Al-Farabi and His School - Ian Richard

This text examines one of the most dynamic periods in the development of medieval Islam - from the late 9th century to the early 11th century. The age is examined through the thought of its five principal thinkers and labelled after the first and greatest of these, the Age of Farabism. It is demonstrated in this book that the great Islamic philosopher al-Farabi, called "the second master" after Aristotle, produced a recognizable school of thought in which others pursued and developed some of his own intellectual preoccupations.;This school of thought, which this book calls the "school of al-Farabi", was influenced by the thought of Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, but it was much more than a mere clone of Greek thought - expressing both originality and independence through this very intellectual influence. Its adherents are described and assessed in this volume. Their thought is examined with particular reference to the most basic questions which can be asked in the theory of knowledge or epistemology.