodness, which He has wished to communicate to other beings according to the manner of their assimilation to Himself (B. I, Chap. LXXXVII). Now the likeness of one thing may be found in another in two ways: in one way in point of natural being, as the likeness of heat is found in the body heated; in another way in point of knowledge, as the likeness of fire (perceived) is in sight or touch. In order then that the likeness of God might be in creatures in such modes as were possible, it was necessary that the divine goodness should be communicated to creatures, not only by likeness in being, but also by likeness in knowing. But mind alone can know the divine goodness. Therefore there needed to be intelligent creatures.” (ibid, XLVI, 5). The potential relation of divine likeness which constitutes humans then is the communication of divine goodness through knowledge. Our ability to acquire true knwoeldge is not something we stumble onto, rather it is the self detemonstration found in operation of reason, when we align our wills to the reason which has been imprinted within us.
Thus, our being is then not only sustained by God, but our very capacity to reason contains within it the communcation of Gods divine truth. To understand natural law, is to understand that human beings in their creation are in likeness to the mind of God through the operation of their reason. If we were simply mind alone we would not “know divine goodness” since the action of knowing actually requires practical experience and hence a body. Put in a different way, through the mind the princples of law exist only potentially, but since God is the principle of actuality proper, and draws all potentialities into the fullness of being of their, the principles must culminate in action in order to become actualized. The function of the body then is to actualize the potential will and natural precepts imbedded within the human mind. In its' practial function, Aquinas can be said to claim that the mind “inuits” through the sensisble or experiential activation of this natural law, but one can be said to experience the law or discover the innate laws within themselves rather than discovering removed universal principles. In direct contast to Aristotle, Aquinas therefore maintains that morals are discovered, and the ends of human life are not “set by our prerational habituation” (Bradely, 247).
4.1.2Analogy of Reason and the Proposition
To talk about the nature of natural law, Aquinas also employs the metaphor of the proposition when he claims that the natural law is something appointed by reason, just as “proposition is a work of reason.” To unpack this analogy let’s first consider what it means to be a proposition, and what are its constituent parts. A proposition is an assertion consisting of a subject, a predicate, and a copula which joins the two together to form a new concept. Often times a copula is understood to be “is” in the proposition“Socarates is wise” but there are some instances where the copula does not necessarily signify existence, but attributes such as “Socrates is blind.” When the proposition of the first sentence is completed by the copula, it leads to an idea or new concept which joins together Socrates and wise to form the notion of “Socrates Wisdom” as a new conceptual, or middle term. Because the copula is said to assert existence it posits that “Socrates Wisdom” is actually existent and can be observed, seen, documented, etc. However, if one were to assert the proposition “Socrates is blind” this would entail the joining of an existent idea “Socrates” with a non-existent attribute, a privation of sight which is called “blindness.” Thus on the one hand, Socrates wisdom can be said to exist positively, if and only if Socrates is wise, while it cannot be said that Socrates is blind if and only if his blindness exists (this would be logical unsound). If the former can be said to be a proposition of positive existence while the later a proposition expressing partial existence, then the copula conveys two different senses of existence.
Aquinas response to this issue, and the reason he can use the propositional metaphor to talk about natural law is because the copula can employ different sense of existence. Gyula Klima in her paper on the nature of the copula derives 8 senses in which Aristotle qualifies the function of the copula.4 What can be observed from these different uses is that Aquinas takes partially existent propositions (middle terms exist as privation) to describe beings of reason, which correspond only to those objects which appear in the human mind, or simply he maintains that the copula does not function as affirming existence per say unless both terms can exist separately from the human mind. For this reason, Aquinas is able to postulate that the proposition can judge the positive existence of a concept, give it a definition, or describe the essence of a thing. Because copula acts as measure and judge in a sentence, it functions much like reason does in natural law since reason can be both the “measurer” and “measure” of natural law itself. Reason is the copula which is able to verify both the existence of a thing as well as its nonessential relation to the subject and predicate, ergo its independent existence. Just like “is” in the proposition “Socrates is Wise” leads to the creation of “Socrates' Wisdom,” which is a middle term that verifies the existence of the proposition but is independent from both terms, reason can be said to found precepts in natural law. But Moreover like a copula, reason also has a dual descriptive and normative power, such that the copula in “Socrates is wise” is both a judgment about state of being and the condition for its existence.
