Averroes on the Ontology of the Human Soul

While the ontology of the soul is something to be dealt within philosophy, the issue of the possibility of the post-mortem existence of the soul in the case of human beings seems to require venturing beyond the strictly philosophical works of Averroes (Ibn Rushd) and into his religious writings. This is because claims made by Averroes in religious or dialectical writings regarding the human soul and its continuing existence after death have a role in the consideration of his ontology of soul. This is particularly the case since he explicitly refused to allow for a theory of double truth, one in religious matters and another in philosophy, thereby insisting implicitly that on issues such as that of the existence of the afterlife there is a single truth in a doctrine that can suitably be labeled the unity of truth. And in his self-professed religious treatise Kitāb fas·l al-maqāl wa-taqrir mā bayna al-shari ‘a wa-l-h· ikma min al-ittis·āl (The Book of the Distinction of Discourse and the Establishment of the Connection between the Religious Law and Philosophy) as well as in his dialectical Tahāfut al-tahāfut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence) both perhaps written ca. 1179–81, Averroes expressly states that the afterlife of the individual soul is a religious doctrine that must be affirmed, although he also holds that its precise nature is a matter of considerable variation of opinion. But there is much more to this issue.