SOURCE: Fakhry, Majid. “Al-Farabi and the Reconciliation of Plato and Aristotle.” Journal of the History of Ideas 26, no. 4 (October-December 1965): 469-78.

In the following essay, Fakhry details al-Fārābī's argument that alleged discrepancies between statements made by Plato and Aristotle are merely the result of an inadequate understanding of their teachings.

The chequered history of Neo-Platonism, following the imperial edict ordering the School of Athens to be closed in 529, is one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of the diffusion of Greek culture in the Middle Ages. As a result of its progressive defeat at Alexandria, Greek philosophy sought in Athens its last stronghold,¹ but was soon to be dislodged by action of the Emperor Justinian. However, Justinian did not succeed in writing the death-sentence but only the exile writ of Greek philosophy. Driven out of Athens, which had been its home intermittently for almost...