Can Humankind Deliberate on a Global Scale?Alfarabi and the Politics of the Inhabited World

Abstract

Alfarabi treats the question of global governance more thoroughly than any of his Greek predecessors. The key to understanding his view of the matter lies with his highly selective use of the term “inhabited world” across several works. Citing the inhabited world's enormous size, immeasurable diversity, and frequently inhospitable terrain, Alfarabi rejects the possibility that its entirety will ever be governed politically. Furthermore, Alfarabi omits the term “inhabited world” from his most important accounts of deliberation and legislation. The implication is that in Alfarabi's view no statesman or prophet can ever deliberate about, or legislate for, the whole of the inhabited world. The scope and multiplicity of the political accidents occurring within this vast domain are too great for any deliberator or group of deliberators to adequately grasp. The consequence is that any given political action or piece of legislation concerns at most several nations. Alfarabi's discussion helps to reveal the limited scope of most political decisions today, which often appear to be global but in fact do not involve more than several nations.

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