Evidentialism in Farabi's Epistemology

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Professor, Department of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Payam Noor ‎University, Tehran, Iran.‎

Abstract

Farabi, as a philosopher who presented the Aristotelian tradition in the Islamic world in a distinctive way, combining it with Neoplatonism and Platonism, also retained a large part of Aristotelian epistemology in his own cognitive system. Just as Aristotle, according to modern epistemological interpretations, is largely considered an evidentialist, so is Farabi. Evidentialism means that the only acceptable criterion for adopting beliefs is valid rational or empirical reasons appropriate to that belief. However, in Iran, many, especially some admirers of the Illuminationist  and Mulla Sadra's traditions, attempt to somehow discover a kind of intuitionism or at least evidence against evidentialism in Farabi. This judgment contradicts the view of some major specialists in Islamic philosophy, such as Dimitri Gutas. This issue is very important because the shift in Islamic epistemology from evidentialism to other directions played a very significant role in changing the nature of this philosophy. Accordingly, in this article, we will attempt to show based on which evidence Farabi is an evidentialist, and how he is largely indebted to Aristotle in this evidentialism, and we will also examine the evidence against Farabi's evidentialism. Given that the term "evidentialism" is an expression from contemporary Western epistemology, we will look at Farabi's philosophy from the perspective of this branch of philosophy. In this article, we will primarily view the matter from the perspective of Western specialists in Islamic philosophy, as their language is close to the language of contemporary epistemology. Our research method is descriptive and analytical, and comparative where appropriate. The findings of this research indicate that Farabi is largely an evidentialist, but a moderate one. This finding is very important in relation to determining the place and role of Farabi's epistemology in Islamic philosophy, as well as the later introduction of intuitionism into Islamic philosophy.

Keywords

References

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Theosophia Islamica
Volume 5, Issue 2 - Serial Number 10
November 2025
Pages 237-256

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