WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.339 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we're taking 00:00:02.339 --> 00:00:05.919 a journey that starts a long way from the usual 00:00:05.919 --> 00:00:08.679 intellectual centers you might think of. We're 00:00:08.679 --> 00:00:11.259 not in Rome, not in Athens. No, we are dropping 00:00:11.259 --> 00:00:14.220 ourselves right into the heart of 12th century 00:00:14.220 --> 00:00:17.800 Al -Andalus, what we now call Spain. Specifically, 00:00:17.980 --> 00:00:21.780 into Cordoba. And at this time, Cordoba was this 00:00:21.780 --> 00:00:25.519 just... bustling, brilliant center of learning. 00:00:25.660 --> 00:00:27.899 It's really where Western Europe first started 00:00:27.899 --> 00:00:30.399 to rediscover its own classical roots. And our 00:00:30.399 --> 00:00:33.240 focus is on a monumental figure, a man whose 00:00:33.240 --> 00:00:35.719 authority became so immense in Europe that he 00:00:35.719 --> 00:00:38.340 was known simply by a title, the commentator. 00:00:38.439 --> 00:00:40.679 We're talking about Abu al -Walid Muhammad ibn 00:00:40.679 --> 00:00:43.020 Ahmad ibn Rushd. Better known to the Latin West, 00:00:43.079 --> 00:00:45.689 of course, as Averroes. And when we say he was 00:00:45.689 --> 00:00:48.170 a polymath, we truly mean it. Our sources are 00:00:48.170 --> 00:00:50.390 just filled with awe at the variety of fields 00:00:50.390 --> 00:00:52.130 he was proficient in. We're talking philosophy, 00:00:52.390 --> 00:00:56.049 medicine, law, astronomy. Right. This wasn't 00:00:56.049 --> 00:00:57.829 a man who just, you know, dipped his toe into 00:00:57.829 --> 00:00:59.810 a few subjects. Not at all. He mastered them, 00:00:59.890 --> 00:01:02.090 all of them. He was, in a very real sense, a 00:01:02.090 --> 00:01:04.829 kind of universal genius, but born four centuries 00:01:04.829 --> 00:01:07.209 before the Renaissance really got going. Absolutely. 00:01:07.430 --> 00:01:09.590 So the mission of this deep dive is to unpack 00:01:09.590 --> 00:01:12.469 the story behind these grand titles. We want 00:01:12.469 --> 00:01:15.349 to reveal how this Andalusian scholar became 00:01:15.349 --> 00:01:18.390 the definitive authority on Aristotle for both 00:01:18.390 --> 00:01:21.109 Christian and Jewish Europe. And why he's so 00:01:21.109 --> 00:01:24.260 often called the father of rationalism. into 00:01:24.260 --> 00:01:27.659 how his really radical defensive reason led to 00:01:27.659 --> 00:01:30.579 his own books being burned on the caliph's orders 00:01:30.579 --> 00:01:33.239 in his own lifetime. It's an incredible story 00:01:33.239 --> 00:01:36.760 of intellectual rigor versus, you know, political 00:01:36.760 --> 00:01:39.159 reality. But before we jump in, let's just clarify 00:01:39.159 --> 00:01:43.019 the names, because for a deep dive, clarity is 00:01:43.019 --> 00:01:45.799 everything. Good idea. Ibn Rushd is his original 00:01:45.799 --> 00:01:48.519 Arabic name. Avaros is simply the Latinization. 00:01:48.799 --> 00:01:50.099 And that probably came from how it was pronounced 00:01:50.099 --> 00:01:52.140 in Spain, right? It's believed so, yeah. The 00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:54.760 Ibn prefix can sound a bit like oven or abin 00:01:54.760 --> 00:01:56.680 in Spanish pronunciation. And from there, it's 00:01:56.680 --> 00:01:59.079 a short hop to Avaros. But whether you call him 00:01:59.079 --> 00:02:01.799 Ibn Rushd or Avaros, those titles are what really 00:02:01.799 --> 00:02:05.079 matter. The commentator for his just unparalleled 00:02:05.079 --> 00:02:07.900 analysis of Aristotle. And father of rationalism 00:02:07.900 --> 00:02:11.419 for making the audacious claim. That philosophical 00:02:11.419 --> 00:02:14.240 reason isn't just, you know, compatible with 00:02:14.240 --> 00:02:17.000 faith, but that it's actually a religious obligation. 00:02:17.360 --> 00:02:20.300 That really sets the stage. Let's start by walking 00:02:20.300 --> 00:02:22.560 through the high stakes, politically charged 00:02:22.560 --> 00:02:25.599 life that he lived. So Averroes was born in Cordoba 00:02:25.599 --> 00:02:29.139 in 1126. And this wasn't a humble beginning. 00:02:29.550 --> 00:02:32.310 Not at all. His family was already deeply, deeply 00:02:32.310 --> 00:02:34.729 rooted in public service, especially in the legal 00:02:34.729 --> 00:02:37.870 establishment. They were, you could say, legal 00:02:37.870 --> 00:02:40.650 royalty. And not just any legal family. His grandfather 00:02:40.650 --> 00:02:43.409 was a massive figure in the city. A huge figure. 00:02:43.590 --> 00:02:46.629 He served as the chief judge, the qadi of Cordoba. 00:02:46.789 --> 00:02:49.030 And at the same time, he was the imam of the 00:02:49.030 --> 00:02:51.229 great mosque. This was under the previous dynasty, 00:02:51.430 --> 00:02:53.770 the Almerevids. So to be born into that family. 00:02:54.189 --> 00:02:56.129 It meant he was basically destined for the highest 00:02:56.129 --> 00:02:58.870 levels of religious and legal authority. Exactly. 00:02:59.030 --> 00:03:02.270 And that context is so vital because it completely 00:03:02.270 --> 00:03:05.330 shaped his education. He received what the sources 00:03:05.330 --> 00:03:08.250 call an excellent traditional education, which 00:03:08.250 --> 00:03:10.949 meant a deep, deep immersion in the Islamic sciences. 00:03:11.150 --> 00:03:13.169 So what did that entail specifically? It meant 00:03:13.169 --> 00:03:15.949 studying fief, which is jurisprudence, hadith. 00:03:16.270 --> 00:03:18.090 the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad and, of 00:03:18.090 --> 00:03:20.930 course, theology. Specifically, he was part of 00:03:20.930 --> 00:03:23.569 the Maliki school of law, which was the dominant 00:03:23.569 --> 00:03:26.349 legal tradition in al -Andalus. And the sources 00:03:26.349 --> 00:03:29.629 even mention he memorized Imam Malik's Muwata. 00:03:29.889 --> 00:03:32.889 Yes, which is this enormous collection of legal 00:03:32.889 --> 00:03:36.629 traditions. Memorizing it is a monumental feat. 00:03:36.729 --> 00:03:39.430 It shows his mastery of traditional Islamic law 00:03:39.430 --> 00:03:42.330 was absolutely complete. So he was a superstar 00:03:42.330 --> 00:03:46.330 jurist just waiting to happen. But the thing 00:03:46.330 --> 00:03:47.810 that really defined him, the thing that created 00:03:47.810 --> 00:03:50.430 all that tension later in his life was that he 00:03:50.430 --> 00:03:52.509 didn't stop there. That's the crucial hinge. 00:03:52.629 --> 00:03:55.009 He didn't just accept the traditional curriculum. 00:03:55.330 --> 00:03:57.969 He aggressively pursued what were called the 00:03:57.969 --> 00:04:00.490 sciences of the ancients, Greek philosophy, mathematics, 00:04:00.909 --> 00:04:03.210 medicine, science. He wanted both worlds. He 00:04:03.210 --> 00:04:05.569 insisted on both worlds. He sought out the works 00:04:05.569 --> 00:04:07.669 of Greek thinkers and their Muslim predecessors. 00:04:07.930 --> 00:04:10.330 We know for a fact he studied the works of Ibn 00:04:10.330 --> 00:04:12.590 Bajjah, who was also known as Avin Pace. And 00:04:12.590 --> 00:04:14.669 he was one of the earliest advocates for a pure 00:04:14.669 --> 00:04:16.870 form of Aristotelianism in the region, right? 00:04:17.160 --> 00:04:19.360 That's right. So this means Avros was completely 00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:21.959 fluent in the language of sacred texts and in 00:04:21.959 --> 00:04:24.019 the language of cutting edge rational philosophy. 00:04:24.360 --> 00:04:26.779 He could code switch between them perfectly. 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:30.480 And that dual fluency put him on the map very, 00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:34.819 very quickly. By 1153, he's already in Marrakesh. 00:04:34.860 --> 00:04:37.600 Which was the capital of the powerful Almohad 00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:40.740 Empire at the time. And he's not there as a tourist. 00:04:41.259 --> 00:04:44.920 He's engaged in advanced scientific work, specifically 00:04:44.920 --> 00:04:47.779 astronomical observations. What was he trying 00:04:47.779 --> 00:04:50.459 to do? His goal was incredibly ambitious. He 00:04:50.459 --> 00:04:52.720 was trying to find the physical laws that govern 00:04:52.720 --> 00:04:55.160 the movement of the planets and stars. It was 00:04:55.160 --> 00:04:57.920 this early, bold attempt to reconcile the mathematical 00:04:57.920 --> 00:05:00.720 models of the cosmos. Like Ptolemy's. Exactly, 00:05:00.839 --> 00:05:02.959 with the physical reality described by Aristotle. 