Renan's Ghost Ernest Renan, Averroës and Imperial Philosophy

Christopher Schwartz (M.A.)Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte, K.U. LeuvenFirst Annual Graduate Student ConferenceFriday, 1 April 2011http://schwartztronica.wordpress.com

AverroësAbu'l-Walid Muhammed ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd of Cordoba (1126 - 1198 CE) is known in the West as “ Averroës” and the honorific “ The Commentator” due to his extensive commentaries on Aristotle, which were widely acclaimed by the Medieval and Renaissance Jewish and Christian intellectual communities.

A polymath in Arabic-Islamic Spain and Morocco, he served the Almohad Caliphate as a judge, physician and philosopher. Among his intellectual descendants were Maimonides, Albert Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Siger van Brabant, Augustino Nifo, Baruch Spinoza, and possibly Dante Alighieri and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

In Raphael's allegorical masterpiece, The School of Athens, he can be foundpeering over the shoulder of Pythagoras,reading a tome on the theory of music.

Immortality for Whom?Averroës' doctrines were contentious in his own lifetime, and proved to be persistently so for several centuries after. This is due to their seeming challenge to certain pillars of monotheistic religious orthodoxy, not to mention popular convential wisdom.

Most notably, he was a proponent, if not the innovator of the psychological doctrine of “ monopsychism” , which bedeviled Medieval and Renaissance theorists. Paul A. Cantor describes it thus:

“ Averroës was most famous, or rather infamous, for [… ] his paradoxical claim that all humanity shares a single intellect. The reasoning behind this strange idea goes something like this: when we think a rational truth, such as 2 + 2 = 4, we all think alike and in that sense participate in the same intellect. The key corollary of this idea is that insofar as we participate in [this intellect], we also participate in its eternity. Thus Averroës could in effect say that our souls are eternal by virtue of apprehending eternal truths such as those of mathematics.” 1

(Next slide: a visual representation of monopsychism, courtesy of Rebecca Gilbert.)`

“ In short, Averroës' conception of the [monopsyche] allowed him to speak of the immortality of the human soul without implying the survival of the individual soul after death. In talking of the [monopsyche], he was basically coming up with a notion of species immortality for the human race.

“ The advantage of this understanding of the soul for Averroës is that it gave him a way of talking publicly about human immortality to placate religious authorities, while pointing to an esoteric meaning of immortality in harmony with his real philosophic position, a view in which the only true form of immortality is philosophic thinking.

“ In Averroës' understanding, as individual human beings we die, but our thoughts may live on. This outcome is especially true for someone who writes his thoughts down in books, thus making it possible for later generations to react to them.” 1

Fittingly, the generations-spanning debate over Averroës' doctrine is ample proof of it.

However, it's not exactly true that Averroës did not believe in an immortal soul. As a committed Aristotelian, he believed in hylomorphism as a fundamental mechanical principle for the coming-to-be of the experienced world: matter has the potential to take on many articulations, but can only do so if actualized by a definition (morphe). That means he believed there was something that was both essential to the identity of experienced objects and immaterial, and as such, immortal, at least in the sense of being beyond time and space – something religion usually calls the “ soul” .

For Averroës, that something was the monopsyche, what Emerson many centuries later would aptly call the “ Over-Soul” . As Cantor rightly describes, it's a kind of species immortality. What we normally identify as the “ I” is actually just the temporary conjuction between our body and the monopsyche: the body decays – in a sense, it has its own immortality, for it rejoins the cycle of generation and corruption3 – but the vast subjectivity of which we are only vessels is eternal.2

What happens to the individual at the moment of death? I'll cite the words of my grandparents, who, as modern disciples of Maimonides and Spinoza, channeled much of the Commentator's ideas:

“ ...We may visualize this concept by considering [an] enormous ball of copper. The copper is malleable and fine strands of wire can be drawn out from the solid mass. These strands are never separated from the ball; they are not attached to, nor do they ever become detached from, but always remain as part of the ball. Each strand extends from the ball to and into a human being.

