Template:Did you know nominations/Unity of the intellect


 * The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as |this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:22, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Unity of the intellect

 * ... that Averroes (pictured) theorized that all human beings share a single intellect, and Thomas Aquinas wrote a treatise to specifically refute this theory? Source: Averroes' best known philosophical doctrine holds that there is only one intellect for all human beings." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
 * Reviewed: Dagetichthys lusitanica

Created by HaEr48 (talk). Self-nominated at 03:12, 8 May 2018 (UTC).


 * Symbol possible vote.svg The article currently focusses on the ideas of Averroes, crediting him with the main thesis. But he was interpreting Aristotle and was not alone in this.  When one searches for the phrase unity of the intellect, one finds this attributed to other earlier thinkers such as Avempace.  For example, "Ibbn Bajja was known preeminently as the proponent of the theory of the unity of the intellect".  So, there seems to be two ways that this can be resolved.  If the article keeps its current title, then it should present the development of Aristotle's idea of the passive intellect as the work of many philosophers over time and not start with Averroes.  If it is to focus specifically on Averroes' ideas then it needs a narrower title and some justification for being distinct from Averroism.  Also, a QPQ is needed too, of course. Andrew D. (talk) 18:33, 10 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your review. QPQ is added. As for your question. Yes he interpreted Aristotle, but that doesn't mean it's not a distinct idea. During his time, the scientific method wasn't commonly practiced and progress in thoughts was often made by exegesis and drawing new conclusion from previous texts (especially Aristotle). The background section had a little bit more about previous theses on a single intellect, and also how Averroes' idea is distinct. Basically the other thinkers hold that each individual human has their own intellect which somehow cooperates with the single, superhuman intellect, while Averroes' idea says this singe intellect is the human mind itself, and there is no individual intellect. The sources I cite clearly associate this thesis with Averroes, e.g. "Averroes' proposal was greeted with derision" or "Averroes' best known philosophical doctrine holds that there is only one intellect for all human beings" (see also surrounding texts in both sources). As for Ibn Bajjah, I haven't read about his thesis in detail, but Adamson p.190 says that "Averroes decided he could not accept Ibn Bajja's teaching", which indicate his idea is different from Averroes'? Does this make sense? HaEr48 (talk) 06:15, 11 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I'm waiting for your reply. HaEr48 (talk) 01:04, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

My point has not been addressed and so I'm not willing to pass this. As we don't agree, I suggest getting another opinion to help establish a consensus. Andrew D. (talk) 06:33, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Symbol possible vote.svg The article otherwise meets all the DYK requirements (length/newness/copyright/stability/QPQ/etc.), but I'm concerned about the article's structure. Checking online, it seems that most discussion of the concept was made by Aquinas, and yet Aquinas only gets one paragraph in the article. I also agree Andrew that the article needs more discussion about other proponents of the theory (such as Ibbn Bajja). Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 01:08, 30 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the review. As for why most internet search result had Aquinas, it's because Aquinas wrote a book trying to reject the theory, the book is called On the Unity of the Intellect against Averroists I suspect most of your search result mentioning Aquinas is actually an e-book or an e-commerce site selling this book. Aquinas himself reject the theory (see paragraph 3 of "Legacy" section in the article, where Aquinas' rejection is discussed with citation). Since Aquinas is not a proponent of this theory, but a denier, it makes sense that he's not discussed in the "Theory" section where we discuss the theory itself, but only in "Legacy" section where we discuss various responses to the theory. Does that make sense? HaEr48 (talk) 04:36, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
 * If that's the case, perhaps some more detail could be added to the article? Considering Aquinas' treatise doesn't appear to have its own article, and how retrospective coverage gives a lot of attention to said treatise, it probably needs at the very least its own section as opposed to just one paragraph. It doesn't even elaborate Aquinas' critiques other than the sentence "He used the philosophical and theological oppositions mentioned above, and used his own reading of Aristotle to show that Averroes misinterpreted what Aristotle said". And as I previously mentioned, the article still feels incomplete with regards to discussion by other supporters of the theory. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 11:56, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the response. The paragraph before the paragraph you cited detailed the criticism from Aquinas—which he shares with other Scholastics. I feel it unnecessary to repeat it in the next paragraph. I updated the article to make it clear that the preceding paragraph includes Aquinas' criticism . "Criticism" now has its own section. As for the other supporters of the theory, the "Latin Averroists" section names multiple supporters of the theory as well as their contributions. Let me know if there's more I can do. HaEr48 (talk) 02:09, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Symbol question.svg The sectioning is a lot better now and I'm almost ready to pass this. With that said, Andrew Davidson's concern about other proponents of the concept (such as Avempace) are not even mentioned in the article remains unaddressed. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 01:08, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
 * added a passage about avempace or Ibn Bajjah. HaEr48 (talk) 02:59, 21 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Noted. Calling on Andrew to finish the nomination and to state if their objections have been addressed or not. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 12:45, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Symbol possible vote.svg No, my objection has not been sufficiently addressed. One can see this in the opening sentence and lead which still credits the concept to Averroes alone. Andrew D. (talk) 07:24, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Expanded the lead to note the influence and contributions from other thinkers. HaEr48 (talk) 09:25, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

I took another look and found that the article still focussed on the ideas of Averroes. To make this scope clearer, I have retitled the article, as I suggested above, as a way forward. Let's see if that sticks. I am still not willing to approve the article myself as I'm not convinced that this is an appropriate fork from Averroism. Andrew D. (talk) 08:51, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I won't oppose your move. As per why is this not merged to Averroism: This article goes into details of just a small part of Averroism. If it were merged, the section created from this article would be inappropriately dominating the Averroism article. According to WP:SPINOFF: "Articles where the expanding volume of an individual section creates an undue weight problem" is an appropriate reason to split the section out. HaEr48 (talk) 20:28, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Currently Averroism doesn't link to the article in question at all. The relevant sentence there says "Thomas Aquinas specifically attacked the doctrine of monopsychism and panpsychism in his book De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas."  So while that article is identifying the concept as "monopsychism and panpsychism", the article here doesn't link to those terms at all.  We don't have a unity; instead we have a multiplicity of pages and terminology.  While I would accept that HaEr48 is working in good faith, I still feel that this is too much of a fresh presentation on top of the existing pages, rather than being properly integrated.  Perhaps such chaos is typical when writing about philosophy – a notoriously wooly and rambling field – but I still remain reluctant to endorse it.  Let's see if other editors have a view on the progress we are making... Andrew D. (talk) 21:56, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The passage you cited from Averroism is unsourced - I don't think this article has to be defended against an unsourced statement in another article. Anyway, to make it less confusing I updated that article to refer to this one and add an appropriate source. The source (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) says that The doctrine is sometimes labelled “monopsychism”, but this is a problematic term, since Averroes' unicity thesis concerns the intellect, not the soul., so based on this I removed mention of monopsychism and panpsychism in the Averroist article. HaEr48 (talk) 00:50, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Symbol confirmed.svg Good point and thanks for the update which has better integrated this page with our other content. I am now satisfied that we have done as much as is reasonable for the DYK process.  If there are any remaining issues, they will be best addressed by getting more people to read the article so let's put it out there now.  Andrew D. (talk) 09:37, 12 August 2018 (UTC)