Averroes on Intellect

Abstract

This book on the Muslim philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd) provides a detailed analysis of his (in)famous unicity thesis—the view that there is only one separate and eternal intellect for all human beings. It focuses directly on Averroes’ arguments, both from the text of Aristotle’s De Anima and, more importantly, his own philosophical arguments in the Long Commentary on the De Anima. Ogden defends Averroes’ interpretation of Aristotle’s DA III.4–5 (using Greek, Arabic, Latin, and contemporary sources). Yet, the author insists that Averroes is not merely a “commentator” but also an incisive philosopher in his own right. Ogden thus reconstructs and analyzes Averroes’ two most significant independent philosophical arguments, the Determinate Particular Argument and the Unity Argument. Alternative ancient and medieval views are considered throughout, especially from two important foils before and after Averroes, namely Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) and Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas’s most famous and penetrating arguments against the unicity thesis are also addressed. Finally, Ogden considers Averroes’ own objections to broader metaphysical views of the soul such as Avicenna’s and Aquinas’s, which agree with him on several key points (e.g., the immateriality of the intellect and the individuation of human souls by matter), while still diverging on the number and substantial nature of the intellect. The central aim of the book is to provide readers a single study of Averroes’ most pivotal arguments on intellect, consolidating and building on recent scholarship and offering a comprehensive case for his unicity thesis in the wider context of Aristotelian epistemology and metaphysics.