00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:05.459 Now, the sources say this particular research 00:05:05.459 --> 00:05:07.759 program didn't succeed, but it really highlights 00:05:07.759 --> 00:05:09.660 his commitment to physical science and observation 00:05:09.660 --> 00:05:12.480 from an early age. But the real game changer 00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:14.959 for his career came through a friendship. He 00:05:14.959 --> 00:05:16.839 connects with the philosopher and court physician, 00:05:17.079 --> 00:05:19.720 Ibn Tufail. And that relationship led to his 00:05:19.720 --> 00:05:22.860 famous introduction to the ruling caliph, Abu 00:05:22.860 --> 00:05:27.160 Yaqub Yusuf, around the year 1169. This is the 00:05:27.160 --> 00:05:29.959 moment where his academic knowledge becomes a 00:05:29.959 --> 00:05:33.540 major political asset and, well, later a liability. 00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:35.980 Right. And that initial meeting is just this 00:05:35.980 --> 00:05:38.819 classic anecdote. It perfectly illustrates the 00:05:38.819 --> 00:05:41.399 tightrope walk of being an intellectual in the 00:05:41.399 --> 00:05:44.019 Kallus court. It does. The caliph, who really 00:05:44.019 --> 00:05:46.959 prided himself on his own learning, asks Averroes 00:05:46.959 --> 00:05:49.899 a question that was just explosive in theological 00:05:49.899 --> 00:05:52.220 circles. He asks him whether the heavens were 00:05:52.220 --> 00:05:55.420 created in time or if they had existed eternally. 00:05:55.769 --> 00:05:57.629 Let's just pause on that. That was not a casual 00:05:57.629 --> 00:06:00.490 question. That was the central charge of heresy 00:06:00.490 --> 00:06:02.730 leveled against philosophers by the Orthodox 00:06:02.730 --> 00:06:05.629 theologians. To answer eternal meant you were 00:06:05.629 --> 00:06:08.550 denying God's absolute creative power over time 00:06:08.550 --> 00:06:11.310 itself. It was a potential death sentence. So 00:06:11.310 --> 00:06:13.470 how did Averroes handle it? He was initially 00:06:13.470 --> 00:06:16.230 very cautious. The sources say he sensed the 00:06:16.230 --> 00:06:18.980 danger and just stayed silent. But the caliph 00:06:18.980 --> 00:06:21.480 was persistent. And then he did something amazing. 00:06:21.620 --> 00:06:24.019 He started showcasing his own deep knowledge 00:06:24.019 --> 00:06:26.519 of the subject. He wasn't just testing it. No, 00:06:26.540 --> 00:06:29.379 he was inviting him into a real discussion. He 00:06:29.379 --> 00:06:31.819 started talking about the views of Plato, Aristotle, 00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:34.199 and other Muslim thinkers on this very topic. 00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:37.459 He proved he wasn't trying to trap Averroes, 00:06:37.459 --> 00:06:39.879 but that he genuinely wanted to explore the question. 00:06:40.139 --> 00:06:42.420 Which must have put Averroes at ease. Yeah. He 00:06:42.420 --> 00:06:44.240 realized he was in the company of a genuine, 00:06:44.319 --> 00:06:47.399 philosophically -minded patron. Completely. And 00:06:47.399 --> 00:06:49.839 so he then proceeded to explain his own nuanced 00:06:49.839 --> 00:06:52.220 position, which impressed the caliph immensely. 00:06:53.310 --> 00:06:56.110 Averroes later remarked that the caliph had, 00:06:56.350 --> 00:06:58.930 and I'm quoting here, a profuseness of learning 00:06:58.930 --> 00:07:01.589 I did not suspect. That's the ultimate academic 00:07:01.589 --> 00:07:04.129 seal of approval. And that one meeting secured 00:07:04.129 --> 00:07:07.310 his entire career trajectory. See, the caliph 00:07:07.310 --> 00:07:09.490 had complained to Ibn Tufaw before about how 00:07:09.490 --> 00:07:12.250 difficult Aristotle's original texts were. Too 00:07:12.250 --> 00:07:15.250 dense, too complex. So the caliph then commissioned 00:07:15.250 --> 00:07:18.389 Averroes to write clear, accessible commentaries 00:07:18.389 --> 00:07:21.290 to basically unlock Aristotle's wisdom for him 00:07:21.290 --> 00:07:23.930 and for the court. Talk about a mandate. And 00:07:23.930 --> 00:07:26.610 the rewards came almost immediately. In 1169, 00:07:26.829 --> 00:07:29.009 Averroes is appointed quadia judge in Seville. 00:07:29.290 --> 00:07:32.430 Two years later, in 1171, he's appointed quadia 00:07:32.430 --> 00:07:34.870 back in his hometown of Cordoba. And during this 00:07:34.870 --> 00:07:37.050 period, he's just unbelievably productive. He's 00:07:37.050 --> 00:07:39.189 a judge, he's traveling, but he's also writing 00:07:39.189 --> 00:07:41.250 constantly. The sources show it was a period 00:07:41.250 --> 00:07:43.850 of intense productivity. He's writing philosophy, 00:07:44.050 --> 00:07:46.870 law, and medicine, all while holding down this 00:07:46.870 --> 00:07:49.870 very demanding public office. And his rise just 00:07:49.870 --> 00:07:53.480 continued. In 1182, he succeeds his friend Ibn 00:07:53.480 --> 00:07:55.819 Tufayl as the court physician. And later that 00:07:55.819 --> 00:07:58.079 same year, he gets the ultimate family honor. 00:07:58.259 --> 00:08:01.579 He's appointed chief qadi of Cordoba, the exact 00:08:01.579 --> 00:08:04.620 same prestigious office his grandfather had held. 00:08:04.759 --> 00:08:08.079 He's at the absolute pinnacle of power, of scholarship, 00:08:08.399 --> 00:08:11.860 of royal favor for more than a decade. But we 00:08:11.860 --> 00:08:14.160 know how these stories go. The political winds 00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:16.819 can shift violently. And they did. The sources 00:08:16.819 --> 00:08:19.160 tell us his fortunes reversed just dramatically 00:08:19.160 --> 00:08:22.339 around 1195 under the new caliph, Abu Yusuf Yaqub. 00:08:22.540 --> 00:08:24.439 It was a sudden and shocking fall from grace. 00:08:24.639 --> 00:08:27.139 Completely. Averroes faced charges, a tribunal 00:08:27.139 --> 00:08:29.160 was held in Cordoba, his teachings were formally 00:08:29.160 --> 00:08:31.860 condemned, and his philosophical works were ordered 00:08:31.860 --> 00:08:33.820 to be collected and burned in public. And he 00:08:33.820 --> 00:08:36.179 was banished. He was banished to Lucina, a city 00:08:36.179 --> 00:08:38.299 near Cordoba. It served as a sort of temporary 00:08:38.299 --> 00:08:41.639 exile. That's the ultimate irony, isn't it? The 00:08:41.639 --> 00:08:43.679 man who was commissioned by the caliphate to 00:08:43.679 --> 00:08:46.960 clarify philosophy is now condemned by that same 00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:50.779 caliphate for his philosophical views. Why? Why 00:08:50.779 --> 00:08:53.639 the sudden shift? Well, modern historians are 00:08:53.639 --> 00:08:55.960 pretty clear on this. It was less about a genuine 00:08:55.960 --> 00:08:58.039 intellectual change of heart from the caliph 00:08:58.039 --> 00:09:01.610 and more about... Cold, hard political maneuvering. 00:09:01.649 --> 00:09:03.649 Okay, so what was the political situation? The 00:09:03.649 --> 00:09:06.330 caliph was locked in a fierce existential war 00:09:06.330 --> 00:09:08.309 against the Christian kingdoms in the north of 00:09:08.309 --> 00:09:11.409 the Iberian Peninsula. And to rally the populace 00:09:11.409 --> 00:09:14.149 to maintain morale and unity, he desperately 00:09:14.149 --> 00:09:16.629 needed the support of the orthodox religious 00:09:16.629 --> 00:09:18.970 establishment. The Ulema, the religious scholars. 00:09:19.230 --> 00:09:21.870 Exactly. And the Ulema had always seen a pharaoh's 00:09:21.870 --> 00:09:25.070 brand of radical rationalism as deeply, deeply 00:09:25.070 --> 00:09:27.350 threatening to their authority. Because he was 00:09:27.350 --> 00:09:29.720 challenging their method. their right to be the 00:09:29.720 --> 00:09:32.480 sole interpreters of scripture. Precisely. So 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:35.100 by publicly condemning Averroes, by burning his 00:09:35.100 --> 00:09:37.379 books and banishing him, the caliph was performing 00:09:37.379 --> 00:09:40.539 a very calculated political act. He was sacrificing 00:09:40.539 --> 00:09:42.980 his star philosopher to appease the powerful 00:09:42.980 --> 00:09:45.559 traditional religious bloc whose support he needed 00:09:45.559 --> 00:09:48.620 to win the war. So philosophy was a luxury. It 00:09:48.620 --> 00:09:50.620 was fine when the court was stable and curious, 00:09:50.779 --> 00:09:53.159 but when political survival was on the line, 00:09:53.299 --> 00:09:56.440 the rationalist had to go. It truly just underscores 00:09:56.440 --> 00:09:59.120 the fragility of intellectual freedom when it 00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:02.340 clashes with state power. Now, he was eventually 00:10:02.340 --> 00:10:04.240 recalled to court in Marrakesh shortly before 00:10:04.240 --> 00:10:07.019 he died in 1198, which suggests the political 00:10:07.019 --> 00:10:10.399 pressures had eased up. But the damage was done. 00:10:10.519 --> 00:10:13.299 And the incident just stands as this potent symbol 00:10:13.299 --> 00:10:15.980 of the tension between reason and traditional 00:10:15.980 --> 00:10:18.980 authority. OK, so moving from his life to his 00:10:18.980 --> 00:10:23.519 work, the sheer volume is. It's almost unbelievable. 