Abstract

This study describes the theory of the intellect presented by the Spanish Muslim philosopher Averroes . The study differs from previous treatments of this theme first by using all the available sources--the commentaries and related essays by Averroes on Aristotle's De Anima--and second, by approaching the teaching on the intellect as a part of Averroes's view of the soul as a whole. The rarely studied expositions of sensation and imagination are indispensable for understanding the account of the intellect, for they show most clearly what Averroes thinks apprehension in general is, including intellectual apprehension. All kinds of apprehension follow the same basic pattern, of which the main feature is the formation of an image of the thing apprehended. Averroes considers image-formation to be one of the phenomena peculiar to the soul, with important consequences for the nature of the soul's unity. His mature view of the intellect grew out of a rigorous application to the intellectual faculty of the image theory of apprehension, which led him to maintain, in a fashion more radical than is generally recognized, that the intellect is closely related to the imagination. Some of Averroes's most famous doctrines, such as that of the unity and eternity of the intellect, must be understood in terms of the way the intellect conforms to the general theory of apprehension. Such an understanding requires us to revise the traditional interpretation of these doctrines. These conclusions about the intellect bear immediately on the nature and possibility of "conjunction" , which Averroes defines as human perfection. Despite grave doubts about its practicability, Averroes defends the possibility of conjunction both as a means of demonstrating the harmony of philosophy and religion and as an exploration of the meaning of philosophical thinking