The basic parts of philosophy are physics, mathematics and metaphysics. Physics was used both for the general corpus of natural philosophy and as the name of the first work of this corpus. The subject of this article is Ibn Rushd’s commentaries on Aristotle’s Physics (Peri Akroasis), which is the first book in the corpus of natural philosophy. This work had a great impact both in the Christian Middle Ages and in Islamic philosophy. There are differences in the comments on the Physics because of the way it has been reinterpreted through translations and because of how it relates to certain metaphysical and theological issues. The greatest commentator of Aristotle (grand commentator) is undoubtedly Ibn Rushd. The various commentaries that Ibn Rushd wrote on this work influenced the world after him, especially the Latin world. This article discusses Ibn Rushd’s commentary method, his style in his commentaries on the Physics, and his short commentary (al-Jawāmī), which has remained in Arabic to this day. It has been stated that the Latin version of Ibn Rushd’s long commentary on the Physics (al-Sharh) and the Hebrew version of the middle commentary (al-Talkhîs) have survived to the present day. The short commentary (al-Jawāmī‘) consists of a brief summary of Aristotle’s texts, but Ibn Rushd creates a new text by changing the order of the text and ordering it in a different way. He approaches the text with a different interpretation and reading style and includes references to philosophers such as Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius on th e one hand, and alFarabi and Ibn Bâcce on the other hand, and includes them in the discussions. However, this attempt at inclusion is made by Ibn Rushd sometimes to clarify problems and sometimes to crit icize him for his inaccurate interpretations. Moreover, for Ibn Rushd, al-Jawāmī is an attempt to present Aristotelian peripateticism as a demonstrative discourse and elevate it to the level of mathematical/geometric precision from the level of argument, discussion, and criticism, which are among the most important features of Aristotle’s text. As he clearly states in the introduction to his Physics commentary, one of the characteristics of al-Jawāmī is to purify Aristotle’s text from argumentative discussions as well as to distance it from Platonic and Neo-Platonic traces. Ibn Rushd states that Aristotle’s reckoning with his predecessors is a writing style in traditional philosophy, but he does not need this and only aims to clearly reveal Aristotle’s main arguments.

The commentaries written in the style of al-Talkhîs are an extension of the purposes in al-Jawāmī. However, in al-Talkhîs, it is observed that an attempt was made to remove any ambiguities in the expressions of the translators who translated Aristotle into Arabic. The expression “Talkhîs” indicates a short and concise expression, as well as purifying the text from things that may cause confusion in the text due to the effect of the historical process or terminological deficiencies. Al-Talkhîs is a text production that is no different from the text that is annotated and discussed in appearance, so the names of the ancient philosophers that Aristotle d iscussed or criticized are included, albeit briefly, and they are also dealt with. Nevertheless, the interpretations of Alexander of Aphrodisias and al-Farabi suffice, whereas Themistius and Ibn Bâcce are omitted, even if al-Talkhîs generally do not deviate from the interpretations given in al-Jawāmī. One thing that should be noted in this context is that some experts on Ibn Rushd consider al-Talkhis as a short commentary and al-Jawāmī as a middle commentary due to the misleading wording, but as stated above, the exact opposite is the case.  

The Long Commentary represents the pinnacle of Ibn Rushd’s project on Aristotle’s commentaries. These commentaries aim, firstly, to reveal the ideas implicit in Aristotle’s text, and secondly, to make clear the logical conclusions that necessarily emerge from the philosopher’s text. As a matter of fact, it is aimed to progress to the last of the results that can be obtained from Aristotle’s discourse. The Commentaries reflect Ibn Rushd’s creativity in bringing the implicit inferences in Aristotle’s texts from potential to actualization. From another perspective, al-Sharhs are an attempt to liberate people from the Hellenistic commentators and the ideas attributed to Aristotelianism in the tradition of the post-Islamic philosophy and theology, which could be interpreted as a deviation by Ibn Rushd, as well as presenting new interpretations contributed by the philosopher. From this point of view, al-Sharhs can be considered as the last form of Ibn Rushd’s project. Perhaps, thanks to these commentaries, Ibn Rushd had the opportunity to review some of the views he had previously put forward in al-Talkhis and al-Jawāmī, correct some of them, add to some of them, and surpass others. The form of the major commentaries belongs only to Ibn Rushd, and all previous philosophers used only the style of the middle commentary (al-Talkhîs). It is clear that Ibn Rushd adopted this style of commentary by making use of the commentators, and he clearly separated the words of the author and the comments of the commentator to avoid any confusion.

Although al-Maqalāt is one of the well-known and widespread writing genres in the Islamic writing tradition, Ibn Rushd’s writings in this genre are also unique. These articles are aimed at particular issues in Aristotle’s logic and physics books, rather than the analysis an d presentation of a general philosophical problem. Therefore, it is appropriate to include them in the commentary classification of Ibn Rushd, apart from short, middle and long commentaries. It is seen that Ibn Rushd, who re-examined some of the issues contained in the middle and long commentaries in his articles, resorted to additions and revisions regarding the issue in the articles.

Ibn Rushd re-emphasises the types of proofs such as reason proof (burhân-ı limmî), absolute proof (burhân-ı mutlak) and existence proof (burhân-ı innî), which are used in this discipline as well as in all sciences. Ibn Rushd reminds us that, unlike the absolute proof used in mathematics, the proof of existence and cause is more common in the discipline of nature. The methods used in the discipline of nature are description, division, persuasion, induction and representation. According to him, the use of representation and induction in rhetoric and argument is different from its use in the discipline of nature. In this context, one must know that Ibn Rushd’s classification of the proofs used in this discipline had a great impact on the development of medieval Christian philosophy, especially the Padua school, and the research method of natural science.