Ibn Rushd

Averroes
Cordovan philosopher
Middle Age
detail of the painting of the fourteenth century , Triunfo de Santo Toms Andrea Bonaiuto
Birth	1126 ( Cordoba , now Spain )
Deaths	10 December 1198 ( Marrakech , now Morocco )
School / tradition	Peripateticism , Islamic philosophy , Averroism
Main interests	Metaphysics , theology , law , medicine , politics , religion
Notable ideas	monopsychism (Unity of Intellect separated) and illumination
Major works	Grand Review of the Treaty Of the soul of Aristotle Decisive speech
Influenced by	Plato , Aristotle , Alexander of Aphrodisias , Themistius , Neoplatonism , Al-Farabi , Avicenna , Avenzoar
Influenced	Albertus Magnus , Thomas Aquinas , Boethius of Dacia , Siger of Brabant , John of Jandun , Pietro d'Abano , Meister Eckhart , Dante , Marsilius of Padua , Ibn Khaldun , Elijah del Medigo , Pomponazzi , Pico della Mirandola , Agostino Nifo , Bloch
change

Abu'l-Walid Muhammad ibn Rouchdi Cordova (born in 1126 - the year of his supposed birth - in Cordoba , in Andalusia , now Spain - died on 10 December 1198 in Marrakech , in Morocco ), Ibn Rushd, better known in the West under his Latinized name of Averroes, and his full name Ab l-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd is a philosopher , theologian Islamic , lawyer , mathematician and physician Muslim Andalusian XII ^century.

His work is recognized in Western Europe , which is considered by some as the specialist Alain de Libera , for his comments on Aristotle , a "spiritual fathers" .

His openness and modernity displease the Muslim authorities at the time, who exiled as a heretic , and ordered that his books be burned. He remained deeply misunderstood in his lifetime. He commented extensively and brilliantly works of Aristotle : the Latin theologians as they called him Commentator.

Biography

Born in Cordova, he comes from a family of cadi (judge) of Cordoba ( Maliki ). Grand son of Ibn Rushd al-Gadd himself cadi of Cordova, who was a famous writer, which found a work in twenty volumes on Islamic jurisprudence , the Royal Library of Morocco.

It is formed by special masters. The training begins with the study by heart the Koran , which added the grammar , the poetry , the rudiments of computing and learning of writing. Averroes studied with his father, the hadith , tradition relating to acts, words and attitudes of the Prophet and fiqh , meaning Islamic law, that the religious and legal do not dissociate.

Science and philosophy are studied after a good religious education. Averroes broadens intellectual activity of a family environment by focusing on the secular sciences: physics , astronomy , medicine. Following his training, he is a man of religion keen knowledge of antiques and curious about nature.

Averroes cultivated the medicine , he studied under Avenzoar , and was court physician Almohad , but he clung to the theory rather than practice.

The caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf asked him, in 1166, to submit in the educational work of Aristotle , Averroes seeks to recover the authentic work. It uses various translations. By applying the principles of logical thought with the non-contradiction, and using his comprehensive knowledge of the work, he found translation errors, deficiencies and additions. He discovers the inner critic. He wrote three types of comments: large, medium and Abstracts. It appears as the most faithful Aristotelian medieval commentators.

Around 1188-1189, there has been rebellions in the Maghreb central and a holy war against Christians. The caliph Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur is then prohibit philosophy, studies and books, as in the field of morals, he banned the sale of wine and a singer and musician.

From 1195, Averroes, suspect as a philosopher, is the victim of a propaganda campaign aimed at destroying its prestige cadi. Al-Mansur then sacrificed his intellectual pressure from clerics. Averroes was exiled in 1197 in Lucena , a small Andalusian town populated mostly Jews , in decline since the Almohad banned any religion other than Islam. After a short exile a year and a half, he was recalled to Morocco where he received a pardon from the Sultan, but was not reinstated. He died at Marrakesh on 10 or 11 December 1198 without having seen Andalusia. The death of Al-Mansur shortly after the beginning of the decline of the Almohad Empire.

Suspected of heresy , he will have no descendants in the land of Islam. A part of his work will be saved by the Jewish translators. It will pass by the Jews of Catalonia and Occitan in scholastic Latin.

This is one of the greatest thinkers of Muslim Spain. Physician, mathematician, he is most interested in theology and philosophy. He commented on the works of Aristotle and clearly seeks to separate faith and science. This project concerned the Muslim traditionalists, but will find an echo in the West.

