The History of Philosophy in Islam

by T. J. de Boer

4. In Kindi’s opinion, as has already been said, the world is a work of God, but His influence in its descent is transmitted through many intermediate agencies. All higher existence affects the lower, but that which is caused has no influence upon its cause, standing as this does above it in the scale of Being. In all the events of the world there is a pervading causality, which makes it possible for us, from our knowledge of the cause, to foretell the future,—for example, of the positions of the heavenly bodies. Farther, in any single existing thing, if it is thoroughly known, we possess a mirror, in which we may behold the entire scheme of things.

It is to the Spirit or Mind that the higher reality and all activity belong, and matter has to dispose itself in conformity with the desire of the Spirit. Midway between the Spirit of God and the material and bodily world stands the Soul, and it is the Soul which first called into being the world of the Spheres. From this Soul of the world the Human Soul is an emanation. In its nature, that is, in its operations, it is bound to the body with which it is united, but in its spiritual essence it is independent of the body; and thus the influences of the stars, which are limited to physical occurrences, do not affect it. Kindi goes on to say that our Soul is an uncompounded, imperishable substance, descended from the world of reason into that of the senses, [[102]]but endowed with a recollection of its earlier condition. It does not feel at home here, for it has many needs, the satisfaction of which is denied to it, and which consequently are attended with painful emotions. Verily there is nothing constant in this world of coming and going, in which we may be deprived at any moment of what we love. Only in the world of reason is stability to be found. If then we desire to see our wishes fulfilled, and would not be deprived of what is dear to us, we must turn to the eternal blessings of reason, to the fear of God, to science, and to good works. But if we follow merely after material possessions in the belief that we can retain them, we are pursuing an object which does not really exist.

5. Kindi’s theory of knowing corresponds to the ethical and metaphysical duality of the sensible and the spiritual. According to it our knowledge is either knowledge conveyed by the senses, or knowledge acquired by the reason: that which lies between,—the Fancy or Imagination,—is called a mediating faculty. The senses, then, apprehend the Particular, or the material Form, but the reason conceives the Universal,—species and genera, or the spiritual Form. And just as that which is perceived is one with Sense-Perception, so too that which is conceived by the reason is one with Reason itself.

Here then emerges for the first time the doctrine of the Reason or of the Spirit or Mind, (νοῦς, ʻaql) in a form in which, merely modified somewhat, it occupies a large space with the later Muslim philosophers. It continued to be a characteristic feature of philosophy in Islam throughout its whole course. And just as in the controversy regarding Universals in the Christian Middle Ages an objective [[103]]and scientific interest is made evident also, so in the philosophical discussions of the Muslims concerning the thinking Spirit, the subjective requirement of intellectual culture is brought conspicuously to the front.

Kindi has a fourfold division of the Spirit[3]: first the Spirit which is ever real,—the Cause and the Essence of all that is spiritual in the world,—thus without doubt God or the First Spirit produced; second, Spirit as the Reasoning capacity or Potentiality of the human soul; third, as the Habit or actual possession of the soul, which it can make use of at any moment, just as, for example, the writer can make use of his art; fourth and last, as Activity, by which a reality within the soul may be carried over to the reality that is without. The Activity last named appears, according to Kindi, to be the act of man himself, while to the First Cause,—to the ever-existing Spirit,—he ascribes the carrying of Potentiality into Habit, or the realisation of the Possible. The real Spirit or Mind we have thus received from above, and the third ʻaql is therefore called ʻaql mustafad, (Lat. intellectus adeptus sive adquisitus). The fundamental view of antiquity—that all our knowledge about things must come from a source outside of us—, runs, in the form of this doctrine of the ʻaql mustafad or Spirit which we receive from above, through the whole of Arabian Philosophy, and thence passes into Christian Philosophy. Unfortunately the theory is nearly correct, as far as this philosophy is itself concerned, for the [[104]]‘Active Spirit’, which has created it, is in reality the Neo-Platonic Aristotle.

Man has always attributed to his God or Gods the highest of his own possessions. Muslim theologians directly attribute to the divine agency the moral actions of men. But in the opinion of the philosophers, Knowing is of more importance than Doing. The latter, having more to do with the lower world of the senses, may possibly be Man’s own; but his highest knowledge, the pure Reason, comes from above,—from the Divine Essence.

It is clear that the doctrine of the Spirit, as it stands in Kindi, goes back to the ‘Nous’-doctrine of Alexander of Aphrodisias in his second book “On the Soul”. But Alexander expressly maintained that according to Aristotle there is a threefold ‘Nous’. Kindi says on the contrary that he is representing the opinion of Plato and Aristotle. In this the Neo-Pythagorean and the Neo-Platonic views unite: for in everything the number ‘Four’ must be pointed out, and Plato and Aristotle brought into agreement.

6. Let us now sum up: Kindi is a Mutazilite theologian and Neo-Platonic philosopher with Neo-Pythagorean additions. Socrates, the martyr of Athenian heathenism, is his ideal: on him, his fate and his teaching he has composed several works; and he seeks to combine Plato and Aristotle in Neo-Platonic fashion.

Tradition nevertheless calls him the first who followed Aristotle in his writings; and assuredly this representation is not altogether unfounded. In the long list of his works Aristotle takes a prominent place. He was not satisfied with merely translating him, but he studied his translated works and endeavoured to improve and explain them. At [[105]]all events the Aristotelian Physics, with the commentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias, had an important influence upon him. Such assertions as that the world is only potentially unending and not actually so, and that motion is continuous, and the like, point rather in that direction. The Natural-Philosophers of that day, as well as the Faithful Brethren, said for instance, that motion had as little continuity as number. But farther, Kindi resolutely turned away from the marvel-mongering philosophy of the time, by declaring Alchemy an imposture. That which nature alone could produce, he held to be beyond the power of man. Whoever then gives himself up to alchemistic experiments, is in his opinion deceiving either himself or others. The famous physician, Razi, attempted to controvert this view of Kindi’s.

7. The influence of Kindi as a teacher and an author has operated mainly through his Mathematics, Astrology, Geography and Medicine. His most faithful and certainly his most notable disciple was Akhmed ibn Mohammed al-Tayyib al-Sarakhsi († 899), a government-official and friend of the Caliph Mutadid, to whose negligence or caprice he fell a victim. He worked at Alchemy and Astrology, strove to gain a knowledge of the wisdom and might of the Creator from the wonders of creation, and prosecuted the study of Geography and History. Another disciple of Kindi’s has become better known,—Abu Mashar († 885), who, however, owes all his reputation to Astrology. He is said to have become, when 47 years of age, an admirer of Kindi’s,—though up till then he had been a fanatical opponent of philosophy,—having been attracted to the pursuit of Astrology, by a superficial study of Mathematics. [[106]]Whether this be truth or fiction, such a course of education is at all events characteristic of that inquisitive grasping at half-understood knowledge, which peculiarly belongs to the first centuries of Arab Science.