Long commentary on the de Anima of Aristotle (review)

The Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd had two names in the medieval Latin West: 'the Commentator', and 'Averroes'. The first of these underscores his importance as an interpreter of Aristotle . The second was modified at least once by the adjective 'accursed' . 'That accursed Averroes' refers to the person who held that there exists only one human intellect. Averroes defends this view—typically called the unicity doctrine—in his Long Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima.Richard C. Taylor's translation of the Long Commentary is based on Crawford's 1953 edition of the medieval Latin text . Brief portions of this commentary, which relate directly to the controversial and influential unicity doctrine, have previously been translated into English. Taylor's complete translation makes available in English for the first time the whole account of the soul and its powers, of which the unicity doctrine is a part. The translation will benefit graduate or advanced undergraduate students of the history of philosophy, as well as non-specialist scholars who want to understand what all the fuss was about. Taylor also