Rationality in Perception in Medieval Philosophy [18] 9004537074, 9789004537071

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Rationality in Perception in Medieval Philosophy José Filipe Silva 1 Questions about how we come to know the external world, objects, and their properties, as well as the powers and processes necessary to explain how ­information about the world is acquired, interpreted, identified, and stored have intrigued thinkers throughout the history of philosophy. In recent years, theories of cognition and perception have received more attention than any other area of research within the field of medieval philosophy, followed closely by questions related to the nature of the body, the metaphysics of change, and the topic of self-awareness or consciousness studies.1 Although by the late medieval period philosophers increasingly came to doubt the reach of our cognitive capacities and the degree of certainty these could achieve on their own, the starting point of most medieval authors was a shared belief in the human capacity to perceive the world as it is. This general optimistic outlook was motivated by their understanding of perception as a particular case of a general theory of causation whereby the metaphysical structures constituting material objects being perceived bear a correspondence to certain appropriate cognitive powers perceivers are naturally endowed with:2 objects have colours, shapes, and smells that correspond to our powers dedicated to perceive colours, shapes, and smells whenever in the presence of those property-bearing objects and under the right environmental conditions. The reliability of the perceptual system is justified by the modular and 1 In so doing, research in medieval philosophy follows a pattern similar to that of contemporary philosophy. On this, see, e.g., Nanay 2014. 2 Capacities and their objects (per se sensibles) are natural relatives (De anima II, 6; see also Categories 7, 7b35–8a12). In this model, the closer one remains to the proper sensibles, the more reliable are the senses: the actualization of the latter (the sense powers) is dependent on the actuality of the former (the sensible qualities); e.g., actual seeing is the actualization of the power of sight as the result of the action of an actually coloured object. However, the model also applies to internal powers (or senses), for instance, with intentions having the power to actualize the estimative power in animals. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004537712_002

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even encapsulated nature of each power, which is triggered into operation by the very specific kind of input (sensible information) it is sensible to, e.g., sight to colour, hearing to sound, etc.3 The fact that objects are causally efficacious with respect to perceptual powers guarantees the accuracy conditions of perceptual experiences in a model that is defined teleologically, that is to say, powers are constituted in ways that are specific to the perception of certain kinds of objects in order to safeguard the ultimate natural aim of the animal endowed with those powers, its survival. Such a theory of perception, developed by Aristotle and followed, with adaptations by his medieval followers, is focused on the operations of the individual sense modalities of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste and their proper sensible objects, that is colour, sound, etc. But perception is not limited to these sensible qualities and, in fact, medieval thinkers were also intrigued by the cognitive mechanisms that made it possible to be aware of (i) the objects themselves which possess those sensible properties, e.g., a table that is green, square and small; and (ii) those properties of objects that lack causal efficacy with respect to the external senses, such as ‘being a table’ or ‘being dangerous’, but that are nevertheless perceived. At the root of this broad set of issues is the question of whether sensible qualities as causal agents fully determine the content of perceptual experience. (In this paper, I use ‘content’ to refer to the way things and/or their properties are represented in sensory and/or intellectual faculties.) In addition, a comprehensive theory of perception also seems to require an account of the categorization of sensory information that human beings—and maybe some higher animals—are able to carry out as soon as they get in direct contact with external things: the ability to identify that thing which is white at a certain distance or having a certain shape as a dog or being the son of Diares. The fact of the matter is that in addition to perceiving things as having certain properties and as having certain properties bundled together in a unified way, we also perceive things as being dangerous or beneficial and even as being individuals that belong to certain kinds (e.g., ‘this is a dog’). As the result, it seems that some of those properties represented in human perceptual experience cannot be explained just by means of information originating from objects and reaching our senses, but they require instead appealing to the nature of our own cognitive capacities—sensory and rational—and the nature of their cooperation in normal perceptual experiences.

3 I have developed this idea of sensory powers as modules in Silva 2020.

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2 Contributions to this volume inquire about different ways in which medieval thinkers attempted to account for how individual human beings go about seeing (hearing, etc.) objects in the world under normal environmental conditions: as red and low, square tables or as this white, tall moving thing as a harmless human being, rather than unified aggregates of sensible features that are determined by the individual sense modalities that apprehend them. The need to account for the diversity of sensible features and their unification in a way that explains how animals can successfully navigate a complex environment on the basis of relatively poor sensory stimuli led to the development of an intricate model of faculty psychology in the late medieval period. In turn, these models of mental architecture of increased complexity present new demands on the number and nature of perceptible objects: faculties are defined by their operations and these operations by their objects, so that the plurality of powers follows from a plurality of objects—in the formal sense of sensible features that terminate in the operations of those powers. Among these influential medieval models of faculty psychology are the Avicennian and Averroist, especially with their innovations of the estimative and cogitative faculties, which attempt to fill some of the gaps in the Aristotelian ‘bare bones’ faculty psychology. Some of the papers in this volume (Decaix, Biard) focus on the issues of which properties can be perceived by which powers and by means of what kind of processes. Decaix focuses on the power of memory among the internal senses in Albert the Great, which he describes as being characterized by constituting a ‘return to things themselves’, and she investigates the historical antecedents for this view (e.g., Cicero, Avicenna, and especially Averroes). She convincingly shows that memory has a significant role to play in actual perceptual experiences rather than being restricted to what we call recalling objects from the past, namely by combining the intention (like ‘friendliness’) and the sensible form received from the object (‘Zayd’s appearance’). To reach this conclusion, Decaix carefully examines the nature of the memory-object and the intentionality of memory-acts. Running counter to the motion of sensation—from thing to the soul—the act of memory is from the soul (the stored memory image) back to the individual thing itself, completing and perfecting the perceptual experience of an external object as a concrete whole, consisting of a complex unity of sensible properties. This reflexive movement of the memory act is another expression of the dual direction of fit of the world and the soul, which is found in many theories of perception examined in this volume.

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Joël Biard’s contribution is focused on the relation between sensation and intellection from the perspective of non-perceptible phenomena that are part of the cognitive process. In particular, he investigates the imperceptible temporal gap in the cognitive process: despite there being a succession of instants in our cognitions, for instance between perception and intellection, we are not aware of those temporal gaps. Biard examines how this issue was discussed by a Parisian circle of authors in the mid-fourteenth century, namely Nicole Oresme, John Buridan, and Albert of Saxony. Focusing on their commentaries on the Physics and De anima, Biard presents their answers to the key question of understanding the rationality of perception: while the universal is prior in nature to the singular, is the universal also cognized before the singular? (In addition, one can also ask how these distinctions are understood among nominalist authors.) The answers to these questions reveal original contributions to understanding the relation between senses and intellect, on the one hand, and different conceptions of universality, on the other, including the existence of a gradual conceptualization and of different sorts of concepts: proper universal concepts, but also confused concepts and even individual concepts. The singular-universal divide that runs along the sensory-intellectual lines of textbook Aristotelianism is challenged in this set of texts carefully and expertly examined by Biard, who shows the interconnectedness of these notions and realms: e.g., about the notion of concept in Oresme, he shows it to be ‘a hybrid of sensation and intellection’. When we perceive an external individual thing at a distance, we first see under the most general concept, a body, and the closer we get to the thing, the more specific the concept we apply to it: an animal, a human being, etc. Biard describes this process as ‘gradual conceptualization’ and here it means not higher degrees of abstraction, i.e., of depuration of the material, particular conditions of the thing, but the opposite: from the most general concept to the most specific one. But what is particularly important for the topic of this volume, the perception of this individual and the specific concepts under which it is subsumed is a process that takes place in time but the difference between these temporal stages is imperceptible to the cognitive subject herself. From the point of view of her perceptual experience, the subject cognizes the thing under the more general and the less general, particular concept all at once and in “a seamless process between sensation and intellection”—despite the fact that there is a temporal difference between these two determinations in the act of apprehension of that thing, a difference that is so small as to be imperceptible. Therefore, Biard concludes that “in the context of a descriptive psychology, less emphasis should be placed on the rupture between the sensitive powers in a broad sense and the intellective powers, and more emphasis

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should be placed on the interconnections and combinations among those different dimensions” (see Biard’s chapter below). Another set of papers in this volume focuses on whether the content of human perceptual experiences includes rational or conceptual properties in addition to sensible ones.4 To answer this latter set of issues, which gives the volume its title, requires better understanding the nature of the relation (and interaction) between the senses and intellect in perception-related functions. Even if Aristotle emphasized the similarities between the way senses and intellect operate, the Aristotelian cognitive model assumed a clear separation between perception and thought: whereas one (perception) was about particulars and performed by means of bodily sense organs, the other (thought) was independent from them and about universals. As the result, this relation has traditionally been presented in terms of the senses feeding the intellect with information about sensible things, leading to the knowledge of the essences of those material objects. Several contributions to this volume explore the nature of the interrelations between perception and rationality on the basis of recent scholarship, with some (Tellkamp, Kny, Silva) arguing that by the late medieval period the boundaries between intellect and the senses became increasingly blurred and that a case can be made for the thesis that reason influences human perceptual experiences. Others (Amerini, Schumacher), on the contrary, argue against the possibility of interference of higher lever cognitive powers in low-level perceptual powers, insisting that a strict distinction between the senses and reason is essential to the medieval models of the mind and cognitive theory while maintaining that this distinction is compatible with conceiving of perception as having an active nature (Schumacher). Lydia Schumacher provides a new reading on the nature of perception and cognition in two early masters of the University of Paris, John of La Rochelle and William of Auvergne. Her investigation has a two-pronged approach: on the one hand, she shows the extent to which these two authors—and in the case of John, the tradition to which he belongs—operate under the influence of Augustine and Avicenna; on the other, she reveals how the combination of those two major influences with the thought of Aristotle results in a very peculiar understanding of sensory and intellectual cognition and of the relation 4 In what follows, I use ‘concepts’ and ‘conceptual resources’ or ‘properties’ to refer to the type of universal content that human beings can acquire as the result of a process of induction or abstraction of the type that signifies the kinds (or common natures) to which individuals objects can be subsumed (as expressed in medieval terminology). Of course, questions remain as to how exactly this process of ‘abstraction’ takes place, but this is not the focus of this volume or of this introduction.

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between the material body and the spiritual soul. Writing in a period before the establishment of a scholastic style, on display in many other thinkers studied in this volume, and the wholesale reception of Aristotle, William and John present a particular challenge to the historian of philosophy, who must search for answers that lack the systematicity of later periods. However, Schumacher expertly combs through the textual evidence by focusing on the notion of activity and how this notion can be found in these authors with respect to the operation of the senses and of the intellect. John of La Rochelle attempts to conciliate the Aristotelian passive elements of perception with a view of ­perceptual powers as guided by reason that he ultimately identifies as being Avicennian in origin. William, on the other hand, is used here, to a certain extent, as a contrast to this view, as his interpretation of Augustine has a much more neo-Platonic and intellectualist tone, namely by taking perceptual content to be (largely) independent of causal, sensory stimuli and “generated by the intellect exclusively”. Another way to understand the difference between the approaches of these two thinkers is to understand William as a proponent of the view that perception is from the start a mind to world movement whereby what we perceive is largely dependent on a rational activity, whereas for John, perception is the result of perceivers receiving sensible information from external things that is then processed in a way that is determined or shaped by innate, conceptual content. Furthermore, Schumacher also shows that these different conceptions of perception are interdependent with these authors’ views on the body-soul dualism, that is to say the way we perceive— which is an operation that requires body and soul, organs and powers—is determined by the way the soul relates to (or is present in) the body.5 Jörg Tellkamp investigates the issue of rationality in perception in two thirteenth-century authors, Albert the Great and his pupil, Thomas Aquinas. He argues convincingly that Albert and Thomas end up with different conceptions of human perception because they disagree in significant ways about the relation between the bodily functions and the rational soul. (The importance of this relation for an account of perception is also found in Schumacher’s contribution, and it presents an interesting contrast with what we find here 5 A reader for the Press failed to see the connection between these two aspects and unfortunately this is a common event. Although many sources of such misinterpretations are possible, it seems to me that it originates in the fact that many scholars work primarily on the Aristotelian tradition, which reads all accounts of perception from a hylemorphic perspective, and thus fail to recognize that thinkers who write on dualist frameworks, cannot have the same type of explanation for how material things are experienced. In fact, explaining how a certain view of the soul-body relation is understood by a given author is often essential to understanding his account of perception and/or cognition.

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in these two later thinkers.) Tellkamp shows the neo-Platonic underpinnings of Albert’s account of the rational soul, which perfects the human composite while remaining independent of it and is that from which all the operations, even those performed by organic powers, flow (and thus depend on). For Aquinas, on the contrary, the organic powers are inseparable from the definition of the rational human soul. When considering the way we perceive, Albert’s position attempts to walk the fine line between ascertaining a close similarity between human and non-rational animals’ perception and making a claim for ‘human exceptionalism’. He does so, according to Tellkamp, by arguing for an account of perception that allows for different degrees of certitude depending on the nature of the powers involved in the process so that the degree of perceptual certitude one is able to achieve is matched by the place one occupies in the ontological scale of being. By certitude, Albert means the level of determination of content that is present in the intentional form processed by the perceptual powers of the being in question, in particular the estimative power. The result is an epistemic gradualism that justifies the exceptionalism of human perception, and in turn this is grounded on the metaphysical fact that human beings have a rational soul as their perfection. In his text, Fabrizio Amerini examines the relation between perception and rationality in Thomas Aquinas from the point of view of both directions of fit: from rationality to perception and from perception to rationality. Here I will focus on the first of these two directions, from rationality to perception. ­Amerini considers a recent challenge to what he calls ‘the common opinion’, characterized by the non-rational nature of perception. Perception is, according to this view, simply the source of new information about sensible things. Amerini further identifies the author of this challenge with Dominik Perler who, in a recent article, advocates the interpretation according to which human perception is ‘imbued with rationality’ because (i) of the unicity of the human soul and (ii) of a certain degree of conceptual elaboration of perceptual content by the cogitative power. Amerini states his agreement with Perler’s interpretation of Aquinas but introduces one important qualification, which constitutes the core of his contribution to this volume: the unicity of the human soul does not change the different nature of the sensory and rational acts, which are defined by the purposes they serve. In particular, he claims, sensory acts, like perceptions, are for the sake of rational acts, but that does not mean that the sensory acts are rational. Sensory acts serve reason in bringing new information to it and reason performs its proper operation of generalizing that new information so that it reaches the universal essences of things. Reason also contributes to the cognitive process by selecting and organizing the sensory content. Amerini thus

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concludes that the senses already operate in a predisposed way to collect the sensible information that can be “at some later stage organized in a rational way”. Likewise, rationality is operative in perception when reason turns back to things that it has cognized previously and corrects its conceptual classification of them. In this line, Amerini interprets Aquinas’ talk of ‘refluentia’ as this turning of powers rather than a spillover of content, and concludes that the rationality of perception must be understood in the weaker sense of the sensory powers performing rational-like acts. Finally, Amerini considers two further aspects in which rationality may be thought of as playing a role in perception. The first is the phenomenon of attention and how the will—a rational power—can avoid certain perceptual objects or bring them to centre stage. The second is self-knowledge, whereby reason can take its own perceptual act as the object of awareness and even act upon it, modifying or adapting a particular perception of a particular thing. In order to understand Aquinas’s theory of cognition as well as his philosophy of mind it is essential to understand the significance of the interconnectedness of perception and rationality, in both directions of fit—something that until recently has been overlooked. José Filipe Silva’s contribution to the volume presents a challenge to recent interpretations of the role of reason in perception, focused on Thomas Aquinas’s account of the cogitative power. According to these interpretations, the sensory power of the cogitative is able to apply concepts to the sensible information coming from the senses, so that one can say that one perceives this particular thing as a human being or a piece of wood. This is justified by the close connection of this sensory power of the cogitative to reason in Aquinas’s model of human mental architecture, which allows for a certain ‘refluentia’ from reason, and by the claim that there is just one soul in each human being, and that it is a rational soul. This reading takes different forms in the different scholars but tends to agree on the essential claims just enunciated. Although Silva agrees that at least in one passage Aquinas seems to be committed to this reading, he also notes that such a commitment would require Aquinas to abandon a key principle in his philosophy of mind, which Silva calls ‘the separation of powers principle’: bodily cognitive powers, such as the cogitative operate on particular, sensible content only, whereas only rational or intellectual p ­ owers operate on universal or conceptual content. Everywhere in his work Aquinas comes back to this point, emphasizing that only an immaterial power can apprehend and handle universal content. In contrast, in all passages we can find in Aquinas’s corpus where the cogitative power is considered, Aquinas emphasizes that this power—which he calls ‘particular reason’—only deals with individual intentions and often contrasts it with universal reason, which is universal precisely because it deals with universal

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content. Silva notes that the existing interpretations fail to acknowledge how their account of the cogitative power can be explained in the context of Aquinas’s explicitly stated principle of separation of powers, whereby powers of different ontological natures deal necessarily and exclusively with different kinds of content. (Not only is the cogitative power prevented from operating on conceptual content, but reason or the intellect is also restricted to operate on individual content, which it only knows indirectly via the famous conversio ad phantasmata.) After analysing the key passages in Aquinas’s works, Silva concludes that the only way to make sense of what seems to be a tension within this corpus is to understand Aquinas’s take on rationality in perception as meaning that reason operates together with but parallel to the senses in an actual perceptual experience. Aquinas’s refluentia means simply that, when we perceive an individual thing that is known to us, our sensory powers process all the incoming sensible content from that thing and reason runs in a parallel track, remaining in its realm, ontologically and content-wise. Together they allow us to have the perceptual experience we have, of this thing with this shade of colour, shape and in motion, which we identify as being of a certain kind. The subject of experience is one—it is my perceptual experience—and it is the result of sensory and rational powers operating together, each in its own realm of operation as befits its nature, and thus on the kind of content each is able to operate with. In his contribution, Christian Kny builds on the recent scholarship on ­Nicholas of Cusa to understand the precise nature of his theory of perception. He does so by designing a thought experiment on how to understand the actual case of perceiving this apple based on Cusa’s theory. The thought experiment is further specified by three possible outcomes: failure to perceive, faulty perception, and veridical (or ‘successful’) perception. Kny successfully shows that veridical perception requires that sensible species representing the s­ ensible qualities are issued by the object, that the perceptual powers of the perceiving subject are functioning in good order and that the subject cognitively attends to the species issuing apple as the result of what Cusa calls ‘an excitatio’. This cognitive attending means that the mind puts both its sensory and rational resources to bear on the incoming stimuli: the mind’s sensory assimilation lacks the level of determinacy that only reason can bring to the process, bringing ‘structure and order into the blurred sensory canvases’. Cusa’s theory is then a clear expression of what in this volume is designated by ‘rationality in perception’, meaning that my experience of this individual thing in my perceptual field is the ‘joint operation of senses and reason’. Human perception is a rational activity that requires attention and that results in the production of perceptual content, which under normal conditions corresponds to the way

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things are in the world, but problems in any of the different stages of the process result in a faulty perception when the correspondence does not hold. The debate about the role of reason in perception is fuelled by interpretations of the internal processing perceptual powers, the so-called internal senses, found in Arabic interpreters of Aristotelian faculty psychology, namely Avicenna and Averroes.6 Among those key interpretations in the Latin West are the works of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas and the role they attribute to the cogitative power, which mediates between the senses and the intellect, and which seems to operate as the interface (or even as transponder) between sensibility and rationality. This explains why so many contributions in this volume focus on these authors. To present the debate around these few authors may seem lopsided, as it contributes to placing all the historiographical emphasis on the Aristotelian tradition on the philosophy of perception to the detriment of other philosophical traditions that were also part of the discussion: one could mention the examples of the Augustinian tradition in the philosophy of perception and the medieval tradition of perspectivist optics, initiated by Alhacen and continued in the Latin West by authors such as Roger Bacon, John Pecham, Witelo, and Blasius of Parma, to name just a few.7 However, the quality and sophistication of the interpretations presented here hopefully compensate for this (narrow) focus. Another aspect of the debate that this volume does not cover in a systematic way is what we could call ‘weak rationality’: the way the lower (non-rational) cognitive faculties in non-rational beings display a level of processing that is rational-like. Reasoning and discursivity here are not to be taken in the sense of what we could call ‘strong rationality’, that is to say the processing of information that uses conceptual resources, which are only available in beings that 6 According to the dominant model of medieval faculty psychology, the human soul is constituted of distinct cognitive faculties that process different kinds of information—or the same kind in different ways. These faculties are disposed in a hierarchical structure and are largely independent from one another, very much like the modular model of the mind found in contemporary debates. Good introductions to medieval faculty psychology can be found in Wolfson 1935; and Knuuttila & Sihvola 2014. 7 The perspectivist tradition is perhaps even more significant in this context because of the role the power of discrimination (virtus distinctiva) plays in perceptual experience. A major point of contention between Alhacen and Bacon is precisely on the nature of this power, i.e., whether it is rational or sensory. Bacon explicitly equates the virtus distinctiva of Alhacen with the vis cogitativa of Avicenna. Aspects of this debate spill over into the works of Albert and Thomas, as contributions to this volume show. On this tradition, see Silva 2017. The contribution of Alhacen’s theory of visual perception to this debate cannot be overstated, as a recent paper by Cavanagh (2012, p. 1539) makes clear: “he [Alhazen] had already outlined many of the ideas that fuel current research”.

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have the power of reason. Instead, reasoning and discursivity here mean use of consequence and inference like processes (or even association) that do not depend on conceptual resources. The focus of the contributors to this volume is on human perceptual experience and the role, if any, of reason in it.8 3 The issue of the role reason plays (or may play) in human perception has gained prominence among researchers in medieval philosophy, partially due to the traction the issue has gained in contemporary philosophy during the last few decades.9 In contemporary debates, the issue of rationality in perception is framed in terms of cognitive penetrability of perception10 and concentrates on two main issues. The first concerns the question of whether perception is encapsulated or cognitively ‘impenetrable’ from other mental states, like beliefs, and whether rational powers play a role in perceptual experiences; the second concerns the question of how rich the content of perceptual experiences is, namely whether perceptual content includes or is determined by higher-order properties that are brought to bear on the properties we receive from direct contact with extra-mental objects. A typical formulation of this last question is whether rational cognitive powers provide informational input to certain perceptual processes or, on the contrary, perception is ‘encapsulated’ from thought. When relating the contemporary and the medieval debates, the suggestion is not that we proceed in an anachronistic fashion by asking questions of our medieval sources that make sense only from a contemporary perspective. Instead, the suggestion is that it makes sense, as a matter of philosophical 8 9

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For a careful examination of the set of questions connected to this ‘weak rationality’, see the two works by a member of the ERC Rationality in Perception project, Anselm Oelze 2018 and 2021. My own ERC funded project on Rationality in Perception: Transformations of the Mind and Cognition 1250–1550 hosted by the University of Helsinki (2015–2020) was a contributing party to that trend. There is an extensive literature on the set of issues related to rationality in perception see, e.g., Siegel 2011; Zeimbekis & Raftopoulos 2015; and McDowell 2013. There are also significant contributions on this topic in the history of philosophy, especially for Ancient Philosophy: see in particular, Sorabji 2004; Helmig 2012; and Frede 2007. One of the original proponents of the cognitive (im)penetrability of perception debate, Zenon Pylyshyn (1999, p. 343), defines it in the following way: “if a system is cognitively penetrable then the function it computes is sensitive, in a semantically coherent way, to the organism’s goals and beliefs, i.e., it can be altered in a way that bears some logical relation to what the person knows”.

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investigation, to ask of our historical sources those questions that allow us to better understand, in a systematic way, the coherence and philosophical significance of their views. Often, the kinds of questions we come to ask arise from these contemporary debates, stimulating us to pay attention to overlooked sources or to look afresh at well-known passages and texts. Such contrasts also allow us to recognize a certain biased focus in historiographical approaches to a given topic; in this case, scholars working in medieval philosophy have traditionally tended to consider the relation between the senses and intellect from the point of view of how the intellect abstracts concepts from the sensory data received via the senses rather than investigating any influence happening the other way around. A good example of this traditional approach is the fact that we find scant references to the cogitative power in earlier studies of Aquinas,11 in clear contrast to the centrality this power occupies in recent interpretations of Aquinas’s theory of human cognition.12 The recent focus on this power in Aquinas and the attempts to understand the role rationality plays in his theory of perception is a clear indication that there is much to be gained from combining historical sensitivity and philosophical inquiry, if done properly. To do this properly means, above all, to be aware that the similarities between medieval and contemporary debates should not obscure the significant differences between the two, especially about the way the philosophical problems are formulated and what conceptual resources are available to solve them. One example of this is the key distinction between the so-called early and late vision that we find in the contemporary literature, which is foreign to the medieval way of approaching the problem of visual perception.13 Likewise, the question of whether cognitive penetration constitutes a challenge to perceptual justification of beliefs was not openly debated (or explicitly formulated) because medieval theories of cognition have little to say about justification.14 Other aspects of this issue, however, for instance, the definition of rationality and how it applies to the nature of animal versus human perception, is significant for both medieval and contemporary philosophers. Although in this volume we cannot do justice to the variety of approaches and 11 12 13

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See, e.g., Stump 2003. See the contributions by Silva, Tellkamp, and Amerini in this volume and the bibliographical references found there. In contemporary debates, scholars tend to agree that higher-order cognitive processes interfere in influencing visual perception at later stages such as object identification and categorization, but a main point of contention is about early vision (Pylyshyn 1999, p. 343), i.e., the stages of visual perception responsible for processing a three-dimensional representation of an object. This point is made abundantly clear by Pasnau 2017, lecture 1.

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debates about the role of reason in perception in the history of philosophy, our focus is on mapping some of the available medieval philosophy perspectives on the topic while at the same time offering new interpretations to a more established set of topics, such as the powers of memory and the intellect. Two key questions to understand this issue are: What kind of properties are present in a perceptual experience and are all those properties sensory in nature or are some rational? One answer to these questions is that the properties we perceive things as having are not the result of the direct and unmediated contact with those things, but that these properties—higher-level ones, such as natural kind properties, originate in background information that comes to bear on the contents of perception. One example of this is when I perceive this (particular) tall, tanned being moving towards me, I perceive it as a human being and even as my friend Mark. Background information, i.e., information that I do not receive directly from this particular interaction with an external thing (like an antecedently possessed concept), seems to be required to explain how I am able to apply the concept of human being to this particular external thing I am currently perceiving on the basis of currently received sensible information concerning size, shape, colour, motion.15 To say otherwise is to say that all the properties that we perceive things as having—or better, our perception of things having certain properties—are the result of the way things directly and currently interact with us. In a strict Aristotelian framework, that means us perceiving those things as having those properties as the result of the causal action of those things via their p ­ roperties upon our senses. If I perceive a thing as being red, round, etc. that is the result of there being a red, round thing in my perceptual field and that red, round thing exercising its causal powers over my senses. My perception of that thing is restricted to those properties of the thing immediately made available to me by the thing. If on the other hand, there is an influence of reason in the way we perceive the world, this means that those properties we perceive things as having go beyond the properties that directly causally interact with us in an occurring perceptual episode; that is not to say that in this case we perceive properties a thing does not present to our senses or does not have, but rather that our perception of the thing as having say property x cannot be explained exclusively by the causal action of that thing and property x on our sense 15

This is true even if different philosophical traditions explain this in a variety of ways: for the Aristotelian tradition, see the contributions in this volume by Amerini, Silva, Tellkamp; for the tradition of perspectivist optics, originated in Alhacen and continued with Roger Bacon and John Pecham, among others, see Silva 2017. On Alhacen specifically on this point, see Simon 2003, pp. 171–175.

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powers.16 What this means is that either external material things directly interact with reason without passing through (in the sense of being processed) by the senses or, which seems more likely, that for me to perceive this particular red, round thing as a ball requires that I have background information in the background about what it is for a thing to be a ‘ball’, that is to say that I am in possession of the sortal concept of ‘ball’. At this level of description, we do not need to say much about what is included in that concept, or even how one came to be in the possession of such a concept; certainly, it is important to understand how we come to possess concepts, but that issue can be considered in isolation from the question of if and how we use concepts in perception. The common phenomena of identification (of an individual as belonging to a kind, e.g., ‘human being’) and recognition (of an individual as the individual it is, as ‘Mark’, say) seem to require the existence and application of background information to incoming sensory information, which in the Aristotelian model is restricted to low-level sensible properties (colour, shape, size, motion, etc.). In contemporary debates, the question of the influence of reason on perception is commonly described as ‘cognitive penetrability of perception’, but I think the designation ‘rationality in perception’ is even more appropriate to cover the range of medieval views. It allows, for once, including those cases in which reason does not directly influence perception but that perceptual powers display complex processes that are rational-like in their nature: sequential, cumulative, etc.; it also allows for cases in which reason collaborates with perceptual powers but without the two kinds of powers ever transcending their distinct ontological realms of operation. One of the key issues in these contemporary debates is whether we have this cognitive penetrability, defined as conceptual resources and semantic information bearing on perceptual states the content of which originates in incoming sensory information, at the early stages of processing or only at the later stages of processing. In the literature this is often known as ‘early and late vision’ (pace Pylyshyn), taking visual perception as the paradigmatic case, just as in the ancient and medieval period.17 Positions on this issue vary: the dominant 16

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The question of the role of the internal senses in this context is an important but complicated one: whereas it can be argued that (at least some of) the internal senses have no direct role to play in at least most episodes of perception, this statement needs to be qualified. For instance, while it may seem intuitive to say that memory does not play a role in actual perception, there is ample evidence from historical sources such as Augustine and Avicenna according to whom the perception of an object in motion as being in motion requires what we nowadays would call short-term memory. A good introduction to the issues at stake is Zeimbekis & Raftopoulos 2015, especially the Introduction to the volume by the editors.

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view is that cognitive penetration occurs at the later stage of visual processing—when object recognition and identification take place—and that early stages—from sensory stimuli to volumetric representations of objects’ surfaces—are, on the contrary, impervious to top-down influence, i.e., the influence of conceptual frameworks, for instance, sortal concepts; some authors (e.g., Churchland) claim, nonetheless, that this influence is always the case, that is to say that perception always entails the use of concepts, learning, etc. Another good example of this view is John McDowell, for whom human perceptual experience always entails the exercise of conceptual capacities. Others, on the other hand, deny that cognitive penetration takes place at all, and point out the importance of distinguishing between the process(es) by means of which incoming information is handled and the properly conceptual cognitive processes that operate on the results of earlier perceptual processes. To combine the two is, in their mind, to confuse two levels of cognitive operations and to portray our contact with the external world in such a way that it threatens the role of perception as a trustworthy source of knowledge and beliefs: if background information, such as sortal concepts, is already operative in perception, we never get new information about the world, but experience it by means of an already tinted lens: we see the world as we believe, and expect, it to be. The very short characterization of the contemporary debate just presented is to be taken with more than a grain of salt, as it obscures many of the intricacies of the variety of positions on the various sides of the debate; it also overlooks other aspects of the debate, such as the issue of whether perception even has content and, if so, of what kind, among many others. The aim is to provide some background about the debates that have informed recent interpretations of medieval theories of perception, which have cashed in on the similarities between medieval and contemporary proposals. There is, however, an important element distinguishing contemporary and medieval approaches to rationality in perception: Whereas contemporary positions are defined by the content they assign to perceptual and conceptual operations, medieval positions are defined by the nature of the powers that are operative in perception and understanding—the former are those that operate in bodily organs and the latter are those that operate independently of bodily organs. In turn, the difference in the nature of powers determines the difference in the content those powers are able to apprehend and process (combine, store, etc.). The nature of the kind of power is explanatory of the content it operates on. Whereas this difference plays no role in the contemporary discussion about cognitive penetration of perception because the physical nature of this power is assumed (no ghost in the machine!), the distinction between the material and immaterial nature of cognitive powers is central to medieval

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thinkers and it plays a significant, even decisive role in the medieval discussion about rationality in perception. For the dominant Aristotelian tradition, the objects of the senses are particulars, like this red, round thing, whereas the objects of the intellect are universals, like ‘ball’ or ‘human being’. But ­universals as such do not exist in the extra-mental world and are instead intellectual representations abstracted from sensory representations of particulars.18 Abstraction is nothing but the consideration of what is common (universal) to things of a certain type without the particular and individuation conditions that make each individual thing of that type be the individual that it is. So, the object of the intellect is ‘ball’ in abstract, i.e., without any property that determines ‘this’ or ‘that’ ball—to be ‘red’, ‘here’, ‘there’, ‘made of plastic’, etc. However, according to this framework, only an immaterial power is capable of abstraction, i.e., of considering something without also considering its individuating features, as they are considered by the senses.19 One of the main consequences of what I call ‘the principle of the ­separation of powers’ for perception is that it restricts incoming sensory information to be constituted of low-level sensible properties, which in the Aristotelian framework means accidental features of things that fall within the scope of the per se sensibles (proper and common): colour, odour, size, shape, etc., plus the ­Avicennian connotational attributes, such as hostility. All other properties that are part of the content of perceptual experiences, such as kind-properties, must originate from reason and be present in perception as the result of the activity and intervention of reason. Many authors simply deny that higherorder properties are part of perception. In other words, properties such as belonging to a natural kind are part of a different process, downstream from perception, a process that is carried out by a higher cognitive, rational faculty, building on the output of perceptual processes and thus operationally distinct from these. To call this perception is a categorical mistake because perception is a process of cognitive powers which operate in bodily organs and that are thus restricted to cognize perceptible qualities of material objects under material conditions, i.e., apprehending particulars and low-level sensible properties such as colour and size. Even properties that may seem not to be that low level, such as ‘enmity’ (inimicitiae) or ‘friendliness’ (amicitiae), which we perceive 18 19

I am taking the traditional medieval Aristotelian position on universals as being that of realism (especially, moderate realism, as we find in Thomas Aquinas) here; for nominalists, in a strict sense, there are no universals in the world. Anonymi Magistri Artium Quaestiones super librum de anima II, q. 65, sol., ed. Bernardini 2009, p. 214: “… si fantasma debet reponi in intellectu oportet quod spolietur a condicionibus materialibus, et hec spoliacio et depuracio non potest fieri a virtute materiali set ab intellectu agente. Set sensibile non fit in sensu sine condicionibus materialibus simpliciter”.