Philosophy

Metaphysics and Epistemology

In his epistemology , Averroes allia the doctrines of Aristotle those of the School of Alexandria on the emanation, and taught that there is an intelligent universal to which all men participate, that intellect is immortal, but that the souls particular are perishable.

Faith and Knowledge

Commentary on De Anima ,
French manuscript, the third quarter of the ^thirteenth century

Broad culture of Averroes will allow him to give a status and a very specific role to philosophy , along with the religion. His designs sophisticated and deeply Aristotelian will be a masterpiece of coherence.

Philosopher, physician, astronomer, it is also Kazi , that is to say, lawyer, judge. And it is on the legal ground that the Qadi of Seville will be the first offensive against critics of philosophy. The leader of those who lived a century earlier and at the other end of the Muslim world, that Al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, however, will respond. The book of al-Ghazali, the al-Tahafut Falasifa (incoherence of the philosophers) is like a reference to Islamic mysticism, and specifically that of Ash'arites raging in Andalusia at the time of Ibn Rushd.

Kitab fasl with al-Maqal (book of critical discourse), it responds in a totally new way to an old problem that is found in the subtitle of the book: that of the "connection between Revelation and philosophy. " New experience, the answer is placed in the legal field, that of the science of Islamic Law: Ibn Rushd's philosophy anchored in social reality. It is rooted in law the existence of the philosopher in the Muslim city, resulting in this singular event in history of philosophy is thus legitimized both the eyes of the law society, as those of religious law.

Thus, Ibn Rushd finds that the Koran is open to all Muslims, both at low and high culture. The universal nature of revelation can not be precisely universal if it was not directed at them by their level of culture. It is the first sense, simple and colorful for the common man and a more sustained discourse; sometimes appears a contradiction between these two types of statements and it is precisely here that must intervene philosophy: the philosopher, reasoning, must identify the deeper meaning hidden in the text.

Ibn Rushd is going to give to philosophy, in a fatwa , its "mandatory", as is the Muslim law. Do not illuminate the text with a philosophical reflection would harm the faith of the believer.

In the al-Tahafut Tahafut (incoherence of the incoherence), the work of al-Ghazali is critical point by point, the comments are sanctioned by a fatwa which characterizes them as "reprehensible" and the philosophy of Aristotle restored in its purest version. Averroes has always highlighted the fact to compare the world he lived and the religion he was to meet to be in agreement with the importance of Islam during his time.

Ibn Rushd is perhaps the philosopher who best captured this philosophy, and it is also known for his time and for posterity as the Great Commentator (ie Aristotelian texts).

Political philosophy

Differences of interpretation

The political philosophy of Averroes has attracted very different interpretations, and sometimes even contradictory. This is mainly due to the difficulties of exegesis of a work which was received in mutilated or approximate translations, but also to own interpretive strategies to readers of Averroes, often original.

It is interesting that the exegesis of Averroism policy follows a path similar to the exegesis of the Platonic Politics: Plato was in turn interpreted as a revolutionary, a reformer and a conservative .

Averroes reformer

The first major interpretation of the political philosophy of Averroes considers the latter as a reformer, a reformer or a progressive. This interpretive tradition born with authors such as Marsilius of Padua and Dante Alighieri , and is restored to us by the theologian and philosopher Etienne Gilson . The proposed "universal monarchy" as outlined in the treatise De Monarchia of Dante calls the bond of Averroes . However, the project's ultimate goal is to separate and align the temporal power of the emperor and the pope's spiritual power. If the project claims to Averroes, is based on two main ideas drawn from it.

The first is the idea of separation between faith and knowledge, which would be two distinct orders of truth (but not opposed, however: the doctrine of double truth is a caricature controversy opinions Averroes). This separation in the order of knowledge would corollary in order ethical and political separation between the worldly and the spiritual.

The second is the idea of mind common to all men. Dante interpreted not as a monopsychism (singular men do not own intellect, there is only Intellect unique and separate from them), but, following criticism of Thomas Aquinas against the Averroism , as an intellectual communion of mankind, where each particular intellect makes its own contribution to the collective knowledge of all mankind.

The political philosophy of Averroes is interpreted not as revolutionary (there is not any power to reverse established), nor as conservative (he is not creating or perpetuating theocracy religious or philosophical) but as a reformation: the intellect required to separate the temporal from religious and human society has the ultimate knowledge and wisdom. This is a primitive form of secularism. This interpretation of Averroes seems "progressive" side of the own political position of Etienne Gilson who will return and comment. Indeed, he wants to restore the Augustinian political , and therefore separates the draft Dante inspired by Averroes: Augustinianism policy is a form of theocracy. Gilson characterizes as the union of men around the faith and the power of the Catholic Church and its leader, the pope. There is no question of secularism or the separation between the worldly and the spiritual.

