Aristotle and Avicenna on the Finity and Infinity of Space and Time: A Comparative Study

The issue of “Finity or Infinity of Space and Time” is one of the most important problems in the western and also in the Islamic philosophy. The history of the debate about this problem is interwoven with the history of differnet views of philosophers and theologians. In the western philosophy, Aristotle is the first thinker who presents a detailed and articulated discussion about the finity or infinity of space and time. In On Heavens, he asserts that considering the Infinity is a crucial step in the way of understanding the truth. This issue is propouned again in the Islamic world, especially by Avicenna, in a different articulation, but by the same attitude. Avicenna presented arguments in an Aristotelean way in favor of finity of space and infinity of time. In this paper, we are to analyse and consider the views of the mentioned great peripatetic philosophers on the finity of space and infinity of time.