Abstract

The medieval Christian philosophy was influenced by the translations of the writings of the ancient philosophers from Arabic into Latin. Among them was also Liber de causis. In his commentary to this book Albert the Great examines Avicebron’s theory of universal matter and universal form, offering his own interpretation of the latter. The conclusions of the author’s analysis of Albert’s commentary are as follows: 1. In Albert’s commentary the theory of Avicebron is not represented adequately. 2. Albert’s objections against Avicebron’s theory are not identical with his approach to Platonism in general. 3. Dividing philosophers into two groups, Platonists and Aristotelians, as usually found in contemporary analyses, can not be applied when analyzing Albert’s commentary, while the two approaches differ substantially