Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Albert the Great

« Aristotle seems more Neoplatonic than Aristotelian, it is precisely because it is based as much on the philosophies ofArabic commentators on Aristotle (Alfarabi, Avicenna, the Liber de causis and Averroes) as it is on the philosophy of Aristotle himself.

As the principal engineer of the introduction of philosophy to the Latins, Albert tried to portray ashomogeneous a philosophy that is not and cannot be homogeneous in the eyes of the philologist.

It is, however,this Arabic-Latin version of Aristotelianism which was successfully installed in the Schools and was opposed to otherversions of Aristotle in the fifteenth century, Thomistic Aristotelianism and the Aristotelianism of the school of JohnBuridan , which present Aristotle in a form more recognizable to us.

2 Logic Although he paraphrased all of the Organon, in expositions that were used frequently until the end of the fifteenth century, it is not on account of itscontribution to the development of the logica modernorum that Albert's logical work is most noteworthy.

His principal contribution is in connection with the problem of universals.

Porphyry , in the Isagōgē , had wanted to keep this problem separate from the thought of the logician, and to make it the domain of metaphysics and theology.

Itwas Albert who first systematically formulated the theory of universals that prevailed in scholastic andneoscholastic thought, the doctrine that there are three types of universals ( ante rem , in re and post rem ).

This doctrine is characteristic of the harmonizing tendency that dominates all of Albert's thought.

It is also evidence ofthe continuity which, thanks to this doctrine, was established between the philosophy of late antiquity and thephilosophy of the late Middle Ages.

In answer to Porphyry's problem (whether genera or species exist in themselvesor reside in mere concepts alone; whether, if they exist, they are corporeal or incorporeal; and whether they existapart from or in and dependent on sense objects), Albert does not repeat the arguments and theses of the realistsand nominalists of the twelfth century (though he knows them), and he does not choose between realism,conceptualism and nominalism.

Instead, he takes up and develops a distinction between types of universals whichallows him to give a three-part answer to the problem posed by Porphyry, an answer that is neither realist nornominalist in the sense of the twelfth century but is meant to transcend the conflict itself.

Universals, then, areneither universal extramental 'things' (as the realists believed), nor simple words or concepts (as the nominalistsbelieved).

Rather, a universal is one entity with three different aspects, three modi essendi (modes of being), which differ depending on whether the universal is considered in itself (in divine thought or the separated Intellects), innatural things or in human thought.

Albert draws this three-part distinction from Avicenna's Logica , reinforced by certain remarks from Eustratius of Nicaea's Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics .

This view of universals makes the Platonic notion of separated Forms compatible with the Aristotelian notions of immanent forms and abstractconcepts, and makes it possible to preserve both notions within the same theory.

In reviving this doctrine, Albertunwittingly takes up the Neoplatonic solution to the problem of universals, the distinction between universals thatare before particulars ( pro tō n poll ōn ), after particulars ( epi tois pollois ) and in particulars ( en tois pollois ), a distinction that was systematized most notably by Ammonius , David and Elias.

Albert's extensive use of Arabic and Byzantine sources to illuminate Latin knowledge of the twelfth century had at least two clear consequences: thesubordination of logic to metaphysics and, in metaphysics itself, the subordination of Aristotle's 'Aristotelianism' to aGreek-Arabic version of Aristotelianism (which became the foundation of early neoscholasticism).

Indeed, it is onthis structure that Albert's disciples (the 'neo-Albertians') built their school's most characteristic positions as earlyas the fifteenth century.

Jean de Maisonneuve, Albert's principal disciple in Paris in the early 1400s, criticized thenominalist followers of Buridan (the epicuri litterales ) for reducing the universal to the simple abstract concept, a criticism which Heimeric of Campo levelled against Thomists as well.

On the other hand, Heimeric also criticized theformalizantes (such as Jerome of Prague) for believing in the existence of separated universals such as Plato's Ideas.

In short, Albert's disciples criticized other views of universals for being unilateral philosophies that consideronly one aspect of the being of universals.

3 Psychology In the field of psychology, Albert worked primarily on the exposition of the fundamental concepts of Aristotle's theory of the soul, especially of the theory of the intellect.Albert tried to correct and contribute to the exposition of Aristotle in two areas.

He fought against the doctrine ofthe unity of the intellect (or 'monopsychism' as Leibniz called it), which tradition attributed to Averroes but whichAlbert attributed to 'all of the Arabs'; and he followed Averroes in criticizing the materialism of Alexander of Aphrodisias .

In addition to his critical work, Albert also tried to integrate the essence of the Greek-Arabic theory of the intellect, beginning with Averroes' version, from which he 'dissents little' (' in paucis dissentimus ', De anima III, 3, 11 ).

Indeed, it is clear that the monopsychism Albert criticizes is the same as that which Averroes already criticized in his 'Great' commentary on On the Soul : Avempace's thesis that there is only one intellect for all men, which is joined to the human soul 'by means of images' ( phantasmata ).

This view is unacceptable, says Averroes, because it reduces the material intellect to a simple 'faculty of imagination'.

Albert only occasionally extends hiscriticism of monopsychism to Averroes.

There are two reasons for this reticence: first, Albert is too dependent onAverroes to criticize his theory of intellect without making his own theories incoherent; and second, he does notinterpret Averroes in the light of the Averroists' extrapolations, as Aquinas does.

Far from seeing Averroes as the'debaser' and the 'corrupter of Aristotelianism', Albert on the contrary wants to show that Averroes is the only oneto have successfully opposed Alexander's materialist theory on the grounds that it is a 'very grave error whichentails the denial of all the nobility and even of the immortality of the human soul' ( De anima III, 2, 5 ).

Therefore, Albert holds the view that the possible intellect is external to man, not because he understands it as amonopsychist thesis, as Aquinas does, but because, like Averroes, he understands it in the more precise and limitedsense that the possible intellect is not the perishable 'form' of a perishable body, nor a 'corporeal power caused bythe elements' that constitute the body.

What Albert judges to be fundamental in Averroes, then, is the criticism ofAlexander's theory of the 'eduction' of the intellect, not his thesis of the unity of the possible intellect.

That is whyAlbert often asserts his perfect agreement with Averroes who, better than any other, was able to prove the thesiswhich 'from antiquity, all Aristotelians have held', excepting Alexander, that 'the intellect enters the soul from theoutside, it does not arise from the composite or the mix of the elements, and does not pre-exist in potentiality inthem'.

To apply the eductio formarum (eduction of forms) to the intellect implies denying its 'divinity' and 'depriving man of his nature', and that poses a greater danger than giving an unsatisfactory explanation of the manner inwhich the possible intellect is united to human beings.

The essence of Albert's criticism of Averroes thus centres on. »