Philosophy and scriptural interpretation › Why Averroes restricts disclosure

The treatise's account of education places limits on communicating interpretations. Averroes argues that giving an interpretation to someone unable to understand its proof can remove an existing basis for assent without supplying a replacement. The result may be a loss of belief rather than increased understanding. He treats this as a religious danger.

For him, the interpretation may be required for one person and inappropriate for another. The difference follows from the recipient's capacity to understand it. This is a stronger position than the familiar advice to explain difficult material patiently. It can support withholding conclusions, rather than merely presenting them in simpler words.

The argument also bears on the kinds of books in which interpretations should appear. Averroes objects to exposing certain matters in writings that reach people who cannot follow the demonstration. His concern joins the truth of what is said to the conditions under which it can be understood. Correct content alone is not sufficient, on his view, to make its publication appropriate.

A contemporary reader can recognize a limited educational concern here without accepting the restriction. A learner can lose confidence in a simple explanation before acquiring a better one. That observation does not by itself authorize an intellectual authority to decide permanently what the learner may know. The move from a teaching difficulty to a rule of nondisclosure requires an additional argument.

This is one of the treatise's hardest questions. Who judges capacity, and how can that judgment be challenged? Averroes gives requirements concerning aptitude, virtue, and preparation. Whether they justify the boundaries he draws remains open to criticism. A defense of his position should confront that question directly rather than redescribe the restrictions as modern educational equality.