"De ente et essentia" from Thomas Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), sanctus, doctor Ecclesiae catholicae, theologus italianus et philosophus mediaevalis.

Averroes asserts in his Long Commentary on the De Anima and in his Long Commentary on the Metaphysics that principles of the science of metaphysics are established in the science of psychology. In psychology, human intellectual understanding is found to require the separate agent intellect for the coming to be of knowledge. The analysis of human psychology establishes that intellect must exist and must be separate from the human being in existence. Moreover there exists potency in those things called intellect, (...) thanks to the argument for the existence of the material intellect. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Philosophy and theology God and natural philosophy Religion and political philosophy.

This volume introduces the major classical Arabic philosophers through substantial selections from the key works (many of which appear in translation for the first time here) in each of the fields—including logic, philosophy of science, natural philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, and politics—to which they made significant contributions. -/- An extensive Introduction situating the works within their historical, cultural, and philosophical contexts offers support to students approaching the subject for the first time, as well as to instructors with little or no formal (...) training in Arabic thought. A glossary, select bibliography, and index are also included. (shrink)

One important mode of philosophical expression from the end of the Hellenistic period and into Late Antiquity was the philosophical commentary. During this time Plato and Aristotle were regarded as philosophical authorities and their works were subject to intense study. This entry offers a concise account of how the revival of interest in the philosophy of Aristotle that took place towards the end of the Hellenistic period eventually developed into a new literary production: the philosophical commentary. It also follows the (...) commentary tradition into Late Antiquity in order to account for the vitality and richness of this tradition. The reader should keep in mind that the study of Aristotle in the form of the commentary did not mean the cessation of genuine philosophical thought. Quite the contrary: authors customarily used the commentary format not only to expound the works of Aristotle, but also as a vehicle for original philosophical theorizing. One consequence of this approach was that, at least at the beginning, the return to the works of Aristotle did not involve the.. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

La prima parte dello studio verte sulla critica avanzata da Tommaso contro la dottrina averroista dell'unità dell'intelletto, e nello specifico contro l'idea che l'intelletto materiale funzioni come soggetto degli intelligibili, cioè come «colui che conosce» i pensieri intelligibili. Tale critica è presente sia nel De unitate sia nella Sententia libri De anima. La seconda parte dello studio verte sul pensiero di Averroè relativo all'intellezione, e su diverse posizioni tenute dal filosofo in relazione all'intelletto materiale . L'esame critico del tema dell'intelletto (...) materiale investe anche altre problematiche speculative affrontate dal filosofo, in particolare la famosa tesi del doppio soggetto, che l'A. indaga alla luce dell'analisi ilomorfica degli intellegibili . Infine, l'A. prende in esame il tema del medium invocato da Averroè per la spiegazione razionale del fenomeno della sensazione, e analizza il parallelismo tracciato dallo stesso Averroè fra il ruolo del medium nelle sensazioni e quello dell'intelletto materiale nelle intellezioni, sviluppato soprattutto nel Commento grande al De anima. (shrink)