The Human Body according to al-Farabi
The Human Body
according to al-Farabi
An Image of the Cosmos
and a Model for the Virtuous City
Cecilia Martini Bonadeo
22 October 2024 – 5 PM (CEST)
Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī, al-muʿallim al-ṯānī or “the second master” of the Arab-Muslim philosophical tradition after Aristotle, presents the physiology of the human body in his Epistle on the Refutation of Galen Concerning That in which He Contradicts with Aristotle Regarding the Parts of the Human Body (Risāla fī l-Radd ʿalā Ǧālīnūs fimā nāqaḍa fīhi Arisṭūṭālīs li-aʿḍā al-insān).
This treatise, which is edited in Arabic but not yet translated into a Western language, presents the physiology of the human body in the context of a discussion of the relationship between physics and medicine and the position of both disciplines in relation to Farabi’s epistemology.
In addition, al-Fārābī devotes chapters 11 and 12 of Section IV of the Principles of the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Perfect City (Mabādiʾ ārā’ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila) to the discussion of bodily functions.
In this treatise, man is presented as a microcosm, and the study of the parts of his body – his limbs, his organs, with special attention to his reproductive organs – and the body-related functions of his soul are fundamental to the understanding of the macrocosm and its intelligible principles.
Like the cosmos, the healthy human body displays a hierarchical organization, a model for the political order of the virtuous city. The lecture will introduce al-Fārābī’s physiology and idea of medicine through commented readings from these works.
About the Speaker ...
Cecilia Martini Bonadeo is a professor of Islamic Thought at the University of Padua. She has been a Kollegiatin at the Graduiertenkolleg GRK 237 “Der Kommentar in Antike und Mittelalter” at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and a Research Fellow for the ERC Advanced Grant project “Greek into Arabic” at the University of Pisa (2010-2015). She has authored several books and articles, including Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baġdādī’s Philosophical Journey. From Aristotle’s Metaphysics to the ‘Metaphysical Science’ (Brill, 2013). Her translation of al-Fārābī’s L’armonia delle opinioni dei due saggi Platone il divino e Aristotele earned her the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Award (2012-2013). Her research focuses on the socio-cultural history of the translation movement from Greek into Arabic, the Arabic tradition of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, and the works of al-Fārābī and ‘Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baġdādī.
