PHIL 8850 – MEDIEVAL THEORIES
OF MIND AND COGNITION

Spring 2025

 

Meetings:  TH   4:30 – 6:50 p.m., 245 Beacon Street Room 229 

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 aspects of the world 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, and Ockham, we will observe the apparition of the modern conceptions of the subject and of knowledge. The course is designed to give graduate students an in-depth presentation of a pivotal moment in the development of philosophy.

 

Requirements:

Class participation; research paper.

 

Readings:  

Aristotle, On the Soul: a translation you already have, or transl. R. D. Hicks, Cosimo Classics 2008, ISBN: 978-1605204321, or, online through BC’s library, Loeb translation, or the Oxford revised translation, vol. 1.

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

McGinnis and D. C. Reisman, Classical Arabic Philosophy, Hackett 2007, ISBN ‎978-0-87220-871-1.

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 the secondary literature are on the course’s Canvas website.

Attendance: “Students are expected to attend classes regularly, take tests, and submit papers and other work at the times specified by the professor on the course syllabus. Students who are absent repeatedly from class or practica will be evaluated by faculty responsible for the course to ascertain their ability to achieve the course objectives and to continue in the course” (from BC Academic Regulations). Attendance is a basic requirement, not to be confused with class participation, which can earn you points (see below, “Grading”).

Class Behavior: Out of courtesy to the instructor, respect for the participation of other students, and to maintain a studious environment, I ask that you not leave the room during class except if you feel sick (in which case, let me know before you leave) or have a registered accommodation (see below, next item). Non-compliance with this policy will result in negative participation points that will affect your grade.

Disability Notice:  If you are a student with a documented disability seeking accommodations in this course, please contact the Connors Family Learning Center regarding learning disabilities and ADHD, or the Disability Services Office regarding all other types of disabilities, including temporary disabilities. Advance notice and appropriate documentation are required for accommodations.

 If you are feeling stressed, having challenges managing your time, sleep, or diet, the Office of Health Promotion (OHP) offers Individual and Group Health Coaching appointments with a trained Health Coach. Please reach out by going to the Health Promotion website or walk over to Gasson 025 and talk with a staff member.

Academic integrity: Plagiarism is a form of fraud and results, at a minimum, in failing the course, without prejudice to heavier sanctions. The definition of plagiarism includes not only turning in someone else's work as your own or copying sentences without the appropriate quotation conventions, but also paraphrasing (that is, changing the words while reproducing the sentence structure or the ideas of someone else) without giving credit to the source. This applies to any material found on the Internet.

See BC’s policy at:

www.bc.edu/bc-web/academics/sites/university-catalog/policies-procedures.html#tab-academic_integrity_policies.

For the appropriate forms of quotation, see www.plagiarism.org.

This applies to any material found on the Internet. You may use generative AI programs to brainstorm and find ideas, arguments, and references. However, the formulation of these elements in your essays must be your own. You are not allowed to reproduce in part or in whole text generated by an AI program; this would be plagiarism. If you include material retrieved by an AI program, it should be cited like any other reference material. Be aware that the material generated by these programs may be inaccurate, incomplete, or otherwise problematic. What an AI system answers is not necessarily correct; always double check. Be also aware that use of these programs may stifle your own independent thinking and creativity. 

Recordings: In keeping with state law and BC’s policy, students are not allowed to create video or audio recordings of the course — including Gen AI created transcripts — without permission from the instructor and the other students, or registered accommodations from the Disability Services Office or the Connors Family Learning Center. Even if authorized, recordings may not be reproduced or disseminated outside the class audience in any manner, and may not be used in any way that denigrates the instructor and other students and/or takes what they say out of context.

 

Classes Schedule

 

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

 

I – THOMAS AQUINAS

 

Class 1: Aristotle, Augustine, and Avicenna on soul and body

* Aristotle, On the Soul, bk II, chap. 1-4. – Augustine, On the Trinity, book X (Canvas). – Avicenna: The Deliverance (Kitâb al-Najât), “Concerning the Soul”, p. 24-26 (Canvas); The Cure (Kitâb al-Shifa), “The Soul”, I.1, I.5.1-4 & V.7, in Classical Arabic Philosophy, p. 175-180 & 205-209.

* P. Adamson and F. Benevich, “Avicenna’s flying man argument”.

- Add.: S. Menn, “Aristotle’s definition of the soul”; T.A. Druart, “Avicenna and human soul’s individuation”; M. Marmura: “Avicenna’s flying man in context”.

