Al-Farabi and Islamic Moderate Evidentialism

In this chapter, we discuss the second of the great Islamic philosophers Abu Nasr al-Farabi. We take up themes that were raised in the previous two chapters: meta-philosophy, epistemology, the relationship between philosophy and prophesy. We also take a brief look at the historical context in which he was working. As we will see, I propose that al-Farabi’s overall meta-philosophical position departs from al-Kindi’s Evidentialism in subtle but important ways, to formulate a position I will call Islamic moderate Evidentialism.