Philosophy’s Desire for The City/State: A Comparison Between Platonopolis and al-Madinah al-Fadilah
Some philosophers have designed perfect models of the city and the state. The aim of these philosophers’ contemplations is the happiness of individuals and society. They considered that these models would serve this aim. This thought is based on that man has to live in a society. As a result of this, moral and political philosophies emerged. These models which are designed by philosophers also highlight the ideal philosophical environment. Some of them were assessed as utopia and criticized on its implementation. In this study we will compare the ideas of two philosophers who designed a model of the city and the state. The first of them is Plotinos. He mostly lived in Egypt and Rome in the 3rd century. He advised that the emperor should build the city of Platonopolis. The emperor had promised to build this city but it never happened. The other is al-Farabi who lived in the 9th and 10th centuries in the Middle East. He named his ideal city ‘el-Medīnetü’l-Fāḍıla’ He compared the city /state to the universe. Namely beings are ruled by God. The city must also be ruled by a divine king who makes rules. He tried to show how it will turn out to be an ideal thinking environment for philosophy. In this study we will try to show the different and the similar aspects of two philosophers about their ideal cities models.
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