7 - The Reception of Averroes in Early Scholasticism

Summary

This chapter intervenes in a longstanding debate about the origins of a psychological schema that is found in both of John’s works on the soul as well as in the Summa Halensis. This is the distinction between the material intellect, which is connected to the body, on the one hand, and the agent and possible intellects, which are separable from the body, on the other. Some past scholars have traced this scheme to Averroes’ distinction between a corruptible and an incorruptible intellect, while others have pointed out that there is insufficient evidence of Averroes’ influence at this time to support that attribution. The chapter gathers evidence which suggests that the scheme is a Latin scholastic invention which draws primarily on Avicenna and Aristotle rather than Averroes.