Abu Ya'qub Yusuf commented that the existing translations of Aristotle were inadequate. As a result, Averroes undertook the translations himself, and this led to a series of books that would make his fame.
Considered by many to be the greatest of the Greek philosophers, Aristotle (384-322 b. c.) wrote on a wide range of subjects. In the realm of philosophy itself, for instance, he examined matters such as logic, or the system of correct reasoning, and metaphysics, or the fundamental nature of being. He was also concerned with psychology, literature, and drama, and as a scientist his achievements in areas ranging from physics to botany were many and varied. Aristotle's work represented a past high point in human thought, the "Golden Age" of Greece, when great minds explored the frontiers of possibility.
In contrast to Aristotle, Averroes was not an original thinker; rather, he was, as later admirers called him, "The Great Commentator," whose greatest contribution lay in helping others understand Aristotle's thought. This was particularly valuable because, in the confusion that had attended the fall of the Western Roman Empire—and with it the virtual collapse of European civilization—much of the learning from ancient times had been lost.
Averroes was handicapped by the fact that he read no Greek, and therefore had to rely on second - or third-hand
Translations into Arabic. Yet he managed to overcome much of the misunderstanding that had plagued earlier scholars of Aristotle. Many of these had confused Aristotle's ideas with those of his teacher, Plato, an equally brilliant figure whose views were almost exactly opposite of Aristotle's. Averroes, in his commentaries, helped to separate that which was truly Aristotle from things that later scholars had mistakenly attributed to him.
World History
