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[ 94 ] the rise and fall of soul and self
Neoplatonism had become the received view, the soul was undergoing a process
of naturalization. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it would happen
again, only more radically, until eventually the soul was displaced altogether by
the mind/brain.
When Latin philosophers first began to face the task of harmonizing their
older, mostly Neoplatonic philosophies with the newly arrived Aristotelian the-
ories, Avicenna’s approach seemed the most relevant. Despite the great difficulty
of Avicenna’s thought, its attraction to the Latin West was that he attempted a
grand synthesis of Neoplatonism and Aristotle in which he seemed to many to
have retained the insights of both. That was essentially the project that Latin
scholars had set for themselves.
But as Aristotelianism began more and more to
replace Christian Neoplatonism, Averroës, who became known in the West as
the commentator,
began to seem more relevant. He shared with Avicenna the
view that Greek thought formed a harmonious unity, but his
focus was more
purely Aristotelian. He stuck very closely to the actual texts of Aristotle, append-
ing his interpretations directly after the very passages on which he was com-
menting, as if he were addressing the pedagogical needs of students. To Latin
philosophers struggling to understand the large amount of difficult new mate-
rial that constituted the Aristotelian corpus, his commentaries became essential
reading. When he differed from Aristotle, often by his accepting the criticisms or
original
interpretations of Aristotle made by Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius,
and later Islamic commentators, his views were then automatically also given
serious consideration and remained influential in Latin universities well into the
seventeenth century.
Over a period of several centuries, under the guidance of Averroës’ commentaries,
European philosophers gravitated toward the view that certain conflicts between
Plato and Aristotle, particularly with respect to the soul, could not be reconciled and
that in these cases Aristotle’s view is generally preferable. As this happened, some of
them began also to realize that Averroës’ interpretation of Aristotle, especially his
commentary on De anima, was hard to reconcile with Christian dogma about the
immortality of the soul. However, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the
realization that Aristotle might not be compatible with Christian dogma was still far
into the future.
How Can Soul and Body Form a Unity?
In the early thirteenth century, the key issue was whether the rational soul is the
form of the body, a substance in its own right, or both. There were problems
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