But in addition to reason which acts as a copula, there is also a corresponding act of human volition which further constitutes the natural law. While Aristotle might maintain that primary precepts are found in theoretical or intellectual activity alone, Aquinas claims that this is not enough to give us primary principles of natural law. In the Summa, Aquinas explores how human practical reason complicates the matter when it comes to morality:
Therefore the first principle in practical reason is that which is based on the nature of the good which is: the good is that which all things seek. This therefore is the principle of law: that good must be done and evil avoided. And on this [precept] all other precepts of natural law are based so that everything which is to be done or avoided pertains to the precepts of natural law. Practical reason naturally understands these precepts to be human goods. (ST I.II.94.2).
Morality, consists in human acts which are composed of both rational deliberation and choice. Human beings “possess this passive impressio of the eternal law in their very being, expressing itself in their natural inclinations to specific actions and goals.” (Rhonheimer, 67) For this reason, our natural inclinations pursue a appropriate actions which would tend to good , like a desire whether it be for food, or harm, as a desire is good because being good simply means being completed. Suppose we had a natural inclination to go to sleep, completing this action by actually sleeping would be good regardless of why we went to sleep. Good simply means the final end of something. But in the moral sense, good must involve something more than simply coming to the final end of that action. Unlike creatures who merely have a passive determination towards the good, we have an active one on account of our reason (Rhonheimer, 68). Through the ordering our will by the reason, we are able to achieve a good which is quite distinct from other creatures and can be said to be a moral thing. The order of our natural inclinations, or the process of our will means that we determine ourselves in a way which leads to our self-determination.
Hence natural law is both constituted by the operation of our reason, by being a kind of pseudo proposition, “Do that” but it also participates by being infused in eternal law.
[STILL DON'T FULLY GRASP NATURAL LAW/PRACTICAL REASON]
4.1.3Aristotle on Intelligence: Syllogism, Deductive Reasoning and Induction
In the Posterior Analytics Aristotle outlines his understanding of the intellect by first differentiating between demonstrative or syllogist forms of knowledge acquisition and Inductive methods. By syllogism, Aristotle means "an argument in which, certain things having been assumed, something other than these follows of necessity from their truth, without needing any term from outide" (Ross, 32). The assumption of prior knowledge in this way serves as the premise which can be combined with other premises to create combine into new propositions. For example, we can consider the mathematical the relation between two premises, the subject-predicate statement of A and B, and the predicate relation of B and C to lead to a new predicate statement A-C through inference. We can thus say that A is true of all B, and B is true of all C to lead to the inferential knowledge that A is true of all C. The predicate relationship can be changed in a myriad of ways to form a variety of other conclusions, that No A is of B, or Some B is of A, etc. But the importance of Syllogism is that it moves us from known principles which have truth in and of themselves in the pure sense, to form conclusions in an inferential manner. This process of moving from known or assumed premises to unknown without the need of a third term serves as the base for a particular and fundamental kind of knowledge which can be seen as divine. Thus, one can call this method a reasoning from universal objects to particular ones."
Induction conversely, is a frequent tension within the work of Aristotle which challenges the knowledge arrived at from syllogistic, or demonstrative methods. For Aristotle, the inductive method appears "clearer" and more persuasive to us because it moves from particulars of experience to formulate universal claims. Induction connects one extreme with the middle term b means of the other extreme. There are two forms of Induction for Aristotle. Perfect induction which moves from two sets of particulars, which are the same length, to make universal claim and Enthymeme which infers "from probable premises or from signs (Ross, 2) by inferring causes from effects and not effects from causes" (Galston, 41). Although demonstrations most begin from non-particulars, the role of particulars also function as the base for our knowledge. A Ross points out, "Aristotle thus emphasizes the limits of perceptual knowledge, he is well aware of the part which perception plays in the growth of science. Where a sense is lacking, a science will also be lacking, since the universal truths from which science proceeds are got by induction from sense perceptions. And though we do not know the reasons of things by sense, we learn from sense. After a certain number of experiences of a fact the universal explanations dawns upon us b an act of intuitive reason" (Ross, 48).