00:10:23.720 --> 00:10:26.000 Our sources say over 100 books and treatises. 00:10:26.159 --> 00:10:28.799 And covering a wider array of subjects than any 00:10:28.799 --> 00:10:30.940 of his predecessors. But the reason we call him 00:10:30.940 --> 00:10:32.720 the commentator, the reason he has that singular 00:10:32.720 --> 00:10:35.820 title is Aristotle. His dedication to Aristotle 00:10:35.820 --> 00:10:38.039 was total. I mean, he took on this monumental 00:10:38.039 --> 00:10:40.860 task of commenting on nearly all of Aristotle's 00:10:40.860 --> 00:10:42.860 surviving works. Right. And as you noted, the 00:10:42.860 --> 00:10:44.940 only major exception was Aristotle's politics, 00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:47.179 which for whatever reason had been lost to the 00:10:47.179 --> 00:10:49.440 Islamic world at that time. But since politics 00:10:49.440 --> 00:10:52.179 was unavailable. Averroes didn't just ignore 00:10:52.179 --> 00:10:55.639 political science. He found a substitute, a pretty 00:10:55.639 --> 00:10:58.799 major one. He did. He wrote comprehensive commentaries 00:10:58.799 --> 00:11:01.580 on Plato's The Republic instead. He used it as 00:11:01.580 --> 00:11:03.519 the foundational text for political science. 00:11:03.720 --> 00:11:06.159 And then he synthesized Plato's political framework 00:11:06.159 --> 00:11:08.600 with the concept of the ideal Islamic state, 00:11:08.740 --> 00:11:11.899 which had to be based on Sharia law. That ability 00:11:11.899 --> 00:11:14.440 to adapt and fill in these huge intellectual 00:11:14.440 --> 00:11:17.799 gaps really speaks volumes about his scholarly 00:11:17.799 --> 00:11:19.970 drive. It really does. So let's dive into the 00:11:19.970 --> 00:11:21.889 commentaries themselves. This is really where 00:11:21.889 --> 00:11:25.029 he organizes his legacy. And he wrote three distinct 00:11:25.029 --> 00:11:28.009 types for different purposes. Yes. These three 00:11:28.009 --> 00:11:29.990 levels of commentary were tailored to different 00:11:29.990 --> 00:11:32.610 audiences and different needs. The first level 00:11:32.610 --> 00:11:35.570 were the short commentaries or the jammy. And 00:11:35.570 --> 00:11:37.389 these were for beginners. Essentially. Yeah. 00:11:37.429 --> 00:11:39.909 They were simple, straightforward summaries of 00:11:39.909 --> 00:11:42.350 the doctrines, probably written early in his 00:11:42.350 --> 00:11:44.850 career, intended for students or anyone who just 00:11:44.850 --> 00:11:47.070 needed a quick reference, a sort of Aristotle 00:11:47.070 --> 00:11:49.389 for dummies, if you will. Okay, and the next 00:11:49.389 --> 00:11:51.429 level up, this was probably the most important 00:11:51.429 --> 00:11:53.750 one for the caliph who commissioned him, the 00:11:53.750 --> 00:11:56.909 middle commentaries. The talkies. And yes, these 00:11:56.909 --> 00:11:59.549 were the paraphrases. They were designed specifically 00:11:59.549 --> 00:12:02.870 to clarify and simplify the original Aristotelian 00:12:02.870 --> 00:12:05.610 texts. These were the works meant to solve the 00:12:05.610 --> 00:12:08.490 caliph's frustration, to make dense philosophy 00:12:08.490 --> 00:12:11.529 accessible to an educated layman, to the court. 00:12:11.730 --> 00:12:13.789 So they summarized the arguments without getting 00:12:13.789 --> 00:12:15.789 bogged down in all the tiny textual disputes. 00:12:15.970 --> 00:12:18.840 Exactly. But then you have the third level. The 00:12:18.840 --> 00:12:21.500 truly defining works, the ones that earned him 00:12:21.500 --> 00:12:24.419 that singular title, the commentator in the West, 00:12:24.559 --> 00:12:27.179 the long commentaries, the Tafsir or the Shar. 00:12:27.419 --> 00:12:29.000 And these were a completely different beast. 00:12:29.159 --> 00:12:31.360 A completely different beast. These were massive, 00:12:31.460 --> 00:12:34.639 line by line, exhaustive analyses. They would 00:12:34.639 --> 00:12:37.000 include the complete original text of Aristotle. 00:12:37.200 --> 00:12:39.299 And then that would be followed by Averroes' 00:12:39.379 --> 00:12:41.879 extensive dissection, his comparison of different 00:12:41.879 --> 00:12:44.639 interpretations and his defense of the ideas. 00:12:45.289 --> 00:12:47.690 Definitely not for a general audience. No. These 00:12:47.690 --> 00:12:50.289 were meant for serious, advanced scholars, and 00:12:50.289 --> 00:12:52.870 they contain the highest degree of Evro's own 00:12:52.870 --> 00:12:55.570 original philosophical thought. And his mission 00:12:55.570 --> 00:12:57.389 within all these commentaries wasn't just to 00:12:57.389 --> 00:13:01.009 explain Aristotle. It was, as he saw it, to purify 00:13:01.009 --> 00:13:04.049 him. He wanted to restore the philosophy to its 00:13:04.049 --> 00:13:06.889 original teachings. Why did he feel Aristotle 00:13:06.889 --> 00:13:10.039 needed purifying? Because he believed that the 00:13:10.039 --> 00:13:13.279 previous and hugely influential Muslim philosophers, 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:15.679 specifically Al -Farabi and most importantly 00:13:15.679 --> 00:13:19.620 Avicenna, had corrupted Aristotle. They had woven 00:13:19.620 --> 00:13:22.659 in Neoplatonic concepts that he felt had no place 00:13:22.659 --> 00:13:24.519 there. Okay, let's slow down here because this 00:13:24.519 --> 00:13:26.200 is where the philosophical nuance is critical. 00:13:26.980 --> 00:13:30.120 What exactly did Neoplatonism inject into the 00:13:30.120 --> 00:13:33.899 conversation that Averroes found so distasteful? 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:36.279 The primary injection was the doctrine of emanation. 00:13:36.570 --> 00:13:38.429 Now, Aristotle's physics explained the world 00:13:38.429 --> 00:13:40.370 through, you know, change, movement, causation, 00:13:40.450 --> 00:13:43.049 things you can observe, but not through a kind 00:13:43.049 --> 00:13:45.409 of flowing hierarchical process of creation. 00:13:45.769 --> 00:13:48.250 So what is emanation? Emanation, as Avicenna 00:13:48.250 --> 00:13:50.889 adopted it, proposed that the entire cosmos flows 00:13:50.889 --> 00:13:53.149 downward from the singularity of God in these 00:13:53.149 --> 00:13:55.649 successive stages. It's like a waterfall of being. 00:13:55.870 --> 00:13:58.909 First come the pure intelligences, then the celestial 00:13:58.909 --> 00:14:01.230 spheres, and finally, at the very bottom, our 00:14:01.230 --> 00:14:04.570 physical world. So a tiered waterfall -like creation 00:14:04.570 --> 00:14:08.240 model. Precisely. And Averroes argued that this 00:14:08.240 --> 00:14:11.340 concept of emanation was utterly fallacious and 00:14:11.340 --> 00:14:14.299 completely foreign to Aristotle's actual surviving 00:14:14.299 --> 00:14:17.539 works. For him, Avicenna wasn't interpreting 00:14:17.539 --> 00:14:20.059 Aristotle. He was replacing Aristotle's logic 00:14:20.059 --> 00:14:23.980 and physics with this mystical cosmological system. 00:14:24.159 --> 00:14:26.659 So Averroes saw himself as correcting the historical 00:14:26.659 --> 00:14:29.700 record. He did. It sounds like an internal battle 00:14:29.700 --> 00:14:32.519 over the true inheritance of Greek thought. If 00:14:32.519 --> 00:14:34.379 you follow Avicenna, you're following a synthesis. 00:14:34.570 --> 00:14:36.789 a blend. If you follow Everose, you're a purist. 