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by means of a specific, dedicated perceptual power called the estimative (and for some authors, cogitative in human beings) are low level in the sense that it is a property associated with a particular thing, e.g., this grey, moving, growling being (wolf) as perceived by a sheep, and that cannot be perceived apart from that particular and those sensible properties because it is processed by a power that is realized in a bodily organ.20 Despite the ‘intention’ or connotational attribute ‘hostility’ not being processed by any of the external senses (non cadit in sensu),21 it is not an intelligible, universal attribute, but one that is apprehended as being of this perceptual object, together with its other sensible attributes. To apprehend ‘hostility’ in general and to acquire the concept of hostility requires an abstractive process carried out by the intellect as an immaterial power, i.e., a power the activity (and thus the scope) of which is not determined by the material constitution of a bodily organ as is the case with the senses. The principle of separation of powers (bodily and nonbodily) is explanatory of the principle of demarcation of content (sensible and conceptual) and that makes it impossible, as I argue in my chapter on Aquinas in this volume, for reason to be operative in perception in the way that some scholars have attributed to Aquinas, meaning that conceptual content is applied to incoming sensory information by a material cognitive power, the cogitative, due to a transfer of said conceptual content from reason. 4 Now, to properly understand the relation between senses and intellect (or reason) in the late medieval period and the possible influence of reason in perception, it is necessary to understand whether late medieval philosophers advocated for, or at least assumed, a meaningful distinction between sensation and perception. That is the focus of this last section of this Introduction. One of the reasons why it is pressing to answer this question is that scholars working 20

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I say nothing here about the ontological status of the representational devices—species, intentions, etc.—that are operative in sense perception because it is not directly relevant for the questions I am addressing here. It may perhaps suffice to say that although in some cases species are described and/or referred to as having ‘spiritual’ or ‘intentional’ being, this is of no consequence to the fact that their subject—in which they are received, such as medium and sense organs—is material and that they are representational devices operative in powers that are realized in bodily organs. This particular expression is found in the Anonymi Magistri Artium Quaestiones super librum de anima II, q. 64, sol., p. 210, but similar ones can be found in works of the same period.

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on the medieval philosophy of perception tend to relate medieval accounts to contemporary ones; for instance, Anthony Lisska in his book on Aquinas’s Theory of Perception directly connects Aquinas’ theory with the British Empiricists and in the particular case of the role of the cogitative power in the cognition of individuals as belonging to a kind, he compares Aquinas with Thomas Reid and his distinction between sensation and perception. It is therefore relevant to examine what this distinction amounts to and whether it can be found in medieval authors and, if so, in what way. In this section, I will explore whether this distinction can be found in either terminological or conceptual terms. One may of course argue that this distinction is orthogonal to the d­ iscussion about rationality in perception, that is to say one may hold the view that reason does influence sense experience while remaining neutral to the issue of whether that experience should be described or referred to as ‘sensation’ or ‘perception’. That may well be true, but I take it instead that the question of whether there is a distinction between sensation and perception matters for understanding the role of rationality in perception because if there such ­distinction it has to do with the content of the different levels of ‘sense experience’. What kinds of properties are necessary to account for the way an animal negotiates its way in its environment: shape, size, colour, odour seem clear, but also substance, enmity, etc.? The more complex or higher order these properties are, the less likely it seems these are just given in experience and the less credible it is to assume that low-order perceptual powers can handle them on their own. But if that is the question, it raises the issue of what belongs to what power, and what is the nature—sensory or rational—of the different kinds of properties. Traditionally, the historical source of this distinction has been identified as Thomas Reid (1710–1796), and in fact we do find it clearly presented in his work: for Reid, whereas sensations have no external object beyond the mental act which is the sensation itself (simply, the feel of a sensory quality in us),22 perception entails the existence of something beyond the mental act, that is, the external thing the act is about. Scholars have read this as meaning a distinction between an appearance, e.g., the way a colour appears to us by being present to (/impressed on) our sense organs, and a perception, which is the

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“There is no difference between the sensation and the feeling of it—they are one and the same thing … in sensation there is no object distinct from the act of the mind by which it is felt—and this holds true with regard to all sensations” (Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, p. 151, cited by Duggan 1960, p. 90).

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apprehension of that which is the source (and in most cases, the cause) of that appearance.23 In contemporary debates on the philosophy of perception, the distinction between sensation and perception is found in many places, for instance here formulated by Athanassios Raftopoulos, who writes: All processes that apply to the information contained in the retinal image fall within the scope of sensation. Thus, we have processes that compute information on light intensity. (…) The ‘image’ resulting from sensation, which initially is cognitively useless, is gradually transformed along the visual pathways in increasingly structured representations, via perception. The processes that transform sensation to a representation that can be processed by cognition constitute perception.24 The distinction is thus between sensation as the reception and first stage of processing sensory stimuli and perception as the progressively structuring of representations, so that the perceiver is acquainted with an external thing. While Raftopoulos’s account of sensation is not a traditional one, in the sense that he wishes to remain neutral about whether sensation includes the awareness of being in a state of seeing, thus having a certain phenomenological content or whether it is simply the reception of sensory stimuli by the senses, his distinction between sensation and perception suffices for my purposes here. What matters is that in contemporary debates, this distinction is taken to be one between the stimulation of sense organs and the conscious awareness of sensory properties (in the world) organized or structured around an object. We could thus describe sensation as consisting in the reception of sensory information from the environment in the form of stimuli to the sense organs. Under normal conditions this reception is limited by the intensity of the stimulus and by the operational conditions (i.e., the dispositions) of the organ. Perception on the other hand can be described as consisting in the interpretation of the information received in sensation, so that one identifies what the (cause of the) stimulus is. As such, perception may include the influence of expectations and background knowledge in the identification and recognition of an object as being of a certain kind or as being the very individual it is. Understood in this way, the sensation-perception distinction reveals a contrast between two types of processing sensory information: one, which is immediate and flat, is based uniquely on the incoming sensory stimuli, and 23 24

On Reid, see Nichols 2007. Raftopoulos 2009, pp. 50–51 (italics and quotation marks in the original).

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is limited in the kind of properties directly received from the external thing; the other is a higher-order process of conscious awareness of low-level sensory properties, such as colour, received at the more basic level (sensation), organized or structured around an object, and that may in some conditions include prior knowledge applied to that incoming information. It is only at the level of this modified content that recognition and categorization take place. The question I am interested in considering here, however, is whether this distinction (or something akin to it) is found in medieval sources. The answer to that question reveals a clear divide between different interpretative traditions: whereas some scholars (in this volume, Biard and to some extent Amerini) claim that this distinction—or a similar one—is found in premodern historical sources, other philosophers, especially in the Anglophone world, tend to equate sensation and (sense) perception. The main argument for what we may call the ‘disjunctive view’ is the common use in medieval sources of the term ‘sensatio’, ‘sentire’ and cognate expressions, rather than the much rarer ‘percipio’, ‘percipere’ and cognate expressions to refer to the cognitive contact with objects of experience. In the opposite field are those who assume that neither the terminology nor a systematic conceptual distinction between the two sets of notions can be found in medieval texts, and thus that no distinction between sensation and perception was at play in medieval philosophical discussions over the ways we come to know external things.25 In view of the significance this distinction has assumed in modern debates, it is striking to note the scarcity of studies about this distinction in older, premodern historical sources. One of the few exceptions is D.H. Hamlyn’s Sensation and Perception. A History of the Philosophy of Perception. In this work, first published in 1961, Hamlyn argues that the first explicit formulation of this distinction is found in Thomas Reid, thus being absent from Ancient and Medieval sources. Hamlyn justifies this absence with the causal nature of the Aristotelian framework dominant in these periods.26 For Aristotle, to be acquainted 25

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“Aquinas accepts the distinction between sensation and perception” and “he would argue that a category difference exists between these two types of knowledge” (Lisska 2016, p. 306). A similar view is found in Daniel De Haan, who distinguishes between sensation, as the apprehension of the per se sensibles, and perception, as the apprehension (by the cogitative power or the intellect) of the per accidens sensibles, and attributes this distinction to Aquinas (2020, p. 254). For the opposite view that the sensation-distinction is not found in Thomas Aquinas, see Stump 2003, pp. 260–261. See in particular Hamlyn 1961, pp. 28–29. A clear statement of this can be found in ­Albertus Magnus, De anima II, 3, 1, ed. Stroick 1968, p. 97: “… sensus non potest perfici secundum sentire in actu sine praesentia sensibilis, quod agit in ipso formam suam, ut illa sentiat in actu”.

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with or aware of external material things is the direct result of the action of those objects upon the subject’s sensory apparatus. Both sensation and perception translate the Greek ‘aesthesis’,27 which is nothing else but a sense modality to be affected by the relevant proper sensible that is its object, about which one cannot be (or almost never is) wrong.28 (One can be wrong about what the, e.g., red thing, is, but not about the red one sees.) In this model, the causality of the external object and the passivity of the senses is what justifies the reliability of the senses as sources of knowledge. The existence of a distinction between sensation and perception would entail distinguishing, in ­Aristotelian terms, between the ‘being affected’ by a sensible property and the ‘being aware of’ (the object as having) that sensible property: red, sweet, acrid. But a sense being aware of its proper object is nothing other than for it to be affected by it, because to be affected (or acted upon) by it is to have the potentiality for the exercise of its proper operation actualized. As the medieval Aristotelian Thomas Aquinas writes in his Commentary to the Metaphysics of Aristotle, “actual sensation consists in the actual modification of a sense by its object”.29 Although it is true that we find in some authors a certain tendency to describe the process of acquaintance with external things as having a sequential nature, i.e., that first the sense organs receive the sensible species from the object and subsequently the power is activated and exercises its ­operation, the majority seem to understand the reception in the sense organs

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On Aristotle on this distinction, see Modrak 1987, pp. 85, 99–100. On the lack of distinction between sensation and perception in ancient sources, see Spinoza 1996, p. 45: “Pur mancando nel greco classico una terminologia adeguata ad esprimere la distinzione tra sentire e percepire, entrambi riconducibili a αἰσθάνοµαι”. Cf. Aristotle, De Anima II, 6, 418a15; III, 3, 428b19–28; III, 7, 430b29. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics I, lec. 1, 6, transl. Rowan 1961, p. 4 (emphasis added). See also Summa Theologiae Ia, q.17, a 2, ed. Leonina, vol. 4, p. 220: “dicendum quod sensum affici, est ipsum eius sentire”; and Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 78, a. 4, ed. Leonina, vol. 5, pp. 255–57, where Aquinas uses ‘percipere’ to refer both to a (external) sense power’s perception of its own act and to the perception of its proper (per se) object (like the perception of colour by sight) and talks about the (external) senses perceiving the sensible forms (“apprehensionem formarum quas percipit sensus”) and the internal sense perceiving intentions (“Necessarium est ergo animali quod percipiat huiusmodi intentiones, quas non percipit sensus exterior”) (ibid., p. 256). See also Albert the Great, who talks about the sense perception (perceptio sensu) in his Physics I, 1, 6, and about sense and perceive as synonymous in the context of incidental perception; see De anima II, tr. 4, c. 6, ed. Borgnet 1890, p. 300: “quia tunc a nullo sensu perciperetur sive sentiretur” (emphasis added) (Stroick’s edition reads “a nullo sensu per se sentiretur”, p. 155). Aquinas’s account of the way the sensible form is received in the sense raises a host of problems, but I will not address these here.

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and the exercise of the power’s operation as two concomitant and concurrent (in nature if not in time) aspects of the same process.30 In more recent authors, for instance Reid, the sensation-perception distinction corresponds to the two different stages of reception and of processing incoming sensory information.31 But there are at least two ways in which these two stages can be understood.32 According to one view, we can consider the simple reception of that information in the proper senses and their activity in isolation from everything else that happens subsequently (downstream) in the perceptual system. This is sensation. Perception, on the other hand, is derived from the sensations of the individual sense modalities and constituted by the combination of a central perceptual power of this information received and processed by the several individual sense modalities, as well as any other process that operates on or with this basic information. According to this view, then, sensation corresponds to the operations of the external senses individually considered and perception to the operations of the internal senses. According to a second view, it makes no sense to speak of the operation of the external senses without reference to the operation of the internal senses, except for clarity of exposition. It is never the case that I just see red without also perceiving that that red thing is round, moving, etc.33 Whereas it makes sense to isolate the operations of the different powers in order to explain how they work, for instance, that the actuality of the power of sight is due to the action of its proper per se sensible (colour) upon the sense organ (eyes), which in turn must be properly disposed by certain fixed conditions (transparency, health, etc.), this process considered in isolation cannot be used as an account 30 31 32

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As noted by Black (2011, pp. 273–278), Albert the Great is particularly clear in identifying these different levels of sensory processing and assigning specific content to each. Ben-Zeev (1984, p. 331) argues that one of the reasons for this is the increase of the physical-mental gap in the explanation of perception from the seventeenth century onward. I do not consider a third view, according to which sensation would correspond to the simple reception of sensible information in the bodily sense organs and perception would be constituted by the operation of the senses processing that information—and ‘senses’ here include both the external senses (the five sense modalities) and the internal senses. Spinoza 1996 suggests that this was the Platonic interpretation that was dominant in the early Middle Ages and that its origin can ultimately be traced back to Plato himself in the Theaetetus. Such an account relies heavily on (i) a dualist anthropology, which conceives of the bodily organs as instruments used by the immaterial soul and (ii) a clear-cut ­distinction between the passive body and the active soul. “Color enim per se et primo immutat visum, set hoc non facit sine magnitudine” (­Anonymi Magistri Artium Quaestiones super librum de anima II, q. 67, sol., p. 218) and “Visus enim percipit colorem et simul cum hoc magnitudinem, quia forma non agit nisi in debita quantitate et magnitude non est sine figura” (q. 68, sol., p. 220).

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of how we perceive. It is an account of how powers operate and not an account of perception. Still according to this view, the distinction between sensation and perception does not correspond to the distinction between the apprehension of low-level sensory input and the higher-order unification and further processing of the sensory data. These two interpretative possibilities are clearly defined, but it is less clear which medieval thinker explicitly held which. One way to try to disambiguate these notions is to run a search on the use of these expressions by medieval thinkers. At the start it is important to note that the dictionary definition of these terms—sensatio and perceptio—indicates common shared meanings such as ‘grasping’, ‘taking in’, ‘receive’, ‘to notice’, ‘to become aware of’, etc. A search in online databases, such as the Corpus Corporum,34 shows that sensation and cognate expressions (‘sensatio’, ‘sentire’, etc.) are the default terms used to refer to the sensible apprehension of external objects in the world,35 while perception and cognate expressions (‘perceptio’, ‘percipere’, etc.) appear as the terms with wider signification across domains. Perception-terms are found in unexpected contexts, for instance, (i) in a non-cognitive, theological sense of reception of a sacrament or even of the sacramental grace.36 Perception is also found in cognitive, but not sensory contexts, for instance, (ii) as equivalent to understanding or grasping, as in the beatific perception of grace and truth;37 (iii) as an intellectual mode of cognition, for instance, Thomas Aquinas talks about the ‘perception of the truth’ (perceptio veritatis), which

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https://www.mlat.uzh.ch, last accessed 6 April 2022. A similar search in the Library of Latin Texts (Brepols) shows more results but of the same type. 35 J. Hamesse (1996, p. 68) notes that “Il semble que le vocable sensatio utilisé dans la langue philosophique ait été créé pendant le moyen âge, probablement par un traducteur latin de l’oeuvre d’Averroès qui ne trouvait pas d’équivalent latin au correspondant arabe du terme aisthèsisi”. She suggests that ‘sensatio’ is a neologism invented around the ­beginning of the thirteenth century, probably by the translator of Averroes, Michael Scot (p. 75). In the same volume, R. Busa (1996, p. 86) notes that the term ‘sensatio’ only appears twice in the whole Thomistic corpus. 36 Gelasius, Liber sacramentorum romanae ecclesiae, PL 74, col. 1113C: “Concede, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus, ut paschalis perceptio sacramenti continuata in nostris mentibus ­perseveret”. 37 “Quae nimirum beatissima perceptio gratiae et Veritatis, quoniam in hujus saeculi vita fieri non potest” (Bede, In S. Joannis Evangelium Expositio, PL 92, col. 645B); and the perception of incorruption and the contemplation of truth: “Nosse enim Deum et justitiam ejus atque virtutem radix est immortalitatis, hoc est perceptio incorruptionis et contemplatio veritatis in aeterna vita” (Rabanus Maurus, Commentaria in librum Sapientiae, c. 4, PL 109, col. 742B).

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depends on previous cognition;38 (iv) as a mode of self-awareness or ‘first person experience’.39 And finally, the terminology of perception is also found in sensory contexts, both (v) as non-veridical perception,40 and (vi) as normal, veridical perception.41 I think all that a quick overview of the result of a simple search in a corpus of works shows is the polysemous nature of these terms, in particular perceptio and cognate expressions. But such a search fails to reveal a systematic or at least explicit distinction between sensation and perception within the work of a given author.

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“Ad quintum decimum dicendum quod iste modus cognoscendi est naturalis animae, ut percipiat intelligibilem veritatem infra modum quo percipiunt spirituales substantiae superiores, accipiendo scilicet eam ex sensibilibus. Sed in hoc etiam modo impedimentum patitur ex corruptione corporis, quae provenit ex peccato primi parentis” (Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae De anima, q. 2, ad 15, ed. Leonina, vol. 24/1, p. 21). See also An., De spiritu et anima, PL 40, col. 809: “Intellectus est rerum vere existentium perceptio”; and later on, Juan Maldonado, De origine, natura et immortalitate animae, 34, ed. Tropia 2021, p. 258: “Hoc autem interest inter intellectum et sensum, quod hic ita percipit individua, ut nullo modo universa, quia vis corporea est; ille, quia spiritalis, percipit tanquam proprium obiectum universum, percipit etiam individuum”; on Maldonado, see Tropia 2020. “Uno quidem modo, particulariter, secundum quod Socrates vel Plato percipit se habere animam intellectivam, ex hoc quod percipit se intelligere” (Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia, q. 87, a.1, ed. Leonina, vol. 5, p. 356). Therese Scarpelli Cory (2014, pp. 71–72) notes that “[Aquinas] describes self-awareness as a ‘perception’ in at least twenty-two different texts from nine works”. See also Adam Wodeham Lectura secunda in librum primum sententiarum, prol., q. 2, 14, ed. Wood 1990, pp. 60–61: “… omne experiri est quoddam cognoscere, et omnis experientia, quaedam cognitio et perceptio. Igitur non stant simul quod anima experiatur actum et tamen quod non cognoscat nec percipiat ipsum. Item, actus nostros quosdam, dum sunt, percipimus et non tantum recipimus”. I owe this reference to Martin Klein. Peter Abelard, Logica ingredientibus, 3, 1, 50, 317–18: “Tunc enim imaginatio est ea ­perceptio animi per quam imaginem rei percipimus, nullam adhuc naturam eius uel ­proprietatem diiudicantes”. Alanus de Insulis, Distinctiones dictionum theologicalium V, PL 210, col. 1007C: “Visio est perceptio alicujus rei, mediante visu, et haec visio dicitur corporalis”. See also Albert the Great in his commentary on De anima II, tr. 4, c. 6, ed. Borgnet 1890, p. 300: “Id quod sentimus per accidens, dicitur dupliciter, quorum unum est quod accidit huic sensui in quantum est hoc, licet non accidat sensui in quantum est sensus, sicut nos visu sentimus dulce: hoc enim accidit visui in quantum conjunctum est suum sensibile cum sensibili, gustus tamen dulce non accidit sensui in quantum est sensus: quia tunc a nullo sensu perciperetur sive sentiretur. Aliud autem est quod accidit huic sensui in quantum est hic sensus, et etiam sensui in quantum est sensus, sicut dicimus quod videmus filium Dionis et de illo diximus supra, quod est sensatum per accidens. Primo ergo modo per accidens sentitur ab aliquo sensu hoc quod ab alio sensu sentitur per se”; Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia, q.78, a. 4, ed. Leonina, vol. 5, p. 256: “perceptio formarum sensibilium sit ex immutatione sensibilis”; and ST Ia, q. 87, a. 1, p. 355: “Et hoc quidem manifeste apparet in rebus sensibilibus: non enim visus percipit coloratum in potentia, sed solum coloratum in actu”.

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Yet, other scholars have argued that this can and is indeed found in certain authors. Robert Pasnau, in his by now classic study Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, claims that Aquinas subscribes to the first view, i.e., that he defends the distinction between sensation and perception as formulated above. For Aquinas, he argues, the operations of the external senses are conscious and prior to the operations of the common sense, which is the centre of conscious awareness. In his (Pasnau’s) own words: … sensation just is the impression of a sensible quality on an external sense. A complete act of seeing consists in nothing more than a sensible quality’s impression on an external sense. Second, the common sense’s operation occurs after sensation occurs, and as a result of sensation. ­Second-order perception follows the first-order sensory operation.42 According to this reading of Aquinas, which Pasnau claims is non-standard, sensation corresponds to the apprehension of sensible qualities by the proper senses and perception corresponds to all sorts of sensory apprehensions that take place after the operations of the proper senses. So, the difference between the two is that between ‘seeing red’ (‘only colour is sensed’) and the perception of a loud, square, far away, moving, red object—the latter including the collation of sensory input from different sense modalities and thus the proper and common sensibles.43 If this reading were correct, it would seem that in Aquinas the sensationperception distinction purports to express the systematic distinction between the workings of the individual sense modalities on the one hand and their combined operations and those of the so-called internal senses. But Pasnau admits that this would be to go too far, as he remarks, in an endnote, that “Aquinas (…) speaks not just of sensation but also of perception occurring in the external senses”, and that he uses the verb ‘percipere’ to describe the operations of the external senses and therefore that one should “speak indifferently, throughout, 42 43

Pasnau 2002, p. 196 (emphasis added). In his earlier book (1997, pp. 138–142), Pasnau claimed instead that ‘our’ distinction between sensation and perception corresponds to the distinction found in Aquinas between reception of the sensible species in the senses and the judgment by the senses, by which he seems to mean the external senses. (Pasnau suggests this interpretation as part of his argument for considering the senses to be also active, rather than simply passive, as they were traditionally understood to be in Aquinas.) But Pasnau himself admits defeat and concludes: “If Aquinas has in mind some special class of sensation – for example, sensation as contrasted with perception – then he would surely tell us that. But he never does” (1997, p. 140).

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of perception and sensation”.44 So, it seems in the end that for Aquinas perception refers to both the operations of the external and the internal senses and as such it cannot be distinguished from sensation. I think that what these passages show is the challenge of interpreting Aquinas by using a conceptual distinction that is ours, not his. Examples abound of authors moving between the use of sensation and perception terms to refer to both the operation of the external senses and the operation of the internal senses, for instance, in the context of the discussion about the distinction between the per se and per accidens sensible objects.45 At other times, a certain author just displays a certain preference for one of the terms without that entailing, as far as I can tell, meaning different things by the two terms. One good example is the fourteenth-century philosopher Nicole Oresme. In a passage where he argues for the claim that apprehension of an external thing is not limited to the reception of the species of the external thing in the sense organ, but instead requires that the sense turns itself to that species received, he says: … the sense is active with respect to sensation [sensacionis]. This is proved by the fact that, as said before, it does not suffice that the species is in the organ but that with this it is required that the sense turns itself when there is sensation [sensacio]. And such turning is to act; and thus [when] sensing [senciendo] it ‘reasons’, as said before, and that to reason is to act.46 In this passage, Oresme uses ‘sensation’ and cognate expressions for both lowlevel and higher-level processing of sensory information. In other passages, however, Oresme uses the Latin terms sentire and percipere synonymously and interchangeably, for instance, when he argues that

44 45 46

Pasnau 2002, p. 434. A good example of this can be found in ST Ia, q. 78, a. 3, ed. Leonina, vol. 5, p. 254: ‘Exterius ergo immutativum est quod per se a sensu percipitur, et secundum cuius diversitatem sensitivae potentiae distinguuntur.’ See Anonymous, Quaestiones in Aristotelis libros I et II De anima II, 14, ed. Giele 1971, pp. 90–91; Anonymi Magistri Artium Sententia super II et III De anima II, 24, ed. Bazán 1998, p. 315. Nicole Oresme, Quaestiones super libros Aristotelis De anima II, q. 9, ed. Marshall 1980, p. 282: “… sensus est agens respectu sensacionis. Probatur quia, ut dictum est, non ­sufficit quod species sit in organo, sed cum hoc requiritur quod sensus advertat quando est ­sensacio. Et taliter advertere est agere; et eciam senciendo discurrit, ut dictum est, et ­discurrere est agere”.

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From this, it seems that to sense (sentire) the place of a thing is to perceive and cognize by sense (percipere et cognoscere sensu) the way that thing is with respect to other bodies in the world. 47 To sense is to perceive, which means that if sensation terms apply to low-level and higher-level processes and sensation and perception are synonymous, then it seems that the use of these terms does not correspond to any systematic and conceptual distinction between sensation and perception. It also seems clear that for Oresme the sensation-perception and external-internal senses distinction holds no ground because he thinks that all sensation includes both an individual sense modality and the operation of the internal senses so that it is not the case that the act of the internal senses builds on the act of the proper senses but that only together do they constitute an episode of sensation or perception.48 The central power of perception that performs the activity of perceiving, by combining or collating sense information, results in a sensitive judgment (iudicium).49 The same equivalence between sensing and perceiving can be found explicitly stated in other authors; for instance, Peter of Ailly, who in the context of showing that the sensible species are not objects of perception, argues that … those species are not sensed or perceived by sense because as they cause sensation more immediately than the sensible qualities [in the external object], if these [the species] were sensed, they would be more ­immediately perceived by sense than their objects, which is the opposite of what we experience.50

47

Nicole Oresme, Quaestiones in Aristotelis de anima III, q. 13, ed. Patar 1995, p. 214: “Ex quod patet quod situm rei sentire est percipere et cognoscere sensu ipsam rem taliter se habere ad alia corpora mundi”. See also II, q. 13, p. 216: “... quid est percipere vel sentire magnitudinem”; II, q. 13, ed. Patar 1995, p. 216: “unde videre est colorem percipere”; and II, q. 12, p. 207: “sensus potest percipere aliquod tale secundum conceptum confusum, sicut quod est magnum”. 48 Nicole Oresme, Quaestiones super libros Aristotelis De anima III, q. 10, ed. Marshall, p. 288: “… sciendum est primo quod nunquam sensus exterior cognoscit aliquid quin cum hoc sit cognicio interiorum. Ymo ista sunt inseparabilia, ut patet in secundo ­Perspective. Et proprie sensus exterior non cognoscit sed interior mediante exteriori”. 49 See De anima II.x, 288. 50 Peter of Ailly, Tractatus de anima 8, 4, ed. Pluta 1987, p. 48: “Secunda condicio est, quod tales species non sentiuntur nec sensu percipiuntur, quia, cum illae immediatius causent sensationem quam qualitates sensibles, si sentirentur, ipsae immadiatius quam sua obiecta sensu perciperentur, cuius oppositum experimur”.

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The perception by sense and sensation appear to mean the same. Whichever way we may interpret Aquinas, Oresme, and Ailly, it seems clear that there is a clear contrast between their views and those which we find in later authors such as Thomas Reid for whom the objects of sensations are the sensations themselves—the being affected, as it were—whereas perceptions are instances of cognitive awareness that have external things as their objects. As Hamlyn makes clear, for Reid, sensation and perception as cognitive acts are different because their objects are different. This difference can be illustrated as that between the hearing of a sound and the perception of what makes the sound or of the kind of sound heard or even of the spatial origin of that sound. Another example (mine, not Hamlyn’s) could be that of the sensation of pain versus the perception of the location of the pain, the cause of the pain or even of what kind of pain it is. From this, the distinction between sensation and perception has evolved into a difference between a structured and a nonstructured (re)action to objects in our environment, i.e., between the having of sensations (feeling the smoothness of a rug) and the perceiving of sensible properties (perceiving the rug as smooth). The contrast just indicated allows us to argue against the view that a distinction between sensation and perception is prevalent in pre-modern historical sources. That is not to say evidence of cases in which such a distinction plays a role cannot be found, but simply that until further research brings those cases to light, we should proceed without fear of mishandling these medieval discussions about how we come to be aware of material things and their sensible features by referring to them as either sensation or perception. In other words, because of the material I have presented and Hamlyn’s own research, I think it is legitimate to conflate the two—sensation and perception—when discussing medieval authors. It is also important to note that the lack of an explicit terminological distinction between sensation and perception in medieval sources is compatible with the view that medieval authors take sense perception to come in degrees or levels; in other words, that one can claim that different powers in the perceptual process acquire and process different kinds of sensible properties and yet fail to argue for a categorial distinction between different kinds of processes, expressible in sensatio-terms and perceptio-terms. To impose this distinction on medieval authors, we would have to be able to show that such clear-cut distinctions between sensation and perception are expressed in different terms, e.g., when discussing the apprehension of certain types of properties, author x uses (systematically) sensatio-terminology, whereas when discussing the apprehension of properties of a different type, that same author uses perceptio-terminology. As I see it, we can understand medieval authors in those terms, but the terms of that distinction are not medieval. Medieval

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authors tend to use either sensatio-terminology and perceptio-terminology for the same processes (like Aquinas) or only sensatio-terminology for both types of processes (like Oresme in some passages). So, at most we could argue that we should rather speak of sensation and not perception—and its cognate terms, i.e., sensory experience instead of perceptual experience and so on, in which case there would be no talk of perception in medieval sources. In other words, perceptio, percipere and such terms should be understood as reducible to the terminology of sensation. But that is a different argument than saying that there is a distinction in medieval sources between different kinds or levels of processing of sensory information that would correspond to what we now call sensation and perception. But, as I have argued, this conclusion is unwarranted, as the case of Aquinas makes clear. To clarify this is particularly important in the context of this volume because it allows us to disambiguate any possible claim about the relation between perceptual processes and rational ones that presupposes a differentiation between a basic level of perception, something like a ‘raw feel’ that is ­equivalent to what we now call sensation, and a high level of perception, which corresponds to what we nowadays call perception and that includes something like the judgment of seeing-as. Medieval authors do seem to understand that our acquaintance with the external world via the senses comes in degrees, as there are different kinds of sensible properties that we perceive things as h ­ aving, and thus that different senses (external and internal) operate with different content. But that is not to say that they framed this distinction as being one between sensation and perception, as we now consider these terms to mean. As such, there are no major issues, as far as I can see, in talking about sensation or perception with respect to medieval authors as a generic, umbrella term for these processes of sensory apprehension. Perception has the advantage, from the perspective of English scholarship, of being the most inclusive term so that those interested in medieval philosophy but coming from contemporary philosophy understand that, when we talk about perception in medieval sources, we mean to refer to the process or set of processes by means of which perceptual beings come to be acquainted with sensible features of objects in their environment, whatever these properties are and, especially, what their nature is (sensory or conceptual). To answer that question, we must investigate the nature of perception but also the issue of rationality in perception. Hopefully, the book the reader holds in her hand offers a glimpse into how the topic was considered philosophically in the late medieval period and how it relates to connected topics, such as the role of memory in perception, the nature of intentionality, the human-animal divide in the nature of perceptual experience, and the debate over the active and passive nature of perception.

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Bibliography Primary Sources

Adam Wodeham, Lectura secunda in librum primum sententiarum, ed. Rega Wood, Saint-Bonaventure: Saint-Bonaventure University. Franciscan institute, 1990. Alanus de Insulis, Distinctiones dictionum theologicalium, ed. Jacques Paul Migne, Paris: 1855 (Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, 210). Albertus Magnus, De anima, ed. Auguste Borgnet, Paris: Vives, 1890 (B. Alberti Magni Ratisboniensis episcopi, ordinis predicatorum, Opera Omnia, 5). Albertus Magnus, De anima, ed. Clemens Stroick, Münster: Aschendorff, 1968 (Alberti Magni Ordinis fratrum praedicatorum episcopi Opera Omnia, 7/1). Anonymi Magistri Artium Quaestiones super librum de anima, ed. Paola Bernardini, Florence: SISMEL – Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2009 (Corpus philosophorum Medii Aevi. Testi e studi, 23). Anonymi Magistri Artium Sententia super II et III De anima, ed. Bernardo Carlos Bazán, Louvain: Peeters, 1998 (Philosophes médiévaux, 37). Anonymus, Quaestiones in Aristotelis libros I et II De anima, ed. Maurice Giele, in Maurice Giele, Fernand Van Steenberghen & Bernardo Carlos Bazán (eds.), Trois commentaires anonymes sur le Traité de l’Ame d’Aristote, Louvain: Publications ­universitaires de Louvain, 1971 (Philosophes médiévaux, 11). Anonymus, De spiritu et anima, ed. Jacques Paul Migne, Paris: 1845 (Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, 40). Gelasius, Sacramentarium Gelasianum sive Liber sacramentorum romanae ecclesiae, ed. Jacques Paul Migne, Paris: 1850 (Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, 74). Maldonado, Juan, De origine, natura et immortalitate animae, in Anna Tropia, “Pédagogie et philosophie à l’âge de la contre-réforme: Le De origine, natura et immortalitate animae (Paris, 1564) de Juan Maldonado S. J.”, Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales, 88/1, pp. 235–282. Oresme, Nicole, Quaestiones super libros Aristotelis De anima, ed. Peter Marshall, Ann Arbor: UMI; 1980. Oresme, Nicole, Quaestiones in Aristotelis de anima, in Expositio et quaestiones in ­Aristotelis De anima, ed. Benoît Patar, Louvain: Peeters, 1995 (Philosophes médiévaux, 32). Peter Abelard, Logica ingredientibus, ed. Bernhard. Geyer, in Bernhard Geyer, Peter Abelaelards Philosophische Schriften, Münster i. W.: Aschendorff, 1919. Peter of Ailly, Tractatus de anima, in Die philosophische Psychologie des Peter von Ailly, ed. Olaf Pluta, Amsterdam: Grüner, 1987. Rabanus Maurus, Commentaria in librum Sapientiae, ed. Jacques Paul Migne, Paris: 1852 (Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, 109).

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Thomas Aquinas, Pars prima Summae theologiae, Rome: Ex Typographia Polyglotta S. C. de Propaganda Fide, 1888–1889 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 4–5). Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De anima, Rome–Paris: Commissio Leonina–Vrin, 1984 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 45/1). Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae De anima, Rome–Paris: Commissio Leonina– Éditions Du Cerf, 1996 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 24/1).

