Abstract

Al-Kindi is regarded as the first Muslim philosopher. Considering his philosophical writings, we may see that he was firmly committed to rationalism and, even when the results he wished to obtain were motivated by his religious beliefs, he relied upon the intuitive clearness of the first principles and the soundness of the methods of argumentation that he appeals to. This fact can also be seen in his epistles that are considered in this article. In these epistles, al-Kindi tried to prove that an infinite magnitude cannot exist by showing that assuming the existence of such a magnitude would lead to a logical contradiction. In the first part of the paper, I will evaluate al-Kindi’s system and how he reaches to the conclusion that existence of an infinite magnitude is impossible, in this system. In the second part, I will critically present Garro’s exposition of analyzing al-Kindi’s arguments and his manner of placing al-Kindi in the history of thought. In the third part, on the basis of my criticisms in the second part, I will present my views on the possibility of an evaluation of al-Kindi’s ideas which differs from that of Garro