The De anima Tradition In Early Franciscan Thought. A Case Study In Avicenna’s Reception

Abstract

In the 12th and early 13th centuries, we witness a steady rise in the level of sophistication with which scholars analysed the nature of the rational soul. This increase was undoubtedly attributable to the translation movement of the period, which made many Greek and Arabic philosophical texts avail-able in Latin for the first time. This paper will show how the introduction of Avicenna’s De anima in particular mediated readings of Aristotle as well as Augustine in the period of the Summa’s au-thorship, specifically, as regards its account of the soul, its relationship to the body, and its cognitive operations. In this way, I will illuminate the extent to which the reading of Avicenna shaped funda-mentally the ways in which the Franciscan tradition came to construe human nature