PHIL 8850 – MEDIEVAL THEORIES
OF MIND AND COGNITION

Fall 2022

 

Day / Time:    TH   1:30 – 4:15 p.m., McGuinn 526

Instructor:   J.-L. Solère

Office:            Dep. of Philosophy, Stokes N 219

Office Hours:  T  2:30-4 p.m. or by appointment

 

Course Description: 

How and what do we perceive? How do we form concepts? Who is the subject that thinks? What do we know? This class will offer the opportunity to examine central issues of medieval philosophy: sense perception, realism versus representationalism, nature of the intellect, abstraction process, semantics and concepts. Through the study of some landmark thinkers, such as Avicenna, Averroes, Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, we will observe the apparition of the modern conceptions of the subject and of knowledge. The course is especially designed for giving graduate students a strong and in-depth presentation of an essential moment of the development of medieval thought.

 

Requirements:

Class participation; research paper.

 

Readings:  

Aristotle, De anima: a translation you already have, or transl. R. D. Hicks, Cosimo Classics 2008, ISBN: 978-1605204321 (chap. 1-7 & 12 of book II and chap. 1-3 of book III to be read for the first class)

John Duns Scotus, Philosophical Writings, Hackett 1993, ISBN 978-0-87220-018-0

McGinnis and D. C. Reisman, Classical Arabic Philosophy, Hackett 2007, ISBN 978-0-87220-872-8

Thomas Aquinas, On Human Nature, Hackett 1999, ISBN 978-0-87220-454-6

William of Ockham: Philosophical Writings, Hackett 1990, ISBN 978-0-87220-078-4

Other primary sources and secondary literature can be found on the course Canvas web site.

 

Classes Schedule

 

Main sources for each class are asterisked. “Add.” means additional secondary literature.

 

Class 1: Introduction – Fundamentals of peripatetic psychology
* Aristotle, De anima, bk II, chap. 1-7 & 12, bk III, chap. 1-3.

* V. Caston, “Aristotle on perception”; M. Tweedale, “Representation in scholastic epistemology”.

- Add.: V. Caston, “Aristotle and the problem of intentionality”; P. King, “Medieval intentionality”; S. Menn, “Aristotle’s definition of the soul”; D. Modrak, “An Aristotelian theory of consciousness?”; C. Shields, “Intentionality and isomorphism in Aristotle”.

 

Class 2: Fundamentals of peripatetic psychology, 2 – Avicenna on the soul

* Avicenna: Kitâb al-Najât, “Concerning The Soul”, p. 24-40 (PDF on Canvas); The Cure, “The Soul”, in Classical Arabic Philosophy, p. 175-199 & 205-209.

* D. Black, “Imagination and estimation”; M. Marmura: “Avicenna’s flying man in context”.

- Add.: T.A. Druart, “Avicenna and human soul’s individuation”.

 

Class 3: Aristotle, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and the agent intellect

* Aristotle, De Anima, bk III, chap. 4-8. – Selections from the commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius (Canvas).

* Alfarabi, On the Intellect, in Classical Arabic Philosophy, pp. 68-78. – Avicenna, The Cure, “The Soul”, ibid. pp. 199-205.

* D.N. Hasse, “Avicenna on abstraction”

- Add.: P. Adamson, “Avicenna on the knowledge of particulars”, “Avicenna on Human and Divine Self-Intellection”.

 

Class 4-5: Averroes and the passive intellect; Aquinas’s response

* Averroes, Long Commentary on the De Anima, in Classical Arabic Philosophy, pp. 335-360. – Siger of Brabant, “On the intellective soul” chap. 7 (Canvas).

* Aquinas, Sum of Theology, I^a p., q. 76 art. 1-2, q. 79 art. 4-5  (in On Human Nature, p. 75-84, 126-130).

* R. Taylor, “Averroes’ completion of Aristotle’s psychology”, “Intellect and intelligibles: Avicenna, Averroes, Aquinas”.

- Add.: R. Taylor, “The agent intellect as form for us”, “Averroes’ philosophical conception of separate intellect and God”, “Averroes’ epistemology and its critique by Aquinas”.

 

Class 6 (Oct. 6): Thomas Aquinas on soul and body

* Aquinas: Commentary on De Anima, bk II, lect. 1-3  (in On Human Nature, p. 16-33); Sum of Theology, I^a p., q. 75 art. 1 and 4-5, q. 76 art. 3-5 (in On Human Nature, p. 60-62, 66-70, 85-94); Contra Gentiles, bk II, chap. 57-58.

- Add.: R. Pasnau, “The mind-body problem”; P. King, “Why isn’t the mind-body problem medieval?”.

 

Class 7 (Oct. 13): Thomas Aquinas on the subsisting soul and its faculties

* Sum of theology,q. 75 art. 2-3 and 6, q. 77 art. 1-4 (in On Human Nature, p. 63-66, 70-73, 98-106); Contra Gentiles, bk II, chap. 62.

