Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the Active Intellect and Theories of Human Intellect by Herbert A. Davidson (Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles)
The distinction between the potential intellect and the active intellect was first drawn by Aristotle. Medieval Islamic, Jewish, Christian philosophers, and European philosophers in the sixteenth century considered it a possible key to deciphering the nature of man and the universe. In this book, Herbert Davidson examines the treatment of intellect in Alfarabi (d. 950), Avicenna (980-1037) and Averroes (1126-1198), with particular attention to the way in which they addressed the tangle of issues that grew up around the active intellect.