00:14:36.789 --> 00:14:38.669 You follow the original text. It's interesting 00:14:38.669 --> 00:14:40.730 because he even agreed with some of the critiques 00:14:40.730 --> 00:14:43.669 that the anti -philosophy theologian Al -Ghazali 00:14:43.669 --> 00:14:46.450 had leveled against Avicenna. Yes, but for completely 00:14:46.450 --> 00:14:49.129 different reasons. Al -Ghazali said Avicenna's 00:14:49.129 --> 00:14:51.289 emanation was heresy because it wasn't in the 00:14:51.289 --> 00:14:54.009 Quran. Everose said it was simply bad philosophy 00:14:54.009 --> 00:14:56.529 because it wasn't in Aristotle. He also tackled 00:14:56.529 --> 00:14:59.350 this huge metaphysical issue, the relationship 00:14:59.350 --> 00:15:02.100 between existence and essence. Now, this sounds 00:15:02.100 --> 00:15:05.139 very abstract, but it has huge implications for 00:15:05.139 --> 00:15:07.980 how you understand what reality even is. It's 00:15:07.980 --> 00:15:10.039 highly technical, but let's try to make it concrete. 00:15:10.840 --> 00:15:12.559 Avicenna held what we called the distinction 00:15:12.559 --> 00:15:15.799 between essence and existence. For him, essence 00:15:15.799 --> 00:15:18.320 is what a thing is. It's blueprint, you know, 00:15:18.340 --> 00:15:21.740 dogness or chairness. And existence is just an 00:15:21.740 --> 00:15:24.879 accident that gets added to it later. Like having 00:15:24.879 --> 00:15:27.960 the architectural plans for a house. That's the 00:15:27.960 --> 00:15:30.620 essence. And then actually building it is adding 00:15:30.620 --> 00:15:33.399 the accident of existence. Perfect analogy. And 00:15:33.399 --> 00:15:36.200 Averroes completely rejected that ordering. He 00:15:36.200 --> 00:15:38.919 argued the reverse. Absolutely. He said you don't 00:15:38.919 --> 00:15:41.299 start with a pure essence that then accidentally 00:15:41.299 --> 00:15:43.980 becomes real. Something is. It exists, per se. 00:15:44.240 --> 00:15:47.159 You can only figure out its essence, its blueprint, 00:15:47.299 --> 00:15:50.000 through a later process of abstraction and examination. 00:15:50.539 --> 00:15:53.639 For Averroes, existence is the primary reality. 00:15:53.980 --> 00:15:56.000 Essence is what you derive from that reality. 00:15:56.340 --> 00:15:58.250 That's a deep sh**. deep disagreement. This wasn't 00:15:58.250 --> 00:16:00.730 about minor textual points. This was about the 00:16:00.730 --> 00:16:03.409 fundamental nature of reality itself. Right. 00:16:03.509 --> 00:16:06.090 And Averroes' goal was just to strip away all 00:16:06.090 --> 00:16:08.250 this metaphysical complexity that had built up 00:16:08.250 --> 00:16:11.409 over centuries and return to what he saw as Aristotle's 00:16:11.409 --> 00:16:14.470 clear empirical common sense logic. And that 00:16:14.470 --> 00:16:17.049 commitment to intellectual honesty, regardless 00:16:17.049 --> 00:16:20.509 of the source, is summed up so well in that Famous 00:16:20.509 --> 00:16:22.830 quote from the sources. It is. He wrote that 00:16:22.830 --> 00:16:25.049 if wisdom has been previously inquired into, 00:16:25.269 --> 00:16:27.470 it behooves us to seek help from what he has 00:16:27.470 --> 00:16:29.870 said. It is irrelevant whether he belongs to 00:16:29.870 --> 00:16:32.429 our community or to another. That declaration, 00:16:32.690 --> 00:16:34.950 that truth is truth, regardless of the faith 00:16:34.950 --> 00:16:37.169 of the person who found it, that's the hallmark 00:16:37.169 --> 00:16:39.570 of the rationalist spirit that defines his entire 00:16:39.570 --> 00:16:42.950 body of work. So this philosophical work, as 00:16:42.950 --> 00:16:45.090 we discussed earlier, was happening in an extremely 00:16:45.090 --> 00:16:47.470 hostile environment. The whole project of philosophy 00:16:47.470 --> 00:16:51.120 was under fire. Very much so. Most notably from 00:16:51.120 --> 00:16:53.700 the Ashari theologian Al -Ghazali, whose work 00:16:53.700 --> 00:16:56.340 The Incoherence of the Philosophers was this 00:16:56.340 --> 00:16:59.879 massive attempt to just dismantle the entire 00:16:59.879 --> 00:17:02.220 structure of Avicennan philosophy and accuse 00:17:02.220 --> 00:17:04.680 its followers of, well, non -belief. And this 00:17:04.680 --> 00:17:06.900 political and theological pressure is the necessary 00:17:06.900 --> 00:17:09.299 context for Avra's most important standalone 00:17:09.299 --> 00:17:13.079 work, Fossil Amical. The decisive treatise on 00:17:13.079 --> 00:17:15.039 the harmony between religious law and philosophy. 00:17:15.759 --> 00:17:18.680 written in 1178 and this was not just a defense 00:17:18.680 --> 00:17:21.119 of philosophy it was a counter -attack his central 00:17:21.119 --> 00:17:24.920 thesis is monumental the compatibility of reason 00:17:24.920 --> 00:17:28.299 and revelation that they can coexist he argues 00:17:28.299 --> 00:17:30.660 they can do more than coexist they must agree 00:17:30.660 --> 00:17:33.960 because as he says truth cannot contradict truth 00:17:33.960 --> 00:17:37.750 his argument was so elegant If revelation from 00:17:37.750 --> 00:17:39.809 scripture and reason from philosophy are both 00:17:39.809 --> 00:17:42.710 valid paths to the one ultimate truth, then they 00:17:42.710 --> 00:17:44.750 cannot ultimately conflict with one another. 00:17:44.970 --> 00:17:47.049 But, I mean, they inevitably seem to conflict, 00:17:47.109 --> 00:17:49.470 especially on these big cosmological questions 00:17:49.470 --> 00:17:52.589 like the creation of the universe. So what did 00:17:52.589 --> 00:17:56.089 Evero say about handling those clashes? this 00:17:56.089 --> 00:17:58.690 is his most radical move he says that if the 00:17:58.690 --> 00:18:01.289 conclusion you reach through rigorous demonstrative 00:18:01.289 --> 00:18:03.569 philosophical reason appears to clash with the 00:18:03.569 --> 00:18:06.150 literal text of scripture then what then the 00:18:06.150 --> 00:18:09.049 scripture must be interpreted allegorically The 00:18:09.049 --> 00:18:11.829 literal text, by necessity, must yield to the 00:18:11.829 --> 00:18:13.950 proven truth of reason. Wait, let's slow down 00:18:13.950 --> 00:18:16.250 on the implications of that. Traditionally, the 00:18:16.250 --> 00:18:18.809 religious scholars, the Ulama, held the absolute 00:18:18.809 --> 00:18:21.430 authority for interpreting scripture. By making 00:18:21.430 --> 00:18:23.990 the literal text yield to the rational conclusion, 00:18:24.710 --> 00:18:27.910 Avros isn't just defending philosophy. He's fundamentally 00:18:27.910 --> 00:18:30.549 challenging the entire religious establishment's 00:18:30.549 --> 00:18:33.109 intellectual power. He is shifting the entire 00:18:33.109 --> 00:18:35.970 burden of interpretation. He argued that this 00:18:35.970 --> 00:18:38.150 difficult duty of allegorical interpretation 00:18:38.220 --> 00:18:41.220 falls only to those rooted in knowledge, which 00:18:41.220 --> 00:18:43.019 is a phrase he takes directly from the Quran. 00:18:43.319 --> 00:18:45.799 And for Averroes, who are the people rooted in 00:18:45.799 --> 00:18:48.579 knowledge? The philosophers, the masters of logic. 00:18:49.049 --> 00:18:51.589 He created a hierarchy of understanding, and 00:18:51.589 --> 00:18:54.250 he placed the most rigorous intellectual method 00:18:54.250 --> 00:18:57.269 philosophy at the absolute apex of religious 00:18:57.269 --> 00:18:59.190 scholarship. That's a heavy burden to claim, 00:18:59.289 --> 00:19:01.750 and as he found out, a potentially fatal political 00:19:01.750 --> 00:19:04.670 position to take. And he went even further. He 00:19:04.670 --> 00:19:07.009 argued philosophy wasn't just permissible, but 00:19:07.009 --> 00:19:09.859 an active religious obligation. He actually issued 00:19:09.859 --> 00:19:12.440 a fatwa, a formal legal opinion, suggesting that 00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:14.940 philosophy was likely an obligation or wajib. 00:19:15.119 --> 00:19:18.240 His logic was simple and, he argued, rooted in 00:19:18.240 --> 00:19:21.059 scripture itself. The Quran frequently calls 00:19:21.059 --> 00:19:23.420 on believers to study nature, to reflect on the 00:19:23.420 --> 00:19:26.579 world. And he asks why. Because the deeper your 00:19:26.579 --> 00:19:29.160 empirical and rational study of nature becomes, 00:19:29.440 --> 00:19:32.259 the more profound your knowledge of God, whom 00:19:32.259 --> 00:19:35.380 he calls the artisan or the maker. So if God 00:19:35.380 --> 00:19:38.079 commands reflection and philosophy is the most... 00:19:38.250 --> 00:19:40.710 rigorous method of reflection, then the serious 00:19:40.710 --> 00:19:43.190 study of philosophy is, in effect, a religious 00:19:43.190 --> 00:19:45.890 act of worship. Precisely. It completely turns 00:19:45.890 --> 00:19:48.210 a theologian's critique on its head. He's saying, 00:19:48.309 --> 00:19:51.569 you must do this to be a better Muslim, provided, 00:19:51.569 --> 00:19:53.329 of course, that you have the intellectual talent 00:19:53.329 --> 00:19:56.099 for it. And to make this system manageable for 00:19:56.099 --> 00:19:59.079 society, he formalized his famous three modes 00:19:59.079 --> 00:20:01.880 of discourse, which define how different people 00:20:01.880 --> 00:20:05.079 can access truth. Yes, and these modes are defined 00:20:05.079 --> 00:20:07.480 by their logical rigor. At the bottom, you have 00:20:07.480 --> 00:20:09.619 the rhetorical mode. This is based on persuasion, 00:20:09.759 --> 00:20:12.859 using imagery, metaphor, arguments that are highly 00:20:12.859 --> 00:20:15.200 accessible. And that's the Quran's primary mode. 00:20:15.529 --> 00:20:18.190 Averroes says yes, because its message has to 00:20:18.190 --> 00:20:21.410 reach the common masses, the fishermen, the farmer, 00:20:21.549 --> 00:20:23.970 the merchant, in order to guide them to salvation. 