Averroes

Como en años anteriores, durante los meses de febrero y marzo de 1998 se ha realizado, en la Facultad de Filosofia de la Universidad Complutense, el IX Seminario de Filosojia Española 1998, como interdisciptinar de Pensamiento, Historia y Literatura, sobre Centenarios del 98: Averroes (1126-1198), Arias Montano (1527-1598) y Javier Zubiri (1898-1983), a los que se añadieron por celbrarse 150 o 350 años de Francisco Suárez (1548- 1617) y Jaime Balmes (1810-1848).

Born in 1126 to a family of Maliki legal scholars, Ibn Rushd, known as Averroes, enjoyed a long career in religious jurisprudence at Seville and Cordoba while at the same time advancing his philosophical studies of the works of Aristotle. This translation of Averroes’ Long Commentary on Aristotle’s _De Anima_ brings to English-language readers the complete text of this influential work of medieval philosophy. Richard C. Taylor provides rich notes on the Long Commentary and a generous introduction that discusses Averroes’ (...) most mature reflections on Aristotle’s teachings as well as Averroes' comprehensive philosophical views on soul and intellect. It is only in the Long Commentary that Averroes finally resolves to his satisfaction the much vexed issue of the nature of intellect, Taylor shows. (shrink)

Averroes, considered to be the greatest Aristotelian commentator in the Middle Ages, has written three different types of commentary on almost all the works of this great philosopher: short, middle and long. These commentaries have been translated into Latin and Hebrew in the early period, and profoundly influenced both Medieval Europe and Jewish thought for centuries. The effect of Averroes in the West was to spread the whole of Europe under the name of Latin Averroism. The text what you have (...) consists of some remarks about the translation of the commentary on the ‘Book Alpha Meizon’, the second book of Averroes’ Tafsīr Mā Ba’d at-Tabī’a. (shrink)

This collection of readings with extensive editorial commentary brings together key texts of the most influential philosophers of the medieval era to provide a comprehensive introduction for students of philosophy. Features the writings of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Boethius, John Duns Scotus and other leading medieval thinkers Features several new translations of key thinkers of the medieval era, including John Buridan and Averroes Readings are accompanied by expert commentary from the editors, who are leading scholars in the field.

This paper presents Duns Scotus’s theory of mixture in the context of medieval discussions over Aristotle’s theory of mixed bodies. It revisits the accounts of mixture given by Avicenna, Averroes, and Thomas Aquinas, before presenting Scotus’s account as a reaction to Averroes. It argues that Duns Scotus rejected the Aristotelian theory of mixture altogether and that his account went contrary to the entire Latin tradition. Scotus denies that mixts arise out of the four classical elements and he maintains that both (...) the elemental forms and the elemental qualities are lost in the mixture. Consequently, he denies the distinction between the process of mixture and that of substantial change through generation and corruption. The reassessment of Scotus’s account modifies the current historical representation of this discussion, inherited from Anneliese Maier. (shrink)

This paper investigates Péter Pázmány’s theory of mixtures from his exegesis of Meteorologica IV, in the context of sixteenth-century scholarship on Aristotle’s Meteorologica. It aims to contribute to a discussion of Anneliese Maier’s thesis concerning the incompatibility between hylomorphism and the theory of elements in the Aristotelian tradition. It presents two problems: the placement of Meteorologica IV in the Jesuit cursus on physics and the conceptualization of putrefaction as a type of substantial mutation. Through an analysis of these issues, it (...) shows how sixteenth-century exegesis imposes the hylomorphic thesis onto the subject matter of meteorology and how the hylomorphic theory of substantial change can be adapted in order to accommodate the theory of elements. The case being made is that Meteorologica is a privileged place where hylomorphism and the theory of elements meet and that the late Aristotelian theory of mixtures sought to accommodate both theories of material substance. (shrink)

From an epistemological point of view, monopsychism implies that the unity or universality of cognition can be secured only through the unity of the subject. Scholastics in the 13-14th centuries who did not accept it for various reasons therefore had to show that the multiplicity of subjects does not impair the unity of cognition. But the attempts to harmonize the unity of cognition with the plurality of subjects were not successful. While some of them only transformed the issue into another (...) with some variations, others accepted monopsychism to some extent. (shrink)

Translators of Aristotle’s and Averroës’ metaphysical works into 14th C Hebrew often associated important philosophical concepts with Hebrew terms that were also used to signify central Jewish and Biblical religious concepts. Here I examine how two such terms, “mofet” and “devequt”, were used to refer to extraordinary, divine wonders and to clinging respectively in the religious texts, but to Aristotelian demonstration and continuity respectively in the translations of Averroës’ Long Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics. This kind of convergence of metaphysical and (...) religious terms makes possible, indeed encourages, a re-interpretation of the religious concepts along Aristotelian lines. Biblical expressions of God’s wonders are thus to be interpreted to refer to Aristotelian demonstration and the mystical desire to cling to God is to refer to unifi cation with the Active Intellect.Translatores, qui Aristotelis et Averrois opera metaphysica in linguam Hebraicam saeculi 14. transferebant, notabilibus conceptibus philosophicis saepe nomina Hebraica assignaverut, quibus et principales notiones religiosae Judaicae ac Biblicae solebant exprimi. In hac dissertatione investigatur, quomodo duo talium nominum, scil. “mofet” et “devequt”, quae in textibus religiosis “extra ordinaria miracula divina” et “adhaerentiam” proprie significant, in translationibus Averrois Commentarii Magni in Aristotelis Metaphysicam ad demonstrationem Aristotelicam et continuationem significandas transumebantur. Huiusmodi nominum metaphysicorum cum religiosis coniunctio conceptus religiosos iuxta sensum Aristotelicum denuo explicari permittit, imo suadet. Hinc dicta Biblica quae miracula Dei olim significaverunt ad demonstrationes Aristotelicas relata sunt; item desiderium mysticum adhaerendi ad Deum de unione cum Intellectu Agenti intellectum est. (shrink)