Revolutionary Averroes

The second major interpretation of the political philosophy of Averroes makes him a revolutionary thinker and a radical left. This interpretive tradition mainly uses the tools of exegesis theorized by Marxism. Indeed, it should be separated from Averroes the ideological aspect of his thought (his views on social order and the theocracy ) aspect of "political" or "equipment". The second aspect concerns the social and political thought of the author, sometimes independently of its own intentions and reported.

In this sense, what is important in the political philosophy of Averroes, it would not be his views on a power belonging exclusively to theologians or philosophers, but the practical consequences of his theses metaphysical. This is how the German philosopher Ernst Bloch , the defending Marxist heterodox (in the margins of Marxism traditional), read the philosophy of Averroes. For him, the main thesis is that Averroes is a revolutionary idea that matter contains within itself all possible . This thesis, inherited from Aristotle , was taken by the author by Avicenna , Averroes and later by himself, and then have influenced Giordano Bruno and Goethe.

By identifying the material and the category of the possible, the tradition of "left Aristotelian" propose an alternative to both spiritualism and feudal and conservative materialism "bourgeois" and "mathematician" (the materialism that views matter as a quantitative unit and mechanical). The material must be considered, according to Bloch reader of Aristotle and Averroes, as an entity qualitative alive and full of possibilities. Is to use dialectical and qualitative (in the tradition of Karl Marx ) of the material and production will emerge the social and economic changes towards a fairer society.

The second thesis that accredit the image of Averroes materialistic and even pantheism is that which conceives of man as a body, without intellect or spirit that would come from nowhere. The man to reduce his powers and equipment (sensation, imagination, intellect patient), and would have no power to "spiritual" (intellect of divine origin). This position is close to that of Alexander of Aphrodisias , and the controversy between supporters of the two philosophers focus on the status of a potential single, separate Intellect (monopsychism).

The division of the Latin Averroes in the Middle Ages and the Averroism Italian Renaissance compared to the established authorities ( Universities and Church ) is the emanation of that revolutionary spirit inherent in the master's thought, Averroes .

Conservative Averroes

The third important interpretation is that the French philosopher Rmi Brague , who cons interpretations "metaphysical" or "epistemological" Averroes (interpretations that used the theories of matter or intellect), proposes to read Averroes name of "historical truth" . Here, no distinction between empirical history and history dialectic between ideological views and thoughts working deep into the socio-economic relations as in Marxism , no political interpretation as that of Dante. This is a purely historical exegesis of the political philosophy of Averroes. It is also noteworthy that no attempt Rmi Brague absolutely not read Averroes by relating it to Averroists inspired by the master, whether the Latin Averroes's Middle Ages or the Italian Renaissance.

It evokes so many facts that are decisive for him, notably that the decisive Speech (book from which would be manufactured the myth of the noble Averroes, tolerant and progressive) is a small fraction of the entire work of Averroes, and the Arab philosopher commented Republic of Plato. Rmi Brague then recalled that Averroes did not challenge some theories considered eugenic in the book Platonic .

Similarly, it evokes Links Martin Heidegger with the Nazis , indicating that "philosophy is not entirely innocent" ( Karl Jaspers ): we can not exclude a priori the idea of collusion between philosophy and the worst regimes in history. Averroes seems not to be him innocent either: according to the author medievalist, Averroes, Grand Qadi of Cordova, serving Almohads would be an "organic intellectual" in the sense of Antonio Gramsci , as opposed to "intellectual critical " . The Arab philosopher would support the government in power, not a thinker on the sidelines, he would be conservative or progressive, not revolutionary. In this case, Rmi Brague author puts forward a Marxist ( Gramsci ) to support its strategy of interpretation on the notion of ideology used to Averroes, ideology is that of the ruling class of his time. It is therefore the opposite of what was Ernst Bloch , when he "neglected" ideology to focus on the practical consequences (and sometimes unconscious) of the author's thought.

Theology

His book Bidaayat mudjtahid ul-ul-wa Nihayat Muqtasid refers in comparative jurisprudence. He cites and discusses the views of different madhhabs (schools) in terms of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence).

