Averroes’ Doctrine of Material Intellect in the Long Commentary on the De Anima of Aristotle

Abstract

Averroes was fully aware of the fact that Aristotle’s account of intellect as propounded in De Anima was incomplete. This meant that the key facet of Aristotle’s thought was fraught with gaps. Averroes made repeated attempts in his commentaries on De Anima to fill the gaps. The problem for Averroes was this: “if human beings are enmattered entities, how will anything more than sense perception be possible?” Averroes believes that finally in his Long Commentary on De Anima he has achieved a full and coherent account of thinking and understanding that centers on a new notion of the material intellect, according to which, together with the active intellect, there is also a distinct material intellect, numerically one for all human beings. The present article explores in detail this idea of material intellect. It is shown that material intellect, for Averroes, functions as the transpersonal, non-particular and non-empirical subject required for the production and containment of universal meanings. The idea seems to aim at connecting consistently the embodied, sensible forms of human cognitive experience with the noetic, conceptual element of knowledge within a basically ontological account.

Keywords

• material intellect
• active intellect
• knowledge
• sense perception
• experience
• De Anima

Aristoteles’in De Anima’sı Üzerine Büyük Şerh’te İbn Rüşd’ün Heyulani Akıl Öğretisi

Öz

ibn Rüşd, Aristoteles’in akıl yorumunun, Ruh Üzerine’de ortaya konulduğu şekliyle, noksan olduğunun farkındaydı. Bu Aristoteles düşüncesinin anahtar bir boyutunun boşluklarla dolu olduğu anlamına geliyordu. İbn Rüd De Anima üzerine yazdığı şerhlerde bu boşlukları doldurmak için mükerrer girişimlerde bulunmuştur. İbn Rüşd için problem şuydu: “Eğer insanlar bedenli varlıklarsa, algıdan daha fazlası nasıl mümkün olacaktır?” İbn Rüşd nihayet Ruh Üzerine’ye Dair Büyük Şerh’te düşünme ve anlamanın heyulani aklın yeni bir tasavvurunda temerküz eden tam ve tutarlı bir açıklamasına ulaştığına inanır. Buna göre, faal aklın yanında, ayrıca sayı olarak bir ve tüm insanlar için ortak bir heyulani akıl vardır. Mevcut makale bu heyulani akıl fikrini tetkik etmektedir. Heyulani aklın, İbn Rüşd’de, tümel manaların üretilmesi ve tutulması için gerekli kişilerüstü, tikel-olmayan ve empirik-olmayan bir taşıyıcı olarak işlev icra ettiği gösterilmektedir. Bu fikri insani bilişsel deneyimin bedensel ve duyusal özelliklerini bilginin noetik ve kavramsal unsurları ile, esas itibariyle ontolojik bir açıklama çerçevesinde, tutarlı bir şekilde bağlantılayan ilginç bir varsayım olarak telakki edebiliriz.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• heyulani akıl
• faal akıl
• bilgi
• deneyim
• Ruh üzerine

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