“ The strand can be deemed analogous to the human soul. It is and always remains a part of the ball, and though never separated from it, nevertheless, so long as it remains a strand, is a distinct entity. Upon birth, the strand is drawn from the ball and connects with the human being, and upon death, it is drawn back into the ball and is completely reabsorbed within it.” 4

Who, then, gave Cantor the impression that Averroës did not believe in an immortal soul, much less that he needed to “ placate religious authorities” and hide his true beliefs, which presumably were atheistic?

Ernest RenanErnest Renan (1823 - 1892) was a French orientalist widely credited with introducing material positivism into the study of religion with his groundbreaking studies Histoire des origines du christianisme (7 vols., 1863 - 1881), Vie de Jésus (1863), and two work that shall principally concern us here, Averroès et l'Averroïsme (1852) and “ L'islamisme et la science,” a lecture he presented at the Sorbonne on 29 March, 1883.

Averroës had receded into the collective unconscious by the time of Descartes, and was effectively forgotten by the time of the American and French Revolutions. Renan's l'Averroïsme and “ L'islamisme” were thus important in that these reintroduced the Commentator to Western consciousness – and indeed, to Arabic-Islamic consciousness, as well, for Averroës' works had been burned by the Almohad Caliphate at the end of his life.

During the course of his many research interests, Renan noticed that certain controversies repeatedly reared their heads throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

In particular, there was the debate over whether the world had been initiated in linear time by the agency of a supreme divine being, as religious scriptures claimed, or if it had always existed in some fashion, as independent reason seemed to assert. If the latter, how should the teachings of scripture, and with them, time and divinity, be understood?

Deeply related to the question of the world's eternity was the much more contentious debate over whether religion constituted a universal system of knowledge or whether it was simply a particular system best suited for the illiterate masses, as well as lawyers and priests, and that there was another system – Aristotelian philosophy – for the intellectually adept.

If the latter, should Truth be understood as something relative or multiple? Or is there still only one Truth, but only the philosophers possess it, due to the cognitive limits of everyone else? Is religion, then, an allegorical system to educate and otherwise guide the masses? Or is it a fundamentally political tool for philosophers to use to obfuscate and even lie in order to hide the Truth from the masses, thereby preserving them from self-destruction – or the philosophers from ignorant and misguided persecution?

Renan realized that at every turn, Averroës' writings could be found – cited, revised, lionized or villainized. He concluded that the Commentator's legacy among Medieval and Renaissance thinkers constituted nothing less than a movement, which he called “ Averroism” , and one which he believed defined an epoch.

Renan's efforts were groundbreaking and they did much to reconfigure the West's views of itself and the Arabic-Islamic world, and vice versa.

His central thesis has variously been the subject of refinement and refutement. Since the 1970s, the historiographical consensus in the West has generally leaned toward refutement, but the pendulum, as it has done repeatedly over the last 150 years, is already swinging the other way.

Renan's Ghost

For example, among Renan's intellectual descendants is Bernard Lewis, a renowned British historian at Princeton University whose books The Muslim Discovery of Europe (1982) and What Went Wrong? (2002) have become standard classroom textbooks. Lewis' theories have notonly become quite popular among the general reading public, but there's a case to be made that they alsoinfluenced the George W. Bush administration's geopolitical strategy in the Middle East.5

Renan's thesis has also shaped much of the intellectual debate in the Arabic-Islamic world around the extent to which their cultures have fallen into “ decadence” (in?iț āț ) and are in need of “ renaissance” (nah?a).6

Thus, Renan's Averroism is proving itself as contentious and, indeed, as immortal as Averroës' monopsychism.

Of Darkness and LightHowever, his theory was far from neutral and objective; rather, it was deeply positivistic. L'Averroïsme and “ L'islamisme” are fundamentally the story of how one culture embraced the light of independent, instrumental reason and another the darkness of revealed religion and blind faith

In Renan's vision of history, Averroism bred a critical view of revealed religion and thereby led to the rise and eventual triumph of European rationalism, particularly in the form of technological science and the nation-state. Meanwhile, the Arabic-Islamic world, by rejecting the Aristotelian tradition, burning Averroës' books and actively choosing not to develop its own Averroism, doomed itself to decline and gradual subjugation by the West.

“ La vie d'Averroès occupe la durée presque entière du XIIe siècle, et se lie a tous le évènements de cette époche décisive dans l'histoire de la civilisation musulmane. Le XIIe siècle vit définitivement échouer la tentative des Abbasides d'Orient et de Omeyyades d'Éspagne pour créer dans l'islamisme un développement rational et scientifique. Quand Averroès mourut, en 1198, la philosophie arabe perdit en luis son dernier répresentant, et la triumphe du Coran sur la libre pensée fut assuré pour au moins six cents ans.” 7

“ Ibn Rushd's death was a turning point for European as well as for for Islamic intellectual history,” explains Anke von Külgelen. “ Averroës becomes the symbol of the rise of European culture, his falling into oblivion marks the downfall of Islamic culture.” 6

There's an activist edge to this proposed turning point. Craig Martin explains:

“ The origins of modern Averroism studies are based on anachronistic visions of science and religion. Renan’ s characterization of Averroism meshes with his promotion of a secularized scientific culture. The schools of Paris and later Padua were seen as exemplars for nineteenth-century anticlerical culture. As a result, scholars, such as Jean-Roger Charbonnel and Henri Busson, following Renan’ s lead, made unreliable claims, often blindly accepting the conclusions of century-old polemics, and found the origins of seventeenth-century French libertinism and eighteenth-century atheistic science in the works and influence of Pietro Pomponazzi.

“ Despite this argument having little historical merit, it has persisted in contemporary scholarship, and Averroism remains a model for what is labelled rationalism and secular science, and is even seen as a precursor of the Enlightenment.” 8

More pressingly, there was also a political edge. Averroës became a useful symbol to justify Western colonialism in the Middle East: Renan's remark that libre pensée would not return to the region until 600 years later is actually a reference to Napoleon's invasion of Egypt.

“ This date has since acquired an almost magical quality for the dating of Near Eastern events,” explains Wild. “ 1798 is the point when the Near East was destined to crash into modernity; it marks the faultline between two eras and the dawn of a new world order,” 5 an order ruled by human reason as manifested in the Western technological nation-state.

“ Des deux conséquences qu'entraine le manque d'espirit scientifique, la superstition ou le dogmatisme, la second est peut-ętre pire que le première. L'Orient n'est pas superstitieux; son grand mal, c'est le dogmatisme étroit, qui s'impose par la force de la société tout entière.

“ [...] La science est l'âme d'une société; car la science, c'est la raison. Elle crée la supériorité militaire et la supériorité industrielle. Elle créera un jour la supériorité sociale, je veux dire un état de société où la quantité de justice qui est compatible avec l'essence de l'univers sera procurée. La science met la force au service de la raison.” 7

A Universal TraditionKey to Renan's project was to distance Averroës himself from the content of Islam. After all, it was already paradoxical enough that the forefather of the West had come from the very Arabic-Islamic culture that the former seemed destined to eventually dominate. It would have been even more paradoxical if the Commentator had been sincerely intellectually committed to that culture and its religious doctrines and prejudices.

Instead, Renan endeavored to portray Averroës as a Muslim only outwardly, but who inwardly really belonged to the Aristotelian tradition, now posited as a universal tradition, a system of knowledge that transcended language, culture and religion, and which developed incrementally over the course of generations to eventually result in modern science and the latter's concomitant political and industrial advances.

Thus, we find Renan at one point remarking, “ Rien n'empęche [de] supposer qu'Ibn-Roschd a cru à l'islamisme,” only at another point to announce, “ L'islamisme, en réalité, a donc toujours persécuté la science et la philosophie” and “ Le véritable génie arabe, caractérisé par le poésie des Kasidas et l'éloquence du Coran, était absolument antipathique à la philosophie grecque.” 7

One would imagine that this contradiction strongly implies the need for dissimulation, or at least discretion on the part of the Commentator.

