PHILOSOPHY

Assignment # 2

Submitted to: Dr. Wajid Hussain

Submitted by: Fatima Pasha Mughal
Registration number: 2017155 (BSSS-3A)
Date: 14-01-22
 Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (1126—1198)

Introduction
Early Life & Education
Ibn Rushd (14 April 1126 – 11 December 1198) often Latinized as Averroes was born in
Córdoba, Spain and his family was prominent in the city for their public service, particularly in
the legal and religious fields. Ibn Rushd was a Muslim Andalusian polymath and jurist who
wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, mathematics, astronomy,
physics, psychology, Islamic jurisprudence and law, and linguistics. He wrote more than 100
books and treatises, his philosophical works include numerous commentaries on Aristotle, for
which he was known in the western world as The Commentator and Father of Rationalism (Gill,
2009, p. 108)

His traditional biographers narrate that Averroes's had an excellent education that encompassed
studies in hadith, fiqh, medicine, theology and jurisprudence. He learned Maliki jurisprudence
under al-Hafiz Abu Muhammad ibn Rizq and hadith with Ibn Bashkuwal, a student of his
grandfather. He studied medicine and philosophy under Abu Jafar Jarim al-Tajail and was also
familiar with the works of the philosopher Ibn Bajjah. In addition to this, Ibn Rushd regularly
attended meetings of poets, philosophers and physicians in Seville which were also attended by
prominent philosophers such as Ibn Tufayl and Ibn Zuhr. He was more interested in the study of
law and "the sciences of the ancients”. Later on, he became known as the “Prince of Science”.

Works

Ibn Rushd came to be regarded as the final and most influential Muslim philosopher, especially
to those who inherited the tradition of Muslim philosophy in the West (Sheth, 2017). He served
as a chief judge and a court physician for the Almohad Caliphate. He was also a strong
proponent of Aristotelianism; he attempted to restore what he considered the original teachings
of Aristotle and highly opposed the Neoplatonist propensities of earlier Muslim thinkers, such as
Avicenna and Al-Farabi. He also defended the pursuit of philosophy against criticism by Ashari
theologians such as Al-Ghazali.
Ibn Rushd was famous for his extensive commentaries on Aristotle, many of which were
translated into Hebrew and Latin. The translations of his work revived western European interest
in Aristotle and Greek thinkers, that was widely abandoned after the collapse of the Roman
Empire. His ideas and thoughts created controversies in Latin Christendom, were rejected by
Catholic Church and led to a philosophical movement called Averroism based on his writings. In
west, his work ‘unity of the intellect thesis’ which suggested that all humans share the same
intellect, became one of the best-known and most controversial Averroist doctrines.

Ibn Rushd also served as a chief judge and a court physician for the Almohad Caliphate.
Moreover, Averroes was a strong proponent of Aristotelianism; he attempted to restore what he
considered the original teachings of Aristotle and highly opposed the Neoplatonist tendencies of
earlier Muslim thinkers, such as Avicenna and Al-Farabi. In addition to his philosophical
contributions, Averroes served multiple tenures as judge and produced multiple works in the
fields of Islamic jurisprudence or legal theory. He wrote the Bidāyat al-Mujtahid (only book that
survives today) focused on the differences between Islamic schools of law and the principles that
caused their differences. Averroes also wrote a summary of Al-Ghazali's On Legal Theory of
Muslim Jurisprudence (Al-Mustasfa) and tracts on sacrifices and land tax.

In the field of medicine, he proposed a new theory of stroke, defined the signs and symptoms of
Parkinson's disease for the first time, and was apparently the first to identify the retina as the part
of the eye responsible for sensing light. His medical book Al-Kulliyat fi al-Tibb became a
textbook in Europe for centuries; amongst his other surviving titles are ‘On Treacle, The
Differences in Temperament, and Medicinal Herbs’.

Philosophical contributions and ideas

Commentaries on Aristotle

Ibn Rushd greatly admired Aristotle and regarded him as exemplifying the highest development
of the human intellect. It is said that Ibn Rushd understood, and interpreted and analytically
discussed Aristotle’s philosophy more than any of his predecessors or contemporaries. Averroes
wrote commentaries on almost all of Aristotle's surviving works (e.g., The Organon, De anima,
Physica, Metaphysica, De partibus animalium, Parva naturalia, Meteorologica, Rhetorica,
Poetica, and the Nicomachean Ethics). The only exception is Politics, since he did not gained
access to it so he wrote commentaries on Plato's Republic. His commentaries were classified into
three categories that modern scholars have named short, middle and long commentaries.

