Endress (1995) PDF

Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, vol. 5 (1995) pp.
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AVERROES' DE CAELO
IBN RUSHD'S COSMOLOGY IN HIS COMMENTARIES
ON ARISTOTLE'S ON THE HEAVENS
GERHARD ENDRESS
A first version of this essay was read at the Symposium Averroicum orga-
nized by Professor Jamal al-Din al-'Alawi in Fez, Morocco in March 1989.
His untimely death on 13 July, 1992 puts a tragic end to the scholarly work
of one of the most eminent students of Ibn Rushd's philosophy and writings
as well as to a most fruitful and promising collaboration between the two of
us for the publication of Averroes' commentaries on Aristotle's De Caelo in
critical editions. This article is dedicated to his memory.*
INTRODUCTION
In Averroes' great enterprise of explaining and defending the

true doctrine of Aristotle, who was for him the "natural rule
and example that nature invented in order1
to demonstrate the
ultimate human perfection in matter," cosmology occupies a
place of special importance. Aristotle's book On the Heavens is
one of the few to which he devoted an early Epitome (JawamV),
a Middle Commentary (Talkhls) and a Long Commentary
(Tafslr). Ibn Rushd encountered here the essential rationalism
of Hellenistic philosophy where reason is held to be actual and
visible in the reality of the cosmic order. Yet by his time, the
concepts and principles of this philosophy, ancient and "mod-
ern," had become afieldof unrelentant controversy. Indeed, the
philosophic dogma of the eternity of the world was the major
point of the dispute concerning the falasifa in Islam, and the
Aristotelian philosopher had a hard time holding his own. As a
* I would like to thank Charles Butterworth for his careful and patient editing of
my manuscript, and Ahmed Hasnaoui for his valuable suggestions and corrections.
1
Averroes, Commentarium Magnum in Aristotelis De Anima Libros, ed. F. Stuart
Crawford, Corpus Commentariorum Averrois in Aristotelem, Latin version VI 1
(Cambridge, 1953), III, comm. 14, p. 433.
10 GERHARD ENDRESS
commentator, he had to contend with the problem that
Aristotle's book On the Heavens is not without contradictions
either in itself or with respect to his Physics and Metaphysics.
He also had to deal with the models of professional astronomy
which, having reached a high level of observation and mathe-
matical sophistication through Ptolemy and his Arab disciples,
had discarded Aristotle's model of planetary movement in the
process.
For Ibn Rushd and for the medieval reader in general,
Aristotle's philosophy was an integral and coherent system and
also the source and safeguard of the unity of science. Emerging
from a time-honoured tradition of teaching and interpretation
as well as of harmonization with the concurrent and divergent
traditions of Platonism and Neoplatonism, the Arabic Aristotle
endowed the edifice of the rational sciences with the systematic
hierarchy of the disciplines of learning and the universal
criteria of true reasoning. Averroes bears out this conviction in
repeated approaches, refining his arguments by elucidating ever
more clearly the intrinsic logic and consistency of the First
Teacher's doctrine, and thus making it invulnerable to his
adversaries. A case in point is the repeated polemic against Ibn
Sina's concept of demonstrative science, against his notion of
the relation between physics and metaphysics, and against his
theory of the celestial substance. Indeed, it was Avicenna's
faulty interpretation which made al-Ghazali's attack possible.
ARISTOTLE'S DE CAELO
1. Aristotle's lectures On the Heavens, the Kitab al-Sama' wa-

al-'Alam of the Arabic tradition, do not form a coherent, sys-
tematic work with a homogeneous doctrine. The ancient2
interpreters were already troubled by its lack of unity.
Moreover, modern critics have identified at least three separate
parts (not counting interpolated chapters and passages): a)
Books I and II on the celestial fifth element (the aither, ether),
its eternal circular motion, and the movements of the heavenly
bodies; b) Book III on the number, movements, and mutual
transformation of the four sublunary elements; c) Book IV on
2
See Paul Moraux (ed. and trans.), Aristote, Du del (Paris, 1965), p. vii.
AVERROES' DE CAELO 11
the concepts of "heavy" and "light"3
with reference to the nat-
ural movements of the elements.
De Caelo is, as a whole, one of the earlier works of Aristotle;
and it was developed and expanded in his later writings, espe-
cially in the Physics and Metaphysics. The first part (Books I-II)
does not yet presuppose his theory of potency and actuality; and
its cosmology and theology, in dispute with and at the same
time under the influence of Plato's Timaeus, are close to the
known remnants of his lost dialogue "On Philosophy."4 The
efforts of many generations of commentators, Platonic and
Peripatetic, Greek and Arabic, had to be combined before all the
elements of his doctrine and all of its aspects considered useful
for the elaboration of a coherent system of the world could be
merged into a unified philosophy.
2. Aristotle presents his view of the world - that is, that the
world is by necessity one, the center of the earth the center of
the world, the outermost sphere of the fixed stars the outer
limit of the bodily cosmos, and the universe ungenerated and
uncorruptible - in contrast to the positions of earlier Greek
philosophers, and especially to that of Plato. But his early con-
victions are still influenced by Plato's vision, as expressed in the
Timaeus, of the universe as a single ensouled organism. Soul is
the moving force, the principle of self-movement in the world;
and the5 celestial bodies, being simple ensouled substances, are
divine.
Wefindthis view that the heavens are ensouled stated in sev-
eral chapters of the De Caelo (esp. II. 2 and 11.12), although it is
contradicted by other statements which represent a later devel-
opment of Aristotle's thought (II. 1). And although Aristotle was
to criticise and refute Plato's hierarchy of being, with its tran-
scendent realm of eternal ideas beyond the levels of sensible
being and of soul, we still find the concept of extra-worldly
3
See Helmut Flashar, Die Philosophic der Antike, 3: Altere Akademie, Aristoteles,
Peripatos, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (Basel, 1983), pp. 265 ff. and
314; Leo Elders, Aristotle's Cosmology: A Commentary on the De Caelo, Philosophical
Texts and Studies 13 (Assen, 1966), pp. 59 ff.; and Paul Moraux, "Einige
Bemerkungen iiber den Aufbau von Aristoteles' Schrift De Caelo," Museum
Helveticum, 6 (1949): 157-65, "Recherches sur le De Caelo d'Aristote," Revue
Thomiste, 51 (1951): 113-36, and Du del, pp. cvi-cxxvi.
4
See Bernd Effe, Studien zur Kosmologie und Theologie der aristotelischen Schrift
"Uber die Philosophie," Zetemata 50 (Munich, 1970), pp. 20-3.
5
See Elders, Aristotle's Cosmology, p. 27.
12 GERHARD ENDRESS
principles in his earlier doctrine (1.9).6 Moreover, there is a
Platonic note in his insistence, in the introductory chapter of
Book I, on the notion of mathematical principles - forming a
bridge between intelligible and sensible knowledge just as souls
form a bridge between intelligible and sensible being. Again,
whereas the outermost, eternally moving, heaven seems to be
regarded as the supreme deity in some passages (I.9.279a33,
II.3), one sentence in 1.9 may be interpreted as referring to
transcendent, divine essences.7 Finally, in his earliest outline of
planetary movements, a combination of two circular motions -
recalling Plato's "motion of the same" (daily rotation) and
"motion of the different" (rotation in the ecliptic) - is regarded
as sufficient to account for the celestial phenomena (II.2, 3,10).8
3. In his own contribution, of which the De Caelo represents
an early stage (offering glimpses of the later development in
several added chapters), Aristotle established a strict opposition
between the region of the celestial bodies and that of the four
elements of the sublunar world. This opposition is founded
upon a new theory of natural movement - that is, the rectilin-
ear movement of the four elements as against the circular move-
ment of the heavens (the "Fifth Body," 1.2-3)9 - and the
corresponding theory of natural places or cosmic areas where
the heavy, the light, and the circular attain their natural pur-
pose. This new theory reflects the beginning of Aristotle's break
with Plato's subsistent ideas in favour of the concept of imma-
nent forms, that is, a principle of movement intrinsic in the
physical bodies themselves. But the concept of self-motion is, in
itself, another Platonic element: for Plato, self-motion was pos-
sible as motion by nature, dependent on soul.10
The doctrine of potency and actuality is still absent in most of
the De Caelo. The movement of the celestial body residing in its
proper place is not a11 passage from potentiality to actuality, but
continues eternally. Hence no distinction is made between the
6
7
See Moraux, Du ciel, pp. xliv-xlv and the references to the early and modern dis-
cussions of this point.
8
See H. J. Easterling, "Homocentric spheres in De Caelo," Phronesis, 6 (1961):
141-5.
s See Paul Moraux, "Quinta Essentia," in Paulys Realencyclopaedie der
Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, 47/XXTV 1 (1963), columns 1171-1263, and Du
ciel, pp. li ff.
i° Phaedrus 245C; see Elders, Aristotle's Cosmology, pp. 27 and 30.
11
See Moraux, Du ciel, p. xlv and note 1 for references to the commentators who
discuss this apparent contradiction.
internal nature of a thing as a capacity to be moved and an
external mover which actualizes this capacity: the elements
appear to be self-moving bodies. Only later did Aristotle, criti-
cising Plato, begin to distinguish between that from which the
movement proceeds and formal causality (Physics II.3).
The cosmology developed from these principles in the Physics
and the Metaphysics, notably the theory of the First Mover as
stated in Metaphysics XII, does not agree with De Caelo I-II and
its doctrine of a self-moving fifth element or with the notion of
eternal movement as an essential attribute of divine eternity
developed in De Caelo 1.9 and II.3. Moreover, a transitional
stage can be observed in 11.12, where an unmoved ariston sub-
sists in eternal contemplation above a hierarchy of planetary
souls, while the exclusion of soul as a principle of movement 12
in
the heavenly bodies in II. 1 must be an even later addition. But
only afterwards was the essence and activity of the First Mover
as self-thinking intellect and unmoved cause of movement
through desire stated in full {Metaphysics XII. 7). It alone is free
from movement and eternally actual (Metaphysics XII.7.
1088b25); it alone, not the celestial bodies, is truly divine.
Not only did the commentators interpret the text of the De
Caelo with its various and sometimes contradictory statements
in the light of this final development of Aristotle's doctrine; they
also sought to integrate those elements which he revised or dis-
carded at a later stage. The most important of these elements is
the doctrine of the planetary souls, especially in view of its later
reinterpretation in the Neoplatonic system.
In what follows, I shall illustrate Ibn Rushd's contribution to
this secular effort in the light of texts on the relation of cosmo-
logy and metaphysics, on the topic of celestial souls, and on the
theory of planetary movement.
COSMOLOGY AND METAPHYSICS
4. Aristotle accompanies his exposition of the existence, essen-

tial attributes, quantity and quality of the circular body with
statements of a theological nature: the eternity of the stars is
12
For this development and the references in Aristotle's text, see Elders, Aristotle's
Cosmology, pp. 27-33. I have followed Elders closely in the preceding summary of
Aristotle's doctrine. See also, below, Sections 8 and 12.
14 GERHARD ENDRESS
linked with divinity, although the concept of a personal god is
absent.13 But what, if anything, is beyond the sphere? Following
his proof of the uniqueness of the world (De Caelo 1.8-9 and see
below, Section 10), he provides a hint: There cannot be more
than one world; and outside the heavens, there can be no place,
void, or time:
Hence whatever is there [takei] is of such a nature as not to occupy any
place, nor does time age it; nor is there any change in any of the things which
lie beyond the outermost motion; they continue through their entire dura-
tion unalterable and unmodified, living the best and most self-sufficient of
lives (De Caelo 279al8-22).»
Though the passage contains no explicit reference to an

Unmoved Mover, some early commentators understood it as
doing so, and the issue continues to be discussed in modern
scholarship. It is true that here Aristotle ascribes life to the
"things out there" (takei), as he does elsewhere to the pure
actuality of the First Mover. But the cosmology of the De Caelo
does not generally presuppose the theory of the First Mover and
would even contradict it in some respects. It seems more proba-
ble that the plural takei denotes separately existing,
supra-worldly principles which, like Plato's realm of subsistent
ideas, are outside the heavens, while the heavens constitute
space, movement and time, and - again as in Plato's cosmology
- are ensouled.15
The following passage is a reference to popular philosophy (to
enkyklia philosophemata), but was understood by the Greek
commentators and also by the Arabic translator to refer to
Aristotle's exoteric writings:
In its discussions concerning the divine, popular philosophy often propounds
the view that whatever is divine, being primary and supreme, is necessarily
unchangeable. This fact confirms what we have said. For there is nothing
else stronger than it to move it - since that would mean more divine - and it
has no defect and lacks none of its proper excellence (De Caelo 279a30-35).
" See Elders, Aristotle's Cosmology, pp. 94-7.

