i was finally going through averroes in my textbook and.
as a a separate substance, potential intellect is eternal, but in order to actually think, it must always receive contents from every single man. thus, it is not only necessary that the human race is also eternal, as stated by the whole of aristotelian tradition, but it is also necessary that there always are, at least somewhere, some philosophers, as not all men are capable to go from sensible to intelligible knowledge; not all men are capable of continuously joining the separate intellect: only philosophers are trained to do it, [...].
in averroes' anthropology, in his conception of man, not everyone is man in the same way: being fully men means being rational, thinking, and not all those we call men are capable of being that (and are thus capable of joining the separate intellect). philosophers, in the averroistic tradition, are more men than other men (...).
i know i'm basically saying water is wet but i'm so fascinated with how precisely you could draw the correspondence between averroes and guido's famously snobby behavior, but most importantly his philosophy, his conception of love that he shaped the stilnovo through, with its fundamental belief being that love isn't to be felt by everyone, but only the true noble of heart. which in turn peeks through dante and most notably what ulysses represents in inferno, a man that fully trusts reason to be his purpose, his way of elevating himself from animals... except he fails. this is only strengthening the ulysses-guido parallels to me i am losing my goddamn mind!!!!!!!