Majority of short commentaries (jami) were written during the early ears of his career and
contain summaries of Aristotlean doctrines. While the middle commentaries (talkhis)
paraphrases which clarify and simplify Aristotle's original text. These were possibly written in
response to his patron caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf's complaints about the struggle in understanding
Aristotle's original texts and to help others in a similar position. Lastly, the long commentaries
(tafsir or sharh), or line-by-line commentaries, include the complete text of the original works
with a detailed analysis of each line. The long commentaries are very comprehensive and
encompassed a high degree of original thought, and were also unlikely to be intended for a
general audience.

Only five of Aristotle's works had all three types of commentaries:

1. Physics
2. Metaphysics
3. On the Soul
4. On the Heavens
5. Posterior Analytics

These commentaries provide interesting insights into how Ibn Rushd arrived at certain positions
and how much he was authentically Aristotelian. Commissioned to explain Aristotle, Ibn Rushd
spent nearly three decades producing numerous commentaries on all of Aristotle’s works, save
his Politics, covering every subject from aesthetics and ethics to logic and zoology. In addition to
writing Plato’s Republic, Alexander’s De Intellectu, the Metaphysics of Nicolaus of Damascus,
the Isagoge of Porphyry, and the Almajest of Ptolemy were his other prominent works.

He desired to shed the predominant Neoplatonic interpretations of Aristotle, and get back to what
the Greek thinker originally had intended to communicate. Ibn Rushd also inserted his own
thoughts into his commentaries, and his short paraphrase commentaries were often flexible
interpretations. There were times when in an effort to explain complex ideas in Aristotle, Ibn
Rushd would rationalize the philosopher in directions that would not seem authentic to
contemporary interpreters of Aristotle.
Aristotelianism in the Islamic philosophical tradition

Averroes attempted to return to Aristotelianism through his philosophical writings, which

according to him had been distorted by the Neoplatonist tendencies of Muslim philosophers such
as Al-Farabi and Avicenna. He criticized Al-Farabi's works on logic for misinterpreting its
Aristotelian source. He wrote an extensive critique of Avicenna, who was the bearer of Islamic
Neoplatonism in the Middle Ages. Ibn Rushd also argued that Avicenna's theory of emanation
was highly erroneous and was not found in the works of Aristotle. Averroes disagreed with
Avicenna's view that existence is merely an accident added to essence, arguing the reverse;
something exists per se and essence can only be found by subsequent abstraction. Avicenna's
modality and argument to prove the existence of God as the Necessary Existent was also rejected
by Averroes and believed firmly in the incorporation of Greek thought into the Muslim world.

Religion and Philosophy

In the Muslim world, Ibn Rushd is known above all for his Tahfut at Tahafut (The Incoherence
of the Incoherence) that bitterly attacked Al-Ghazili’s Tahafut al-falasifa (The Incoherence of the
Philosophers), a work through which Al-Ghazali attacked the philosophers. Neo-Platonic
philosophers such as Al-Farabi and Avicenna argued the world has always existed, this view was
criticized by Al-Ghazali accused the Neo-Platonic philosophers of unbelief (kufr). Averroes
responded to Al-Ghazali by highlighting that the differences between the two positions were not
substantial enough to consider this as unbelief, also that pre-eternity doctrine did not necessarily
contradict the Quran and also argued that a careful reading of the Quran implied only the "form"
of the universe was created in time but that its existence has been eternal.

Averroes argues in his Decisive Treatise that philosophy, which he defined as conclusions
arrived via reason and rigorous method cannot contradict Islamic revelations since they are only
two different ways of arriving at the truth, and "truth cannot contradict truth." If philosophical
conclusions seem to contradict the text of revelation, then he believes that revelation should be
interpreted properly or allegorically comprehended in order to resolve the conflict. He also
claims that the Quran encourages Muslims to pursue philosophy since studying and reflecting on
nature improves one's understanding of "the Artisan" (God).
Moreover, Averroes also identifies three types of discourse: rhetorical (based on persuasion) for
the general public; dialectical (based on dispute) for theologians and ulama (scholars); and
demonstrative (based on evidence). The Quran, according to him, employs the rhetorical method
of inviting people to the truth, allowing it to reach the masses through its persuasiveness,
whereas philosophy employs demonstrative methods that were only available to the learned but
provided the best possible understanding and knowledge. Averroes also deflect Al- Ghazali's
criticism of philosophy because it deviates from Aristotle’s Philosophy that he deemed as true
philosophy.

