What is the Object of our Knowledge? Thomas Aquinas Reads Averroes

Abstract

What is the object of our knowledge? Or, to state the question otherwise, what is what we actually know? This epistemological question was one of the axes of a philosphical discussion inside the thirteenth century Aristotelianism, and Thomas Aquinas, not just one of the main characters of that philosophical querelle, but also the author of, at least, some central chapters. One of those chapters is the so called ‘‘Latin Averroism’’, strongly critisized by Aquinas in many of his works, especially in his De unitate intellectus contra averroistas. This paper examines some of the arguments by means of which Aquinas not just aims at destroying Averroes’ theory of knowledge, but also states and developes a number of thesis later characteristically considered as ‘‘Averroistic’’. The paper focuses on the way in which Aquinas (mis)undestands Averroes’ theory of the intellectum speculativum (object of knowledge) in the terms of his own theory of species intelligibilis (medium or instrument of knowledge).