Secondary Literature

Black, Deborah L. (2011), “Avicenna’s ‘Vague Individual’ and Its Impact on Medieval Latin Philosophy Vague Individual”, in Robert Wisnovsky, Faith Wallis, Jamie Claire Fumo & Carlos Fraenkel (eds.), Vehicles of Transmission, Translation, and Transformation in Medieval Textual Culture, Turnhout: Brepol, 2011 (Cursor mundi, 4), pp. 259–292. Busa, Roberto (1996), “Sensus et sensatio nell’Index Thomisticus: Significati, statistiche e metodi”, in Massimo L. Bianchi (ed.), Sensus-Sensatio. Atti dell’VIII colloquio internazionale del Lessico Intelletuale Europeo, Firenze: Leo S. Olschki (Lessico Intellettuale Europeo, 66), pp. 83–119. Cavanagh, Patrick (2012), “Visual Cognition”, Vision Research, 51/13, pp. 1538–1551. De Haan, Daniel (2020), “Aquinas on Sensing, Perceiving, Thinking, Understanding, and Knowing Individuals,” in Elena Băltuţă (ed.), Medieval Perceptual Puzzles: ­Theories of Sense Perception in the 13th and 14th Centuries, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Investigating Medieval Philosophy, 13), pp. 238–268. Frede, Michael (2007), “Aristotle’s Rationalism”, in Michael Frede and Gisela Striker (eds.), Rationality in Greek Thought, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 157–173. Hamesse, Jacqueline (1996), “Sensus et sensatio dans les lexiques philosophiques médiévaux”, in Massimo L. Bianchi (ed.), Sensus-Sensatio. Atti dell’VIII colloquio internazionale del Lessico Intelletuale Europeo, Firenze: Leo S. Olschki (Lessico ­Intellettuale Europeo, 66), pp. 67–81. Hamlyn, David Walter (1961), Sensation and Perception. A History of the Philosophy of Perception, New York: Humanities Press. Helmig, Christoph (2012), Forms and Concepts. Concept Formation in the Platonic Tradition, Berlin: de Gruyter (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca et Byzantina, 5). Knuuttila, Simo & Juha Sihvola, Sourcebook for the History of the Philosophy of Mind, Dordrecht: Springer 2014 (Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, 12). Lisska, Anthony J. (2016), Aquinas’ Theory of Perception: An Analytic Reconstruction, Oxford University Press 2016.

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McDowell, John (2013), “Conceptual Capacities in Perception”, in J. McDowell, Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 127–144. Modrak, Deborah K. W. (1987), Aristotle: The Power of Perception, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nanay, Bence (2014), “Philosophy of Perception. The New Wave”, in Id. (ed.), Perceiving the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 3–12. Pasnau, Robert (1997), Theories of Cognition in the Later Middle Ages, Cambridge: ­Cambridge University Press. Pasnau, Robert (2002), Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature. A Philosophical Study of Summa theologiae Ia 75–89, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pasnau, Robert (2017), After Certainty: A History of our Epistemic Ideals and Illusions, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pylyshyn, Zenon (1999), “Is Vision Continuous with Cognition?”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22, pp. 341–365. Scarpelli Cory, Therese (2014), Aquinas on Human Self-Knowledge, Cambridge: ­Cambridge University Press. Siegel, Susanna (2011), The Contents of Visual Experience, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Silva, José Filipe (2020), “How Modular are Medieval Cognitive Theories?”, in J­uliana Dresvina & Victoria Blund (eds.), Cognitive Sciences and Medieval Studies: An I­ ntroduction, Cardiff: University of Wales Press (Religion and Culture in the Middle Ages), pp. 23–38. Sorabji, Richard (2004), “Aristotle’s Perceptual Functions Permeated by Platonist Reason”, in Carlos Steel, Gerd van Riel, Caroline Macé & Leen van Campe (eds.), Platonic Ideas and Concept Formation in Ancient and Medieval Thought, Leuven University Press (KUL. De Wulf-Mansion centre. Ancient and medieval philosophy. Series 1, 32), pp. 32–99. Stump, Eleonore (2003), Aquinas, London: Routledge (The Arguments of the ­Philosophers). Tropia, Anna (2020), “Three Jesuit Accounts of Cognition: Differences and Common Ground in the De anima Commentaries by Maldonado, Toledo and Dandini (1564– 1610)”, in Véronique Decaix & Ana María Mora-Márquez (eds.), Active Cognition: Challenges to an Aristotelian Tradition, Cham: Springer. Wolfson, Harry A. (1935), “The Internal Senses in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew Philosophical Texts”, The Harvard Theological Review, 28, pp. 69–133. Zeimbekis, John & Athanassios Raftopoulos (eds.) (2015), The Cognitive Penetrability of Perception: New Philosophical Perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 2

Early Franciscans on Active Perception and Cognition Lydia Schumacher In recent and past medieval scholarship, ‘active’ theories of cognition—or ­theories in which the mind somehow ‘pre-determines’ or at least influences how it understands the world—have been frequently linked to active theories of perception, according to which the sense faculties themselves are in some way guided by reason.1 The reason for this connection is that active cognition requires understanding how the mind acquires the material needed to perform its work, which in turns necessitates an account of how the perceptive powers actively process and provide that material. Although theories about how such active processes of perception and cognition work have often been described as broadly ‘Augustinian’, the actual way in which they have been parsed varies significantly. This chapter will contribute to tracking that variety as it manifested in the first generation of masters who worked at the first university with a charter, at Paris, which coalesced around 1200 out of the numerous schools that had previously congregated the city. This generation included a number of distinguished secular masters, or scholars who were not associated with a religious order, such as William of Auxerre, Philip the Chancellor, and William of Auvergne, as well as many scholar-members of the recently founded Dominican and Franciscan orders. Admittedly, only a handful of these figures engaged in any depth with philosophical questions including those concerning active perception and cognition. In many cases, their reluctance to treat these themes was due to the constraints of a ban on teaching Aristotle and related works of natural philosophy that remained in effect at Paris from at least 1210–31.2 In the years after this ban was lifted, many theologians continued to approach philosophical works with caution. As soon as 1232, however, a member of the Franciscan order called John of La Rochelle enthusiastically employed them in composing his Tractatus de 1 Most notably, recently, in the work of Filipe da Silva and his associates on his ‘Rationality in Perception’ ERC Project. See also Bieniak 2010; Lottin 1957–1960. 2 Bianchi 1997; Williams 1997, pp. 139–63. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004537712_003

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divisione multiplici potentiarum animae, which made him the first Latin thinker “to give a systematic classification of the powers of the soul”.3 While this work focussed on outlining a series of cognitive powers, such as sensation and intellection, John’s Summa de anima of 1236 engaged in wider inquiries concerning other philosophical questions that had become common at the time, such as the relationship of the soul’s powers to one another and to the body. These two works by John formed part of the basis for the so-called Summa Halensis, the main components of which were written between 1236–45. This great Summa, one of the first of its kind, drew not only on John’s writings but also on those of his chief collaborator, Alexander of Hales, who was the first master of the Franciscan school in Paris. The Summa Halensis, named for ­Alexander, defined the contours of the Franciscan intellectual tradition for the first time and so quickly became a staple of Franciscan education for more famous thirteenth-century Franciscans like Bonaventure and Duns Scotus. Although the study that follows will focus on John and the Summa’s unprecedented efforts to elaborate the nature of active cognition and perception, I will also engage briefly with the De anima (c. 1240) of William of Auvergne, a contemporary of John and supporter of his Franciscan colleagues who nonetheless developed a starkly contrasting approach to these issues. While he, like the Franciscans, claimed Augustine as his authority, my study of their works will illustrate the differences in their interpretations of ‘Augustinianism’ and the way they defined it in relation to writings other than those of Augustine himself. Particularly important in this regard was the work of the Islamic scholar Avicenna, which was especially popular in the period before 1250, when Aristotle’s corpus was not yet fully available in a solid translation. Although Avicenna posed as an interpreter of Aristotle, he was a deeply original thinker who also drew on elements of Neo-Platonism. This gave his thought a decidedly ­religious orientation that appealed to Latin thinkers, who were themselves seeking to appropriate Aristotle in line with their own C ­ hristian beliefs.4 In this first part of this chapter, I will outline the account of the senses and the intellect that John of La Rochelle—not to mention the Summa authors— drew directly and faithfully from Avicenna. The amount of attention that these Franciscans devote to the question of sensation will confirm that they preserve some role in cognition for the kind of passive reception of sense data that is so famously associated with Aristotle, even though John uses Avicenna to explain how perception is guided by reason in an active way. For William of Auvergne 3 Brady 1949; Callus 1952, p. 131; Hasse 2000, p. 48. 4 Bertolacci 2012.

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by contrast, we will see that sense objects play no causal role in the development of the ideas we have about them, which are generated by the intellect exclusively. In that sense, William seems to understand active cognition as entailing active perception in one and the same cognitive act. For his part, John distinguishes the two, following Avicenna again to explain active cognition in terms of the way certain innate concepts shape human efforts to formulate universal ideas. As I will demonstrate later in the chapter, the two different accounts of active perception and cognition under discussion here are connected with two quite distinct ways of construing Avicenna’s body-soul dualism, which Rochelle and Auvergne endorse in their own ways. Although both scholars link their views to Augustine, the final section of the chapter will focus on explaining how the Franciscans especially employed pseudo-Augustinian works as a means to ascribing Avicennian views to the Bishop. Thus, I will question the tendency of modern scholars trace early Franciscan theories to Augustine. 1

John of La Rochelle

1.1 The Senses As noted above, John of La Rochelle follows Avicenna very closely in delineating the five internal senses, which process the data of external sensation for cognition. These senses include what he calls phantasy or the common sense, imagination, the imaginative sense, estimation, and memory.5 The common sense is the power ordained to the front lobe of the brain which receives all forms that are imprinted by the five senses.6 This power is common in two respects, namely, because it produces a coordinated concept of what is perceived by different senses, so that what I see is the same thing as what I hear and smell; and because it confers to sensible things all the diverse properties that they may simultaneously exhibit, such as blackness, sweetness, etc.7 According to Avicenna the next power of imagination is located in the far back part of the brain. While the common sense apprehends the forms of all sensible things, which it procures from external sensation, the imagination

5 John of La Rochelle, Summa de anima, ed. Bougerol 1995, p. 240. 6 John of La Rochelle, Summa de anima, p. 240: “Sensus communis est vis ordinate in prima concavitate cerebri, recipiens per se ipsam omnes formas que imprimuntur quinque s­ ensibus et redduntur ei”. 7 John of La Rochelle, Summa de anima, p. 241.

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retains them after it is absented from the sense objects themselves.8 In that sense, these two powers are diversified not in subject but in form, with one receiving and one retaining the relevant data.9 The third power is the imaginative or excogitative one, which is situated in the middle of the brain and has the power of composing and dividing the contents of the imagination at will.10 In other words, it can combine and separate properties of things and recombine them to formulate images of things that have not yet been experienced or that may not even exist. The next power of estimation is ordained to the upper part of the middle of the brain, which, according to Avicenna’s famous example, helps determine that a wolf is dangerous and a sheep is harmless.11 Thus, estimation recognizes objects of sensation as good or bad, helpful or harmful, to be pursued or avoided. As such, estimation does not merely grasp the sensible or material form produced by imagination but also registers qualities that are immaterial. So construed, estimation serves in three main ways, namely, to flag up what is dangerous or harmless in our experiences; to help us identify possible further dangers on the basis of past experiences. Thirdly, estimation enables us to identify from some qualities of a thing, others that may also be attributed to it. For example, from the colour of an apple, we can tell that it is also ripe and sweet. The product of estimation is what Avicenna calls an ‘intention’ (­intentio), which captures such accidents or ‘connotational attributes’ of ­sensible things.12 The fifth of the internal senses is the memory, which is ordained to the back of the brain and retains the intentions of sensible things that are apprehended by estimation. According to Avicenna, the relationship between these two powers of estimation and memory is similar to the one that holds between imagination and the common sense. As the imagination retains and is the thesaurus of sensible forms which are apprehended by the common sense, so 8

John of La Rochelle, Summa de anima, p. 242: “Est autem sicut dicit Avicenna vis ordinate in extremo concavitatis anterioris partis cerebri, retinens que recipit sensus communis a quinque sensibus, et remanet in ea post remocionem illorum sensibilium. Vult ergo dicere quod sensus communis est apprehendere formas omnium sensibilium. Vertutis vero que vocatur imaginacio, retinere”. 9 Avicenna, Liber de Anima seu Sextus de Naturalibus [henceforth, De anima] IV, 1, ed. Van Riet 1972, vol. 2, p. 5. 10 John of La Rochelle, Summa de anima, p. 243: “Tertia virtus est que vocatur imaginative, sive excogitative. Que est, secundum Avicennam, vis ordinate in media concavitate ­cerebri, potens componere aliquid de eo quod est in imaginatione cum alio, et dividur secundum quod vult”. 11 John of La Rochelle, Summa de anima, p. 248. 12 Avicenna, De anima IV, 3, vol. 2, pp. 34–54.

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the power of memory is a thesaurus conserving the sensible intentions that are apprehended by the estimative power.13 However, there is a difference between memory in non-human animals and memory in humans.14 For the sheep is only able to recall a particular conclusion that ‘this wolf is dangerous’ and cannot obtain the universal knowledge that ‘all wolves are dangerous.’ This capacity exclusive to humans is attributable to the work of the intellect, to which we now turn. 1.2 The Intellect 1.2.1 The Three-Fold Intellect (Material, Possible, Agent) In describing the work of the intellectual cognition, John follows a tradition that had developed in his generation of distinguishing between a passive and corruptible intellect which he claims that Aristotle calls ‘material’, as well as a separable and incorruptible intellect, which includes the agent and possible intellects.15 There has been a great deal of debate about the precise origins of this three-fold division between the material-possible-agent intellects, with some like Gauthier, de Vaux, Rohmer, and Salman insisting that it is an early sign of the influence of Averroes, who distinguishes between a corruptible and an incorruptible intellect.16 There are difficulties with this theory, among them, that Averroes’ m ­ aterial intellect, which is not in fact mentioned by Aristotle, performs the function that John and his contemporaries ascribed to the possible intellect. This is not the place to pursue the details of the debate; suffice it to say, as Bazán has argued, that the triad was a key feature and possibly invention of early scholastics such as Philip the Chancellor and John of La Rochelle, who first found it in a couple of anonymous works from the late 1220s.17 In John’s own account, the passive or material intellect is the one that is joined to the senses and receives intelligible species in phantasms. This passive power therefore 13

John of La Rochelle, Summa de anima, p. 249: “Quinta virtus est memorativa que est vis ordinate in posteriori concavitate cerebri, retinens quod apprehendit vis estimacionis de intencionibus sensibilium. Comparacio autem virtutis estimative ad virtutem ­memorativam secundum Avicennam est qualis est comparacio virtutis imaginacionis ad sensum commune: sicut enim imaginacio retinet et est thesaurus formarum sensibilium quas apprehendit sensus communis, sic virtus memorativa est thesaurus conservans ­intenciones sensibilium quas apprehendit virtus estimative”; cf. Avicenna, De anima IV, 1, vol. 2, p. 8. 14 Avicenna, De anima IV, 3, vol. 2, p. 41. 15 Rohmer 1928, p. 135. 16 Gauthier 1982b; de Vaux 1933, p. 211; Salman 1947–1948. 17 Gauthier 1982a; Callus 1952.

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offers in a material form the intelligible species that is to be abstracted from a phantasm by the separable intellect. In many respects, it corresponds to what we have already described as the functions of imagination and estimation. As a matter of fact, the material intellect seems to be the name Rochelle gives to these faculties when they are operative in humans seeking to know universals. This already suggests that there may be a rational component to perception, or a way sense perceptions are actively formed by reason, which John does not really explain but which I will seek to elaborate further below. Precisely owing to its materiality, the material intellect is not considered part of the soul strictly speaking, except as far as it is conjoined to the body. For it originates from the union of the rational soul with the body rather than in the soul itself. Another name for it is ‘rationability’ (rationabilitas), which refers to the middle lobe of the brain’s functioning and is able to accept universals in the mode of particulars, rather than as universals themselves. This again is what Aristotle supposedly called the passive intellect that is ‘permixtus’ with the body.18 The separable and incorruptible intellect has two modes, which include the agent and possible intellects.19 Following the Aristotelian tradition, John describes the possible intellect as a blank slate, void of all pictures, but capable of receiving all of them.20 The other is the agent intellect which John equates with the “intelligible light of the first truth that is naturally impressed in us” which is mentioned in the pseudo-Augustinian De spiritu et anima (DSEA), a twelfth-century Cistercian text that was ascribed to Augustine by early Franciscans despite evidence of its inauthenticity.21 The innate light discussed here makes the species intelligible, just as light makes colors visible.22

18 19 20 21

22

John of La Rochelle, Tractatus de divisione multiplici potentiarum animae [henceforth, Tractatus], ed. Michaud-Quantin 1964, p. 87, citing De anima III, 5. John of La Rochelle, Tractatus, p. 87. John of La Rochelle, Tractatus, p. 87: “Una est possibilis ut tabula rasa, nuda ab omni ­pictura, sed susceptiua omnium picturarum, nullam habens actu, sed possibilis ad omnes, et hec est intellectus possibilis”. John of La Rochelle, Tractatus, pp. 91, 95; as mentioned in De spiritu et anima 4. Cf. T ­ orrell 2002, p. 21, quodlibet 3.6, pp. 228–36; Mews 2018; Mews (2019) assesses the manuscript ­tradition of the work which gives reason for its attribution to Augustine and other authors. See also Théry 1921, 373–77. As Wilpert notes, this analogy of the way light makes colors visible is found in Aristotle who was himself probably referring to Plato’s analogy of the way that the light of the good is like a sun which exposes intelligible truths. Aristotle, De anima III, 5, 430a17–18. See Wilpert 1935, p. 447. See also Aristotle De anima II, 7, 418b on the light/colors analogy.

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1.2.2 The Four-Fold Intellect Following Avicenna, John divides the work of the possible intellect into four stages of potentiality, or indeed four intellects, whereby the mind moves from a state of pure potential for knowledge to various grades of its actualisation.23 In his De anima, Avicenna illustrates these stages in terms of the way a child who is in principle capable of learning to write (material intellect), proceeds to acquire the ability to write (in habitu), perfects it (in effectu), and uses it (acquired intellect). In the first case, there is what John calls a material potential for knowledge which has in no way been actualised as yet. This can be likened to prime ­matter, which does not itself possess any form but is subject to all forms. The material intellect (intellectus materialis) in question here seems to be one and the same as the material intellect described above, which provides the possible intellect with the sense forms needed for abstraction without actually contributing to abstraction in any way. As such, this intellect also coincides with imagination and estimation, as Avicenna himself suggests.24 This has an interesting, albeit largely unspecified, consequence for John of La Rochelle’s understanding of the active role that the intellect or reason plays in perception. For it implies that the very existence of the rational faculty in humans has an impact on the way perception is undertaken, namely, with a view to the abstraction of universals. More specifically, the actual content of intentions in humans by contrast to other animals seems to differ for John and Avicenna because in the former case, the product of estimation already anticipates a higher level of generality or universality in knowledge than animals are able to obtain. As a result of this, there is a ‘rationality’ to or rationale behind human perception. This is further confirmed in John’s subsequent discussion of the other intellects, including the intellect in habit (intellectus in habitu), which involves knowledge of the “­common conceptions of the soul” (communes animi conceptiones), that is, the principles or propositions which are per se nota or self-evident to the mind, such as ‘the whole is greater than its part’. In his De anima, Avicenna had developed an extremely sophisticated account of the role these principles or ‘primary intelligibles’ play in human knowing.25 On his account, the ­intelligibles are innate concepts that correspond to certain properties that are ‘transcendental’—as Duns Scotus only later called them— or common to all beings. 23 Avicenna, De anima V, 6, vol. 2, p. 134. These four phases of the intellect in John are treated by Rohmer 1928, p. 136. See also Hasse 1999. 24 Avicenna, De anima V, 6, vol. 2, p. 137. 25 Marmura 1984.

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First and foremost, and thus also ‘first known’ (primum cognitum) among these intelligibles is being itself, which is common to beings that exist in reality as well as to those that possibly could exist.26 This property is determined by two others, namely, ‘thing’ and ‘necessary’. These respectively denote what a thing is, or its ‘essence’, and that it actually possesses the property of ‘existence’ in reality rather than a state of pure possibility. In elaborating this highly original idea of primary notions, Avicenna was emphatic that the intelligibles are not themselves the objects of knowledge or the universal concepts that result from abstraction, which Avicenna calls ‘secondary intelligibles’ (intentiones intellectae secondo).27 Instead, they serve as means or guides in the process of abstraction, which involves stripping an intention—the product of imagination and estimation—of all its particularizing features or material determinations, such as location, time, shape, and so on, so as to seize conceptual hold of the universal essence that is at its core.28 For John, like Avicenna, only one such intention is needed to complete this process, precisely because abstraction simply involves removing the accidents that are attached to the form when it is understood as a particular in matter.29 By contrast to this view, Aristotle held that ­abstraction involves inferring common or universal properties on the basis of multiple sense objects or manifestations of a thing. On his account, consequently, there is a much more significant ‘logical jump’ from the knowledge of the sense forms to their attendant universal. Moreover, the knowledge of the universal form itself is always subject to revision on the basis of new experiences of similar sense objects. This is not the case according to John of La Rochelle, who follows Avicenna in affirming that the intention and the universal essentially represent the same form, which is known in one case with its accidents and in the latter without them.30 As this suggests, the form that is initially provided by the material intellect— the name for estimation and imagination in humans—offers basically all that is needed to achieve a universal concept, leaving it to the separable intellect merely to separate the form or substance from its accidents. In that sense, much of the work ascribed to human rationality is arguably achieved at the

26 Avicenna, Liber de Philosophia Prima sive Scientia Divina I–IV [henceforth, Metaphysica] I, 5, ed. Van Riet 1977, p. 31–42. 27 Avicenna, Metaphysica I, 2, p. 10. Aertsen 2012, p. 76. 28 Gilson 1955, p. 200. Avicenna, De anima V, 5, vol. 2, p. 127. 29 Avicenna, De anima IV, 3, vol. 2, p. 46. 30 Avicenna, De anima V, 5, vol. 2, pp. 128–130.

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level of perception, and perception, in turn, is permeated and guided by reason’s quest to know the ‘thing in itself’ apart from matter. In obtaining this knowledge, Avicenna affirms that the human mind makes contact with an external ‘Active Intellect’, the last in a series of celestial ­intelligences, which is the one and only intellect that is always in act and thus constantly knows all things as they are.31 This connection is made by the fourth of Avicenna’s intellects, namely, the intellectus adeptus, or acquired intellect, while the third intellectus in effectu is the one that has made those connections previously but is not taking advantage of them presently.32 After elaborating on these four intellects, John invokes another approach to explaining the work of the possible intellect, which was circulating in some texts at the time, namely, through an analogy to syllogistic reasoning, which also has precedent in Avicenna.33 This firstly involves the knowledge of ‘quiddities’, for example, this whole and this part, otherwise known as sense forms, which the possible intellect must obtain from the imagination, via the material intellect. Then come the principles possessed by the possible intellect, in specific, the intellectus in habitu, such as ‘the whole is greater than the part’. Finally, there are the conclusions that are drawn from those principles about the quiddities, such as this whole is greater than this part.34 In drawing these conclusions, John states that the possible intellect becomes ‘formed’ or complete with respect to the sense forms that it originally drew from the imagination, after the manner of ­Avicenna’s intellectus in effectu.35 31 32

33

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Hasse 2000, pp. 187–188, referencing Avicenna, De anima V, 5. John of La Rochelle, Tractatus, p. 88: “Primus dicitur materialis. Secundus dicitur intellectus in habitu, respectu intellectus consequentis conclusionem, vel intellectus in effectu conclusionum, respectu intellectus materialis precedentis. Tertius dicitur intellectus adeptus et in habitu, in habitu respectu intellectus consequentis, in usu et in effectu, respectu intellectus precedentis principiorum. Quartus dicitur intellectus accomodatus in usu. Hii sunt quatuor ordines intellectus speculatiui possibilis”. Hasse 1999, p. 32, citing Avicenna, De anima I, 5. As Hasse elaborates on p. 48, the ­Avicennian tradition meets here with the Western doctrine of the first principles or ­maxims of knowledge based on Boethius and the Aristotelian Organon. See also ­Avicenna, De anima V, 6, vol. 2, p. 152. This example comes originally from: Anonymous, De potentiis animae et obiectis, ed. in Callus 1952, p. 158. Gauthier 1982a, p. 53. John of La Rochelle, Tractatus, p. 93, quoting Avicenna, De anima V, 5: “Notandum ergo, secundum Auicennam, quod operatio intellectus agentis est illuminare, siue lumen intelligentie diflundere super formas sensibiles existentes in ymaginatione siue estimatione, et illuminando abstrahere ab omnibus circumstantiis materialibus, et abstractas copulare siue ordinare in intellectu possibili, quemadmodum per operationem lucis species coloris abstrahitur quodammodo et pupille copulatur”.

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1.2.3 The Transcendentals Although John of La Rochelle does not describe the principles that facilitate this knowledge in terms of ‘primary intelligibles’ in his personal works, these innate concepts do play a significant role in the Summa Halensis, which enumerates the transcendentals following a model that had been introduced by Philip the Chancellor, according to which the first transcendental, namely, being (ens), is characterized by unity, truth, and goodness, which form an analogy to the Trinity.36 In a development of Philip’s account, clearly inspired by Avicenna, the Summists argue that this Trinity does not merely capture the key qualities of beings but is also impressed upon the human mind, with unity, truth, and goodness corresponding to the three aspects of Augustine’s psychological analogy to the Trinity of memory, understanding, and will.37 Because human beings bear the image of the highest Being, or God, so construed, they are able to know any given thing as one, or indivisible in itself and distinct from other beings;38 as true, or intelligible in terms of what it is; and good, or fit for a certain purpose.39 In other words, they have the cognitive resources to do as Avicenna described when he spoke of abstraction as a matter of stripping away all the material dispositions or attributions of a thing in order to lay bare the form that all things of the same kind have in common.40 While John’s Tractatus and Summa de anima do not develop the notion of God’s image in Trinitarian terms, we have seen that they refer to the first principles as an innate orientation to the ‘first truth’, the image of God, or the ‘light’, which provides the conditions of possibility for comprehending actual objects of knowledge. This brings us to the question of the role of the active intellect in achieving human knowledge. In line with the prior Aristotelian tradition, Avicenna held that everything that moves from potency to act does not do so unless through a cause.41 This cause is the reason why our soul actually knows intelligible things. But the cause that gives the 36 37 38

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Pouillon 1939; Fani 2009; Lottin 1930. Summa Halensis (henceforth SH), inq. 4, tr. 1, s. 1, q. 3, tit. 1, c. 5, a. 6, solutio (n. 341), ed. Quaracchi 1928, vol. 2/1, p. 414: Memory, understanding will; cf. Augustine, De Trinitate, 10. SH, pars 1, inq. 1, tr. 3, q. 1, m. 1, c. 1, respondeo II (n. 72), ed. Quaracchi 1924, vol. 1, p. 113: “Dicendum quod cum sit ens primum intelligibile eius intentio apud intellectum est nota” (Avicenna, Metaphysica I, 6); cf. inq. 1, s. 1, q. 1, c. 2 (n. 2), vol. 2/1, p. 3; cf. pars 1, inq. 2, tr. 1, q. 1, c. 2, a. 2, solutio (n. 352), vol. 1, p. 522: “Deus sicut efficiens, primum eius nomen est ens”. SH, pars 1, tr. 3, q. 1, m. 1, c. 2, respondeo (n. 73), vol. 1, pp. 114–115: The nature and relationship of unity, truth, and goodness; cf. pars 1, tr. 3, q. 2, m. 1, c. 2, respondeo (n. 88), vol. 1, p. 140. Rohmer 1928, p. 132, discusses the phases of abstraction in John’s thought. John of La Rochelle, Tractatus, p. 88, citing Avicenna, De anima I, 5.

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intelligible forms is nothing but the intellect that is in act. Therefore, it is necessary that we have an agent intellect. For Avicenna, we have seen, this intellect was separate from the soul itself; some Christian interpreters identified it with God, insisting that he is ultimately responsible for all success in human cognition. Thus, John was constrained to consider the question whether the agent intellect is in fact a separate substance from the soul, as Avicenna supposed. In this regard, he invokes a distinction from the De spiritu et anima concerning things that stand below, next to, or above the self, interpreting these three in terms of 1. Natural things and the human being itself; 2. Angels, and 3. God. As John notes, angels and God obviously exceed the capacities of the human mind.42 For this reason, the human mind must rely on angels to serve as the agent intellect for its knowledge of angels and on God to serve as the agent intellect for its knowledge of God.43 When it comes to the soul and things ‘beneath’ the soul, by contrast, John is emphatic that the agent intellect is nothing other than the human soul itself rather than a substance separate from it.44 Although the possible intellect is responsible for presenting the agent intellect with the sense forms to render intelligible and habitually holds the first principles of knowledge, given by God prior to all experience, or innately, which make it possible to render those forms intelligible, the actual work of utilizing those principles to produce intelligible forms and delivering them to the possible intellect falls to the agent intellect itself. These principles are precisely the locus of our ability to employ this intellect—and are the crux of John’s active theory of cognition—because they are the means by which human beings form their understanding of reality and do so in line with God’s, thereby reflecting his image. 2

William of Auvergne

In his De anima, William of Auvergne takes issue with John of La Rochelle’s way of construing the active character of intellectual cognition, though in keeping with the practice of the time, he does not mention John by name.45 As we have seen, John allowed that innate principles acquired from God structure our understanding of reality, which depends nevertheless on the input of 42 43 44 45

John of La Rochelle, Tractatus, p. 90, citing DSEA 11. John of La Rochelle, Tractatus, p. 91. John of La Rochelle, Tractatus, p. 90. William of Auvergne, De anima, ed Paris 1674, vol. 2 (transl. Teske 2000); Moody 1975; Teske 2006.

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the senses which are themselves ‘rationally’ informed or prepared for the work of abstraction by the material intellect. Although William likewise accepts that sensory objects in some way inform the content of abstract concepts, he denies that they play any role in causing those concepts, which are generated by the intellect alone, which actively registers the effect of the senses on the body. Thus, he ‘collapses’ the act of perception into the act of cognition and does away with the need for rationality in perception altogether. In this connection, William contests John’s notion that the agent intellect brings forth intelligible forms from the material intellect—which seems to be his name for the possible intellect—“like light by its rays brings forth colours from potency to the act of being”.46 As Gilson, Marrone, and others have noted, William thus rejects the idea that the soul possesses an agent intellect of its own.47 In his view, a soul that possessed the agent intellect as well as the substance in which intelligible forms are received would be both potential and actual, which entails a contradiction.48 Likewise, the soul that served as the agent intellect would always be in act and would therefore always understand all intelligible things through itself, which is only possible for God.49 For William, the material intellect is entirely sufficient to achieve the work that John assigned to the agent intellect, that is, to transform potential into actual knowledge. For this purpose, as noted above, “the mind does not receive anything from the object but it comes to have a cognitive act about that particular object affecting a sense organ on the occasion of that affection”.50 That is to say, the mind generates the forms of things entirely within itself by “judging what is received through the sense organs”.51 In this way, it extracts a sign or intelligible form, which is entirely abstracted from matter, but not actually

46 47 48 49 50

51

William of Auvergne, De anima, 7, 3, transl. Teske 2000, p. 429; William also objects to the comparison between the material intellect and matter, which has a relationship of potency to all forms without having any forms as such. Gilson 1955, p. 256; Marrone 1983, p. 58. William of Auvergne, De anima, 7, 3, transl. Teske 2000, p. 430. William of Auvergne, De anima, 7, 3, transl. Teske 2000, p. 430. These are the words of Filipe da Silva to me. See also Silva 2014, p. 123: “The human soul does not receive anything from external physical objects. Instead, the intellect, excited (excitatus) by the presence of things that are external to the senses, makes swiftly (mira velocitate) images of them. The action of the external things provides the occasion to the soul to exercise/execute its … inclination for knowledge”. Silva provides another ­exceptionally clear account of William’s views on cognition in 2020, pp. 43–46. See also Silva 2014, p. 123.

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caused by a sensory encounter with matter.52 William summarises the process when he says that sensation: brings to the intellect sensible substances and intellectual ones united to bodies. But it does not imprint upon it their intelligible forms, because it [the intellect] does not receive such forms of them. Rather through itself the intellect considers that those substances underlie the variety of sensible accidents. The intellective power, then, apprehends or sees such substances under a covering.53 William defends his extraordinary view that the intellect needs nothing but intelligible forms to understand reality, on the ground that it is superior to the senses which do not need anything but sensible things to grasp sense objects.54 The origin of these forms entirely inside the mind is the reason why William thinks our cognitive works can be credited to us. As spiritual beings, William asserts, human beings can in no way be regarded as capable of being acted upon or affected by the body.55 For this same reason, he contends, the sensible movements of the body do not survive its death; this is only true of the forms or signs produced by the soul.56 The material intellect is able to procure such intelligible forms on ­William’s account because it is impressed with certain first principles of knowledge which allow for knowing all forms in potency.57 Thus, William says that the material intellect is “full of forms”.58 Whenever the potential for knowing forms is realized, it is nonetheless thanks to God, the true Agent Intellect, who donates the first principles to the mind in the first place. 2.1 Body-Soul Dualism This quite extreme approach to defining the ‘active’ character of perception and cognition resonates clearly with William’s tendency to assume a rather strong form of body-soul dualism. Like many of his generation, William was influenced by Avicenna when it came to defining the relationship between the body and the soul. The latter conceived of these two entities as separate 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

William of Auvergne, De anima, 7, 7, transl. Teske 2000, p. 449: forms self-generated; 5, 7, p. 203 and 5, 15, p. 241: through reflection on the body. William of Auvergne, De anima, 7, 7, transl. Teske 2000. William of Auvergne, De anima, 7, 4, transl. Teske 2000, p. 434. Moody 1975, p. 46; Teske 2005. William of Auvergne, De anima, 7, 14, transl. Teske 2000, p. 470. William of Auvergne, De anima, 7, 4, transl. Teske 2000, p. 434. William of Auvergne, De anima, 7, 6, transl. Teske 2000, p. 445.

