School of thought

Averroism

Intellectual current

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Classification

Period
c. 1265-1600 CE
Regions
Europe (origin)
Domains
Epistemology, Metaphysics

Overview

Averroism is the Latin philosophical movement that formed in the Paris arts faculty from the 1260s and became associated with the autonomy of philosophical inquiry, the eternity of the world, and the unity of the intellect. It is named after Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 1198), who was its source rather than a Latin Averroist himself. The movement was also charged with a 'double truth' doctrine, although that label is a disputed later characterization rather than a straightforward teaching of Ibn Rushd or every Latin Averroist.

Key ideas

  • Autonomy of Philosophy: Latin Averroists held that philosophy has its own domain and methods, independent of theology. Where they overlap, both pursue truth — contradiction between them is only apparent.
  • Unity of the Intellect: On the Latin Averroist reading of Aristotle, the material (or possible) intellect is single, separate, and shared by all humans. Scholars dispute exactly what this account entails for personal immortality; it puts ordinary individual survival under pressure, but the consequence is not settled.
  • Eternity of the World: Latin Averroists held that the world has no temporal beginning — it is eternal, sustained in existence by God as its eternal cause.

Key figures

Ibn Rushd (Averroes; the movement's source, d. 1198) · Siger of Brabant · Boethius of Dacia

Influenced by

  • Peripatetic School

    Siger of Brabant and Boethius of Dacia developed Aristotle's philosophy on its own terms even where it contradicted Christian teaching; Boethius held that Aristotelian natural science must deny that the world had a beginning.

  • Medieval Islamic Philosophy

    Siger of Brabant and other Paris arts masters read Aristotle with Ibn Rushd's commentaries, in Latin from about 1230, and took from them his thesis that there is one intellect for all human beings; Siger also took his view that human happiness lies in conjunction with the active intellect.

Later connections

  • Scholasticism Reacted to this tradition

    The engagement is that of thirteenth-century theologians with the Paris arts masters: Aquinas's De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas (1270) rebutted Siger of Brabant's thesis of one intellect shared by all humans, and Bishop Étienne Tempier's condemnations of 1270 and 1277 censured it along with the eternity of the world.

References