Aquinas Against the Averroists

In the mid-1260s in Paris, a dispute raged that concerned the relationshipbetween faith and the Augustinian theological tradition on the one side andsecular leaning as represented by the arrival in Latin of Aristotle and variousIslamic and Jewish interpreters of Aristotle on the other. Masters of the artsfaculty in Paris represented the latter tradition, indicated by the phrase"double truth theory." In 1269, Thomas Aquinas wrote the polemicalwork On There Being Only One...
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In the mid-1260s in Paris, a dispute raged that concerned the relationshipbetween faith and the Augustinian theological tradition on the one side andsecular leaning as represented by the arrival in Latin of Aristotle and variousIslamic and Jewish interpreters of Aristotle on the other. Masters of the artsfaculty in Paris represented the latter tradition, indicated by the phrase"double truth theory." In 1269, Thomas Aquinas wrote the polemicalwork On There Being Only One Intellect,Against the Averroists (De unitate intellectus contra averroistas). Thomasis intent on countering two views: first, that intellect is not a faculty ofthe soul that animates our body, and second, that there is a single intellectexisting separately that suffices for all people. Brief as it is, this workputs into play all the significant strands of Thomas's teaching on man -historical doctrinal, philosophical, and theological. It is a valuable sourcefor discussing Thomas's views on the relationship between Aristotle andChristianity and puts to rest the misleading claim that Thomas baptizedAristotle." The introduction places the work historically and sketches thecontroversy to which it was a contribution. Part 2 includes the Latin Leoninetext and McInerny's translation. Part 3 analyzes the basic arguments ofThomas's work and provides a series of interpretive essays meant to make Thomasaccessible to today's readers.