Philosophy

Ibn Rushd (Averroes)

1126–1198 · Andalusi Arab (Córdoba)

Islamic Aristotelianism; the Almohad court in al-Andalus

Ibn Rushd, known in Latin Europe as Averroes, was a judge, physician and philosopher of Córdoba who wrote commentaries so thorough on the Greek philosophical corpus that scholastic Europe simply called him "the Commentator". He defended philosophy against the charge of irreligion, argued that scripture and demonstration cannot truly conflict, and produced the definitive reply to the great theological attack on the philosophers. His doctrine of a single shared intellect made "Averroism" a heresy in thirteenth-century Paris.

How to spot them

▸"The Commentator", as Dante and the scholastics called him; Latin name Averroes
▸Short, middle and long commentaries on the Greek corpus; the doctrine of the unity of the intellect
▸Qadi (judge) of Seville and of Córdoba; physician to the Almohad caliph Abu Ya'qub Yusuf
▸The double-title reply to the attack on philosophy; the "decisive treatise" on philosophy as a religious duty
▸Latin Averroism, condemned at Paris in 1270 and 1277

Key works

A point-by-point rebuttal whose title simply doubles the title of the book it answers (c. 1180)

Tahafut al-Tahafut, The Incoherence of the Incoherence

A ruling cast in the form of a question of Islamic law, concluding that philosophy is not merely permitted to those capable of it but obligatory (c. 1179)

Fasl al-Maqal, The Decisive Treatise

Three grades of commentary — short paraphrase, middle summary and long line-by-line exposition — on the works of a single Greek, which earned their author a one-word Latin nickname (c. 1169–1195)

The Aristotelian commentaries; in Latin Christendom he became simply "the Commentator"

A handbook of comparative Islamic jurisprudence whose title promises the starting point for one who reasons and the end point for one who is content (1188)

Bidayat al-Mujtahid wa Nihayat al-Muqtasid — still a standard work of Maliki law

A medical encyclopaedia in seven books, known to Latin readers by a corruption of its Arabic title as the Colliget (c. 1162)

Al-Kulliyat fi al-Tibb, the "Generalities on Medicine"

A paraphrase of a Greek dialogue on the ideal state, substituted for a political treatise its author could not obtain, and surviving only in Hebrew (1194)

The commentary on Plato's Republic; the Arabic original is lost

Key ideas

The double truth is a misunderstanding of him: he holds that demonstration and revelation cannot really conflict, and that where they appear to, scripture must be read allegorically
People fall into three classes — the demonstrative, the dialectical and the rhetorical — and each should be given the kind of argument suited to it
Unity of the intellect: the material intellect is one and the same for all human beings, which threatens personal immortality and scandalised Christian readers
The world is eternal, but eternally dependent on God, so eternity does not exclude creation
God knows particulars, but not in the way we do; his knowledge is the cause of things rather than caused by them

Quick-fire facts

•Born in Córdoba into a dynasty of judges: both his father and his grandfather had been qadi of the city
•Introduced to the Almohad caliph Abu Ya'qub Yusuf, who asked him whether the heavens were eternal and then commissioned the commentaries
•Served as qadi of Seville from 1169 and later as chief qadi of Córdoba
•Fell from favour around 1195, was banished to Lucena and had some of his books burned; he was rehabilitated shortly before his death
•Died in Marrakesh in 1198; his body was later carried back to Córdoba
•Siger of Brabant and the Latin Averroists were condemned by Bishop Étienne Tempier at Paris in 1270 and again in 1277
•Thomas Aquinas wrote a treatise, On the Unity of the Intellect, specifically against his reading
•He appears among the philosophers in Raphael's School of Athens, and in Dante's Limbo

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Sources

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Ibn Rushd
Oliver Leaman — Averroes and His Philosophy