 Precisely this latter method of symbolic representation is identified with religion, while its counterpart, teaching and knowing things as they “really are”, corresponds to philosophy. Doubtlessly, philosophy is therefore superior to religion, as is often underscored by scholarship and acknowledged by al-Farabi himself (cf. Book of Religion 5: 97–8). This superiority, however, concerns only the respective epistemic levels. While ‘philosophy’ is the name of a knowledge based on demonstration and resulting in objective certitude, ‘religion’ is the name for a knowledge based on dialectical and rhetorical means and resulting only in probable opinion and  conviction.[29]  From a pragmatic point of view, by contrast, the coordinate system shifts considerably. From this angle, it is religion which turns out to be no less important than philosophy, due to the givens of anthropology: for by far the majority of people depend on “symbolic representation” as the avenue to the knowledge and activities required for the attainment of felicity, while only a minority can grasp the things as they “really are”.