“Porfirio” cita “Aristotele”, al-Kindī, la pseudo-Teologia e il De Caelo

Aristotle’s On Heavens was translated in the formative period of Arabic- Islamic philosophy within the circle of scientists and philosophers animated by al-Kind†. This translation was a source for several features of al-Kind†’s universe, and borrowings from On Heavens can be detected in some of his works. One wonders how can al-Kind† both maintain the spherical structure of the cosmos and its movement, on the one hand, and disclaim its eternity on the other. This paper deals with a silent quotation that occurs at the beginning of the pseudo-Theology of Aristotle, the well-known work extracted from Plotinus’ Enneads. Its author casts “Aristotle” as summarizing what he has done in the Metaphysics, before dealing with the subject-matter of the Theology. In doing so, “Aristotle” has recourse to a silent quotation of On Heavens, Book III. It is argued in this article that the author of this section of the pseudo-Theology is al-Kind†, who in his endeavor to credit “Aristotle” with an anti-eternalist account made use of the arguments worked out by Philoponus in purely Neoplatonic vein.