An Irradiation of Latin Grammarians, or The De radiis is not by al-Kindī

Abstract

This article takes another look at the deeply problematic attribution to al-Kindī.of the well known philosophical text De radiis. Focusing on the use of grammatical terminology that occurs throughout the De radiis, the article demonstrates that the author of this text is drawing on (and thinking in terms of) common textbooks written by Latin grammarians. It is demonstrated that theonly person who could possibly have written the De radiis is an author steeped in Latin writings and schooled in Latin grammar, which means that the author could not have been anything other than a Christian European scholar, probably writing in the 1250s or 1260s, perhaps in England, in the academic milieu of Oxford.