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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The agent intellect can be identified with God as the universal principle of intelligibility.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 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 for 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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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 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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    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.