"Selected aphorisms that comprise the roots of many of the sayings of the Ancients concerning that by which cities ought to be governed and made prosperous, the ways of life of their inhabitants improved, and they be led toward happiness."
This is the introductory sentence to Alfarabi's work "Selected Aphorisms." In this statement, he intimates his intent: to take the philosophies of the "Ancients" (Plato and Aristotle) and summarize them in a series of pithy aphorisms. These sayings deal with the way cities should be governed, which is a reference to Plato's Republic, in which Plato (through the character of Socrates) draws an analogy of a virtuous city in order to discover what is virtuous in the soul. Many of the pieces of philosophy encompassed in these aphorisms indeed come from the Republic. As for the rest of the aphorisms, dealing with happiness in the human soul, these come from both Plato and Aristotle, both of whom dealt with this subject in their works, and there is quite a bit of material taken from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.
"Just as the health of the body is an equilibrium of its temperament and its sickness is a deviation from equilibrium, so, too, are the health of the city and its uprightness an equilibrium of the moral habits of its inhabitants and its sickness a disparity found in their moral habits."
In this aphorism, Alfarabi is taking a page from Plato's book, almost literally; this idea comes from the Republic, where Plato draws a connection between the balance of the human soul leading to individual happiness and the balance of the parts of a city leading to a functioning state. The idea is slightly altered in this aphorism, however, bringing in a pinch of Aristotle's natural philosophy: this idea of moderation ("equilibrium") as the qualifier of health comes from Nicomachean Ethics.
"It explains that the ones through which what is truly happiness is obtained are the goods, the noble actions, and the virtues; that the rest are evils, base things, and imperfections; and that the way they are to exist in a human being is for the virtuous actions and ways of life to be distributed in cities and nations in an orderly manner and to be practiced in common."
This is another quote that significantly draws on Western tradition. The telos of human happiness has been a theme in philosophy since its beginning, but Alfarabi's treatment of the subject is distinctly reminiscent of both Plato and Aristotle. It evokes Aristotle in that the end goal is the perfect achievement of human happiness, and this is only possible when all men in a society engage in the correct actions with the correct motivations. Alfarabi also brings up Plato, however, when he argues that the truest happiness is to be found in noble actions and virtues, such as the life of contemplation; this comparison of tiers of happiness is found in the Republic as well.