Existence of God

In his treatise The Exposition of the Methods of Proof, Averroes puts out his ideas on the
existence and nature of God. He studies and critiques their evidence of God's existence, among
other things. Averroes claims that there are two logically sound and Quran-compliant grounds
for God's existence: the arguments from "providence" and "from invention." According to the
providence argument, the world and universe appear to be carefully tuned to accommodate
human life. He believed that God created the sun, the moon, the rivers, the seas for the welfare of
mankind. While, the animals and plants, for example, appear to have been invented, according to
the invention argument. As a result, Averroes claims that the creation was overseen by a
designer, that is God.

God's attributes

Furthermore, according to Averroes’s philosophy of God has seven divine attributes: knowledge,
life, power, will, hearing, vision and speech. He also upholds the doctrine of divine unity
(tawhid) and believes God's ability to create can be interpreted as a sign of his power. He argues
that divine knowledge differs from human knowledge; and that human knowledge is the product
of effect and divine knowledge is a product of cause. God, being the cause of the universe, has
knowledge based on being its cause; while humans have knowledge based on the effects of such
causes. Averroes also claims that power and knowledge necessarily lead to speech. In terms of
vision and speech, he claims that because God created the world, he is obligated to know every
detail of it, just as an artist is obligated to know every detail of his or her work.
Divine speech is expressed through intermediaries, that is either through the work of the angels
or the revelations given to the prophets. As such, “the Qur’an…is eternal but the words denoting
it are created by God Almighty, not by men.” The Qur’an, therefore, differs from words found
elsewhere, in that the words of the Qur’an are directly created by God. Also, because the visual
and aural are two elements of the world, God must have both vision and speech (Hillier, n.d.).
Averroes was the first to address the omnipotence paradox, followed by Thomas Aquinas. He
also believed that God is the eternal Prime Mover—meaning that God eternally knows every
action that will be caused by him. God, therefore, does not know that event when it occurs, as
humans would, because he has always known it.

Political Philosophy

In his commentary on Plato's Republic, Averroes expresses his political theory. He integrates
Plato's views with Islamic tradition, believing that the ideal state is one founded on Islamic law
(Rosenthal, 2022). His understanding of Plato's philosopher-king was similar to Al- Farabi's, and
had characteristics of a philosopher-king include good memory, love of knowledge, love of
learning, love of truth, dislike for amassing wealth, magnanimity, courage, steadfastness.
Persuasion and coercion, according to Averroes, are two techniques of teaching virtue to citizens.
Averroes, like Plato, advocates for women to participate equally in the governance of the state,
including as soldiers, philosophers, and rulers and he also accepted Plato's ideas of the
deterioration of the ideal state with passage of time.

Metaphysics

Metaphysics, according to Ibn Rushd, is concerned with multiple types of being and the
analogical idea of being, rather than God or religion. As a result, it is a science that distinguishes
between inferior and genuine classes of being. The staunch Aristotelian Ibn Rushd adds his own
spin on Aristotle's metaphysics. Ibn Rushd's taxonomy of beings starts with accidental
substances, which are physical beings, then moves on to entities of the soul / mind, and lastly
considers whether substances existent outside the soul, such as the sphere of the fixed stars, are
material or immaterial.

For Ibn Rushd, the common link between physics and metaphysics was substance, not mental
beings. As a result, substance takes precedence over other parts of being on an ontological, but
not necessarily temporal, level. Ibn Rushd does not claim that celestial bodies produce the
cosmos; rather, the motion of these bodies is the "principle" of what happens in the universe. The
Prime Mover is the ultimate agent for Ibn Rushd and it must be eternal and pure actuality. The
Prime Mover, according to Ibn Rushd, moves the cosmos, especially the heavenly bodies, by
becoming the target of desire. Celestial creatures have souls, which have higher powers of
intelligence and desire, and these beings yearn for God's perfection, thus they move accordingly.
According to Ibn Rushd, desire in celestial beings is not the same as it is in humans. Because
these beings lack sensory perception, desire and intellect merge to create a longing for what is
rationally defined as perfection - the Prime Mover.

