Islamic Philosophies

Research on the thought of al-Kindi (d. c. 870) and an early phase of the translation movement at Baghdad has led to the conclusion that this Arab philosopher was part of a circle or group of thinkers with special interest in Greek metaphysical texts concerning God, the higher intellects moving the heavens, and the soul. Among the works translated wholly or partially and studied by this group were Aristotle's Metaphysics by Eustathius; selections from Plotinus's Enneads, books 4–5 (portions of which were revised, edited, prefaced by al-Kindi to be issued as the Theology of Aristotle); Plato's Timaeus; Aristotle's On the Heavens, Meteorology, Prior Analytics; works on animals by Yahya Ibn al-Bitriq; and selections or perhaps all of the Elements of Theology of Proclus as well as other selections by Proclus attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias by unknown translators (Endress). This group produced a paraphrase of the De Anima; the widely read and influential Theology of Aristotle; and the Discourse on the Pure Good, a creationist treatise based on the Elements of Theology of Proclus and the Theology of Aristotle. The Discourse was read in Arabic by a number of philosophers but had its greatest influence in the Latin West as the Liber de causis, where its highly influential discussion of the First Cause as being alone, devoid of form, was read as the completion of Aristotle's discussion of God in the Metaphysics (D'Ancona and Taylor). That metaphysical doctrine was borrowed from the Arabic Plotinus, which had already probably been "adapted" by the Christian translator Ibn Na'ima al-Himsi to monotheism and to an Aristotelian conception of God as the First Being and cause of all other beings (Adamson). In the pseudo-Aristotelian Theology of Aristotle, metaphysics ("what is after the physical") is presented as identical with divine sovereignty (rububiyya) and divine things (ilahiyyat). Al-Kindi as editor and presumed author of the preface of this work set forth the view that the subject matter of metaphysics is the same as that of dialectical theology or kalam.

Arguing against those theologians of his day who would reject any role for the foreign science of philosophy, al-Kindi boldly asserted in what is extant from his On First Philosophy that the goal of the philosopher is the attainment of truth by causal knowledge of the True One, which is the cause of existence for all things. Identifying the religious study of divine unity (tawhid) as having the same end as the philosophical pursuit of the truth, al-Kindi not only argues for a major role for philosophy in defending against unbelievers of various sorts but also asserts that philosophical metaphysics has the God of revelation as its ultimate object of study. By an examination of the nature of unity or oneness (wahda), al-Kindi concludes that there is no true or essential unity in created things and that unity must be derived from the True One. Creation is also argued in another work to be the only True Agent insofar as it alone acts by a creative agency presupposing nothing, while all other agents are mere metaphorical agents insofar as their agency is not essentially their own but rather derived from their being and power, which are to be traced to God. These accounts of God as True Unity and as First and Primary Cause of all are also found in the Discourse on the Pure Good and contribute to the view that al-Kindi himself may have been the author or editor of that work as well as of the Theology of Aristotle. Al-Kindi's philosophical psychology is also based on a mixture of genuine Aristotelian teachings and adapted teachings of Plotinus, though other sources from the Greek tradition are detectable. His treatise On the Intellect with its assertion of intellect as of four kinds (intellect eternally in act, intellect as potency in the soul, intellect as an actualized disposition in the soul, and intellect as act in the soul) shows more immediate dependence on the school account of the Christian Alexandrian John Philoponus. He also employed the arguments of Philoponus to assert for philosophical reasons the temporal creation, a doctrine thought to be in accord with the apparent sense of Koranic revelation. And in his ethical treatise, On the Art of Dispelling Sorrows, he draws upon the Stoic argument for restraint regarding earthly desires and the cares they engender for the sake of a hoped-for lasting and permanent intellectual fulfillment of the higher realm not further elaborated.

In his teachings al-Kindi clearly showed a degree of affinity with the rationalist goals of the Mu'tazili theologians of his day as well as a desire for conciliation of philosophy and Islam, though his commitment to Greek philosophy was foundational. That his followers used his works and those of his group for the understanding of Islamic teachings is particularly evident in the work of al-'Amiri (d. 992) who wrote On the Afterlife, drawing on Aristotelian and Neoplatonic sources for arguments for personal immortality promised in the Koran. He made use of a large array of materials from al-Kindi's group and was quite familiar with the Arabic Plotinus texts as well as with the Discourse on the Pure Good, which he paraphrased in Chapters on Metaphysical Topics (Rowson). The tradition of al-Kindi, however, was soon eclipsed by the work of Avicenna, who drew upon the thought of al-Farabi, a thinker who was less sanguine on the harmony of philosophy with Islam.