SOURCE: Galston, Miriam. “Alfarabi's Method of Writing.” In Politics and Excellence: The Political Philosophy of Alfarabi, pp. 22-54. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Galston analyzes al-Fārābī's writing style—a multilevel method which both conceals and reveals—and his purpose in adopting this method.

Those who wish to succeed in arriving at answers will find it useful to go over the perplexing points well. For answers successfully arrived at are solutions to the perplexing points that have previously been raised. A person cannot untie a knot if he is not aware of it.

—Aristotle Metaphysics III. 1¹

Philosophic discourse has been the object of philosophic inquiry since the time of Plato. According to Socrates, as presented by Plato in the Phaedrus,² concern with the relative merits of oral and written communication can be traced back to the ancient Egyptian king Thamus, who...