Averroes

The Hispano-Arab philosopher Averroes (1126-1198) wrote many philosophical and scientific works, and a substantial commentary on Aristotle which was translated into Latin at the beginning of the thirteenth century and circulated around the great universities of Europe, leading to a school of thought known as Averroism or radical Aristotelianism, whose best known exponents were Boetius of Dacia and Siger of Brabant. The theoretical fundamentals of Averroism (world eternity; the concept of the possible intellect as unique and separate for the whole of humanity, with the consequent denial of the individual soul’s immortality; rigorous distinction between and mutual autonomy of philosophy and religion) frequently clashed first with the Islamic and later with the Christian orthodoxy. Dante places Averroes, in Limbo, recalling him as the author of the gran comento (Inf., IV 144), and occasionally mentions him in the Convivio, Monarchia, Questio and also, refuting one of his ides, in Purg. XXV. Possibly mediated through Siger’s works but especially through those of Albert the Great, Averroes was one of the philosophical and scientific sources that Dante used most frequently especially in the Convivio and Monarchia. There is little agreement among Dante scholars on the influence that Averroist doctrines had on Dante’s work. Nonetheless, on the basis of the classic studies by Nardi, Corti, Vasoli, and Imbach’s more recent investigations[1], it can be pointed out that at least in his political treatise, whose date is of course unknown, there are definite similarities between Dante’s thought and radical Aristotelianism: consider for example his emphasis in Book III of the Monarchia on distinguishing between the two goals of humanity, earthly and heavenly beatitude, and Dante’s refusal to subordinate one to the other, and compare this with the methodological separation of philosophy and theology, Averroism’s essential contribution to medieval philosophy.

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[1] R. Imbach, Dante, la filosofia e i laici, Genova-Milano, 2003.