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    The agent intellect can be identified with God as the uni... — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
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    The agent intellect can be identified with God as the universal principle of intelligibility.

    Divine AttributesNatural Theology
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    2 reasons against

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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Illumination by the agent intellect is required for any act of knowledge in the same way across all acts of intellection.
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    • 2.Because illumination is universally required in the same way, the agent intellect need not be an individual operating individually in different acts, but can be a single universal agent.
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    • 3.A universal agent intellect that renders all of reality intelligible functions as an all-embracing guarantee of intelligibility.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Averroes' unified agent intellect is a separate immaterial substance distinct from God, operating as an intermediate cosmological principle.
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    • 2.Zabarella's own Aristotelian commitments require the agent intellect to be a natural, immanent cause within the order of cognition, not a theological first cause.
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    • 3.Collapsing the agent intellect into God conflates the formal cause of intelligibility with the efficient cause of being, a category error Aristotle's distinction of causes was designed to prevent.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Alexander of Aphrodisias identified the agent intellect with the Aristotelian unmoved mover, but this entails a god with no providential relation to individual human cognizers.
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    • 2.If the agent intellect is identified with God as universal intelligibility principle, the particularity of individual human intellectual acts becomes causally inexplicable without positing direct divine intervention in each act of thought.
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    • 3.Themistius argued the agent intellect must be partially internal to the individual soul, making a fully transcendent divine identification incompatible with the observed variability of human understanding.
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    Topics

    Divine AttributesNatural Theology

    Connections

    2 topics

    Consciousness & Mind2 linkedTruth & Knowledge1 linked

    Related

    A universal agent intellect that renders all of reality intelligible functions a...Alexander of Aphrodisias identified the agent intellect with the Aristotelian un...Averroes' unified agent intellect is a separate immaterial substance distinct fr...Because illumination is universally required in the same way, the agent intellec...
    +6 moreShow less
    Collapsing the agent intellect into God conflates the formal cause of intelligib...God, as the first cause of all that exists and can be known, fulfills the role o...If the agent intellect is identified with God as universal intelligibility princ...

    Similar

    A universal agent intellect that renders all of reality intelligible f...90%Zabarella considered the agent intellect as the divine cause of genera...87%God, as the first cause of all that exists and can be known, fulfills ...82%If general intelligibility is secured by a divine external cause, inna...81%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: zabarella
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    Zabarella reconstructed the process of intellection on the lines of sense-perception, that is that the intelligible species, produced concurrently by the phantasma and the illuminating agent intellect, moved the possible intellect into cognition. To be known, the phantasma, which was gained by sense-perception, had to undergo a double process. Itself material and consequently containing the universal structure needed in science only in a confused and unintelligible way, it had to be illuminated
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Illumination by the agent intellect is required for any act of knowledge in the ...
    Themistius argued the agent intellect must be partially internal to the individu...
    Zabarella's own Aristotelian commitments require the agent intellect to be a nat...
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit