The Virtuous City

Introduction

The full Arabic title is “Principles of the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City”. Al-Farabi began the book in Baghdad and finished it in Damascus around 942–943. The first half sets out a cosmology: from the First Cause emanate a series of intellects and the heavenly spheres, down to the Active Intellect and the human soul. Only then does the work turn to politics: humans need cooperation to reach happiness, and the virtuous city is ordered like a healthy body, with its ruler as the heart. Against it stand the ignorant, the immoral, the changed and the erring cities. Richard Walzer’s edition and translation of 1985 is the standard one.

Connections

Builds on

• Republicc. 375 BCE · Plato
• Nicomachean Ethicsc. 340 BCE · Aristotle

Taken up in

• The Regime of the Solitary (Tadbir al-mutawahhid)c. 1130 · Ibn Bajja (Avempace)
• The Nasirean Ethicsc. 1235 · Nasir al-Din al-Tusi

Criticized in

• The Incoherence of the Philosophers1095 · al-Ghazali