Medieval Europe · c. 1260 – 16th c.
Latin Averroism
Philosophy should follow Aristotle as read by Averroes wherever the argument leads, even to conclusions that contradict Christian doctrine.
What should a philosopher do when reason contradicts faith?
In the arts faculty at Paris in the 1260s, masters teaching Aristotle with Averroes’ commentaries found that the text seemed to imply an eternal world and a single intellect shared by all humans. Their bishops and the theologians took alarm.
If the intellect knows universals, it cannot be a bodily, individual faculty; so, following Averroes, there is one separate intellect in which all humans share. A philosopher’s task is to report what follows from Aristotle’s principles, while holding by faith what the Church teaches.
- All humans share one separate intellect.
- By natural reason, the world has no beginning.
- Philosophy may reach conclusions faith rejects.
It provoked the Paris condemnations of 1270 and 1277; opponents accused it of a “double truth”, a label its masters did not use. Averroist Aristotelianism lasted at Padua into the 16th century.
Thinkers
c. 1240–c. 1284 (born 1235–40, died 1281–84)Siger of BrabantRadical Aristotelian master at the Paris arts facultyKey texts
Where it came from
Grew out ofFalsafa (Arabic Aristotelianism)Paris arts masters adopted Averroes’ reading of Aristotle, including a single intellect for all humankind.