00:20:24.289 --> 00:20:26.450 It has to be persuasive. Okay, then there's the 00:20:26.450 --> 00:20:29.230 middle ground. That's the dialectical mode. This 00:20:29.230 --> 00:20:31.950 is based on debate, using plausible opinions 00:20:31.950 --> 00:20:34.390 and arguments that are often probable but not 00:20:34.390 --> 00:20:37.730 absolutely certain. And this, crucially, is the 00:20:37.730 --> 00:20:40.869 method used by the theologians, the ulama. So 00:20:40.869 --> 00:20:43.019 he's saying they're good at debate. But their 00:20:43.019 --> 00:20:45.720 method can only achieve high probability, not 00:20:45.720 --> 00:20:48.359 absolute certainty. Exactly. And that brings 00:20:48.359 --> 00:20:50.500 us to the pinnacle, which is only for the elite. 00:20:50.660 --> 00:20:53.680 The demonstrative mode. This is based on pure, 00:20:53.859 --> 00:20:56.579 necessary logical deduction and demonstration. 00:20:56.940 --> 00:21:00.160 It yields absolute, certain knowledge. The exclusive 00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:02.519 domain of the philosopher. The exclusive domain 00:21:02.519 --> 00:21:04.759 of the philosopher. By classifying the theologian's 00:21:04.759 --> 00:21:07.220 method as merely dialectical, he intellectually 00:21:07.220 --> 00:21:09.720 undercut their authority, stating they simply 00:21:09.720 --> 00:21:11.539 couldn't achieve the highest level of truth. 00:21:11.819 --> 00:21:14.460 He also applied this rigor to defining God's 00:21:14.460 --> 00:21:16.799 nature, especially in his work The Exposition 00:21:16.799 --> 00:21:19.869 of the Methods of Proof. He found a lot of flaws 00:21:19.869 --> 00:21:22.269 in the standard proof for God's existence used 00:21:22.269 --> 00:21:24.789 by the various Islamic sects. Yeah, he criticized 00:21:24.789 --> 00:21:26.910 the prevailing cosmological arguments, you know, 00:21:26.930 --> 00:21:29.410 arguments based on cause and effect or contingency 00:21:29.410 --> 00:21:31.990 as being logically unsound or at least vulnerable 00:21:31.990 --> 00:21:34.509 to philosophical attack. So what did he offer 00:21:34.509 --> 00:21:36.970 instead? He presented two arguments for God's 00:21:36.970 --> 00:21:39.089 existence that he claimed were both logically 00:21:39.089 --> 00:21:41.390 sound and aligned with the clear purpose of the 00:21:41.390 --> 00:21:44.009 Quran. And these were teleological arguments. 00:21:44.269 --> 00:21:47.450 Arguments based on design and purpose. So cosmological. 00:21:47.720 --> 00:21:50.039 asks, why is there something rather than nothing? 00:21:50.380 --> 00:21:53.660 Teleological asks, why is everything so perfectly 00:21:53.660 --> 00:21:56.839 arranged? That's a great summary. His first was 00:21:56.839 --> 00:21:59.480 the argument from Providence. He looked at the 00:21:59.480 --> 00:22:01.660 fine tuning of the natural world, the orbit of 00:22:01.660 --> 00:22:03.920 the sun, the predictability of the moon, the 00:22:03.920 --> 00:22:06.779 location of rivers, the precise environment humans 00:22:06.779 --> 00:22:10.289 need to flourish. Averroes argued that this vast 00:22:10.289 --> 00:22:13.150 systematic arrangement suggests a creator who 00:22:13.150 --> 00:22:15.309 is deliberately concerned with the welfare of 00:22:15.309 --> 00:22:17.990 mankind. It points to a benevolent designer. 00:22:18.349 --> 00:22:21.069 And the second argument. The argument from invention. 00:22:21.589 --> 00:22:24.509 This focused more on the micro level on worldly 00:22:24.509 --> 00:22:26.990 entities like animals and plants and their complex 00:22:26.990 --> 00:22:29.250 internal systems. He said these things appear 00:22:29.250 --> 00:22:32.349 so clearly invented or fabricated, exhibiting 00:22:32.349 --> 00:22:34.390 a design and function that just can't be explained 00:22:34.390 --> 00:22:36.910 by accident. Therefore, they necessitate a designer 00:22:36.910 --> 00:22:39.799 who is God. So by focusing on observation and 00:22:39.799 --> 00:22:42.900 purpose, he's grounding his theology in the empirical 00:22:42.900 --> 00:22:45.980 reality that Aristotle loved. He is. And he even 00:22:45.980 --> 00:22:48.460 tried to moderate one of the most volatile theological 00:22:48.460 --> 00:22:51.539 debates of his time, the pre -eternity of the 00:22:51.539 --> 00:22:55.119 world. As we mentioned, Al -Ghazali used this 00:22:55.119 --> 00:22:57.859 very issue to accuse philosophers of outright 00:22:57.859 --> 00:23:01.059 unbelief of Kufr. Avro stepped right into that 00:23:01.059 --> 00:23:04.079 fire to cool things down. He did. He argued that 00:23:04.079 --> 00:23:06.519 the difference between the two positions, whether 00:23:06.519 --> 00:23:08.819 the world was created from nothing at a specific 00:23:08.819 --> 00:23:12.000 moment or whether it has existed eternally, was 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:14.559 subtle and nuanced. It wasn't nearly severe enough 00:23:14.559 --> 00:23:17.240 to warrant a charge of unbelief. So how did he 00:23:17.240 --> 00:23:20.559 reconcile the idea of an eternal world with the 00:23:20.559 --> 00:23:23.359 Quran's description of creation? He argued the 00:23:23.359 --> 00:23:26.380 conflict was mostly semantic. He pointed to Quranic 00:23:26.380 --> 00:23:28.240 verses that mentioned pre -existing entities 00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:31.259 like God's throne and water, suggesting that 00:23:31.259 --> 00:23:33.960 something was eternal. His final conclusion was 00:23:33.960 --> 00:23:36.380 that the Quran implies only the form of the universe. 00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:38.799 Its present arrangement and structure was created 00:23:38.799 --> 00:23:41.500 in time, but its underlying existence has always 00:23:41.500 --> 00:23:43.480 been connected to God. And he basically told 00:23:43.480 --> 00:23:46.539 the theologians to back off. He sharply criticized 00:23:46.539 --> 00:23:49.759 them, the muticalimen, for addressing these complex 00:23:49.759 --> 00:23:53.319 cosmological questions that, in his view, only 00:23:53.319 --> 00:23:56.119 truly belong to the advanced domain of philosophy. 00:23:56.440 --> 00:23:59.180 He was carving out a rational middle ground. 00:23:59.359 --> 00:24:01.559 Now, Averroes wasn't just a philosopher. He was 00:24:01.559 --> 00:24:04.220 a scientist and a political theorist. Let's look 00:24:04.220 --> 00:24:06.200 at his pioneering work in these other fields, 00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:08.619 starting with political philosophy, where, as 00:24:08.619 --> 00:24:11.470 we said, he had to rely on Plato. Right. Because 00:24:11.470 --> 00:24:14.869 Aristotle's politics was missing, he was commenting 00:24:14.869 --> 00:24:17.309 on Plato's The Republic. And that meant he had 00:24:17.309 --> 00:24:19.990 to interpret it within his own cultural and religious 00:24:19.990 --> 00:24:23.569 context. He synthesized Plato's ideals with the 00:24:23.569 --> 00:24:25.990 structure of the Islamic state. So for him, the 00:24:25.990 --> 00:24:28.470 ideal state had to be based on Sharia. It had 00:24:28.470 --> 00:24:30.769 to be. And he interpreted Plato's famous philosopher 00:24:30.769 --> 00:24:33.970 king as being the imam or the caliph, essentially 00:24:33.970 --> 00:24:36.789 merging the spiritual and temporal rational ruler 00:24:36.789 --> 00:24:39.849 into a single ideal figure. And this interpretation 00:24:39.849 --> 00:24:42.390 also justified the use of force, didn't it? It 00:24:42.390 --> 00:24:44.910 did. He taught that the ideal state uses two 00:24:44.910 --> 00:24:48.529 methods to instill virtue in its citizens. Persuasion, 00:24:48.670 --> 00:24:51.630 which uses those rhetorical, dialectical, and 00:24:51.630 --> 00:24:54.630 demonstrative methods we talked about. And coercion. 