iv. Fārābī and Greek Philosophy Fārābī’s philosophical moorings
and direct affiliation lie in the Greek neo-Aristotelian school
of Ammonius in Alexandria, in the form in which it survived and
was revived after the Islamic conquest among Syriac Christian
clerics and intellectuals in the centers of Eastern Christianity
in the Fertile Crescent. This school, traditionally but
inappropriately called Neoplatonic, was essentially Aristotelian
in its basic orientation, structure, and contents. It had been
transformed, however, in a number of ways along Neoplatonist
lines, most notably in its acceptance of Plotinian emanationism
(for various aspects of this transformation see Sorabji,
passim). By Fārābī’s own account (cf i. biography), the
Nestorians Yūḥannā b. Ḥaylān, his immediate teacher, and Mattā
b. Yūnus, his older contemporary and colleague in Baghdad, were
direct descendants in this tradition. To Mattā apparently
belongs the credit for reviving Aristotelian studies in Baghdad
and establishing both a curriculum