* P. King, “The inner cathedral”

 

Class 8 (Oct. 20): Aquinas’s theory of perception

* Aquinas: Sum of Theology, I^a p., q.78 art. 1-4 (in On Human Nature, p. 107-119, & 155-165); On Truth, q. 2 a. 2 (Canvas).

* M. Burnyeat: “Aquinas on spiritual change”

- Add.: G. Hatfield & W. Epstein, “The sensory core and the medieval foundation of early modern perceptual theory”; C. Normore, “Matter of thought”; M. Tweedale, “Immaterial reception of a form”.

 

Class 9 (Oct. 27): Aquinas on intellectual knowledge

* Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, bk III, lect. 7-10 (in On Human Nature, p. 34-59); Sum of Theology, I^a p., q. 79 art. 1-3 & 6, q. 84 art. 1-7, q. 85 art. 1 & 3-5, q. 87 art. 1-3, q. 88 art. 1-2 (in On Human Nature, p. 120-125, 130-133, 134-154, 155-159, 162-170, 171-177 & 179-187); q. 54 art. 1-5, q. 86 art. 1; On Truth, q. 4 art. 1, p. 168-176; Summa Contra Gentiles, bk IV chap. 11; On The Power of God, q. 9 art. 5, p. 123-126 (Canvas).

* Pasnau, “Aquinas and the content fallacy”; T. Cory, “Averroes and Aquinas on the agent intellect’s causation”.

- Add.: D. Black, “Mental existence in Aquinas and Avicenna”; R. Taylor: “Aquinas’s naturalized epistemology”, “Intellect as intrinsic formal cause”.

 

Class 10 (Nov. 3): Species, intentional being, and the realism issue

* Aquinas: Sum of Theology, I^a p., q. 85 art. 2 (in On Human Nature, p. 159-162); Summa Contra Gentiles, I chap. 53; Commentary on Aristotle’s “De Anima”, bk II chap. 24, p. 282-283; Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, bk III lect. 3-5, p. 136-149 (Canvas); Augustine, On the Trinity, book XI (Canvas); Olivi, Questions on Book II of the Sentences, q. 72 and 74 (Canvas).

* R. Pasnau, “Id quo cogitamus”; J.F. Silva & J. Toivanen, “The active nature of the soul in sense perception”.

- Add.: M. Esfeld, “Aristotle’s direct realism”; G. Klima, “Tradition and Innovation in Medieval Theories of Mental Representa­tion”; D. Perler, “Essentialism and direct realism”; S. & J. Brower, “Aquinas on representation”; M. Gannon, “The active theory of sensation in St Augustine”; H.T. Adriaenssen, “Olivi on perceptual representation”; J.-L. Solère, “Sine qua non causality”; A. Noë, “Experience without the head”; F. Tonneau, “Consciousness outside the head”.

 

Class 11 (Nov. 10): Scotus against illumination
* Augustine: selections from On Free Will (Canvas)

* Scotus, “Concerning human knowledge”, in Philosophical Writings, p. 97-132.

* P. King: “The failure of Aristotelian psychology”

- Add.: R. Cross, “The mental word in Scotus”; R. Pasnau, “Henry of Ghent and the twilight of divine illumination”; A.B. Wolter, “Scotus on intuition, memory, and individuals”.

 

Class 12 (Nov. 17): Scotus on the objects of cognition

* Scotus, Quodlibet, q. 15 (Canvas).

* P. King, “Scotus on mental content”
- Add.: G. Pini, “Scotus’s case against the causal account of intentionality”, “Two models of thinking”; D. Perler, “Scotus and Aureol on intentional objects”, “What are intentional objects?”.

 

Class 13 (Dec. 1): Ockham on intuitive cognition and direct realism

* Ockham:  selections from Philosophical Writings, p. 18-32; Reportatio bk II q. 15, p. 670-679; Quodlibets, p. 72-74, 132-137, 257-259, 387-391 (Canvas).

* P. King, “Singular thought”

- Add.: S. Brower: “Intuition, externalism, and direct reference in Ockham”; R. Friedman, “The cognition of singulars and natures”; D. Perler, “Things in the mind”.

 

Class 14 (Dec. 8): Ockham on mental language and mental acts

* Ockham, selections from Philosophical Writings, p. 32-78

* M. McCord-Adams, “Ockham’s theory of natural signification”; G. Klima: “Is Ockham off the hook?” and “Singularity by similarity vs. causality”

- Add.: P. King, “Rethinking representation in the Middle Ages”; M. McCord-Adams, “What does Ockham mean by supposition?”; S. Brower, “Ockham on judgments, concepts, and the problem of intentionality”; P. King, “Ockham on concepts”; C. Panaccio, “Conceptual acts”