Editing Al-Farabi (section)

=== Epistemology and eschatology ===
Human beings are unique in al-Farabi's vision of the universe because they stand between two worlds: the "higher", immaterial world of the celestial intellects and universal intelligibles, and the "lower", material world of generation and decay; they inhabit a physical body, and so belong to the "lower" world, but they also have a rational capacity, which connects them to the "higher" realm. Each level of existence in al-Farabi's cosmology is characterized by its movement towards perfection, which is to become like the First Cause, i.e. a perfect intellect. Human perfection (or "happiness"), then, is equated with constant intellection and contemplation.{{sfn|Reisman|2005|p=61}}

Al-Farabi divides intellect into four categories: potential, actual, acquired and the Agent. The first three are the different states of the human intellect and the fourth is the [[Tenth Intellect]] (the moon) in his emanational cosmology. The potential intellect represents the capacity to think, which is shared by all human beings, and the actual intellect is an intellect engaged in the act of thinking. By thinking, al-Farabi means abstracting universal intelligibles from the sensory forms of objects which have been apprehended and retained in the individual's imagination.{{sfn|Madkour|1963–1966|p=461}}

This motion from potentiality to actuality requires the Agent Intellect to act upon the retained sensory forms; just as the Sun illuminates the physical world to allow us to see, the Agent Intellect illuminates the world of intelligibles to allow us to think.{{sfn|Reisman|2005|p=64}} This illumination removes all accident (such as time, place, quality) and physicality from them, converting them into primary intelligibles, which are logical principles such as "the whole is greater than the part". The human intellect, by its act of intellection, passes from potentiality to actuality, and as it gradually comprehends these intelligibles, it is identified with them (as according to Aristotle, by knowing something, the intellect becomes like it).{{sfn|Reisman|2005|p=63}} Because the Agent Intellect knows all of the intelligibles, this means that when the human intellect knows all of them, it becomes associated with the Agent Intellect's perfection and is known as the acquired Intellect.{{sfn|Black|1996|p=186}}

While this process seems mechanical, leaving little room for human choice or volition, Reisman says that al-Farabi is committed to human voluntarism.{{sfn|Reisman|2005|p=63}} This takes place when man, based on the knowledge he has acquired, decides whether to direct himself towards virtuous or unvirtuous activities, and thereby decides whether or not to seek true happiness. And it is by choosing what is ethical and contemplating about what constitutes the nature of ethics, that the actual intellect can become "like" the active intellect, thereby attaining perfection. It is only by this process that a human soul may survive death, and live on in the afterlife.{{sfnm|1a1=Corbin|1y=1993|1p=158|2a1=Reisman|2y=2005|2p=64}}

According to al-Farabi, the afterlife is not the personal experience commonly conceived of by religious traditions such as [[Islam]] and [[Christianity]]. Any individual or distinguishing features of the soul are annihilated after the death of the body; only the rational faculty survives (and then, only if it has attained perfection), which becomes one with all other rational souls within the agent intellect and enters a realm of pure intelligence.{{sfn|Black|1996|p=186}} [[Henry Corbin]] compares this eschatology with that of the Ismaili Neo-Platonists, for whom this process initiated the next grand cycle of the universe.{{sfn|Corbin|1993|p=165}} However, [[Deborah Black]] mentions we have cause to be skeptical as to whether this was the mature and developed view of al-Farabi, as later thinkers such as [[Ibn Tufayl]], [[Averroes]] and [[Avempace]] would assert that he repudiated this view in his commentary on the [[Nicomachean Ethics]], which has been lost to modern experts.{{sfn|Black|1996|p=186}}