Simple Index of Course Webpages
Albert the Great
Video on the epistemology of Albert in his De Homine: Link
Published paper on this issue: Richard C. Taylor, “Remarks on the Importance of Albert the Great’s Analyses and Use of the Thought of Avicenna and Averroes in the De hominefor the Development of the Early Natural Epistemology of Thomas Aquinas” in Die Seele im Mittelalter. Von der Substanz zum funktionalen System, Guenther Mensching and Alia Mensching-Estakhr, eds., ed. (Würzburg: Koenigshausen & Neumann, 2018) pp.131-158. (Contradictio. Studien zur Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte, vol. 16, ed. Günther Mensching et al.).
Key texts:
(1) On the nature of the intellect Albert holds in the De homine — as did Thomas later — that the agent intellect and the possible intellect are powers in the individual soul. Albert cites with precision the texts of Avicenna and his followers al-Ghazali and Gundissalinus who hold that the Agent Intellect is the last of the hierarchy of immaterial separate substances and does not exist in the individual human soul. This is a view Albert rejects with detailed argumentation, as the following texts demonstrate:
(1.1) 402.40: “We concede that the agent intellect is in the soul.” Concedimus quod intellectus agens universaliter est in anima. My emphasis.
(1.2) 408.68: “expressly accepted that the Agent Intellect is the separate intelligence of the tenth order of the separate intelligences.” [E]xpresse accipitur quod intellectus agens est intelligentia separata decimi ordinis intelligentiarum secondarum.”
(1.3) But Albert himself in a sed contra remarks that these are in us and not separate. 411.51: “Since, therefore, one of these is the agent intellect and the other the the possible, each of those intellects will be in us and not a separate substance.” Cum igitur unum horum sit intellectus agens et alterum possibilis, uterque istorum intellectorum erit in nobisexistens et non separata substantia.” My emphasis. In the solution at 412.72-76 he affirms this. See (1.5) below.
(1.4) 412.57-68: Albert clearly rejects the views of the philosophers who say that the Agent Intellect is separate and efficient cause of human knowing. He writes against “others” (scil. Avicenna) that he rejects the connection between the intellect as the tenth in the emanative hierarchy of the heavens and the the function of the Agent Intellect. The notion that “the human possible intellect moves a human being to connected to the the agent intellect of the tenth order” (intellectus humanus possibilis movet hominem ad hoc quod conformetur intelligentiae agenti decimi ordinis) and that “in this way the goodnesses flow from the agent intellect into the possible intellect” (et hoc modo fluunt bonitates ab intelligentia agente in intellectum possibilem) is something Albert will have none of (nos nihil horum dicimus). This is further confirmed in his direct discussion of the agent intellect (415-416) where he writes in his solution concerning the constituent parts of the human intellect 416.33-41: “We concede that the agent intellect is part of the soul . . . And on account of this we say that the agent intellect is part of the potential soul flowing from it as ‘that by which it is’, or act; but the possible is the part of the soul flowing from it as ‘what is’ or potency.” Concedimus quod intellectus agens est pars animae . . . Et propter hoc dicimus quod intellectus agens est pars potentialis animae fluens ab eo quod est ‘quo est’, sive actus; possibilis autem est pars animae fluens ab eo quod est ‘quod est’, sive potentia.) In the response to the first objection he confirms his view as follows 416.51-53: “And on account of this the agent and possible intellects can be intrinsic parts of the rational soul.” Et propter hoc intellectus agens et possibilis possunt esse intrinsicae partes animae rationalis. My emphasis.