Yet, Renan doesn't need to go that far. Rather, he notes, “ Ibn-Roschd ne se dissimule pas que quelques-unes de ces doctrines, celle de l'éternité du monde, par example, sont contraires à l'enseignement de toutes les religions.” 7 No surprise, then, according to Renan, that Averroës' books were burned and his dosctrines banned.

Averroës' perhaps foolish forthrightness actually helps Renan's project, for it testifies to his notion that conflict between libre pensée and the dogmas of religion is inevitable.

And repeatedly, Renan emphasizes the péripatéticienne and aristotélicien character of Averroës and Averroism. This derisive remark in “ L'Islamisme” is perhaps the most illustrative in all of his corpus:

“ Je n'ai point cherché, Messieurs, à diminuer le rôle de cette grande science dite arabe qui manque une étape si importante dans l'histoire de l'espirit humain. [… ] Entre la disparition de la civilisation antique au sixième siècle, et la naissance du génie européen au douzième et au trezième, il y a eu ce qu'on peut appeler la période arabe, durant laquelle la tradition de l'espirit humain s'est faite par les régions conquises à l'islam.

“ Cette science, dite arabe, qu'a-t-elle d'arabe en réalité? La langue, rien que la langue. [… ] Cette science n'est pas arabe. Est-elle du moins musulmane? L'islamisme a-t-il offert à ces recherches rationelles quelque secours tutélaire? Oh! en aucune façon!” 7

The coup de grâce: “ Ce beau mouvement d'études est tout entier l'œ uvre de parsis, de chrétiens, de juifs, de harraniens, d'ismaéliens, de musulmans, intérieurement révoltés contre leur propre religion.” 7

Oddly enough, what Renan may have really done was to marry none other than monopsychism to his own positivism: this hypothetical universal tradition is the l'espirit humaine, working through modern scientists, as it did with their philosophical forebearers among the Aristotelian-Averroists, to chip away the wilful ignorance of dogma so as to advance the cause of knowledge and justice.

Insofar as Renan was not only a social scientist but also a philosopher in his own right, what we may have here is not only an historiographicaljustification for colonial imperialism, as Edward Said would have saw, but a philosophical one as well– one that's surprisingly not unlike Hegel's geist!

The Monopsyche Returned?

Putting aside “ Hegelian” speculations, there are, of course, obvious tensions, if not contradictions in Renan's vision.

For one, it mostly ignores the fact that the Islamic world was larger than its Arabic component, and indeed, that its Turkic component in particular maintained a relative political and military parity with the West through the eighteenth century (and indeed, Turkey proper was one of the very few Islamic territories never to be colonized).

For another, positivism may be useful to attenuate the many linguistic contexts in which this universal tradition developed, as these can be compared to the build-up of sediment, and hence each contributes to “ Progress” . Yet, there's clearly an ethical problem with teleologizing languages and entire cultures.

Here's an ironic way to characterize that problem: in a sense, Renan is continuing the otherworldly fatalism of religious dogma, for he is essentially proposing that the life of a language and culture is valuable only if it can be positively judged vis-à-vis an afterlife – in this case, the Western paradise versus the Islamic hell.

Problems with Progress

Most of all, who's to say that the universal tradition or l'espirit humaine won't move back to the Arabic-Islamic world, or simply move elsewhere (say, China?), eventually leading to the decline and domination of the West?

One needn't be Hegelian to envision how that might happen: all it would require is the West sliding into comfort and complacency, as previous civilizations are said to have done (and isn't that precisely what we hear from radio and television talk show hosts today?)

But more importantly, being as he is the central figure here, what does all this mean for Averroës?

