Ibn Rushd in the mirrors of modern Western philosophy

Hadith ibn Rushd had a profound and deep impact on European thought in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and specialized studies have spread that monitor the presence of the Rushdian in Europe between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries; it has become established among researchers that there are three Rushdian currents in this period: Latin Rushdian, Renaissance Rushdian, and Jewish Rushdian. The Rushdian, with all its currents, was of interest to the church authorities, who continued to pursue the Rushdian and his ideas with prohibition and condemnation for four centuries. In contrast to this dominant presence of Rushdian thought in those centuries, European modern philosophers, starting from the seventeenth century, were completely silent regarding ibn Rushd, as if he suddenly disappeared from the European intellectual horizon. Did Rushdian philosophy cease to be present and influential in Europe beginning in the seventeenth century? This study proves that ibn Rushd remained influential and deeply so on modern European philosophers, whether positively through adopting Rushdian ideas in new forms among some philosophers, most notably Spinoza, Solomon Maimon, and Fichte, or negatively through some others’ resistance to Rushdian ideas, even in an indirect way that silences ibn Rushd himself, as in the case of Descartes, or by attempting to bypass Rushdian ideas and their issues without explicitly mentioning their Rushdian source, as in Kant’s case. This study compares ibn Rushd with European philosophers to clarify that modern European philosophy did not transcend the horizon of Rushdian, but continued to deal with this horizon even if it did not explicitly state it.