Dos versiones del aristotelismo: Tomás, Siger y la unión del alma intelectiva con el cuerpo humano

Abstract

It is well known that Aristotle’s corpus was received with mixed attitudes in the Latin world in the XIII century. During this period we can observe, among other things, diverse condemnations from scholars as well as the formation of what can be considered “factions” regarding the Stagirite’s doctrine. Maybe one of the texts that sparked off greater controversy was De anima. Of all that has been written on the subject, we are particularly interested in Thomas Aquinas’s De unitate intellectus contra averrositas. It is precisely in this work that Aquinas sets not only to explicit his own posture but also to refer to his opponents’ theses. Now, since an exhaustive analysis exceeds the scope of this work, we will focus on the objections made (in chapter III) to Siger of Brabant’s theory about the union of the intellective soul with the body and its relation with human knowledge. All in all, as it will be evidenced later, this is the aspect that disturbs Aquinas the most since the consequences that derive from it go beyond the metaphysic and even the gnoseological spheres, having direct effects on ethics in general and Christian faith in particular.