Averroës the Heretic“ Interest in the Averroistic tradition has served to promote particular views of science at the expense of explaining the cultural and intellectual contexts in which Averroes’ s works were influential,” notes Martin, adding,

“ In creating this narrative that linked Averroism to the development of secular science, Renan essentialized Averroism by defining Averroes’ s thought by two positions, or errors in the minds of those guarding against heresy: the eternity of matter and the theory of the unicity of the intellect.

“ The potential consequences of these beliefs include such positions as the eternity of the world, the denial of the permanence of the individual soul after death, in addition to the position of double truth, whereby theological truths and truths of natural philosophy can differ in their conclusions.

“ By emphasizing these issues, Renan set the agenda for later scholars, who investigated these aspects in far greater depth than any other part of the Averroistic tradition.” 8

And as signs of this, we need look no further than remarks like the kind made by Cantor, namely, that Averroës was essentially an atheist merely pretending to be a believing Muslim. Yet, such a view actually fails the test of evidence.

Averroës the Aristotelian MuslimThe truth lies in those very heresies that so fascinated Renan. Let's focus on these three:

- whether the soul is immortal

- whether the world was created

- whether Truth is one or many

We have already seen how the doctrine of monopsychism necessitates something that religious discourse would normally call the immortal soul.

As my grandparents explained, each conjunction (ittisâl) serves as an individual (or, more precisely, individuated) soul. It is “ immortal” in the sense that it participates in a transcendent and perennial substance.

We could phrase it this way: conjunctions are immortal souls immediately, relatively and temporarily, while the monopsyche is the immortal soul ultimately, absolutely and eternally.3

There is nothing necessarily un-Islamic about such an argument. In fact, the Qur'an itself famously declares, “ Ultimately, to your Lord is your return” (39:7).

As for bodily resurrection, Averroës explicitly says,

“ It should be posited that what comes back are bodies like these which were in this abode – not these very ones, because what has perished down not come back as an individual entity. Existence comes back only to a likeness of what has perished, not to what has itself perished... That is because what perishes, then exists, is one in kind – not one in number.” 9

In other words, species immortality, not in terms of matter (potentiality), but in terms of morphe (actuality).3 Futhermore, I take the Commentator to mean: if there is a bodily resurrection – and he indicates that this is a matter of faith (i.e., first principles)9 – then it is not the body that is actually returning.

As for the eternity of the world, this is an even simpler case: Averroës was explicitly committed to the Aristotelian vision of the Prime Mover, which he, like other Arabic-Islamic philosophers, identified as the being or principle referred to by the “ God” of revealed religion.9

The world can be said to be “ created” in the sense that it is ontologically dependent upon this Prime Mover: as with monopsychism and the soul, the world is a relative existent, while “ God” is an absolute existent, the former deriving its status from the latter (i.e., “ set into motion” or brought into being).9

In other words, creation is an is, not a was. The Prime Mover does not literally move the world, much less initiate it at some specific moment. Nor is It constantly intervening to maintain the world. The situation is comparable to a watch constantly striving to tell time in the perfect manner of its watchmaker – even though the watchmaker isn't really aware of his invention.

As for miracles, particularly those that appear in salvific history such as Moses parting the Red Sea or the revelation of the Qur'an, these can treated simply: the physically miraculous may be treated as metaphors, especially since no one who could have attested to them being otherwise remains alive; the more subtly miraculous, on the other hand, may be treated simply as ways of describing the species, at the level of the morphe, reaching out to the Prime Mover.

Muhammad, then, is the manifestation of the perfection of our species. His testimonies are not God literally speaking, but rather, the structure of the universe echoing through him in its most fluent and eloquent form.

Again, there's nothing necessarily un-Islamic here. The Qur'an does not enjoin Muslims to believe literally in miracles. In fact, it openly states, “ And, indeed, We have set forth for mankind all manner of parables in this Qur'an that they may take heed” (39:27-28).

