Al-Kindī was the first outstanding Islamic philosopher. He is known as “the philosopher of the Arabs.”Although al-Kindī lived during the triumph of the Mu‘tazilah of Baghdad and was connected with the ‘Abbāsid caliphs who championed the Mu‘tazilah and patronized the Hellenistic sciences, there is no clear evidence that he belonged to a theological school. His writings show him to have been a diligent student of Greek and Hellenistic authors in philosophy and point to his familiarity with Indian arithmetic. His conscious, open, and unashamed acknowledgment of earlier contributions to scientific inquiry was foreign to the spirit, method, and purpose of the theologians of the time.
His acquaintance with the writings of Plato and Aristotle was still incomplete and technically inadequate. He improved the Arabic translation of the “Theology of Aristotle” but made only a selective and circumspect use of it.Devoting most of his writings to questions of natural philosophy and mathematics, al-Kindī was particularly concerned with the relation between corporeal things, which are changeable, in constant flux, infinite, and as such unknowable, on the one hand, and the permanent world of forms (spiritual or secondary substances), which are not subject to flux yet to which man has no access except through things of the senses. He insisted that a purely human knowledge of all things is possible, through the use of various scientific devices, learning such things as mathematics and logic, and assimilating the contributions of earlier thinkers.
The existence of a “supernatural” way to this knowledge in which all these requirements can be dispensed with was acknowledged by al-Kindī: God may choose to impart it to his prophets by cleansing and illuminating their souls and by giving them his aid, right guidance, and inspiration; and they, in turn, communicate it to ordinary men in an admirably clear, concise, and comprehensible style. This is the prophets’ “divine” knowledge, characterized by a special mode of access and style of exposition.
In principle, however, this very same knowledge is accessible to man without divine aid, even though “human” knowledge may lack the completeness and consummate logic of the prophets’ divine message.Reflection on the two different kinds of knowledge— the human knowledge bequeathed by the ancients and the revealed knowledge expressed in the Qur’ān—led al-Kindī to pose a number of themes that became central to Islamic philosophy: the rational–metaphorical exegesis of the Qur’ān and the H.adīth; the identification of God with the first being and the first cause; creation as the giving of being and as a kind of causation distinct from natural causation and Neoplatonic emanation; and the immortality of the individual soul.
0 comments:
Post a Comment