Aristotle: How we acquire knowledge
To explain how we acquire the first principles which make knowledge possible, Aristotle follows the movement of our perceptions. He observes that the first stage in development from sense to knowledge is perception whereby one comes to discriminate among different experiences based on a perception. One remembers these different perceptions and this forms of the basis of a particular knowledge. But the first principles of reason are quite different than this. Whereas all animals can memorize as this is an inborn trait of all creatures, there are principles of non-contradiction and other universals which seem to be intrinsic to reason itself. This is perhaps part of what Aristotle means when he claims “the perception too produces the universal in us” (Ross, 55). The important point here is that sense perception leads to our acquisition of knowledge in us, or it can be said to trigger our understanding, because after perceiving a particular thing, “we perceive in its is characters which it shares with other things. From this first element of universality we pass without a break through higher and higher reaches of universality to the highest universals of all, the 'unanalysables" (Ross, 55). Thus, the first principles come to us by the cognitive and intellectual process of generalization, and it is this highly speculative act which brings not only those universals which ground our knowledge, but that which grounds our ethics.
For this reason, we can see that what Aristotle holds to be “universal truths” actually come to man on the basis of perception, and so perception and speculative reasoning grounds his understanding of human virtue. Aquinas by contrast does not see that the process of perception presents any new knowledge of universals to the mind. Instead it is practical reason, which has embedded in its movement, primary precepts. It cannot be said that the human being possess these precepts, but the prcepts are part of the process of his natural inquisition, his natural thought. Simply by using reason, human beings come to the first principle of “do good and do no evil” which then comes to mean “do that which is the end and not that which does not lead to the end.” In this way, Aristotle can postulate knowledge, and from this process argue for moral virtue, while Aquinas sees the process of morality and theoretical supposition as part and parcel of reasoning correctly, hence they are united in what is the natural law of human beings. For Aquinas, the natural law means the unification of theoretical and volitional
4.1.4Alfarabi and the Acquired Intellect
In comparison to Aristotle, Alfarbai also cannot be said to hold to the realization of universal principles known perceptually. Instead, Alfarabi writes that “the lawgiver does not seek to discover the conditions [of the means to his goal that are within his power] unless he has intellected them previously... [and] these things cannot beocme intelligible... unless he has previously acquired philosophy (Galston, 121). The intellect functions then as the grounding for the law giver, and to delver true human happiness. In Siyasah al-Madaniyyah Aquinas claims that there exists an agent intellect which is a seperate susbtance from the human potential intellect. Sepcifically he claims that there is certain knowledge of intelligbles known as “primary knwoledge” which come to man “from the outset without him being aware of it and wihout perceiving how he acquired it or where it comes from” (AH. i. 1). Elsewhere, this knowledge is identified as coming from the source of that emenation of the Intellect which sets human potential thought into motion. Although this knowledge is seperate from body, it nevertheless shows that human happiness is dependent upon the transformation of his inate intellect (Galston, 61). The transformation of the potential intelligable into an actual however cannot come to man without engaging the deliberative part of the soul which makes choices, and transforms theoretical reason into practical one. What then is needed to transform the potential into the actual is habituation, or instruction which places by force of habit particular moral virtues into the human soul, and brings the intellect into actualization. Habituation in this way serves to activate what is already a potential happiness within the human person, and moral virtues can then be said to exist in a similiarly potential way.
There is another disction which Alfarbai makes between real moral virtues and accidental moral virtues when considering how habitaution works. On the one hand, regularly obeying the commands of parents or persons in authority can lead to virtue, but their action cannot be classified as virtuos action because they are done out of compliance and not true understanding. Instead, “virtuos action presuposes real virtue, and real virtue in turn, presoposes a knowledge of real happiness” which is a theoretical or activitated knwoeldge. In this way, theoretical reason “makes true virtue or excellent action” possible for Alfarabi, and thus knowledge or Truth proper can be said to activiate ethical action in a way which transforms it into moral virtue (Glaston, 65). Therefore, while ethical living might seem to be only practical, or only pertaining to doing right actions, Alfarabi maintians that the ultimate end of action, or happiness culmintates through theoretical means or the acquisition of truth.
