  Ibn Tibbon’s understanding of Ecclesiastes as a whole is as follows: Solomon wrote the book in his youth in order to refute ancient skeptics who denied the possibility of immortality (“conjunction with the active intellect”). This he did by carefully examining the arguments against immortality in order to show that they are not “complete” or “cogent” or “decisive.” The three arguments he refutes are the following: that human intellect is intellect in matter, and therefore cannot become separate from matter or contemplate separate substances; that the intellect, even though it derives from an incorporeal giver of forms, still requires a corporeal substrate; that ethics is a first rather than final perfection, and cannot save the human being from death and destruction.