The Methodology of Reading Classical Texts: The Case of Al-Farabi

Al-Farabi’s methodology in reading his ancestors’ philosophy can be taken as a source of inspiration for attaining the elements of an interpretive methodology for understanding and reading creative ideas of his own and other classical thinkers of political philosophy. Based on this hypothesis, the objective of this paper is to recognize these methodological elements to “form and formulate an interpretive methodology for reading classical political philosophy”, as the main question of the paper. In this regard, the approach and the method of this paper is interpretive and the author has critically exploited Al-Farabi’s methodology as well as contemporary interpretive methodologies including Quentine Skinner’s and Leo Strauss’s. After preliminary examining, the elements of the interpretive methodology have been explained and formulated into three sections: in-text elements (contextology), out-text elements (formology and contentology) intertextual elements (intellectual chronology and intellectual systemology).