Certainty in view point of Al-Farabi

Al-Farabi’s epistemology is a certainist school; he does not consider uncertain knowledge as true knowledge. Certainty is broadly of two types: psychological and epistemological certainty. Psychological certainty is largely a matter of satisfaction and is not considered logical and philosophical certainty. But from the standpoint of logical and philosophical thinking epistemological certainty is the certainty and is of two types: special and general. Special or necessary (absolute and permanent) certainty, has eternal and permanent character, but general or unnecessary (conditioned and non-permanent) certainty, may be destroyed in some time; so first type is the only real certainty. Firstly, certainty in Al-Farabi’s thinking, primarily related to the Judgment and while Judgment is a kind of acquired knowledge, but his view on certainty concerns with presential knowledge also, since presential perceptions can also be in the form of Judgments and statements expressed or represented or interpreted. Secondly, certainty in his thinking, is of the kind of rational certainty and this certainty ,either is obtained by the knowledge of rational self-evident Judgments or by demonstrative syllogism (based on rational self-evident Judgments). It seems that, Al-Farabi’s view on certainty is totally rationalist, justified and exact, although it may be faced to the criticism that, he despite of study of all kinds of certainty, even certainty in the presential perceptions, does not give an account of certainty in the intuitive perceptions of mystics (and
Illuminationists).