Includes bibliographical references and index

Greek and Arabic Antecedents -- Stages of Human Intellect -- The Kind of Entity That the Active Intellect Is -- The Active Intellect as a Cause of Human Thought -- The Active Intellect as a Cause of Existence -- Conjunction with the Active Intellect; Immortality -- Alfarabi on Emanation, the Active Intellect, and Human Intellect -- Al-Madina al-Fadila and al-Siyasa al-Madaniyya -- Alfarabi's Philosophy of Aristotle -- The Risala fi al-Aql -- Alfarabi's Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics -- Avicenna on Emanation, the Active Intellect, and Human Intellect -- The Emanation of the Universe; the Active Intellect as a Cause of the Existence of the Sublunar World -- Stages of Human Intellect; the Active Intellect as the Cause of Human Thought -- Imagination, Cogitation, Insight -- Conjunction and Immortality -- Prophecy -- Reverberations of the Theories of Alfarabi and Avicenna -- Avicenna's Islamic Successors -- Reverberations in Medieval Jewish Philosophy -- Reverberations in Scholastic Philosophy -- Averroes on Emanation and on the Active Intellect as a Cause of Existence -- General Considerations -- The Emanation of the Universe -- The Active Intellect as a Cause of Existence: Epitomes of the Parva naturalia and the Metaphysics -- The Active Intellect as a Cause of Existence: The Commentary on De generatione animalium -- The Active Intellect as a Cause of Existence: The Long Commentary on the Metaphysics and Tahafut al-Tahafut (Destructio destructionum) -- Averroes on the Material Intellect

A study of problems revolving around the subject of intellect in the philosophies of Alfarabi (d. 950), Avicenna (980-1037), and Averroes (1126-1198), this book pays particular attention to the way in which these philosophers addressed the tangle of issues that grew up around the active intellect. Davidson starts by reviewing discussions in Greek and early Arabic philosophy that served as the background for the three Arabic thinkers. He examines the cosmologies and theories of human and active intellect of the three philosophers and covers such subjects as the emanation of the supernal realm from the First Cause, the emanation of the lower world from the transcendent active intellect, stages of human intellect, illumination of the human intellect by the transcendent active intellect, conjunction of the human intellect with the transcendent active intellect, prophecy, and human immortality. Davidson traces the impact of the three philosophers on medieval Jewish philosophy and Latin Scholasticism. He shows that the later medieval Jewish philosophers and the Scholastics had differing perceptions of Averroes because they happened to use works belonging to different periods of his philosophic career. This book will be of interest to the student and scholar in medieval philosophy, the history of philosophy, and medieval culture

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