This culmination of theoretical and practical science in ethical living is distinctive because it calls into question the traditional division of the practical and theoretical sciences (Galston, 76). This is most clearly seen in how Alfarabi discusses practical reasoning. Much like Aquinas, practical reason is not simply an inductive process but it involves the utilization of theoretical principles gained from philisophy. So while practical reason is important, it would be nothing without this kind of theoretical grounding. Moreover, this theoretical grounding of philosophy is not available to human beings except by virtue of a mediator known as the active intellect. This seperate being known as the active intellect is concevied of as perfection of the contemplative activity which has the object of its contemplation the transcendent principles. The active intellect takes the rational faculty, “which is supplied by nature” and cause it to become “intellect in act.” While in some cases this transfromation of human reason might involve a philosophical transcendence, it does not mean that the human being is seperated from living in this world. Rather, when it comes to the supreme ruler, or the king, the political arts are needed to perfect reason.
In Aquinas, one can begin to see how the principle of agent intellect postulates something called an Aquired Intellect. For Aristotle, the principle of the active intellect meant that our passive or potential intellect was in constant need of coming into being which could not be fully realized until it had become actualized. However, for Alfarabi the aquired intellect plays an intermediary role between thinking actually and the potential thinking sate. This is “human intellect in possession of the ability to think yet not actually thinking” (Davidson, 11). It is also used sometimes as state which human intellect can join with the actual intellect which is a seperate substance (Daivdson, 12).
Moreover, the intellect is also called the “aquired intellect” and is described as that moment when the light of active intellect shines onto the “images in the human imagintive faculty,” corresponding to the potential intellect itself, “thereby enabling the intellect to discern what is intelligible in images (Davidson, 25). But this is only one kind of explanation of the intellect. The second explanation, “the active intellect functions as a cosmic transmitter, continually broad casting all possible intelligible thoughts,and properly attuned human intellects receive intelligible thoughts directly from the active intellect” (Davison, 25). Although traces of these ideas appear in earlier greek texts, particularily in thought of Plato and Aristotle, Alfarabi expands the idea that ethical virtue is rooted in an intellect that is imprited with a higher principle within it.
For this reason, the rational capacity or potential intellect when properly cultivated gives way to happiness in the absolute sense. When the human being is concerned with developing their rational capacity they are in pursuit of those noble activities which lead to true happiness. This is because like Aristotle and Aquinas, the end of human action is what we define as good. However, because Alfarabi is able to formulate the central distinction between essence and existence of a thing, the ultimate good of human life cannot simply what leads to the fulfilment of his existence, but what is essentially transforms who he is. For this reason, human good must finds its needs outside fullfillment in the earthly realm and virtues much be established which are based on the essential and external telos of humanity.
However, while principels for human virtue might be conceived in the mind, and even known upon reflection, they are not achievable by everyone and leads to stratification. There is a three tiered system in Alfarabi’s account in which the wise or philosophers “know the nature of thing by means of demonstrative proofs and by their own insights” once they have cultivated the perfection of happiness through endeavors of their reason (ibid). The second level are these followers who know the nature of things by means of demonstration presented to them by philosophers, and they are compelled to trust and accept the judgment of these philosophers (ibid). The third and final level consists of those citizens who know things by means of similitude, more or less so depending on their rank (Mahdi, 130). At the top tier, the ruler who pursues the attainment of happiness by perfecting reason so that it touches the divine truth can then rightly guide the citizens and create a virtuous city. All other regimes which do not provide occasion to inquire into the divine realm, and nurture the intrinsic human reason and desire for true knowledge, leave their citizens foolish or in the very worst case, completely unhappy and corrupt. Thus, the principles of human reason, and the endeavors of the mind.