14
Unless otherwise noted, the translations of De Caelo are taken from J. L. Stocks,
De Caelo, The Works of Aristotle Translated into English 2 (Oxford, 1922).
!5 See Moraux, Du del, p. xliv and note 5. But according to Alexander, as quoted by
Simplicius, the whole passage would refer exclusively to the sphere of the fixed stars;
see Simplicius, In De Caelo, ed. I. L. Heiberg, in Aristotelis De Caelo commentaria,
Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 7 (Berlin, 1894), 287:21 ff.
5. The Arabic translation of Aristotle's text makes an important
and characteristic interpretative change by rendering "divine"
(to theion) as "spiritual" (al-shay' al-ruhani) and making it the
First Cause. Here is the text Averroes had in front of him:
We have explained in our books on exoteric philosophy, i.e. those which we
wrote for the general public, that the spiritual must be unchanging and inde-
structible by necessity, because it is the cause of all of the heaven's causes,
there being no other cause beyond it. It is, as has been stated, unchanging
and unalterable, perfect, complete, and perpetual in eternity, because above
it there is no other intelligible cause which moves it; and if there were
another cause, this in its turn would be enduring and eternal, and nothing
more excellent would be beyond it.">
But the next passage in Aristotle's text seems to ascribe move-

ment to this very realm of transcendent and divine principles:
Its unceasing movement, then, is also reasonable, since everything ceases to
move when it comes to its proper place, but the body whose path is the circle
has one and the same place for starting point and goal (De Caelo 279bl-3).
Here, even though the subject is the circular body, we find the
same attributes as were used for "the things out there" (takei)
immediately before. Whether it is ultimately to be considered as
an interpolation
17
or not, the passage has baffled interpreters
until our time.
6. Averroes copes with the apparent inconsistency in
Aristotle's doctrine as well as does any of his predecessors or
successors. In the Middle Commentary, the difficulty is stated
outright:
16
See Kitab al-Sama' wa-al-'Alam, in Aristutdlis fi al-Sama' wa-al-Athdr al-
'Ulwiyya, ed. 'Abd al-Rahman Badawi (Cairo, 1961), 194:17-195:7; the quotation is
revised on the basis of Averroes' Tafsir Kitab al-Sama' wa-al-'Alam, MS Tunis, al-
Maktaba al-Wataniyya, collection al-Ahmadiyya 5538 (see my facsimile edition:
Commentary on Aristotle's Book On the Heaven and the Universe by Ibn Rushd,
Publications of the Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Sciences, series C, vol.
37 [Frankfurt am Main, 1994], p. 65, c. 100). Note 'the spiritual': al-shay' al-ruhdni;
'the cause of all of the heaven's causes': 'Mat kull 'ilia min 'ilaliha [sc. 'Hal al-sama"]
according to the Latin versions of Gerard of Cremona and Michael Scot (confirmed by
the Eastern tradition of the Arabic Aristotle and Averroes's comments), against 'Mat
kull 'ilia min 'alamiha of MS Tunis; 'cognizable': ma'luma MS Tunis, ma'lula in the
other MSS.
» See Simplicius, In De Caelo, p. 291; W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek
Philosophy (Cambridge, 1981), vol. 6, p. 261; and Elders, Aristotle's Cosmology, pp.
147-9.
16 GERHARD ENDRESS
It is possible that this whole passage refers to the First Cause and the sepa-
rate principles (al-mabadi' al-mufuriqa), but it may also refer to the heav-
enly body. With regard to his declaration that this is not in a place, it tallies
better with the separate substances, whereas one should think that the
heavenly body is in a place in some way. But considering that the preceding
and following words are on the heavens, it may be supposed that he means
the heavens here too; he goes on saying [here Averroes quotes the closing
passage about the perpetual movement of this "spiritual entity"] - and this
statement fits only the heavenly body.1*1
The Tafslr elaborates on these penetrating observations and

draws upon the Greek commentators - Themistius and his quo-
tations from Alexander - for alternative interpretations, both of
which are admitted because both the First Cause and the ulti-
mate heaven "are living and rational according to Aristotle's
doctrine" (Tafslr I, comm. 100, fol. 80b3-4).
If the First Cause is understood to be meant, it must be in relation to the
outermost sphere, because its motive force appears there at first, and there-
fore he says at the end of Book VIII of the Physics: "Then, the mover is
there," i.e., it occupies the circumference [Physics VIII.10.167b9]. And it is
evident that what is not in matter is not in a place and does not undergo
change since it is not in time. But if we understand the text to refer to the
sphere itself, it is likewise clear that it is not "in a place" according to his
doctrine, because a body would have to be outside it, and it is evident that
there is no body outside of the sphere; nor is it "in time": with respect to the
sphere, this can be understood to mean that it is [rather] the cause of time
(Tafsir I, comm. 100, fol. 80b5-10, cf. 81b6).
The passage is a fine example of Ibn Rushd's method of exege-

sis: In a meticulous interpretation, every aspect of Aristotle's
text and doctrine is taken into consideration and at the same
time a harmonization of apparent - but on closer inspection,
superficial - contradictions achieved.
7. Not only the Arabic version of the Kitab al-Samd' wa-al-
'Alam introducing the First Cause, but also a number of pas-
sages in the original text, would seem to vindicate this
interpretation. Yet whereas in the origina1 Greek, the passages
only imply the theory of the First Mover without ever stating it
explicitly, the Arabic version is explicit. Consider, for example,
18
See Averroes, Talkhls al-Samd' wa-al-'Alam, ed. Jamal al-Din al-'Alawi (Fez,
1984), 141:13-142:7; henceforth Talkhis.
the explanation in II.6 of how the regular movement of the
heavens is related to the unchangingness of the mover:
Since everything that is moved is moved by something, the cause of the
irregularity of movement must lie either in the mover or in the moved or in
both. ... As to that which is moved, we have shown that it is primary and
simple and ungenerated and indestructible and generally unchanging; and
the movers has an even better right to these attributes. It is the primary*)
that moves the primary, the simple the simple, the indestructible and
ungenerated that which is indestructible and ungenerated. Since then that
which is moved, being a body, is nevertheless unchanging, how should the
mover, which is incorporeal, be changed? (De Caelo 288a27-b7.)
In the interpretation of this and similar passages, where the

question of the cause and causality of movement is considered,
Ibn Rushd has constant and legitimate recourse to Book VIII of
the Physics and thus views the text of the De Caelo in the light
of the theory of the First Mover (see Tafslr II, comm. 36, fol.
58a). Again, certain references made by Aristotle himself in
those chapters seem to represent a more recent layer of his doc-
trinal development and thus to justify Ibn Rushd's procedure.
Thus, in IV.3, the cause of movement in the elements is dis-
cussed in terms of the actualization of an intrinsic potentiality -
a notion absent from the earlier parts of the book; further:
But the movement is also due to the original creative force and to that which
removes the hindrance or off which the moving thing rebounded, as was
explained in our opening discussions, where we tried to show how none of
these things moves itself (De Caelo 311a9-12).
This is a clear reference to Physics VII.1.241b24 or VIII.4.254b7

and 254b33-256a3721 and is interpreted by Averroes accord-
ingly, with precise references {De Caelo Commentarium
Magnum TV, comm. 25, fol. 117va20-bl6).
8. Closest to Aristotle's system of homocentric planetary
movement (developed by him at a later period), and announcing
the theory of the First Mover in the context of the De Caelo, is
11.12. It represents an intermediate stage where the supreme
member of a hierarchy of planetary souls, in possession of
19
The Arabic version has "the first mover," al-muharrik al-awwal; see Kitab al-
Samd' wa-al-'Alam, ed. Badawi, p. 250.
2° The Arabic version has "the first cause," al-illa al-ula.
21
Cf. Elders, Aristotle's Cosmology, p. 31 and Moraux, Du del, p. 164.
18 GERHARD ENDRESS
perfection without exertion, acts as a final cause above the first
heaven - an unmoved mover, though not actually called so in
the text.22 This is a passage of special importance for the
medieval commentator because it permitted linking the doc-
trine of planetary souls (see below, Section 12) with the agency
through desire of the Unmoved Mover - the famous topic of
Aristotle's theology. This reference is underlined by a note in
Ibn Rushd's Long Commentary on De Caelo on the systematic
relationship between natural philosophy and metaphysics,
recalling similar statements in his introductions to the Short
Commentaries on the Physics and of the Metaphysics:
Demonstration in an absolute way^ in this science is founded on the propo-
sitions accepted from natural science and theological science: It has been
explained in the Physics that the mover of the celestial bodies is not in mat-
ter, and in the book De Anima that what is of this kind is intellect, and in the
first treatise [of De Anima] that the intelligible form [i.e., soul] is moved only
through desire coming from its intellect; hence this must have its object in
imagination" - it is a celestial body exercising desire (De Caelo Com-
mentarium Magnum II, comm. 61, fol. 65vb34-42).25
The fundamentals of epistemology - where the demonstration

of existence, essence, and cause constitutes a hierarchy and
interdependence between the sciences of physics and meta-
physics - not only justify, but require systematic cross-refer-
ences between the disciplines; these fundamentals were
established by Aristotle in Metaphysics VI. 1 and are constantly
called upon by Averroes as a guideline for philosophic method.26
9. But in De Caelo we find other statements contradicting
22 Easterling, "Homocentric spheres," pp. 151-3.

23 For the Arabic terminology underlying Michael Scot's Latin version (demonstra-
tio simpliciter, i. e., al-burhdn al-mutlaq), see Ibn Rushd, Tafsir Ma Ba'd al-Tabi'a,
ed. M. Bouyges, Bibliotheca Arabica Scholasticorum, serie arabe, V, 1-2, VI, VII
(Beirut, 1938-1952), 703:11. In his paper delivered at the Symposium Averroicum II
"Mulahazat fi tatawwur nazariyyat al-burhan 'inda Ibn Rushd" (forthcoming in
Majallat Kulliyyat al-Adab wa-al-'Ulum al-Insaniyya of the University Sidi
Mohammed ben Abdallah, Fez), notes 19-27, Jamal al-Din al-'Alawi examines the
barahin mutlaqa at some length.
24 See Averroes, Commentarium Magnum in Aristotelis De Anima I, comm. 89, p.
119, and II, comm. 20, p. 159.
26
For the Latin text, see Averroes, Commentarium Magnum in Aristotelis De
Caelo, in Aristotelis Opera cum Averrois Cordubensis Commentariis (Venice, 1550).
26 See below, Sections 16 and 21; also Jamal al-Din al-'Alawi, "Ishkal al-'alaqa bayn
al-'ilm al-tabi'i wa-ma ba'd al-tabf a 'inda Ibn Rushd," Majallat Kulliyyat al-Adab wa-
al-'Ulum al-Insaniyya, Special Issue 3 (1988): 7-51 and "Mulahazat," Section 2.
what Aristotle says about the First Mover in his Physics and
Metaphysics. Most striking is II.3, where Aristotle sets out to
inquire why there is more than one motion in the universe even
though circular motion, as was shown before, has no contrary:
here, he claims that it is because there must be something at
rest at the center. The deduction begins with the following pre-
misses:
Everything which has a function exists for its function. The activity of God
[the Arabic has al-shay' al-ilahl, "the divine entity"] is immortality, i.e. eter-
nal life. Therefore the movement of that which is divine must be eternal. But
such is the heaven, viz. a divine body, and for that reason to it is given the
circular body whose nature it is to move always in a circle (286a8-ll).
In Metaphysics XII.7, the First Mover is described in very simi-

lar terms; but there, it is unmoved: Not the heaven, moving in
eternal circular movement, but the First Mover, unmoved in
eternally actual thought, is said to possess supreme activity.
The inconsistency would be removed if we could take theos
("God") to stand for to theion soma ("the divine body"), as
Simplicius would have it.27 Though this is not what Aristotle
says, the Hellenistic and medieval commentators - contrary to
modern philological analysis, which detects inconsistencies in
Aristotle's thought and in the redaction of his text28 - deemed
interpretation to be true when the consistency of the text was
proved and the truth thereby defended.
The problem offered by our text is not raised in Averroes'
Compendium; he just mentions the "eternal mover" as opposed
to the "eternally moved."29 The Talkhis manages to recast the
text into the smooth elegance of syllogistic deduction:
Every existing thing exists for its function. For the divine and eternal, dura-
tion and immortality [al-dawam wa-al-baqa'] must be the activity of its sub-
stance and essence, and this [essence] is the eternal life. If there is eternal
life, there must be an eternal living being moving eternally, and this moving
thing must be a body in circular motion \jism mustadir] (Talkhis, 199:4-
200:2).
2' Simplicius, In De Caelo, 397:5.

