Averroès (Ibn Rushd)
Truth cannot contradict truth: philosophy and faith agree.
Averroès (Ibn Rushd) (1126 – 1198, Al-Andalus (Córdoba, Seville) and Morocco (Marrakesh), under the Almohad caliphs) : falsafa (arabic aristotelianism) and aristotelianism. Averroes was at once a judge, a physician and a philosopher. His conviction: true religion and true philosophy cannot contradict each other, for "truth does not oppose truth". On AskPhilosophy: 3 reconstructed arguments, 5 quotes checked word for word against the original texts, and 3 common beliefs examined; every text carries an authenticity badge (written by the author, posthumous, student notes, reported, apocryphal).
Why he matters
For Latin Europe he was "the Commentator": his commentaries on almost all of Aristotle's works, translated into Latin in the 13th century, were read in the universities, and Thomas Aquinas discusses them constantly. Dante places him among the great non-Christian minds in Limbo. In the Muslim world, his Decisive Treatise became again, in the 19th and 20th centuries, a symbol of the agreement between reason and Islam.
His times
Born in Córdoba in 1126, into a family of judges: his grandfather was chief qadi of the city. He studied law, medicine and philosophy. Around 1169 the philosopher Ibn Tufayl introduced him to the Almohad caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf, who asked him to explain Aristotle. He became qadi of Seville, then chief qadi of Córdoba, and physician to the caliph in Marrakesh. In 1195, under the caliph al-Mansur, he fell into disgrace: his books of philosophy were burned and he was exiled to Lucena, near Córdoba. Recalled soon after, he died in Marrakesh in 1198.
Reading his books with care
In The Incoherence of the Incoherence, Averroes copies al-Ghazali's text passage by passage before answering: what he quotes must not be attributed to him. The Decisive Treatise is a jurist's opinion, written for Muslims: it reasons from the Qur'an, not against it. The chapter titles of modern Arabic editions are not his. And his ideas most famous in Europe (a single intellect for all humans) are in his great commentaries on Aristotle, which our corpus does not yet contain.
His positions
click a row to see the evidenceA Muslim and a judge, he holds God's existence to be demonstrated: the eternal being, without cause, which makes all things exist, "is apprehended by demonstration". For the masses as for scholars, he proves God from the order of the world, made for man, and from life arising in matter.
An Aristotelian. Knowledge starts from the senses: we see fire burn, and denying these visible causes is sophistry. But true science is the work of the intellect, which knows things through their causes and demonstrates them.
Demonstration gives a certainty that the jurist, who reasons from opinions, lacks. And saying that no knowledge is certain refutes itself: that very claim would not be certain either.
Unlike imagination or memory, which have their place in the brain, the intellect has no organ of its own: so its seat is not a body (he adds that this is not self-evident and needs a demonstration). But in his great commentaries on Aristotle (not yet in our corpus), he holds that there is only one intellect for all humans, which makes the survival of each personal soul doubtful. His readers have debated this since the 13th century.
On predestination, he seeks a "middle course" between those who say God imposes everything and those who say man alone is master: God gave us the power to act, but our acts are completed only together with external causes he has set in place. Text quoted from an old, free English translation.
There is a health of the soul just as there is a health of the body: the good is not a mere convention, and the Lawgiver only prescribes what preserves it.
Harmony, but demonstrative reason decides how texts are read: when a demonstration contradicts the apparent meaning of a text, it is the text that must be interpreted. The limit: the principles of religion and miracles surpass human understanding and must be accepted.
The happiness to which religion calls all humans is the knowledge of God and of his creation.
Human natures are unequal: some are convinced by demonstration, others by debate, most by speeches that move them. Religion speaks to each according to his nature, but only a few can become philosophers.
The community first: everyone must accept the principles of religion, necessary to human life, and whoever divulges learned interpretations to the masses pushes them into unbelief. He goes so far as to write that heretics who deny these principles must be put to death.
An ethics of virtue, in Aristotle's manner, placed in the service of the Law: the Lawgiver heals souls as the doctor heals bodies, and the health of the soul (the fear of God) leads to happiness. It can also be read as an ethics of divine law.