The “Conjunction” of the Intellect with the Separate Substances and God: The Greek and Graeco-Arabic Background

The Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato’s Cave assumes that beyond discursive reason there is in the soul a power to grasp the intelligible Forms and the first principle: the One, or the Good. In itself beyond knowledge, the One-Good is nevertheless present to the human soul as the ultimate foundation of knowledge which is made possible by the Forms. The perfect simplicity of the One-Good implies transcendence with respect to knowledge; however, the soul can have a grasp of it, provided that it raises itself to the non-discursive mode of knowledge which is typical of the Intellect – a separate substance whose nature is intellection. This Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato’s doctrine of knowledge reached the Latin Middle Ages through various channels and fueled the idea that our mind can indeed get direct acquaintance with the supra-sensible realm and its ultimate principle, God. Surprisingly enough, in the philosophical culture of the Middle Ages, both Arabic and Latin, this account was not seen as incompatible with the Aristotelian theory of knowledge, although the latter is based on abstraction from sense perception and does not grant any contact between the human mind and the Unmoved Mover. This article explores the roots of the medieval intermingling of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonic epistemologies which occurs, in particular, in the theory of the “conjunction” of our mind with the intelligible realm. Based on Alexander of Aphrodisias’ exegesis of the De Anima, this theory originates in Arabic philosophy. Here Alexander and Plotinus merge together in the creation of the socalled ʿaql mustafād / intellectus adeptus.