Al Farabi's The book of Letters first begins with the order between philosophy, religion, theology, and jurisprudence. I think it is obvious how religion, theology, and jurisprudence are outcomes of philosophy and rely on it. Similarly, they all require the use and skill of persuasion. It describes a theologian as a servant of religion, but isn’t he an overall servant of philosophy? On page 3 it states that in some sense a theologian uses philosophical skills to persuade a crowd based on religion. I believe that even though the whole main idea is to spread religion for a theologian, he still carries on all real traits of a philosopher. I also ask from this what qualifies or makes a philosopher? It states that many practitioners just resemble philosophers, but if they are using the same skills as the philosophers doesn’t it make them one? It uses examples such as a doctor or a political leader as those that resemble philosophers only because of their background knowledge on the art, but again these professions still obtain the skills to persuade a crowd. It seems as though they are defining a philosopher as more of a rhetorician being someone who persuades using their own opinion of belief rather without prior knowledge on the topic.
By page 5, I thought it was interesting how Al Farabi describes how a person moves and acts and how it is all based upon the environment they reside in. Perhaps the vocal sounds that come from people sound different, but doesn’t the human body and mind act the same way regardless of what it is? Although the environment plays a major role on how people conduct themselves, the outcomes of our sounds and expressions are different. We are all still using the same organs and signals in the mind to allow us to act and speak and think no matter where we live or come from.
Al Farabi states, “If expressions are to be made similar to meanings, the articulation of one meaning that generalizes over numerous things would be through one single expression that generalizes over those numerous things”, meaning that through expression comes a meaning. I found this most interesting, however, would the author try to explain how something means to a person is brought from their expression? I believe that how a person acts and brings about their expression, is based upon how something is shown to them and also what it means to them.