Posterity

Detail of The School of Athens by Raphael

Medieval Latin

By its ability to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy and faith Muslim , Averroes is considered one of the great thinkers of the Islamic world but outside the Muslim world. His commentaries on the work of Aristotle , translated into Latin around 1230 ( Michael Scot ) and others have also had a major influence on the thinkers of the Christian world, medieval , with whom he has greatly contributed to the spread of Greek culture and Arabic.

The thought of Ibn Rushd is welcomed in the West (since 1225) because it is based on the ideas of Aristotle, who are already known, especially since the cultural center of England and Toledo. If it does not transfer knowledge, his thought is involved in this release philosophy in the West.

George Sarton , the father of the history of science in the United States, writes:

"Averroes owes its greatness to the huge commotion he caused in the minds of men for centuries. The history of Averroism over a period of four centuries until the late sixteenth century , this period deserves perhaps more than any other to be called the Middle Ages , because it is the real transition between the old and new methods . "

Averroes did not agree with his comments always in Alexander of Aphrodisias , which divided the whole school into two sects, that of Averroes and that of Alexander . Around 1250, vaguely by Albert the Great , and then in 1252, exactly by Robert Kilwardby and St. Bonaventure, Averroes was accused of having said that there is only one soul for all men: c ' is the controversy over the intellect , the monopsychism, Latin Averroism .

Italian Renaissance

His work on Aristotle in particular exemplify the phenomenon of Hellenization of the Arab-Islamic world, where Hellenization released directly to the fourteenth-sixteenth centuries, the great cultural movement of Renaissance Europe, which is characterized by neo-Platonism. It strongly influenced the Florentine humanist Angelo Poliziano and especially Pico della Mirandola. Averroes was generally bad press with the clergy and the papacy in particular, some popes have often wanted to censor it. Leo X Medici declared him a heretic in 1513 and strongly advised against the faithful, but Raphael showed his admiration by placing him among the most illustrious Greek philosophers in his fresco The School of Athens.

Today

The filmmaker Youssef Chahine staged Averroes in his film Destiny in 1997.

As a philosophical figure, he has inspired Jorge Luis Borges his novel, The Quest of Averroes, the collection El Aleph.

Established in 1994, the Rencontres d'Averroes at thinking about the Mediterranean on both sides inviting personalities in Marseille at round tables.

The first school of Muslim Personal France Metropolitan, opened in Lille in September 2003 , bears his name, today associated with a good image in the Christian communities as Muslims.

Bibliography

Old Publications

It was Averroes (see gallica ):

• Commentary on Aristotle, published in Latin , Venice , 1595 , folio;
• a collection of writings on medicine, known as Collyget, corruption of the Arabic word "colliyat () which means the book of all, Venice, 1482 ;
• Commentary on the canons of Avicenna , Venice, 1484 ;
• The incoherence of the incoherence of the philosophers of al-Ghazali , etc..

Modern Publications

• The bliss of the soul, trans. M. Geoffroy and C. Steel, Vrin, 2002.
• Decisive speech on the agreement of religion and philosophy (Fasl al-Maqal fimA bath wa al-Hikmah ashshar'ah min al-ittisl, 1179), trans. Geoffroy, Garnier-Flammarion, 1996.
• Commentary way to Aristotle's Rhetoric (al-Talkha Khatbah, 1176), critical edition of the Arabic text and French translation by M. Aouad, 3 vols., International Academic Union, Corpus Philosophorum Medii Aevi, Averroes Opera, Series A: Averroes arabicus, XVII al. Texts and Traditions "5, Vrin, Paris, 2002.
• Unveiling the methods of demonstration of the dogmas of Islam (Al Kashf year-adilla manhij al, 1180), trans. Partial Marc Geoffroy, in Alain de Libera, Averroes. Islam and reason, Garnier-Flammarion, 2000 97-160.
• Great commentary on De anima of Aristotle , Book III (429a10 - 435b25) (Sharh kitab al-nafs, 1186), translation, introduction and notes by Alain de Libera , Paris , Flammarion , GF 974, 1998.
• Incoherence of incoherence, trans. Partial Marc Geoffroy, in Alain de Libera, Averroes. Islam and reason, Garnier-Flammarion, 2000 167-204. Inconsistency refutation of the famous philosophers (al-Tahafut faldsifa) of Al-Ghazali (1095). Trad. S. English Van Den Berg, Averroes' al-Tahafut Tahafut, London, 1954, 2 t.
• Islam and reason, preceded For Averroes ( Alain de Libera ), GF-Flammarion, trans. Marc Geoffroy, 2000.
• Great commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle (Tafsir al-m ba'd tab'ah between 1182-1193): Great Commentary on the Metaphysics (II free, ie, B), trans. L. Bauloy, Vrin, 2003; Great Commentary on the Metaphysics (books XI and XII), trans. M. Aubert, Les Belles Lettres, 1984.
• Middle commentary on Aristotle's De interpretatione (kitab al-Talkha'ibrah), trans. A. Benmakhlouf and S. Diebler, Commentary by the 'De interpretatione', Vrin, 2000.

