Metaphysics as Rhetoric: Alfarabi's Summary of Plato's "Laws"

Parens argues that Alfarabi, the tenth-century Muslim philosopher, demonstrated that Plato is not the originator of Western metaphysics, and that what appears to be Plato's metaphysics was intended as a rhetorical defense of his politics.

The most widely accepted view in the West today, particularly among postmodernists, is that Plato attempted to ground politics on a rational metaphysics and initiated the tradition of foundationalism that has given rise to systems of oppression ranging from...