On the Intellect and the Rational Soul

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 207 passage in the Phaedrus. Describing the ascension of the soul to that place beyond the heavens where "true being dwells" and "all true knowledge is knowledge thereof" (247c, Hackforth translation), Plato says that while the soul is borne round she discerns justice, its very self, and likewise temperance, and knowledge, not the knowledge that isneighbor to Becoming and varies with the various objects to which we commonly ascribe being, but the veritable knowledge of Being that veritably is. (247d -e) Surely there can be no doubt that the Phaedrus, especially in this very passage, endorses an ontology of Transcendent Forms; and yet Plato here admits, using essentially the same distinction between true and inferior knowledge that he later uses in the Philebus, that there can be a sort of knowledge which is nevertheless not "the veritable knowledge of Being." For these reasons, Shiner fails to reconcile Philebus 55-62 with the thesis of revisionism. Despite Shiner's arguments, then, I conclude that the Philebus provides substantial evidence that Plato never gave up the theory of Transcendent Forms. University of British Columbia ROBERT FAHRNKOPF ON THE INTELLECT AND THE RATIONAL SOUL Toward the middle of the fifteenth century, in the city of Dham~r, in Yemen, a Jewish scholar turned his thoughts to creating a synthesis of the philosophic tradiditions to which he was an heir. This thinker, .H8t.er ben Shel8m8 (also known as Mansflr ibn Suleim~n), had read al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, al-Ghazzali, the Ikhwan al-Safa' and other Moslem philosophers. He had also read Maimonides, Saadia, and Halevi, and had studied Jewish law and midrashic literature..HSt.er then synthesized these traditions. His theories of the intellect and the rational soul are good examples of this synthetic skill. 1 In his philosophic Responsa and in his commentary to the Torah entitled Si~j al- 'Uqhl, .HSt.er sets forth the definition of the intellect and its function as followsF What is the human intellect and what is its function? The answer: The human intellect is an absolute perfection whose root is in the Agent Intelligence [huwa karnfil mah..dmin 'a41al-'aql al-fa '~l]. 3 Its function is the encompassing of the forms in its essence, according to its essence, For .Hbt.er'sbackground see my The Commentary of R. H.bt.erben Shelbmb to the Thirteen PrinciplesofMaimonides ,Etudessurlejuda'fsmem6di6val,vol.6(Leiden:E. J.Brill, 1973),pp. 3-16.Hereafter cited as Commentary. 21hope to publish.Hbt.er'sphilosophicResponsa, or more properly his QuestionsandAnswers, for he wrote both the questionsand the answers. The text of Sirajremains to be edited. Responsum #39 deals withtheintellectand iscitedinCommentary,p.27,asisthe quotationfromSirej, whichisfrom"Shoftim" aA veryunfortunate mixtureof terms has occurred here due to two factors: (1) the term 'aqlcan be translatedas"intelligence"or as"intellect"; (2) the term 'aql,usedin the alfarabian-avicenniancontext of emanated beings,is usuallyrendered "Intelligence"but, in the parallel neoplatoniccontext, it is usually 208 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY and the emanation of this to the rational faculty ]wa-rnin sha'nihi .ha4r al-s.uwar fi dhhtihi lidh ~tihi ... ]. Whoever describes this level as [acquiring] perfection or lacking therein has erred and has defiled it. It [i.e., the human intellect] cannot be described as perceiving the individuated things. Rather, when it seeks to know any thing or any form, it turns to its essence, by means of its essence, and "perceives" that which it seeks of the forms of the existents from its own essence for, in it, are all the forms .... Indeed, as far as the intellect is concerned, it has no need to know anything for all things are in it. Thus, you have come to know that the acquisition of perfection [al-takammul[ belongs only to the rational soul, called "the hylic intellect" in all [such l places. With equal directness, .H6t.er presents the definition of the rational soul and its function, together with an account of its descent, ascent, and purpose:4 What is the rational soul and what is its function? The rational soul is a simple, spiritual substance from the forms of the Intellect, which perceives in actu and has knowledge in potentia, s...