Le but de cet article est d’analyser l’interprétation qu’Averroès propose de l’étude de la génération spontanée développée par Aristote dans le chapitre 9du livre Z de la Métaphysique et montrer que pour Averroès le véritable enjeu de cette étude est celui de démontrer que l’agent et le produit de la génération ontune même forme. C’est cette thèse, en effet, qui d’après le Cordouan permet en dernière instance d’instaurer entre le monde céleste et le monde terrestre unecausalité, pour ainsi dire, «perpendiculaire» (...) qui sauve à la fois l’efficacité des causes secondes et celle de la cause première qui agit par l’intermédiaire descauses célestes. Ce nouveau cadre cosmologico-ontologique apparaît manifestement comme le produit d’une stratégie menée directement contre Avicenne, carle but ultime d’Averroès est de substituer sa propre théorie de l’Artisan divin à la théorie platonicienne de la création démiurgique, à laquelle il assimile la théorieavicennienne d’une donation des formes par une Intelligence cosmique. (shrink)

The oft-rehearsed, seldom-contested story of Aquinas’s account of sacra doctrina has him holding that revealed theology counts as a demonstrative science, along Aristotelian lines, because it is subaltern to God’s self-knowledge. This paper seeks to question this assessment of the matter by comparing Aquinas’s view to that of another great Aristotelian commentator, Averroes, who holds the contrary position, insofar as he considered religious discourse to be dialectical, and not scientific, in nature. The paper argues that, although both of these thinkers (...) strive to present faithfully Aristotelian solutions to the problem of the epistemological status of religious discourse and in both accounts religious discourse somehow ends up being less than something naturally scientific, ultimately their approaches have widely divergent starting points and foundations that lead to distinctively different approaches and conclusions. (shrink)

This report is divided into two main parts, devoted to the Aristoteles Latinus and to the Editions of Latin Commentaries on Aristotle. The report on the Aristoteles Latinus sheds light on recent research on medieval Latin translations of Aristotle’s works. Among other things, it discusses the editions published in the context of the Aristoteles Latinus , and some recent studies and collective volumes on individual texts and translators. The report on Editions of Latin Commentaries on Aristotle gives information for each (...) edition of a commentary on Aristotle that has been published in the last five years and on those editions that are about to be published or are in preparation or are planned to start within the next five years. (shrink)

Al-Fârâbî’s thought on intellect was known to the Latin West through the translation of his Letter on the Intellect, through the Long Commentary on the De Anima by Averroes and through some other works. Al-Fârâbî identified the active power of intellect in Aristotle’s De Anima 3.5 as the unique and separately existing Agent Intellect, but the role of the Agent Intellect in forming intelligibles in act in the human soul is by no means unequivocally clear. Further, the apprehension of intelligibles (...) by human beings and the intellectual development of the soul, oftentimes described as an activity of abstracting , seems to be a genuineabstraction from experience, yet it somehow involves the emanative power of the Agent Intellect. This paper works to provide a coherent explanation of the natureof abstraction and the role of Agent Intellect in that activity. (shrink)

La materia prima existe desde siempre y es en potencia, es decir, tiene un ser que está en disposición de ser después en acto No puede existir sola sin la forma, pero es en sí misma una sustancia. Es la causa inmediata de todo cambio sustancial en el universo. El ser de la materia no parece identificarse con su potencia sino que e ser de la materia es una sustancia que posee una potencia múltiple de recibir fonnas y de convertirse (...) sucesivamente en acto. La materia es sujeto de potencias o posibilidades que se convertirán necesariamente después en seres actuales. Existe entre lo posible y lo actual una relación necesaria por la que lo posible se convertirá necesariamente en acto y lo actual en posible. Existen dos especies de materia distintas: la materia sensible y la celeste con caracteristicas esencialmente distintas.Prime matter —materia prima— is ftom ever but is in potence, that is, it has a being with disposition to become later in act. It does not exist without form, but it is in itself substance. it is the immediate cause of any substancial change. Being of matter is not identifíed with its potence because its being is a substance that has a multiple potence to receive forms and become later in act. Matter is subject of potences or possibilities that will necessarily become actual beings. There is a necessary relation between possibility and actuality by which everything possible will necessarily becomes actual and everything actual comes necessariiy ftom possible. There are two different specific matters: sensible matter and heavenly matter with essentially differentcharacteristics. (shrink)

A good will is not so much an "ethical concept" as one that refers to the nucleus of human existence and the meaning of life. If the intellect is a function of identity, the will is a function of otherness. Together, the intellect and the will render an account of that arcane principle of all reality which is unity-diversity or limit. Such arcana is manifested in the following: the intellect is the limit of the will and the will is the (...) limit of the intellect. The perfection of the will -the will that becomes good- requires self-knowledge. In order to give an account of the other I have to take myself seriously and realize that I only know myself through the other. A good will, therefore, has many other related dimensions aside from that of love and respect. (shrink)