However, while the government and govener exists to enforce the virtues, he also exists in a seperate capacity, or rather a seperate kind of ruler is meant to carry out the foundation of these principles. Just like the founder of the Islamic religion, Alfarabi postulates that it is the duty of the perfect first ruler to establish these vritues as laws within his kingodm. While subsequent governers are responsible by cultivating their reason and intellect to respond to these laws, primarily it is the central infusion of moral order from the founder who sets up precepts for the next generations. However, because he is the perfect ruler he is connected intimately with the divine intellectual source of knowledge which thereby means his reason communicates the precepts of God. In this way, as the founder of laws in his country he seems to be taking the principles of law or reason which is in the active intellect and actualizing them in matter, and phyiscallizing these perfect set of moral rules into partchment and commandments. In a similar way to Aquinas then, Alfarabi bases practical moral law on the direct connection to divine law, and more importantly he sees that it is in the activity of reason itself, transforming into material substance that gives cause for human laws.
For both Alfarabi and Aquinas then, moral action depends upon the realization of theoretical principles, or the intellect and is rooted in something which is exstrinic to humanity itself. Whereas the communication of God's divine truth for Aquinas is called the imprinting of the eternal law into his reason, for Alfarabi this is the transformation of human intellect into actuality via the free floating agent or active intellect. However, Aquinas seems to develop this notion of actualization through our thoughts and take it one step further. What he perhaps takes from Alfarabi is that the essence of our virtue is intimately tied to our essence and not mere existence as human beings. Our essence is tied to the rational function in our life, and not simply what grounds our existential experience of the world. Hence, the good is not simply what will fulfill humanities existence, but it is what will fulfill teh essence of man, what will tap into his essential nature as distinct from merely his experience in the worl. This can only be found in the eternal law, it must be ultimately found connection of faith with Lord God.
5Conclusion
It is clear that the presence and influence of Islamic philosophy in the history of Christianity deserves to be further explored. From the influence on the medieval University to Aquinas theory of natural law and practical reason, it has been argued that Alfarabi plays a role in the formation of his thought. One can see that his writings were known to be references in the medieval University and many of his teachings survived in the influence of Avicenna and Averroes. However, even more striking about the relationship between Alfarabi and Aquinas is the linguistic similarity between some direct passages in Aquinas. While one may argue that the high fidelity of certain passages to Alfarabi does not necessitate Aquinas read Alfarabi, it certainly points in that direction. And even if Aquinas read only segments of these passages, it is enough to make the case that some of the thought of Alfarabi survived and was to some extent inflectional in Aquinas.
The contribution of Islamic political philosophy is therefore intriguing and offers a unique insight into the epistemological and moral theory of St Thomas Aquinas. We can see that his theory of government and his theory of law both develop upon the metaphysical principle of an active intellect. Even if Aquinas might not hold that such an intellect is separate from God, there is a clear understanding that human reason as such is both the foundation for moral law, as well as the measure for human action and human essence. Building on the division between essence and existence of a thing, Aquinas develops the thought of Alfarabi and Aristotle to formulate some of his most foundational theories in the subject of law. Thus, while there are other links and arguably just as important ones for his thought, we should not forget how the reception and incorporation of Alfarabi influenced his developed and helped shape in some part the history the Western tradition.
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1The References for the comparisons between Aquinas and Alfarabi can be found in The Philosophy of Alfarabi by Robert Hammond pg 25
2The founder of a city however, differs slightly in this respect from subsequent rulers and other citizens because he has intimate proximity to the active intellect (that principle of actuality which reveals truth), and his foundational rules are so tied to actuality that they can be said to be the manifestations of virtue.
3Some have claimed that because it has God has instilled the first precepts within our reason, the basis for which we make judgments is derived form God. As Lisska writes, “the idea here is that we can derive from a metaphysical study of human nature and its potentialities and actualizations the conclusion that certain things are good for human beings, and thus that the primary precepts of the natural law bid us to pursue these things” (cf. Lisska 1996). In this sense we fall into the problem of deriving oughts from isms, or the normative fallacy.
4 For a full 8 part analysis of the copula in Aquinas thought see 8, vol. 5 of Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy in 2002. This small clipping does not do justice to a wonderful analysis and expansion on Aristotle's work.
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