THE ROLE OF CITY IN AL-FARABI’S CONCEPT OF HAPPINESS

SELVİ GENÇ

ABSTRACT

In the history of thought, the question of what the happiness is and how to acquire it is
placed in the center of philosophical discussions. Usually happiness is regarded in these
discussions as “the highest good”. Happiness which is shaped according to the world
views of thinkers/philosophers, is seen as possible by application of Islam to the life in
Farabi. This work will focus on how Farabi grounds the understanding of happiness
over his phenomenon of The Virtuous City which analyses the ideal state order. In this
frame, what leads him to write Virtuous City (which is accepted as utopia for many), in
other words, the political and sociocultural events of his time will be addressed. It will
be discussed the Farabi’s typology of society and handled in what degree he is influenced
by Aristo and Plato while he idealizes his ide of society. The understanding of happiness
is significant in his understanding of important philosophy areas such as metaphysicsmorality-
politics. We can say even Farabi establishes his philosophy according to the
idea of happiness which places human as a whole into the center. In this context, the
idea of state which is established and assigned moral and metaphysical meanings by
communities will be scrutinized and it will be concentrated on two resources of
happiness according to Farabi, politics and city. In conclusion, the significance of city
on Farabi’s understanding of happiness which is presented to us by synthesis of different
philosophical disciplines will be analyzed.