(1.5) 412.69: In his solutio he follows the view of Averroes who says that the human agent intellect is conjoined with the human soul, is simple and does not itself have the intelligibles but instead brings them about in the human possible intellect by abstracting them from phantasms. “But we say none of these things. For following Aristotle and Averroes we say that the heavens do not have a soul beyond the intelligence, as was determined above on the question of the heavens. And likewise we say that the human agent intellect is conjoined to the human soul, is simple and does not possess the intelligibles but brings them about in the possible intellect from phantasms, as Averroes expressly says in Commentary on De Anima.” Sed nos nihil horum dicimus. Sequentes enim Aristotelem et Averroem dicimus caelum non habere animam praeter intelligentiam, ut supra in quaestione de caelo determinatum est. Et similiter dicimus intellectum agentem humanum esse coniunctum animae humanae, et esse simplicem et non habere intelligibilia, sed agere ipsa in intellectu possibili ex phantasmatibus, sicut expresse dicit Averroes in commento libri de anima..” My emphasis.
As we have seen, the doctrine of Averroes is that the Agent Intellect does not have all the intelligibles in it — as Albert correctly notes — but rather abstracts them from images in the individual human soul and impresses them onto the separate Material or Possible intellect. Both these are separate substances for Averroes and yet they must come to be present in the soul (fī nafs) through a form of sharing and presence. This is required to be the case because that in virtue of which something formally acts must be intrinsic to it. Hence, for Averroes the separate substances, the Agent Intellect and the Material Intellect, must come to be in the soul, that is, intrinsic to it in the attainment of intelligibles in act while remaining separately existing eternal and imperishible substances. But Albert does not understand Averroes in this (correct) way but rather understands those two intellects to be powers existing intrinsic to the individual human intellect with each person having his or her own powers of agent and possible (scil., material) intellect.
Albert later changes his view and holds the common (and correct) understanding of Averroes. But in the De homine he sees the Cordoban write that the intellects are “in the soul” and “in us” and interprets it as indicating the agent and possible intellects are powers of the individual human soul.Well aware of the importance of his way of understanding Averroes for its contribution to a sound account of the soul, Albert quotes Averroes on this point of the intellects being both “in the soul” and “in us.”
(1.6) 411.46-53: “Again, Averroes : ‘Every intellect existing in ushas two actions. One is of the genus of affection and it is to understand; the other of the genus of action. And this is for abstracting these from matter, which is nothing but to make them understood in act after they were understood in potency.’ Since, therefore, one of these is the agent intellect and the other the possible , each of those intellects will be existing in us and not a separate substance.” Item, Averroes: ‘Omnis intellectus in nobis existenshabet duas actiones. Quarum una est de genere passionis, et est intelligere; alia de genere actionis, et est abstrahere eas a materia, quod nihil aliud est quam facere eas intellectas in actu postquam erant intellectae in potentia’. Cum igitur unum horum sit intellectus agens et alterum possibilis, uterque istorum intellectuum erit in nobis existenset non separata substantia. My emphasis. Note that here Albert is himself a witness to the existence in his own day of two interpretations of Averroes, one that those intellects are separate substantial entities and the other that they are powers of the human soul when he writes at 411.52-53, “both of those intellects will be existent in us and not a separate substance” uterque istorum intellectuum erit in nobis existens et non separata substantia.”
(1.7) 414.27-38: “And this is what Averroes says in his Commentary on Book Three of the De Anima: ‘It is evident that, when all the theoretical intelligibles are in us in potency, then the agent is united with us in potency, because it is not united with us except through them. And when they are existing in us in act, then it too is united with us in act. For the act of the agent intellect is determined by reference to the phantasms, and in this way a determined moves the possible intellect and brings it forth into act, as the action of light is determinate in reference to colors and in this way a determinate brings forth vision into act. And in virtue of this it is evident that the agent intellect is not a substance full of forms.’Et hoc est quod dicit Averroes in commento super tertium de anima: ‘Manifestum est, quoniam quando omnia speculativa fuerint in nobisexistentia in potentia, tunc et agens continuatur nobis in potentia, quia non continuatur nobis nisi per illa; et cum fuerint existentia in nobisin actu, tunc et ipse continuatur nobis in actu’. Actio enim intellectus agentis determinatur ad phantasma, et sic determinata movet intellectum possibilem et educit eum in actum, sicut actio luminis determinatur ad colores, et sic determinata visum educit in actum. Et per hoc patet quod intellectus agens non est substantia separata plena formis.” My emphasis. Albert’s own view involves the rejection of the view he found in Avicenna regarding an emanation of intelligibles from the separate agent intellect. The human agent intellect is not full of forms as Albert understood the Agent Intellect of Avicenna, but rather is what provides the power for a genuine abstraction or separation of forms from the content of experience in phantasms or images.
