Idealism and Political Realism in the Thought of Saadi and Farabi

Among intellectuals, and thinkers, there have always been two realistic and idealistic views on social and political issues. In the ideal view of society and its issues, the attention is drawn to the forms of imagination and the paths in the spiritual, transcendental world, and the color of secular facts does not reflect in the equations and the utopian matters; therefore, the idealist look is a subjective and inappropriate look. Against the idealists, there are realists on the soil, trying to provide a realistic understanding of their individual abilities and their social status, cognitive integrity, and the possibility of realizing their goals. Since the origin of the reflection and thought system of intellectuals are very influential in achieving their goals, especially in creating a desirable model of government, the study of the principles of their thinking towards providing solutions to social problems is of vital importance. Accordingly, the purpose of the present research is to recognize the intellectual and philosophical teachings of the rule and the desired rule in the works of Saadi and its correspondence with Farabi's utopian theories. In this paper, in the light of the comparative study, two thinkers in the field of philosophy and literature, Farabi and Saadi are compared and each model in the form of utopia and the ideal society is measured in terms of realism and idealism. The findings of the research show that Sadi's ideas are a combination of pragmatism and idealism; as some of Farabi's views are similar, examples have different meanings.