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...