Hence, for Albert the two intellects, agent and possible, are parts or powers of the human soul:
(1.8) 416.52: “And on account of this the agent intellect and the possible intellect are intrinsic partsof the rational soul” Et propter hoc intellectus agens et possibili possunt esse intrinsicae partesanimae rationalis .” My emphasis. That is, in substance and definition the agent intellect is a power and principle of the soul for apprehending intelligibles.
On this issue, Quid sit intellectus agens secundum substantiam et diffinitionem(418.4), Albert comes to the following conclusion:
(1.9) 419.5-8: “Solution: It should be said that the agent intellect in substance and definition is a power and an active principle of intelligibles, and on account of this the Philosopher says that the intellect is ‘that by which all things are made’.” Solutio: Dicendum quod intellectus agens secundum substantiam et diffinitionem est potentia et principium activum intelligibilium, et propter hoc dicit Philosophus quod est intellectus ‘quo est omnia facere’.”
While for Albert the human separate intellect is not to be identified with the human power of agent intellect, still the human intellect in which knowledge is realized (called the theoretical or speculative intellect) is separate from matter and its concomitants:
(1.10) 419.41-43: “The separate intellect is not the same as the agent intellect but rather the speculative intellect is separate from matter and its concomitants. Separatus intellectus non est idem quod agens intellectus; sed intellectus speculativus est separatus a materia et appendiis materiae.”
Albert goes on to cite the same text of Averroes he had cited earlier now indicating that the possible intellect is affected by the formal actualizing character of the power called agent intellect and also by the intelligible species received into it.
(1.11) 438.64-439.4: “For Averroes says in Commentary on the Third Book of De Anima that ‘when all the theoretical intelligibles are in us in potency, then the agent is united with us in potency, because it is not united with us except through them. And when they are existing in usin act, then it too is united with us in act.’ From this we take it that the intellect is in potency to the species of the agent and to the intelligible species. In this way it is in potency to two species at once.”Dicit enim Averroes super tertium de anima quod ‘quando omnia speculativa fuerint in nobis existentia in potentia, tunc et agens continuatur nobis in potentia, quia non continuatur nobis nisi per illa; et cum fuerint existentia in nobisin actu, tunc et ipse continuatur nobis in actu’. Ex hoc accipitur quod intellectus est in potentia ad speciem agentis et ad speciem intelligibilis, et ita est in potentia ad duas species simul. To this Albert responds at 439.31-37: [D]icendum quod suscipit speciem agentis et speciem intelligibilis, sed illae duae species non sunt nisi actus unus. Species enim agentis est actus speciei intelligibilis, sicut lux actus coloris . . . . . It should be said that it receives the species of the agent and the intelligible species, but those two species are only one act. For the species of the agent is the act of the intelligible species, as light is the act of color . . . . .” My emphasis. This theoretical or speculative intellect is the power of the possible intellect when we are in the state of knowing.
(2) What is essentially the foundation of the doctrine of Aquinas on the abstraction and apprehension of the species intelligibilis is also spelled out clearly by Albert.