28
See F. Solmsen, "Platonic influences in Aristotle's physical system," in Plato and
Aristotle in the Mid-Fourth Century (Goteborg, 1960), p. 232, n. 2.
29
See Averroes, [Jawdmi'J Kitab al-Sama' wa-al-'Alam in Rasa'il Ibn Rushd
(Hyderabad, 1947), 42:18; henceforth Jawami'.
20 GERHARD ENDRESS
Where Aristotle spoke of a supreme, divine essence which, being
both eternal life and eternal movement, is identified with "the
heaven, viz. a divine body," Averroes has on the one side the
eternal, circular movement of the heavens, and on the other
side, a divine being, whose essence is eternal life - a reference to
Metaphysics XII.7.1072b27, but also echoing the "best and most
self-sufficient of lives" of the things beyond the outermost
motion in De Caelo I.9.279a20-22.
10. Ibn Rushd's procedure is vindicated by an apparent
(though not very explicit, and probably interpolated) cross-
reference to Metaphysics XII.8 in De Caelo I.8.277b8-13:
The same [sc. that there cannot be more than one heaven] could also be
shown with the aid of the discussions which fall under First Philosophy, as
well as from the nature of the circular movement which must be eternal
both here and in the other worlds.
This would seem to refer to the demonstration given by

Aristotle in Metaphysics 1074a31-38: If there were more than
one world, there would be multiple unmoved movers, albeit
specifically identical; but such numeric multiplicity would pre-
suppose the presence of matter, which is impossible in the case
of the First Mover who is pure entelechy.30 The "nature of the
circular movement" points to a second argument: in order to be
identical with each other essentially, the circular movements
constituting generation and corruption in the other worlds
would have to be homocentric {De Caelo II.3).
The Arabic translator of De Caelo combined both aspects into
one argument, stating explicitly that the circular movement can
only be one:
He [sc. who studies the problem of multiple worlds] should also be convinced
by what we have written in the discourses on the First Philosophy; in fact,
we explained there that the circular movement is one and without beginning
or end, whether in this our world or in the other worlds, and then we
deduced from this movement that the heaven is one and the world is one
necessarily (Kitab al-Sama' wa-al-'Alam, 186:1-5).
Averroes draws the further consequence, in agreement with the

relevant chapter of Metaphysics XII, of linking the unity of the
circular movement with the unity of the First Mover which, in
3f See Moraux, Du ciel, p. 157; and Elders, Aristotle's Cosmology, p. 134.
31
turn, can be the cause of only one world. He takes care to
stress, true to his epistemological method, that this is "posited
as a principle" (aqdwil tuda' ka-al-usul, Tafsir I, comm. 70, fol.
69bl9) in the Metaphysics, but "explained" (tabayyana, 69b24)
only in the Physics (VIII.6), viz.
that the circular locomotion must be one and eternal and that the mover
imparting this motion cannot be in matter; and it is explained in divine
science that what is not in matter cannot comprise more than one existent.
... It has also been explained that by one mover only one thing is moved
(Tafsir I, comm. 90, fol. 70a4-8).
But since the First Mover moves through desire in virtue of the
celestial intellect conceiving it, why should not more than one
heaven be moved through desire for the First, as any one con-
cept of the human mind may move more than one intellect con-
ceiving it?32 It is because in the case of the heaven, contrary to
the concepts of the human imagination,
what is conceived [mutasawwar] there, is one and the same in all respects,
and hence the concept [tasawwur], like the object conceived, is one and the
same; and if this is one, it can be found for one [intellect] conceiving it [li-
mutasawwir wahid]. But in mankind, the concept is not the same in many
[acts of] conception of many [minds] conceiving it; in this way, we must
understand the way of conceiving in the [multiple] heavenly bodies (Tafsir I,
comm. 90, fol. 70al7-22).
This is with respect to the planetary spheres as distinguished

from the sphere of the fixed stars (the first heaven). It is a nec-
essary distinction because Aristotle assumes an unmoved mover33
for each eternal movement in Metaphysics XII.8.1073al4-bl7.
To be sure, from a modern critical point of view, "the doctrine
of the 'intelligences' which move the spheres is hardly consis-
tent with the doctrine of the simple first mover in ch. 7 (cf.
1072bl3 f.), and is late."^ But only the mover of the sphere of
3' The same reference to Metaphysics XII.8 is quoted from Alexander by Simplicius,
ad locum, In De Caelo 270:5-9: "In the Metaphysics he shows, according to Alexander,
that the mover of the circular movement is one ... if this is one, the body moved by it
is also one, and if the body in circular movement is one, the cosmos is by necessity
one." But this interpretation was not available to Averroes through Themistius.
32
This is the very question posed by Alexander, apud Simplicium, In De Caelo
270:9; see Alexander Aphrodisiensis, Maqala fi Mabadi' al-Kull, in Aristu 'inda al-
'Arab, ed. 'Abd al-Rahman Badawi (Cairo, 1947), 267:13-268:12.
33 See Simplicius, In De Caelo 270:14.
^ W. D. Ross, Aristotle's Metaphysics (Oxford, 1924), vol. 2, p. 384.
22 GERHARD ENDRESS
the fixed stars is described as the first and as one and unique in
producing only one kind of motion.35
11. Still, the plurality of the celestial spheres - triads of
unmoved movers, celestial souls, and aetherial bodies - pre-
sented difficulties with regard to their relation and essence. It is
evident and well-known that over the length of his develop-
ment, Ibn Rushd disassociated himself from the Neoplatonic -
Farabian, or, for that matter, Avicennian - model of emanation.
In the context of the De Caelo, the problem comes up in II.8,
where the homogeneity of the celestial bodies among each other
is implied: Aristotle establishes, by eliminating all other models,
that the spheres move while the stars are at rest. One of his
arguments is based upon the observation that the moon always
shows us one and the same side; hence it does not rotate by
itself (De Caelo 290a24-29). In concluding that this also holds
for the other celestial bodies (whose nature is not discussed at
all in this chapter), he presupposes - as Averroes explicates in a
formal syllogism - that the stars are identical in species: et hoc
non est exemplum sed demonstratio super hoc quod stelle sunt
eedem in specie (De Caelo Commentarium Magnum II, comm.
49, fol. 62ra3-5).36
The celestial bodies are of the same species; each is the only
representative of its species, unique in its sphere. While of the
same genus, they are not different in species because of any
"difference in the parts and in the centers of their movements"
- as asserted by Avicenna.37 If they were, they would have to be
composed of different form and matter and would thus be gen-
erated and corruptible (De Caelo Commentarium Magnum II,
comm. 49, fol. 62ra5-14; see also, below, Section 18). As for the
35
See H. A. Wolfson, "The plurality of immovable movers in Aristotle, Averroes,
and St. Thomas," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 63 (1958): 233-53;
reprinted in Wolfson, Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion, ed. I.
Twersky, G.H. Williams, 2 vols (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), vol. 1, pp. 1-21 (esp. pp. 10-
11).
36
Cf. Talkhis 237:15-17: law wujidat hadhihi al-haraka a'ni al-dawriyya fi kawkab
wahid la-lazima an tujad fijami'iha idh kanat tabi'atuha wahida bi-al-naw'.
37
Avicenna says, after presenting his emanationist cosmology, that the multiplicity
inherent in the intermediate intelligences - attending the process of emanation -
does not involve an identical series of multiple products caused by each: "Nor do
these intelligences agree in [their] species." See Kitab al-Najat (Cairo, 1938), 278:6,
or ed. M. Taqi Danishpazhuh (Teheran 1363/1985), 657:7; and al-Shifa', al-Ildhiyyat,
ed. G. C. Anawati and Sa'id Zayid (Cairo, 1960), 407:7. Averroes sides with al-Farabi
here; see Mabadi' Ara' Ahl al-Madlna al-Fadila, ed. Richard Walzer as Al-Farabi on
the Perfect State (Oxford, 1985), 120:4 and commentary, p. 375.
assumption of eccentric movements, it is a premiss wrong from
the outset, as are the assumptions of all "the mathematicians"
supporting the Ptolemaic system (ibid. 62ral8-26; see below,
Section 20). Concerning the diversity of direction - the move-
ment of the first heaven is opposite to the direction of the other
spheres - an analogy is set up between the motions of self-
moved animals and self-moved (qua ensouled) celestial bodies
(see below, Section 13). But while in the Tahafut al-Tahafut,
Ibn Rushd maintained that "the diversity of the heavenly bod-
ies in the direction of their movements rests on their diversity
of species and the fact that this difference in the directions of
their movements forms the 38 specific differentia of their species is
something proper to them," he disavowed this un-Aristotelian
survival in the Long Commentary on De Caelo:
The diversity of the parts [i.e., directions] of movement does not involve a
diversity of specific forms, because the diversity of movement is like the
diversity of animals moving right and left, and it is evident that such diver-
sity exists in one and the same species, as in man (Commentarium Magnum
II, comm. 49, fol. 62ral4-18).39
However, he concludes that the agreement in species, in the

realm of the heavens, is stated "according to prior and posterior,
not univocally," i.e., in amphibolous predication. The celestial
beings are not forms-in-matter, yielding several exemplars of
one species, because the moving form, not being in matter, can-
not constitute more than one substance (cf. Tafslr, fol. 70a4-8,
quoted above, Section 9); but they are ensouled individuals - we
shall come to this matter in the next Part - and "the nature of
each individual thereof is other than the nature of another in
some way, and the natures moving each are in agreement and
disagreement accordingly" (Commentarium Magnum ibid., fol.
62ra29-31).
What is important in the present context is Ibn Rushd's over-
all approach of linking the indications of natural science with
the universals of metaphysics. Celestial physics and meta-
38
See Averroes, Tahafut al-Tahafut, ed. M. Bouyges, Bibliotheca Arabica
Scholasticorum, Serie Arabe, Vol. 3 (Beirut, 1930), 49:15-50:1; for the English trans-
lation, see S. van den Bergh, Averroes' Tahafut al-Tahafut (London, 1954), vol. 1, pp.
28-9.
as This long commentary was written a decade after the Tahafut al-Tahafut. H. A.
Wolfson's attempt to harmonize these statements seems inconclusive; see "The plu-
rality of immovable movers," vol. 1, pp. 15-16.
24 GERHARD ENDRESS
physics could be brought into a harmonious system, where
apparent contradictions could be reconciled. Concluding his dis-
cussion of the problem of multiple worlds (quoted above,
Section 10), Ibn Rushd refers his readers to the Metaphysics:
And perhaps, if we see the limit of our lifespan, we shall explain this matter
in a literal commentary on Aristotle's doctrine in this science: this is one of
our most ardent hopes, and perhaps God in His grace and mercy, will grant
us this spell and will let us achieve this goal - He is beneficient and generous.
[Tafsir I, comm. 90, fol. 70a23-25]
Indeed, the fundamental questions of cosmology, which he con-

