ABSTRACT
In two manuscript collections of logical treatises by al-Fārābī (ca. 872–ca. 950 CE), MS Bratislava 231 TE 41 and MS Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi Hamidiye 812, al-Fārābī provides an account of both the common and the specific rules of the five rational arts, dialectic, sophistry, demonstration, rhetoric, and poetry. In the two introductory treatises to this collection, the Introductory Letter and the Five Aphorisms, he presents an initial account of his epistemology, which includes the exposition of four types of knowledge that exist prior to these five arts. The four types are received traditions, generally accepted opinions, sense perceptions, and first intelligibles. This chapter provides an account of the four types of prescientific knowledge as they are presented in the two introductory treatises and explains how one of these types of knowledge, generally accepted opinions, is used in the exposition of the art of dialectic in al-Fārābī’s Book of Dialectic.
