Avempace

Avempace, whose full name was Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn al-Sa'igh, was an Andalusi philosopher born in Zaragoza around 1085 and who died in Fez in 1138. He is regarded as the first properly philosophical thinker of al-Andalus and as one of the main channels through which Aristotelian philosophy reached the Latin West. He was also a physician, botanist, musician, poet, astronomer and mathematician, but his lasting legacy lies in philosophy.

He came from a modest family of silversmiths and grew up in Zaragoza under Almoravid rule. The trust of the governor Ibn Tifilwit brought him the post of vizier, which he probably held between 1115 and 1117. After the Christian conquest of Zaragoza in 1118 he was forced to leave, moving through Xàtiva, Almería, Granada and Oran before settling in Fez, where he died, probably poisoned according to some accounts. In exile he returned to the Almoravid administration and had a tense relationship with parts of the court. He wrote many works, most of which have been lost. His commentaries on Aristotle, including those on the Physics and the Logic, probably belong to his Zaragoza years. His original works, such as The Governance of the Solitary, seem to date from later, and many were left unfinished by his early death.

His central contribution was a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Platonism and Islamic mysticism. Against the theology that dominated Andalusi thought, he proposed a rational inquiry not subordinated to religious ends and grounded in Aristotelian logic. He reversed Plato's approach: instead of modelling the ideal city on the soul, he used the ideal city as a model for the human soul. In a corrupt society, the person who understands his true condition should withdraw from worldly life, at least in thought, and seek union with the active intellect through contemplation.

His influence was lasting. Maimonides and Averroes admired him and continued many of his lines of thought, and Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas cited him. Ibn Tufayl criticised him but recognised the sharpness of his reasoning.