DIGRESSION.

...prudent, and the name of intellect was held to be manifold, Aristotle affirmed that he would dispute about that by which the soul understands, and which he had said before to be a particle of the soul, by these words: "But I say 'intellect' is that by which the soul reasons and thinks," so in Greek: original: "λέγω δὲ νοῦν ᾧ διανοεῖται καὶ ὑπολαμβάνει ἡ ψυχή" (lego de noun ho dianoeitai kai hypolambanei he psyche). Then he showed that the intellect is the recipient of the species and that it differs from sensation in that it is not mixed, which pleased Anaxagoras; and for that reason, it could know all things, because it was impassible, because it would become stronger by understanding, and would not tire and wither like the sense, struck down by a more vehement sensible object; for that reason, it was and would be held as separable. Up to this point, all the Greek Peripatetics whose books I have read did not err. Alexander of Aphrodisias alone deceived both himself and others, and as Philoponus says, he attempted to corrupt those three words—unmixed, impassible, separable—brought forward by Aristotle to assert the soul's immortality. Although he is held by many to be various in the nature of the soul, as in the commentaries written about it he asserted it to be mortal in natural questions, and immortal in others; nevertheless, most did not think the natural questions to be Alexander's own, and all ancient expositors condemned him in this opinion of mortality. But Averroes, while he feared Alexander's error, fell imprudently into such a great slip that a great multitude of philosophers fell after him, although he himself is also held to be various; and there are those who want it that, besides that unique intellect, he asserted the intellectual soul to be immortal, which whether they have judged correctly, I do not know. That much I certainly know: that it was that express opinion of Theophrastus and his followers, furthermore...

Against Alexander. Philoponus.

Against Averroes.