Averroism, Renaissance

Averroes (Ibn Rushd) exerted a profound impact on Renaissance philosophy, primarily, although not exclusively, through his commentaries on Aristotle. Renaissance scholars translated and conducted significant editorial work on his writings, which were frequently printed in the sixteenth century. The commentaries formed the basis for countless philosophical interpretations and disputes, but the most historically prominent were those related to his psychology. Averroes proposed that the material intellect is one in number, a thesis referred to as the unicity of the intellect or monopsychism. In the years around 1500, many, in particular northern Italian, philosophers, found Averroes’ interpretation of the soul philosophically convincing, even if they recognized its lack of conformity to Christianity. In the same years, ecclesiastical censures were promulgated, which forbade the promotion of the unicity of the intellect. Nevertheless, philosophers continued to rely on his commentaries until the last decades of the sixteenth century. Thus, Averroes had a mixed reputation. While many university professors commended his subtlety as a commentator, humanists criticized his work for its supposed impiety and poor Latin, and many Thomist theologians considered his works a threat to religious orthodoxy.