 

Class 2: 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 (Canvas).

* P. King, “Why isn’t the mind-body problem medieval?”

- Add.: R. Pasnau, “The mind-body problem”.

 

Class 3 and 4: Aquinas’s theory of perception

* Aristotle, On the Soul, bk II, chap. 5-7 & 12, bk III, chap. 1-3. – Avicenna: The Deliverance (Kitâb al-Najât), “Concerning the Soul”, p. 26-31 & 37-40 (Canvas); The Cure (Kitâb al-Shifa), “The Soul”, I.5.5-13, in Classical Arabic Philosophy, p. 180-183. – Aquinas: Sum of Theology, I^a p., q.78 art. 1-4 (in On Human Nature, p. 107-119 & 155-165); Commentary on Aristotle’s “De Anima”, bk III, chap. 1, p. 300-308 (Canvas); On Truth, q. 2 a. 2 (Canvas).

* M. Burnyeat: “Aquinas on spiritual change”; D. Black, “Imagination and estimation”.

- Add.: V. Caston, “Aristotle on perception”; D. Modrak, “An Aristotelian theory of consciousness?”; C. Normore, “Matter of thought”; M. Tweedale, “Immaterial reception of a form”; G. Hatfield & W. Epstein, “The sensory core and the medieval foundation of early modern perceptual theory”.

 

Class 5: Aristotle, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and the agent intellect

* Aristotle, On the Soul, 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”, I.5.14-15, V.1, V.5 & V.6, in Classical Arabic Philosophy p. 184-188 & 199-205; The Deliverance, “Concerning the Soul”, p. 32-37 (Canvas).

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

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

 

Class 6: Averroes on 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); Contra Gentiles bk II, chap. 59 (Canvas).

* R. Taylor, “Averroes’ completion of Aristotle’s psychology”, “Intellect and intelligibles: Avicenna, Averroes, Aquinas”; T. Cory, “Averroes and Aquinas on the agent intellect’s causation”.

- 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 7: 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, IV chap. 11; On The Power of God, q. 9 art. 5, p. 123-126 (Canvas).

* R. Pasnau, “Aquinas and the content fallacy”; T. Cory, “Rethinking abstractionism”.

- Add.: C. Bazan: “Averroes, Aquinas and Siger on the intelligible object”; D. Black, “Mental existence in Aquinas and Avicenna”; R. Taylor: “Aquinas’s naturalized epistemology”, “Intellect as intrinsic formal cause”.

 

Class 8: Thomas Aquinas on the subsisting soul and its faculties

* Avicenna, The Cure, “The Soul”, V.2, V.3, & V.4, in Classical Arabic Philosophy, p. 188-199. – Aquinas, 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 (Canvas).

* P. King, “The inner cathedral”.

- Add.: D. Lang, “Aquinas’ impediment argument for spirituality of PI”.

 

Class 9: 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 (Canvas); Commentary on Aristotle’s “De Anima”, bk II chap. 24, p. 282-283 (Canvas); 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.: V. Caston, “Aristotle and the problem of intentionality”; P. King, “Medieval intentionality”; C. Shields, “Intentionality and isomorphism in Aristotle”: 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”, H.T. Adriaenssen, “Olivi on perceptual representation”; A. Noë, “Experience without the head”; R. Pasnau, “Olivi on the metaphysics of the soul”; J.-L. Solère, “Sine qua non causality”; F. Tonneau, “Consciousness outside the head”.

 

Class 10: John Duns 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 11: 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?”; M. Tweedale, “Representation in scholastic epistemology”.

 

Class 12: William of Ockham, intuitive cognition and direct realism

* Ockham:  selections from Philosophical Writings, p. 18-32; Reportatio bk II q. 15, p. 670-679 (Canvas); 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 13: Ockham, signs and mental language

* Ockham, selections from Philosophical Writings, p. 47-78.

* M. McCord-Adams, “Ockham’s theory of natural signification”.

- Add.: P. King, “Rethinking representation in the Middle Ages”; M. McCord-Adams, “What does Ockham mean by supposition?”.

Class 14: Ockham, concepts and mental acts

* Ockham, selections from Philosophical Writings, p. 32-45

* G. Klima: “Is Ockham off the hook?” and “Singularity by similarity vs. causality”.

- Add.: S. Brower, “Ockham on judgments, concepts, and the problem of intentionality”; P. King, “Ockham on concepts”; C. Panaccio, “Conceptual acts”.