Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of Active Intellect, and Theories of Human Intellect
A study of problems, all revolving around the subject of intellect in the philosophies of Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, this book starts by reviewing discussions in Greek and early Arabic philosophy which served as the background for the three Arabic thinkers. Davidson examines the cosmologies and theories of human and active intellect in the three philosophers and covers such subjects as: the emanation of the supernal realm from the First Cause; the emanation of the lower world from the...
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A study of problems, all revolving around the subject of intellect in the philosophies of Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, this book starts by reviewing discussions in Greek and early Arabic philosophy which served as the background for the three Arabic thinkers. Davidson examines the cosmologies and theories of human and active intellect in the three philosophers and covers such subjects as: the emanation of the supernal realm from the First Cause; the emanation of the lower world from the transcendent active intellect; stages of human intellect; illumination of the human intellect by the transcendent active intellect; conjunction of the human intellect with the transcendent active intellect; prophecy; and human immortality. Davidson shows that medieval Jewish philosophers and the Latin Scholastics had differing perceptions of Averroes because they happened to use works belonging to different periods of his philosophic career.
1Introduction32Greek and Arabic Antecedents7Stages of Human Intellect9The Kind of Entity That the Active Intellect Is13The Active Intellect as a Cause of Human Thought18The Active Intellect as a Cause of Existence29Conjunction with the Active Intellect; Immortality343Alfarabi on Emanation, the Active Intellect, and Human Intellect44Al-Madina al-Fadila and al-Siyasa al-Madaniyya44Alfarabi's Philosophy of Aristotle63The Risala fi al-Aql65Alfarabi's Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics70Concluding Note734Avicenna on Emanation, the Active Intellect, and Human Intellect74The Emanation of the Universe; the Active Intellect as a Cause of the Existence of the Sublunar World74Stages of Human Intellect; the Active Intellect as the Cause of Human Thought83Imagination, Cogitation, Insight95Conjunction and Immortality103Prophecy116Summary1245Reverberations of the Theories of Alfarabi and Avicenna127Avicenna's Islamic Successors127Reverberations in Medieval Jewish Philosophy180Reverberations in Scholastic Philosophy209Summary2186Averroes on Emanation and on the Active Intellect as a Cause of Existence220General Considerations220The Emanation of the Universe223The Active Intellect as a Cause of Existence: Epitomes of the Parva naturalia and the Metaphysics232The Active Intellect as a Cause of Existence: The Commentary on De generatione animalium242The Active Intellect as a Cause of Existence: The Long Commentary on the Metaphysics and Tahafut al-Tahafut (Destructio destructionum)245Summary2547Averroes on the Material Intellect258Introduction258The Epitome of the De anima and the Epistle on the Possibility of Conjunction265A Minor Composition on Conjunction and the Middle Commentary on the De anima274Averroes' Long Commentary on the De anima and his Commentary on Alexander's De intellectu282Summary295Averroes' Theories of Material Intellect as Reflected in Subsequent Jewish and Christian Thought2988Averroes on the Active Intellect as the Cause of Human Thought315The Passage of the Human Intellect to Actuality315The Possibility of Conjunction with the Active Intellect; Immortality321Prophecy340Averroes' Shifting Picture of the Universe and of Man's Place in It351Index357