sidered crucial for the foundation of a true metaphysics, contin-
ued to dominate Ibn Rushd's project, a project consummated in
the Commentarium Magnum of Aristotle's Metaphysics - the
crowning achievement of his later years.
THE CELESTIAL SOULS
12. The Book on the Heavens shows Aristotle threading his way
between contending views about the principles of movement in
the universe. Against Plato, who believed in the self-movement
of souls, he evolved the impossibility of self-movement with, in
consequence, the concept of an unmoved mover. Likewise, the
concept of the fifth element, aither, as a deity possessing soul,
contended with his own attempt to fit it in as a physical element
like the other four, with a motion due to natural causes.
Accordingly, ether was meant to replace the astral soul and be
elevated to become the only cause of the circular movements of
the celestial bodies. The Neoplatonists, as also some Platonists
and Aristotelians before them, did not accept this theory; but
this imposed upon them the duty of explaining how the celestial
beings, composed as they are of soul and body, could remain
eternal. The Arab commentator was heir to these converging
traditions; the difficulty,
40
as it presented itself to Ibn Rushd,
remained unsolved.
In a Platonic context, ensouled celestial bodies would form an
intermediate level between the realm of transcendent forms and
the sensible world: soul, the intelligible form of a corruptible
*> See Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 6, pp. 87 and 264 ff.; and P.
Merlan, "Greek philosophy from Plato to Neoplatonism," The Cambridge History of
Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge, 1967), p. 41.
body, mediates between sensible and intelligible being. In the
circular movement of the heavens, soul, the principle of
self-movement, imitates the sublime immobility of the Beyond.
Notwithstanding the outspoken opposition established by
Aristotle 41between the region of the stars and that of the four
elements and his introduction of a self-moving fifth element
(as opposed to individual celestial souls) as the primary princi-
ple of circular movement, Aristotle seems to admit ensouled
celestial bodies in some earlier passages; in others, soul is
denied the role of originating eternal movement.42
13. In II.2, Aristotle explains that there is a right and left in
the heaven and argues against the Pythagoreans that these
principles, as also above and below, front and back, are confined
to animate beings.
Since we have already determined that functions of this kind belong to things
which possess a principle of movement [i.e. to animals, as explained at the
beginning of the present chapter], and that the heaven is animate [Greek,
empsychos; Arabic, mutanaffis] and possesses a principle of movement [cf.
I.9.279a28: heaven is the source of all life and movement], clearly the heaven
must also exhibit above and below, right and left (De Caelo 285a27-31).
Also in 11.12, where the complexity of the planetary movements

and the agency of the First are dealt with in a manner already
close to Aristotle's later doctrine (cf. above, Section 8), the plan-
ets are still represented as living, animate beings:
We have been thinking of the stars as mere bodies, and as units with a ser-
ial order indeed but entirely inanimate; but should rather conceive them as
enjoying life and action. On this view the facts cease to be surprising. For it
is natural that the best-conditioned of all things should have its good with-
out action ... just as with men's bodies ... (292al8-28).
The variety in the motion of the planets is explained by the

assumption of a conscious activity of ensouled, living beings,
directed toward the imitation of God, but in various degrees of
perfection. The supramundane beings attain this end without
any activity (praxis, 292a22):
41
42
Medieval discussions of this problem were first surveyed by H. A. Wolfson in
"The problem of the souls of the spheres from the Byzantine commentaries on
Aristotle through the Arabs and St. Thomas to Kepler," Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 16
(1962): 65-93; reprinted in Wolfson, Studies, vol. 1, pp. 22-59.
26 GERHARD ENDRESS
The first heaven finds it immediately with a single movement, and the bod-
ies intermediate between the first and last heavens attain it indeed, but at
the cost of a multiplicity of movement (292b22-25).
This passage fitted in easily, and this is stressed in Ibn Rushd's

systematic comments (quoted above, Section 8), with what
Aristotle said elsewhere about the origin and nature of the
celestial movement, the First Mover, and the cosmic soul.
14. But other statements in Aristotle's De Caelo document a
further development, discarding the Platonic tripartite division
of the levels of being. The heavens are formed of the circular
fifth element, and their outer sphere is the utmost reality; soul
is said to go against the eternal perfection of the celestial revo-
lution. In these passages, no Platonic world of principles beyond
the heaven (as in 1.9) is mentioned. The most explicit statement
is in II. 1 (cf. also II.9), which in solemn words describes the
eternity and divinity of the first heaven:
It is effortless, because it needs no constraining necessity to keep it to its
path, and prevent it from moving with some other movement more natural
to itself. ... Nor, again, is it conceivable that it should persist eternally by the
necessitation of a soul. For a soul could not live in such conditions painlessly
or happily, since the movement involves constraint, being imposed on the
first body, whose natural motion is different, and imposed continuously. It
must therefore be uneasy and devoid of all rational satisfaction (284al5-16,
27-32).
Here a radical distinction is made between the sublunar world

of generation and corruption - the world of soul which imposes
variable movement upon its perishable substrate - and the
celestial world of the eternal deity, the world of intellect enjoying
the "rational satisfaction" (rastone emphron) of self-contempla-
tion. But the identity of the self-moving substance with the
self-contemplating intellect, the First Mover, is not yet stated. It
was to be based upon the insight that the divine essence must
be free from movement; in the final analysis, the celestial bodies
could not truly be called divine.43 The Neoplatonic synthesis
sought to reconcile these conflicting statements with one
another and with the Platonic concept of the world-soul and
star-souls: At the lower end of the descending hierarchy of
divine henads, intellects, and souls, the unfolding of being
« See Elders, Aristotle's Cosmology, pp. 179-82 and above, Section 3.
through contemplative reversion upon the First Cause consti-
tuted a triad of intellect, soul, and intelligible matter.
But if taken at face value, both the Greek and the Arabic text
of II. 1 could be understood to mean implicitly that the souls of
the heavenly body (called dhu 'aql, "having intellect" in the
Arabic version),44 notwithstanding their existence, were not the
necessitating agents in their eternal movement. Ibn Rushd
makes it explicit in his Middle Commentary:
The cause in the duration of its [sc. the heaven's] movement is not the fact
that it has a soul [annahd dhat nafs] and that the soul should enforce this
upon it (Talkhis, 190:8-9).
15. In the Jawdmi', Averroes is silent about the topic of II. 1 -

the divinity of the heavenly body - taking together, as in other
cases, several passages that cover the same ground in a single
exposition. Instead, he deals with soul in the celestial sphere in
connection with the directions of right, left, etc. (De Caelo, II.2)
in great detail:
The Philosopher suggests by his discourse on these things what has become
evident before with respect to this heavenly body: that it is animate
[mutanaffis]. This is virtually stated in the previous explanation of its being
moved by itself. That it is animate appears also - as Alexander says - from
its being eternal: the eternal is more excellent than any non-eternal animate
entity, and what is more excellent than any animate thing is necessarily ani-
mate itself, insofar as it is more excellent (Jawdmi', 41:9-14).«
The argument taken from Alexander of Aphrodisias is found in

[Pseudo?-] Alexander's treatise On the Principles of the
Universe, extant in two Arabic translations.46 But the neat
« This translates 284a31, "it must therefore be without leisure [ascholon] and
devoid of all rational satisfaction," as mashghula 'adima li-kull raha ka'ina min dhi
'aql, but it is not taken up in Ibn Rushd's Talkhis which has a positive equivalent: fi
ghayat al-jahl wa-al-nasb (190:10). The criticism of the "plurality of gods" in the clos-
ing paragraph (191:3) is due to the Arabic version which converts the positive refer-
ence to popular religion (284b3) into a polemic against polytheism.
« See also Talkhis [Jawdmi'] <'Ilm> Ma Ba'd al-Tabi'a, IV.7. In the edition of
Carlos Quiros Rodriguez, Averroes, Compendia de Metafisica (Madrid, 1919), this cor-
responds to pp. 129-30; and in the edition of 'Uthman Amin, Ibn Rushd, Talkhis Ma
Ba'd al-Tabi'a (Cairo, 1958), to p. 127.
« See Maqala fi MabadV al-Kull, p. 254. The harmonizing tendency in this work,
especially in the closing passage, has led D. Gutas to doubt its authenticity: the
"apologetic attitude" discerned here, "in all probability addressed to Christians,"
would point "to a composition date of the treatise in late Alexandrian times,"
28 GERHARD ENDRESS
syllogism is Ibn Rushd's, and it is perfectly in keeping with the
commentator's intention to present Aristotle as the paragon of
demonstrative science.
In the same vein, and providing a very apt transition to the
explanation of the plurality of circular movements in the heav-
ens occurring in II.3, he proceeds to link the doctrine of the
ensouled heaven with the doctrine of intellect and of the First
Mover:
Which part from among the parts of the soul belongs to it will appear when
the number of its parts are enumerated and each part of the soul in the ani-
mate beings is explained (JawamV, 41:14-16).
This is of course the rational soul,47adduced explicitly in this con-

text by the Greek commentators and by Averroes himself in
his 4Compendium of the Metaphysics (see also below, Section
16). 8This is implied in the subsequent elaboration:
We may also explain [in this connection] that it [sc. the celestial body] com-
prehends through intellect [mutasawwir bi-al-'aql] according to the expla-
nation given in divine science, where it has been stated that its movement
arises from desire towards a mover which is intellect; and what is in such a
way arises necessarily from intellectual comprehension (JawamV, 41:16-19).
We may compare this concise reference to the Metaphysics with

Averroes' Tafsir on XII.7 and with his shorter systematic
49
out-
line in his Short Commentary on the same work:
Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition (Leiden, 1988), p. 217. Consider also the
doubts expressed by Shlomo Pines, "The spiritual force permeating the cosmos
according to a passage in the Treatise on the Principles of the All ascribed to
Alexander of Aphrodisias," Studies in Arabic Versions of Greek Texts and in Medieval
Science, The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines (Jerusalem, Leiden, 1986), vol. 2, pp.
252-5. Note that there is no corresponding passage in the excerpts from Alexander in
Themistius' commentary on De Caelo, for it has a long lacuna at this place.
« Simplicius, In De Caelo 388:14-25, with reference to II.12.292al8: "for to act is
proper to the rational soul in itself."
« Jawami' Ma Ba'd al-Tabi'a, IV.22, Quiros, p. 137 and Amin, p. 134: "The planets
have no other part of the soul than the one constituted by intellectual comprehen-
sion" (al-tasawwur al-'aqli, i. e., noesis).
4
» In the Arabic version of the Aristotelian text, as in Averroes' own expositions, the
principle at work in the moving of desire toward the First Cause - thought [noesis] -
is called al-tasawwur bi-al-'aql. See Tafsir Ma Ba'd al-Tabi'a, 1598:4 and ff., corre-
sponding to Metaphysics XII.7.1077a30, and the passage cited next. The Jawami' Ma
Ba'd al-Tabi'a was written shortly after the Jawami' al-Tabi'iyydt; see Jamal al-Din
al-'Alawi, al-Matn al-Rushdi: Madkhal li-qira'ajadida (Casablanca, 1986), pp. 57-9.
It has been established in that science [i.e, psychology] that the forms have
two kinds of existence, sensible or quasi sensible - the existence they have
insofar as they are in matter - and intelligible existence insofar as they are
separable from matter. Consequently, if there are forms which have exis-
tence qua not being in matter, they must be separate intelligences, since
there is not a third kind of existence belonging to forms as forms. Thus it is
plain that these movers have existence only qua being intelligences. As to
how they move the heavenly bodies, there is only one way: through intellec-
tual comprehension ['alajihat al-tasawwur bi-al-'aql], which is followed by
desire, as the form of the beloved moves the lover. Accordingly, the heavenly
bodies must have intellects by necessity, since they are subjects of [intellec-
tual] comprehension: this is a demonstration both of cause and of existence.
Since the movement will result only from desire, they will have rational
desire, and they have only this [sc. the rational] part of the soul (IV.24-26,
Quiros, 139:1-16 and Amin, 135 ult.-136:10).
The doctrine of ensouled heavenly bodies - the earlier, Platonic