Historical Editions Online

• Agreement of religion and philosophy, Treaty of Ibn Rushd (Averroes), trans. by Leo Gauthier, Algiers, 1905 ( online ).

Studies Averroes

(In alphabetical order)

• R. Arnaldez, Averroes. A Rationalist in Islam, Balland, 1998.
• Averroes and Averroes, the twelfth-fifteenth century: an historical route of the High Atlas in Paris and Padua: Proceedings of the international symposium held in Lyon on 4 and 5 October 1999 under the "Time of Morocco", by the Joint Research Unit 5648, CNRS, Universit Lumire Lyon 2, EHESS; collaboration with associations Looking South and Friends of the house of the East and the University Institute of Teacher Training of the Rhone; acts together and edited by Andre Bazzani, Nicole and Pierre Guichard Briou. - Lyon : Presses Universitaires de Lyon, et al. "Medieval History and Archaeology" No. 16, 2005. 348 p., 24 cm. ISBN 2-7297-0769-7.
• Ali Benmakhlouf, Averroes, Les Belles Lettres, 2000.
• Ernst Bloch , Avicenna and the Aristotelian left, eds. First Stone, 2008, ( ISBN 2913534082 ). Interpretation Marxist heterodox of Avicenna , Averroes and Avicebron.
• Remi Brague , Through the Middle Ages: Medieval Philosophy in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, ed. Champs Flammarion, 2008, ( ISBN 2081217856 ). For a contextualized and critical view of Averroes.
• Kurt Flasch, Introduction to Medieval Philosophy, Champs-Flammarion, 1998, ( ISBN 2080814192 ). See the two chapters on Averroes.
• Kurt Flasch, Averroes to Meister Eckhart. Arab sources of German mysticism, Vrin, 2008, ( ISBN 2711619419 ). On receipt Eckhart philosophy of Averroes, which will determine the Rhineland mysticism and German philosophy until later the German idealism and Heidegger.
• Alain de Libera and M.-R. Hayoun, and Averroes Averroes, PUF, coll. "What do I know?", 1991. ( ISBN 2-13-044203-X )
• Alain de Libera , "For Averroes". Introduction to Averroes. Islam and Reason, Paris, Garnier-Flammarion, 2000, p. 9-76. ( a href = "Sp% C3% A9cial: Ouvrages_de_r% C3% A9f% C3% A9rence/2080711326" class = "mw-internal-magiclink isbn"> ISBN 2-08 - 071132-6).
• Carlos Fraenkel, "Philosophy and Exegesis in al-Farabi, Averroes, and Maimonides," in M. Achard and F. Renaud (eds.), The philosophical commentary (I), Laval theological and philosophical, 64.1, 2008, p. 105-125.
• Paul Mazliak, Avicenna, Averroes &: Medicine and biology in the civilization of Islam, Vuibert / Adapt, 2004, ( ISBN 2711753263 )
• Ernest Renan , Averroes and Averroism, 1852 , revised in 1860. Three available editions: ed. Flooding, 2004. ( ISBN 2914894058 ), ed. The Plumed Serpent 2009 (presented by Ali Benmakhlouf) ( ISBN 2753804060 ), ed. BiblioBazaar, 2009. ( ISBN 1103373501 ).
• Colette Sirat and Marc Geoffroy, The Arabic original of the great commentary on Averroes' De Anima "of Aristotle, Paris, Vrin, 2005.
• Dominique Urvoy, Averroes - The ambitions of a Muslim intellectual, Flammarion - Champs / Biography, 1998 ( ISBN 978-2-0812-1799-7 ).

Biography fictionalized

• Destiny , a film director Youssef Chahine , depicts the lives of Averroes.
• Jacques Attali , The Brotherhood of the Enlightened , ( ISBN 2-213-61901-8 ). This novel by Jacques Attali is a fictionalized biography, partial cross Averroes and Maimonides , united by Aristotle and his legacy.

References

Source partial

Marie-Nicolas Bouillet and Alexis Chassang (ed.), "Averroes" in Universal Dictionary of History and Geography, 1878 See also

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