مطالب

In the context of comparative and intercultural philosophy the approach and engagement of one philosopher with another, is a very basic issue. With regard to this, I want to narrate Farabi’s special engagement with the Meno and Gorgias dialogues of Plato. His engagement can be named hermeneutic dialectical reading-here hermeneutic means the relation of Farabi with the Meno and Gorgias texts and also inside these two texts there are diverse and different levels, layers and mediations (though this is also true so far as my self as a researcher); dialectical means his reading is in the from of synoptic question (s) and answer; and reading means conversational construction of meaning in relation to the text and context. Farabi’s hermeneutic dialectical reading of the Meno and Grgias has these characteristics: he propounds these two dialogues thematically or in accordance whit their subject matter as two parts or orders in the whole of the Plato philosophy. Therefore for understanding these dialogues we have to put them in a broader context that heve interconnections whit the whole philosophy. Basides, the Gorgias is connected with or exists in a set of dialogues that collectively make a network that too has logical relation with the Meno. He says that plato philosophy as a whole begins with a search about human perfection as the first order that is discussed in Alcibiades I and then for getting this perfection we need knowledge that Theaetetus dialogue discusses thematically as the second order. After searching about eudaimonia in the Philebus and knowledge of eudaimonia in Protagoras respectively, Plato further searches about the possibility and the quality and how-ness of getting this special knowledge in the Meno. Farabi says that in the Meno (means fixing) dialogue as the fifth order or level of Plato philosophy he searches about this matter i.e. getting of this knowledge and the method if the answer is positive. Plato in this dialogue says that this knowledge is possible by means of Sana’t / art /τεχνη. Therefore the next step is searching for these arts that are well-known among citizens of different cities and civilities. Farabi says that for Plato these arts are six arts according to six dialogues-that begins with theological syllogism art in the Euthyphro and continues by language, poetics, rhetoric, sophistics and ends by art of dialectics in the Parmenides. According to Farabi Gorgias (means service) is after Ion dialogue about poetics, before the Sophist that is about sophistics. In this dialogue Plato searches two problem, does this art give us knowledge or only the method, and how much this art is knowledge?

The European authors and thinkers in classic period and particularly Romantic one were searching the root and basis of European culture and languages. The decoding of Sanskrit emphasized the centrality of the Orient for European culture. Goethe, the famous poet and author of Germany, under the influence of this movement and for his own interest, studied the works of orientalists too. Alltough he never went to the Orient, however, the study and survey of the translation the books by the Orient authors and poets, for him, was spiritual travel to the Orient. Particularly, during the study and survey he acquainted with the poeti-cal works of Hafez which exerted a strong influence on him and thus he created an attractive compilation in German language. The West-östlicher Divan of Goethe is the result of his spiritual travel to the Orient and, in effect, it is a description which joins the two poles of world (East and West). The description of Goethe’s life, his spiritual travel to the east, his acquaintance with Hafez and finally the West-östlicher Divan form the four parts of this ar-ticle.