Finally, as for Truth, in the Fasl al-Maqāl, which Richard Taylor has called the “ theoretical basis” for the Commentator's system of thought, Averroës explicitly stated that religion and philosophy are actually two different approaches to the same singular Truth: “ Truth does not contradict truth; rather, it agrees with and bears witness to it.” 9

This is radically unlike the duplicity that Renan senses among his Medieval and Renaissance descendants and which scholars after Renan have read back into Averroës himself.

The difference between the philosophical and religious paths is not content per se but rather depth of perception. Averroës went to great pains in the Fasl, as well as in his more well-known On the Harmonyof Religion and Philosophy and The Incoherence of the Incoherence,10 to show how philosophers and the masses essentially believe the same things, but that the former have greater perspicacity about precisely what the community – in his case, the Arabic-Islamic community – believes.

That's because philosophers have refined their conjunctions with the monopsyche by dint of their training in the “ demonstrative arts” (syllogisms), and hence, they have achieved greater cognizance of the Prime Mover.11

The monopsyche's place in this system is comparable to that of the heavenly bodies: rather than the gears trying to tell time, it is the watch-user trying to understand time, likewise in the perfect manner of the watchmaker.4

Indeed, although he could have argued abstractly for this, Averroës actually chose to cite the Qur'an and Islamic Law and then to make his argument:

“ We say: Since what is intended by the Law is teaching true science and true practice; and teaching is of two sorts – forming a concept and bringing about assent [… ] and there are three methods of bringing about assent for people – demonstrative, dialectical, and rhetorical – and two methods of forming concepts, either by means of the thing itself or by means of a likeness of it; and not all people have natures such as to accept demonstrations or dialectical arguments, let alone demonstrative arguments, given the difficulty in teaching demonstrative arguments and the lengthy time needed by someone adept at learning them; and since what is intended by the Law is, indeed, to teach everyone, therefore, it is obligatory that the Law comprise all the manners of the methods of bringing about assent and all the manners of the methods of forming a concept.” 9

All told, Averroës was not just an Aristotelian, but neither was he just a Muslim. Rather, he was a synthesis of both, and I believe sincerely so: in his more emotional moments, he was a Muslim, and in his more intellectual moments, he was a philosopher.

And perhaps when his books were being burned and the future of his legacy seemed its most in doubt, he very much needed to be both.

Questions for Discussion(1) With Western colonial imperialism long gone, what, if any, would be the relevance of determining Averroës' true spiritual beliefs for today?

(2) If it's not the same body we inhabit in the resurrection, then could Averroës be taken to argue for a doctrine of (potential) reincarnation?

(3) If one posits greater perspicacity on the part of one group, does this not implicitly argue for them possessing more Truth than others – and if the quantity is ultimately very qualitative, then do they not possess what is effectively a different Truth?

(4) Assuming that the essence of Renan's historical thesis is correct, then to what extent might have religion actually helped the emergence of modern rationalism rather than hindered it, i.e., as the foil or bęte noire of libre pensée?

(5) Was Renan simply a “ Great Man” , à la Hegel, giving intellectual expression to the nineteenth century industrial-imperial zeitgeist?

(6) Despite his exploitation of the concept of a universal tradition for a political agenda, was Renan nevertheless fundamentally onto something?

Endnotes{1} Cantor, Paul A., “ The Uncanonical Dante: The Divine Comedy and Islamic

Philosophy” in Philosophy and Literature 20.1. (1996): 144-5.

{2}Actually, it's unclear whether the monopsyche is the subjectivity for only humans or for all rational beings that inhabit the experienced world. Of course, Averroës' era held the geocentric view of the universe, so the answer would be: humans are the only rational beings. Nevertheless, in today's centerless cosmology, modern variants of monopsychism, particularly in Jungian psychoanalysis and the New Age movement, have confronted this problem to varying degrees of cogency.

{3}There's also a question of whether Averroës would have distinguished between psychology and taxonomy: is the monopsyche also the human morphe or species (our essence-based natural kind)? If not, should that status be attributed to the conjuction itself? At the moment, it seems to me that the Commentator would argue that the monopsyche is the morphe absolutely and eternally while the conjuction is the morphe relatively and temporarily (I credit my grandparents with this nuance: refer to the next endnote). This might also be a useful explanation for the mechanics of hylomorphisms in general.