(2.1) 435.47-69: “Solution: It should be said that all the intelligibles are denuded of matter and the concomitants of matter or stripped per se, and on account of this the theoretical intellect is the species of all the intelligibles and the same in act with them. But act has a twofold relation. One is to the thing of which it is the act, and in this way it is the ratio of the thing and a quiddity having no difference from it. For if it were to have a difference according to that in which it differs, the thing known would not be cognized in virtue of that. For this reason the species which is in the soul — which is the principle of understanding the whole thing and the whole being of the thing — is taken completely as the act of the whole thing. Since it is in the intellect in this way, because it is in this way the principle of understanding, knowledge is the thing known in act and the theoretical intellect the theoretical in act. It has another comparison to that in which it is as in a subject and in this way it is not the principle of understanding but rather the principle of being. Because there is in the intellect an accidental likeness, it causes in it accidental being; because there is a natural form in the thing, it makes in it natural being. Noting this the Philosopher says that knowledge in some way is the thing known and in another passage he says that intellect is the same in act as that which is understood, but the being is different. And likewise sense is the same in act as the sensible but its being is different, as we explained above.” Solutio: Dicendum quod omnia intelligibilia denudata sunt a materia et appendiciis materiae vel nuda per seipsa, et propter hoc intellectus speculativus species omnium intelligibilium et idem actu cum omnibus. Sed actus duplicem habet comparationem. Unam ad rem cuius est actus, et sic est ratio rei et quiditas nullam habens differentiam ab ipsa. Si enim haberet differentiam secundum illud in quo differret, non cognosceretur per ipsum res scita; et ideo species quae est in anima, quae est principium intelligendi totam rem et totum esse rei, omnino accipitur ut actus rei totius, et cum sic sit in intellectu, eo quod principium sic sit intelligendi, est scientia res scita in actu, et intellectus speculativus speculatum in actu. Aliam habet comparationem ad id in quo est ut in subiecto, et sic non est principium intelligendi, sed principium esse; et quia in intellectu est similitudo accidentalis, causat in ipso esse accidentale; quia vero in re est forma naturalis, facit in ipsa esse naturale. Et hoc attendens Philosophus dicit quod scientia modo quodam est res scita, et in alio loco dicit quod intellectus est idem actu cum eo quod intelligitur, sed esse est aliud; et similiter sensus cum sensibili est idem actu, sed esse est aliud, sicut supra exposuimus.
This notion of the content but not the mode of being of the thing as what is grasped Albert further emphasizes later at 446.9-11 when he writes the following: “The definition which is through the principles of knowing is given in virtue of forms abstracted from the particular which are the genus and difference.” Diffinitio autem quae est per principia cognoscendi, datur per formas abstractas a particulari, quae sunt genus et differentia.
(2.2) According to Averroes the abstracted intelligibles of human knowing (intelligibiles in actu) or, in the phraseology of Albert and Thomas, the species intelligibiles, are found in the separate Material Intellect and also in the disposition of the theoretical intellect belonging to the perishable human soul. In fact, for Avicenna — since he denies intellectual memory to the individual human rational soul — those intelligibiles must be available in the separate Agent Intellect. This issue Albert addresses at 439 ff. in the article, “Whether the disposition of the theoretical intellect remains in it after apprehension or in some memory which is part of the rational soul, or does not at all remain in the rational soul.” Utrum habitus intellectus speculativi post considerationem manet in ipso, vel in memoria aliqua quae sit pars animae rationalis, vel omnino non manet in anima rationali.
He explains that for Avicenna the apprehensive power of the soul is not the same as the retentive power. For him, says Albert, the intelligible species is not retained in the possible intellect because it is an apprehensive power. He then writes at 442.5-17, “We, however, say that it remains in the possible intellect, because Aristotle expressly says that memory and recollection have their own acts of apprehension. Hence, it is false that to apprehend is not characteristic of the retentive part. For in the case of bodily powers one power receives while another retains, for it is characteristic of dampness to receive well and of dryness to retain well. But in the intellectual power it belongs to the same power to receive and to retain. This is because the acts of opposites there are not opposed since they are separate things opposite to matter and the potency of acting and being acted upon. Hence, the possible intellect receives the forms and intelligibles and retains them.” Nos autem dicimus quod manet in intellectu possibili, quod Aristoteles expresse dicat quod memoria et reminiscentia habent suos actus apprehensionis. Unde falsum est quod thesauri non sit apprehendere. In virtutibus enim corporalibus alterius quidem virtutis est recipere et alterius retinere; humidi enim est bene recipere, et sicci bene retinere. Sed in intellectuali virtute eiusdem virtutis est recipere et retinere, eo quod oppositorum actus ibi non sunt oppositi, cum sint separata opposita a materia et potentia agendi et patiendi. Unde intellectus possibilis recipit formas intelligibilium et retinet eas.
