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Home , Aristotle, Corpus Aristotelicum

CHAPTER FOUR

AVERROES ON CHANCE

Introduction

After discussing chance and in , we now turn to ’ views. His theory of chance, like that of Avicenna, is based on ’s discussion in II (195b31–200b8) and is expounded in his commentaries. Averroes thus explains chance in his three commentaries on the Physics, short, middle and long, but obviously his most detailed discussion is to be found in his Long Commentary on the Physics, since his long commentaries contain point for point analyses of Aristotle’s text. This commentary shall consti- tute the starting point for my study of Averroes’ views on chance. Passages from other works by the Commentator (as Averroes was known in philosophical circles) both commentaries and his original works, complement this study. Following the order of Aristotle’s text, the Andalusian first considers and refutes his predecessors’ positions and then pre- sents his own solution. In discussing the of chance for Aristotle, Averroes, as is his wont, discusses the views not only of Aristotle’s predecessors such as the Presocratics but also those of late Aristotelians and of Avicenna. Reversing the order of his argument, I shall start with his own position before presenting his criticism of his predecessors and drawing a comparison between his and Avicenna’s position. In view of the that Averroes’ commentaries were meant to expound and elucidate Aristotle’s , question arises whether his exposition reflects the true meaning of his text. However in gen- eral the issue of Aristotle’s own views and whether Averroes expo- sitions truly reflect those of Aristotle cannot be here discussed at length, because what Aristotle exactly meant has itself been the of controversy and has engaged the interpretive efforts of commen- tators and scholars for centuries if not millennia. Averroes has tra- ditionally been to be closer to Aristotle than were Alfarabi or Avicenna, who did not write literal commentaries as did Averroes. This closeness to Aristotle is noticeable in his commentaries, in 122 chapter four the long ones, which demonstrate a detailed and careful interpretative effort.1 Yet in addition to these literal commentaries, his closeness to Aristotle is also observable in his explicit praise of the ‘Master of those who know’.2 For he places the First Teacher, as Aristotle was also known to Muslim , above all other thinkers in the philosophical pantheon, as evinced by the proem to his Long Commentary on the Physics.3 It must be noted in reading and studying Averroes’ commentaries that his was not a merely detached . While his works were meant to explain to a certain public the meaning of Aristotle’s obscure texts, he himself held the view that in his works Aristotle had attained the . That stance can be seen at work in his commentaries. As a consequence, I shall take Averroes’ commentaries on Aristotle, short, middle and long, to rep- resent his own personal philosophy. Although he was fully aware of the distance that separated him from Aristotle, he saw no incom- patibility between the Stagirite and a certain rationalist interpreta- tion of Islam. In particular two main arguments can be adduced in support of the decision to take Averroes’ commentaries as indicative of his own positions: on the one hand, there seems to be a clear consistency—to which frequent cross references by Averroes testify— between the commentaries which represent his interpretation of Aristotle and his other, more ‘personal’ or original works such as

1 Within the Aristotelian exegetical , short commentaries or paraphrases are to be distinguished from Averroes’ long commentaries. According to Roccaro, this model of commentary has its roots in the Qur"ànic commentary: ‘L’antico modo di commentare Platone ed Aristotele, che, usato dai neoplatonici diventa il metodo scolastico della lectio sia tra i cristiani che tra gli ebrei e i musulmani, è indicato dal termine talkhìß, cioè parafrasi e rappresenta per Ibn Rushd una seconda lettura quasi completa del arabum necessaria alla terza letture, le tafsìràt. Ibn Rushd base dell’insegnamento dell’esegesi al Corano può a questo punto proporre originalmente un’esegesi testuale o commentario letterale all’opera aris- totelica, il tafsìr.’ Roccaro, Conoscenza e Scienza nel Tafsìr Mà ba'd a†-ˇabì'a di Ibn Rushd, pp. 23–24. For a chronology of his works, see pp. 11–12. 2 Dante, La Divina Commedia, Inf. C. 4, v. 131. 3 There, Averroes says of Aristotle: ‘none of those who came after him could add to the things he treated, or refute anything of any importance or consequence. To find this in a single is strange and most extraordinary (maxime miracu- lum). For these [qualities], when they are found in a man, must be ascribed to a divine, rather than , status. Hence the ancients called him divine’, Long Commentary on the Physics, 5D–E. This admiration for the Stagirite is also patent in the Long Commentary on De anima, p. 433: ‘I believe that this man [Aristotle] was a model (regula) in , an example (exemplar) which nature found to demonstrate the ultimate human in material []’. French in Averroès, L’ et la pensée, p. 101.