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substances in their own right, which is what made it possible in his mind to confirm that the soul can go on living after the death of the body. In the early scholastic period, many scholars took Avicenna’s view to be a legitimate interpretation of Augustine, citing spurious Augustinian works like the De fide ad Petrum, by the sixth-century author Fulgentius of Ruspe, and the sixth century De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus (Gennadius Massiliensis), not to mention the anonymous twelfth-century Cistercian text, the De spiritu et anima, in support of this belief. Augustine’s own descriptions of the body-soul relationship were famously ambiguous, often suggesting an intimate relationship between the body and the soul, and sometimes highlighting their antagonism, but ultimately leaning more towards their unity.59 By contrast, the spurious Augustinian texts described the soul as “an immortal spiritual substance, created for and infused into the body of each individual by God”, which “rules the body in this life”, but is “capable of an independent existence”60 at its completion. They came down clearly on the side of dualism, as did Avicenna, who held that the soul has a natural inclination not just to any body but to one body in particular.61 This inclination sets one soul apart from another, establishing the soul rather than the body or matter as the principle of individuation.62 Although the soul needs the body in order to fulfil its potential for individuation, and to be distinguished thereby from other souls, it remains the individual that it is after the death of the body, which it does not require to complete its essence. As such a substance in its own right, the soul is only united to the body accidentally.63 This is the view William championed along with earlier contemporaries like Philip the Chancellor. In his De anima, for instance, William described the body as the instrument of the soul which is a “prison and chains to the soul”.64 Like all instruments, the body cannot operate through itself but only through another, namely, the soul, which is not a body itself 59

McGinn 1977, p. 9; Markus 1967; Bieniak 2010, p. 23, citing Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram XII, 35.68, ed. Zycha 1894, p. 72, n. 194: Naturalis appetitus corpus administrandi. See also Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram VII, 27.38; De quantitatae animae I, 2; De civitate Dei I,13; X, 29; XIII, 24. 60 Dales 1995, pp. 4–5. 61 Avicenna, De anima V, 3, vol. 2, p. 113; cf. V, 4, vol. 2, p. 125) 62 Avicenna, De anima V, 3, vol. 2, p. 111. 63 Bazàn 1997, p. 104. See also Bazàn 1969. 64 Moody, 1975, p. 39. Cf. William of Auvergne, De anima, 1, 1, transl. Teske 2000, p. 43; 5, 20, p. 277; 6, 35, p. 395; 6, 36, p. 400; 6, 40, p. 410. Avicenna also uses the language of instrumentality to describe the body’s relationship to the soul in De anima V, 2, vol. 2, p. 98; V, 8, vol. 2, p. 174.

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on the principle that what rules the body cannot be part thereof.65 There is some ambiguity in William’s discussion, insofar as he seemingly emphasizes the unity of the body and the soul with an analogy of their relationship to that of a lyre-player which presupposes both the lyre and the player.66 Ultimately, however, even this example suggests that the body is merely a tool to be used in this life which is discarded afterwards: that the soul is united to the body accidentally. As Magdalena Bieniak has shown, this view had already become subject to question in William’s time following the work of the early Dominican Hugh of St Cher, who argued that the body is in fact intrinsic to the substance of the soul, which exhibits the quality of ‘unibilitas substantialis’ or a substantial unitability to the body.67 In thus affirming that having a body is essential to what it means to have a soul, Hugh offered an important corrective to Avicenna’s theory, enabling Christian theologians to reinforce the orthodox belief in the goodness of creation and the resurrection of the body. Although Hugh’s Sentences commentary certainly represents an important turning point in the history of dualism, its relatively early dating—between 1229–31—left a lot of room for the theory he introduced to be elaborated. In the wake of Hugh’s work, the notion of ‘unibilitas’ became the key feature in early scholastic accounts of the body-soul union, not least for further Dominicans like Roland of Cremona.68 Roland seems to have taken the notion of unibilitas so seriously that he actually concluded that the soul ceases to be a soul when it leaves the body and does not regain its status until it is united with the resurrected body.69 The first major work to develop the doctrine fully was the Summa de anima of John of La Rochelle, who strongly endorses the doctrine of unibilitas substantialis or the idea that in this life, the soul and body are part of one another’s definition, stating that “the soul by nature is unitable to the body”.70 Following Avicenna, John goes so far as to insist that the rational soul is determined to a specific body and cannot perfect any but the one body for

65 66 67 68 69 70

William of Auvergne, De anima, 1, 3, transl. Teske 2000, p. 47; Avicenna, De anima V, 2, vol. 2, p. 82. William of Auvergne, De anima, 3, 11, transl. Teske 2000, p. 140. Bieniak 2010, p. 26; on William of Auvergne, p. 33; Bieniak 2004, p. 169 on unibilitas. Bieniak 2010, pp. 28–29. Dales 1995, p. 37. John of La Rochelle, Summa de anima, p. 52: “Anima vero per natura unibilitatis cum ­corpore per qua corpus animando vivifica; quesa vero substance est qua nel spiritus”.

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which it is designed.71 In an attempt to offer an analogy to the relationship, John distinguishes between a motor and what it moves—Avicenna’s preferred illustration for the body-soul relationship—and an artificer who employs an organ versus an instrument. He objects to the notion that the soul could be related to the body as motor to moved, because this presumes a fundamental separation between the two entities, which he seeks to overcome. Likewise, he is opposed to the analogy of an artificer who performs their work through an instrument, which was the view of William of Auvergne, because an instrument is also fundamentally separate from the being of the artificer. By contrast, an organ is conjoined to its implementor not only in operation but also in essence, as eyes are related to the power of seeing.72 When interpreted in this way, John concludes, we can say both that the body and the soul are intricately connected, despite remaining separate substances. Although the soul is separated from the physical body at death, the fundamental unitability of the soul to the body, and the fact that the body is the means by which the soul operates and acquires merit in this life, entails, for John, that the bodily powers must be resurrected along with the rational soul.73 In this regard, John followed Alexander of Hales, who was unique in his time for positing that all the potencies of the human soul are immortal.74 On his understanding, the vegetative and sense powers differ in humans from other beings.75 “The position and role of all the human powers are determined in fact by their relation to the rational faculty, while the potencies of the animal soul are limited to corporeal functions”.76 The immortality of the human soul therefore seemingly guarantees the immortality of its lower ­faculties. As we have already seen, this was a position that William of Auvergne rejected, which is no surprise given his particular understanding of the relationship between the soul and the body, which is ultimately dispensable.77 71 72 73

74 75 76 77

John of La Rochelle, Summa de anima, p. 128: “Nam una anima racionalis determinate est ad unum corpus et non est possible ut perficiat splendore so aliud corpus”. John of La Rochelle, Summa de anima, p. 126. John of La Rochelle, Summa de anima, p. 143: “Et dicendum quod cum uegetabilis et sensibilis in homine ordinem habeant ad racionem, cum eciam anima racionalis mereatur et demereatur in eis et per eas, cum eciam anima racionalis merito unienda sit corpori eciam in resurrectione, et per uires uegetabilem et sensibilem habeat immortale esse, nec est superuacua operacio earum in homine. Vnde Augustinus in libro De anima et spiritu, dicit quod anima in morte secum trahit uegetatiuam et sensitiuam”. Alexander of Hales, Quaestiones disputatae ‘Antequam esset frater’, q. 32, m. 3, ed. ­Quaracchi 1960, vol. 1, p. 565. Alexander of Hales, Quaestiones disputatae ‘Antequam esset frater’, q. 32, m. 3, vol. 1, p. 565. Bieniak 2012, p. 168. William of Auvergne, De anima, 4, 1, transl. Teske 2000, p. 154; 4, 2, pp. 163–164.

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Augustinianism Revisited

As noted above, both William and John justified their views on the bodysoul relationship in terms of the longstanding tradition of Augustine, who was p ­ erceived as the ‘authority of authorities’ in the Middle Ages.78 As I also mentioned previously, however, the Augustine in question here was often that of various spurious works which were not even written in the Bishop’s lifetime. The same is true of the ‘Augustine’ that early Franciscans employed to develop their theories of sensation and cognition. In the Tractatus and Summa de anima, for instance, John of La Rochelle’s strategy was simply to delineate the views of pseudo-Augustine’s De spiritu et anima, Avicenna, and John of D ­ amascus—a rising theological authority at the time—in three distinct ­sections as if this sufficed to prove their compatibility.79 The redactor who was responsible for incorporating John’s views into the Summa Halensis went even further, using the five-fold schema presented in DSEA of sense, imagination, ratio, intellectus, and intelligentia as a launching pad for rendering Avicenna’s ideas ‘Augustinian’.80 In the case of the internal senses, the Summist inquires whether Avicenna’s theory of five such senses, which the Summa had previously rehearsed almost verbatim, can be reduced to pseudo-Augustine’s category of the imagination, which in his schema deals with the input from the five external senses. The Summa ultimately concludes that they can, on the grounds that the imagination presumably entertains sensible forms absent matter, and the whole point of Avicenna’s five-fold doctrine is to show how these forms are produced.81 Through that single point of ­reference, consequently, Avicenna’s entire theory of internal sensation was attributed to Augustine. A similar manoeuvre is utilised when it comes to the work of the intellect. As we have seen, John is heavily dependent upon Avicenna in delineating his position on this topic. Here again, however, the Summist attributes the views of Avicenna to Augustine on relatively scant evidence, which turns on the five-fold scheme of the DSEA mentioned above. Following John, the Summist 78 79

80 81

William of Auvergne, De anima, 7, 8, transl. Teske 2000, p. 445. The order in which the schemata are presented is the main difference between the two texts. The order in the Tractatus is Avicenna, Damascus, Augustine, and in the Summa de anima, it is Augustine, Damascus, Avicenna. See John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa, ed. Buytaert 1955. Alexander of Hales, Summa theologica, inq. 4, tr. 1, s. 2, q. 2, tit. 1, m. 2, vol. 2/1, p. 434, ­quoting DSEA, 4 and 11. Alexander of Hales, Summa theologica, inq. 4, tr. 1, s. 2, q. 2, tit. 1, m. 1, c. 2, contra 1, vol. 2/1, p. 435.

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associates ratio with the knowledge of the self and things below the self; ­intellectus with the knowledge of things ‘next to’ the self, namely, angels, and intelligentia with the knowledge of God. This is actually a significant departure from Augustine’s own rendering of these three faculties in his authentic works, which conflate ratio with the senses, intellectus with imagination, and intelligentia with the work of the intellect.82 That however is of no concern to the Summist, who argues for the superiority of pseudo-Augustine to the philosophers on the grounds that he is not just concerned with knowledge of natural things but also with higher things, especially God, and yet nonetheless includes a category, namely, ratio, for knowledge of what is natural.83 On this basis alone, the Summist argues that the kinds of philosophical schemata that John had used to explain the work of the human intellect to know natural objects—such as the material/possible/agent intellect and Avicenna’s doctrine of four intellects—can be slotted in under Augustine’s category of ratio as a genuine interpretation of how he understood the work of knowing natural objects. Similarly, the whole cognitive mechanism associated with Avicenna’s doctrine of a priori transcendentals is drawn into the Summa Halensis and to a lesser extent John’s works on the basis of passing remarks in the DSEA r­ eferring to an ‘innate light’ of the ‘first truth’ and a separate reference to Augustine’s triad of memory, understanding, and will. There is more to the Summist’s account, of course, which I must bracket for the sake of space but have delineated fully elsewhere.84 Nevertheless, the outcome of the inquiry is clear: John’s way of construing the active nature of perception and cognition, not to ­mention the body-soul relationship, is attributed to Augustine in the Summa especially on the basis of the most tangential and even implausible evidence. This point seems to have been lost on later thirteenth-century Franciscans, like Bonaventure and John Peckham, who defended their order’s version of Augustinianism as if the whole weight of orthodoxy depended on it.85 The majority of modern scholars have taken such thinkers at their word, assuming that Franciscans at least before Duns Scotus were mainly formulators and systematizers of Augustine’s thought. The study of the first generation 82 83

84 85

Schumacher 2011. Alexander of Hales, Summa theologica, in. 4, tr. 1, s. 2, q. 3, tit. 1, m. 1, c. 2, vol. 2/1, p. 449: “Constat autem quod divisiones virium cognitivarum, quae respiciunt formas intelligibiles sine complexione, sunt priores aliis. Sed non dicitur hic intelligentia eodem modo quo dicitur in prima divisione Augustini, cum hic accipiatur circa complexam veritatem, ibi vero circa incomplexam et summam veritatem”. See Schumacher 2023. Weisheipl 1980, p. 239.

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of Franciscan scholars and especially John of La Rochelle shows that nothing could be further from the truth. What it meant to be an ‘Augustinian’ in the Middle Ages or at least in the Franciscan order was invented by early thirteenth century Franciscans themselves with the help of sources, especially Avicenna, that were far removed both contextually and conceptually from the thought of Augustine. This has interesting consequences for our understanding of the two distinct ways in which John and William developed accounts of the ‘active’ character of perception and cognition. On the one hand, it summons us to pay closer attention to the Avicennian sources of their theories and to give credit where credit is due to the influence of this Islamic philosopher in those theories’ development. At the same time, however, distinguishing early scholastics like John and William from Augustine helps us to appreciate the creativity and originality with which they developed their views on matters like active perception and cognition, such have been discussed here. Bibliography Primary Sources

Summa Halensis in Doctoris irrefragabilis Alexandri de Hales Ordinis minorum Summa theologica, 4 vols., Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1924–1948. Alexander of Hales, Quaestiones disputatae ‘Antequam esset frater’, 3 vols., Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1960 (Bibliotheca Franciscana Scholastica Medii Aevi, 19–21). Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, ed. Joseph Zycha, Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1894 (Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, 28). Avicenna, Liber de anima seu Sextus de naturalibus, 2 vols., ed. Simone van Riet, ­Louvain–Leiden: Peeters–Brill, 1968–1972 (Avicenna Latinus). Avicenna, Liber de Philosophia Prima sive Scientia Divina I–IV, ed. Simone Van Riet, Louvain–Leiden: Peters–Brill, 1977 (Avicenna Latinus). John of La Rochelle, Tractatus de divisione multiplici potentiarum animae, ed. Pierre Michaud-Quantin, Paris: Vrin 1964 (Textes philosophiques du Moyen Age, 11). John of La Rochelle, Summa de anima, ed. Jacques Guy Bougerol, Paris: Vrin 1995 (­Textes philosophiques du Moyen Age, 19). John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa: Versions of Burgundio and Cerbanus, ed. Eligius M. Buytaert, St Bonaventure: St Bonaventure University. Franciscan Institute, 1955 (Franciscan Institute Publications. Text series, 8). William of Auvergne, De anima, in Guillelmi Alverni Opera omnia, vol. 2, Paris: ­Guillelmus Deluyne, 1674 [William of Auvergne, The Soul, transl. Roland J. Teske, Milwaukee: Marquette University Press 2000].

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Aertsen, Jan A. (2012), Medieval Philosophy as Transcendental Thought: From Philip the Chancellor (ca. 1225) to Francisco Suarez, Leiden: Brill 2012 (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 107). Bazàn, Bernardo Carlos (1997), “The Human Soul: Form and Substance? Thomas Aquinas’ Critique of Eclectic Aristotelianism”, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et ­ ­littéraire du Moyen Age, 64, pp. 95–126. Bazàn, Bernardo Carlos (1969), “Pluralism de formes ou dualism de substances? La pensée pré-thomiste touchant la nature de l’ame”, Revue philosophique de Louvain, 67, pp. 30–73. Bertolacci, Amos (2012), “On the Latin Reception of Avicenna’s Metaphysics before Albertus Magnus: An Attempt at Periodization”, in Dag Nikolaus Hasse & Amos Bertolacci (eds.), The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception of Avicenna’s Metaphysics, Berlin: De Gruyter (Scientia Graeco-Arabica, 7), pp. 197–223. Bianchi, Luca (1997), “Les interdictions relatives à l’enseignement d’Aristote au XIIIe siècle”, in Claude Lafleur & Joanne Carrier (eds.), L’enseignement de la philosophie au XIIIe siècle: Autour du “Guide de l’étudiant” du ms. Ripoll 109, Turnhout: Brepols (Studia Artistarum, 5), pp. 109–137. Bieniak, Magdalena (2004), “Una questione disputata di Ugo di St Cher sull’anima. Edizione e studio dottrinale”, Studia Antyczne I Mediewistyczne, 37, pp. 127–184. Bieniak, Magdalena (2010), The Body-Soul Problem at Paris ca. 1200–1250. Leuven: ­Leuven University Press (KUL. De Wulf-Mansion Centre. Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. Series 1, 42). Bieniak, Magdalena (2012), “The Powers of the Soul in the Anthropology of Hugh of St Cher”, in Paul J.J.M. Bakker, Sander W. de Boer & Cees Leijenhorst (eds.), Psychology and Other Disciplines: A Case of Cross-Disciplinary Interactino (1250–1750), ­Leiden: Brill (History of Science and Medicine Library, 33. Medieval and Early Modern ­Science, 19), pp. 157–170. Brady, Ignatius (1949), “The Liber de anima of William of Vaurouillon O.F.M.”, Medieval Studies, 11, pp. 247–307. Callus, Daniel A. (1952), “The Powers of the Soul: An Early Unpublished Text”, Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale, 19, pp. 131–170. Carruthers, Mary (1990), The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval ­Literature). Colish, Marcia L. (1997), “The Sentence Collection and the Education of Professional Theologians in the Twelfth Century”, in Nancy Van Deusen (ed.), The ­Intellectual ­Climate of the Early University: Essays in Honor of Otto Grundler, Kalamazoo: ­Western Michigan University (Studies in Medieval Culture, 39), pp. 1–26.

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Dales, Richard C. (1995), The Problem of the Rational Soul in the Thirteenth Century, ­Leiden: Brill 1995 (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, 65). de Vaux, Roland (1993), “La première entrée d’Averroës chez les Latins”, Revue des ­sciences philosophiques et theologiques, 2, pp. 193–242. Fani, Antonella (2009), “Communissima, trascendentali e Trinità: da Filippo il Cancelliere alla prima scuola francescana”, Il Santo: Rivista Francescana de storia dottrina arte, 49/1, pp. 131–154. Gauthier, René A. (1982a), “La traité De anima et de potenciis eius d’un maitre des arts (vers 1225): Introduction et texte critique”, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 66, pp. 3–55. Gauthier, René A. (1982b), “Notes sur les débuts (1225–1240) du premier Averroisme”, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 66, pp. 322–327. Gilson, Étienne, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, New York: Random House, 1955. Hasse, Dag Nikolaus (1999), “Das Lehrstück von den vier Intellekten in der Scholastik: von den arabischen Quellen bis zu Albertus Magnus”, Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale 66, pp. 21–77. Hasse, Dag Nikolaus (2000), Avicenna’s De anima in the Latin West, London: Warburg Institute (Warburg Institute Studies and Texts, 1). Lottin, Odon (1930), “Alexandre de Halés et la Summa de anima de Jean de la Rochelle”, Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale, 2, pp. 396–409. Lottin, Odon (1957–1960), Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, 6 vols, ­Gemblou: J. Ducalot. Markus, Robert A. (1967), “Augustine–Man: Body and Soul”, in A. H. Armstrong (ed.), The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 354–361. Marmura, Michael E. (1984), “Avicenna on Primary Concepts”, in Roger M. Savory & Dionisius A. Agius (eds.), Logos Islamikos: Studia Islamica in Honorem Georgii Michaelis Wickens, Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies Press, pp. 219–239. Mews, Constant (2018), “Debating the Authority of Pseudo-Augustine’s De spiritu et anima”, Prezgląd Tomistyczny, 24, pp. 321–348. Mews, Constant (2019), “The Early Diffusion of the De spiritu et anima and Cistercian Reflection on the Powers of the Soul”, Viator, 49, pp. 297–330. McGinn, Bernard (1977), “Introduction”, in Id. (ed.), Three Treatises on Man: Cistercian Anthropology, Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications (Cistercian Fathers Series, 24), pp. 1–100. Moody, Ernest A. (1975), “William of Auvergne and His Treatise De anima”, in Ernest A. Moody (ed.) Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Science, and Logic, Berkeley: University

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of California Press (UCLA. Publications of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 7). Pouillon, Henri (1939), “Le premier traité des propriétiés transcendentales, La Summa de bono du Chancelier Philippe”, Revue néoscolastique de philosophie, 42, pp. 40–77. Rohmer, Jean (1928), “La théorie de l’abstraction dans l’école Franciscaine d’Alexandre de Halés à Jean Peckham”, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge, 3, pp. 105–184. Salman, Dominique H., O.P. (1947–1948), “Jean de La Rochelle et les débuts de l’Averroisme Latin”, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age, 16–17, pp. 133–144. Schumacher, Lydia (2011), Divine Illumination: The History and Future of Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell (Challenges in Contemporary ­Theology). Schumacher, Lydia (2023), Human Nature in Early Franciscan Thought: Philosophical Background and Theological Significance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Silva, José Filipe (2014), “Medieval Theories of Active Perception: An Overview”, in José Filipe Silva & Mikko Yrjönsuuri (eds.), Active Perception in the History of Philosophy: From Plato to Modern Philosophy, New York: Springer, pp. 117–146. Silva, José Filipe (2020), “The Chameleonic Mind: The Activity versus the ­Actuality of Perception”, in Elena Băltuţă (ed.), Medieval Perceptual Puzzles: Theories of Sense Perception in the 13th and 14th Centuries, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Investigating ­Medieval Philosophy, 13), pp. 38–72. Teske, Roland J. (2005), “William of Auvergne’s Spiritualist Concept of the Human Being”, in Franco Morenzoni & Jean-Yves Tilliette (eds.), Autour de Guillaume d’Auvergne († 1249), Turnhout: Brepols (Bibliothèque d’histoire culturelle du Moyen Âge, 2), pp. 35–53. Teske, Roland J. (2006), “William of Auvergne’s Debt to Avicenna”, in Id., Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris 1228–1249. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press (Marquette Studies in Philosophy, 51), pp. 217–237. Torrell, Jean-Pierre (2002), “Introduction”, in Guerric of Saint-Quentin, Quaestiones de quolibet: A Critical Edition, ed. Walter H. Principe, Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Théry, Gabriel (1921), “L’authenticité du De spiritu et anima dans Saint Thomas et Albert le Grand”, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 10, pp. 376–377. Weisheipl, James A. (1980), “Albertus Magnus and Universal Hylomorphism: ­Avicebron—A Note on Thirteenth-Century Augustinianism”, in Francis J. Kovach & Robert W. Shahan (eds.), Albert the Great: Commemorative Essays, Norman: ­University of Oklahoma Press, pp. 239–260. Williams, Steven J. (1997), “Repenser l’intention et l’effet des décrets de 1231 du pape Grégoire IX sur l’étude des libri naturales d’Aristote à l’Université de Paris”, in

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Claude Lafleur & Joanne Carrier (eds.), L’enseignement de la philosophie au XIIIe siècle: ­Autour du “Guide de l’étudiant” du ms. Ripoll 109, Turnhout: Brepols (Studia Artistarum, 5), pp. 139–163. Wilpert, Paul (1935), “Die Ausgestaltung der aristotelischen Lehre vom Intellectus agens bei den griechischen Kommentatoren und in der Scholastik des 13. Jahrhunderts”, in Albert Lang, Josef Lechner & Michael Schmaus (eds.), Aus der Geisteswelt des ­Mittelalters: Studien und Texte: Martin Grabmann zur Vollendung des 60. Lebensjahres von Freunden und Schülern gewidmet, vol. 1, Münster: Aschendorff, pp. 447–462. Wilshire, Leland Edward (1997), “The Condemnations of 1277 and the Intellectual ­Climate of the Medieval University”, in Nancy Van Deusen (ed.), The ­Intellectual ­Climate of the Early University: Essays in Honor of Otto Gründler, Kalamazoo: ­Medieval Institute Publications (Studies in Medieval Culture, 39), pp. 151–194.

CHAPTER 3

Back to the Things: The Intentionality of Memory in Albert the Great Véronique Decaix The question of the object of memory is a much-debated issue in contemporary philosophy of mind: is it the past things themselves or an image of them preserved in the mind? We may roughly divide memory studies into two main camps.1 Some scholars have argued that the proper object of memory is the external real things or events themselves. Yet this “realism” leads to several problems: when actively remembering, how can the mind be directed at things that do not exist anymore, since they belong to the past? Other scholars have claimed that we are only able to remember things by means of an image, a copy retained in the mind, thereby endorsing a kind of “representationalism” that runs the risk of solipsism and delusion. The aim of this paper is not to take a position in contemporary debates on memory, but to show how this question, which was left open by Aristotle in his Memory and Recollection, has been dealt with during the history of philosophy, especially in Albert the Great’s Sentencia De memoria et reminiscentia dating to 1256–57.2 This work is worthy of attention because of its wide dissemination in the Latin-speaking world, this commentary exerted significant influence on later debates. Albert gives an original account of the act of memory, described

1 Representationalism is the most broadly defended view in the history of philosophy from Aristotle to Russell (Russell 1921), including thinkers such as Augustine, Locke and Hume. This theory is tackled by Husserl 2013, §12 and criticised by various scholars, such as G. Evans, J. Campbell, M. G. Martin. See, for instance, Wilcox & Katz 1991. For a critical overview of the discussion, see Bernecker 2008, pp. 62–68. This paper was written during the first Covid lockdown in March 2020. This paper was first presented online in the Medieval Philosophy Network in June 2020, I would like to thank the organisers, Anna Marmodoro and John Marenbon, and the participants for the discussion. I am also grateful to José Filipe Silva for commenting on an earlier version of this text, and to Charles Ehret and Chad Jorgenson for helping me to improve my English and to hone my arguments. 2 Albertus Magnus, De memoria et reminiscentia [henceforth, De mem.], ed. Donati 2017, p. xxvi. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004537712_004

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as a “return to the things themselves” or a “reflection back at the things”.3 In the opening chapter, he even states that his primary aim is to “study the manner in which the soul, through the sensibles existing in itself, goes back to the sensible things themselves, that are exterior to itself”.4 However, this return to the sensible things remains highly problematic, since it includes a questionable ontology of events and presupposes that, like a telescope, the soul is able to traverse time and somehow view the past. My purpose here is to provide a better understanding of Albert’s philosophical account of memory by shedding some light on his account of “reflexio ad res”: To what extent is the soul, in remembering, able to “turn back to the things” that no long exist? How should this reflection be understood? Which kind of intentionality is entailed by Albert’s account of memory? In order to answer these questions, this paper is divided into five parts. (i) First, I will highlight a crucial distinction within memory. (ii) Second, I will examine the various acts performed by memory in order to give this power a more precise definition. (iii) Third, I will enquire into the possible sources for Albert’s idea of a “return” or a “reflection” back to the things. (iv) Fourth, I will go through the theoretical reasons for claiming that the act of memory is a kind of reflection. (v) In the fifth and last part, I will answer the main question on the intentionality involved in memory thus understood and spell out Albert’s account in terms of its ontological, cognitive and psychological dimensions.

3 Albertus Magnus, De mem., p. 113: “redit in ipsas res sensibiles quae sunt extra animam”, “in res sensible deveniat”, “revertitur in rem prius visam vel auditam”; p. 114 “per illud discrete et distincte revertitur ad res”, “ad res revertitur”, “refertur ad res extra”, “reflexion in rem primo per sensum acceptam”; p. 118: “redire in rem”, “reflectitur in rem”, “faciunt animam reflecti in rem”; p. 119: “anima reflectitur in rem prius per sensus apprehensam”, “per eam in rem prius sensam devenire … propter speciem a qua incipit reflexio”; p. 120: “unde inciperet reflecti in rem quam prius sensit memorans”, “in quod reflexio fit per memoria actum”; p. 122: “reflexio in rem priorem”; p. 125: “reflectitur et attribuitur rebus”. The same expressions are found in De homine, q. 40, a.1, eds. Anzulewicz & Söder 2008, p. 297: “reversio in rem praeteritam”, “memorari sit recurrere in praeteritum”, “per recordationem autem contingit redire in rem extra”, “memoria autem per seipsam redit in rem quam acceptit in praeterito”; p. 300: “potentia quae reflectitur in rem in praeterito acceptam a sensibus”; p. 345: “redire in rem”, “devenit in rem”, “imago rei reducens in rem”, “convertitur memoria in actu recordationis”; art. 2: “ducens in rem extra”, “ut ducens in rem”. 4 Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 1, p. 113: “Reliquintur considerandum qualiter anima per sensibilia existentia apud ipsam redit in ipsas res sensibiles, quae sunt extra ipsam”.

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The duplex memoriae: Memory as Part and Power of the Sensitive Soul

In his numerous works, Albert the Great addresses the issue of memory in s­ everal places, leading to its taking on a plurality of meanings according to the theoretical context. In his Summa theologiae, he even states that memory is an analogical concept with a plurality of meanings that should be solved by equivocationem.5 Within the scope of this paper, which is focused on the philosophical analysis of memory as developed in his De memoria et reminiscentia, I will not engage in an extensive study of the variety of meanings it has,6 but will restrict myself to underlining a structural difference. First of all, within a theological framework, we find reflections on memory in the sense of memoria dei, an Augustinian theme.7 In this context, memory, defined as a power of the rational soul, belongs to the superior part of the mind, which is separated from the body and isolated from material conditions. As an image of God in the mind, memory is included in a triadic structure “memoria, intelligentia, voluntas”, without reference to any temporal considerations.8 Second, other works, such as the Summa De homine and De memoria et reminiscentia, display a shift of perspective, insofar as Albert aims to study an embodied memory that belongs to all sensible beings, and not only to humans. Here, memory is taken as a common power of the body and soul.9 In this sense, memory, grounded in contingency, time, space and matter, pertains to the philosophical study of nature. This distinction between the theological and philosophical contexts

5 Albertus Magnus, Summa theologiae sive de mirabili scientia dei [henceforth, Summa theologiae] I, 3, 15, eds. Siedler, Kübel & Vogels 1978, p. 69: “memoria aequivoce dicitur, ut dicunt Damascenys et Gregorius Nyssenus, ad thesarum formarum intelligibillium et thesaurum formarum sensibilium” … “solvendum est per equivocationem”; De homine, p. 300: “Dicimus quod memoria multipliciter dicitur, scilicet pro habitu, et potentia et obiecto”; De anima III, 2, 19, ed. Stroick 1968, p. 206, ll. 43–54. 6 For an extensive study of the different senses of memory in the works of Albert the Great, cf. Anzulewicz 2005. 7 Augustine, De trinitate XV, ed. Mountain & Glorie 1968, pp. 11, 14. 8 Albertus Magnus, Summa theologiae I, 3, 15, 2B, p. 69: “Augustinus etiam in XI Confessionum aliter accipit praeteritum quam philosophi; accipit enim praeteritum respectu accipientis et non prout est condicio recepti. Unde praeteritum dicit secundum ordinem naturae prius habitum; et hoc est praeteritione sua non praeterit, sed manet praesens. Propter quod utrumque coniungit dicens, quod memoria est praesens acceptatio de praeterito, hoc est prous habito secundum naturae ordinem”. 9 Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 1, p. 113: “‘Relinquorum autem primum considerandum est de memorari’; cum agamus de communibus animae et corporis animati”.

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leads to a “duplex memoria”:10 memory both as a distinct part of the soul and as a power of the soul. In his commentary on De memoria, Albert’s objective is to arrive at a clear understanding of Aristotle’s text, which had been obfuscated by the Latin commentators of his time who were led into error “because of the obscurity of Aristotle’s words”.11 To this end, Albert draws on the teaching of the “Peripatetics”, notably Avicenna and Averroes. Even within this philosophical framework, the nature and function of memory remains problematic. On the one hand, memory is defined as a constitutive part of the sensitive soul, whose proper act is to retain past images and intentions, thus possessing a retentive function. On the other hand, memory is also described as a distinct sensitive faculty within the soul, whose role is not merely retentive, but also perceptual. Indeed, memory is a power capable of actively ­remembering— that is, of considering the past in the present. As a consequence, there is a persistent duality between memory defined as a part of the sensible soul, the “treasury of sensible forms and intentions”,12 and memory as the cognitive capacity to carry out an actual movement of perception in the process of actively remembering. Since memory is an analogical concept, this tension should be resolved by examining the various activities performed by memory in order to identify its proper act. Consequently, we should ask: which of its various activities (i.e. retaining, remembering and recollecting) is its primary function? 2

The Various Acts Performed by Memory

In the opening lines of the De memoria, Albert the Great indicates that his primary focus is on the activity of memory, that is, on the question: what does the verb “memorari” signify? By examining the activities in which memory is involved (i.e. retaining, remembering and recollecting), it will be possible to arrive at a more precise definition of this power. Albert begins his analysis by integrating memory into the complete set of internal senses that he inherited

10 11

12

The expression is borrowed from Anzulewicz 2005, p. 167: “Duplex memoria: Das Gedächtnis als inneres Sinnesvermögen and als Teil der Seele”. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 1, p. 113: “Quia autem, ut mihi videtur, omnes fere aberraverunt Latini in cognitione harum virtutum quas memoriam et reminiscentiam appellamus, ut aestimo ut propter verborum Aristotelis obscuritatem, ideo primo volumus ponere sententiam Peripateticorum, antequam Aristotelis sententiam prosequamur”. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 1, p. 114: “conservativa conservat tam imagines quam ­intentiones”.

