Episode 43: Peter Adamson discusses the philosophy of Al-Kindi
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Who was Al‑Kindi and what historical context shaped his work?
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Hello and welcome to Elucidations, a philosophy podcast ordinarily recorded at the University of Chicago, but which today is being brought to you from London.
How did Al‑Kindi lead the Arabic translation movement of Greek philosophy?
With me is Peter Adamson, Professor of Philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität in Munich and King's College London. And he is here to talk to us about the philosophy of Al Kindi. Peter Addinson, welcome.
Thanks, I'm really pleased to be on 'cause I'm a big fan of the show.
I think a lot of our listeners probably haven't heard of Al Kindi before. So maybe we can just begin by saying something about the historical context. You know, who was Al Kindi? When and where did he live and so forth?
Right.
Which Aristotelian texts did Al‑Kindi study and how did he summarize them?
Well he lived in the ninth century, which is the third century of the Islamic calendar, in Iraq, which is where he was from. He would have spent some of his time in Baghdad, but not necessarily his whole career in Baghdad. Baghdad was a city that had been founded in recent memory by the second caliphate of the Islamic tradition. So first you have the Umayyad Caliphate, then you have the Abbasids who sweep in from Central Asia and kick the Umayyads out. And one of the things that's interesting about the Abbasids and probably the most interesting thing about them if you're interested in philosophy, is that they plowed a lot of money and resources into getting works of Greek science and philosophy translated into Arabic.
and El Kindi was intimately involved in that process. He was the head of what's sometimes called a translation circle, which would have consisted mostly of Christians who were able to read Greek.
What role did Neoplatonism play in Al‑Kindi’s concept of God as the “true one”?
They were often from a Syrian background. And Kindi was coordinating their efforts. So he would have been, for example, choosing which texts that would be translated. He would have been correcting the Arabic, improving the style of the translations that were produced. And maybe most importantly, he was a go between between these translators and the rich patrons who were actually funding the activity. So he was very central figure. In the transmission of Greek philosophy and science into the Arabic-speaking world. He wasn't the only person like this.
Why did Al‑Kindi argue that the universe is not eternal?
So there's another translation circle led by someone named Hunain ibn Ishaq, who was an expert in medicine, really, more than philosophy. But the special thing about Kindi is that he not only was intimately involved in this translation process, but he was also himself a philosopher. So having these texts produced for him as it were hot off the presses, he then turned around and wrote all of these treatises or actually epistles of his own where he tried to explain the philosophical relevance of this Greek material for a contemporary audience.
Okay, so Al Kindi was at the forefront of this translation movement in the Islamic world. So he was simultaneously sort of importing texts from the ancient Greek world and coming up with various philosophical responses to them. Which ancient Greek philosophical texts did Al Kindi actually have access to?
Right, well he actually would have been able to read a a fairly wide range of texts, not quite as wide as the next major philosopher in the Islamic world who's a bit more famous, who's named Al Farabi. So by the time of Al Farabi, who's a couple of generations later, he would have been able, for example, to read pretty much all the Aristotle that we have.
How does Al‑Kindi use the infinite‑marbles thought experiment to challenge eternity?
And that's not true of Al Kindi. But Al Kindi would have known a number of works by Aristotle, including Including the metaphysics, at least parts of the physics, the work on the soul, and quite a range of logical works. In fact, uh because the late ancient educational curriculum that the Arabic tradition grew out of was very logic centered because you would sort of start students out on logic. pretty much the first things to be translated were works on logic.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who was Al‑Kindi and what historical context shaped his work?
0:00–0:43
2
How did Al‑Kindi lead the Arabic translation movement of Greek philosophy?
0:43–1:11
3
Which Aristotelian texts did Al‑Kindi study and how did he summarize them?
1:11–2:12
4
What role did Neoplatonism play in Al‑Kindi’s concept of God as the “true one”?
2:12–2:47
5
Why did Al‑Kindi argue that the universe is not eternal?
2:47–3:59
6
How does Al‑Kindi use the infinite‑marbles thought experiment to challenge eternity?
3:59–4:49
7
What philosophical lessons from Al‑Kindi are relevant to contemporary thinkers?
4:49–5:36
8
Why is studying Al‑Kindi important for the history of philosophy?
5:36–41:23
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