Roger Bacon Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Jeremiah Hackett

Critical Essay by Jeremiah Hackett

SOURCE: "Averroes and Roger Bacon on the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy," in A Straight Path: Studies in Medieval Philosophy and Culture—Essays in Honor of Arthur Hyman, edited by Ruth Link-Salinger and others, The Catholic University of America Press, 1988, pp. 98-112.

In the essay below, Hackett seeks to demonstrate that Bacon managed to reproduce the essential teaching of Averroes's treatise Kitab fasl al-maqal (The Decisive Treatise Determining the Nature of the Connection between Religion and Philosophy); he posits that the two men shared essentially the same belief regarding the harmony of religion and philosophy.

The relationship between religion and philosophy has had a long and controversial history. One of the landmarks on that journey is Averroes's Kitab fasl al-maqal (The Decisive Treatise Determining the Nature of the Connection between Religion and Philosophy). The aim of this paper is to propose and argue the thesis that Roger Bacon in the...
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