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from both Avicenna and Averroes,13 brushing aside their theoretical disagreements as merely terminological. On this model, memory is the last step in a four-stage process of internal perception initiated by a prior external sensation. Following Averroes, the operation of memory therefore requires three preceding steps in order to be completed:14 (1) the reception of a sensible form by the common sense (sensus communis), (2) its preservation by retentive imagination, and (3) the separation of the intention from the sensible form by the cogitative power. Once this has been done, memory carries out its proper operation: (4) the reunification of the form and the intention.15 Memory cannot do this without working in concert with the other internal senses. As the last stage in this process, memory is therefore conceived of as the highest of the internal senses, thus playing a crucial role in completing the process of perception. Memory performs two functions: first, it is defined as a distinct part of the soul, whose role is to preserve “images and intentions”. This “treasury of sensible forms and intentions” is called conservativa. Second, memory is also an active power able to recombine an image with its proper intention. In this sense, it is called “vis memorialis” or “rememorativa”, or just “memoria”. In identifying these two functions, Albert broadens the Aristotelian understanding of memory using elements inherited from Averroes’ interpretation of the vis memorialis or rememorativa as a combinatory power.16 Albert holds that ­memory as conservativa and as vis memorialis are essentially identical, while differing in operation.17 Consequently, memory plays a more active role than merely conserving images; it is able to produce a synthesis of the elements 13 14

Cf. Wolfson 1935; Steneck 1980; Tellkamp 2012; and Di Martino 2008. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 1, pp. 113–114: “Revocentur igitur ad memoriam ea quae de virtutibus apprehensivis sensibilibus dicta sunt, et inveniemus quod quattuor sunt in quibus memoriae perficitur operatio. (…) Cum autem dicimus quod rememoramur ex eo quod est apud animam, oportet necessario duas praecedere operationes. Quarum una esse receptum hoc a quo memoria incipit; et haec est operatio sensus communis. Secunda autem esse conservatum apud nos ex praesenti accepto in praeteritum. (…) Patet igitur ex his necessario probatum esse quod quoad hanc partem memoriae, quod scilicet procedit et incipit ex eo quod habemus apud nos, duae vires ante eam exiguntur. (…) Oportet igitur quod ante memoriam quaedam virtus operetur quae ex ipsa figura elicit rerum intentiones singulares (…) Cum igitur memoria habeat utrumque horum, oportet in ipsa esse depictas figuras et intentiones; completur enim actus memoriae ex compositione horum duorum”. 15 Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 1, p. 114: “conservativa conservat tam imagines quam intentiones, sed memoria componendo ista duo refertur ad res extra per ipsa”. 16 Averroes, Epitome de memoria, ed. Shields 1949, p. 54. 17 Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 1, p. 114: “Ex his igitur patet quod conservativa secundum Averroem non differt a memoriali nisi secundum esse; quia conservativa conservat tam

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­previously distinguished by the cogitative faculty. Although Albert’s commentary draws on the works of Avicenna and Averroes, he departs from their positions on several points, thus establishing an original reworking of the “Peripatetic” framework. Albert takes up from Avicenna the definition of memory as the storehouse of intentions,18 i.e. of sensible forms that are not sensed by the five external senses, but claims that memory also includes images, which is closer to Aristotle’s text. Yet, the object of memory is neither the image nor the intention—taken in themselves, that is, separately and isolation—but rather the complex formed by an intention and its corresponding image.19 Second, memory is not a purely passive faculty, as it was for Avicenna, because it also possesses the capacity to reconstruct its proper object. Third, unlike Avicenna, Albert the Great restates the Aristotelian definition of memory as bearing on the past.20 Since memory derives from the perception of time, it cannot be restricted solely to the retentive function of preserving intentions. Fourth, even if this description of the four-stage process leading to memory may be found in the Epitome,21 Albert attributes to memory the combinatory function that Averroes ascribed to the cogitative power. The final operation performed by memory is recollection. For Albert, memory and recollection differ in their movement: the former is a “continuous movement”, i.e. a constant and uniform movement, whereas the latter is a “non-continuous movement”, i.e. a movement interrupted by oblivion.22 Because a continuous movement is more perfect than a discontinuous one, Albert states that memory is nobler than recollection.23 Yet, recollection is defined, following Averroes, as a “search for the forgotten through memory” imagines quam intentiones, sed memoria componendo ista duo refertur ad res extra per ipsa”. Cf. Averroes, Epitome de memoria, pp. 48–49. 18 Avicenna, Liber de anima IV, 1, ed. Van Riet 1968, vol. 2, pp. 8–9, 10. 19 Müller 2017, pp. 24-26; Decaix 2021. 20 Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 2, p. 116: “memorabile concernat aliquam temporis differentiam”; and Ibid.: “Memoriale autem concernit differentiam temporis quae est praeteritum tempus”. 21 Averroes, Epitome de memoria, pp. 51, 53–54, 61. 22 Albertus Magnus, De mem. II, 1, p. 124: “Motus reminiscentia est sicut motus interceptus et diversicatus. Interceptus quidem, quia non continue per eandem formam reflectitur in rem, eo quod illa cecidit in olivionem vel in toto vel in parte. Diversus autem, quoniam ex multis formis similium est et antecedentium et consequentium et locorum et ­diversorum quae accidunt rei quaesitae per reminiscentiam”; and Ibid., p. 126: “memoria motus ­continus est in rem et uniformis, reminiscibilitas autem est motus quasi abscisus et interceptus”; cf. Averroes, Epitome de memoria, pp. 49, 52. 23 Albertus Magnus, De mem. II, 1, p. 124: “Memoriam esset digniorem quam reminiscentiam sicut motus continuus et uniformis dignior est motu intercepto et multiformi”.

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(investigation obliti per memoriam),24 indicating that recollection, as a process pertaining to the sensitive soul, is performed by memory. Yet none of these aforementioned operations are what we properly call remembering (memorari). Following Aristotle’s account, remembering is described as a state of having a disposition (habitus) or an affection (passio) present to the soul.25 When a person actively remembers, she is aware in that moment of an affection that is present to her soul. Consequently, being in the state of remembering supposes an active awareness of a past impression. For this reason, Albert distinguishes the operation of memory, i.e. the aforementioned recombination of an intention and an image, from its proper activity (memorari), which he further describes as a “reflection back on the things” or a “return to the things”.26 Memory seems to be the capacity to actively reconnect with the sensible things themselves, an idea that remains problematic at this stage. 3

Doctrinal Investigation about Possible Sources

In order to reach a first understanding of this idea of a “return to the things”, we should briefly investigate its possible influences: does Albert coin this expression or is it borrowed from another source? 3.1 Cicero The first authoritative source is Cicero, whose De inventione, along with the Rhetorica falsely ascribed to him (Ad Herennium), exerted a major influence on Albert’s conception of memory. Indeed, the memory techniques (ars memoriae) Cicero describes are used by Albert to explain the Aristotelian process of recollection. Albert was well acquainted with Cicero’s account of memory, as shown in his questions devoted to memory in De bono, in which we find the following quotation: “Indeed Tully said that ‘memory is that through which the soul seeks to call back the things that were’”.27 Although absent from the De memoria, the same quotation is found in the question devoted to memory

24 25 26 27

Albertus Magnus, De mem. II, 1, p. 124; Averroes, Epitome de memoria, p. 48. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 4, p. 120: “Animalium enim pictura quae pingitur in anima sensibili per sensum accepta est passio et qualitas quaedam illius eiusdem partis animae cuius superius diximus esse memoriam habitum quendam”. For the occurrences, see footnote 3. Albertus Magnus, De bono, ed. Kühler 1951, p. 245: “Dicit autem Tullius quod ‘memoria est per quam animus repetit ea quae fuerunt’”.

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in the Summa de homine,28 indicating that Cicero’s writings form an important part of Albert’s doctrinal background. 3.2 Avicenna In his Liber de anima IV, 1, Avicenna presents an analysis of the process of recollection, a text that is one of the main sources of Albert’s theory. As Therese Scarpelli Cory as shown, Avicenna describes the cognitive turn as a “psychological direction of attention”, grounded in a “metaphysical relation between a cognitive power and that toward which it turns”.29 The soul may turn in one of two directions: either upwards to the Agent Intellect or downwards by either turning the intellect to the estimative power or the estimative power to the imagination. Within the sensitive soul, each internal sense can turn in two directions: upwards towards the corresponding higher power (e.g. the estimative power to the intellect) or downwards to the corresponding lower power (e.g. the estimative power to the compositional imagination). In the aforementioned passage, Avicenna states that recalling requires a sort of coupling between an intention (say, friendliness) preserved in m ­ emory and a sensible form (say, Zayd’s appearance).30 The Avicennian terminology of “pairing” (comparatio) or “coupling” (conjunctio) is found in Albert the Great’s text.31 Avicenna analyses two mechanisms of memory lapse. In the first case, the image may be grasped without its corresponding intention; in the second, an intention may be grasped without its corresponding sensible form. In each case, Avicenna states that the estimative power can restore the pairing (comparatio) either by conjuring the forgotten image, by looking upwards at the corresponding intention preserved in memory, or by conjuring the lost intention, by looking downwards at the corresponding sensible form. By reassociating the intention and its corresponding image, memory is restored. As Scarpelli Cory has demonstrated,32 this pairing is grounded in a chain of existing inferences between images and intentions. The function of the estimative power is to separate the intention from the sensible form, thereby enabling it 28 Albertus Magnus, De homine, q. 40, a. 1, p. 301. 29 Scarpelli Cory 2013, p. 146. 30 Avicenna, Liber de anima IV, 1, vol. 2, p. 10: “Et aliquando perveniet ab intentione ad ­formam, et memoria habita non habebit comparationem ad id quod est in thesauro ­retinendi, sed ad id quid est in thesauro imaginandi; et erit eius conversio, aut ex hoc quod convertitur ad intentiones quae sunt in retentione, uta ut intentio faciat formam necessario apparere et convertetur iterum comparatio ad id quod est in imaginatione, aut propter conversionem ad sensum”. 31 Albertus Magnus, De homine, q. 40, a. 1, p. 301. 32 Scarpelli Cory 2013, pp. 151–152.

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to restore their connection: the intention is ‘of’ this image, and this peculiar image belongs ‘to’ this intention. Avicenna’s account appears to have been very influential for Albert. The first proof of this is the fact that Albert takes up from Avicenna the idea of the localisation and functional interconnection of the internal senses, stating that if the lower powers are impeded, the higher powers will be disabled.33 At the same time, this impairment of memory reveals the functional continuity of the internal senses. Second, the idea that the estimative power, by referring an intention to its corresponding sensible form, may somehow “view the things themselves to which the forms belongs”,34 reveals that Albert has taken vey literally what Avicenna presented as a hypothesis (ita quasi modo, “as if”). Another clue that points to this influence is the fact that, in the Summa de homine (ca. 1242, before the De memoria), he explicitly quotes Avicenna as an authoritative source supporting his idea of a return to the things themselves.35 Even if Albert’s conception of memory reveals a strong affinity to that of Avicenna, several differences need to be highlighted. First of all, the Avicennian turn is grounded in the fact that the intention and the sensible form are related to one another, as intentional objects existing within the soul, whereas Albert’s return seems to be pointing at an extrinsic reference: the sensible thing itself. Second, for Avicenna, the act of recollection, i.e. the combination of the sensible form and the intention that correspond to each other, is performed by the vis estimativa, which thereby plays the role of the vis memorialis, and not by memory, whose function is limited exclusively to retaining intentions. In ascribing the act of recollection to memory, Albert the Great is correcting Avicenna with the help of another commentator: Averroes.

33

Albertus Magnus, De mem. II, 1, p. 125: “Scias autem quod, cum tria praedicta operentur ad reminiscentiam, tamen unum laeditur ex altero (…) Sensus enim communis corruptus laedit phantasiam et non e converso, et phantasia laedit memoriam, et non e converso, memoria autem laedit intellectum distinguentem et non e converso”. 34 Avicenna, Liber de anima IV, 1, vol. 2, p. 9: “Quae virtus vocatur etiam memorialis, sed est retinens ob hoc quod id quod est in ea haeret firmiter, et est memorialis propter ­velocitatem suae aptitudinis a recordandum per quod formatur cum rememorat post obliovinem, quod fit cum aestimatio convertitur ad suam virtutem imaginativam et repraesentat unamquamque formarum quae sunt in imaginatione, ita quasi modo videat quod ipsae sunt formae”. 35 Albertus Magnus, De homine, q. 40, a. 1, p. 306: “Dicendum quod in veritate secundum Al-Farabium rememoratio dicitur reminiscentia et recordatio secundum Avicennam. Si tamen non fiat vis in hoc, tunc actus memoriae est, sicut prius dictum est, qui per intentionem venit in imaginem et per imaginem in rem prius acceptam”.

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3.3 Averroes The major influence on Albert is without any doubt Averroes’ Epitome on De memoria et reminiscentia, in which he distinguishes, on the one hand, memory as the conservative faculty of the soul (conservativa) and, on the other hand, rememoratio as the proper act of memory, defined as a “return in the present of the intentions grasped in the past”.36 This reversio represents a plausible source for Albert’s idea of a “return to the things”.37 The apparatus in the Shields’ ­edition indicates that another family of manuscripts also has the expression “conversio sive reversio in praesenti”. As Black has shown, because of the ambiguity contained in the Arabic term “dikr”, Averroes is very careful to distinguish the power of memory from the activity of remembering.38 Averroes criticises Avicenna’s account of a purely retentive memory: for him, memory is not solely a faculty of conservation, nor the present viewing of a past image, but rather an active, perceptual faculty, whose aim is to grasp the “individual as such”. Averroes’s broader understanding of memory (as including retaining, representing, remembering and recollecting) amounts to a criticism of Avicenna’s psychology, since it ascribes to memory the activity the latter wrongly attributed to the estimative power, namely the synthetic operation of recombining an image and an intention. Among these activities, Averroes’ crucial contribution is to demonstrate that remembering does not consist primarily of the awareness of a past perception, but of referring back to the external singulars.39 In many respects, Albert the Great’s commentary relies heavily on Averroes; thus the “reflection back at the things” may come from his reading of the Epitome de memoria. 3.4 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite Even though Albert’s theoretical debt to the Arabic commentators is fairly well established, another source should be considered. Indeed, the use of the terminology “reflexio”, “reflecti”, “redire” and “reversio” reveals that another possible 36 Averroes, Epitome de memoria, p. 48. 37 The term “reversio” in De homine and De memoria is borrowed from Averroes’ definition of the act of memory. See Averroes, Epitome de memoria, p. 48: “Rememoratio enim est reversio in presenti intentionis comprehense in praeterito”. Cf. Albertus Magnus, De homine, q. 40, a. 1, p. 300: “reversio in rem praeteritam”; Ibid.: “omnis reversio in praeacceptum in anima sensibili vel intellectu est actus memoriae: consideratio est talis reversio, ergo consideratio est memoria”, and the definition of memory as “motum reversivum”. In De mem., p. 113, Albert changes the substantive “reversio” by the verb “revertitur”. 38 Black 1996, especially p. 163. 39 Black 1996, p. 173: “To remember something is not primarily to recognize it as a past object of perception but to comprehend it as this particular thing”.

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influence may come from Neoplatonic thinkers, especially Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, whose works are influential in Albert’s thought.40 In his Super Dionysi Epistulas (ep. IX), Albert tackles the definition of memory by comparing it to the intellective faculty, showing that each cognitive power may turn in one of two directions: on the one hand, the intellect is able to see the separate intelligible forms and, on the other, it is able to grasp the material sensible forms through abstraction. In his theological writings, this structural analogy is grounded in the emanative process, in which memory is understood as a power flowing from the intellective soul.41 In the De memoria, Albert appeals to Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite on a solitary occasion, when explaining the mechanism of memory by analogy to the intellect.42 The process of ­emanation and return, a characteristic scheme within a Neoplatonic framework, expresses the relation of dependence on a principle. In this sense, the “return” expresses the causal dependence of memory on its causal, ontological and temporal foundation: the thing itself that is remembered. To conclude this section, it seems clear from what has just been ­discussed that the Albertinian notion of a “reflection back to the things” or a “return to the things” far exceeds what can be found in the Arabic and Neoplatonic sources. Therefore, I agree with Bloch that it may well be Albert’s own invention.43 At the very least, however, it is an original recombination of several elements that he found in his predecessors. For Albert, the Peripatetic and Neoplatonic sources are not taken as conflicting, and more importantly, they are considered complementary with Aristotle’s philosophy.44 A proof of this is given by the fact that, in the Summa de homine, Albert even attributes this idea of a “reflection” performed by memory to Aristotle himself.45

40 41

Anzulewicz 2000; Anzulewicz 2002. Albertus Magnus, Summa theologiae I, 3, 15, 2B, p. 69: “Memoria autem fluit immediate ab eo quod intellectualis anima”. Cf. de Libera 2005, chapter 4; Ehret 2017. 42 Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 3, p. 118: “Haec enim passio adeo vehementer sequitur intellectum possibilem, qui ex sensu accipit, quod Dionysius Ariopagita dicit quod quando etiam aliquis aliquid intelligit divinorum, quod adaptat ipsum ad quantitatem et figuram, in quibus manifestatur per actum, sicut motorum intellectum attribuimus figurae ­circulari simplici motae ab ipsis”. 43 Bloch 2007, p. 188: “Albert’s emphasis on the return to the objects (reflexio in res) goes beyond the theories found in Avicenna’s Liber de anima and in Averroes’s epitome ­commentary”. 44 Plato, Philebus, 3c–d. 45 Albertus Magnus, De homine, q. 40, a. 1, p. 297: “Secunda probatur ex dicto Philosophi in libro De memoria, ubi dicit, quod post tempus omnis memoria sit: sit enim reversio in rem praeteritam per memoriam”.

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The Reflection of Memory: A Theoretical Inquiry

At this stage, one may wonder on what theoretical grounds Albert the Great claims that the act of memory takes up the form of a “return”, a “reflection” of the things. In what follows, I suggest a number of possible motivations for this claim. 4.1 A Teleological Explanation of the Memory Process The first explanation is connected to Albert’s consistency in investigating the causality underlying cognitive processes. Even though the Parva naturalia (to which De memoria belongs) is part of the study of nature, the cognitive processes described in these treatises often defy teleological explanation (the why or propter quid question). However, a closer examination of the propter quid may reveal the proper definition of memory. Several expressions used reveal that Albert’s primary focus is on the purpose of memory: the act of memory consists of actively using the image retained from a previous sensation to reconnect with the sensible thing that triggered that sensation. Following ­Aristotle, Albert shows that sensation is the cause and origin of memory. Therefore, the past sensible thing, when perceived, plays the role of the efficient cause of sensation and consequently of memory resulting from a previous experience. As Anzulewicz has shown, memory runs in the opposite direction to sensation.46 Sensation is a perceptual movement from the external sensible thing to the soul, while memory is a perceptual movement from the soul to the external sensible thing. This circularity of the perceptual cognitive process is the mark of its perfection. If remembering involves a present awareness of a past affection, it occurs by means of an internal motion, which Albert describes as a “reflexive movement” (from the mind to the thing).47 Such a teleological explanation is coherent with the Aristotelian framework. Now, this “return to the things” may be understood in two ways: a Local return. In De animalibus, which dates from a period close to the De memoria, Albert the Great tackles the issue of whether memory belongs to all animals. The main way of proving that superior animals, 46

47

Anzulewicz 2005, p. 192: “Hat Albert in De homine and vor allem im Rahmen seiner ­ ristotelesparaphrase in der Kommentaren zu De anima und zu De sensu et sensato A dargelegt, wie Sinnfälliges duch Sinnesvermögen rezipiert wird, wörlich: in die Seele gelangt, so setzt er sich in seinem Kommentarwerk De memoria and reminiscentia zum Ziel, den umgekehrten Weg zu erklären, d. h. von den Sinnenseindrücken, die durch ­Sinnesvermögen rezipiert und gespeichert wurden, zurück zu den sinnfälligen Dingen”. Albertus Magnus, De mem. II, 2, p. 127: “motus reflexionis in res, non est reminiscentia, sed est memoria”.

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i.e. those possessing imagination in addition to sensation, are also able to remember is to give several examples, for instance, the capacity of flocks to “return” to their shelter or of birds to go back to their nests.48 To this extent, the ability to “return” is taken literally as a local movement of going back to a place previously known in the past (just as vultures can go back to be place where they discovered corpses to feed on). The main argument for conferring memory on non-human animals relies on final causality: according to Albert, memory plays a crucial role in allowing animals to orientate themselves in their surrounding environment. The capacity of memory responds to their needs of survival (finding their way back to a spot where food has been hidden, going back to their shelter, taking care of their offspring). Such a teleological explanation is, once again, coherent with the Aristotelian framework. Mental return. The other form of return described in the De memoria and the De homine is a “mental” return to things. This “return” does not imply a local movement, but a cognitive movement of pointing at the things or events experienced in the past. Rather, the cognitive return grounds the possibility of the local one, since the animals must be able to somehow mentally aim at the place they intend to reach, in order to be able to complete their journey.49

4.2 The Need for Accuracy in Memory The second main motivation for the “return to the things” is the requirement for accuracy in memory. By mentally referring to a previously experienced thing or event, the person may determine whether its current internal perception is a mere image, as in the case of daydreaming, delusions or hallucinations, or rather an authentic memory. In order to correctly distinguish a memory from a mere image that can be created by the compositive imagination, as in dreams, the soul must refer to a ‘real’ thing or event that previously caused it.50 The act 48

49 50

Albertus Magnus, De animalibus XXI, tract. 1, c. 2, ed. Stadler 1920, p. 1326: “memoria est quae facit ex prius per sensum accepto redire in absens sensibile, sicut videmus vultures saturatos recedere a loco cadaveris, et postea iterum redire ex memoria loci et cadaveris: et hoc modo ad caulas revertuntur greges, et aves ad nidos”. See also De mem. I, 3, p 117: “oves et caprae revertuntur ad caulas cognoscentes caula ubi habitaverunt in praeterito”. On this connection between local movement and memory, see Decaix 2022 (­forthcoming). Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 4, pp. 122–123: “Et inde ulterius causatur quod nescimus si actus animae talis memoria est aut non est memoria. Aliquando autem accidit intelligere et scire nostrum reminisci et rememorari, eo quod bene scimus nos reminisci et ­rememorari. Et hoc est quando aliquid speculamur referentes ad id quod audivimus prius secundum quod illud prius audivimus”.

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of returning ensures the accuracy of memory by pointing to its initial cause as a real reference. 4.3 The Structure of the Memory Object The third explanation for the “return to the things” is that this act of “reflection” is founded on the structure of the memory object. What precisely is a memory? Albert tackles this issue in the fourth chapter of his commentary investigating the Aristotelian aporia. Remembering is explained by means of a visual metaphor as a state of having an image posited in front of the soul’s eyes.51 But this internal viewing may be orientated in two ways: the image may be taken either in itself, as an “image” (like a painted animal), or it may be taken as a copy or likeness of that which it is supposed to represent (imago imitans id cuius est repraesentativum).52 Whilst the image is the same mental item in both cases, the difference lies in the way the soul relates to it: if taken absolutely, it is an image, if taken in relation to the thing that it represents, it is a memory. The first act of viewing (consideratio) is called speculatio, the second, memoratio53 Therefore, memory is intrinsically constituted by relatedness. In itself, a memory is nothing other than a “being of something else”, namely of what it represents. A memory is therefore a purely relative mental item.54 Given the relative character of its being, it has no intrinsic content beyond being a replica of the thing it is supposed to mirror. As a consequence, memory may be further explained as a reflexive act, leading to the things it is supposed to reflect. In this context, the somewhat obscure metaphors of memory as a kind of mirror,55 although based on a mistranslation in the Vetus Translatio, reveal their philosophical significance. If it is to function as a memory, an image should be considered as merely redirecting the mind to the things it represents.56 Therefore, this return is constitutive of the object of memory, a pure relative sign referring back to the external thing as its origin and cause, as 51 52 53 54 55 56

Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 4, p. 120. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 4, p. 122. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 4, p. 122. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 4, p. 122: “inquantum autem alterius est, tunc dicetur imago aut memoratio, quia ut imago perficit memorationem (…) secundum quod alterius est quaedam imago, tunc considerat ipsum relatum tamquam imaginem”. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 4, p. 123: “…in speculo concavo circumferenti sphaerico, quoniam in illo forma impressa uni parti proicitur super alteram et ab altera reproicitur super primam”. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 4, p. 122: “Si autem ad rem a qua acceptum fuit referatur per propria rei illius, tunc vocatur imago, quasi imitago dicta, et hoc modo perficit ­memoriam”.

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the basis for its reality.57 This allows us to stress an important point: for Albert, the external thing is not only the reference to which memory points, but also its proper content. Indeed, a “memory”, as an imitation, gains its ontological consistency by reflecting on the thing it stands for. For Albert, the object of memory is not primarily the image that is internal to the mind, but the individual things existing in the external world. At this point, we may conclude that Albert is developing a rather complex account of memory, especially as regards its relation to its objects. For this reason, I would like to make clearer the kind of intentionality involved in the act of memory. 5

The Intentionality of Memory

Albert devotes an entire chapter to this issue (I, 4) (the question of the object of memory), in which he offers one of the most interesting solution to Aristotle’s aporia.58 Several passages seem to favour a ‘representationalist’ account, with memory images being defined as “pictures”, “imitations” or “likenesses” of external things.59 Representationalism is a theory that requires mental items, namely representations, through which real things are known. These representations are the primary object of the cogniser that may relate indirectly, or secondarily, to the things they are supposed to represent. However, one might question whether the concept of ‘representation’, which is used twice by Albert in a summary of another opinion, is suitable for qualifying his own position, since it conflicts with the description of the act of memory as a way of pointing at the past things themselves, which tends towards realism. A r­ ealist 57 58

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Albertus Magnus, De mem. II, 1, p. 125: “Et ideo bene utimur imagine ut imagine et bene et distincte reflectitur et attribuitur rebus”. Namely chapter four, in which he gives the following formulation of the Aristotelian aporia: “propter quam causam memorantur rem absentem, quae praesentialiter picta est in thesauro formarum quem supra vocavimus servativam animae partem. Et hoc est quaere quia cum constet memoria incipere a specie quam habet apud se, quae praesens est animae, et per eam in rem prius sensam devenire, quare dicitur memoria esse praeteriti propter rem absentem potius quam praesentis propter speciem a qua incipit reflexio, quae praesens est in anima”. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 3, p. 119: “Et ut generalium dicatur, memoria agit sicut id repraesentans quod prius sensit”; see also I, 4, p. 122: “imago imitans cuius est representativum”, “potest considerari sicut imago repraesentans”; II, 1, p. 124: “Tradunt enim praeinducti philosophi tria exigit ad reminiscendum, quorum primum est repraesentatio imaginis ut imaginis, et hoc non fit nisi per memoriam per se incipientem quidem a phantasmate”.

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account would assert that the mind is somehow able to aim directly at the external things. It is established that mental images are needed for memory to occur. Proof of this is given by the fact that if imagination is impaired, oblivion occurs.60 Albert clearly states that the intentional object produced by the vis ­memorialis, namely the complex formed by the corresponding image and intention, is something “per” which the soul is able to turn back to the things.61 A closer analysis of the meanings of the preposition “per” will allow us to get a clearer view of the memory process: (1) per may signify that the internal images are “that through which” or “by which” the soul aims at the past things (on this reading, images are intermediate causes of remembering); (2) per may imply a necessary condition: the internal object is that “out of which” or “on the basis of which” the soul may aim at the past (on this reading, images are causes sine qua non of remembering). For Albert, images held in memory are that “out of which” the act of remembering may be triggered (sense 2), with per often being employed interchangeably with ex eo: “We say that we remember from that out of which we possess in our soul”.62 Memory works in the opposite way to perception: while the latter results from a sensible form inhering in real thing entering the soul, the former begins with a form kept within the soul and goes back to the sensible form pertaining to a real thing. The first sensible form, which goes from the world to the soul, is called “forma separationis” and is obtained within the gradual abstractive process of the internal senses: abstraction from the real subject in which they inhere (through the reception of the common sense), abstraction from matter (through the formation of an image by the imagination), separation of the intention from the image (by the cogitative power). The second kind of sensible form, called “forma compositionis”, runs in the opposite direction, namely from the soul to the things.63 Internal representations are therefore the starting points and principles of memory as the initial term of its reflexive movement

60 61 62 63

Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 1, p. 114; II, 1, p. 125. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 1, p. 113: “considerandum qualiter anima per sensibilia ­existentia apud ipsam redit in ipsas res sensibiles, quae sunt extra animam”. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 1, p. 113: “Non enim sensibilia accipit anima propter aliud, nisi ut per ipsa in res sensibiles deveniat” (emphasis are mine). See also Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 1, p. 113: “Dicimus quod rememoramur ex eo quod habemus apud animam”. Albertus Magnus, De mem., I, 4, p. 122: “Diximus enim in libro De anima duplices esse formas animae, separationis scilicet et compositionis. Separationis sunt a re, illa sunt quae absolute sunt in anima. Compositionis autem formae sunt quae refertuntur ad res quibus applicantur”.

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towards things.64 Consequently, the “conservative” role (conservativa) of memory forms a necessary condition on the basis of which it can p ­ erform its proper act, namely to return to the things themselves.65 The need for images is established by a comparison between the acts of the intellect and those of memory, both of which require phantasms. A brief comparison with the theory developed by Albert’s famous student, Thomas Aquinas, will help us to understand this passage. In his Commentary on the Sentences, Aquinas distinguishes two intellectual motions: one going from the things to the soul, called abstractio, and the other from the soul to the things, called conversio. In the second case, the intellect looks at the phantasm as a figurative ‘example’ that helps it to grasp the universal essence it has just abstracted. For this reason, the intellectual turn to the phantasms (conversio ad phantasma) describes the process of resorting to pictures to help understanding an abstract concept.66 In his Sententia de memoria et reminiscentia, Aquinas holds that this return to the images (conversio) is also performed by memory and not only by the intellect.67 For Albert, images are necessary insofar as they are invested with the same function: they are purely auxiliary devices preserved in the soul to help with memory. Memory turns to the internal images for help in the process of remembering.68 Consequently, the images are “used” and “employed” to support the act of memory, that is, they are purely auxiliary

64

65 66 67

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Albertus Magnus, De mem., I, 1, p. 113: “Patet igitur ex hoc necessario probatum esse quod quoad hanc partem memoriae, quod scilicet procedit et incipit ex eo quod habemus apud nos…”; see also p. 115: “Sic igitur memoria esse primi sensitivi sicut id quo quiescunt motus primi sensitivi and a quo fit reflexio in rem primo per sensum acceptam”; and p. 120: “Nisi enim tale in parte memoriae intelligeretur inesse, non haberet memori unde inciperet reflecti in rem quam prius sensit memorans”. Albertus Magnus, De mem., I, 4, p. 120: “Manifestum est autem quoniam huiusmodi a quo incipiat reflexio oportet intelligere esse praesens in anima”. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super Sententiis II, d. 23, q. 2, a. 2, ad 3. Cf. Scriptum super S­ ententiis III, d. 31, q. 2, a. 4; Summa theologiae Ia, q. 85, a. 1, ad 2; and Ia, q. 118, a. 3. Thomas Aquinas, Sententia de memoria et reminiscentia, c. 3, ed. Leonina, vol. 45/2, p. 115: “Sic igitur manifestum est quod, quando anima convertit se ad phantasma prout est quaedam forma reservata in parte sensitiva, sic est actus imaginationis sive phantasiae, vel etiam intellectus considerantis circa hoc universale. Si autem anima convertatur ad ipsum, inquantum est imago eius, quod prius audivimus aut intelleximus, hoc pertinet ad actum memorandi”. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 4, p. 122: “Alia autem consideratio est ibi secundum quod ipsum non ut pictura quaedam, sed ut imago est et memoria quaedam, quia sic ab eo incipit reflexio in rem priorem quasi utens eo ut forma compositionis ad rem cuius est forma”.

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items preserved in the soul to help it to remember.69 Therefore, images are neither “what” is aimed at (the term), nor that “through which” something can be recalled ( the cause), but that “thanks to which” or “by means” of which (the means), the act of memory can be performed. In both cognitive processes, intellection and memory, images are not considered absolutely, in themselves, but rather per accidens, since the real thing is the primary object of cognition.70 However, one cannot remember without images: the memory object must be figurative, sensible and imaginable, and consequently it must have a certain quantity and magnitude. Another important argument underlying the claim that things are not remembered in images or though images, in the sense of merely reflecting on them, is the importance of Cicero’s mnemonics. Some images, if caused by a previous perception, have a relationship of conformity to that which they represent—and, in this case, their relation is a natural or real one. Conversely, other images may lead to recall without sharing any resemblance with the thing they are supposed to represent: in this case, their relationship, established by repetition, is purely artificial, as proven in the Rhetoric. In the first case, images are proper likenesses, while in the second case, they are mere reminders. Therefore, the relation between an image and what it stands for may be purely forged in the mind by habit. A famous example is given: picturing the image of the testes of a goat may help an orator to remember to

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For this analogy between the intellectual turn to the phantasm and the reflexive act of memory, see De mem. I, 3, especially p. 117: “Ita nulla in intelligibilibus utentes quantitate determinata secundum quod intelligibilia sunt, eo quod abstrahant a quantitate determinata intelligibilia, tamen discretam cognitionem habere volentes ex intelligibilibus quae apud nos habemus, describimus ipsa intellecta esse finita et determinata per quantitatem et figuram; et idem facimus cum opinamur. Omnia enim oportet reducere ad quantitates et figuras determinatas quando ex his quae intelligimus vel opinamur discretam rei volumus accipere cognitionem. Etsi etiam intellectus ut intellectus non intelligat quantitatem determinatam, tamen quando reducit intelligibilia ad res, ponit ante oculos quantitatem, quia refert ad rem figuratam quasi stet in oculis”. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 3, p. 118: “Memoria autem, sicut iam ante diximus, etiam illa quae intelligibilium, non fit sine phatasmate. Igitur memoria ex his quae sunt apud anima reflectitur in rem, per accidens quidem intelligibilium, eo quod aliquando ipsa reflexio incipit a intelligibili prius accepto. Per se autem est primi sensitivi eo quod perfectio memoriae numquam fit sine eo quod est acceptum est a primo sensitivo, quod est magnitudo determinata et tempus. Non autem volumus dicere nisi de eo quod informat et facit memoriam quoad memorabilia. Licet enim aliquando accipiantur ab intellectu, tamen non secundum quod sunt intelligibilia reducunt in rem prius visam, sed potius secundum quod sunt sensata primo sensitivo. Sub illa enim figura et differentia temporis secundum quam prius accepta sunt faciunt animam reflecti in rem”.