Ibn Rushd offers a three-level cosmology view, with the Prime Mover, heavenly bodies, and the
physical world. There is a hierarchy among the realms of celestial creatures, depending on their
"nobility" rather than their order in emanation, as Avicenna believed. The Prime Mover, like a
king, only gives motion to the First Body (the sphere of fixed stars), which serves as a conduit
for the other bodies. The other spheres (i.e. planets) then seek both the Prime Mover and the First
Body, which, according to Ibn Rushd, explains how celestial bodies move from east to west at
one time and west to east at another. One's desire is what causes the planets to move in one
direction, while the other's desire moves them in the opposite direction.

Psychological Philosophy

Averroes expounds his thoughts on psychology in his three commentaries on Aristotle's ‘On the
Soul’ (Adamson, 2016, p.188). Averroes is interested in explaining the human intellect using
philosophical methods and by interpreting Aristotle's ideas. Ibn Rushd, like Aristotle, considers
the study of the psyche to be a part of physics since it is specifically tied to the generable and
corruptible union of form and matter found in the physical universe and transmitted down the
generations by seed and natural heat. The most comprehensive discussion of Ibn Rushd's
psychological ideas can be found in his Talkbis Kitab al-Nafs (Aristotle on the Soul). Ibn Rushd
classified the soul into five faculties: nutritive, sensitive, imaginative, appetitive, and rational.

The nutritive or vegetative faculty, which is carried along through sexual generation, is the main
psychological capacity of all plants and animals. The following four higher faculties are
dependent on the nutritive faculty and are, in fact, perfections of this capacity, the result of
nature's constant urge to progress upward. The rational faculty, according to Ibn Rushd’s
psychology is unlike the imaginative faculty, in that it apprehends motion in a universal way and
separate from matter. It has two divisions, the practical and theoretical, given to humans alone
for their ultimate moral and intellectual perfection. 

Natural Philosophy

Natural philosophy encompasses the study of all perceptible beings that undergo change and
possess the principle of motion and rest in themselves, according to Averroes (following
Aristotle). Natural being’s philosophy is divided into numerous fields, such as psychology and
astronomy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2018). Physics is the first and most essential
branch, and because it is scientific knowledge, it must enquire about causes, which are "the
reasons common to all natural entities". Averroes follows Aristotle and recognizes four causes in
all natural beings: matter, form, purpose, and agent. The Long Commentary was the most
prominent of the three in the Latin West, and its importance in the field of natural philosophy is
highlighted in a recent collective book. Averroes' Short Commentary expresses similar
sentiments: Natural philosophy has two aspects: it is material world knowledge and a speculative
science, but it is also critical in contributing to the pleasure of individuals who possess it.

Conclusion

Ibn Rush is considered as the Islamic Scholar who gave us modern philosophy (Pasnau, 2011).
Although the role of Muslim thinkers in advancing scientific knowledge is often overlooked in
today's world, Ibn Rushd, the chief interpreter of Aristotle's works, had a significant impact on
both the Jewish and Christian worlds, and his contribution to philosophy influenced the
European Renaissance and Enlightenment. It's easy to conceive of philosophy's history in terms
of European intellectuals, but a closer examination reveals a plethora of Muslim thinkers who
contributed to many of the principles that underpin modern scientific reasoning. One of them
was Ibn Rushd. He sometimes known as the Prince of Science, was a Renaissance man 300 years
before the European Renaissance began (Tasci, 2020).

Averroes’s philosophical views were very similar to the Greek philosophical thoughts,
particularly those of Aristotle. Most of his writings were commentaries on or paraphrasings of
the works of Aristotle that, especially the long ones often contain his original thoughts. Averroes
also agrees with Aristotle’s view of the Prime Mover. He had a sound knowledge of Greek
philosophers which is why he rejected al-Farabi's attempt to merge the ideas of Plato and
Aristotle, pointing out the differences between the two, such as Aristotle's rejection of Plato's
theory of ideas. Thou, God’s divine attributes of Vision and Hearing were new as neither
Aristotle nor Plato talked about this. However, the concepts of God and the two arguments
(providence and invention) are teleological rather than cosmological, as Aristotle's and most
modern Muslim kalam theologians' arguments are.

