Selections on the agent intellect and material intellect being “in the soul” from Averroes’ Long Commentary on the De Anima of Aristotle.  Draft. Not for distribution. (c) Richard C. Taylor, tr. Marquette University 02/11/2008

 

The following translations are of the Latin text, Averrois Cordubensis Commentarium Magnum in Aristotelis De Anima Libros, F. Stuart Crawford (ed.).  Cambridge: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1953.

“Now he [Aristotle] gives the way on the basis of which it was necessary to assert the agent intelligence to be in the soul. For we cannot say that the relation of the agent intellect in the soul to the generated intelligible is just as the relation of the artistry to the art's product in every way. For art imposes the form on the whole matter without it being the case that there was something of the intention of the form existing in the matter before the artistry has made it. It is not so in the case of the intellect, for if it were so in the case of the intellect, then a human being would not need sense or imagination for apprehending intelligibles. Rather, the intelligibles would enter into the material intellect from the agent intellect, without the material intellect needing to behold sensible forms. And neither can we even say that the imagined intentions are solely what move the material intellect and draw it out from potency into act. For if it were so, then there would be no difference between the universal and the individual, and then the intellect would be of the genus of the imaginative power. Hence, in view of our having asserted that the relation of the imagined intentions {439} to the material intellect is just as the relation of the sensibles to the senses (as Aristotle will say later),  it is necessary to suppose that there is another mover which makes [the intentions] move the material intellect in act (and this is nothing but to make [the intentions]  intelligible in act by separating them from matter).”

TEXT 2:

But they later saw Aristotle say that, if there is an intellect in potency, there must also be an intellect in act, namely, an agent (it is this which draws out what is in potency from potency into act), and the intellect [must] be drawn out from potency into act (this is what the agent intellect places into the material intellect as artistry places forms pertaining to artistry in the matter of the artisan). Since they saw this later, they held the opinion that this third intellect which the agent intellect places into the recipient material intellect (this is the theoretical intellect) must be eternal. For, since the recipient was eternal and the agent eternal, then the product must necessarily be eternal. Because they held this opinion, it happens in reality that {390} it is neither the agent intellect nor the product, since agent and product are understood only with reference to generation in time. Or it may be said that this ‘agent’ and this ‘product’ are said only by analogy and that the theoretical intellect is nothing but the actuality of the material intellect in virtue of the agent intellect such that the theoretical [intellect] is something composed of the material intellect and the intellect which is in act. What seems to be the case, that the agent intellect sometimes understands when it is joined to us and sometimes does not understand, results for it because of the mixture, namely, on account of its mixture with the material intellect. From this consideration alone Aristotle was forced to assert [the existence of] the material intellect, not because the theoretical intelligibles are generated and made [to exist].

They confirmed this by the fact that Aristotle insisted that the agent intellect exists for us in the soul, since we seem to strip forms from matter first and then to understand them. To strip them is nothing but to make them intelligibles in act after they were [intelligibles] in potency, to the extent that apprehending them is nothing but receiving them. They saw that this activity of creating and generating intelligibles is due to our will and is able to be augmented in us in accord with the augmentation of the intellect which is in us, namely, the theoretical intellect. And it was already explained that the intellect which creates and generates intelligibles and things understood is the agent intelligence. For this reason they said that the intellect in a positive disposition is that intellect, though sometimes weakness afflicts it and sometimes an  addition [accrues to it] because of the mixture. This, therefore,  moved Theophrastus, {391} Themistius and others to hold this opinion about the theoretical intellect and to say that this was the opinion of Aristotle.

TEXT 3:

“For this reason Themistius held the opinion that we are the agent intellect and that the theoretical intellect is nothing else but just the conjoining of the agent intellect with the material intellect. It is not as he thought. Rather, one should hold the opinion that there are three parts of the intellect in the soul, one is the receptive intellect, the second is that which makes [things], and the third is the product [of these].  Two of these three are eternal, namely, the agent and the recipient; the third is generable and corruptible in one way, eternal in another way.” {406}

TEXT 4: Universals are in the soul:

60. <doc>The reason for this is that sense in act apprehends particulars, while science [apprehends] universals existing, as it were, in the soul itself. For this reason a human being can exercise understanding when he wishes, but not sense, because he requires a sensible object. That disposition is also in the knowledge of sensible things, for that cause is a cause </doc> {220} <doc>of them,</doc> <doc>namely, that sensibles are from particular external things. But we will speak of these and expound on them later, and it will have [its] time. </doc> (417b22-29)

The reason for the difference between sense and intellect in the acquisition of complete actuality lies in the fact that the mover is external in the case of sense and it is internal in the case of intellect. For sense in act is moved only by a motion which is called apprehending and [is dependent] upon sensible particular things which are outside the soul. Intellect, however, is moved to complete actuality by universal things and those are in the soul. He said: those are, <doc>as it were, in the soul</doc>, because he will explain later that these — which are from the first actuality in the intellect as sensibles from the first actuality of sense, namely, insofar as both cause motion — are intentions which can be imagined and those are universal in potency, although not in act. For this reason he said: those are, <doc>as it were, in the soul</doc>, and he did not say ‘they are,’ because a universal intention is different from an imagined intention. Next he said: <doc>For this reason a human being can exercise understanding</doc>, etc. That is, because the things which move the rational power are inside the soul and possessed by us always in act, for this reason a human being can contemplate them when he wishes and this is called "to conceptualize,” and he cannot sense when he wishes because he necessarily needs sensibles which are outside the soul. Next he said: <doc>That disposition is also</doc>, etc. That is, that disposition is also in us in the case of the knowledge of sensibles and we learn from them because they exist in the senses. The cause for the existence of that disposition in us for the knowledge of sensibles is the same as the cause for their existence in the senses themselves. Similarly we should understand {221} that the disposition existing in us for the knowledge of universals is in us because it is in the rational power and the reason that we are in this mode through that [disposition] is the reason why [that power] is in that mode.