principle of self-movement - is combined with the principle of
natural movement, Aristotle's original contribution in the De
Caelo, and both are harmonized with the theology of the
Unmoved Mover who moves - i.e., who actualizes the natural
capacity of movement - through an intellectual desire aroused
by contemplation. We must keep in mind that this doctrine is
not mentioned, or even alluded to, in the earlier parts of the
work; only in 11.12 does a transition to the system of the
Metaphysics become discernible - the First Intellect seen as the
First Mover of a celestial system of homocentric spheres - but
the stars are still conceived as "enjoying life and action" (see
above, Section 12). Not only did the Neoplatonic commentator
Simplicius form a consistent theory from Aristotle's various
statements, but Alexander of Aphrodisias, Averroes' star wit-
ness for the authentic exegesis of the First Teacher, also pre-
sents the celestial bodies as animate and moved by intellectual
desire towards the First Mover both in his commentary on the
Metaphysics (a main source of Ibn Rushd's own Tafsir) and,
more succinctly, in the Arabic treatise On the Principles of the
Universe, using words very close to Averroes' own.50
In the details of concept and argument, the falasifa differed
while united to reconcile the concurrent models for explaining
the eternity of circular motion: caused by "nature" (the circular
being the natural movement for the celestial bodies as the recti-
linear is for the four sublunar elements), caused by soul (being
«° See Maqala fi Mabadi' al-Kull, 268:12-17 and 269:10-11. Cf. above, n. 46.
30 GERHARD ENDRESS
self-moving in itself), and caused, ultimately, by the First Cause
(being the unmoved object of rational desire). Ibn Sina had
maintained the Neoplatonic model (as found in Simplicius) of
the celestial souls: immaterial, and hence eternal, because no
contrary is imposed on a material substrate (cf. De Caelo II.3);
exercising free choice {ikhtiyar, irada); constituting the nature
of the celestial bodies that come forth by emanation, in inces-
sant renewal by virtue of the souls' comprehension (tasawwur)
of their intelligible object (the true principle of movement in the
heavens); and thus producing the circular 51
motion, conveyed by
their "nature" to the heavenly bodies. Against the Neoplatonic
concept of soul as an intermediary between intellect and nature,
gifted with some of the sense-perceptions and with the faculty
of representation, Ibn Rushd insists that in the heavens, soul is
pure reason, called "soul" only ambiguously. But how does it
inform matter and impart movement to finite bodies?
16. The pure rationality of the celestial souls is hinted at in
the JawamV of the De Caelo, but the explanation is referred to
the Metaphysics. There Averroes insists - and it is one of the
principle points of his polemic against Avicenna - that, as a
corollary of this incontestable tenet, the celestial bodies cannot
have phantasia:
The heavenly bodies have only this part from among the parts of the soul [as
distinguished in the De Anima]; indeed, it is impossible that the heavenly
bodies should have sense-perception, for the senses were made in the ani-
mals for the sake of preservation [see below, Section 17], whereas these bod-
ies are eternal. Nor have they faculties of representation, as Ibn Sina states,
for the faculties of representation cannot be without the senses {JawamV Ma
Ba'd al-Tabi'a, IV.26, Quiros, 139:16-22 and Amln, 136:10-13).
The difficulty arises, as we saw in the beginning, from the

antinomy between the Platonic theory of celestial souls and
Aristotle's own doctrine of the celestial movement. But in
Averroes' view, true insight into metaphysics may be gained
51
See Ibn Sina, al-Shifa', al-Sama' wa-al-'Alam, ed. Mahmud Qasim (Cairo, 1969),
pp. 33-4; al-Shifa', al-Ilahiyyat, IX:2-3, pp. 381-401 (French translation, Georges C.
Anawati, La Metaphysique du Shifa', Etudes musulmanes 27 [Paris, 1978-1985], pp.
119-36); Kitab al-Najat, Cairo, pp. 258-66, or ed. Danishpazhuh, pp. 617-34;
Danishnama-i 'Alai, Ilahiyyat, ed. Muhammad Mu'in (Teheran, 1331/1952), Chaps.
51-53 (English translation, Parviz Morewedge, The Metaphysics of Avicenna, A
Critical Translation-Commentary, Persian Heritage Series, no. 13 [London, 1973],
pp. 94-100). Cf. Wolfson, "The problem of the souls of the spheres," pp. 41-5.
through meticulous study and continuous application of a) the
inference in physics that allocates the demonstration of
essences and causes to their respective disciplines and b) the
permissible methods of inference and induction.
Before turning to the arguments raised against Ibn Slna, we
shall glance at some of Abu al-Walid's remarks on methodology
made in this context.
Passing to II.3, Ibn Rushd elaborates on Aristotle's note that
"we have to pursue our inquiries at a distance - a distance cre-
ated not so much by our spatial position as by the fact that our
senses enable us to perceive very few of the attributes of the
heavenly bodies" (268a4-7). With regard to these things, only
certain premisses are available to human induction,
and the things from which are acquired the premisses by which man scruti-
nizes many of the things concerning the heavenly body and through which
he aspires to know their causes are [themselves] derived from the things
which most closely resemble them, viz. the animate bodies, and especially
man, since it has been made clear that this body is animate. However, it is
evident that this [kind of statement] is ambiguous \yuqal bi-al-tashklk],
[being amphibolous] about what is prior and posterior; and therefore this
kind of concept and judgment is weak (Jawami', 42:4-10).
A very similar note in the Middle Commentary expounds on the

analogy between animals and the animate heavens with regard
to the distinction between right and left, above and below, front
and back (corresponding to De Caelo, II.2):
Clearly this statement about directions in the heavens with reference to
those extant in animals is ambiguous [maqul bi-al-taskhik], as also the con-
cept of "ensouled" applied to the heavens. Still, generally accepted premisses
may be employed in demonstration in a certain way, especially in matters for
which no other deduction is possible, to wit, the things for which only prin-
ciples of this kind are available to us. If Aristotle's doctrine is not understood
on this basis, there remain unavoidable apories, such as appeared to Abu
Nasr [al-Farabi] and others (Talkhis, 196:13-18).
It is interesting to note in passing the systematic reasoning

behind Averroes' cross-references to the other parts of philoso-
phy. The "demonstration of existence" will be provided in the
various natural sciences, as, e.g., the parts of the soul in the psy-
chological part of natural philosophy, as referred to in the text
quoted above (Section 15); the "demonstration of causes" is the
privilege of a discipline higher in rank with regard to the lower
32 GERHARD ENDRESS
levels; and such demonstrations for the very highest can be
given only by induction from dala'il perceived in the ones that
come subsequently.52
Hence an inference concerning the essence of the celestial
soul based on what is known about souls must be considered
with caution.
17. The question is taken up in the Tafsir on II.6, where the
unchanging essence of the mover is said to necessitate an
unchanging, and therefore regular, movement of the first
heaven - a statement in accordance both with the theory of
movement in the De Caelo and with Aristotle's later models of
the planetary movements. Aristotle's explanation that "that
which is moved, being a body, is nevertheless unchanging" and
unlike animals "has no place for incapacity, nor consequently,
for retardation or ... acceleration" (288b4-5, 20-21) prompts the
Commentator to take Avicenna to task:
Someone might say that it would be more appropriate with respect to the
[generated and destructible] beings that the heavenly bodies should move
sometimes slower in one place and sometimes quicker in another, this being
for the sake of their intellectual comprehension [sc. of the lower things],
since it has been explained that they do have intellectual comprehension and
are exercising providence toward what is [down] here; and as we find that
the artisan of a thing is sometimes slow in making some parts and some-
times quick in his making others, so the matter might be similar concerning
the world, as concerns the attitude of the celestial bodies toward what is
beneath them. We reply that this would be possible only if it were possible
that they should have conceptions potentially at some time and actually at
another. Since it is evident that their intellection is one and in actu, the con-
clusion that they vary in their movements does not hold. Here Ibn Sina
made a faulty assumption in supposing that the heavenly bodies have a fac-
ulty of imagination. If they had imagination, they would have senses; and if
they had senses, this would be for the sake of preservation; and if they were
in need of preservation, they would undergo destruction (Tafsir II, comm.
37, fol. 42b9-19).
The doctrine attacked here is found in the Metaphysics of Ibn

Sina's Shifa' and summarized in his Najdt:
52
See also JawamV, p. 10: sa-nubayyin hadha ... fi al-falsafa al-ula ... hahuna
innama huwa 'alajihat al-musddara 'aid ma tabayyana fi Kitab al-burhdn. See also,
above, Sections 8 and 21. In addition, for a systematic presentation of the epistemo-
logical principles underlying this procedure - principles which ultimately go back to
Aristotle's Posterior Analytics and to al-Farabi's Kitdb al-Burhdn - see al-'Alawi,
"Mulahazat," Section 2.
It is not admissible that from a stable cause, an unstable thing should come
forth; and you will infer from this fact that the separate intellect [al-'aql al-
mujarrad] is not the immediate principle [mabda' qarib] of any movement
but needs another [intermediate] force which is apt for the will to be
renewed [tatajaddad] in it and is able to imagine the particular locations
[aynat]; and this is called the soul.*"
This soul, not the pure and unchanging intellect, is the origin of
movement in the sphere; it is "corporeal, changeable, and not
separable from matter; but its relation to the [celestial] sphere
is that of our animal soul to ourselves." Contrary to the intel-
lect,
it exercizes intellection mixed in some way with matter. In short, its judge-
ments [sc. of the estimative faculty, awham] or what resembles judgements
[in its case] are veracious, and its imaginations [takhayyulat] or quasi-imag-
inations are true, as is the practical intellect in us; to sum up, its perceptions
are through the body.**
Averroes counters that the senses and the organs of sense-per-

ception exist only in mortal animals "for the sake of preserva-
tion."55 But the relation of the heavens to their principles of
existence and movement is different from the relation between
bodies and souls in the sublunar world, making it possible to
forego the intermediary of imagination postulated by
Avicenna.56
18. The same point is made and the truth of the matter estab-
lished in a more fundamental approach presented as a mas'ala
at the end of Book I of the Talkhis (pp. 177-84). The argument
is very close - even in its wording - to the third, and part of the
sixth, treatise of Ibn Rushd's collection of quaestiones On the
Substance of the Sphere,51 where the relation of matter and form
in the celestial soul is the very problem under discussion.
53 Avicenna, Kitab al-Najat, Cairo, 241:8-10 or ed. Danishpazhuh, pp. 580:14-581:4.

" See Avicenna, al-Shifa', al-Ilahiyyat, IX.2, pp. 386-7 esp. 387:4-7.
56
That is, soterias charin; see Hermann Bonitz, Index Aristotelicus (Berlin, 1870;
Graz, 1955), art. soteria, for references.
se See Averroes, Tahafut al-Tahafut, 271:7-9: "The soul which is in the [celestial]
body has no subsistence [qiwdm] in this body. For this body is not in need of a soul,
as are the bodies of animals, for the continuance of its existence." See also Wolfson,
"The problem of the souls of the spheres," p. 43.
57
See Averroes' De Substantia Orbis, critical edition of the Hebrew text with
English translation and commentary by Arthur Hyman, Corpus Philosophorum
Medii Aevi, Opera Averrois (Cambridge, Mass, and Jerusalem, 1986).
34 GERHARD ENDRESS
Written in the years between the composition of the Talkhls
(which was completed in 566/1171) and 574/1178-9 (the date of
the sixth treatise), they belong to the same period. Ibn Rushd's
position is amply stated in the third treatise:
We affirm that if it is accepted by us that every force in matter is finite ...
and if it is true, as has been shown, that the celestial body is capable of infi-
nite movement, it follows necessarily that it is not composed of matter and
form and that it is simple, that is to say, the celestial body is a simple subject
for the first mover, which is its form. For everything composed of form and
matter is necessarily finite in respect to its receptivity, just as it is finite in
respect to moving something other than itself. Therefore, the peculiar prop-
erty of that which is moved in virtue of itself, namely, the celestial body, is
that its mover is not in matter and that that which is moved by this mover
is simple, not composite.5*
In the Middle Commentary, Averroes starts from thefinalchap-

ters of Book I, where Aristotle had proved that eternal things
had no capacity for corruption. Yet since the celestial body, as
every other body, is finite in dimension, it must have a limited
force and hence
the celestial body must have a capacity for corruption in virtue of itself and
be incorruptible in virtue of an infinite force which is not in matter, i.e., the
force moving it. Alexander has declared this explicitly in one of his treatises,
and Ibn Sina fell in with his opinion, saying that the necessary being is of
two kinds: that which exists necessarily in virtue of itself, and that which is
contingent in virtue of itself and necessary in virtue of another (Talkhls,
178:3-6).<*
One might deem this inference valid, because Aristotle stated

