Themistius'un Faal Akıl Teorisi

Themistius’un Faal Akıl Teorisi Öz Themistius felsefe tarihinde Aristotelesçi Ruh Üzerine geleneği bağlamında önemli bir yerde durmaktadır. Themistius Aristotles’in Ruh Üzerine adlı eserine bir şerh yazmış, bu şerh Arapça’ya çevrilmiş ve ruh teorileri bağlamında İslâm Felsefesi alanında etkili olmuştur. Themistius faal aklı aşkın veya ilahi bir içerikten ziyade insana ait bir yeti olarak vasıflandırmıştır. Bu yorum, faal aklı Tanrı olarak yorumlayan İskender’in anlayışına ve ilahi kimlikli yorumlayan şarihlerin görüşlerine karşıt bir durumdur. Themistius’a göre faal akıl bilkuvve akla iştirak etmekte, onun üzerinde hareket etmekte ve bilkkuvve düşünceleri bilfiil hale getirmektedir. Fakat bunu dışardan bir güç olarak değil insan ruhunun en üst formu olarak yapmaktadır. Böylelikle faal akıl ruhun ve maddi aklın nihai ereği konumundadır. Ruha dışardan gelen bir karışım değildir. Faal akıl Tanrı veya Tanrısal bir gücün insan ruhu üzerindeki bir uzantısı değildir. Themistius’a göre faal akıl birdir; hatta bilkuvve, bilfiil ve faal akıl ayrımları bir çokluğa değil aynı birliğin varyantlarına işaret etmektedir. Böylelikle Themistius Aristotles’in Ruh Üzerine’sini ruhun birliği bağlamında Eflatuncu bir bakış açısıyla yorumlamıştır. Themistius’ Agent Intellect Theory Abstract Themistius stands in an important place in the history of philosophy in context of the tradition of commentary of Aristotle’s De Anima. Themistius wrote a commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, This Commentary translated to Arabic and Themistius effected theories on spirits in Islamic Philosophy by this Commentary. Themistius has characterized agent intellect as human power rather than transcendent or divine content. This type of commentary about agent intellect contrary to Alexander of Aphrodisias’ ideas as agent intellect should be God and commentators interpreted agent intellect should be extension of a transcendent entity in human mind. According to Themistius, agent intellect participated in human material intellect, leading to human material intellect, and converting to potential intelligible to actual intelligible. However, agent intellect performing these issues as superior form of human spirit not as an external power. Thus, agent intellect is the ultimate form of soul and potential mind. Agent intellect is not a mixture from the outside. Agent intellect is not God or is not an extension of a divine power on the human soul. According to Themistius, Potential intellect and Agent intellect is not many but One, in fact potential intellect, actual intellect, and agent intellect are not reference to multitude but they are oneness. Thus, Themistius interpreted the Aristotle’s De Anima on the basis of a Platonic view in the context of spiritual unity. Keywords: De Anima, Themistius, Potential Intellect, Actual Intellect, Agent Intellect. Extended Abstract Themistius (317-385) was a multifaceted scholar raised in late-period Roman Empire. He wrote commentaries to the works of Aristoteles on logic, physics and psychology. Themistius had an important place in the history of philosophy in terms of the commentary tradition written on the work of Aristoteles named De Anima. The work of Themistius named Commentary De Anima was a text that had challenges in itself as emphasized by Schoder. Unlike the triple spirit concept of Plato, Themistius adopted the idea of Aristoteles arguing that the spirit is a simple and thinking unity. According to Themistius, we are not creatures that constantly think, we sometimes think and sometimes do not think. This phenomenon shows that the potential intellect is not always de facto in charge. For this reason, the existence of the potential intellect is absolutely compulsory. If we do not think continuously, we have to accept the existence of the potential intellect. Likewise, the potential intellect cannot become the active intellect without being involved in some functionalities. According to Themistius, potential intellect exists when humans are baby. When this type of intellect abstracts the universals from the intellect objects, and when it derives imaginations from them, this means that it has received some kind of training about these. For example, a man that has the material of information but that does not have any functionality on this information refers to the potential intellect level, and a man that both has the material of information and a functionality on it refers to the active intellect level. Likewise, potential intellect becomes an object of thinking. According to Themistius, light makes potential colors become materialized, and in the same way, agent intellect converts the potential intellect into an active being. Agent intellect produces all the thoughts in the human mind; potential intellect, on the other hand, becomes the material of all these thoughts. However, agent intellect cannot perform this function as a skill from among the integrity of the human mind. When potential intellect joins actual intellect, it acquires the ability to transform into active intellect, or the ability to think, and can join and differentiate thoughts and view them in other aspects. According to Themistius, agent intellect is not activated, it is unmixed and is the power that gives immortality to man. Potential intellect may be disrupted/mortal; however, agent intellect is immortal, and man can achieve immortality with the help of agent intellect. Depending on time, reasoning, loving, hating and similar feelings are not the elements that the agent intellect may be affected by. When man dies, all these feelings will also disappear; however, agent intellect will keep its immortality because it is without activation. According to Themistius, those who interpret agent intellect as the divine intellect cannot explain how it is functional in the human soul. According to him, when Aristoteles argued that agent intellect was immortal and eternal, he was not referring to God. In the philosophy of Aristoteles, God is not the sole existence that is eternal. The human soul, and the agent intellect, which is the uttermost form of this soul, like celestial bodies, are also immortal. For this reason, Aristoteles seems to have approved that agent intellect is one aspect of the man or that it belongs to man. The ore that will make man immortal is the agent intellect. According to Themistius, since there will not exist an agent intellect for each potential intellect, agent intellect is unique. One single agent intellect manages the thoughts, which appear differently in each human. In other words, agent intellect enlightens all ideas that appear in the name of thinking like a source of light. The potential and agent intellect have a certain unity and integrity in the human mind not two separate powers. If a teacher and a student can have the same realization about a piece of information or a concept, this shows that they both have a mutual intellect. With these views, Themistius showed the first example of the theory of unity of intellects, which brought a vast field of debate in the medieval philosophy. Likewise, Themistius argued that agent intellect was a humane power, and interpreted the thesis of Aristoteles claiming that this intellect was something “outer” within the limits of an extremely humane epistemology. For this reason, he brought an alternative interpretation to the commentaries arguing that agent intellect was a God or an intermediary power between man and God. According to him, agent intellect is an ability that is in consistence with the process defined by Aristoteles about the developmental stages of the nature; and constitutes the peak of the human intellect. In this respect, potential intellect, active intellect and agent intellect are the different sides of the human soul, and they have a hierarchical sequence as the one that is below is the material, and the one at the top is the form. Again, Themistius exemplified this hierarchical relation over the developmental stages of flowers and fruits on a tree. To sum up, the commentaries written on the work of Aristoteles, De Anima, has brought different interpretations about the basic problems in this work. The concept “Nous”, which was mentioned by Aristoteles in part 3.5 in this work, has been investigated by many commentators in different dimensions based on agent intellect throughout Hellenistic and Medieval Times. Alexander of Aphrodisias, who is a prominent one among these commentators, argued that the intellect that was mentioned by Aristoteles in part 3.5 in De Anima was the divine intellect. However, Themistius, as the most important commentator of De Anima after Alexander of Aphrodisias, interpreted this intellect as the uttermost form of human intellect. Themistius interpreted the agent intellect under the influence of Neo-Platonism, which was a dominant philosophical school in his period, and supported this thesis by gathering the approvals mentioned in the collected works of Plato and by giving approving examples from the interpretations of Theophrastus.