It is quite clear in this work that Albert was very familiar with the abstractionism of Avicenna. But Albert rejected the common view attributed to Avicenna that the Agent Intellect is a separate substance and that human efforts with bodily external and internal sense powers were only a preparation for the reception of emanated intelligibles from the Agent Intellect. Albert also rejects the actual teaching of Averroes who held the Agent Intellect to be a separate intellectual substance in its own right. Still, Albert — who understands this to be a power of the individual human soul — follows Averroes in finding for it only the role minimally required for the completion of Aristotle’s account: the agent intellect is what provides the power for the abstraction or separation of the content intelligible in potency in the images or phantasms derived from sensory experience of the world. But Albert misread Averroes likely because of the novelty of Averroes’s doctrine of the separate and shared Material Intellect and also because Albert did not understand the intent of Averroes’s repetition of the phraseology of ‘in the soul’ and ‘in us’ used to describe the role of the separate Agent Intellect and separate Material Intellect in relation to the human soul. The argument from intrinsic formal cause set forth by Averroes and later used by Aquinas against Averroes, required for Averroes that the separate intellects — so essential to the natures of human beings as animals that are rational — be formally ‘in the soul’ for human intellectual understanding. But in the De homineAlbert holds that the agent intellect and the possible (material) intellect are not separate substances but rather immaterial powers of the soul separate from body, as the text at 411.51 quoted above indicates clearly with the phrase in nobis.
Thomas Aquinas
For Aquinas, see my translation of Commentary on the Sentences, In 2 Sent d.17, Q.2, A.1, see http://richardctaylor.info/aquinas-selections-from-his-commentary-on-the-sentences/.
For now let’s consider just four selections:
(1) “I say with Avicenna that the possible intellect comes into existence, but does not go out of existence with the body, that it is diverse in diverse [human beings], and that it is multiplied according to the division of matter in diverse individuals, just as other substantial forms.”
(2) “And I also add that the agent intellect is diverse in diverse [human beings], for it does seems unlikely that there does not exist in the rational soul some principle which can fulfill a natural operation.”
(3) “[T]he soul has a power by which it makes sensible species to be intelligible [species] in act, and this power is the agent intellect. And [the soul] has a power by which it is in potency for being made in the act of determinate knowing brought about by a sensible thing’s species made intelligible in act, and this power or potency is called possible intellect.”
(4) “[A]cording to Avicenna, the understood species can be considered in two ways, either with respect to the being that it has in the intellect, and in this way it has singular being, or with respect to the fact that it is a likeness of such an understood thing, to the extent that it leads to the knowledge of it, and on the basis of this part it has universality. [This is] because it is not a likeness of this thing insofar as it is this thing but rather according to the nature in which it agrees with others of its species.”
However, right from the beginning the views of Aquinas differed from those of his Arabic sources and from his teaching since he raises the issue of whether we really do apprehend essences in the present life.
Super Sent., lib. 2 d. 3 q. 1 a. 6 co.
[…]-11 Quinto secundum virtutem interpretativam: quia, secundum Damascenum, Angelus interpretatur vel loquitur quibusdam nutibus et signis intellectualibus sine vocis expressione, ut infra patebit; homo autem loquitur voce expressa. Nec est mirum quod sic diversimode Angeli et animae differre assignantur: quia differentiae essentiales, quae ignotae et innominatae sunt, secundum philosophum designantur differentiis accidentalibus, quae ex essentialibus causantur, sicut causa designatur per suum effectum; sicut calidum et frigidum assignantur differentiae ignis et aquae. Unde possunt plures differentiae pro specificis assignari, secundum plures proprietates rerum differentium specie, ex essentialibus differentiis causatas; quarum tamen istae melius assignantur quae priores sunt, quasi essentialibus differentiis propinquiores . . . . .
One of my students (Nathaniel Taylor) working on this topic also found these others:
Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 25 q. 1 a. 1 ad 8.
Ad octavum dicendum, quod, ut patet ex dictis, in corp. art. persona non nominat intentionem, sed rem cui accidit illa intentio: et ideo non nominat accidens, sed substantiam; nec hoc quod est individuum, est differentia substantiae, quia particulare non addit aliquam differentiam supra speciem. Sed tamen particulare efficitur individuum per aliquod principium essentiale, quod quidem in rebus compositis est materia, et in rebus divinis est relatio distinguens; et quia essentialia principia sunt nobis ignota, frequenter ponimus in definitionibus aliquid accidentale, ad significandum aliquid essentiale; et sic etiam nomen individui, quod est nomen accidentis, ponitur ad designandum principium substantiale, per quod sit individuatio. Sciendum tamen est, quod de persona dantur aliae definitions . . . . .
In Sent. II d. 35. q.1 art. 2, ad 3.
Ad tertium dicendum, quod sicut aliquando utimur non veris differentiis loco verarum, propter earum occultationem, ut in I Post,. text. 35, dicitur, ita etiam loco veri generis potest poni aliquid per quod genus magis innotescat . . . . .
Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas on Latin Averroism and human knowing.
As explained above and in the assigned article, Albert the Great in his De Homine (ca. 1242) crafted a new account of human knowing from his study of the Latin texts of Avicenna and Averroes. He rejected the notion of a shared separate Agent Intellect and the notion that individual rational souls do not have their own intrinsic power of intellectual memory. Avicenna held that a human being can only think of one thing at a time and so intellectual memory must be through involvement with the transcendent Agent Intellect where all the intelligible forms are located or stored. Albert reaches into the thought of St Augustine and holds that each person has a bodily memory but also an immaterial intellectual memory. Albert then drew deeply upon the texts of Averroes where he misread the meaning of Ibn Rushd — this was not a problem of mistranslation but of misinterpretation — and asserted that for Averroes the agent intellect and the material (scil. receptive ‘possible’ intellect) are intrinsic to every human soul. As we know, the true doctrine of Ibn Rushd is that these are separate substances that human beings can connect with for the sake of intellectual understanding. Note that for Ibn Rushd the human being is body and soul and the essence of a human being is that of a physical perishable entity. Human fulfillment or happiness is found in the present life only since there is no afterlife for human individuals.
As Carlos Bazán has explained in his important article, “Was there ever a ‘First Averroism’?,” MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA 27 (2000) pp.31-53 (Link), the notion that it was a common notion of the philosophical traditions in Greek and Arabic that the Agent Intellect is a separately existing transcendent substance that assists human beings in intellectual understanding. The notion of the agent intellect as an intrinsic power of each human soul did not appear until the early 13th century when it was crafted by Latin Christian thinkers. As Bazán explains, it seems to have been crafted through eclectic reflections on the teachings of Augustine and Avicenna concerning the nature of the human person. For Augustine, under the influence of Platonism and Neoplatonism, the soul is the self and is immaterial. But for Augustine and the Christian tradition, while the soul lives on after the death of the body, the body itself is part of the very nature of the human being. (Christian theological teachings are relevant here. The human person is body and soul and the body will be resurrected at the end of time so that the soul will be come a whole person of body and soul again. This is the central promise and teaching of Christianity celebrated at Easter.) But in Platonism and Neoplatonism the soul transcends the body. That was reflected in the view of Ibn Sina / Avicenna that the human being is an immaterial rational soul that uses the body as an instrument or tool in garnering knowledge. For him when the body dies the soul as immaterial and rational lives on in an afterlife.