(De Caelo 11.12) that the number of stars in each sphere cannot
be greater than it is since "the force of any limited body is only
adequate to moving a limited body" (293alO-ll). Indeed,
Aristotle insisted, in Averroes's literal quotation:
"And we have said several times that every finite body has also a finite
power. Therefore only one star is in each of the planetary spheres" (De Caelo
293all-12, in the Arabic version, Kitab al-Sama' wa-al-'Alam, 276:5-7, cf.
Talkhls, 178: 10-11).
58 De Substantia Orbis, III, lines 31-37; trans., pp. 102-3; see also pp. 32-5 and p.
113, n. 18 for Hyman's references to Tafsir Ma Ba'd al-Tabi'a, XII, comm. 43 and 44,
pp. 1644-5 and 1649-50.
59
See also De Substantia Orbis III, lines 42-49; trans., pp. 104-5 with an analogous
reference to De Caelo 1.12.
But Aristotle seems to contradict himself, as Averroes points
out immediately:
Now here in his own words, he is claiming that there is a finite force in the
spheres.™ If this were the case, there would be in the eternal a capacity for
corruption, whereas in his former statement [i.e., De Caelo, II. 12, referred to
in the preceding part of the Talkhis] he evidently denies that it should have
a capacity for corruption. But according to this [latter] statement, this would
be a necessary conclusion. This apory was recognized by John the
Grammarian [Johannes Philoponus], who drew the inference that the world
is generated (Talkhis, 178:10-14).
Averroes argues in reply to this apparent contradiction61 that

the term "infinite" may be applied in two senses - infinite in
force and velocity or infinite in continuity and duration - and
that the movement of the celestial bodies is infinite in the latter
sense only. This requires a moving force, itself infinite in time,
but not bound up with the finite body moved by it as form is
bound up with matter.
If the celestial body, moved by the form moving it, were itself composed of
matter and form - as Ibn SIna believed - the apory would apply, since we
would have to believe that an eternal thing had a possibility for being
destroyed without actually being destroyed. But since it has been demon-
strated that there is no eternal thing capable of being destroyed, the celestial
body must be simple, not composite, and consisting of two things only: the
body moved and the form, which is immaterial, moving it (Talkhis,
181:17-22).
The moving form in the celestial62 body is a separate form (sura

mufariqa), not a form-in-matter. If this body were composed of
form and matter, it would be eternal by accident only, which is
absurd; indeed, this body has no substrate and no opposite
(Talkhis, 183:1-11).
«> For this problem, relevant to De Caelo 11.6, see also the Tafslr II, comm. 38, fol
44a-b (quoted by al-'Alawi, Talkhis, p. 226, n. 175).
«' For a very close parallel to the Talkhis, pp. 179-82, see De Substantia Orbis, pp.
105-10. Herbert A. Davidson provides a full exposition and source study of Averroes'
discussions of this problem in the context of his critique of Avicenna's proof of the
existence of a being necessarily existent by virtue of itself in "The principle that a
finite body can contain only finite power," Studies in Jewish Religious and
Intellectual History Presented to Alexander Altmann (Huntsville, Alabama, 1979), pp.
70-80; see also Proofs for Eternity, Creation, and the Existence of God in Medieval
Islamic and Jewish Philosophy (New York, 1987), pp. 321-31.
62 See JawamV Ma Ba'd al-Tabi'a, IV,24, Quiros, pp. 138-9 and Amin, p. 136; see
also De Substantia Orbis, pp. 130-7.
36 GERHARD ENDRESS
The argument is developed in the opening chapters of De
Substantia Orbis: The forms of the celestial bodies "do not sub-
sist in the subject, but they are separated from the subject with
respect to existence" (I, lines 158-159; trans., pp. 68-9). Forms
subsisting in a subject are moved in order to attain perfection
through another form; this motion is finite in virtue of its final
end. It follows "that the form by which the celestial body is
moved is the same as that toward which it is moved" (I, line
162; trans., p. 69). The intellect and the intelligible in the celes-
tial body being one and the same, the form toward which the
sphere is moved and the form by which it is moved are one and
the same (I, lines 168-169; trans., pp. 70-71). It is "in some
respects soul - namely, through the appetite in virtue of which
movement comes upon them", from desire to assimilate to the
First, "and in some respects intellect," thinking its own essence
(II, lines 41-43; trans, p. 81).63 The celestial body functions as
matter for this incorporeal form, but exists in actuality, not
requiring the form for its existence; it constitutes a matter, or
rather subject (mawdu'), only for the purpose of receiving the
celestial form giving it eternal duration (II, lines 47 ff.; trans., p.
82). Alexander's erroneous interpretation provokes Averroes'
exclamation: "No wonder that this escaped Ibn Sina - but how
strange that it should have escaped Alexander!" (Talkhis,
183:12-14). Nonetheless, Alexander acknowledged in his com-
mentary on Metaphysics XII that the heavenly body is simple
and not composed of matter and form. In his commentary on De
Caelo Themistius also said that the heavenly body is not in a
substrate, as did Abu Nasr [al-Farabi] (Talkhis, 183:15-17).
The reference to Alexander of Aphrodisias can again be traced
to his "Principles of the Universe," where it is explained that
the principles of motion in animate bodies are64constituted by
their souls, which are the forms of their bodies. In the case of
the animate bodies of the sublunar world, the souls result from
the particular corporeal mixture that constitutes their body.
However, with respect to the celestial bodies, which are simple,
this is not so. But even in the realm of the heavens - soul being
the form of the celestial body - there exists an analogous insep-
arable connection between the body and the soul. Yet the latter
63
See also Tafsir Ma Ba'd al-Tabi'a, 1078:2-3: sura nafsaniyya 'aqliyya ...
mutanaffisa bi-dhatihd.
M See Maqala ft Mabadi' al-Kull, 256:8-10.
cannot be said to result from the former; in fact, the celestial
body always has been, and always will be, animated by its soul;
and both it and its soul are eternal.6^ But in Ibn Rushd's opin-
ion, the apory remains unsolved as long as the definition of soul
as the form of a bodily substrate is upheld in the case of the
celestial body; only his own proposal will take account of all
these problems. "Body," matter, and form are predicated in dif-
ferent ways - amphibolously - of the elements in the sublunar
world and of the ethereal substances in the celestial world
(Talkhls, p. 182, cf. De Substantia Orbis II, lines 2-3 ff.; trans.,
pp. 74 ff.). It is for this reason that the forms of the celestial
bodies, viz. the celestial66intellects, are not divisible through the
division of their bodies.
Both Johannes Philoponus, through his faulty understand-
ing of the motive force in the heaven, and Ibn Sina, with his
faulty understanding of the first principle,67 had subjected
philosophy to criticism and refutation. Only the true under-
standing of Aristotle's doctrine, and this is the task Averroes
had set for himself, can redeem true philosophy from error and
blame.68
THE MOTIONS OF THE SPHERES
19. Plato, according to a well-known tradition, had enjoined the

astronomers to determine "what uniform and orderly move-
ments must be assumed to account for the apparent motions
of the planets," that is, to "save the phenomena" through
66
See Shlomo Pines, "Omne quod movetur necesse est ab aliquo moveri: A refuta-
tion of Galen by Alexander of Aphrodisias and the theory of motion," Isis, 52 (1960):
45-6; reprinted in Pines, Collected Works, p. 243.
66
This question is taken up in the Tafsir on De Caelo II.3, where Ibn Rushd refers
(fol. 3b21) to a maqala afradnaha fi dhalika, i. e., to the first chapter of De
Substantia Orbis.
«? See De Substantia Orbis, p. 105.
68
It is true that Avicenna would have known how to counter this criticism and,
what is more, that Averroes did not have an adequate basis for judging Avicenna's
doctrine and arguments. Apparently, much of what is relevant for his criticism was
known to him only by way of al-Ghazali's Tahafut. See Davidson, Proofs for Eternity,
Creation and the Existence of God, pp. 311-35, esp. p. 334: "Averroes' critique of the
body of Avicenna's proof [sc. of the First Principle] is to an astonishing extent
grounded in misinformation." In the present context, we must nonetheless keep in
mind that even though Ibn Rushd's criticism goes beyond physical theory, it touches
upon a basic question of valid philosophical method.
38 GERHARD ENDRESS
mathematics: the paradigm was founded on the eternal ideas.69
This was achieved, or very nearly so, at an early age of Greek
science. But Aristotle's assumption that Eudoxus' geometrical
model of concentric spheres was a physical reality, a mechanical
system in conformity with pure mathematics and obeying the
laws of natural movement established in his physical theories,
created new problems. The more precise the astronomical
observation and the more intricate the mathematical calculus of
the celestial revolutions, the more difficult it became to reduce
all the phenomena of the heavens to a coherent system of uni-
form, circular motion, namely, the natural movement of aither,
the celestial substance.
Ptolemy crowned the achievement of his predecessors when
he used an elaborate construction of epicyclic and excentric vec-
tors in order to explain the phenomena of the planetary cycles
in the Almagest. Indeed, he took this both as a mathematical
solution of Plato's assignment and as a true model of the physi-
cal cosmos (a system of nested shells, as sketched out in his
Hypotheses). But this quantitative conception - which was
adopted by some Islamic astronomers as well - had to deal with
the variations in the angular velocity of the excentric deferent,
with the rectilinear variances of progression and recession, and
related difficulties, all of which violated the principle of uniform
circular movement. Consequently, the application of Aristotle's
physical theory to the Ptolemaic system required a new plane-
tary theory.
Some of the solutions put forward by Islamic astronomers
elaborated the mechanics of epicyclic vectors; others returned to
models of concentric spheres. The most strictly Aristotelian
school of the latter party - though less strict in its mathemati-
cal verification - arose in the Andalus. Al-Zarqalluh and Ibn
Tufayl, the latter being Ibn Rushd's own predecessor at the
Almohad court and the teacher of the astronomer Abu Ishaq
al-Bitruji (among the "contemporaries" who are not explicitly
» See Simplicius, In De Caelo, 488:18-24 and 492:25 ff. and Proclus, Hypotyposis
astronomicarum positionum, ed. C. Manitius (Leipzig, 1909), p. 510. Cf. Harold
Cherniss, "The philosophical economy of the theory of ideas," American Journal of
Philology, 57 (1936): 445-56; reprinted in Cherniss, Selected Papers (Leiden, 1977),
pp. 121-32. See also Samuel Sambursky, The Physical World of the Greeks (London,
1956), p. 59 and The Physical World of Late Antiquity (London, 1962); Jiirgen
Mittelstrass, Die Rettung der Phdnomene: Ursprung und Geschichte eines antiken
Forschungsprinzips (Berlin, 1962).
named), are the most prominent advocates of such theories.70
Ibn Rushd was not enough of an astronomer to evaluate the
theories of his predecessors and contemporaries mathemati-
cally.71 His approach is dogmatic, for Aristotle's physical and
metaphysical doctrine, seen and interpreted as a closed system,
that advances from the evidence and induction of existence in
physics to the causes and principles of essence in metaphysics,
required an astronomer - as in Plato's assignment - to provide
calculable models which would link the data of observation with
the essential, unchanging principles of the eternal circular
movement. These principles "pointed" in turn to the cosmic
essences of the spheres, immaterial72soul-intellects moved by the
desire to emulate the First Mover.
20. Aristotle's theory of homocentric spheres and Averroes'
defence of the Aristotelian model against the Ptolemaic system
proceed from two basic assumptions. The first is that the eter-
nal movement of the celestial bodies must be absolutely regular
(De Caelo II.6). And the second is that the theories explaining
their apparent movements should not consider the spheres and
planets as mere mathematical entities, but as animate sub-
stances "enjoying life and action" (II.12.292a21). The model of
homocentric spheres appears fully developed in the Metaphysics
(XII.8, with references to Eudoxus and contributions by other
astronomers). It is absent from the earlier parts of the De Caelo
(II.2, II.3, and most importantly in 11.10), where each planet has
only one motion of its own (291b2) which is opposed to the rev-
olution common to the whole heaven that affects them all.
According to the theory of homocentric spheres, at any rate in
its mechanical form, each planet is subject to a number of
motions all of which constitute a self-contained system and
operate upon that planet alone. This is explained in 11.12, a
chapter standing out from the rest of the book in that it
explains "the principle that underlies the theory of an unmoved
mover and its relation to lower beings, and [shows] how this
70
For a critical edition of Michael Scot's Latin translation of al-Bitruji's text, see De
motibus celorum, ed. Francis J. Carmody (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1952); and for
an edition of the Arabic and Hebrew versions of al-Bitruji's Kitdb fi al-Hay'a with
translation, analysis, and an Arabic-Hebrew-English glossary, see Bernard R.
Goldstein, On the Principles of Astronomy (New Haven, 1971).
" This is something he admitted; see JawamV Ma Ba'd al-Tabi'a, IV. 13, ed. Quiros,
p. 133 and Amin, p. 130; see also below, Section 21.
'2 See also the remarks on method outlined above at the end of Section 16.
40 GERHARD ENDRESS
principle is at work in the celestial system."73 Both elements,
unmoved mover and homocentric spheres, as representing
Aristotle's last word on these matters, were imposed by the
commentators on the De Caelo as well.
Ibn Rushd's attempt to reconstruct Aristotle's true system is
accompanied by constant attacks against Ptolemy's use of epicy-
cles and excentric cycles in his interpretation of the planetary
movements. It is, nonetheless, an attempt hampered by the
overwhelming success of the Ptolemaic system in mathematical
astronomy and compounded by errors 14
of translation in the
Arabic version of the Metaphysics. The starting point is
II.6, where the regularity of the celestial motion is explained.
The short polemic in the JawamV contains no technical
refutation, but argues through postulates and refers to ancient
tradition:
The apparent advancing and receding motion of the [sphere of the fixed]
stars cannot exist in their actual motion. ... This progression and recession
was not observed by the ancient Greeks except in the case of the planets, nor
were many of the multiple motions established by Ptolemy observed by the
Babylonians, such as the movement of the epicycles {JawamV, p. 47).
The Talkhis does not refer to the problem in this context, but
only in connection with the concentric movement of the spheres
around the center: it must be homocentric, because the center
of the earth must coincide with the center of the universe.75
Ptolemy deviated from this principle, because in his model the
center of the deferent axis (the one carrying the epicycles) must
be excentric against the center of the earth, and the center of
the epicycle moves on the eccentric with varying velocity in such
a way that the motion in the eccentric appears to be uniform
only when seen from the punctum aequans - i.e. the point on
the line of apsides whose76distance from the earth is the double
of the linear eccentricity. Averroes objects:
73
See Easterling, "Homocentric spheres," pp. 141ff.and 152; also above, Section 8.
74
See Charles Genequand, Ibn Rushd's Metaphysics: A Translation, with
Introduction, of Ibn Rushd's Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book Lam
(Leiden, 1984), pp. 54 ff.
75
See also Henri Hugonnard-Roche, "Remarques sur revolution doctrinale
d'Averroes dans les commentaires au De caelo: le probleme du mouvement de la
terre," Melanges de la Casa de Velazquez, 13 (Madrid, 1977): 103-17.
'e See Willy Hartner, Oriens - Occidens (Hildesheim, 1968), p. 461.
That the earth is in the center and at rest is attested by the demonstrations
which the mathematicians are accustomed to apply to these matters. If it
were not in the center, as Ptolemy claimed, three possibilities would obtain.
All three of these would result in absurdities and are in evident