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call witnesses (testis).71 The status of images in the artes memoriae reveals that they do not have to share any pictorial or formal resemblance with the things they stand for to redirect to them. The images are consequently mental devices used by memory. An image is properly used as an image when referred back to the thing it stands for.72 Whether natural or conventional, images are thus signs enabling the memory of things they designate directly. Therefore, images are neither “what” is aimed at (term/object) nor that “through which” something can be recalled (instrumental or intermediate cause), but rather that “out of which”, or “from which”, (the cause sine qua non) the act of memory can be performed. At this point, I will finally define Albert’s idea of a “return” to the things ­performed by memory by specifying several explanatory aspects: a Ontological. Albert’s concept of a “return” is rooted in the ontological interdependence of form and matter. Memory is primarily concerned with the individuals I have been acquainted with in the past, which, as such, are composed of form and matter. In the case of the memory object, composed of image and intention, the organ plays the role of the subject in which the form inheres (images and intentions are preserved in the rear ventricle of the brain). The cognitive turn consists of attributing the memory object to its proper subject by reapplying it to the external material substrate from which it has been originally separated by the work of the internal senses.73 Albert takes up from Avicenna the idea of an “application”: memory attributes the complex formed by an image and an intention to their real and proper subject. Sensible forms are ontologically dependent on their material substrate, which provides their concrete foundation in existence. The notion of a “return” therefore expresses the requirement for sensible forms to have a foundation in the outer world by pointing to their ontological substrates, in which memory, 71

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Albertus Magnus, De mem. II, 1, p. 125: “Sicut volumus recordari eius qui adversatur nobis in iudicio, imaginemur arietem in obscuro magnis cornibus et magnis testiculis contra nos venientem. Cornua enim ducent in recordatione adversarii et testiculi ducent in ­despositionem testium”. Albertus Magnus, De mem. II, 1, p. 125: “Et ideo bene utimur imagine ut imagine et bene et distincte reflectitur et attribuitur rebus”; Ibid.: “utitur imagine ut imagine, a qua non egreditur intellectus, sed potius reflexio in rem prius visam aut auditam”. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 3, p. 117: “Discretionem autem vocamus distinctam ­cognitionem unius ad alio quae fit per cogitationem quando applicatur universale ­particularibus, ut ex propriis particularium distincta habeatur cognitio”; Ibid., p. 119: “Memoriabilia sunt quaecumque sunt cum phantasia, sicut sunt intellecta intellectus possibilis, quae ex phantasmatibus primum accipiuntur et postea iterum phantasmatibus applicantur, quando ex intellectis anima reflectitur in rem prius per sensus apprehensam” ; “Compositionis autem formae sunt quae refertuntur ad res quibus applicantur”.

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b

c

74 75 76

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as a faculty of the sensible soul, finds its real anchorage. In this sense, the reflection of memory designates the turning to a foundation and an expression of its ontological dependency.74 Psychological. Albert’s “return to the things” indicates a shift in psychological orientation. An image works as an image if it is taken as a likeness, i.e. a reflection. For Albert, remembering is a reflexive act bending the attention from the image to the real thing. Consequently, the turn performed by memory is also a dynamic shift in the soul’s gaze,75 shifting its focus from the intentional image to the real thing.76 This idea of a “dynamic shift in attention”, inherited from Avicenna77 is supported by the existing inferential connexions between sensible forms and intentions, restored by the soul. This psychological turn is expressed by the concept of the “duplex consideratio”: while focusing on the image taken absolutely, the soul merely speculates, while taking the image as relative to something else, it remembers in the strict and proper sense.78 Cognitive. The reflection of memory relies on a cognitive return: as stated above, the external real thing is the terminus ad quem of remembering. Consequently, the real thing terminates the act of memory. The s­ ensible thing plays the role of the principle of determinacy of memory’s act of

This distinction has been formulated by Scarpelli Cory 2013, p. 134. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 4, p. 122. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 4, p. 122: “hinc alia passio egreditur speculationis huius quando considerat tonsoris imaginem, et alia quando considerat absolute sicut animal pictum in tabula”; see also p. 126: “utitur imagine ut imagine, a qua non egreditur intellectus, sed potius reflexio in rem prius visam aut auditam”. 77 Avicenna, Liber de anima, IV, 2, vol. 2, p. 14: “Anima etenim cum occupata fuerit circa interiora, non solet curare de exterioribus quantum deberet; et cum occupata furerit circa exteriora, praetermittet gubernare virtutes interiores. Ipsa enim cum intente considerat sensibilia exterius, ea hora qua de his tractat, debilitatur eius imaginatio et memoria”; Ibid., pp. 144–145 : “Quod autem debes scire de dispositione formarum quae sunt in anima hoc est quod dicemus, scilicet quod imaginata et quaecumque adhaererent eis, cum anima avertitur ad eis, sunt reposita in virtutibus conservativus eorum, quae vere non sunt apprehendentes (sic enim hoc esset, essent apprehendentes et conservantes simul) sed sunt thesaurus ad quem cum converterit se virtus apprehendens et iudicans, immo aestimatio, aut anima, aut intellectus, inveniet ea iam haberi; si autem non invenerit ea, necesse habebit redire ad perquirendum et reminiscendum. Quod si non fieret, necesse esset nobis dubitare de omni anima occupata ab aliqua forma, an ipsa forma haberet esse, an non haberet nisi in potentia”. 78 Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 4, p. 122: “Sic igitur dicimus quod est phantasmatis considerare quandam per se sumpti considerationem. Est etiam considerare speculationem phantasmatis secundum quod est alterius. Et secundum quidem seipsum dicimus ipsum speculationem quandam esse aut phantasma quoddam. In quantum autem alterius est, tunc dicetur imago aut memoratio, quia ut imago perficit memorationem”.

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cognition and the role of its determining matter.79 In showing its proper content, it indicates what memory is about. Indeed, we cannot have ­general memories, since memories are derived from our past experiences of sensible things. Consequently, they are always memories of this particular quality, this thing or that peculiar event situated at some specific moment. For Albert, memory, as a power of the soul, is that which amounts to a distinct and precise cognition. An act of cognition is a distinct act when it refers back from the universal to the individual.80 In this sense, the act of memory is distinct insofar as it signifies this and not that thing (significat unum individum).81 Memory, as an internal sense belonging to the sensitive part of the soul, allows for a precise cognition of the individuals. In this regard, Albert’s account reflects once again a close reading of Averroes’ Epitome De memoria.82 As Black has shown, for Averroes “the act of memory is complete when the sensible particular is grasped as an integral whole accompanied by all its relevant common and incidental qualities”.83 Therefore, memory results when the memory object (the complex composed by a form and an intention) is not considered per se, as a bundle of qualities viewed in themselves, but rather referred back to the peculiar individual to which it belongs. Only on this condition can we remember: by recognising an individual qua past individual. The image works as an imitatio by pointing to characteristics that can never be included in the complex composed of a form and an intention, and it also signifies the individual character of these characteristics.84 If I remember the kindness in my grandmother’s smile as she looked at me on one particular occasion in my childhood, it is not kindness in general, or “smiling” as an accidental property, but rather “the kindness of the smile of my grandmother in this instant” taken together as a complex that I recall with precision now. 79 Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles II, q. 77; Quaestiones de anima, q. 4, ad. 6 and q. 5; ­Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 10, ad 4; Summa theologiae Ia, q. 84, a. 7. 80 Cf. note 70. 81 Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 1, p. 114: “in organo virtutis memorativa (…) recipit medulla eius quod tres vires, sensus communis scilicet et imaginativa et distinctiva, distinxerunt, et per illud discrete et distincte revertitur ad res. Et ideo virtutis memoriae actus est quod componendo intentiones distinctas cum imaginibus rerum distincte ad res revertitur”. 82 Averroes, Epitome de memoria: “For that which the imaginative faculty perceives of an ostensible individual Zayd is only what the painter describes of him in that which retains, whereas that which the memorative faculty perceives is only the intention of this description” (translated by Black 1996, p. 169). 83 Black 1996, p. 162, note 4. 84 Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 4, p. 120: “Factus enim motus sensibilis ad animam significat unum individuum in quod reflexio fit per memoria actum”.

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Memory, the highest internal sense, can never create a perfect copy of individuals through its combinatory activity. Indeed, the internal senses work in ­concert to separate the sensible form from its underlying matter, thus abstracting it from all of its individual features. Yet, there is much more in our memories than could ever be encompassed by any representation. The internal object may never perfectly resemble the external individual because its distinctive features are stripped down by the internal senses. Consequently, memory, through its return to things, denotes the individuals as such, the individuality of sensible forms as instantiated in matter and the individuality of the circumstances surrounding the past act of apprehension. In its reflection, it signifies what is left over by the cooperation of the internal senses, but not lost from sight, the irreducible individuality of its object without which we cannot remember precisely, i.e. recognise individuals as such in their distinctiveness.85 Having considered these different aspects, we should now take up our main question once again: is Albert the Great a representationalist regarding memory? Even if it is clear that one cannot remember without images, these should not be viewed in themselves, but purely as mirroring something else. Therefore, the act of memory, if it is to be complete, should be purely transitive, pointing directly to the external things. Consequently, the “return to the things” expresses a shift in the attention of the soul that reveals that the intentionality of memory may be described as a direct act aiming at individuals. While relying on images as its condition of possibility, memory denotes precisely this particular thing and indicates its proper moment of origin (i.e. the moment in which it was experienced). The reflection of memory consists of pointing to the external things as its extrinsic reference and origin, thereby completing the perfect circle of perception.86 To this extent, the “compositive forms” are able to recombine with: (1) their proper ontological substrate from which they are originally derived and (2) their term and cognitive principle of determination, without which memory would never be precise and distinct. Only by aiming at a specific thing can the act of memory become accurate. For these reasons, I argue that Albert the Great maintains a realist account of memory as the capacity to direct one’s attention to what is truly past and to aim at things, in their irreducible individuality, as the real reference of its act.87 85 86 87

Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 1, p. 113: “Non enim dicimus nos rememorari nisi quando per id quod habemus nos distincte cognoscimus id quid prius vidimus vel didicimus”. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 1, p. 114: “sed memoria componendo ista duo refertur ad res extra per ipsa”. Albertus Magnus, De mem. I, 4, p. 123: “Isti enim motus sunt contrarii per terminos, quia unus est a re ad animam, aliter autem est ab anima ad rem extra visam vel auditam vel aliter in praeterito acceptam”; II, 5, p. 131: “intentio proportionatur ei quod intenditur per

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6 Conclusion The act of remembering is described as looking backwards, as a reflexive glance in the rear-view mirror towards a past experience. This cognitive orientation runs against the normal flux of time. The visual metaphor reveals that, in itself, a memory trace has no other cognitive content or ontological constituency than being a pure copy, a likeness. To work as a pure reflection, it must mirror a past experience, in which a real thing or event has been apprehended in the past. Remembering is therefore a reflexive process in which memory aims directly at the real things: the memory image leads to the consideration of the past, external things in themselves. Like a concave mirror, the memory object therefore bends the attention of the cognitive subject, the so-called awareness pertaining to the act of memory, from the image to the past extrinsic thing. Our attention is thus rerouted externally to its proper object: the sensible things. In this pure reflection, memory denotes the individuals and signifies what is left over by the abstractive work of the internal senses, namely the individuals, the particularity of qualities as instantiated in them and the singularity of the event in which they were experienced. Only on this condition, i.e. as a precise and active power of the sensitive soul, can memory be “of the past”. Bibliography Primary Sources

Albertus Magnus, De animalibus libri XXVI, 2 vols., ed. Hermann Stadler, Münster: Aschendorff, 1916–1920 (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters: Texte und Untersuchungen, 15–16). Albertus Magnus, De anima, ed. Clemens Stroick, Münster: Aschendorff, 1968 (Alberti Magni Ordinis fratrum praedicatorum episcopi Opera Omnia, 7/1). Albertus Magnus, Summa theologiae sive de mirabili scientia dei, ed. Dionysius S­ iedler, Wilhelm Kübel & Heinrich Georg Vogels, Münster: Aschendorff, 1978 (Alberti Magni Ordinis fratrum praedicatorum episcopi Opera omnia, 34/1–2). Albertus Magnus, De homine, ed. by Henryk Anzulewicz & Joachim R. Söder, Münster: Aschendorff, 2008 (Alberti Magni Ordinis fratrum praedicatorum episcopi Opera Omnia, 27/2). Albertus Magnus, De memoria et reminiscentia, ed. Silvia Donati, Münster: Aschendorff, 2017 (Alberti Magni Ordinis fratrum praedicatorum episcopi Opera Omnia, 7/2a). ipsam (…) Est enim forte accipere aliquam in anima distantiam et protensionem, sicut accipitur in speciebus quae sunt in ea separatae a rebus”.

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Augustine, De trinitate, ed. William John Mountain & Fr. Glorie, Turnhout: Brepols, 1968 (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 50–50a). Averroes, Compendia librorum Aristotelis qui Parva naturalia vocantur, ed. Emily L. Shields & Harry Blumberg, Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1949 (­Corpus philosophorum Medii Aevi. Corpus Commentariorum Averrois in Aristotelem. ­Versionum Latinarum, 7; The Mediaeval Academy of America. Publications, 54). Averroes, Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis De anima libros, ed. F. Stewart ­Crawford, Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1953 (Corpus philosophorum Medii Aevi. Corpus Commentariorum Averrois in Aristotelem. Versionum Latinarum, 6/1; The Mediaeval Academy of America. Publications, 59). Averroes, Epitome of Parva naturalia, trans. Harry Blumberg, Cambridge, Mass.: The Medieval Academy of America, 1961 (Corpus philosophorum Medii Aevi. ­Corpus commentariorum Averrois in Aristotelem. Versio Anglica, 7; The Mediaeval ­Academy of America. Publications, 71). Avicenna, Liber de anima seu Sextus de naturalibus, 2 vols., ed. Simone van Riet, ­Louvain–Leiden: Peeters–Brill, 1968–1972 (Avicenna Latinus). Husserl, Edmund, Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußseins, Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2013. Russell, Bertrand, The Analysis of Mind, London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1921. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super Sententiis, vol. 3, ed. Marie Fabien Moos, Paris: Lethielleux, 1933. Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De sensu et sensato cuius secundus tractatus est De memoria et reminiscentia, ed. René-Antoine Gauthier, Rome–Paris: Commissio Leonina–Vrin, 1985 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 45/2).

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Anzulewicz, Henryk (1999), De forma resultante in speculo. Die theologische Relevanz des Bildbegriffs und des Spiegelbildmodells in den Frühwerken des Albertus Magnus, Münster: Aschendorff (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters. Texte und Untersuchungen. N. F., 53/1–2). Anzulewicz, Henryk (2000), “Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita und das Strukturprinzip des Denkens von Albert”, in Tzotcho Boiadjiev, Georgi Kapriev & Andreas Speer (eds.), Die Dionysius-Rezeption im Mittelalter: Internationales Kolloquium in Sofia vom 8. Bis 11 April 1999, Turnhout: Brepols (Rencontres de philosophie médiévale, 9), pp. 251–295. Anzulewicz, Henryk (2002), “Die platonische Tradition bei Albertus Magnus: Eine ­Hinführung”, in Stephen Gersch & Maarten J. F. M. Hoenen (eds.), The ­Platonic ­Tradition in the Middle Ages: A Doxographic Approach, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 207–277.

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Anzulewicz, Henryk (2005), “Memoria und reminiscentia bei Albertus Magnus,” in Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (ed.), La mémoire du temps au Moyen Age, Florence: SISMEL – Edizioni del Galluzzo, pp. 163–200. Bernecker, Sven (2008), The Metaphysics of Memory, Oxford: Oxford University Press (Philosophical studies, 111). Black, Deborah L. (1993), “Estimation (Wahm) in Avicenna. The Logical and Psychological Dimensions”, Dialogue, 32/2, pp. 219–258. Black, Deborah L. (1996), “Memory, Individuals, and the Past in Averroes’s Psychology”, Medieval Philosophy and Theology, 5/2, pp. 161–187. Black, Deborah L. (2000), “Estimation and Imagination: Western Divergences from an Arabic Paradigm”, Topoi, 19/1, pp. 59–75. Black, Deborah L. (2010), “Intentionality in Medieval Arabic Philosophy”, Quaestio, 10 (2010), pp. 65–81. Bloch, David (2007), Aristotle on Memory and Recollection: Text, Translation, Interpretation, and Reception in Western Scholasticism. Leiden–Boston: Brill (Philosophia antiqua, 110). Decaix, Véronique (2021), “What are we remembering of? Albert the Great on the Object of Memory”, in Véronique Decaix & Christina Thomsen Thörnqvist (eds.), Memory and Recollection in the Aristotelian Tradition, Turnhout: Brepols (Studia artistatum, 47), pp. 154–167. Decaix, Véronique (2022), “Mémoire et mouvement des animaux. Pour une approche intentionnaliste de la mémoire à la fin du XIIIe siècle”, RSPT, (forthcoming). Di Martino, Carla (2006), “Memoria dicitur multipliciter. L’apporto della scienza psicologica araba al medievo latino” in Maria M. Sassi (ed), Tracce nella mente. Teorie della memoria da Platone ai moderni, Pisa: Edizioni della Scuola normale superiore (Seminari e convegni, 9), pp. 119–138. Di Martino, Carla (2008), Ratio particularis La doctrine des sens internes d’Avicenne à Thomas d’Aquin. Contribution à l’étude de la tradition arabo-latine de la psychologie d’Aristote, Paris: Vrin (Études de philosophie médiévale, 94). Di Martino, Carla (2007), “Memory and Recollection in Ibn Sina’s and Ibn Rushd’s Philosophical Texts Translated into Latin in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: A Perspective on the Doctrine of the Internal Senses in Arabic Psychological Science”, in Henrik Lagerlund (ed), Forming the Mind. Essays on the Internal Senses and the Mind/Body Problem from Avicenna to the Medical Enlightenment, Dordrecht: Springer (Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, 5), pp. 17–26. Donati, Silvia (2009), “Albert der Große als Kommentator der Translatio Vetus der Schrift De memoria et reminiscentia des Aristoteles: seine Vorlage und seine Kommentierungsmethode am Beispiel von Mem. 2, 453a14-b4”, in Ludger Honnefelder, Hannes Möhle, & Susana Bullido del Barrio (eds.), Via Alberti. Texte – Quellen – Interpretationen, Münster, Aschendorff (Subsidia Albertina, 2), pp. 509–559.

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Donati, Silvia (2012), “The Critical Edition of Albert the Great’s Commentaries on De sensu et sensato and De memoria et reminiscentia: Its Significance for the Study of the 13th-Century Reception of Aristotle’s Parva Naturalia and Its Problems”, in Aafke Maria Isoline van Oppenraay & Resianne Fontaine (eds.), The Letter before the Spirit: The Importance of Text Editions for the Study of the Reception of Aristotle, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Aristoteles Semitico-Latinus, 22), pp. 345–399. Donati, Silvia (2018), “Albert the Great as a commentator of Aristotle’s De somno et vigilia: The influence of the Arabic Tradition”, in Börje Bydén & Filip Radovic (eds.), The ‘Parva naturalia’ in Greek, Arabic, and Latin Aristotelianism, Cham: Springer (Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, 17), pp. 169–209. Ehret, Charles (2017), “The Flow of Powers. Emanation in the Psychologies of Avicenna, Albert the Great, and Aquinas”, Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy, 5, pp. 87–121. Klubertanz, Georges P. (1952), “St Thomas and the Knowledge of Singular”, New Scholasticism, 26, pp. 135–166. Müller, Jörn (2017), Albertus Magnus über Gedächtnis, Erinnern und Wiedererinnerung. Eine philosophische Lektüre von De memoria et reminiscentia mit Übersetzung, Münster: Aschendorff. Scarpelli Cory, Therese (2013), “What is an intellectual turn? The Liber de Causis, Avicenna, and Aquinas’ turn to phantasms”, Topicos, Revista de Filosofìa, 45, pp. 129–162. Steneck, Nicholas H. (1980), “Albert on Psychology of Sense Perception”, in James A Weisheipl (ed.), Albertus Magnus and the Science. Commemorative Essays, Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Studies and Texts, 49), pp. 263–290. Tellkamp, Jörg Alejandro (2012), “Albert the Great on Structure & Function of the Inner Senses”, in Richard C. Taylor & Irfan A. Omar (eds.), The Judeo-Christian-Islamic Heritage. Philosophical & Theological Perspectives, Marquette: Marquette University Press (Marquette Studies in Philosophy, 75), pp. 305–325. Wilcox, Stephen & Stuart Katz (1991), “A Direct Realist Alternative to the Traditional Conception of Memory”, Behaviourism, 9, pp. 227–240. Wolfson, Harry A. (1935), “The Internal Senses in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew Philosophical Texts”, The Harvard Theological Review, 28, pp. 69–133.

CHAPTER 4

Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas on What Makes Perception Human Jörg Alejandro Tellkamp 1 Introduction In recent years much has been made of animal perception and a­ wareness in later medieval psychology, mainly relating to the reception of Arabic w ­ riting authors such as Avicenna and Averroes.1 Concerning the reception and incorporation of Arabic philosophy, it is safe to say that Albert the Great stands out in 13th-century Latin philosophy, evidenced by his detailed analyses of the animal cognitive powers and processes that he undertakes in his psychological writings and his biological works. However, his pupil Thomas Aquinas is known for developing an intricate and complex theory of knowledge, which always aims at the pinnacle of intellectual knowledge. Even though he is keen on exploring the Aristotelian tradition to come to terms with the bases of perception, his lack of interest in animal perception is conspicuous, making it more interesting to contrast those two authors regarding the metaphysical and epistemological aspects concerning human perception.2 For Albert and Aquinas, human beings are part of the natural world. They have a physical constitution, and they behave according to the laws of nature as physical objects. Still, as living beings, they have powers and organs that serve the purpose of digesting and, obviously, of perceiving. At the same time, both authors agree that humans have essential characteristics that make them stand out from the bulk of animals. Having the capacity to use language and think abstract notions makes humans human, the ground for which is the very essence of humanhood: the rational soul. Partly based on the ancient philosophical tradition, e.g., Plato and Aristotle, partly because of the theological framework that requires human beings to have an incorruptible rational soul, the relationship between it, as substantial form, and the body differs in essential respects from the form-matter-relation of other natural 1 Recently see Oelze 2018. 2 Perler 2020 has brought this topic up in Aquinas. For a historically comprehensive analysis of human perception in the 13th century, see Köhler 2014, pp. 214–391. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004537712_005

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things. The relationship between the rational soul and the organic bodies of human beings leads to two questions: 1. If the rational soul does not depend on the body to exist, as Albert and Aquinas hold, how does it manifest itself in living bodies in such a way as to allow for certain cognitive and biological functions? 2. If the rational soul is, as Albert and Aquinas also hold, an indiscernible aspect of living bodies, how can it preserve its existence without that very body? The answers to those questions should lead to a general assessment of how, according to both authors, soul and body are related. I will mainly be concerned with the first, asking how an immaterial, rational soul can constitute itself as the necessary condition for bodily functions, such as perception. The second question I will touch on in passing. It will be shown that Albert and Aquinas differ considerably about how to account for that relationship and therefore their explanation of what makes human perception human. This paper will first establish the conceptual framework on which perception is grounded in Albert and Aquinas. Afterward, I will demonstrate what Albert takes to be genuine human perception and relate it to Aquinas’s idea of human perception. I will hope to show that the differences between both authors were articulated gradually and that they started to show differing appreciations regarding the role of bodily functions and their relation to the rational soul, leading to a profound discrepancy on how to view the human being within the natural world. 2

The Metaphysics of Perception

The assumption that guides Albert’s and Aquinas’s thought is that the rational soul is a necessary condition for all human activities and processes. But what does this mean, and why gives it rise to sensory processes? The answer to that question should point at the metaphysical conditions that apply to human perception, but not to perception of non-rational animals. In what follows, I will give a brief outline of what I believe to be the central aspects of Albert’s and Aquinas’s theory of the rational soul. The breadth of his philosophical and theological interests makes Albert the Great a peculiar author. His work has often been derided as incoherent or merely eclectic, encompassing anything from a strongly Platonizing brand of metaphysics to solid empirical and theoretical fieldwork in zoology and botany. However, his interest in issues concerning the principles of life deserves close attention; he displays a commanding knowledge of classic and Arabic sources

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and ventures into unexplored territory. As his psychology, metaphysics, and natural philosophy intersect, it is fascinating to see how he continually tries to improve his account of the rational soul as essentially independent from the body and being ­nonetheless intrinsically related to it. This problem raises broader philosophical issues. According to Albert, there is room for a dualistic interpretation of the relation between rational soul and organic body, but there is also the possibility for a non-reductionist explanation of psychological processes in the physical realm.3 Albert himself thought this problem was so pressing that he dedicated over two decades several treatises to the nature of the soul—of the vegetative, sensitive, and rational kinds—and its relationship with the body. He employed different methods of ­analysis, either a top-down metaphysical stance, such as in his early treatise De ­homine (1242), in which he focuses on the rational soul4 or, as in the colossal De ­animalibus (1258–1262), a bottom-up approach, first inquiring about the physiology and psychology of animals and then establishing a taxonomy in which the human being ends up having a superior ranking. In addition to the writings already mentioned, it was the relatively short period between 1254 to 1263 in which he completed his commentary on De anima (1254–1257), and the treatises De unitate intellectus, De intellectu et intelligibili (all approx. 1256), De natura et origine animae, De animalibus, and the Quaestiones super de animalibus (all between 1258 and 1263). All those works share the same fundamental concern regarding the place in nature of living, intelligent beings, the mechanisms of cognition, their metaphysical presuppositions, etc. The picture that emerges from his Commentary on De anima (and further elaborated in writings such as De unitate intellectus and De intellectu et intelligibili) is that of a sort of dichotomy of the intellective or rational soul as (1) an embodied principle of life that (2) cannot be reduced to the physical properties of the body. Therefore, the rational soul must be considered a separate and immortal substance. However, how can the rational soul be external to the human body and, at the same time, be its act? In engaging with Averroes’s Long Commentary on De anima, Albert recognizes the possibility to argue philosophically in favor of the salient characteristics of the rational soul: its separation and immortality.5 3 Runggaldier 2010. 4 See “Zeittafel”, in Möhle 2011, pp. 28–31. 5 In his Commentary on the Ethics (c. 1252), Albert still thinks that immortality cannot be proven philosophically; see Albertus Magnus, Super Ethica commentum et quaestiones [henceforth,

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In later texts, he questions precisely this point moving again into the direction of theology. Prima facie Albert has been walking a trodden path since Plato and Aristotle wrote about nous, psyche, and soma. But there are underlying philosophical preoccupations that neither the Platonic nor the Peripatetic tradition seemed to have resolved: is the rational soul an entity essentially independent from the body? If so, what is its relation with the body, if there is one at all? Inversely, if the rational soul were the result of a specific organic configuration of the living body, is it possible to say that the rational soul and its activities do not depend on bodily conditions? One should remember that medieval authors generally cherished this idea since it would explain how abstract thoughts and immortality come about. There is, then, the Platonizing view of the rational soul, which considers it external to the body, making it difficult to explain its relevance to human life. There is also a naturalistic view, perhaps Aristotle’s, that shows that the rational soul is concurrent with the body so that every aspect that occurs in the mind has some bodily cause or correlation. If so, the transcendent ­character of the rational soul seems to be in jeopardy. In discussing human perception, both Aquinas and Albert intend to offer a way out of this conundrum, for which two initial assumptions have to be kept in mind: a The intellect is a part of the rational soul (pars animae). Therefore, whatever is predicated metaphysically of the whole must be predicated of the part (separation, immortality etc.). b The existence of the rational soul is most evident when it manifests itself as a cognitive and appetitive power, i.e., when it grasps universal truths and wills what is universally good. To further elucidate those points, let us take a brief look into the critical elements of treatise 1 of book 2 of Albert’s Commentary on De anima. Albert agrees with Aristotle that the soul has to be thought of as substance and actus corporis. The notion of substance, however, it is not as straightforward as one might wish because it allows for at least three quite diverging characterizations: 1. Because substance is a genus of being, in itself, it is nothing particular (non est hoc aliquid).6

In Eth.] I, 13, ed. Kübel 1987, p. 71, ll. 73–75: “Dicendum, quod hoc quod animae defunctorum remaneant post mortem, non potest per philosophiam sufficienter sciri”. 6 Albertus Magnus, De anima [henceforth, In DA] II, 1, 1, ed. Stroick 1968, p. 64, ll. 32–37.

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2.

Substance also refers to the form of an already existing natural, particular thing, determining the species that thing belongs to.7 3. Substance refers to the composite of matter and actor, as he prefers to say, to perfection, be it as first act (esse) or as second act (actio essentialis). From those distinctions, it is clear that Albert’s interest points at the third meaning of substance, thus implying that it has to be understood as non-accidental. Therefore, if the soul is conceived of as substance, it has to be a “thing that exists by itself (per se existens)”.8 One might say that if the rational soul is a substance that exists by itself as the perfection of a composite, then the matter of that composite bears no direct relevance on the existence of the substance. If this were the case, then the rational soul could not be a substantial feature of the living body. But, as Albert argues, to be alive is essential to qualify as an organic body, and since nothing is the cause of itself, the principle that endows the body with life is not identical with its material characteristics. In order to reconcile this tension, Albert offers a series of definitions of anima, the first of which is the following: The soul must be substance, the same way we say that species and form are the substance of the physical body which, through a dispositional potency, participates in life, i.e., [it participates] formally. Its form brings about the secondary operations of life.9 The wording of this definition is odd, and although most of it seems to be Aristotelian, it is the concept of participation that catches the eye. It suggests that the body does not live by itself but lives based on a principle in which it participates, allowing it to accomplish specific operations. All this leads to the following additional definition: Therefore, this way, we obtain what is required for that definition of the soul, which simply and universally states what the soul is. The soul is, then, a substance, which is the form of a non-artificial body, i.e., of a

7 Albertus Magnus, In DA II, 1, 1, p. 64, ll. 37–40: “Alterum autem in eodem genere substantiae acceptum est forma et species, secundum quam dicitur iam formata res naturae hoc aliquid, eo quod formando ipsum et specificando dat ei esse et rationem diffinitivam”. 8 Albertus Magnus, In DA II, 1, 1, p. 66, l. 49s: “[…] Dicitur substantia res per se existens […]”. 9 Albertus Magnus, In DA II, 1, 1, p. 66, ll. 9–13: “Oportet igitur, quod anima sit substantia, sicut speciem et formam diximus esse substantiam corporis physici vitam participantis potentia habituali, hoc est formaliter, quae forma potest agere actiones vitae secundas”.

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physical body, but not of any physical [body], but of that which has life through a dispositional potency.10 The soul qua substance—via participation—endows a physical body with life. It does so as act or perfection of the body, which allows to establish which kind (species, genus) it belongs to. To say that it is act is the same as saying that it is either a form that gives a thing being (actus primus) or, as Albert says, the essential operation of that thing (actus secundus). Importantly, if the soul is first actuality, it is clear that it can be so only insofar as it unites with the body as form. So far, barring the reference to participation, everything seems ‘­orthodox’. A natural thing is constituted as such because its specific form ­perfects it. A cat is defined as felis domesticus because its cat-specific form constitutes it. One might expect the human being to be constituted the same way. The soul, not just the rational soul, is, then, “the actuality not of any physical body, but instead only of that [body] over which it has perfect power [and] by which it achieves the operations of life”.11 Although it is perfectly Aristotelian to say that forms differ in degrees of perfection, complexity, and scope, Albert instead establishes a hierarchy of forms that seems quite unAristotelian and more Platonic. In any case, he assumes that every natural body has to be actualized by a natural form, which is a form that cannot be instantiated without matter. There is, however, a crucial distinction that Alberts applies to that supposition, because there are two fundamentally different ways in which a natural form can manifest itself in a material substrate: 1. Most forms in the natural world manifest themselves in connection with a material body expressing “the harmony of the mixture and [being a] consequence of this harmony”.12 In this case, the form cannot be considered as independent from the body’s constitution, and it is not ontologically superior to the body it actualizes. If the compound ceases to exist, the form ceases to exist as well. Natural bodies, such as stones, behave uniformly, which means that the form is, as it were, tied down by the material components of the body. 10

11 12

Albert Magnus, In DA II, 1, 1, p. 66, ll. 27–32: “Sic igitur habemus ea quae exiguntur ad illam animae diffinitionem quae simpliciter et universaliter dicit, quid est anima. Est enim anima substantia, quae est forma corporis non artificialis, sed physici et non cuiuslibet physici, sed potentia habituali vitam habentis”. Albertus Magnus, In DA II, 1, 3, p. 67, ll. 41–44. Albertus Magnus, In DA II, 1, 3, p. 67, ll. 51–52.

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There is a natural form that is, as Albert enigmatically notes, “closer to the universally first agent cause, which produces all forms”.13 This natural form “is an incorporeal essence that moves and perfects the body, and it is its function to be imprinted (habet imprimere) on the entire nature because in the order of nature it is above the nature of all corporeal forms; it is called soul”.14 This passage is cryptic, but its Neoplatonic undertone is striking.15 This second characterization is especially intriguing because it appears that for Albert, the rational soul is a natural form that somehow has to be actus corporis being “above the nature of all corporeal forms”. In fact, he says that “it is possible for an incorporeal substance to exist in a body as actus corporis that communicates with the body (communicet corpori)”.16 However, if the rational soul were to be actus corporis in the way endorsed by Aquinas, it would have to coexist harmonically with the structured organic body, thus implying that it ceases to exist when the body disintegrates. Yet Albert firmly rejects this idea.17 The obvious solution to this problem would be (1) to deny that the rational soul is actus or forma corporis and (2) to posit the rational soul as an external principle that flows into the body without being altered by it. In his later De origine et natura animae, he explicitly denies that the rational soul is actus corporis.18 However, in his Commentary on De anima, he is still unwilling to accept this conclusion, introducing instead the idea that the rational soul is somehow external to the body, united to it through participation. Albert says on this point:

13 14 15 16 17

18

Albertus Magnus, In DA II, 1, 3, p. 67, ll. 57–58. See also Müller 2009, p. 197 and Bonin 2000. Albertus Magnus, In DA II, 1, 3, p. 67, ll. 59–62. See also Albertus Magnus, De unitate intellectus [henceforth, De unitate] III, ed. Hufnagel 1975, p. 22, ll. 11–20. Albertus Magnus, In DA I, 1, 6, p. 12, ll. 25–27. Albertus Magnus, De natura et origine animae [henceforth, De nat. et or. an.] II, 6, ed. Geyer 1955, p. 26, ll. 9–23: “Si enim detur per esse et essentiam esse coniunctum, sicut actus corporis coniungitur cum corpore, cuius est actus, non operabitur essentiali operatione nisi ad harmoniam corporis, cuius est actus, sicut visus non operatur nisi ad harmoniam oculi, sicut constat ex omnibus quae et hic et in scientia de anima in diversis libris nostris probata sunt. Destruamus ergo hoc consequens dicendo, quod id quod non operatur ad alicuius corporis harmoniam, necessario per esse et essentiam est separatum. Quod autem per esse et essentiam est separatum ab aliquo, nullo pacto perit destructo illo a quo separatum est per esse et essentiam. Anima igitur intellectualis destructione corporis non destruitur”. Albertus Magnus, De nat. et or. an. I, 5, p. 12, ll. 74–79: “His ita determinatis facile est invenire originem et naturam animae rationalis. De hac enim constat per ea quae in tertio de anima et in libro de intellectu et intelligibili determinata sunt, quod ipsa non est actus alicuius corporis nec est forma corporalis neque virtus operans in corpore”.

