Averroes

Averroes (Arabic أبو الوليد محمد بن أحمد بن محمد بن رشد, DMG Abū al - Waleed Muḥammad Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad b b RUSD, .. . * 1126 in Córdoba, † December 10, 1198 in Marrakech, Averroes Averroes or or simply Ibn Rushd / ابن رشد / Ibn Rushd ) was an Arab philosopher and physician. He was court physician of the Berber Almohad dynasty from Morocco.

Averroes wrote a medical encyclopedia and almost any work of Aristotle to comment. In the Christian scholasticism of the Middle Ages, on which he exercised great influence, he was therefore referred to simply as " the commentator ", was just as Aristotle called just " the philosopher ".

Averroes saw the only way of man to be happy in the logic. The logic ( according to Aristotle ) afforded the opportunity to come from the data of the senses to knowledge of the truth for him. The logic was for him the law of thinking and truth.

Jacob Anatoli (c. 1194-1256 ) translated his works from Arabic into Hebrew. From Islamic orthodoxy, his works are today strictly refused.

Life and work

Averroes was born in 1126 in Cordoba, in a family of lawyers. He studied law, medicine and philosophy and was beyond a very educated man. In 1168 or 1169 he was allegedly introduced by Ibn Tufail Abu Yaqub Yusuf I to the prince, who asked him in an interview what was the view of the philosophers about the eternity of heaven. Ibn Rushd but was intimidated, claiming not to engage with philosophy. So the prince began a conversation with Ibn Tufail, showing his great knowledge of Islamic philosophy and its problems. Ibn Rushd began but then the conversation intervene and finally got the order to arrange all the works of Aristotle new and comment in order to " give Islam pure and complete the science." He led a varied life, he was a judge in Córdoba and Seville in 1169 and in 1182 he became the personal physician to become caliph Abu Yaqub had become. However, he also held this position only briefly and was again judge in his hometown. The all Spanish- Arab philosopher characterizing feature of the unfavorable political situation at that time was also true for Ibn Rushd, the Muslim rulers of their not needed but rather the support of theologians. Averroes ' calls to the people to use their reason, brought him into conflict with the views of the Islamic orthodoxy. Under Caliph Yaqub al - Mansur (1184-1199), the son and successor of Abu Yaqub, Averroes was initially in favor of the sovereign, but in 1195 he fell into disgrace. The Caliph, who was on an expedition in Spain, said to be dependent on the support of orthodox forces. Therefore, Averroes was to Lucena, a small town south of Córdoba, exiled; his works were banned and ordered its combustion. But after two or three years brought him the Caliph to his court to Marrakech and made all measures against him reversed. Soon after Averroes died on the 10th or 11th Dezember 1198th

Work and philosophy

Averroes was an open and critical mind of his time. In his study of Aristotle, he went so systematically advance as possible and interpreted it like no one before. He wrote commentaries in several shades, shorter, medium and large and made himself as a commentator of Aristotle a name. Even Dante mentions him in this role in his " Divine Comedy ". Aristotle is for Ibn Rushd, the most perfect man who was in possession of the infallible truth and have but the people shown only once. He was the incarnate reason. This boundless admiration, of course, led to too great subjectivity and errors in interpretation. In particular, his criticism of Avicenna and Farabi was not justified because he had not sufficiently engaged with them. His own philosophy is based on very logical, as it would not be expected from a large Aristotelians. You first start with the question of whether one may philosophize at all, whether it is permitted by religious law forth banned, recommended or necessary. In Quranic verses such as " Think that you have insight ," Ibn Rushd is not only inviting the Muslims to reflect on their faith, but also to find the best evidence for their thinking, and that he sees clearly in the philosophy and, especially in the Aristotelian argument. But Ibn Rushd restricts that not all people can engage with philosophy, but only those who possess a strong intellect. In response to al -Ghazali, he shares the Qur'an and its exegesis in his work "The decisive treatise " into three groups:

But even more directly he reaches al -Ghazali then in his book " The Incoherence of the Incoherence " in the title is chosen on the basis of al -Ghazali, " The Incoherence of the Philosophers ". There, al -Ghazali had attacked the philosophers especially so because they taught unbelief because of three things:

Ibn Rushd responded to these three points as follows:

Here then is where his own philosophical system. However, there is no independent works more, but his doctrine extends to its numerous comments and compendiums to Greek authors, though he was not the Greek powerful. The truth has been lost, according to Aristotle. Avicenna and others he accuses of having philosophy connected with theology and thus have only made ​​the philosophy for people like al -Ghazali ever vulnerable. Ibn Rushd also employed - as almost all Islamic philosophers - with the intellect or reason. So not every person have their own individual potential intellect, which allowed him the bliss. Because there is only one universal potential intellect. However, the individual possesses only those activities that are related to the physical existence which would be coordinated by a soul, a soul that is connected to the body and disappearing with him. The spiritual knowledge so do not belong in the realm of the individual.

Name of honor

Carl Linnaeus named in his honor the genus Averrhoa the plant family of the sorrel family ( Oxalidaceae ).

The lunar crater Ibn Rushd was named after him.