An Analysis of Al-Kindi's View of Human Perfection

Abstract

Perfection is an anthropological issue that is inherently human in nature, but in theory, Greek philosophers played a prominent role. They pursued this more as a virtue. The main question of this research is what analysis can be provided for Al-Kindi’s view of human perfection? This research was done using a descriptive-analytic method and its most important findings are: In analyzing the Al-Kindi’s view of perfection, we can divide it into two types – philosophical perfection and moral perfection. Philosophical perfection in this research means perfection in the field of theoretical reason. In his treatise on reason, he used it in four meanings, the second meaning of which refers to the reason considered in this research. Although he uses a degree of theoretical reason, we see a kind of ambiguity and weaknesses in his philosophical perfection. What we mean by moral perfection in this research is the perfection of the practical intellect, which is called virtue. He is more morally influenced by Plato than Aristotle. And according to the powers of the human soul, it divides virtues into four parts – wisdom, prudence or courage, chastity, and justice. To explain further, a human being has many virtues, and human virtues refer to the same desirable human creation which is divided into two types, one of which is in the soul and the other surrounds the human body and is one of the effects in the soul. The kind that exists in the soul is divided into three types: wisdom, chastity and the one that surrounds the human body and one of the effects of this thing in the soul is justice. When a necessity arises, one does not fear death and repels something that is against his will; chastity is eating things to train the body and maintaining it after all. Virtues have two extremes and each of these two is a departure from moderation and vice. The soul is a slowly transcending light and after separating from the body, it becomes aware of everything in the world and no secret is hidden from it. In this article, an attempt has been made to solve the problem of perfection from Al-Kindi’s point of view using a rational-descriptive method. The important point about Al-Kindi is that he was in the early stages of the translation movement and was not familiar enough with Greek works. Also, according to the available reports, not all of his works have reached us so it is difficult to judge definitively about his views on various issues, including perfection. However, from Al-Kindi’s point of view, perfection can be divided into philosophical and moral perfection but for the aforementioned reasons, both types of perfection are ambiguous and there seems to be more of an ambiguity regarding philosophical perfection in his works.