Intellectual beatitude in the Averroist tradition

the case of Agostino Nifo

Leen Spruit

pp. 125-144

in: Anna Akasoy, Guido Giglioni (eds), Renaissance Averroism and its aftermath, Berlin, Springer, 2013

Abstract

In De anima, III, text 36 (431b 17–19), Aristotle suggested that incorporeal beings could be viewed as objects of thought. Arabic philosophers, and particularly Averroes, interpreted this passage in terms of intellectual beatitude, maintaining that the ultimate goal of human life consisted in knowing the separate substances by joining those intelligences. From the second half of the thirteenth century on, the idea of intellectual beatitude spread rapidly in the Latin West. The first Renaissance author to formulate an extensive and explicit defence of this Averroistic view was probably Agostino Nifo (c. 1473–1538/1545). This chapter provides a close reading of the way Averroes interpreted the above-mentioned passage followed by a brief analysis of its echoes in the Latin West. Finally, Nifo's doctrine of intellectual beatitude as outlined in book VI of his De intellectu (1503) is examined.

Cited authors

Aristoteles