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Furthermore, if the intellective part is separated, the whole intellective soul must be separated. This is necessary because if the parts of the soul are natural powers that flow from it [i.e., the soul], then a separated power cannot flow from an essence united to the body. Inversely, it is p ­ ossible for powers to flow from what is essentially separated; [those powers] operate in the body because a superior power can do whatever an inferior power can do, but not inversely.19 The example of the seaman and the ship, which follows this argument, clarifies the point that an integral aspect of something can be external and, at the same time, essential: The seaman moves the ship through the intelligible species, i.e., the ­science of navigation. The seaman’s actions on the ship are only fulfilled by a movement, and a bodily organ, such as the minor sail, the nail, the rudder, etc., yet the seaman is completely separated from the ship. ­Similarly, if the soul thus moves the whole body under the command of the intellect, it [the soul] is essentially and completely separated from the body despite having multiple powers and sensory and vegetative operations, which are not accomplished without bodily instruments.20 It is immediately apparent that the existence of the seaman does not per se depend on the existence of the ship, but the proper function of the ship, its perfection, can only be achieved if a seaman steers it. Comparing the example of the ship and the seaman with soul and body is somewhat problematic because seaman and ship belong to the same ontological order of composite entities, while soul and body belong to different orders each. The one way to relate both orders—here divisible matter, there immaterial soul—consists in introducing the notions of participation and flow. In his treatises De unitate intellectus and De intellectu, which were completed shortly after his Commentary on De anima, Albert expands on those notions, which aim at showing that the human body only achieves its proper functions if participating in a rational principle. In contrast, the principle itself is independent from bodily attributes.21 If having 19 20 21

Albertus Magnus, In DA II, 1, 5, p. 70, ll. 15–24. Albertus Magnus, In DA II, 1, 5, p. 70, ll. 50–60. Albert Magnus, De unitate III, pp. 21, ll. 65–22, l. 20: “Dicamus igitur in nostra anima ­partem esse intellectualem et ipsam, quae dicitur anima rationalis, dicimus esse substantiam, ex qua emanant potentiae, quarum quaedam sunt separatae, ita quod non sunt corporeae formae nec virtutes in corpore, quaedam autem emanant ex ipsa, quae sunt virtutes operantes in corpore. Et illae quae non sunt virtutes in corpore, sunt in ea ex similitudine

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a soul is necessary for being alive, and one might conclude that being rational and alive is just the same.22 There are, then, three ways in which the rational soul is united to the individual human being:23 1. As a nature that gives being (ut natura dans esse), which looks very much like a substantial form. For our present purpose, this is the relevant meaning of rational soul, which has to be seen in connection with Albert’s emanationist view and which does not imply a hylomorphic theory. 2. As a power by which the operation of intellection is achieved (ut potentia per quam est operatio intelligendi). 3. As an acquired form from many intelligible species (ut forma acquisita ex multis intelligibilia), the agent intellect. In contrast to the first type of natural form mentioned earlier, a body related to this latter kind of form is not ‘tied down’ by the matter of the composite. It can achieve many more operations than simple physical objects, such as stones. Considering the Neoplatonic language (participation) and the multiplicity of operations the soul can achieve, it seems that a form of this sort is not part of the composite but rather external to it. This is bad news indeed for a naturalistic Aristotelian interpretation of the soul. Stones and cats have natural forms that are intrinsic, and they disappear when the composite disintegrates. Since the rational soul is essential for the body but external, it keeps existing when the human being dies. For Albert, it will prove crucial to implement the idea of participation to show how lower powers, such as the sensory powers, function on an organic level while depending on the rational soul. Aquinas’s theory of human perception, and its underlying principles, is different from Albert’s in many respects. Since there is extensive research on this issue, I wish to highlight some key differences, focusing on the Summa

22 23

sua ad causam primam, per quam est et per quam stat esse ipsius. Illae autem quae sunt virtutes in corpore, sunt in ea, secundum quod ipsa est anima, cuius proprium est esse actum corporis et agere in corpore et in naturam, quia sic natura et naturales potentiae sunt instrumenta eius. Et ideo dicitur a quibusdam esse in horizonte aeternitatis et temporis. Et intellectus etiam, qui fluit ex ipsa, secundum quod ipsa emanet a causa prima et stat per ipsam in esse, propter hoc variatur et efficitur varius in se et in speculatione, quoniam id quod fluit ab ea, secundum quod ipsa est resultatio naturae intellectualis primae conversa ad primam causam per lucis suae participationem, est in ea sicut lux et est intellectus agens; quod autem fluit ab ea, secundum quod ipsa substantia, per quam est natura corporis stans et fixa et contenta, est intellectus possibilis”. Albertus Magnus, De intellectu et intelligibili [henceforth, De intellectu] I, 1, 3, ed Borgnet 1890, p. 481: “Similiter autem in causa quae est fons vitae et cognitionis, vivum non addit aliquid super alterum: quia suum vivere est suum intelligere […]”. See Albertus Magnus, De intellectu I, 1, 7, p. 488s.

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Theologiae Ia qq. 75–76.24 From the outset, Aquinas’s approach seems to be in line with a relatively natural reading of Aristotle’s De anima in that he considers the soul as “the first principle of life”.25 In this sense, it is not the same as a body (the soul is not a body), but it is that by which a body performs certain activities, such as breathing, growing, sensing, etc. This is true of any type of soul, be it vegetative, sensitive, or rational. Unsurprisingly, what sets the rational soul apart is the fact that it allows for activities not rooted in matter, such as abstract thought, and therefore the rational soul is subsistent since it does not depend on bodily functions to exist.26 This, however, does not mean that bodily features are not involved in a proper definition of the rational soul. Aquinas makes a distinction when discussing a question reminiscent of Albert’s dictum “homo solus intellectus est”,27 i.e., whether the soul is the human being. The rational soul helps define what human beings are; yet, to obtain a complete set of the concepts involved, it is necessary to include the bodily aspects since they are part of the definition. Reducing, for instance, the definition of ‘human being’ to rationality would leave out the fact that human beings are also corporeal beings. He says: For the nature of a species consists in what its definition signifies. But in the case of natural things, the definition signifies not the form alone, but the form and the matter. For this reason, the matter is part of the species in natural things […].28 The rational soul conceptually entails bodily functions and organs because its identifying markers are the operations it carries out: Any given thing is identified with what carries out the operations of that thing, and so a human being is identified with what carries out the ­operations of a human being. We have shown, however, that sensing is not the operation of the soul alone. Therefore, since sensing is one of the operations of a human being (even if not one unique to humans), it is clear that a human being is not a soul alone, but something composed of a soul and a body.29 24 25 26 27 28 29

In what follows, I will quote the translation of those passages from Pasnau 2002. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae [henceforth, ST] Ia, q. 75, a. 1, c. Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia, q. 75, a. 2. E.g. Albertus Magnus, De unitate II, p. 15. Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia, q. 75, a. 4, c., transl. Pasnau 2002, p. 9. Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia, q. 75, a. 4, c., transl. Pasnau 2002, p. 10.

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Contrary to what Albert suggests, there is no way for Aquinas to separate the bodily functions of living human beings from the rational soul. It is the substantial form of the composite since: It is clear that the first thing through which the body lives is the soul. Moreover, since life is displayed in different grades of living beings through different operations, the soul is through which we first carry out any one of these life operations. For the soul is the first thing through which we are nourished, through which we sense, through which we engage in locomotion, and—likewise—through which we first think. Therefore this principle through which we first think, whether it be called intellect or the intellective soul, in the form of the body.30 This again is straightforwardly Aristotelian, yet there is a slight turn that reminds us again of Albert in that Aquinas tells us that forms of composita in the natural world have different degrees of existence: It is important to consider, however, that to the extent a form is loftier (nobilior), to that extent, it is more dominant over corporeal matter, less immersed in it, and more surpasses it in its operation or power. For this reason, we see that the form of a mixed body has an operation that is not caused by the elemental qualities. And the farther we go in loftiness among forms, the more we find that the power of the form surpasses the elemental matter: the vegetative soul beyond the form of metal and the sensory soul beyond the vegetative soul. But the human soul is the ­ultimate in loftiness among forms. Thus its power so surpasses corporeal matter that it has an operation and power that it in no respect shares with corporeal matter. And this power is called the intellect.31 Although there seems to be a kind of hierarchy of forms like in Albert, Aquinas does not commit to positing the rational soul outside the scope of being a substantial form as Albert does: it necessarily constitutes the composite as a whole and in all of its parts. I think this is a powerful insight into the proper characteristics of the human soul, which shapes what Aquinas thinks of human perception, ultimately setting him apart from Albert, as it will hopefully become apparent in the following section.

30 31

Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia, q. 76, a. 1, c., transl. Pasnau 2002, p. 20. Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia, q. 76, a. 1, c., transl. Pasnau 2002, p. 23.

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Human Perception: Organs and Powers

So far, it has been shown that Albert and Aquinas maintain that human beings have a substantial form, the rational soul, that differs from all other forms in the ­natural world. The rational soul is in human beings the principle of higher ­cognitive powers, such as reason and intellect, and of vegetative and lower cognitive faculties. Importantly, it does not have the same properties of the matter it is a form of, such as divisibility or magnitude. The rational soul belongs, thus, to an ontological order that radically differs from that of material objects. The preceding part has attempted to answer the question as to what this means. While Albert holds that the intellectual soul is somehow external to the composite, behaving as a mover, Aquinas holds that it is the substantial form of the composite, which, as defining part of the composite, cannot be separated from it. Both stances show different ways to address the question as to how the lower capacities, such as the sensory powers, arise within composite organic beings, such as humans. Human perception, which has psychological and physiological components, is only possible assuming the existence of a rational soul. However, the rational soul does not have organic features, while perception can only be achieved with a corresponding sensory organ. How does the inorganic rational soul warrant a physical response in sensory organs? In this respect, Albert and Aquinas have different answers that ultimately depend on their differing views of the rational soul as a substantial form. In order to bring about lower-level capacities in organic sensory bodies, Albert recurs to the Platonizing idea of fluxus, whereas Aquinas intends to show how they are entailed by the presence of the substantial form, i.e., the rational soul, even though he uses the related idea that the powers of the soul flow from the essence of the soul.32 In Albert the emanationist notion of fluxus is especially important, and in the Commentary on De anima he introduces it as a topic consistent with the

32

Bonin has noted that fluxus or emanation means something very different in Albert and in Aquinas. Critical of Bonin is Ehret 2017, p. 90: “Albert’s emanative psychology is, therefore, best understood as a moment of transition between the two consistent psychological doctrines of Avicenna and Aquinas”. I will not discuss whether Albert’s theory is not as congruent as Avicenna’s or Aquinas’s but rather treat it as explicative of his theory of the sensory powers. To say, however, that Albert’s position is not intelligible (ib.) goes too far, in the first place because emanation does not mean the same in Albert as in Aquinas, and, secondly, because criteria for intelligibility in the context of Platonizing theories of the soul are generally hard to come by.

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philosophical reasoning put forward by Aristotle and Avicenna.33 As mentioned above, the rational soul is external to the compositum, yet it has an effect on it, being, as Albert says, the perfection of the human being, which encompasses the vegetative, sensitive, and rational powers: In man, we say that those three [vegetative, sensitive, and rational] are one substance, which is the act and perfection of man; there is no vegetative or sensitive soul or substance in man, but powers that flow from a substance is the rational soul.34 In keeping with the metaphor of the seaman and his ship, we could think of the seaman without his ship who would, however, cease to be the person that steers the vessel despite having the capacity to do so. The essential separation of rational substance and the organs in which the sensory capacities are implemented shows why the physical aspect of humans is pivotal. Without the rational soul, the perfection of a human being could not be achieved, and without the body, the intellect would not be able to cognize universal truths.35 One way to interpret Albert is to take him as holding that the sensory powers flow from a separate substance, the rational soul, because the sensory capacities already are part of what defines human beings. However, the implementation of those sensory activities only occurs when organic counterparts are present. Albert’s theory of the fluxus potentiarum resembles the presentday analogy of software and hardware. Lines of code are only effective in an 33

34 35

See, for instance, Albertus Magnus, In DA I, 1, 1, p. 2, ll. 20–26: “Et secundum quod est hominis perfectio, non habet affixionem cum hominis aliqua parte, sed potius in eo quod libere et universaliter intelligit et vult, dividitur ab omnibus aliis cum quibus in natura generis communicat, et inquantum talis anima perfectio est huius animati, venit in considerationem naturalis philosophi”. Albertus Magnus, In DA III, 5, 4, p. 249, ll. 26–30. Albertus Magnus, In DA III, 5, 4, p. 249, ll. 26–30: “Diximus superius, quod omnis operatio quae instrumentaliter se habet ad aliam, est materialis et imperfecta ad illam. Sicut enim se habent operationes quinque sensuum ad sensum communem, sic se habent operationes sensus communis ad phantasiam. Similiter se habent etiam operationes phantasiae ad intellectum possibilem, et ulterius intellectus possibilis operationes sic se habent ad agentem, qui absolute et simpliciter est substantia hominis; non tamen dicimus simpliciter unum esse materiam ad alterum, sed materiale hoc modo quo imperfectum dicitur materiale. Imperfectum autem est omne instrumentaliter operans”. See also De causis et processu universitatis a prima causa II, 3, 16, ed. Fauser 1993, p. 153: “Quae quia anima est, intellectualitas in ipsa animaliter est expansa per potentias ad continuum et temporale. Et propter hoc fluunt ab ea potentiae, quae sunt perceptivae continui et quae sunt ­perceptivae obiectorum sensibiliter et temporaliter agentium”.

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environment that allows those lines to serve the purpose for which they have been written. To use another contemporary example: an app without a mobile phone is useless. The same happens, analogously, with the sensory powers in Albert. Even though they are already present in the rational soul, they are only operational when encountering an organic body. In this sense, it is clear that Albert does not hold a version of disembodied perception.36 As we have seen, Aquinas considers a different approach to explain the nature of the rational soul and how the soul’s powers emerge. Even though it has non-­material features, it is firmly rooted in the compositum of which it is the form. For this reason, his theory as to how the powers of the soul arise differs from Aquinas’s who commits to a hylomorphic theory of the formmatter-­compositum in which the substantial form determines what an object is in its totality and all of its parts.37 Since the rational soul is the substantial form in this hylomorphic sense, it encompasses rational, sensory, and vegetative powers. However, given this assumption, he has to show how the rational soul qua form can produce powers since “the soul’s essence is not its capacity. For nothing has a capacity in virtue of its actuality, when considered as an actuality”.38 The solution to this problem consists in saying that the rational soul is a (a) totum potentiale39 and that (b) it ultimately causes bodily organs to function as required.40 For this latter idea, he recurs to the language of fluxus, but in a distinctly different way than in Albert: It is clear, then, that all the soul’s capacities, whether their subject is the soul alone or the composite, flow from the essence of the soul as 36

37

38 39

40

This is what Ehret 2017, 107 suggests: “This general incorruptibility of powers implies that even separated from its material counterpart, the soul remains with all its powers proceeding from it”. Albert surely is not suggesting that the sensory powers are fully ­operational without bodily organs. Here it is worth reminding that Aquinas has a unitarian theory, which Perler 2020, 216ss calls the “metaphysical inclusion model” of the rational soul, meaning that it encompasses all features of a living being, including the so-called inferior powers such as the sensory ones. Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia, q. 77, a. 1, c., transl. Pasnau 2002, p. 49. Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia, q. 77, a. 1, ad 1, ed. Leonina, vol. 5, p. 237: “Totum vero potentiale adest singulis partibus secundum totam suam essentiam, sed non secundum totam virtutem. Et ideo quodammodo potest praedicari de qualibet parte; sed non ita proprie sicut totum universale”. On the notion of totum potentiale see Perler 2020, p. 221. Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia, q. 77, a. 5, c., ed. Leonina, vol. 5, p. 245: “Quaedam vero operationes sunt animae, quae exercentur per organa corporalia; sicut visio per oculum, et auditus per aurem. Et simile est de omnibus aliis operationibus nutritivae et sensitivae partis. Et ideo potentiae quae sunt talium operationum principia, sunt in coniuncto sicut in subiecto, et non in anima sola”.

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their source. It was said already that an accident is caused by its subject since that subject is in actuality and is received in it insofar as it is in potentiality.41 The proper meaning of fluxus here is clarified in article 7 ad 1, which I take not as implying the generation of inferior capacities, but rather as a relation of entailment: Just as a capacity of the soul flows from the soul’s essence through a certain natural process (per naturalem quandam resultationem) rather than through a transformation, and [yet] exists at the same time as the soul, so too for one capacity relative to another.42 The passage clarifies that whenever a rational soul constitutes the substance of a living human body, the sensory powers naturally appear as well. 4

The Epistemology of Human Perception

So far, we have seen that Albert holds a Platonizing theory of the rational soul according to which the powers of rational beings flow from it without the soul itself being the substantial form of the composite. On the other side, Aquinas seems to be more committed to Aristotelian hylomorphism, thus positing the rational soul as a substantial form of the complete composite and every part. Although it is subsistent, it is nevertheless an integral part of living, organic human beings, which warrants their having cognitive powers. Obviously human perception eventually manifests itself when human beings put their sensory capacities into practice. As we have seen, those capacities obtain their powers from what is essentially human: the rational soul. If the proper function of the rational soul is to produce intellectual knowledge and universal concepts, and if the rational soul qua form determines the material conditions for perception, that is, when humans perceive an individual material object, they do so with those rational data as a cognitive background, which is essentially propositional.43 Explicitly or implicitly, whatever

41 42 43

Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia, q. 77, a. 6, c., transl. Pasnau 2002, p. 59. Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia, q. 77, a. 7, ad 1, transl. Pasnau 2002, p. 61. Perler 2020, p. 231 puts this nicely, although in reference to Aquinas: “[…] Rationality ­naturally ‘kicks in’, no matter what you perceive”.

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human beings perceive is perceived because of their rational capacity to form general concepts and theories about the physical world. Both Albert and Aquinas explain the epistemology of human perception in terms of acquiring beliefs about the physical world, and both are to a greater (Albert) or lesser (Aquinas) extent relying on the psychology of the inner senses. As mentioned before, for Albert the sensory apparatus in human beings only performs as such, i.e., rationally, through a process of participation (fluxus). The Neoplatonic parlance underscores the idea that lower cognitive capacities perform as human capacities because they are modeled by reason. In this chapter, I would like to show that Albert’s epistemology of perception is in profoundly dependent on the metaphysics of the rational soul. Although his interest in the organic and physiological structure of perceptual knowledge leads him to ascertain a close similarity between human perceptual cognition and that of some mammals, such as primates and horses, his metaphysical perspective points at some sort of human exceptionalism. At the same time the physiological bases of perception allow, from an epistemological point of view, for a kind of gradualism according to which there are different degrees of perceptual certitude, which is relevant when thinking about the accuracy of human perception and that of non-rational animals. If perception consists of acquiring beliefs about what is perceived, it is a short step for Albert to construe perception in terms of logical deductions.44 Human perception is imbued with rationality, and it not only works physiologically very much the same way animal perception works; also on the epistemological level, there are no essential differences between humans and non-rational animals. Both can grasp an intention as signifying a complete object, including accidental and universal features in a merely e­ pistemological context or a practical as well. We say that fantasy is a power that composes images with intentions, intentions with images, images with images, and intentions with intentions with a twofold purpose that is to be found in particular things. One [purpose] consists in a larger cognition of particular things, which the sensitive soul can obtain; its purpose is a judgment that this is in that and something different is in something different and so of everything of which a judgment (sententia) can be uttered by way of affirmation or negation. The second purpose is an action which, based on those particular things, is intended, such as the action of beings endowed with 44

For this part, I have drawn on material I have produced together with Paloma Hernández.

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reason is the purpose of art. […] Such a cognition openly appears in some animals […].45 Intentions are at the center of Albert’s theory of perceptual knowledge; those intentions contain various degrees of complexity that can be uttered propositionally or represented non-conceptually.46 You call an intention what signifies a thing individually or universally according to various degrees of abstraction. It does not give being neither to the sense power when it is in it, nor to the intellect, when it is in it, but it produces a sign (signum) and knowledge (notitia) of the thing. Therefore, the intention is not a part of the thing like the form, but it is the species of the knowledge of the whole thing (species totius notitiae rei); hence the intention, because it is abstracted from the whole and because it is a signification of the whole (signification totius), is predicated of a thing (de re praedicatur). The intention of a colored thing, which is in the eye, yields knowledge of the whole thing in the same way as the intention, which resides in the imagination of a particular thing, which is not present.47 One might point at various aspects that are implicit in this quote: (1) perception is the result of a causal influence the physical world exerts on the sensory apparatus (external and internal); (2) this sort of realism leads to the formation of images (sensory forms) and intentions, i.e., more or less complex mental representations that depict those objects; (3) the accuracy of those representations are such that they depict the thing in varying degrees, which is to say that when the eye grasps the intention of an object, it is less comprehensive than the intention grasped by the fantasy.48 As has been said, the perception of intentions is best understood as the acquisition of beliefs, which follow specific basic logical rules in that they are predicated of a thing affirmatively or negatively. The main point here is that affirmation or negation as related to sensory intentions is not a clear-cut affair, because for Albert, who largely follows Ghazali in this respect, there are different forms of reasoned deduction or syllogism: demonstration, dialectics, rhetoric,

45 46 47 48

Albertus Magnus, In DA III, 1, 3, p. 168, ll. 27–47. See on non-conceptual cognition in Albert Tellkamp 2013. Albertus Magnus, In DA II, 3, 4, p. 102, ll. 31–42. On the accuracy of animal perception, such as in apes, see Tellkamp 2016.

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sophistic and poetry.49 At first sight, assigning formal validity, and hence a truth value, to deductions that are not themselves demonstrative seems unconventional. From the point of view of the Aristotelian theory of demonstration, the formal validity, has to be the same in all kinds of syllogism. However, for Albert different truth values are a consequence of their matter, which is related to whether the propositions are credible or probable from the epistemic point of view. What Albert seems to have in mind is that, on the one hand, we have a precise truth-value of the proposition when talking about the form. On the other, higher or lesser degrees of epistemic certitude are related to what he calls the matter of the syllogism.50 Both aspects, i.e., the truth-value and the epistemic plausibility of the premises and the conclusions, are causally related in at least three ways: 1. If the premises are plausible and true, the conclusion is plausible and true. 2. If the premises are false, the conclusion is not plausible. 3. If the premises are only plausible, no true conclusion can be drawn. Albert restates this last point: 4. If the premises are only plausible, no eternal or necessary true conclusions can be drawn. There seems to be no problem with (1): the properties of the premises being transferred onto the conclusion. (2) is more troubling because, from something false, something plausible can be concluded, even though the syllogism itself is not valid. (3) is ambiguous because, as Albert sees it, it is possible that Ghazali mixed up the truth-value with the degrees of certitude, which is why Albert adds the condition of necessary truth in (4). In the end, no plausible proposition entails an eternally necessary conclusion. In order to further elucidate the relation between truth-value and epistemic plausibility, Albert, using Ghazali’s example, introduces the analogy of a coin (nummus), which is used to highlight the distinction between form and matter of the syllogism and the five degrees of certitude.51 Albert is aware that it is 49 50

51

See al-Ghazali, Logica, ed. Lohr 1965, pp. 278–282. Albertus Magnus, In posteriorum analyticorum [henceforth, An. Post.] I, 1, 2, ed. Borgnet, col. 4b: “Materia enim syllogismi propositiones sunt, quae quando fuerint credibiles et verae, sequitur conclusio credibilis et vera: si vero fuerint falsae, conclusiones non sequuntur credibiles sive probabiles: si vero fuerint propositiones opinabiles tantum, non possunt ex his concludi propositiones certae veritatis aeternae sive necessariae”. Albertus Magnus, An. Post. I, 1, 2, col. 4b: “Sicut quando est aurum materia nummi et rotunditas nummi forma, aliquando falsificatur nummus, eo quod a rotunditate inflectitur forma: et privatione quidem formae nummus amittit nomen nummi, eo quod a forma fit nummi denominatio: aliquando vero falsificatur nummus vitio materiae, scilicet cum

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not altogether clear what the form of a syllogism amounts to. Hence in his commentary on Posterior Analytics he tries to solve some of the obscurities, such as showing how the matter of the coin is analogous to the matter of the syllogism. The argument might work like this: due to a material defect, the coin does not lose its denomination (1 denarius [our example] is 1 denarius no matter how worn out the coin is), but it loses material value (given that back in the Middle Ages the value of the currency was dependent on its weight in copper, silver or gold). Analogously, when the matter of the syllogism diminishes, it loses degrees of certitude. In the analogy, Ghazali and Albert look for criteria to establish the purity of the gold. There are materials that only experts can properly examine, i.e., their composition is evident only to the trained eye. However, there are also cases in which the trained, as well as the untrained eye, can obtain an adequate knowledge. Other cases, however, are opaque such as in cases of counterfeit money, but there might also be counterfeit money that everyone recognizes as such. As the example of the coin shows, the characteristics of which can be determined to a greater or lesser degree, it is clear that certitude is an epistemic category through and through, for it relates the truth-value of a syllogism with the different ways of recognizing its validity. In spelling out the analogy, Ghazali defines each of the five types of ­syllogism in terms of its truth-value and its epistemic value. A demonstrative syllogism is true and plausible, and it admits of no doubt.52 The dialectical syllogism is close to the truth, but it can contain fallacies.53 On commenting on those ­passages, Albert considers that Ghazali omitted the true cause for the epistemic differences between those two kinds of syllogisms. For him, certitude is an epistemic feature that arises with the necessity or contingency of the ­proposition, which means that it has linguistic features apart from ­metaphysical ones. fuerit ex auro falsificato, ferro, vel aere: sed tunc non amittit nomen nummi, quamvis amittat nummi valorem. Similiter syllogismus est vitiosus aliquando vitio materiae, ­aliquando vitio formae. Vitio quidem formae quando peccat in figura, vel modo, ex q­ uibus esse debet: aliquando vitio materiae, quando forma quidem bona est, sed propositiones non sunt certae, sicut est propositio ex qua est syllogismus inopinabilis vel falsitatis”. See also al-Ghazali, Logica, p. 273, ll. 499–505. 52 al-Ghazali, Logica, p. 273, ll. 515–517: “Primum ordinem habet illa quae est vera, credibilis, sine dubietate et sine deceptione. Et argumentatio composita ex talibus dicitur ­demonstrativa”. 53 al-Ghazali, Logica, p. 273, ll. 518–520: “Secundum, quae est adeo proxima veritati, ut ­difficile possit fallacia esse in illa, sed potest fallacia esse in illa, cum diligentissime ­consideratur. Et argumentatio ex ea composita vocatur dialectica”.

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Ghazali thinks that certitude is the result of facts being transparent, yet in Albert’s explanation this criterion of transparency is all but gone, which becomes evident in his analysis of the rhetorical syllogism. While Ghazali holds that this kind of syllogism includes some kind of awareness regarding the reasons for holding the plausibility and the truth-value of a proposition, which is part of rhetorical argumentation,54 Albert simply states that it is “an opinion-based (opinabilis) proposition due to the majority’s opinion which does not know”.55 The two remaining types of propositions are the sophistical (transformativae in Albert and, sumica in Ghazali), which relate to the poetical propositions. Both types of propositions are obviously false, yet the sophistical are intentionally false designed to deceive, while the poetical are intentionally false to produce an emotional response in an audience. This is how Albert classifies propositions: I. Demonstrative 1. Primae (axioms) 2. Sensibiles (facts of sense perception) 3. Experimentales (facts of experience) 4. Famosae (inherited by tradition) 5. Mediatae (contain the middle term for a demonstration) II. Dialectical 6. Maximas (evident) 7. Concessas (granted) III. Sophistical 8. Putabiles (facts of the aestimativa) 9. Similatoriae (by imitation) IV. Rhetorical 10. Maximas in apparientia (apparently evident) 11. Opinabiles (opinion-based) 12. Accepted by many V. Poetical 13. Transformativae (tentative arguments) The preceding remarks allow us to understand how propositions are derived from perception. After presenting the five types of certitude, Albert establishes 54 al-Ghazali, Logica, p. 273, ll. 521–523: “Tertium habet ea quae est opinabilis ­opinione convincenti, sed tamen animus percipit eius contrarium et quia potest falli. Et ­ ­argumentatio composita ex eis vocatur rhetorica”. 55 Albertus Magnus, An. Post. I, 1, 2, col. 5a: “In tertio autem ordine est propositio ­opinabilis opinione plurium non sapientum: et argumentatio ex his composita vocatur ratio vel argumentatio rhetorica”.

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13 types of propositions, which are defined one by one. However, the demonstrative propositions are the most relevant kind for the present purpose. They relate to the highest degree of certitude, and hence they can be used to form a demonstrative syllogism. For instance, famous propositions are derived from known issues and accepted by everyone; no-one doubts them although they may not have been verified previously: “Famous propositions are those which we ordinarily refer to, such as ‘Rome is a superb city’, although we have never seen Rome”.56 Nevertheless, not every famous proposition should be considered true, which makes it all the stranger that Ghazali attributes them the highest degree of certitude. On this very point, Albert inserts a clarification absent in Ghazali’s account. He says: “One speaks of famous propositions, the fame of which is conceded more in virtue of the love for the good than for the love of truth they have, as in moral propositions”.57 In order to preserve its highest degree of certitude, Albert relates it not to its intrinsic truth-value but to a value open to estimation, which emphasizes the causal role this particular inner sense, the virtus aestimativa, plays in the recognition of issues that have a practical relevance. Thus, the famous propositions are not so much true as they are accurate in a predominantly practical context. Opinion-based (opinabiles) propositions are part of the sophistical ­syllogisms, while the imitation-based (imitabiles) propositions lead to poetical syllogisms. The point is that in both, the estimative faculty is involved, which in turn should help us relate Albert’s account of the proposition to the text from Commentary on De anima quoted above. That passage relates the logic of the syllogism to the psychology of sense perception, and it might thus be a solution in cases where sensitive certitude collides with rational truth-values. Although they are usually false, opinion-based propositions produce strong convictions: “Opinion-based propositions are false which are, however, fixed in the soul in such a way that no-one can doubt them”.58 This is because the estimative power produces judgments (sententiae per modum affirmationis vel negationis) beyond mere sensation. When the estimative power judges beyond the scope of its capacities, it reaches conclusions that tend to contradict true judgments understood by 56 57 58

Albertus Magnus, An. Post. I, 1, 2, col. 5b. This seems to be Albert’s take on G ­ hazali’s ­example, Logica, pp. 274–275: “Sicut haec quod ‘Aegyptus est’, quamvis numquam ­vidimus”. Albertus Magnus, An. Post. I, 1, 2, col. 5a. Albertus Magnus, An. Post. I, 1, 2, col. 6a: “Opinabiles autem sunt propositiones falsae, quae tamen ita fixae sunt in animo, ut nemo de eis dubitet”.

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reason, for instance, when it judges, e.g., “that the totality of the world is limited by plenitude or void which are outside the world, e.g., that a body does not increase, grow or diminish by itself, but by something added”.59 The ­estimative faculty might conclude that the universe has to be surrounded by something, but already Aristotle thought—based on rational analysis—that beyond the limits of the universe, there is nothing. In the end, the error of estimation results from reaching false conclusions related inappropriately to sense experience.60 The imaginative propositions contain an even lesser degree of certitude; those are the poetical syllogisms. Although Albert does not mention the ­cogitativa in this context, the example is very similar to the one employed by Avicenna to highlight the difference between the estimative and the intellective powers and which actually is of Aristotelian origin: The imaginative and imitational [propositions] are propositions which we say are false, but by that through which they are grasped, they impress in the apprehending soul that which has to be shunned or desired. This is like someone who says that honey is yellow bile that someone expels. And therefore, it is shunned as if it were true, although it is known to be false. Of this kind are the poetical propositions.61 From an internal, epistemic point of view, it seems plausible to shun honey if given the meaning of yellow bile. That it is, in fact, sweet and tasteful is irrelevant as long as it is believed to be bitter, although tasting it would probably dispel that opinion. So far, this brief excursion into the logic of certitude has shown that Albert does indeed consider gradual differences that pertain to different types of discursive and cognitive processes. It suggests that there are no reasons to posit essential differences between the true judgment formed by reason based on perception and ways to reach not entirely true but plausible representations. The different kinds of syllogistic deduction yield different levels of certitude, one of which is generated by the estimative power. To a lesser extent than in humans, other animals endowed with an estimative power grasp some aspects 59 60

61

Albertus Magnus, An. Post. I, 1, 2, col. 6a. Albertus Magnus, An. Post. I, 1, 2, col. 6a: “Error enim aestimationis non percipitur in ­argumentationibus compositis ex primis propositionibus, quas aestimatio recipit et ­concedit: sed postquam illata fuerit conclusio inconveniens abhorret eam: et quod abhorret eam, scitur quod non est ex alia causa, nisi quia abhorret quae non sunt sensibilia vel cum sensibilibus accepta”. Albertus Magnus, An. Post. I, 1, 2, col. 7a.

