In this chapter, I examine how the art of dialectic might be used to resolve (or at least bring to light) the ‘perplexities’ that surround Aristotle’s presentation of the natural world. Contemporary scholars have noticed the strange fact that Aristotle’s procedure in the Physics resembles not so much the strict progression of demonstrative proof as outlined in the Posterior Analytics but, instead, the dialectical method described in the Topics. This accords with Maimonides’ claim in the Guide of the Perplexed that Aristotle was aware of the fact that the level of argumentation in Physics and De Caelo is less than demonstrative. Now, if it is the case, as Maimonides stresses in the Guide, that the ‘true perplexity’ concerns the incompatibility of Aristotelian physics and Ptolemaic astronomy, and if Aristotelian physics has been presented in dialectical form, how might dialectic be used to resolve this most profound perplexity?

The first matter to which the reader of the Book of Dialectic must attend is the fact that Alfarabi appears to offer two distinct starting points to his commentary. The first starting point, as we will have witnessed in Chapter One, begins at something of a technical height, with Alfarabi assuming a sophisticated level of learning on the part of those he is addressing. In Chapter Two, I consider the nature of the subsequent or ‘corrected’ starting point, which mimics the Aristotle of the Philosophy of Aristotle to the extent to which Alfarabi here begins from a more obviously commonsensical position. This is at the same time, then, to recall Alfarabi’s Plato and also (and above all) his Socrates. Because the new starting point is the recollection of the pre-scientific beginnings of science, which are themselves rarely subjected to scientific scrutiny, the role of the Law in instilling decent habits comes to the fore. We are then forced to consider the character of the kind of political science that is responsible for the creation of that Law in the first place.