Work · Philosophy in the Islamic World
Long Commentaries on Aristotle
Line-by-line commentaries on Aristotle; many survive only in Hebrew or Latin translation, through which they shaped Jewish and Latin Aristotelianism.
Introduction
Averroes wrote three kinds of commentary on Aristotle: short summaries, middle commentaries that paraphrase the text, and long commentaries that quote it section by section and explain each passage in detail. He wrote long commentaries on five works: the Posterior Analytics, the Physics, On the Heavens, On the Soul and the Metaphysics. Several Arabic originals are lost; the long commentary on On the Soul survives complete only in Latin. Michael Scot and others translated them into Latin in the early thirteenth century, and they were printed together with Aristotle’s works in the Venice edition of the Giunta firm (1550–1552). In Latin Europe Averroes was called simply “the Commentator”.
Connections
Builds on
- On the Soul (De anima)c. 350 BCE · Aristotle
- Metaphysicsc. 340 BCE · Aristotle
Criticizes
- The Book of Healing (Kitab al-Shifa)c. 1027 · Ibn Sina (Avicenna)
Taken up in
- Questions on the Third Book of On the Soulc. 1269 · Siger of Brabant
- The Wars of the Lord (Milhamot Adonai)1329 · Gersonides (Levi ben Gershom)
Criticized in
- On the Unity of the Intellect against the Averroists1270 · Thomas Aquinas
- Collations on the Six Days (Collationes in Hexaemeron)1273 · Bonaventure
More works by Ibn Rushd (Averroes)
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