The distinction between the potential intellect and the active intellect was first drawn by Aristotle. Medieval Islamic, Jewish, Christian philosophers, and European philosophers in the sixteenth century considered it a possible key to deciphering the nature of man and the universe. In this book, He[...]
In this work, Muhsin S. Mahdi - widely regarded as the preeminent scholar of Islamic political thought - distills more than four decades of research to offer an authoritative analysis of the work of Alfarabi, the founder of Islamic political philosophy. Mahdi, who also brought to light writings of A[...]
This long-awaited reissue of the 1969 Cornell edition of Alfarabi's Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle contains Muhsin Mahdi's substantial original introduction and a new foreword by Charles E. Butterworth and Thomas L. Pangle. The three parts of the book, "Attainment of Happiness," "Philosophy of Pl[...]