In 1177 Averroes (d. 1198) wrote the Talḫīṣ kitāb al-Aḫlāq (Commentarium medium in Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea). At variance with other Aristotelian treatises that were commented upon repeatedly and in various forms, the Nicomachean Ethics received only this commentary on Averroes’ part. In the modern classification of his exegetical writings, a talḫīṣ is a work where Averroes “concentrates on presenting Aristotle's text, shorn to a large extent of the embellishments, entailments, and problems with which the long commentary abounds and to which the short commentaries often refer” (A.L. Ivry, Averroës, Middle Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima, Provo, Utah 2002, p. xiv). This individual talḫīṣ did not survive in Arabic; it is in Latin and Hebrew that it has come down to us. First it was translated into Latin, in 1240, and then into Hebrew, in 1322. The Hebrew translation, by Samuel b. Yehūdā of Marseilles, was edited in 1999 by L.V. Berman; the Latin one, by Hermann the German, is still waiting for a critical edition. The volume under review here presents Book Ten as the first step towards the complete edition (Avant-propos, p. vii).

Book Ten is preceded by a short introduction and two essays. The introduction outlines the Arabic reception of the Nicomachean Ethics, Averroes’ Middle Commentary, and its Latin translation (pp. 1–16). The first of the two essays, entitled “Le livre X du Commentaire moyen à l’Éthique à Nicomaque” (pp. 17–83), discusses the manuscript tradition of the Latin version and criticizes another partial edition, that of Book IV (J. Korolec, 1992). The nine extant manuscripts of the Latin translation are listed and described (pp. 25–37), and the rest of the essay is devoted to discussing their groupements, with the sound assumption that the conclusions presented here “ne revêtent bien sûr qu'un caractère provisoire tant que les collations n'auront pas été réalisées sur la totalité du texte d'Averroès dans sa version latine” (p. 42). The second essay, “Comment lire le Commentaire moyen à l’Éthique à Nicomaque?” (pp. 84–134), challenges the idea that this work limits itself to rephrasing the Aristotelian text. Averroes’ commentary has been considered as “une copie de la version arabe de l’Éthique à Nicomaque dont il dépend, au mieux la glose, plus limpide, d'un texte au style trop souvent heurté” (p. 84). According to Woerther, on the contrary, it reveals itself as a treatise with its own aim, provided that one adopts the contemporary notion of “hypertextualité”. This notion – defined in the wake of G. Genette, Palimpsestes. La littérature au second degré (Paris, 1982) as a transformation that embeds, often tacitly, topics of another text – inspires Woerther's analysis. Examined with this lens, the Middle Commentary does not refer to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as a text that the reader is expected to know and the commentator to explain; rather, it “supprime le traité aristotélicien en le remplaçant” (p. 89). For Woerther, a “poétique du talḫīṣ” is useful, namely as an approach that deals with it as a literary work in its own right. “C'est en effet en traquant chaque reprise textuelle, en débusquant chaque silence, en considérant chaque glissement entre le texte commenté et son commentaire, que l'on parviendra à comprendre l'attitude si particulière d'Averroès face au texte d'Aristote” (p. 90). This attitude consists first and foremost in that for Averroes the Nicomachean Ethics contains the science of ethics. The rendering of Aristotle's μέθοδος by scientia (ʿilm), at the beginning of the treatise (EN I 1, 1094 a 1) reveals that Averroes parts company with Aristotle: “rien de moins aristotélicien que l'assimilation de l’éthique à une science” (p. 108). In granting to the Nicomachean Ethics the status of a scientific treatise on ethics, Averroes inherits chiefly from al-Fārābī (pp. 109–10). Part and parcel of the practical science, whose goal is to provide guidance in actions to the individual as well as to society, ethics resembles general medicine, whose rules are followed by specific treatises on departmental aspects of health and illness. “L’éthique constitue donc la part théorique de cette science pratique qu'est la politique. Distincte de la science théorique, elle vise l'action, mais à un degré plus général et plus théorique que la politique” (p. 114). Politics will be dealt with in the commentary on Plato's Republic, given that Averroes – as he himself declares at the end of this talḫīṣ – has no access to Aristotle's Politics, whose Arabic version he hopes will be found somewhere. All in all, the Middle Commentary completes for him the cycle of knowledge: “Employant désormais les termes techniques de la logique, il évalue en effet le degré de conviction que l'on est en droit d'attendre dans le domaine éthico-politique, et indique également qu'il s'adresse, dans ce Commentaire, à celui seul qui maîtrise les principes généraux de la logique” (p. 133).

All this provides a useful introduction to the place of ethics in Averroes’ general architecture of the philosophical sciences. It is less informative, however, with regard to the text that is edited and translated here: no specific attention is paid to the otherwise decisive contents of Book Ten of the Nicomachean Ethics as read by Averroes. Suffice it to mention the following example of an important shift in meaning. In Chapter 7, 1177 a 21–22, Aristotle claims that perfect happiness consists in intellection, as proven inter alia by the fact that it “is the most continuous, since we can contemplate truth more continuously than we can do anything” (trans. Ross). Averroes, in part misguided by the Arabic translation of this sentence, says instead: “Et on a déjà dit que l'action de l'intellect est plus digne d’être continue que d'agir à un certain moment – <c'est ce qu’>il veut dire, je pense, dans le livre Sur l’âme” (p. 199). Woerther remarks that the last words are an addition by Averroes; but why did he refer to the De Anima for a claim that obviously echoes the comparison between the divine and human intellect uttered, instead, in the Metaphysics? There is room for further analysis, possibly in the promised edition of the whole of the Middle Commentary.