tronomical tables of the Arabic type with their Greek influences and Indian symbols, and an Arabic Introduction to Astronomy; and wrote a short treatise on the astrolabe, which used the position of stars for navigation.
In De eodem et diverso Adelard defends philosophy and the use of reason. This work is divided into two parts: the first is a debate between Philocosmia, the lover of the world, who defends the realm of the senses, and Philosophia, the lover of wisdom, who defends the realm of the intellect. Philosophia wins the debate, and the second part of De eodem et diverso is devoted to the description of her “handmaidens,” the seven liberal arts.
In the first part, Adelard attempts to reconcile Plato and Aristotle in Philosophia’s reply to an accusation by Philocosmia that even the greatest of philosophers do not agree, by differentiating between the role of imagination and the role of reason in human understanding. Aristotle contends that individual, species, and genus can all be understood through the senses, while Plato considers species and genus to exist outside the individual. Adelard describes how the concepts of genus, species, and individual are applied to the same essence according to levels of understanding. The “individual” can be understood as unique and substantial through the senses. When a philosopher uses reason and imagination to compare individuals and discovers certain commonalities among certain individuals, he understands the “species” and the broader category of “genus” to which the individual belongs. However, imagination can get in the way of a correct understanding, and only the divine mind (Noys) truly understands all the implications contained in the concepts of ”species” and “genus.” An uneducated, common man uses only his senses to gather information concerning individuals, whereas an educated man uses reason and imagination to capture the distinctions of species and genus.
She rules over our senses in such a way that they prefer to serve her alone. She has taught people to feast on scent—smeared with ointments and garlanded with flowers; she has told them to taste honeyed and Bacchic drafts; she has ordered the eyes to thirst after gold and gems and everything else that is beautiful; she has opened the ears of animate beings to all the sounds of harmonic modulation, which the Greeks call ‘symphonies’; finally, lest any part of the body should not serve pleasure, she has covered the whole surface of the body with the enticements of touch. ("Philocosmia, on the senses," in Adelard, De eodem et diverso, ed. Willner, Munster i. W, 1903, 9)
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