{4} Schwartz, Charles and Bertie G., Faith Through Reason: A Modern Interpretation of Judaism (1st ed., The Macmillan Company, New York: 1947): pp. 27-8. For those interested, here is the quote in full, and one can clearly see how they use the Spinozan advancement on Averroistic monopsychism but de-materialize it in a sense:

“ The soul may be said to be a fragment of the Divinity, and if that is so, it is pre-existent in the sense that it pre-exists the commencement of life in any human being. Upon birth it enters our being and when death occurs – the termination of the animation we call life – the soul leaves the body. Being part of the Divinity, it returns to its source and is again embraced within God, the universal soul. Since the soul is a part of God, it would seem that it retains no entity after death, but continues as part of God without any separateness or distinct division from God. What is left behind, is physical matter, composed of chemical elements which have become inert, which have lost all capacity of functioning, as when life was present.

“ We may visualize this concept by considering God as an enormous ball of copper. The copper is malleable and fine strands of wire can be drawn out from the solid mass. These strands are never separated from the ball; they are not attached to, nor do they ever become detached from, but always remain as part of the ball. Each strand extends from the ball to and into a human being. The strand can be deemed analogous to the human soul. It is and always remains a part of the ball, and though never separated from it, nevertheless, so long as it remains a strand, is a distinct entity. Upon birth, the strand is drawn from the ball and connects with the human being, and upon death, it is drawn back into the ball and is completely reabsorbed within it.”

{4, cont.} Furthermore, on the same page they remark, in a manner that surely would have pleased Avempace, “ When we give ourselves up to the contemplation of God, our soul takes us into a region beyond our present physical world, into an unseen world. [… ] This is not a form of self-hypnosis. Our soul actually goes to work on our finite personality, changing our human conduct and behavior. It is a deliberate and conscious change from our daily thinking to a communication with the infinite, through our soul” – cf. Avempace, La conduite de l'isolé et deux autres épitres, Charles Genequand, trans. (Vendu par Librairie Dialogues, Brest: 2010).

{5} For example: Hirsh, Michael, “ Bernard Lewis Revisited,” Washington Monthly (November 2004): http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0411.hirsh.html

{6} Wild, Stefan, “ Islamic Enlightenment and the Paradox of Averroes,” Die Welt des Islams, New Series, Vol. 36, Issue 3, Islamic Enlightenment in the 18th Century? (Nov., 1996): pp. 379-390. This includes the remark by Anke von Külgelen from her Averroes und die arabische Moderne: Ansätze zu einer Neubegründung des Rationalismus im Islam (Leiden, New York: 1994): p. 414.

{7} Renan, Ernest, Averroès et l'Averroïsme (Nouv. éd., Maisonneuve et Larose, Paris, 2002): pp. 21, 125-6, and generally 77-131.

---- “ L'islamisme et la science” (Ancienne Maison Michel Levy Frères, Paris, 1883): pp. 14,-16, 23.

{8} Martin, Craig, “ Rethinking Renaissance Averroism,” Intellectual History Review, 17: 1, 3 - 28 (2007): p. 4.

{9} Averroës, Fasl al-Maqāl (The Decisive Treatise), Charles Butterworth, trans. (Bringham Young University Press, Provo, 2008).

{10} The Fasl was not known to Renan.

{11} I should note that this is also the basis for his Platonic belief that the philosophers should also have authority, and indeed, veto-power in interpretative and legal matters. For insight into the political and ideological delicacy of this issue, see: Montada, Josep Puig, “ Ibn Ruš d and the Almohad Context” in Studies in the History of Culture and Science: A Tribute to Gad Freudenthal, Resianne Fontaine, Ruth Glasner, Reimund Leicht, and Giuseppe Veltri, eds. (Brill, Leiden/London, 2011).