00:24:54.809 --> 00:24:57.730 He justified war as a necessary last resort, 00:24:57.890 --> 00:25:01.009 supported by Quranic principles, for those citizens 00:25:01.009 --> 00:25:03.130 or external enemies who could not be brought 00:25:03.130 --> 00:25:06.119 around by reason alone. But his views on women, 00:25:06.279 --> 00:25:08.539 which he derived from his reading of Plato, are 00:25:08.539 --> 00:25:11.140 genuinely startling for the 12th century. They 00:25:11.140 --> 00:25:14.000 are profoundly advanced. I mean, Averroes explicitly 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:16.380 called for women to share administrative and 00:25:16.380 --> 00:25:19.279 public roles with men. He went so far as to include 00:25:19.279 --> 00:25:21.920 serving as soldiers, philosophers and even as 00:25:21.920 --> 00:25:24.619 rulers. That is a striking critique of his own 00:25:24.619 --> 00:25:27.140 society. It's a massive critique. He argued that 00:25:27.140 --> 00:25:29.140 the prevailing Muslim societies of his time were 00:25:29.140 --> 00:25:31.400 unjustly limiting women's public participation. 00:25:31.740 --> 00:25:34.059 And he deemed this restriction not just unfair, 00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:36.720 but actively harmful to the state's overall economic 00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:39.019 and political well -being. You're wasting half 00:25:39.019 --> 00:25:41.349 the state's talent. He also used Plato's model 00:25:41.349 --> 00:25:43.569 of political decay to analyze the history of 00:25:43.569 --> 00:25:46.609 the caliphate itself. Yes, he saw the initial 00:25:46.609 --> 00:25:49.589 ideal period, the Rashidun Caliphate, as a reflection 00:25:49.589 --> 00:25:52.769 of Plato's ideal state. But he observed that 00:25:52.769 --> 00:25:55.069 it had deteriorated into less virtuous forms 00:25:55.069 --> 00:25:57.650 of government, following that classic platonic 00:25:57.650 --> 00:26:00.710 path from a democracy rule by honor and the military 00:26:00.710 --> 00:26:04.289 to an oligarchy rule by the wealthy, then to 00:26:04.289 --> 00:26:06.329 a democracy, which Plato saw as ruled by the 00:26:06.329 --> 00:26:10.390 volatile mob, and finally to tyranny. And he 00:26:10.390 --> 00:26:13.150 saw his own time as being on that downward slide. 00:26:13.309 --> 00:26:16.069 He saw his contemporary political situation as 00:26:16.069 --> 00:26:18.329 being firmly on that downward slide. Yes. OK, 00:26:18.410 --> 00:26:20.720 let's switch gears completely. His medical contributions. 00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:23.180 Even though he confessed to having pretty limited 00:26:23.180 --> 00:26:25.140 clinical practice. Yeah, he said he only treated 00:26:25.140 --> 00:26:27.599 myself, my relatives, or my friends. Despite 00:26:27.599 --> 00:26:30.420 that, his theoretical output was massive. It 00:26:30.420 --> 00:26:33.940 was. His major medical text, Alculiat Fi Al Tib, 00:26:34.140 --> 00:26:36.299 or Cullegit as it was known in Latin, became 00:26:36.299 --> 00:26:39.019 a staple textbook across European medical universities 00:26:39.019 --> 00:26:41.559 for centuries. It was a comprehensive treatise 00:26:41.559 --> 00:26:44.160 on general medical principles. But inside it 00:26:44.160 --> 00:26:46.220 were some breakthroughs that truly overturned 00:26:46.220 --> 00:26:48.559 the old, glenic, and earlier era of medical thinking. 00:26:49.099 --> 00:26:51.220 What stands out in terms of anatomy? His work 00:26:51.220 --> 00:26:53.940 on vision. For centuries, the prevailing theory 00:26:53.940 --> 00:26:56.400 from Galen was that the lens of the eye was the 00:26:56.400 --> 00:26:59.900 primary light sensing organ. Averroes may have 00:26:59.900 --> 00:27:02.460 been the very first person to correctly identify 00:27:02.460 --> 00:27:04.819 the retina as the part of the eye responsible 00:27:04.819 --> 00:27:08.180 for sensing light and color. That's a huge step 00:27:08.180 --> 00:27:10.720 toward modern ophthalmology. It changes the entire 00:27:10.720 --> 00:27:13.119 understanding of how vision actually works. It's 00:27:13.119 --> 00:27:15.680 a critical step. And his neurological insights 00:27:15.680 --> 00:27:17.900 were also way ahead of their time, particularly 00:27:17.900 --> 00:27:21.240 concerning complex diseases. What are we talking 00:27:21.240 --> 00:27:23.829 about here? Two things jump out. First, he provided 00:27:23.829 --> 00:27:25.829 some of the initial clinical descriptions of 00:27:25.829 --> 00:27:28.349 the signs and symptoms of a condition that modern 00:27:28.349 --> 00:27:30.910 physicians immediately recognize as Parkinson's 00:27:30.910 --> 00:27:33.470 disease, decades and decades before it was formally 00:27:33.470 --> 00:27:35.789 named in the West. He described the tremors, 00:27:35.789 --> 00:27:38.630 the rigidity, the gait changes. And the second 00:27:38.630 --> 00:27:41.089 one. His theory on the pathology of stroke. He 00:27:41.089 --> 00:27:42.829 moved away from the dominant Galenic theory, 00:27:42.930 --> 00:27:45.509 which often attributed strokes to peripheral 00:27:45.509 --> 00:27:47.769 obstructions or blockages far from the brain. 00:27:48.359 --> 00:27:50.380 Erivers proposed that strokes were caused by 00:27:50.380 --> 00:27:52.380 the obstruction of arteries directly within the 00:27:52.380 --> 00:27:55.200 cerebrum, the brain itself. Which is remarkably 00:27:55.200 --> 00:27:58.880 close to our modern understanding of ischemic 00:27:58.880 --> 00:28:02.019 and hemorrhagic strokes. It's much, much closer. 00:28:02.299 --> 00:28:05.579 But if we want to talk about true intellectual 00:28:05.579 --> 00:28:08.380 fireworks, the single most controversial idea 00:28:08.380 --> 00:28:10.759 he ever put forward, we have to talk about his 00:28:10.759 --> 00:28:13.180 psychological theory. The unity of the intellect. 00:28:13.380 --> 00:28:15.119 The unity of the intellect. This is where Latin 00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:17.660 Averroism gets its name, and this is why the 00:28:17.660 --> 00:28:20.519 church condemned him so fiercely. This concept, 00:28:20.720 --> 00:28:23.960 which he lays out in his long commentary on Aristotle's 00:28:23.960 --> 00:28:27.240 On the Soul, is complex and incredibly radical. 00:28:27.559 --> 00:28:29.480 So what was the problem he was trying to solve? 00:28:29.759 --> 00:28:31.940 He was grappling with this fundamental problem. 00:28:32.460 --> 00:28:35.680 How can individual humans, who are mortal and 00:28:35.680 --> 00:28:38.599 made of matter, achieve universal certain knowledge? 00:28:39.079 --> 00:28:41.799 knowledge that seems to transcend any one individual. 00:28:42.019 --> 00:28:44.160 And what was his startling conclusion about the 00:28:44.160 --> 00:28:46.420 hardware that makes this kind of thought possible? 00:28:46.640 --> 00:28:49.019 He argued that there is only one material intellect 00:28:49.019 --> 00:28:51.279 and the single intellect is common to all of 00:28:51.279 --> 00:28:53.980 humanity. And crucially, this universal intellect 00:28:53.980 --> 00:28:57.400 is unmixed with any individual human body. It's 00:28:57.400 --> 00:28:59.799 separate, it's eternal, and it's shared. Okay, 00:28:59.839 --> 00:29:03.119 let's unpack that. Think of it as a like a single 00:29:03.119 --> 00:29:06.759 shared cloud server that hosts all of humanity's 00:29:07.049 --> 00:29:09.309 Potential knowledge. That's a fantastic modern 00:29:09.309 --> 00:29:12.609 analogy, yes. But that immediately raises a massive 00:29:12.609 --> 00:29:15.609 obvious problem. If we all share the same universal 00:29:15.609 --> 00:29:19.589 brain software, where does me stop and you begin? 00:29:20.289 --> 00:29:23.529 How do we account for the unique individual thoughts 00:29:23.529 --> 00:29:26.130 and experiences that make us distinct people? 00:29:26.430 --> 00:29:29.470 That is the billion -dollar question. And Navarro 00:29:29.470 --> 00:29:31.509 has accounted for individual experience by introducing 00:29:31.509 --> 00:29:35.359 a concept he called Or what became known as cogitatio 00:29:35.359 --> 00:29:38.579 in Latin. Cogitatio. That's the root of Descartes, 00:29:38.619 --> 00:29:42.210 I think. Therefore, I am. Precisely. For Averroes, 00:29:42.210 --> 00:29:44.710 cogitatio is the individual process that happens 00:29:44.710 --> 00:29:47.950 in our specific physical human brains. It involves 00:29:47.950 --> 00:29:50.150 the active consideration of particular things 00:29:50.150 --> 00:29:52.170 that each person has encountered. Your individual 00:29:52.170 --> 00:29:54.569 sensory input, your memories, the specific life 00:29:54.569 --> 00:29:56.910 experiences that are unique to you. So the body 00:29:56.910 --> 00:29:58.769 is individual, the experiences are individual, 00:29:59.049 --> 00:30:01.309 but at the highest rational faculty itself is 00:30:01.309 --> 00:30:03.970 universal and shared. That's the theory. I can 00:30:03.970 --> 00:30:05.670 immediately see why this was so controversial. 