Averroes and Thomas Aquinas on the Knowledge of Separated Substances in the Summa contra Gentiles III

Abstract

Thomas’ view regarding the knowledge of separated substances seems to shift over the course of his intellectual work. What initially appears as a consideration of the possibility of such knowledge eventually becomes, in his mature writings, a kind of restriction or blockage with respect to it. The central background of this debate seems to be Thomas’ engagement with Averroes’ position, expressed in the Great Commentary on the De Anima, and Averroes’ supposed ease in positing a passage from the mode of knowledge directed toward the sensible to another mode oriented toward separated substances, a transition the Cordoban thinker understands as a continuous process. This is precisely what Thomas rejects in the Summa contra Gentiles. A clear connection emerges here with the ancient philosophical notion of ultimate happiness, which resides in the knowledge of substances that are ontologically separated from matter, whereas Thomas’ view locates ultimate happiness directly in the possibility of the direct vision of God. In addressing this important theme, Thomas seems intent on surpassing Averroes’ position while indicating an approximation between the beatific vision and the knowledge of separated substances.