Abstract

The purpose of this article is to expound the very original role of the Agent Intellect in the In Bayya's philosophy and the steps and levels of knowledge to achieve the «mystical union» with it : the potential or material intellect, the intellect in fact, the acquired intellect and, finally, the Agent Intellect in which the essences are contemplated without material and individual substratum, as pure intelligibles, and the cognoscent subject and the object are identical. This ultimate stage and perfection is a gift that God gives to man, after his natural effort. In this conception there is an original transit from the gnoseological level to the existential and metaphysical one. For the rest, Avempace follows Plato, Aristotle, the Encyclopaedia Rasa'il ijwan al-safa and others.