Averroes on the Prime Mover Proved in the Physics

"Averroes on the Prime Mover Proved in the Physics." The fact established by recent scholarship that Averroes's God is an exclusively final cause raises the question how Averroes understands the prime mover proved in Aristotelian natural philosophy, especially since, for him, no other science can possibly prove God's existence. In Averroes's eyes, does Aristotle's Physics conclude to what can only be the first being, or God, which causes all things merely as a separate end? The author argues, on the contrary, that the prime mover proved in the Physics, for Averroes, must be a celestial soul and nothing more, the efficient mover of the first heavenly sphere. The author presents the doctrine of the long Physics commentary, extant in Latin, together with parallels in other works. He brings out the distinctively Averroean reading of Physics 7-8, including the influential theory positing celestial "souls" not subsistent in the bodies to which they are united. And, he shows why this reading fails if the prime mover thereby proved is an exclusively final cause. Averroes's physics, then, unlike for Kogan, allows for no "transformation" of a first efficient soul into a merely final intellect. The prime mover of the Commentator's Physics cannot be consistently identified with his God.