Ibn Rushd. The Great Commentary on Aristotle’s “De Anima” (Book III, comm. 17–19)

Abstract

This work presents a translation of a fragment from the work of the prominent Arab- Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd (Lat.: Averroes, d. 1198) — of commentaries on the fifth chapter of the third book of the Ari stotelian treatise “On the Soul”. The doctrine of intellect set forth in this treatise, which is lapidary and allows for ambivalent interpretations, was developed in many directions in Muslim philosophy (falsafa), gaining new dimensions — ontological, cosmological, prophetological, eschatological. In the Long commentary, which relates to the mature period of activity of Averroes, his fundamental noological ideas were finally set forth, primarily the concept of the unity and eternity of all-human intellect. Known subsequently as Mononoism, this concept gave rise to the heated debates in European culture and became significant for Ibn Rushd’s followers — the Latin Averroists.