Metodo

International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Series | Book | Chapter

225427

Averroes and Arabic philosophy in the modern historia philosophica

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Gregorio Piaia

pp. 237-253

Abstract

Averroes's role as Aristotle's commentator par excellence guaranteed him widespread and certain fame up to the first decades of the seventeenth century; but the crisis of Peripateticism and the establishment of the new philosophy and new science also find an echo in the image of Averreoes and, more generally, in that of Arabic philosophy and science. Here we find Averroes taking on the role of a symbol of perverse intellectual activity (Malebranche), an unscrupulous thinker as regards religion, or even, at times, of an unbeliever (Bayle, Hume). The aim of this chapter is to illustrate the place given to Averroes and to Islamic thought in the historiography of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when historia philosophica established itself as a literary genre in its own right. The inquiry starts with Georg Horn's Historia philosophica (1655), in which "Arabic philosophy" is said to begin with the Biblical figure of Job and where the presentation of Averroes is particularly brief compared with the lengthy biographical treatment meted out to Avicenna. In effect, it is only with Johann Heinrich Hottinger's publication (1664) of the De scriptoribus Arabicis by Johannes Leo Africanus (Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Wazzān) that European intellectuals became aware of some of the details of Averroes's life. Our inquiry moves on to look at such writers as Johannes Gerhard Vossius, Daniel Georg Morhof, René Rapin, Pierre de Villemandy, Laurent Bordelon, Dupont-Bertris, and Georg Volckmar Hartmann, and ends with a critical examination of André-François Boureau-Deslandes Histoire critique de la philosophie (1737). Boureau-Deslandes does not limit himself to quoting information and anecdotes, but in line with his "critical" approach, also expresses some judgements on the historical, religious, and cultural context of science in Islam. The attitude of these writers towards "Arabic" thought is ambivalent: their recognition of the cultural and philosophical splendour of the caliphate of Baghdad is in practice frequently accompanied by a criticism of the Arabic philosophers' excessive subtlety. In the case of Averroes their negative judgement also springs from the fact that he had no knowledge of Greek, which prevented him from reaching an adequate understanding of Aristotelian doctrine. We must note however – in the work of Dupont Bertris (1726), for example – attempts to bring Averroes to the fore as a rationalist philosopher, indifferent to all positive religion, all the while defending him from accusation of impiety. These are the first signs of a historiographical trend which– thanks above all to Renan's famous thèse – was later to lead to a philosophical reappraisal of Averroes, no longer viewed merely as the "commentator" of Aristotle.

Publication details

Published in:

Akasoy Anna, Giglioni Guido (2013) Renaissance Averroism and its aftermath: Arabic philosophy in early modern Europe. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 237-253

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-5240-5_12

Full citation:

Piaia Gregorio (2013) „Averroes and Arabic philosophy in the modern historia philosophica: seventeenth and eighteenth centuries“, In: A. Akasoy & G. Giglioni (eds.), Renaissance Averroism and its aftermath, Dordrecht, Springer, 237–253.