SIGER DE BRABANT (c. French philoso pher and leader of Latin Averroism at Paris, first came into notice in 1266 during the conflict between the four "nations," when the papal legate decided that Siger was the ringleader. In 127i he was involved in a similar struggle, the minority among the "nations" choosing him as rector in opposition to the elected candidate, Aubri de Rheims. After three years the matter was settled by the papal legate, Simon de Brion, afterwards Pope Martin IV. and Siger retired from Paris to Liege. Following on the general condemnation of 1277, Siger and Bernier de Nivelles were sum moned to appear on a charge of heresy, especially in connection with the Impossibilia, but they fled to Italy, Siger being killed at Orvieto by an insane secretary. Dante, in the Paradiso (x. curiously assigns the praise of Siger to St. Thomas.
The importance of Siger in philosophy lies in his acceptance of Averroism in its entirety, which drew upon him the opposition of his most distinguished contemporaries, including Albertus Magnus and Aquinas, and the condemnations by Bishop Tempier of Paris in 1270 and in 1277. The doctrines which were especially
criticized were—the denial of the Divine power to create more than one being; the assertion of the eternity of the world, of the infinity of eternal intelligence, of the unity of intellect in all men, and of the possibility of a double truth—one for revelation and one for reason ; the rejection of personal immortality and of the real distinction between essence and existence.
In addition to the opuscula printed in P. Mandonnet's Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme latin du XIIIe siecle (Fribourg, 1899; znd ed., 1911), Grabmann has discovered ms. commentaries on some of Aris totle's works, and also ms. Quaestiones, described in Sitz. Berichte Bayer Akad. Wissensch. Philos.—philo. u. hist. Kl. (1924), and in Misc. Fr. Ehrle (1924) . See also M. de Wulf, Hist. of Phil. (2 vols., Eng. trans. 1926) , and tYberweg. Gesch. der Phil. Bd. 2 (1928).