Averroes followed Aristotle in the rejection of atomism and the defense of the continuum in
motion, place and time. Moreover, Aristotle claims that dialectic has three main applications:
intellectual training, entry into the demonstrative sciences of philosophy, and communication
with ordinary people. But Ibn Rushd devotes less time and shows less interest in this third
feature of dialectic. Ibn Rushd’s discussion regarding spontaneous generation: the idea that
certain beings are created by external agents without being subject to the cycle of generation and
corruption was a common subject of debate throughout later Greek and medieval philosophy.
Hence, his philosophy was aligned with major Greek philosophical thoughts.

The events following Ibn Rushd's death, particularly his expulsion, foreshadowed a greater
cultural upheaval in the Islamic world. After Ibn Rushd's death, interest in philosophy declined
in the Muslim world, but his writings found new life and intellectual vitality in Christian and
Jewish intellectuals. The Latin West saw an intellectual rebirth in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, with the founding of the first great colleges in Italy, France, and England. A number of
thinkers within the gates of the University of Paris began to identify with Ibn Rushd's
Aristotelian philosophy, notably specific aspects of its relationship to religion. Averroes's main
influence on the Christian west was through his extensive commentaries on Aristotle. These
Christian philosophers, later known as the "Averroists," started a debate within the Roman
Catholic Church over the role of philosophy in theology.

His philosophical thoughts continued to influence other philosophers, sarting in 1217 at Paris and
Toledo, Michael Scot was the first Latin translator of Averroes, translating the large commentary
of Physics, Metaphysics, On the Soul, and On the Heavens, as well as several middle and short
remarks. Following this, European authors such as Hermannus Alemannus, William de Luna,
and Armengaud of Montpellier translated Averroes' other works. Averroes' works spread quickly
among Christian scholars of the scholastic tradition. The Latin Averroists, who flocked to his
writings, grew into a powerful group. Latin Averroism flourished in Paris and Padua in the
thirteenth century, with famous leaders such as Siger of Brabant and Boethius of Dacia.

Thomas Aquinas, a leading Catholic thinker of the thirteenth century, relied extensively on
Averroes's interpretation of Aristotle but disagreed with him on many points. Averroism's
expansion in Latin Christendom was hampered by the Catholic Church's condemnations of 1270
and 1277, as well as Aquinas' comprehensive critique, yet it remained popular until the sixteenth
century, when European thought began to split from Aristotelianism. In the following centuries,
notable Averroists included John of Jandun and Marsilius of Padua, Gaetano da Thiene and
Pietro Pomponazzi, and Agostino Nifo and Marcantonio Zimara.

Among Jewish thinkers, however, Ibn Rushd had a more positive impact. His ideas about
Aristotle and the relationship between philosophy and religion, particularly revelation, revived
interest in biblical interpretation and the Jewish religion. In the West, key Jewish philosophers
became identified with Ibn Rushd. Maimonides praised Averroes' works, noting that he
"received recently all Averroes had written on the works of Aristotle" and that Averroes "was
highly right." (Fakhry, 2001, p. 132). Thirteenth-century Jewish writers, i.e. Samuel ibn Tibbon,
Judah ibn Solomon Cohen and Shem-Tov ibn Falaquera, relied heavily on Averroes's texts. In
1232, Joseph Ben Abba Mari completed the first Jewish translation of a complete work by
translating Averroes' commentary on the Organon. Moses ibn Tibbon released a translation of
practically all of Averroes' commentary, as well as some of his medical works, in 1260. Jewish
Averroism peaked in the fourteenth century.

Until modern times, Averroes had little impact on Islamic philosophic thought. Part of the
explanation was geography: Averroes lived in Spain, distant from the centres of Islamic
intellectual traditions, in the far west of the Islamic culture. Furthermore, his ideology may not
have been appealing to Islamic intellectuals at the time. In the twelfth-century Muslim world, his
attention on Aristotle's works was out of date, as the Muslim world had already investigated
Aristotle since the ninth century and was now fully engaged with newer schools of thought,
particularly that of Avicenna. In the nineteenth century, Muslim thinkers rekindle their interest in
Averroes' works. By this time, the Arabic-speaking world had experienced a cultural rebirth
known as Al-Nahda ("reawakening"), and Averroes' works were considered as inspiration for
modernizing the Muslim intellectual legacy.
Nevertheless, much of what happened in mediaeval philosophy would not have happened
without the efforts of the Spanish-Muslim philosopher. He became an example of how religions
are dynamic and evolving traditions, often shaped by epistemological influences from other
traditions (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy [EIP], n.d.)

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