For the first time Averroes' physics is studied on the basis of all available texts and versions of his three commentaries on Aristotle's Physics, including texts that are extant only in Hebrew manuscripts and have not been hitherto studied. A comparison of these sources shows that a diachronic study is absolutely essential. Averroes changed his interpretation of the basic notions of physics—the structure of corporeal reality and the definition of motion—more than once. He has repeatedly rewritten and edited several key chapters in all three commentaries. After many hesitations he offers a bold new interpretation of physics to which this book refers as ‘Aristotelian atomism’. Ideas that are usually ascribed to scholastic scholars and others that were traced back to Averroes but only in a very general form, not only originated with him, but were fully developed by him into a comprehensive and systematic physical system. Unlike earlier Greek or Muslim atomistic systems, Averroes' Aristotelian atomism endeavours to be fully scientific, by Aristotelian standards, and still to provide a basis for an indeterministic natural philosophy. Commonly known as ‘the commentator’ and usually considered to be a faithful follower of Aristotle, Averroes is revealed in his commentaries on the Physics to be an original and sophisticated philosopher.
Gersonides' commentary on the Metaphysics is no longer extant and we know almost nothing about it. I shall argue that the commentary was on Averroes's long commentary and that it was not completed, perhaps not continued beyond book Γ. What made Gcrsonides, who commented so systematically on Aristotle, abandon his project, just when he was commenting on the book, that is considered by many to be the climax of Aristotle's work? The answer suggested is: Gersonides considered his astronomy as a demonstrative science. As an astronomer he developed a method, which was structurally dialectical, while the testing of the hypotheses was mainly empirical. He could reconcile his method with Aristotle's method of demonstration by a suitable interpretation of the Posterior Analytics, but not with the conception of universal science presented in Metaphysics Γ.
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