Studies on Plotinus and Al-Kkindai

The book gathers fifteen papers on Plotinus, the late antique founder of Neoplatonism, and on al-Kindi, an early major figure in Islamic philosophy. Several chapters focus on the Theology of Aristotle, an Arabic text that is in fact a version of Plotinus’ Enneads made within al-Kindi’s translation circle.

Adamson argues that this translation was meant as a reinterpretation of Plotinus, written to speak to readers in the Abbasid period. Other papers look at al-Kindi’s own ideas on metaphysics, free will, astrology and optics, and some trace Porphyry’s reception in Arabic and the so-called Kindian tradition, including the Persian thinker Miskawayh.

Edition note: 1st edition, published by Routledge. ISBN-13: 9781472420251.