Albert followed this novel view found in thinkers of his time that agent intellect is the power of intellectual abstraction and the possible (also called material, receptive) intellect is the power of intellectual reception of abstracted intelligibles. As we have seen, Albert’s misreading helped him create a new account of human knowing.
Later, by 1250 and perhaps even earlier, Albert realized his mistake and corrected it by condemning the real doctrine of Ibn Rushd (Averroes) that these are not powers of the soul but rather separately existing Intellects that in an operational way are naturally shared by human beings.
This real doctrine of Ibn Rushd / Averroes was later attacked at great length in separate works devoted precisely to the refutation of that doctrine by both Albert and his former student Thomas Aquinas and also in some of their other writings.
Thomas left Paris with Albert in 1248 and accompanied him to Cologne where the German theologian was appointed to lead a Dominican house of study. He remained with Albert until 1252 when Thomas went to Paris to begin his work leading to becoming a Master in the University there.
In the period of 1250-1252 Albert taught and published the first Latin commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle which he called Super Ethica. At that time Thomas was continuing in his position as assistant to Albert. In this work it is evident that Albert had come to realize that his understanding of Averroes in his De Homine (1242) was incorrect and that Ibn Rushd / Averroes really did hold the doctrine that the Agent Intellect and Material (receptive, possible) Intellect are separately existing eternal substances. But let’s return to the De Homine.
In his De Homine Albert provides evidence of there being in 1240-42 two understandings of Averroes on intellect. Albert rejects the real teaching of Averroes that the Intellects are separate substances as inauthentic and instead opts for the view that the intellects are powers of the individual human soul. Recall that for Avicenna the Agent Intellect is shared by all human beings but the material or possible intellect is something belonging to each individual rational human soul. The earlier thinkers of the 13th century Latin tradition accepted that view in accord with Avicenna. But they rejected his conception of the separate Agent Intellect. So for those Latin Christian thinkers human understanding comes about individually in each human being by use of intrinsic powers. Those thinkers also held from Augustine that knowledge comes about in individual human beings inside the individual soul thanks to the interior light of Christ the Teacher in the soul, a teaching that might be considered similar to what is found in Avicenna.
Albert held in 1240-42 the view that the agent intellect and the receptive possible (material) intellect are powers of the soul in accord with the teachings of those early 13th century Christian thinkers. As Bazán shows in his article, this doctrine was formed by those thinkers before the texts of Ibn Rushd / Averroes were available in Latin. That is, this novel doctrine not previously held in the Greek or Arabic traditions of Aristotelianism was not based on the teachings of Ibn Rushd / Averroes and is a genuinely new theorization on the part of early 13th century Christian thinkers. But in the De Homine Albert took this teaching and mapped it onto the texts of Averroes in his systematic misinterpretation and in his rejection of the real teaching of Ibn Rushd that the intellects are separate substances, not merely powers of the individual soul.
Thomas Aquinas’s account of human knowing, as I have shown in my 2018 article on Albert, was taken by the young Dominican from the account of his teacher written in 1240-42. But the account of Thomas in his Commentary on the Sentences (1252-56) written in Paris is different since it shows clear knowledge of the real doctrine of Ibn Rushd / Averroes and attacks it. Yet, of course, this was not an innovation on the part of Aquinas because he was present in Cologne working as the assistant of the German Master when Albert was lecturing on the Nicomachean Ethics in his Super Ethica. And it is in his Super Ethica that Albert displays his corrected understanding of Averroes and condemns the real doctrine of Averroes that the intellects are separately existing immaterial substances.
Hence, the teaching of Aquinas on the nature of human knowing is derived from and based on that of his teacher, Albert. Nevertheless, as Aquinas develops his view in the Commentary on the Sentences, it is clear that he has returned to the Latin texts of Avicenna and Averroes to reexamine them for himself and did not rely merely on what he had seen in the work of his teacher. That is, after doing his own study he made his own the account of human knowing that Albert had set out.