7. Ibn-Rushd, Averroes (1126AD - 1198AD)

1. Unlike some of the previous philosopher/psychologists, he followed the Aristotelian tradition of observation and empiricism and based his ideas upon logic.
2. Averroes’s views were different from that of Al-Ghazali and he held the view that soul is not spiritual but material and mortal. He further stated that soul does not survive at death. Therefore he rejected and ancient view of the soul being eternal and the body being mortal. Averroes divided soul into five categories:
   • Nutritive: The nutritive part of the soul is responsible for the growth and development.
   • Sensitive: The sensitive part of the soul is responsible for emotions and feelings.
   • Imaginative: The imaginative part of the soul is responsible for the thinking process of the individual.
   • Cognitive: This part is responsible for association of ideas and for the process of solving problems.
   • Appetitive: This part of the soul is responsible for bodily needs such as hunger thirst etc.
3. Averroes taught that animals gain knowledge by sense organs, whereas man does it by intellect and knowledge gathered by intellect is the true and correct knowledge. Therefore his method of gaining knowledge was a combination of the Socratic and the Aristotelian tradition where Socrates thought that sensory organs were a hindrance to the acquisition of knowledge while Aristotle was of the view that knowledge needs to be gathered through empiricism rather than looking inwards. Averroes further asserted that when a change occurs in the world, knowledge also changes. Therefore, knowledge is in a constant flux. Hence, man needs to constantly update his knowledge.
4. Averroes was of the opinion that all events have causes and denial of causes is denial of knowledge. This is known as determinism. He concluded that knowledge could therefore be gained by looking at causes of objects and events. In light of this theory, even accidents which apparently do not have a cause actually have a cause. For example a car colliding into a tree has apparently no cause, but there has to be a cause for the accident in the view of Averroes. The cause therefore may be that the car was being driven at a high speed or the steering wheel was turned in the wrong direction.