The appearance of multitude from unit in Farabi’s

  Farabi has described the problem of emanation with negative determiners and referred to the first intellect as the first case of emanation. For him, the appearance of multitude by intellect is described on a dual order; though the way of description is not accepted by the philosophers before him, specially by Avicenna. Farabi links the old physics to the problem of emanation and, therefore, in most of his writings limits the number of intellects to ten and says: in each of the intellects, from the first to the ninth, one intellect and one heavenly sphere occurs; the tenth, however, runs the universe under the moon. Contrary to what has been viewed by some, no disagreement can be found in Farabi’s different works in the ground. When explaining the problem, he has been under the influence of Plotin and, therefore, his view is formally similar to Plotin’s. Nonetheless, never can Farabi be regarded as a pure imitator; he has changed Plotin’s view deeply. Some of his special points can be counted as: using physics in metaphysics, using religious teachings, relying on dual form, considering different meanings of intellect and special manner of study. Key words: order of emanation, necessary being, unit, intellect, soul, sphere and matter.