Averroes on Pathways to Divine Knowledge

Yehuda Halper is Professor in the Department of Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University. His first monograph, Jewish Socratic Questions in an Age without Plato (Brill, 2021) won the Goldstein-Goren Book Award for the best book in Jewish Thought in 2019-2021. He is currently directing the ISF grant (#622/22) "Samuel Ibn Tibbon's Explanation of Foreign Terms and the Foundations of Philosophy in Hebrew".

“In Averroes on Pathways to Divine Knowledge, Yehuda Halper guides his readers through a transformative exploration of Averroes’s metaphysical thought, uncovering the manifold ways the Commentator illuminates humanity’s longing for divine truth. Through careful analysis of Averroes’s engagement with Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Plato’s Republic, Halper reveals a thinker grappling earnestly with the deepest questions of intentionality, dialectics, and the very nature and purpose of philosophical inquiry. Moving deftly between Averroes’s Arabic texts and their broader historical-philosophical implications, this work not only elucidates the enduring tensions between dialectic and demonstration, human reason and divine intellect, but also positions Averroes as a partner in a continued philosophical journey begun in antiquity. Halper’s study is invaluable to scholars in medieval thought, but also richly rewarding for contemporary philosophers, historians, and theologians navigating epistemology, politics, metaphysics, and the timeless quest for the divine. A luminous contribution, elegantly composed and profoundly insightful, this book invites its readers into  the inexhaustible dialogue of philosophy itself.” — Katja Krause, Professor for the History of Science, Technische Universität Berlin, Research Group Leader, Max Planck Institute for the History of ScienceThis valuable publication brings together in a single volume eight insightful articles by Halper providing analyses of various writings of Ibn Rushd / Averroes relating directly or indirectly to the Cordoban’s dialectical and metaphysical aspirations to divine knowledge. This collection is particularly successful in acquainting readers with several dialectical efforts on metaphysical issues." — Dr. Richard C. Taylor, Professor of Philosophy, Marquette University, and annual Visiting Professor, Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Averroes on Intentionality and the Human Experience of the Natural World2. Averroes’s Epistle on Divine Knowledge as a Dialectical Work: Between Forbidden Interpretation and Philosophical Training3. Dialecticians and Dialectics in Averroes’s Long Commentary on Gamma 2 of Aristotle’s Metaphysics4. The Hierarchy of Terms in the Short Commentary on Metaphysics Δ5. Averroes’s Rewrite of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Δ: Establishing the Plain Meaning of the Text in the Midde Commentary6. Losing Focus: Notes on Averroes’s Introduction to Aristotle’s Metaphysics Δ in the Long Commentary7. Happiness, Eros, and the Active Intellect: Understanding Erotic Desire in Averroes’s Long Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Λ in light of the Middle Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics8. Expelling Dialectics from the Ideal State: Making the World Safe for Philosophy in Averroes’s Commentary on Plato’s “Republic”