Thomas Aquinas and Avicebron

Arabic and Jewish philosophers are important sources for the thought of Thomas Aquinas. At first, the presence of Ibn Gabirol in Aquinas may appear limited if compared to that of other authors, like Avicenna, Averroes or Maimonides. Nonetheless, his presence is significant. Ibn Gabirol is mentioned in works that date from across Aquinas’s career, and, for the most part, in theological works. Although the name of Ibn Gabirol occurs in the discussion of very different questions, Aquinas always mentions him with respect to three themes: (A) universal hylomorphism, (B) the plurality of substantial forms, and (C) causality in the created world. These are, inevitably, also the themes scholars focused on in discussing the relationship between Aquinas and Ibn Gabirol. Here I propose a reconsideration of Aquinas’s criticism of Ibn Gabirol regarding the first two themes. In particular, my concern is on their different views of matter and their principal point of disagreement. One should acknowledge that the view of matter that Aquinas ascribes to Ibn Gabirol does not match any position that could be extracted from the writings of the Jewish philosopher, and thus, at times scholars have assessed the reading of Aquinas as a misinterpretation of Ibn Gabirol. For our purposes, however, establishing this point is not important; what matters here is the reconstruction that Aquinas proposes of Ibn Gabirol’s doctrine, because Aquinas bases his criticism upon this reconstruction, and it is this criticism that subsequent philosophers will inherit. On Aquinas’ reconstruction, Ibn Gabirol becomes the most eminent advocate of a position that re-evaluates matter to the point of considering it the basic notion of metaphysics. In his works, Aquinas regularly notes the distance between Ibn Gabirol’s doctrine of matter and that of Aristotle. On the relation between Ibn Gabirol and Plato, instead, Aquinas hesitates across his career. If at the beginning, Aquinas underscores Ibn Gabirol’s affinity with Plato, at the end he realizes that his doctrine of matter conflicts with that of Plato as well.