Abu Nasr Al-Farabi, who lived in the ninth century, left a valuable heritage for Islamic thinkers after him. In the framework of his metaphysics, he developed a theory of emanation describing the origin of the material universe. Ten intellects or intelligences are coming in succession from the First Being, and, from each of them, a sphere of the universe is produced. The first intellect created the outermost sphere and a second intellect. From this second intelligence, the sphere of the fixed stars and a third intellect had been generated. The process continues, through the spheres of the planets, downwards to the sphere of the Moon. From the Moon, a pure intelligence, defined as the “active intelligence”, provides a bridge between heavens and earth. In the paper, we discuss this cosmology, comparing it to the cosmology of Robert Grosseteste, an Oxonian thinker of the thirteen century.

The Ten Spheres of Al-Farabi: A Medieval Cosmology / Sparavigna, Amelia Carolina. - In: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCES. - ISSN 2305-3925. - STAMPA. - 3:6(2014), pp. 34-39. [10.18483/ijSci.517]

The Ten Spheres of Al-Farabi: A Medieval Cosmology

SPARAVIGNA, Amelia Carolina
2014

Abstract

Abu Nasr Al-Farabi, who lived in the ninth century, left a valuable heritage for Islamic thinkers after him. In the framework of his metaphysics, he developed a theory of emanation describing the origin of the material universe. Ten intellects or intelligences are coming in succession from the First Being, and, from each of them, a sphere of the universe is produced. The first intellect created the outermost sphere and a second intellect. From this second intelligence, the sphere of the fixed stars and a third intellect had been generated. The process continues, through the spheres of the planets, downwards to the sphere of the Moon. From the Moon, a pure intelligence, defined as the “active intelligence”, provides a bridge between heavens and earth. In the paper, we discuss this cosmology, comparing it to the cosmology of Robert Grosseteste, an Oxonian thinker of the thirteen century.
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
V320140610-al-farabi-ok.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia: 2. Post-print / Author's Accepted Manuscript
Licenza: Creative commons
Dimensione 703.18 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
703.18 kB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri
Pubblicazioni consigliate

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11583/2551141
 Attenzione

Attenzione! I dati visualizzati non sono stati sottoposti a validazione da parte dell'ateneo