contradiction with the evidence of observation (Talkhls,
272:5-15 on De Caelo 11.14). For the rest, the Middle
Commentary contains only one more criticism of Ptolemy (p.
244 on the positions of the upper planets).
21. Still, the problem accompanied Averroes all his life and is
prominent in the Long Commentaries on both the Metaphysics
and the De Caelo, the magisterial works of his last years, both of
which contain numerous references to the problems of celestial
mechanics where the Almagest was at variance with Aristotle.
The commentator founds his attack on a negation of eccentric
circles and epicycles, to be replaced by a system of homocentric
circles about each planet where 77
the poles of one circle rotate in
the plane of the adjacent one. (I shall not go into the intrica-
cies of these discussions; they have been dealt with in some
detail by Francis Carmody78 and would require a more technical
exposition of astronomy and mathematics than is needed here.)
What is striking and relevant for a final perspective of Averroes'
scientific approach is his apparent subordination of applied sci-
ence to metaphysics: Aristotle's true philosophy was founded
upon true science; if this science of the ancients could be
restored, all pieces in the cosmic puzzle would fall into place.
A point in case is Averroes' remark on the order of the plan-
ets. Contrary to the doctrine of Ptolemaean astronomy, the
sphere of the sun must be assumed between the moon and the
remaining planets in order to conform with the principles estab-
lished by Aristotle. In fact, however, Aristotle had not discussed
the relative positions, distances, and velocities of the stars and
planets in detail; these topics are left for empirical astronomy to
treat adequately (De Caelo II.10.291a29-32). The astronomer,
Averroes explains (Commentarium Magnum II, comm. 57, fol.
" See, e.g., Commentarium Magnum De Caelo II, comm. 49, fol. 62ra23-26: "If
diverse centers are assumed, impossible consequences will obtain, as we said; and in
setting down eccentric [circles], the mathematicians did something that Aristotle did
not at all say; but the reason given by him for the [apparent] variation is in the spi-
ral motions [motus leulab]. On lawlab, see below, Section 22.
'8 See F. Carmody, Al-Bitruji, De motibus celorum and Innovations in Averroes De
Caelo (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1982).
42 GERHARD ENDRESS
64ra33-56 ad locum), demonstrates the existence of data appar-
ent from or indicated by sense perception {quid), considered as
mathematical entities abstracted from matter, while the nat-
ural philosopher gives the causes (propter quid) of the same sub-
jects considered as natural substances. But the philosopher
refers to astronomy, as Aristotle does in De Caelo 11.10, because
he considers the causes of those things whose existence has
been established in astronomy:
Now both the natural philosopher and the astronomer engage in the study of
these questions; however, the astronomer mainly gives the existence [quia;
Arabic, anna al-shay*] while the natural philosopher gives the cause Ipropter
quid; Arabic, li-ma al-shay']; what the astronomer mainly gives is based only
on those things that appear to the senses ... the natural philosopher, how-
ever, endeavours to give the cause why this is so \propter quam hoc est supra
ipsam; Arabic li-ma huwa 'aid hadha].™
His short remarks remain limited to the general principle

underlying the relation between the angular velocity of the
planets and their distances with regard to the first heaven. The
absolute speed of the planet nearest to the first revolution (the
circle of thefixedstars) - i.e., Saturn - is greatest, while the oth-
ers are slower, the decrease in velocity being in proportion with
their distance:
For it is the nearest body which is most strongly influenced and the most
remote, by reason of its distance, which is least affected, the influence on the
intermediate bodies varying, as the mathematicians show, with their dis-
tance (De Caelo II.10.291b6-10).«>
While recognizing this general principle, Ptolemy tried to estab-

lish 81
the precise relative order of the planets with respect to the
sun. Based on the observation and computation of the relative
79
Commentarium Magnum II, comm. 57, fol. 64ra35-43. See above, Section 16, at
the end; also al-Farabl, Kitab al-Burhan, in al-Mantiq 'inda al-Fdrabi, ed. M. Fakhri
(Beirut, 1987), vol. 4, 25:11-26:14 and 66:13-17. Consider also Aristotle, Prior
Analytics, I.30.46al7-22: "It falls to experience to provide the principles of any sub-
ject. In astronomy, for instance, it was astronomical experience that provided the
principles of the science, for it was only when the phainomena were adequately
grasped that the proofs in astronomy were discovered." And see G. E. L. Owen,
'"Tithenai ta Phainomena,'" in Aristote et les problemes de methode, ed. S. Mansion
(Louvain, 1961), pp. 83-103.
80
See Elders, Aristotle's Cosmology, pp. 227 ff. and Moraux, Du del, pp. civ ff.
81
See "The Arabic version of Ptolemy's Planetary Hypotheses," ed. B. Goldstein in
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, N. S., 57/4 (1967): 31 (corre-
sponding to fol. 90a3-6).
distances and on the apparent eccentricity of the spheres of
Mercury and the moon, he concluded that the spheres of the
moon, Mercury, and Venus lie below the sun while Mars,
Jupiter, and Saturn lie above.82
Undeterred by the reference in the Arabic version to the ashdb
al-Majisti (Aristotle's mathematikoi, 291b9), Ibn Rushd declares
that the conditions underlying Aristotle's exposition are reconcil-
able only with the "opinion of those who say that the sun is below
Mercury and Venus, and not above - here all the astronomers are
at variance, and the truth of the matter has not yet been estab-
lished" (Commentarium Magnum II, comm. 58, fol. 64rb45-48, cf.
64va30). However, Aristotle's statement on the connection
between the planet's velocity and its distance from the first
heaven does not imply a mathematical, proportional ratio; even
though the sun's motion may be quicker than the motions of
Mercury and Venus, it may nevertheless move in a sphere above,
because its potency surpasses theirs. Nay, you must not conclude from this
[general statement] that the daily motion [of the first heaven] prevents
other movements; such preventing would be constraint, and there is no con-
straint in that place; but these movements are from rational desire. Hence
what is closer to the first sphere has a greater desire, because there local
proximity is similar to mutual proximity of the essences, and this is proxim-
ity in knowledge and in rational cognition: the stronger the cognition of the
first movement, the more perfect the desire towards it will be; and the
stronger the desire, the quicker its motion will be (Commentarium Magnum
II, comm. 58, fol. 64va48-59).83
By a similar argument, Ibn Rushd had rejected the

astronomers' assumption - accepted by al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and
also by Ibn Tufayl - of a ninth sphere beyond the sphere of the
fixed stars which served to explain the precession of the
equinoctial points. This was introduced by Arab astronomers84
who interpreted Ptolemy's Almagest not just as a geometrical
82
Ibid., pp. 27-9 (corresponding to folios 88b24-90a6). For the Arabic tradition, see
Ibn Sina, al-Shifa', 'Urn al-Hay'a, ed. Muhammad Mudawwar and Imam Ibrahim
Ahmad (Cairo, 1980), p. 463 (following Ptolemy); also F. Carmody, Al-Bitruji, De
motibus celorum, pp. 62-4 and 127-9 (but here Venus is above the sun and Mercury
below).
83
We may compare this with Alexander, apud Simplicium, In De Caelo, 472:10 ff.:
The planetary sphere is not moved unwillingly, but in accordance with its "purpose
and desire"; it may be necessity, but is also recognized as good.
84
Literally, moderni Arabes; see the passing mention in Commentarium Magnum
II, comm. 67, fol. 67va56.
44 GERHARD ENDRESS
model for the purpose of mathematical computation, but as
physical reality, with the spheres being solid shells nested
within each other. (This is the very point of the Ptolemaic sys-
tem, as exposed in the Planetary Hypotheses; but Ptolemy, in
attributing two contrary motions to the sphere of the fixed
stars, did not solve the particular contradiction.) The ninth
sphere, called the "universal" or "greatest" sphere, contains no
stars and communicates the diurnal motion of the universe to
the other spheres.85 In the Compendium of the Metaphysics, he
vented his general distrust about the hypotheses disputed
among the astronomers and refuted a model not compatible
with Aristotelian theory:
The sphere is for the sake of the star, this being its noblest part, and hence
the more stars there are in the sphere, the nobler it is - Aristotle stated this
explicitly [De Caelo, 11.12]; the sphere describing the greatest motion is the
noblest, and it is unlikely, nay, impossible in my opinion, that this should be
without stars.1*
In linking the cosmic order with Aristotle's metaphysics - the

cosmic motion originates from the conscious desire of rational
souls towards the Unmoved Mover - Averroes puts forward the
reasoning of philosophy against the celestial mechanics of the
astronomers: "these motions which Ptolemy sets down are
founded 87on ... grounds that are not in agreement with natural
science." But does he betray his own principles (see Section 16,
end) by making the natural phenomena and the facts established
by natural science subordinate to apriori postulates of meta-
physics? The doubt and caution expressed again and again in
view of the difficult and controversialfieldof astronomy may con-
vince us that he does not: The very passion of his apory between
astronomy and metaphysics betrays his awareness that only a
true understanding of the astronomical cosmos will yield true
answers to the ultimate questions of metaphysics. Indeed, it is
the task of metaphysics to "save the phenomena" of observation.
ss See C. A. Nallino, "Astrologia e astronomia pressi i Musulmanni," Raccolta di
scritti editi e inediti (Rome, 1939-1948), vol. 5, pp. 64-6 and 75; S. van den Bergh,
Averroes' Tahafut al-Tahafut, vol. 2, p. 24 (note 3 to vol. 1, p. 21); and R. Walzer, Al-
Farabi on the Perfect State, p. 364.
ss See Jawami' Ma Ba'd al-TabVa, IV.15-16, Quiros, p. 134 and Amin, pp. 131-2; see
also S. van den Bergh's German translation, Die Epitome der Metaphysik des
Averroes (Leiden, 1924), pp. 112-13 and the comment on pp. 244-5.
s' See Commentarium Magnum II, comm. 62, fol. 66ra57.
22. However, the Commentator deplores the astronomers'
(and his own) inability to reconstruct the true Aristotelian cos-
mos, that is, to provide not just a mathematical emulation
which does not contradict his physics, but a true physical
astronomy. Regarding the order of the planets, as also the mod-
els contradicting Aristotle's doctrine of homocentric spheres,
the necessary movements in these things have not yet been demonstrated in
this science: for the movements assumed by Ptolemy are based on premisses
not reconcilable with natural science, sc. eccentrics and epicycles, which are
both false (Commentarium Magnum II, comm. 62, fol. 66ra55-9 ad 11.12).
He felt the truth to be near at hand:

