epitome, perhaps by Michael Scot), the Pseudo-Aristotelian De plantis actually by
Nicolaus Damascenus (translated by Alfred of Sareshel), De memoria (translation of Ibn
Rushd’s epitome, perhaps by Michael Scot), De differentia (translated by John of
Seville), De morte, and the logical works (some translations from Arabic available).
Some of these works were also translated directly from the Greek, but those from the
Arabic can be shown to have been immensely popular by the number of manuscripts that
have come down to us. From this list, it can also be learned that at Paris by the mid-13th
century Avicennan Neoplatonism had made way for an Averroistic interpretation of
Aristotle, in particular of the Metaphysics and De anima.
Perhaps the most important philosophical debate of the second half of the 13th century
was the Parisian controversy between Siger de Brabant (ca. 1240–ca. 1284) and Thomas
Aquinas, on the noetic problem of the structure and the function of the soul. Much of the
argument was based on the various interpretations of texts of Aristotle, his Greek and
Arab commentators, and to a lesser extent of Muslim thinkers. Siger agreed with Ibn
Rushd that for all people there is one intellect, which comes from without and joins with
the different activities of the human body (life and sensation) to become a composite soul
(anima composita). The intellect, however, does not become an integral part of the body,
because it would then not be able to be separated from it; it operates much in the way—
Siger here adopts Aristotle’s famous analogy in De anima—of a sailor on a ship. It thus
follows that it is not the individual human being who thinks but rather the unitive intellect
in the human being. According to Aquinas, this is a misrepresentation of Aristotle, and
thus philosophically untenable, and it also leads to conflict with Christian theology, that
is, with regard to individual human responsibility and in the end beatitude for the
personal soul.
The strong rationalism and the secularizing naturalism of Ibn Rushd’s interpretation of
Aristotle and that of the Latin Averroists, such as Siger, indeed brought on the infamous
condemnation of 219 propositions by Étienne Tempier, bishop of Paris, in 1277. Yet Jean
de Jandun (ca. 1289–1328) continued to defend Ibn Rushd’s interpretations of Aristotle.
Compelled to flee Paris because of his defense of Marsilius of Padua’s Defensor pacis, he
went to Ferrara and became the great stimulator of North Italian Averroism in the 14th
and 15th centuries.
A different aspect of Arabic influence on medieval French thinking is by way of the
Catalan polymath Ramon Lull (ca. 1232–1316). Lull’s system is decidedly nonscholastic
in method, and this can account for its popularity in mystical and even in courtly circles
outside the academic system of medieval universities. When he was just over thirty years
old, Lull dedicated his life to serving God by taking it upon himself to convert the
Muslims. He spent a decade in Mallorca learning Arabic, studying Latin Christian
theology and philosophy, and reading Muslim authors. Lull himself was a prolific author
in Arabic, Catalan, and Latin; besides mystical and philosophical works, he wrote
romances and even a handbook of chivalry. The Arabic elements in his universalist
philosophy of Christian Neoplatonism and his project of transforming courtly love into
religious mysticism—a kind of philosophy of love—derive especially from such authors
as Ibn Sina and alGhazali. Lull’s creation of a “dynamic” metaphysics and epistemology
shows great affinity with and may even have been derived from the ideas of Lull’s
Muslim contemporary Ibn Sab’in (d. 1270) of Murcia. Lull later taught at Paris,
Montpellier, and Naples, and his works were widely distributed throughout France and
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