00:30:06.640 --> 00:30:09.180 If the intellect is universal and separate from 00:30:09.180 --> 00:30:12.180 my body, it severely undermines the Christian 00:30:12.180 --> 00:30:14.380 and Muslim theological concept of individual 00:30:14.380 --> 00:30:18.130 immortality and the distinct personal soul. Exactly. 00:30:18.210 --> 00:30:20.309 If our best part, our rational mind, is shared, 00:30:20.529 --> 00:30:24.049 what's left of the unique you after death? That 00:30:24.049 --> 00:30:26.250 was the heart of the critique, and that is why 00:30:26.250 --> 00:30:28.490 it was so violently rejected by theologians like 00:30:28.490 --> 00:30:31.150 Thomas Aquinas. It threatened to render individual 00:30:31.150 --> 00:30:33.970 moral responsibility indistinct, or at the very 00:30:33.970 --> 00:30:36.410 least, highly questionable. Okay, and finally, 00:30:36.509 --> 00:30:39.349 let's just touch upon his work in astronomy, 00:30:39.529 --> 00:30:43.869 which was driven by his commitment to pure Aristotelian 00:30:43.869 --> 00:30:47.549 physics, even if it led him into, well, a conceptual 00:30:47.549 --> 00:30:50.470 dead end. He was a very harsh critic of the dominant 00:30:50.470 --> 00:30:52.589 mathematical model of his time, which was the 00:30:52.589 --> 00:30:55.369 Ptolemaic system. Ptolemy used these clever devices 00:30:55.369 --> 00:30:58.269 like epicycles and eccentrics, basically, circles 00:30:58.269 --> 00:31:00.750 moving on other circles, to accurately calculate 00:31:00.750 --> 00:31:03.230 the bizarre observed movements of the planets. 00:31:03.329 --> 00:31:05.349 And the model worked for prediction. It was accurate. 00:31:05.690 --> 00:31:08.170 But Averroes had a philosophical objection to 00:31:08.170 --> 00:31:10.630 it. His objection was that it didn't reflect 00:31:10.630 --> 00:31:13.519 physical reality. Aristotle's physics demanded 00:31:13.519 --> 00:31:16.380 uniform, perfectly circular motions all centered 00:31:16.380 --> 00:31:19.579 on the Earth. Ptolemy's mathematical tricks violated 00:31:19.579 --> 00:31:22.279 that physical purity. And he had that famous 00:31:22.279 --> 00:31:25.019 quote about it. Yes, he famously declared that 00:31:25.019 --> 00:31:28.019 the astronomy of our time offers no truth, but 00:31:28.019 --> 00:31:30.279 only agrees with the calculations and not with 00:31:30.279 --> 00:31:32.960 what exists. He wanted an astronomy where the 00:31:32.960 --> 00:31:36.150 physics and the math aligned perfectly. He tried 00:31:36.150 --> 00:31:38.490 to lead a reform, but was he successful in fixing 00:31:38.490 --> 00:31:41.049 it? He ultimately confessed that he failed to 00:31:41.049 --> 00:31:43.549 resolve the inconsistencies between the observed 00:31:43.549 --> 00:31:46.410 heavens and the requirements of pure Aristotelian 00:31:46.410 --> 00:31:49.309 physics. He said he lacked the time and the knowledge. 00:31:49.509 --> 00:31:52.190 But his philosophical demand for physical reality 00:31:52.190 --> 00:31:55.269 over purely predictive math deeply influenced 00:31:55.269 --> 00:31:58.450 later astronomers in Al -Andalus, like Nur ad 00:31:58.450 --> 00:32:00.839 -Din al -Batruji. And he still used observation 00:32:00.839 --> 00:32:03.380 to make important points. He did. He used his 00:32:03.380 --> 00:32:05.279 own observations, like the fact that the star 00:32:05.279 --> 00:32:07.440 Canopus was visible in Marrakesh, but not up 00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:09.759 in Spain, to provide more empirical evidence 00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:12.119 for the already established theory of a spherical 00:32:12.119 --> 00:32:14.579 Earth. So we have this massive intellectual figure, 00:32:14.700 --> 00:32:17.819 a judge, a doctor, a philosopher, whose works 00:32:17.819 --> 00:32:20.099 were literally burned in his home country because 00:32:20.099 --> 00:32:23.539 of political expediency. And yet he becomes the 00:32:23.539 --> 00:32:27.720 commentator. So where did this monumental influence... 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:30.960 truly take root. Paradoxically, it flourished 00:32:30.960 --> 00:32:33.539 in the West, in the Latin Christian world. You 00:32:33.539 --> 00:32:35.099 have to remember, after the fall of the Western 00:32:35.099 --> 00:32:38.400 Roman Empire, vast portions of Aristotle's corpus, 00:32:38.579 --> 00:32:40.920 the very foundation of Greek philosophy, have 00:32:40.920 --> 00:32:43.220 been lost to Europe. And Averroes' commentaries 00:32:43.220 --> 00:32:45.099 were the key. They were the essential intellectual 00:32:45.099 --> 00:32:47.920 apparatus to reintroduce Aristotle to Western 00:32:47.920 --> 00:32:50.740 Europe. He essentially handed them the keys to 00:32:50.740 --> 00:32:53.500 their own classical past, along with a detailed 00:32:53.500 --> 00:32:56.279 instruction manual. The translation efforts began 00:32:56.279 --> 00:32:59.460 in the early 13th century. Yes, in earnest, notably 00:32:59.460 --> 00:33:01.779 by a man named Michael Scott, starting around 00:33:01.779 --> 00:33:05.440 1217 in places like Paris and Toledo. And because 00:33:05.440 --> 00:33:07.539 the commentaries were so comprehensive and so 00:33:07.539 --> 00:33:10.079 definitive, Averroes was simply known in Latin 00:33:10.079 --> 00:33:12.500 Christian writings as Octaridus the commentator, 00:33:12.559 --> 00:33:15.339 as if there were no other. And his writings quickly 00:33:15.339 --> 00:33:18.400 ignited an intellectual firestorm. They gave 00:33:18.400 --> 00:33:20.740 rise to this whole philosophical movement known 00:33:20.740 --> 00:33:23.759 as Latin Averroism. A movement centered in the 00:33:23.759 --> 00:33:26.720 major universities, particularly Paris and Padua, 00:33:26.900 --> 00:33:29.839 and it included major figures like Sigur of Brabant. 00:33:29.960 --> 00:33:33.359 And these thinkers took Averro's core rationalist 00:33:33.359 --> 00:33:35.440 principle that reason must be followed wherever 00:33:35.440 --> 00:33:37.839 it leads, and they applied it fearlessly. They 00:33:37.839 --> 00:33:40.240 pushed ideas that seemed to directly contradict 00:33:40.240 --> 00:33:43.059 church doctrine, like the pre -eternity of the 00:33:43.059 --> 00:33:46.079 world and, of course, that single universal intellect. 00:33:46.319 --> 00:33:48.400 And this pure rationalism. Nationalism drew immediate 00:33:48.400 --> 00:33:50.859 and fierce condemnation from the Catholic Church. 00:33:51.059 --> 00:33:53.000 Of course. The church authorities saw this as 00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:56.059 an existential threat to revealed truth, and 00:33:56.059 --> 00:33:59.019 it all culminated in the 1277 condemnations by 00:33:59.019 --> 00:34:01.819 the Bishop of Paris, Étienne Tampier. He targeted 00:34:01.819 --> 00:34:06.160 219 specific theses. Many drawn directly from 00:34:06.160 --> 00:34:08.739 Aristotle and Averroes. He specifically banned 00:34:08.739 --> 00:34:11.079 teachings like that the world is eternal and 00:34:11.079 --> 00:34:13.460 that there is only one universal intellect in 00:34:13.460 --> 00:34:16.789 all men. It was this desperate attempt. to curb 00:34:16.789 --> 00:34:19.150 the tide of secular rational thought that was 00:34:19.150 --> 00:34:21.829 pouring into the universities. But this clash 00:34:21.829 --> 00:34:25.369 also led to arguably the most important synthesis 00:34:25.369 --> 00:34:28.510 in Western thought, the work of Thomas Aquinas. 00:34:28.710 --> 00:34:31.769 Right. Aquinas, the preeminent Catholic theologian, 00:34:31.769 --> 00:34:34.610 desperately needed Aristotle's logical framework 00:34:34.610 --> 00:34:37.409 to build Christian philosophy. He relied heavily 00:34:37.409 --> 00:34:40.230 on Averroes' interpretation to even understand 00:34:40.230 --> 00:34:43.429 Aristotle. But he fought tooth and nail against 00:34:43.429 --> 00:34:45.889 the Averroist conclusions that contradicted faith. 