If God grants me life, I shall investigate the [science of the] sphere of
Aristotle's age; and it will turn out that it did not contain any [such] absur-
dities with respect to physical science. This is [the system founded upon]
what Aristotle called "spiral motions" (Tafslr II, comm. 35, fol. 38b22-24).
It is a tragic irony that this "spiral motion" (haraka

lawlabiyya), the term behind which Averroes suspected the
final solution might lie, goes back to a mistake of the transla-
tor.88 But in his old age he dispaired of this hope:
Perhaps the spiral motions, posited by Aristotle in his astronomical model
on the authority of his predecessors would allow us to do without these two
things [i.e., epicycles and eccentric spheres]. ... Ptolemy failed to notice what
had compelled the ancients to accept spiral motions, namely, the impossibil-
ity of the epicycle and the eccentric sphere. When people came to think that
this astronomical model made it simpler and easier to explain the recurrence
of the motions, i.e., that established in Ptolemy's book, they abandoned the
old astronomy; so the knowledge of it passed away, and today one cannot
understand what Aristotle says in this passage on the authority of these peo-
ple. Alexander and Themistius acknowledged this, but they did not under-
stand the reason which we have mentioned. ... I hoped to make a complete
study of this, but now that I have grown old, I have given up this idea
because of the obstacles I found in my way before. But this explanation will
perhaps induce someone to study these things later. In our time, astronomy
is no longer something real; the model existing in our time is a model con-
forming to calculation, not to reality.89
88
See Charles Genequand, Ibn Rushd's Metaphysics, pp. 54 ff.
89
See Averroes, Tafsir Ma Ba'd al-Tabi'a XII, comm. 45 (on Metaphysics XII.8), pp.
1662-4; the translation is from Genequand, Ibn Rushd's Metaphysics, pp. 178 ff. I
have corrected Genequand's "Ptolemy was free from" (178:6) to read "Ptolemy failed
to notice"; see 1663:3 dhahaba 'alayhi.
46 GERHARD ENDRESS
In this, Ibn Rushd observed both the letter of Aristotle's doc-
trine and the spirit of his science, wherein metaphysics investi-
gates a cosmic reality, not just "units with a serial order," but
ones "enjoying life and action." In the final analysis, then, this
is Plato's heritage in the Aristotelian encyclopedia.
APPENDIX, SOURCE MATERIALS
I. THE ARABIC VERSIONS OF ARISTOTLE'S DE CAELO
An Arabic translation of Aristotle's book On the Heavens or De

Caelo, Kitab al-Sama' wa-al-Mam was first published by 'Abd
al-Rahman Badawi in 1961. Since then, new materials have
become accessible;90 they will serve as the basis for a critical edi-
tion. Three Arabic versions (A, B, C) are available in manu-
script:
A. A fragment covering Bk. I, Chap. 9 to Bk. II, Chap. 9 (with
lacunae), accompanied by a commentary probably written by
Abu al-Faraj Ibn al-Tayyib (d. 435 A.H./1043 A.D.) as well as a
few short quotations. Ibn Rushd occasionally made use of this
version, which he calls "the translation of Abu al-Faraj," in his
Tafslr (Commentarium Magnum) III, comm. 52, 56, 58.
B. The vulgate translation by Yahya (Yuhanna) ibn al-Bitriq
(c. 200/815), who worked in the Bayt al-Hikma and in the circle
of al-Kindi. It is labelled as one of the "translations of al-Kindi"
by Ibn Rushd who deplores (Commentarium Magnum III,
comm. 35) not having one of the superior productions of Ishaq
ibn Hunayn (the translator of Aristotle's Physics) at his dis-
posal:
a) Western tradition: A long fragment (Bk. I, Chap. 7 to Bk.
II, Chap. 7) with the Tafslr or Commentarium Magnum of Ibn
Rushd, extant in the original Arabic; also the Latin versions by
Gerardus Cremonensis (ed. Ilona Opelt in Alberti Magni opera
omnia, vol. 5 [Miinster, 1971]) and - again in conjunction with
Averroes' Commentarium Magnum - by Michael Scot (unpub-
lished ed. by Francis J. Carmody).
b) Eastern tradition: A family of several manuscripts, all com-
ing from Isfahan, of the late Safavid period (llth/17th century)
and going back to an exemplar (now lost) copied in Damascus in
580/1184.
C. A revision of Version B (Bk. I, Chaps. 1-4: a more thorough
revision; Chaps. 5-7: only minor changes in the terminology, the
remainder being identical with version B), extant in three MSS
90
See Gerhard Endress, Die arabischen Ubersetzungen von Aristoteles' Schrift De
Caelo (Frankfurt am Main, 1966).
48 GERHARD ENDRESS
among which is a copy taken from the exemplar which Mihran
ibn Mansur (also known for his revision of Dioscorides' Materia
Medico) wrote for the Artuqid Najm al-Din Alpi in 553/1158.
Only one MS of this version served as the basis for Badawi's edi-
tion. Version C was not known to Ibn Rushd.
II. IBN RUSHD'S COMMENTARIES ON DE CAELO
The Epitome is the second of Ibn Rushd's four Short

Commentaries {JawamV) on Aristotle's treatises about natural
philosophy, all intended to give "an analysis of Aristotle's
demonstrative statements" and completed in 554/1159.91 The
economy of the genre results in a strictly systematic layout; in
consequence,92 the subject of Bk. Ill is relegated to De
Generatione
The edition of Hyderabad (1948), based on two inferior MSS
from Safavid Isfahan, should be replaced by a critical edition
giving due consideration to the MSS of Madrid (Biblioteca
Nacional) and Cairo (Dar al-Kutub) and other copies that stem
from the school of Isfahan (sixteen MSS93 of which are known at
present) as well as the Hebrew version.
The Middle Commentary or Paraphrasis (Talkhis), dated
566/1171 according to the Hebrew version, viz. between the
Middle Commentaries94 on the Physics of 565 and on De
Generatione of 567 and before De Substantia Orbis
(574/1178-9); a meticulous systematization of Aristotle's topics,
statements, and proofs. Jamal al-Din al-'Alawi's edition, based
on the two available MSS of the original Arabic, provides a reli-
able text and a valuable apparatus similium from the Epitome
and the Commentarium Magnum.
The Commentarium Magnum (in the MS, Tafsir; also called
Sharh), one of Averroes' later works. It was probably written
after the Long Commentaries on the Posterior Analytics and the
Physics but before those on the De Anima and the
91
See al-'Alawi, al-Matn al-Rushdi, pp. 55 ff.
92
See Henri Hugonnard-Roche, "L'Epitome du De Caelo d'Aristote par Averroes:
Questions de methode et de doctrine," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litteraire du
Moyen Age, annee 49 (1984), vol. 51 (1985): 7-39.
93
See Moritz Steinschneider, Die hebrdischen Ubersetzungen des Mittelalters und
die Juden als Dolmetscher (Berlin, 1893; Graz, 1956), pp. 126 ff.
94
See al-'Alawi al-Matn al-Rushdi, pp. 55 ff.
95
Metaphysics. The late Jamal al-Dln al-'Alawi and I have been
preparing a critical edition of this Long Commentary, based on
the codex unicus of Tunis (incomplete, covering De Caelo 1.7,
comm. 61 to II.7, comm. 42; facsimile edition by G. Endress, see
above, note 16) and the complete Latin translation of Michael
Scotus covering all four books (ed. F. J. Carmody). Although
Averroes' main endeavour in this work is towards literal exege-
sis, here again, and even more markedly than in the earlier
commentaries, the consistency of Aristotle's doctrine is stressed
by numerous cross-references (notably to Bk. VIII of the
Physics).96
III. NON-ARISTOTELIAN GREEK SOURCES
The only Hellenistic commentary which was available to

Averroes in its entirety was the paraphrase of Themistius.
Other Greek commentators, e.g., Alexander Aphrodisiensis
(Averroes' principal witness for the authentic doctrine of the
Peripatetic school), Johannes Philoponus, and Olympiodorus,
are mentioned; but they were known from secondary sources.
The extant versions of Themistius (Hebrew and Hebrew-Latin
from the Arabic of Yahya ibn 'Adi) should be given due consid-
eration in future studies.
An important source for Ibn Rushd's interpretation was also
Alexander's treatise "On the Principles of the Universe"
(Maqala ft Mabadi' al-Kull) and perhaps another as yet
unedited treatise attributed to Alexander, Maqala ft al-Illa al-
Ula wa-al-Ma'lul wa-Harakatiha wa-Ikhtilafiha wa-Harakat
ma Yafsud wa-Yakun, an edition of which I am now preparing.
95
See al-'Alawi, al-Matn al-Rushdl, p. 104.
96
On Averroes' treatment of the relevant topics in his commentaries on the
Physics, see now Paul Lettinck: Aristotle's Physics and Its Reception in the Arabic
World (Leiden, 1994), published after the completion of this article.

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Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, vol. 5 (1995) pp.

In Averroes' great enterprise of explaining and defending the

1. Aristotle's lectures On the Heavens, the Kitab al-Sama' wa-

COSMOLOGY AND METAPHYSICS

4. Aristotle accompanies his exposition of the existence, essen-

Though the passage contains no explicit reference to an

" See Elders, Aristotle's Cosmology, pp. 94-7.

But the next passage in Aristotle's text seems to ascribe move-

The Tafslr elaborates on these penetrating observations and

The passage is a fine example of Ibn Rushd's method of exege-

In the interpretation of this and similar passages, where the

This is a clear reference to Physics VII.1.241b24 or VIII.4.254b7

The fundamentals of epistemology - where the demonstration

22 Easterling, "Homocentric spheres," pp. 151-3.

In Metaphysics XII.7, the First Mover is described in very simi-

2' Simplicius, In De Caelo, 397:5.

This would seem to refer to the demonstration given by

Averroes draws the further consequence, in agreement with the

This is with respect to the planetary spheres as distinguished

However, he concludes that the agreement in species, in the

Indeed, the fundamental questions of cosmology, which he con-

THE CELESTIAL SOULS

Also in 11.12, where the complexity of the planetary movements

The variety in the motion of the planets is explained by the

This passage fitted in easily, and this is stressed in Ibn Rushd's

Here a radical distinction is made between the sublunar world

15. In the Jawdmi', Averroes is silent about the topic of II. 1 -

The argument taken from Alexander of Aphrodisias is found in

This is of course the rational soul,47adduced explicitly in this con-

We may compare this concise reference to the Metaphysics with

The doctrine of ensouled heavenly bodies - the earlier, Platonic

The difficulty arises, as we saw in the beginning, from the

A very similar note in the Middle Commentary expounds on the

It is interesting to note in passing the systematic reasoning

The doctrine attacked here is found in the Metaphysics of Ibn

Averroes counters that the senses and the organs of sense-per-

53 Avicenna, Kitab al-Najat, Cairo, 241:8-10 or ed. Danishpazhuh, pp. 580:14-581:4.

In the Middle Commentary, Averroes starts from thefinalchap-

One might deem this inference valid, because Aristotle stated

Averroes argues in reply to this apparent contradiction61 that

The moving form in the celestial62 body is a separate form (sura

THE MOTIONS OF THE SPHERES

19. Plato, according to a well-known tradition, had enjoined the

All three of these would result in absurdities and are in evident

His short remarks remain limited to the general principle

While recognizing this general principle, Ptolemy tried to estab-

By a similar argument, Ibn Rushd had rejected the

In linking the cosmic order with Aristotle's metaphysics - the

He felt the truth to be near at hand:

It is a tragic irony that this "spiral motion" (haraka

APPENDIX, SOURCE MATERIALS

I. THE ARABIC VERSIONS OF ARISTOTLE'S DE CAELO

An Arabic translation of Aristotle's book On the Heavens or De

II. IBN RUSHD'S COMMENTARIES ON DE CAELO

The Epitome is the second of Ibn Rushd's four Short

III. NON-ARISTOTELIAN GREEK SOURCES

The only Hellenistic commentary which was available to

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