Al-Kindi emerges as a philosopher who attempted to present, interpret, and supplement past philosophies as parts of an essentially unified tradition that would make for a viable philosophy in Islamic society. He assumes a place at or near the beginning of a philosophical current—based on transmission of studies from late Greek thought—that remained vital in the Islamic world for several centuries. Alfred L. Ivry presents a reevaluation of al-Kindi's relationships with the powerful group of theologians, Muʿtazilah. The commentary defines and interprets terms used by al-Kindi, identifies original Arabic and Greek sources, and analyzes the most recent critical research related to each allusion. Complete bibliography and index of Aristotelian sources.
Al-Kindī, honoured as the 'philosopher of the Arabs', was the first philosopher of Islam. His pioneer philosophical writings engage with ideas that became available through the Graeco-Arabic translation movement. This volume makes his entire philosophical output-some two dozen works-available in English, most of them for the first time. An overall introduction, introductions to each work and extensive notes explain al-Kindī's ideas, sources, and influence.
Al-Kindi was the first philosopher of the Islamic world. He lived in Iraq and studied in Baghdad, where he became attached to the caliphal court. In due course he would become an important figure at court: a tutor to the caliph's son, and a central figure in the translation movement of the ninth century, which rendered much of Greek philosophy, science, and medicine into Arabic. Al-Kindi's wide-ranging intellectual interests included not only philosophy but also music, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Through deep engagement with Greek tradition al-Kindi developed original theories on key issues in the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, physical science, and ethics. He is especially known for his arguments against the world's eternity, and his innovative use of Greek ideas to explore the idea of God's unity and transcendence. Despite al-Kindi's historical and philosophical importance no book has presented a complete, in-depth look at his thought until now. In this accessible introduction to al-Kindi's works, Peter Adamson surveys what is known of his life and examines his method and his attitude towards the Greek tradition, as well as his subtle relationship with the Muslim intellectual culture of his day. Above all the book focuses on explaining and evaluating the ideas found in al-Kindi's wide-ranging philosophical corpus, including works devoted to science and mathematics. Throughout, Adamson writes in language that is both serious and engaging, academic and approachable. This book will be of interest to experts in the field, but it requires no knowledge of Greek or Arabic, and is also aimed at non-experts who are simply interested in one of the greatest of Islamic philosophers.
This volume introduces the major classical Arabic philosophers through substantial selections from the key works (many of which appear in translation for the first time here) in each of the fields--including logic, philosophy of science, natural philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, and politics--to which they made significant contributions. An extensive Introduction situating the works within their historical, cultural, and philosophical contexts offers support to students approaching the subject for the first time, as well as to instructors with little or no formal training in Arabic thought. A glossary, select bibliography, and index are also included.
Islamic Philosophy has unusual origins. Originally a hybrid of Greek philosophy and early Islamic theology, its technical language consisted of a number of words translated from the Greek. This book studies how Islamic philosophers of the ninth century AD, such as al-Kindi, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, developed an indigenous set of terms and concepts. Their Books of Definition influenced the revision of the Arabic language to incorporate these new fields of knowledge. Books of Definition in Islamic Philosophy: The Limits of Words uses the work of these philosophers as a basis from which a comparison with their Greek precedents is enabled. The book presents a framework for incorporating an Islamic and historically contextualised philosophy into a continuum of world philosophers. At the core of this framework is Ibn Sina's Kitab al-hudud which the author has translated into English and situates it in its correct geopolitical framework. In establishing a historical and literary context for the writing and circulation of Ibn Sina's definitions, the book breaks new ground in the integration of Islamic philosophy within a general history of philosophies. This fascinating and comprehensive study will be of interest to scholars and postgraduate students of Islamic Philosophy.
The eleventh-century philosopher and physician Abu Ali ibn Sina (d. A.D. 1037) was known in the West by his Latinized name Avicenna. An analysis of the sources and evolution of Avicenna's metaphysics, this book focuses on the answers he and his predecessors gave to two fundamental pairs of questions: what is the soul and how does it cause the body; and what is God and how does He cause the world? To respond to these challenges, Avicenna invented new concepts and distinctions and reinterpreted old ones. The author concludes that Avicenna's innovations are a turning point in the history of metaphysics. Avicenna's metaphysics is the culmination of a period of synthesis during which philosophers fused together a Neoplatonic project (reconciling Plato with Aristotle) with a Peripatetic project (reconciling Aristotle with himself). Avicenna also stands at the beginning of a period during which philosophers sought to integrate the Arabic version of the earlier synthesis with Islamic doctrinal theology (kalam). Avicenna's metaphysics significantly influenced European scholastic thought, but it had an even more profound impact on Islamic intellectual history—the philosophical problems and opportunities associated with the Avicennian synthesis continued to be debated up to the end of the nineteenth century.
This book is an introduction to Islamic Philosophy, beginning with its Medieval inception, right through to its more contemporary incarnations. Using the language and conceptual apparatus of contemporary Anglo-American ‘Analytic’ philosophy, this book represents a novel and creative attempt to rejuvenate Islamic Philosophy for a modern audience. It adopts a ‘rational reconstructive’ approach to the history of philosophy by affording maximum hermeneutical priority to the strongest possible interpretation of a philosopher’s arguments while also paying attention to the historical context in which they worked. The central canonical figures of Medieval Islamic Philosophy – al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Avicenna, al-Ghazali, Averroes – are presented chronologically along with an introduction to the central themes of Islamic theology and the Greek philosophical tradition they inherited. The book then briefly introduces what the author collectively refers to as the ‘Pre-Modern’ figures including Suhrawardi, Mulla Sadra, and Ibn Taymiyyah, and presents all of these thinkers, along with their Medieval predecessors, as forerunners to the more modern incarnation of Islamic Philosophy: Political Islam.
What do the occult sciences, séances with the souls of the dead, and appeals to saintly powers have to do with rationality? Since the late nineteenth century, modernizing intellectuals, religious leaders, and statesmen in Iran have attempted to curtail many such practices as "superstitious," instead encouraging the development of rational religious sensibilities and dispositions. However, far from diminishing the diverse methods through which Iranians engage with the immaterial realm, these rationalizing processes have multiplied the possibilities for metaphysical experimentation. The Iranian Metaphysicals examines these experiments and their transformations over the past century. Drawing on years of ethnographic and archival research, Alireza Doostdar shows that metaphysical experimentation lies at the center of some of the most influential intellectual and religious movements in modern Iran. These forms of exploration have not only produced a plurality of rational orientations toward metaphysical phenomena but have also fundamentally shaped what is understood as orthodox Shi‘i Islam, including the forms of Islamic rationality at the heart of projects for building and sustaining an Islamic Republic. Delving into frequently neglected aspects of Iranian spirituality, politics, and intellectual inquiry, The Iranian Metaphysicals challenges widely held assumptions about Islam, rationality, and the relationship between science and religion.
