Abstracts Physics

Al-Kindī on psychology

by Redmond G. Fitzmaurice

This thesis is an examination of the extant psychological treatises of Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, the ninth century A.D. Arab scholar who was among the first of his race to interest himself in strictly philosophical questions. Al-Kindi's writings were among the first fruits of the translation of Greek philosophical and scientific works into Arabic. It is under that aspect that this thesis approaches his views on soul and intellect - as an instance of the passage of Greek philosophical ideas to the Muslim Arabs. Apart from his specifically Islamic position on the nature and value of divine revelation, nearly all of al-Kindi's ideas on psychology can be traced to Greek sources, and the version of that philosophy with which he was directly familiar was that of the late Greek schools. This thesis is an attempt to understand and present al-Kindi's psychology in the light of the Greek sources from which it was derived.