The Long ConversationA timeline of world philosophy

Philosopher

Avempace

before 1085 – 1139

Also known as Ibn Bajja, Ibn Bâjja, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn al-Sa'igh

Andalusian philosopher who taught how the lone philosopher should live in an imperfect city, and rise towards union with the Active Intellect.

Avempace, known in Arabic as Ibn Bajja, was born in Saragossa a few years before 1085, while it was still the seat of an independent Muslim kingdom. A poet and vizier as well as a philosopher, who also wrote on music and astronomy, he served Almoravid governors after the city fell to them, was twice imprisoned, and spent his later years in the service of the Almoravids in North Africa. He died in Fez in 1139, some said of poisoning.

With Avempace, philosophy in Muslim al-Andalus came to maturity. He learned logic from the works of al-Farabi, wrote free-ranging commentaries on Aristotle, and drew on Plato’s Republic, while departing from al-Farabi’s hopes for a perfect city. Averroes read his works, commenting on some and criticising others, and the Latin philosophers of Europe knew him as Avempace.

Key ideas

The rule of the solitary
In the perfect city there would be no need for doctors or judges, but every real city is corrupt. People who hold true opinions there are strangers, “weeds”, and must govern their own lives as a doctor preserves health, to reach spiritual well-being.
A ladder of spiritual forms
Forms range from those bound to bodies, through the images held in sensation, imagination and memory, up to the universal intelligibles, the Active Intellect and the forms of the heavenly bodies. Most people live by the lower forms; only philosophers reach the highest.
Joining the Active Intellect
As in Plato’s cave, ordinary people see intelligibles only in shadow; philosophers grasp them, and the blessed few go further, to intelligibles free of all matter, and become light themselves. Avempace saw this final stage as a divine gift.
Motion against resistance
Commenting freely on Aristotle’s Physics, Avempace treated a moving power as a force that acts until it is exhausted or meets a contrary force that resists it, a notion of power that the historian Shlomo Pines described as a theory of dynamics.
Region
Al-Andalus and North Africa

Influences

Influenced by

Avempacebefore 1085 – 1139

Influenced

Influenced by

Avempacebefore 1085 – 1139

Influenced

Where these links come from
  • Avempace drew on Plato. Source: Josep Puig Montada, Ibn Bâjja [Avempace], Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Avempace drew on Aristotle. Source: Josep Puig Montada, Ibn Bâjja [Avempace], Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Avempace drew on al-Farabi. Source: Josep Puig Montada, Ibn Bâjja [Avempace], Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Averroes drew on and argued against Avempace. Source: Fouad Ben Ahmed and Robert Pasnau, Ibn Rushd [Averroes], Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Key works

  • The Rule of the Solitary (Tadbir al-mutawahhid)
  • Epistle on the Conjunction of the Intellect with Man
  • The Farewell Message
  • Commentary on Aristotle's Physics

Sources

  1. Josep Puig Montada, Ibn Bâjja [Avempace], Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  2. Fouad Ben Ahmed and Robert Pasnau, Ibn Rushd [Averroes], Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy