1642: al-Fārābī
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Personal)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2026/02/16
“Felicity is the good which is pursued for its own sake … and there is nothing greater beyond it for man to obtain.”
“Religion is opinions and actions … prescribed for a community by their first ruler.”
“The philosophers in the city are those who know these things through strict demonstrations and their own insight;”
“Theoretical reason … has as its purpose to bring man to felicity.”
“ultimate happiness, which is the good without qualification.”
“It is what is preferred and yearned after for its own sake … for the sake of something else.”
“the one whose inhabitants mutually assist one another … the final perfection, which is ultimate happiness.”
“The king in truth is the one whose purpose and intention … are to provide … true happiness.”
“they are not parts of the city by their inborn nature alone but rather by the voluntary habits which they acquire”
“these things can be known in two ways … as they really are … through affinity and symbolic representation.”
“The ‘ignorant’ city is the city whose inhabitants do not know true felicity”
“each of these is a kind of felicity … the sum total of all of them.”
“the ruler of the city is the most perfect part of the city in his specific qualification”
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