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| Preface | |
| Acknowledgments | |
| Introduction | |
| The uniqueness of the Summary of Plato's "Laws" | |
| Alfarabi's unmethodical method of reading Plato | |
| Alfarabi's access to the Laws | |
| The Summary's textual tradition: The contemporary debate | |
| This book's structure | |
| This book's audience | |
| Metaphysics as Rhetorical Foundation of Law | |
| The Roots of Laws | |
| Jurisprudence and kalam | |
| Why are the roots the theme of the Laws and the Summary? | |
| How philosophical kalam becomes misconstrued as metaphysical doctrine | |
| The roots of the laws revisited | |
| Alfarabi's Platonism | |
| Alfarabi as metaphysical Neoplatonist | |
| Alfarabi as political Middle Platonist: Richard Walzer | |
| Alfarabi as political Aristotelian: Galston's Politics and Excellence | |
| Natural Right versus Natural Law | |
| Plato as ethical theorist of natural law2. Plato as legalistic theorist of natural law | |
| The Divergence Between Law and Intellect | |
| Is the Best City Ruled by Law? | |
| According to the Philosophy of Plato | |
| According to the Summary | |
| Plato's City and Alfarabi's Regime | |
| Persian monarchy and Athenian democracy | |
| The titles to rule | |
| The ruling offices | |
| The regime's size | |
| War as a Purpose of the Second-Best Regime | |
| The denigration of war as a purpose of the city | |
| The rehabilitation of war and as a purpose | |
| The relation between war and law | |
| Legal Innovation: Law as an Imitation of Intellect | |
| Changes of place: Differing natural dispositions and customs | |
| Changes of time: Conservation and innovation | |
| Shame, Indignation, and Inquiry | |
| The Role of Law and Good Breeding | |
| Prudence and good breeding | |
| Shame, law, and honoring the body | |
| Good breeding, praise and blame, and honoring the soul | |
| Pleasure and Indignation | |
| Divinizing pleasure or undermining shame | |
| The critique of tragic music as a critique of shame | |
| War games and drinking parties: Pleasure and indignation | |
| Poetry and Inquiry into Law | |
| The permissibility of inquiring into law | |
| Artisans versus courageous men | |
| Poetry, kalam, dialectic, and political science | |
| Conclusion | |
| Notes | |
| Bibliography | |
| Index | |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