00:34:46.170 --> 00:34:48.869 He wrote a whole treatise against it. A detailed 00:34:48.869 --> 00:34:51.110 critique specifically targeting that psychological 00:34:51.110 --> 00:34:54.230 doctrine, titled On the Unity of the Intellect 00:34:54.230 --> 00:34:56.489 Against the Averroists. So Aquinas basically 00:34:56.489 --> 00:34:58.829 used Averroes' scaffolding, but he tore down 00:34:58.829 --> 00:35:01.489 the roof and walls to build his own house. That 00:35:01.489 --> 00:35:03.940 is a perfect way to put it. He appropriated the 00:35:03.940 --> 00:35:06.079 method while rejecting the most politically and 00:35:06.079 --> 00:35:08.719 theologically dangerous results. But even with 00:35:08.719 --> 00:35:10.880 these high profile condemnations and critiques, 00:35:10.980 --> 00:35:13.980 Latin Averroism was incredibly resilient. It 00:35:13.980 --> 00:35:16.260 persisted in university halls, especially in 00:35:16.260 --> 00:35:18.920 Padua, well into the 16th century. Now let's 00:35:18.920 --> 00:35:20.760 contrast that with the reaction in the Jewish 00:35:20.760 --> 00:35:23.269 tradition. The Jewish reception was immediate 00:35:23.269 --> 00:35:26.809 and overwhelmingly positive. Averroes lived at 00:35:26.809 --> 00:35:28.909 the same time as Maimonides, the most important 00:35:28.909 --> 00:35:31.710 medieval Jewish thinker. And Maimonides received 00:35:31.710 --> 00:35:34.730 Averroes' texts and just praised them immensely. 00:35:34.989 --> 00:35:38.010 What did he say? He said he received lately everything 00:35:38.010 --> 00:35:40.170 Averroes had written on the works of Aristotle 00:35:40.170 --> 00:35:43.869 and that Averroes was extremely right. Wow. Coming 00:35:43.869 --> 00:35:46.349 from Maimonides, that's a huge endorsement. And 00:35:46.349 --> 00:35:48.349 it meant his works were translated into Hebrew 00:35:48.349 --> 00:35:51.469 almost immediately. Extensively, peaking in the 00:35:51.469 --> 00:35:54.130 14th century. Jewish thinkers, including major 00:35:54.130 --> 00:35:57.130 figures like Gersonides, they saw Averroes as 00:35:57.130 --> 00:36:00.429 this crucial, reliable bridge between Greek intellectual 00:36:00.429 --> 00:36:03.489 tradition and monotheistic philosophy. They just 00:36:03.489 --> 00:36:05.989 didn't have the same theological resistance that 00:36:05.989 --> 00:36:08.250 the Christian church did to many of his rationalist 00:36:08.250 --> 00:36:10.730 ideas. Okay, so back in the Islamic world where 00:36:10.730 --> 00:36:12.949 he was from, his immediate... impact was, surprisingly, 00:36:13.150 --> 00:36:16.150 quite modest. Why was his reception so muted 00:36:16.150 --> 00:36:19.110 compared to his global reach? The sources point 00:36:19.110 --> 00:36:22.489 to two main reasons. First, geography. Al -Andalus 00:36:22.489 --> 00:36:25.170 was the far western fringe of the Islamic civilization. 00:36:25.530 --> 00:36:27.969 It was distant from the big intellectual hubs 00:36:27.969 --> 00:36:30.590 in Baghdad, Cairo, and Persia. And the second 00:36:30.590 --> 00:36:33.250 reason. The Avicennan school of philosophy, the 00:36:33.250 --> 00:36:35.269 one Averroes fought against, was already deeply 00:36:35.269 --> 00:36:38.230 dominant in the East. So Arrero's insistence 00:36:38.230 --> 00:36:41.570 on a purer, stricter Aristotle. It felt a bit 00:36:41.570 --> 00:36:43.570 like a throwback to scholars who were already 00:36:43.570 --> 00:36:46.389 engaging with newer philosophical trends. So 00:36:46.389 --> 00:36:48.510 he was mostly dormant in the East until much 00:36:48.510 --> 00:36:51.889 later. Correct. He only experienced this massive 00:36:51.889 --> 00:36:55.030 resurgence, a kind of cultural revival, during 00:36:55.030 --> 00:36:57.369 the 19th century intellectual movement known 00:36:57.369 --> 00:37:00.730 as al -Nada in the Arabic -speaking world. Modernizing 00:37:00.730 --> 00:37:03.090 Muslim thinkers engaged with his work, seeing 00:37:03.090 --> 00:37:05.929 his emphasis on reason and the harmony of faith. 00:37:06.190 --> 00:37:08.909 philosophy as a powerful indigenous inspiration 00:37:08.909 --> 00:37:11.449 for updating and strengthening the Muslim intellectual 00:37:11.449 --> 00:37:14.230 tradition. His enduring recognition, though, 00:37:14.269 --> 00:37:16.289 is really sealed in the Western cultural canon. 00:37:16.389 --> 00:37:18.269 I mean, it spans centuries. He's a permanent 00:37:18.269 --> 00:37:21.050 fixture. You look at Raphael's magnificent fresco, 00:37:21.150 --> 00:37:24.349 The School of Athens, painted in 1501. Averroes 00:37:24.349 --> 00:37:26.369 is depicted prominently. He's wearing his green 00:37:26.369 --> 00:37:29.010 robe and turban, and he's peering out from behind 00:37:29.010 --> 00:37:32.329 Pythagoras. It symbolizes his role as the essential 00:37:32.329 --> 00:37:35.389 link to classical wisdom. And while Raphael was 00:37:35.389 --> 00:37:39.429 respectful, Dante Alighieri gave him a less flattering 00:37:39.429 --> 00:37:42.949 but still very recognized placement. Yes. In 00:37:42.949 --> 00:37:45.949 Dante's 14th century divine comedy, Averroes 00:37:45.949 --> 00:37:48.369 is described as the man who made the great commentary. 00:37:48.610 --> 00:37:51.789 And he's placed among other virtuous non -Christian 00:37:51.789 --> 00:37:54.570 thinkers like Saladin in the first circle of 00:37:54.570 --> 00:37:57.969 hell limbo. So, not eternal punishment. but still 00:37:57.969 --> 00:38:00.989 outside the saving grace of Christianity. But 00:38:00.989 --> 00:38:03.630 it signifies his importance. Absolutely. He's 00:38:03.630 --> 00:38:05.630 also referenced by Chaucer in the Canterbury 00:38:05.630 --> 00:38:07.570 Tales as one of the great medical authorities. 00:38:07.969 --> 00:38:10.349 And even in modern literature, he remains this 00:38:10.349 --> 00:38:12.989 figure of deep contemplation. I'm thinking of 00:38:12.989 --> 00:38:17.239 that Jorge Luis Borges short story. Which fascinatingly 00:38:17.239 --> 00:38:19.679 features his attempts to translate and understand 00:38:19.679 --> 00:38:22.480 Aristotle's poetics when, in his own culture, 00:38:22.559 --> 00:38:25.039 there was no tradition of live theatrical performance 00:38:25.039 --> 00:38:27.559 to reference. It's a beautiful story about the 00:38:27.559 --> 00:38:29.699 limits of cultural translation. And the fact 00:38:29.699 --> 00:38:32.239 that we have a moon crater, an asteroid, and 00:38:32.239 --> 00:38:34.599 even a plant genus, Everola, named after him, 00:38:34.659 --> 00:38:37.320 it just underscores the magnitude of his intellectual 00:38:37.320 --> 00:38:40.360 footprint. He remains the primary symbol of that 00:38:40.360 --> 00:38:43.480 rigorous synthesis of law, science, and philosophy. 00:38:44.159 --> 00:38:46.940 So what does this all mean for us? We've traced 00:38:46.940 --> 00:38:48.980 the life of a man who was a chief judge and court 00:38:48.980 --> 00:38:52.019 physician, a master of law and medicine, whose 00:38:52.019 --> 00:38:54.400 philosophical brilliance led to his works being 00:38:54.400 --> 00:38:58.239 burned. Yet, by securing Aristotle's place, he 00:38:58.239 --> 00:39:00.460 became one of the essential sparks that reignited 00:39:00.460 --> 00:39:02.679 the intellectual engine of Europe. He defined 00:39:02.679 --> 00:39:05.440 the boundaries between faith and reason and offered 00:39:05.440 --> 00:39:07.960 groundbreaking insights into everything from 00:39:07.960 --> 00:39:10.360 women's roles in the state to the structure of 00:39:10.360 --> 00:39:12.920 the human eye. And his legacy really comes down 00:39:12.920 --> 00:39:15.619 to that radical tension he explored, the tension 00:39:15.619 --> 00:39:17.739 between the individual self and universal truth. 00:39:17.980 --> 00:39:19.880 And for you, the listener, you've heard about 00:39:19.880 --> 00:39:22.340 his most controversial concept, the unity of 00:39:22.340 --> 00:39:25.119 the intellect. If we are to believe Averroes, 00:39:25.119 --> 00:39:27.659 if there's only one universal material intellect 00:39:27.659 --> 00:39:30.420 that is shared by all of humanity. Does that 00:39:30.420 --> 00:39:32.719 fundamentally reframe our understanding of individual 00:39:32.719 --> 00:39:35.659 thought and collective consciousness? Or is our 00:39:35.659 --> 00:39:38.260 unique self, our moral identity, truly found 00:39:38.260 --> 00:39:40.659 only in the cogitation of that individual process 00:39:40.659 --> 00:39:43.260 of active consideration and experience of the 00:39:43.260 --> 00:39:45.119 specific things that only you have encountered? 00:39:45.320 --> 00:39:47.420 That's the deep dive you get to continue on your 00:39:47.420 --> 00:39:47.639 own.