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of the conclusion of such a syllogism. Epistemic gradualism is certainly a theory alien to the principle of non-contradiction: a proposition is either true or false, but not something in between. But it is also appealing because it shows that humans with their organic cognitive apparatus behave the same way as other animals, endowed with a similar perceptual apparatus. The question as to how the epistemic gradualism of human perception is compatible with Albert’s metaphysical exceptionalism is more complex, least because the species of the whole human soul differs from the soul of animals, and one has no power that does not differ in species from the powers of the other. The power of sight of humans and donkeys differ in species, not because of the species of the visible object […] but because of the species of the pupil and the power of sight.62 The soul as first actuality and perfection achieves different results in different species. The perfection of humans is the rational soul, and it ­constitutes the physical organs in such a way as to perform in accordance with rationality. As we will see, Aquinas precisely holds this thesis: the sensory powers in human beings cannot but perform when a rational background is presupposed. Albert the Great agrees with Aquinas on this point, since, despite acknowledging the physiological and epistemological similarities across animal species, he is not disinclined to set human perception apart from the perception of other animal species. Aquinas is keen to avoid the complexities of Albert’s human perception theory. As seen above, he is wholly committed to the inclusion model of the rational soul as a substantial form of the compositum. He develops a theory that distinguishes between the rational perception of human beings and the instinctive perception of higher animals.63 What makes human p ­ erception different is not the fact that humans have five external senses and four inner senses (remember that Aquinas does not see fantasy and imagination as distinct inner senses), but the way those powers causally connect and, most importantly, how they interact with the sphere of intellectual cognition. In this respect, the vis cogitativa deserves special attention because it points at what human perception achieves and what animal perception cannot grasp,

62 63

Albertus Magnus, In DA I, 2, 15, p. 59, ll. 70–76. I have dealt with the origin of this distinction in-depth in Tellkamp 2012.

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namely to immediately (statim) grasp individual instances of general kinds.64 This is to say, as Aquinas thinks, that when a human encounters objects of the material world, she not only sees that it is such-and-such shaped, having this or that color, but that it is an instance of the species that object is an individual of. In that sense, human beings see a particular wolf as belonging to the species wolf, but not just as grey or solely as dangerous. Human perception achieves something non-rational animals could not achieve, i.e., to grasp something sub natura communi. In this respect, perhaps the most striking remarks on human and animal perception are contained in his Commentary on De anima, where he discusses what it means to perceive something per accidens. Here it is worth quoting in length what he has to say about how human perception works: If, however, [the object] is apprehended as an individual—e.g., when I see something colored I perceive this human being or this animal, then this sort of apprehension in a human being is produced through the cogitative power. This is also called particular reason (ratio particularis) because it joins individual intentions in the way that universal reason joins universal concepts (rationum). But all the same, this power is in the soul’s sensory part. For the sensory power, at its highest level, participates somewhat in the intellective power in a human being, in whom sense is connected to intellect (coniungitur intellectui). […] For the cogitative power apprehends an individual as existing under a common nature (sub natura communi). It can do this insofar as it is united to the intellective power in the same subject. Thus it cognizes this human being as it is this human being and this piece of wood as it is this piece of wood.65 There is, then, an essential hiatus between the way humans (via the vis cogitativa) and how non-rational animals (via the vis aestimativa) perceive: the former perceive given that they possess general concepts, while the latter grasp individual data in the sense of producing a reaction of flight or desire. In humans, the lower cognitive powers, mainly the cogitative power, participate in higher ones, although in Aquinas this relationship differs from that in Albert. As seen above, for Aquinas, the rational soul, as the substantial form of a composite, is the necessary condition for having lower cognitive powers. Hence the

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In recent years, the vis cogitativa has been studied by Perler 2020, pp. 222–231; Lisska 2016, pp. 143–144 and 211–221; Di Martino 2008, pp. 85–101. Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De anima II, 13, transl. Pasnau 1999, p. 208.

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vis cogitativa has dual characteristics. On the hand, it is located in the brain66 and on the other, it is conjoined with the intellect. This appears to mean that the vis cogitativa only functions as such if the subject is rational; if it is not rational, it cannot have a vis cogitativa, only a vis aestimativa, such as nonhuman animals. This is an important difference between Aquinas and Albert. While the former differentiates between animal perception and human perception, Albert physiologically and psychologically accounts in the same way for human and non-human perception via the virtus aestimativa. The virtus cogitativa in Albert is not a distinct power, but it stands for the way particulars are grasped rationally by the imagination and the virtus aestimativa.67 5 Conclusion I hope to have shown that human perception according to Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas has three features. First, they have a different metaphysical approach as to how the rational soul constitutes bodily processes. While Albert is reluctant to see the soul as a full-blown substantial form of the composite, he nevertheless thinks it is a sort of external perfecting principle, in the sense of being a moving principle. Aquinas, however, disagrees with this approach and opts, with some caveats, for the Aristotelian hylomorphic idea, labeled by Perler as the “metaphysical inclusion model”.68 Those different approaches explain different ways of establishing the presence of cognitive processes on the organic level. Since, for Albert, the rational soul seems to be essentially separated from the body it perfects, the bodily functions come into being via a trickle-down-effect (fluxus) by which the rational soul makes the organs work as designed. For Aquinas, the bodily cognitive functions are entailed by the fact that the compositum cannot be thought of as existing

66

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Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia, q. 78, a. 4, c., ed. Leonina, vol. 5, p. 256: “Et ideo quae in aliis a­ nimalibus dicitur aestimativa naturalis, in homine dicitur cogitative, quae per collationem quandam huiusmodi adinvenit. Unde etiam dicitur ratio particularis, cui medici assignant determinatum organum, scilicet medial partem capitis, est enim collativa intentionum individualium, sicut ratio intellective intentionum universalium”. Albertus Magnus, In DA III, 2, 19, p. 206, ll. 27–28: “[…] Cogitativa […] est actus rationis conferentis de particularibus”; II, 4, 7, p. 157, ll. 86–90: “Phantasia autem ab apparitione dicta est, quoniam illa est maior cognitio, quam habet anima sensibilis, et est ultimum virtutis eius, et haec a vulgo in hominibus vocatur cogitativa, cum tamen proprie cogitare sit rationis”. Perler 2020, p. 216s.

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without the soul as forma corporis. To be sure, Aquinas thinks that the subsistent rational soul is only separable once the compositum ceases to exist. Second, epistemologically there is more agreement between both in that the content of human perception can be accurate or inaccurate or even true or false. This is to say that human beings tend to perceive the world in some sort of t­ heory-laden way. What this means is that whenever human beings go about their day-to-day businesses recognizing objects and identifying states of affairs, they can only do so if they already possess the relevant concepts. For instance, if I go to the bookshelf looking for a specific book, I immediately recognize that those square objects composed of multiple thin layers covered with black dots are books. Without that previously acquired knowledge, I could not be looking for a book. However, for a dog, that very object could be something very different, maybe something to play with, but for it, it would not be a book qua book. Third, Albert and Aquinas agree that this primary feature of human perception presupposes concept-formation that leads to perceptual beliefs. Albert does so by adding a sort of epistemological gradualism to his view of metaphysical exceptionalism, which in the end allows for different degrees of perceptual certitude. Aquinas is reluctant to do so, because he thinks that successful perception consists in identifying an instance that belongs to a general concept. i.e., a species or genus. Despite their differing metaphysical assumptions, both authors agree that it is necessary to articulate a theory as to how the organic cognitive functions of humans are endowed with rationality, because they both also agree that it is only possible to make sense of what human beings do if their bodily powers are thought of as an integral part of their humanity. Bibliography Primary Sources

Albertus Magnus, In posteriorum analyticorum, ed. Auguste Borgnet, Paris: Vives, 1890 (B. Alberti Magni Ratisboniensis episcopi, ordinis predicatorum, Opera Omnia, 2). Albertus Magnus, De intellectu et intelligibili, ed. Auguste Borgnet, Paris: Vives, 1890 (B. Alberti Magni Ratisboniensis episcopi, ordinis predicatorum, Opera Omnia, 9). Albertus Magnus, De animalibus libri XXVI, 2 vols., ed. Hermann Stadler, Münster: Aschendorff, 1916–1920 (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters: Texte und Untersuchungen, 15–16). Albertus Magnus, De natura et origine animae, ed. Bernhard Geyer, Münster: Aschendorff, 1955 (Alberti Magni Ordinis fratrum praedicatorum episcopi Opera Omnia, 12).

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Albertus Magnus, De anima, ed. Clemens Stroick, Münster: Aschendorff, 1968 (Alberti Magni Ordinis fratrum praedicatorum episcopi Opera Omnia, 7/1). Albertus Magnus, De unitate intellectus, ed. Alfons Hufnagel, Münster: Aschendorff, 1975 (Alberti Magni Ordinis fratrum praedicatorum episcopi Opera Omnia, 27/1). Albertus Magnus, Super Ethica commentum et quaestiones, ed. Wilhelm Kübel, ­Münster: Aschendorff, 1987 (Alberti Magni Ordinis fratrum praedicatorum episcopi Opera Omnia, 14/2). Albertus Magnus, De causis et processu universitatis a prima causa, ed. Winfried Fauser, Münster: Aschendorff, 1993 (Alberti Magni Ordinis fratrum praedicatorum episcopi Opera Omnia, 17/2). Albertus Magnus, De homine, ed. by Henryk Anzulewicz & Joachim R. Söder, Münster: Aschendorff, 2008 (Alberti Magni Ordinis fratrum praedicatorum episcopi Opera Omnia, 27/2). al-Ghazali, Logica, in Charles Lohr (ed.), “Logica Algazelis: Introduction and Critical text”, Traditio, 21 (1965), pp. 223–290. Thomas Aquinas, Pars prima Summae theologiae, qq. 50–119, Rome: Ex Typographia Polyglotta S. C. de Propaganda Fide, 1889 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 5) [Thomas Aquinas, The Treatise on Human Nature. Summa Theologiae 1a 75–89, transl. Robert Pasnau, Indianapolis– Cambridge: Hackett, 2002]. Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De anima, ed. René-Antoine Gauthier, Rome–Paris: Commissio Leonina–Vrin, 1984 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 45/1) [Thomas Aquinas, A Commentary on Aristotle’s De anima, transl. Robert Pasnau, New Haven–London: Yale University Press, 1999].

Secondary Literature

Bonin, Thérèse (2000), “The Emanative Psychology of Albertus Magnus”, Topoi, 19, pp. 45–57. Di Martino, Carla (2008), Ratio particularis: La doctrine des sens internes d’Avicenne à Thomas d’Aquin. Contribution à l’etude de la tradition arabo-latine de la psychologie d’Aristote, Paris: Vrin (Études de philosophie médiévale, 94). Ehret, Charles (2017), “The Flow of Powers. Emanation in the Psychologies of Avicenna, Albert the Great, and Aquinas”, Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy, 5, pp. 87–121. Hellmaier, Paul (2011), Anima et intellectus. Albertus Magnus und Thomas von Aquin über Seele und Intellekt des Menschen, Münster: Aschendorff, 2011 (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters. Texte und Untersuchungen. N. F, 75). Köhler, Theodor W. (2014), Homo animal nobilissimum. Konturen des spezifisch Menschlichen in der naturphilosophischen Aristoteleskommentierung des dreizehnten

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Jahrhunderts, 2 vols., Leiden: Brill, 2008–2014 (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 114/1–2). Lisska, Anthony J. (2016), Aquinas’s Theory of Perception. An Analytic Reconstruction, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Möhle, Hannes (ed.) (2011), Albertus Magnus und sein System der Wissenschaften. Schlüsseltexte in Übersetzung Lateinisch-Deutsch, Münster: Aschendorff. Müller, Jörn (2009), “Die Seele als Seins- und Tätigkeitsprinzip des menschlichen Lebens nach Averroes, Albertus Magnus und Thomas von Aquin”, in Petra Bahr & Stephan Schaede (eds.), Das Leben. Historisch-systematische Studien zur Geschichte eines Begriffs, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck (Religion und Aufklärung, 17), pp. 183–215. Oelze, Anselm (2018), Animal Rationality: Later Medieval Theories 1250–1350, Leiden: Brill (Investigating Medieval Philosophy, 12). Pasnau, Robert (2001), Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature. A Philosophical Study of Summa theologiae Ia 75–89, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Perler, Dominik (2019), “Rational Seeing: Thomas Aquinas on Human Perception”, in ed. Elena Băltuţă (ed.), Medieval Perceptual Puzzles: Theories of Sense Perception in the 13th and 14th Centuries, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Investigating Medieval Philosophy, 13), pp. 213–237. Runggaldier, Edmund (2010), Die menschliche Seele bei Albertus Magnus. Ein nichtreduktionistischer Beitrag zum Leib-Seele-Problem, Münster: Aschendorff (Lectio Albertina, 11). Tellkamp, Jörg Alejandro (1999), Sinne, Gegenstände und Sensibilia. Zur Wahrnehmungstheorie des Thomas von Aquin, Leiden: Brill (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 66). Tellkamp, Jörg Alejandro (2012), “Vis aestimativa and vis cogitativa in Thomas ­Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences”, The Thomist, 76/4, pp. 611–640. Tellkamp, Jörg Alejandro (2012), “Albert the Great on Structure and Function of the Inner Senses”, in Richard Taylor & Irfan Omar (eds.), The Judeo-Christian-Islamic Heritage. Philosophical & Theological Perspectives, Marquette: Marquette University Press (Marquette Studies in Philosophy, 75), pp. 305–324. Tellkamp, Jörg Alejandro (2013), “Albert the Great on Perception and Non-conceptual Content”, in Luis Xavier López & Jörg Alejandro Tellkamp (eds.), Philosophical Psychology in Arabic Thought and the Latin Aristotelianism of the 13th Century, Paris: Vrin (Sic et non), pp. 205–221. Tellkamp, Jörg Alejandro (2016), “Aping Logic? Albert the Great on Animal Mind and Action”, in Jari Kaukua & Tomas Ekenberg (eds.), Subjectivity and Selfhood in ­Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, Cham: Springer (Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, 16), pp. 109–123.

CHAPTER 5

Aquinas on Rationality and Perception Fabrizio Amerini The purpose of the present study is to reappraise some recent interpretations of the relation between rationality and perception in Thomas Aquinas. First of all, let me say about what this study is not. There is an understanding of ­perception in the current philosophy of mind (viz., perception as the mind’s perceptual experience, mental states of the emotional kind, and the like, which can influence our ordinary activity of reasoning) that does not completely match Aquinas’s notion of perception; it is rather comparable with Aquinas’s notion of passion. The relation between rationality and perception understood in this way (viz. as passion) will not be the object of this study. I shall not discuss Aquinas’s position on how our emotional states can direct, deceive, or hijack our mind’s rational activity. For cognitive psychology, this is an important issue that has also received attention in the literature on Aquinas.1 Aquinas believes that in the human being, there is only one human soul, and this entails that all cognitive functions and processes are coordinated, ordered to one another. The lower cognitive faculties of the human soul exist for the sake of higher ones, so that there is continuous interaction between the sensitive and the rational parts of the human soul. Sometimes lower cognitive faculties can interfere with each other and even with higher faculties: an intensification or a weakening of a lower faculty can produce, inversely, a weakening or an intensification of another lower faculty or of a higher faculty.2 In particular, passions and emotions influencing lower cognitive faculties can

1 See e.g. Uffenheimer-Lippens 2003; De Haan 2014; De Haan 2020. For an introduction to Aquinas’s theory of perception and its background, see Mailloux 1942; Haldane 1983; Spruit 1994; Tellkamp 1995–1996; Tellkamp 1999; Burnyeat 2001; Lisska 2016. For an introduction to current discussions on the relation between rationality and perception, see Siegel 2016, on which see Ghijssen 2018. I wish to express here my gratitude to William Duba for revising the English of this paper. It goes without saying that the responsibility for any mistake or misunderstanding is entirely mine. 2 See Summa theologiae Ia-IIae, q. 37, a. 1; IIa-IIae, q. 123, a. 8, ad 1; also Quaestiones de veritate, q. 13, a. 3. For a map of possible interferences, see Scriptum super Sententiis II, d. 39, q. 3, a. 2, ad 5; Sententia libri Ethicorum III, c. 4. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004537712_006

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also influence higher faculties through interfering with the faculty of imagination, for example by distracting or by binding it.3 In what follows, I shall take ‘perception’ in its strict sense, as sense ­perception, and ‘rationality’ as indicating the part of the human soul that permits human beings to perform acts of reasoning. For Aquinas, our rationality ­develops by three operations: the abstraction of simple concepts from extramental things; the composition and separation of concepts by propositions; the arrangement of propositions into arguments and inferences.4 In this study, I shall speak indifferently of ‘rationality’ and ‘reason’, and take ‘reason’ generically to mean the rational part of the human soul, as opposed to the sensory part. If not otherwise specified, I shall not distinguish between intellect and reason, understood as two distinct and hierarchically ordered faculties of the rational part of the human soul. In this study, the relation between rationality and perception will be considered in both directions: from rationality to perception in Part I and from ­perception to rationality in Part II. The common opinion is that Aquinas defends a standard view of sense perception. Our reasoning can be rational or even irrational (when mistaken or incorrectly governed by reason), but ­perception cannot. It is beyond the rational/irrational divide. Perception is simply a source of new information, and cannot be considered for rationality or knowledge justification. It is so because our sense perception does not convey any epistemic or conceptual contents. In a recent paper, Dominik Perler called into question this opinion. According to him, it ascribes to Aquinas an ‘additive theory of rationality’, that is, a theory in which rationality looks like something additional and extrinsic with respect to sense perception. But this ascription does not go to the heart of Aquinas’s view. Perler suggests considering the theory of Aquinas rather as ‘a transformative theory of rationality’, in what he calls its ‘moderate version’. His point is that, for Aquinas, human sense perception is imbued with rationality and this makes it radically different from animal sense perception. It is so first, because Aquinas defends the view of the unicity of the human soul, and second, because he assumes that the sensory contents that reach the rational soul have been conceptually elaborated to a 3 See e.g. Summa theologiae Ia-IIae, q. 33, a. 3. On the key role played by imagination in reason’s deceptions, see In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio IV, lec. 14, n. 192, eds. Cathala & Spiazzi 1964, p. 692. For more on Aquinas’s view of passions and emotions, see King 2012, to which I refer for further bibliographical references. 4 On these three operations, see Sentencia libri De anima III, c. 11; Expositio super Boetium De Trinitate, q. 5, a. 3; Expositio libri Perihermenias I, prol. On ‘rationality’ understood as the ­metaphysical principle of the highest cognitive functions, see De ente et essentia, c. 2; ­Scriptum super Sententiis I, d. 25, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3; In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio VII, lec. 5.

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certain degree by the activity of that quasi-rational faculty which is the cogitative power (vis cogitativa). Together with imagination and memory, this virtue contributes to construct the sensory image of a thing, in which are encompassed descriptive as well as normative properties (these latter are what Aquinas calls the ‘non-sensible intentions’, like are, for example, being useful, being dangerous, and the like). The presence of the cogitative power permits to distinguish human sense perception from animal sense perception.5 I think one should agree with Perler’s interpretation. Nonetheless, I wish to suggest here a distinction between two ways of considering sense perception in Aquinas, which would permit us to assess more closely the interaction between the sensory soul and the rational soul in the case of human beings. The process of reception of sensory information from external reality is different from the process of having perceptual experience of an extramental thing. The first concerns the original cognition of a thing, while the second concerns the mechanisms of its recognition. My point is, accordingly, the following: the fact that one and the same soul in human beings performs sensory and rational acts does not imply that sensory acts are rational as such. Sensory and rational acts are different because they are for different purposes and Aquinas firmly takes them as distinct. It is, however, true, as Perler points out, that Aquinas claims that the sensory soul of human beings is more elevated than that of the other animal species because it is rational as well.6 But we should not understand this claim as meaning that the sensory soul is rational to a certain degree, but rather as meaning that in human beings the soul, which is rational, also performs sensory acts and these acts are for the sake of the rational acts. As Aquinas clarifies, in themselves (secundum se, in quantum huiusmodi), sensory acts are neither rational nor irrational, but in the case of humans, they can be called rational to the extent to which they are performed for the purpose of rational acts: in brief, they participate in rationality insofar as they ‘obey’ reason.7 Although in different ways, this ‘obedience’ concerns both the sensory 5 See Perler 2020. On later medieval views of animal rationality, see also Oelze 2018. On ­Aquinas and the additive/transformative theory of rationality divide, see also Boyle 2016. 6 See e.g. Quaestiones de anima, q. 11, ad 12 and ad 15, ed. Leonina, vol. 24/1, p. 103, ll. 348–351 and ll. 366–368: “Ad duodecimum dicendum quod anima sensibilis est nobilior in homine quam in aliis animalibus quia in homine non tantum est sensibilis, set etiam rationalis […]. Ad quintum decimum dicendum quod anima sensibilis in homine non est anima irrationalis, set est anima sensibilis et rationalis simul”. On this, see Perler 2020, p. 215. 7 See e.g. Quaestiones de anima, q. 11, ad 15, ed. Leonina, vol. 24/1, p. 103, ll. 369–373: “[…] Set uerum est quod potentie anime sensitiue quedam sunt quidem irrationales secundum se, set participant rationem secundum quod obediunt rationi. Potentie autem anime uegetabilis sunt penitus irrationabiles, quia non obediunt rationi”; also ad 19, ed. Leonina, vol. 24/1, p. 104, ll. 400–402: “anima sensibilis, in quantum huiusmodi, neque rationalis est neque irrationalis, set ipsa anima sensibilis in homine est rationalis”.

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process that precedes the acts of reason and the one that follows those acts. But while the rational soul cannot intervene in the sensory soul’s operation during the phase of the reception of information from external reality, it can operate on the received information and this operation contributes to constituting what I called above the perceptual experience of a thing. 1

From Rationality to Perception

In q. 15 of the Quaestiones de veritate, an opponent quotes the following d­ ictum from Alcher of Clairvaux’s Liber de spiritu et anima: “whatever sense perceives, imagination represents, cogitation forms, invention investigates, reason judges, memory conserves, intelligence comprehends”.8 This quotation, with which Aquinas in part agrees, shows that in Aquinas’s day the rational and the perceptual were seen as two distinct and juxtaposed domains of the cognitive process. Up to the faculty of imagination, the process of knowledge is merely sensory and rationality is not yet at work. Already in the early Sentences Commentary Aquinas underscores the great distance of rationality from perception: “reason is more distant from sense perception than the intellect is from reason”.9 Why this claim? As Aquinas on occasion notes, from a cognitive point of view the rational soul differs from the sensory soul in three aspects: First, the sensory soul concerns things that are material, while the rational soul concerns things that are separated from matter;10 Second, the sensory soul concerns things that are singular and present, while the rational soul can concern also things that are absent and universal; 8 See Quaestiones de veritate, q. 15, a. 1, arg. 4, ed. Leonina, vol. 22/2, p. 475, ll. 40–43: “quidquid sensus percipit, imaginatio repraesentat, cogitatio format, ingenium investigat, ratio iudicat, memoria servat, intelligentia comprehendit” (English translation mine). The reference is to chapter 11 of Alcher’s book (PL 40, col. 787). Occasionally, Aquinas speaks of perception with respect to the reason as well. See e.g. Scriptum super Sententiis III, d. 25, q. 1, a. 1, q.la 1, ad 2; Quaestiones de veritate, q. 21, a. 1; Summa contra Gentiles I, c. 3. However, such speaking sounds as a metaphor. Reason perceives truth in the sense that it can grasp a truth. 9 Cf. Scriptum super Sententiis II, d. 9, q. 1, a. 8, ad 1, ed. Mandonnet 1929, vol. 2, p. 249: “Ad primum ergo dicendum, quod plus distat ratio a sensu quam intellectus a ratione”. This same idea is also expressed by the dictum “the reason transcends the senses” (ratio transcendit sensum) (see e.g. Scriptum super Sententiis I, d. 45, q. 1, a. 1, ad 4; Summa theologiae Ia, q. 59, a. 1, ad 1). On the chronology of Aquinas’s works, see Torrell 1993, pp. 475–526. 10 See e.g. Scriptum super Sententiis II, d. 9, q. 1, a. 8, ad 1, ed. Mandonnet 1929, vol. 2, p. 249: “sensus et ratio non communicant in uno objecto; cum sensus apprehendat intentiones rerum cum conditionibus materiae; ratio autem et intellectus intentiones a ­conditionibus materiae separatas”.

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through imagination and memory the sensory soul too can consider things that are absent, but never things that are universal;11 Third, the sensory soul concerns accidental and apparent features of things, while the rational soul extends itself to the things’ essences.12 It is not necessary here to dwell further on these well-known aspects. It suffices to note that, according to Aquinas, natural human knowledge has two stages and sense perception is the first one. External senses acquaint us with the accidental features of extramental material and singular things, from which we move to cognize their essences.13 Aquinas also expresses this idea by invoking the Aristotelian dictum that “accidents greatly contribute to the knowledge of the ‘what it is’ of a thing”.14 Our natural knowledge begins with the appearances of things, while the intellect, as its etymology shows, goes beyond the appearances and ‘looks into’ (intus legit) the things.15 The purpose 11 See Sententia libri De sensu, tr. I, c. 1, ed. Leonina, vol. 45/2, p. 8, ll. 226–237: “Differt autem sensus ab intellectu et ratione quia intellectus uel ratio est uniuersalium, que sunt ubique et semper, sensus autem est singularium, que sunt hic et nunc. Et ideo sensus secundum suam propriam rationem non est cognoscitiuus nisi praesencium, quod autem sit aliqua uirtus sensitiue partis se extendens ad alia que non sunt praesencia, hoc est secundum similitudinariam participationem rationis uel intellectus; unde memoria, que est cognoscitiua preteritorum, conuenit solum animalibus perfectis, utpote supremum quiddam in cognitione sensitiua”; also Summa theologiae Ia, q. 59, a. 1, ad 1, ed. Leonina, vol. 5, p. 92; Ia–IIae, q. 5, a. 1, ad 1. On the different ways in which the senses and the reason can grasp the extramental singular, see Quaestiones de veritate, q. 25, a. 1. 12 See e.g. Summa contra Gentiles IV, c. 11, n. 3475, eds. Marc, Pera & Caramello 1961, vol. 3, p. 268: “Est autem differentia inter intellectum et sensum: nam sensus apprehendit rem quantum ad exteriora eius accidentia, quae sunt color, sapor, quantitas, et alia huiusmodi; sed intellectus ingreditur ad interiora rei. Et quia omnis cognitio perficitur secundum similitudinem quae est inter cognoscens et cognitum, oportet quod in sensu sit ­similitudo rei sensibilis quantum ad eius accidentia: in intellectu vero sit similitudo rei intellectae quantum ad eius essentiam”; also Summa theologiae Ia, q. 57, a. 1, ad 2. 13 Cf. Summa theologiae Ia, q. 18, a. 2, ed. Leonina, vol. 4, p. 226: “Sicut ex dictis patet, intellectus noster, qui proprie est cognoscitivus quidditatis rei ut proprii obiecti, accipit a sensu, cuius propria obiecta sunt accidentia exteriora. Et inde est quod ex his quae e­ xterius apparent de re, devenimus ad cognoscendam essentiam rei”. See also Scriptum super S­ ententiis I, d. 19, q. 5, a. 1, ed. Mandonnet 1929, vol. 2, p. 486; Quaestiones de veritate, q. 1, a. 10; Summa theologiae Ia, q. 17, a. 1 and a. 3; Sententia libri Posteriorum I, c. 4. The claim that sense perception is a “motion from the things to the soul” is frequent in Aquinas’s works. See e.g. Scriptum super Sententiis III, d. 26, q. 1, a. 5, ad 4; Quaestiones de veritate, q. 10, a. 5; Summa theologiae Ia–IIae, q. 35, a. 6, ad 2; Quaestiones de potentia, q. 6, a. 8; Quaestiones de anima, q. 13. 14 On this dictum, see Scriptum super Sententiis IV, d. 11, q. 2, a. 2, q.la 2; Quaestiones de veritate, q. 1, a. 10; Summa contra Gentiles III, c. 56; and especially Sentencia libri De anima I, c. 1. 15 On the etymology of ‘intellect’, see Quaestiones de veritate, q. 1, a. 12; Summa theologiae IIa–IIae, q. 8, a. 1; Sententia libri Ethicorum VI, c. 5; Sententia libri Posteriorum I, c. 4.

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of the rational soul is to obtain the concept of the thing and it does it by generalizing the information it receives from the senses. Aquinas appears cautious about the cognitive possibilities of our reason with respect to sense perception. On the one hand, he makes a profession of optimism. In the wake of Aristotle, he believes that there is no difference between what a thing is and what we rationally know about it. As he says in his Commentary on the Metaphysics, the boundaries of our knowledge of a thing are the boundaries of the thing itself, and, conversely, the boundaries of the thing are the boundaries of our knowledge of it.16 We have no other way of saying what a thing is except that of knowing what it is, so there is complete overlap between a thing’s essence and our rational knowledge of it. In Aristotelian terms, natural human knowledge is a form of assimilation of a thing’s essence, with which we in the end identify, so in one sense a thing’s essence and our knowledge of the essence coincide. But on the other hand, Aquinas expresses pessimism. As he often recalls, in the ordinary course of events we never reach the essences of things, because “the essential differences of things remain concealed to us”, so our rational knowledge of things’ essences is approximate and inferential in most cases.17 How does one obtain the essential properties of things? Aquinas’s answer is that one arrives at them after many experiences of knowledge of the extramental things’ accidents. These acts lead one to assume some accidental and apparent features of things as primary and primitive. Arguably, such features are those that have a conceptually explanatory power with respect to the other accidental features of the thing (such are, for example, the properties of ‘being animal’ and ‘being rational’ in the case of man). At this point, one can suppose the existence of a causal dependence of these primary and primitive accidental features on a metaphysical principle that makes them to be what they are. Finally, one classifies them as essential and enter into the definitions of the things. Aquinas never addresses a question which will become instead much discussed after him and which is relevant for the present topic, namely whether the first concept of our mind is the concept of the accident or that of the 16 Cf. In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio V, lec. 19, n. 1048, eds. Cathala & Spiazzi 1964, p. 274. 17 See e.g. Quaestiones de veritate, q. 4, a. 1, ad 8, ed. Leonina, vol. 22/1.2, p. 121, ll. 337–343. This claim recurs in many places: see De ente et essentia, c. 4; Scriptum super Sententiis I, d. 26, q. 2, a. 2, ad 4; II, d. 3, q. 1, a. 6; III, d. 26, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3; IV, d. 44, q. 2, a. 1, q.la 1, ad 1; Quaestiones de veritate, q. 4, a. 1, ad 8; q. 10, a. 1 and ad 6; Quaestiones de potentia, q. 9, a. 2, ad 5; Quaestio de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 11, ad 3; Sentencia libri De anima I, c. 1; In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio VII, lec. 12.

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substance. Aquinas seems to think that from the sense perception of the accidents of a thing we first arrive at the concept of the substance of that thing and only then do we move to obtain the concepts of the accidents (and that of the inherence of the accidents in the substance).18 This cognitive order clearly emerges if we consider the definitional relationship that, according to Aquinas, holds between the concepts of substance and accidents. Substance has a definitional priority over accidents, since the concept of substance is included into the definition of the concepts of accidents and not vice versa.19 But things seem to be different when one considers the process of formation of the concept of a thing. In this case, one first sensorily grasps the accidents of a thing and only then moves to abstract the concept of its substance. This process induces us to expect that some sensory information flow into the concept of the substance of a thing. If reason plays a role in ordering the contents of sense perception in a definition, what is the relation between rationality and perception when we consider the process of concept formation? There is no doubt that, for Aquinas, sense perception plays a preliminary and instrumental role with respect to reason.20 But what do we perceive exactly through our senses? What does the sensory soul transmit to the rational soul? To answer these questions, let me consider an example. If I went in a forest and ran into a wolf, I could say that I saw a wolf. But in Aristotelian terms, this would be an imprecise way of speaking. I should more properly say that I perceived a wolf. In fact, I only see, through my eyes, the colour of the wolf, while to perceive a wolf is a much more complex experience because it also entails that I am aware that what I encounter in the forest is a wolf. My five external senses are in fact limited to registering some fragmentary accidental information coming from the wolf: the proper sensible of the faculty of sight is not the wolf but the colour of the wolf, like smoothness is the proper sensible of the faculty of touch, and so on. The complete sensory image of the wolf obtains only at a later stage; it is constructed by my so-called internal senses. These senses supplement the information I received from the external senses, namely the so-called common sensibles (properties like the extension, 18

19 20

See e.g. Quaestiones de veritate, q. 2, a. 7, ed. Leonina, vol. 22/1.2, p. 68, ll. 97–104: “­intellectus noster diversas conceptiones format ad cognoscendum subiectum et accidens et ad cognoscendum diversa accidentia, et ideo discurrit de cognitione substantiae ad cognitionem accidentis; et iterum ad hoc quod inhaerentiam unius ad alterum cognoscat componit unam speciem cum altera et unit ea quodam modo et sic in seipso enuntiabilia format”. See e.g. In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio VII, lec. 1, n. 1257–1259, eds. Cathala & Spiazzi 1964, p. 317. See e.g. In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio I, lec. 1, n. 5, eds. Cathala & Spiazzi 1964, p. 6: “cum sensus ad duo nobis deserviant, scilicet ad cognitionem rerum, et ad utilitatem vitae”.

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magnitude, movement of the wolf, and so on, which no external sense can discover on its own) and even the non-sensible intentions of things (properties like the dangerousness or harmfulness of the wolf, and so on). Aquinas explains that the common sense is the internal sense deputed to the discovery of common sensibles, while the cogitative power is that dedicated to the discovery of the non-sensible intentions. Both contribute to provide the imagination with the material to form the complete sensory image (what Aquinas calls the ­phantasm) of the wolf. Thus, when I perceive a wolf, through the sensory image I have of it, I am aware of a lot of sensory features: that it is a wolf, that it has a certain colour, a certain extension and also a certain dangerousness. In particular, Aquinas seems to think that the cogitative power is that which permits us to have the perceptual experience of the wolf. More precisely, this experience is the upshot of the repeated comparison of different sensibles. In virtue of this ability to compare, the cogitative virtue is called ‘particular reason’. For Aquinas, the cogitative is the highest of the sensory faculties and it serves many special functions: it allows the recognition of that particular animal I ran into in the forest as an instance of the species-wolf, the comparison between different wolves, the discovery of the non-sensible intentions concerning the wolf. Finally, this kind of knowledge enables us to think about the wolf and move away from it.21 This description of the sensory process reveals that, for Aquinas, the process of sense perception is natural and in a way spontaneous, at least up to forming of the sensory image. My reason has no control over the external senses’ act of reception of sensory information from the wolf, so my reason is incapable of ­acting upon the process of formation of the sensory image of the wolf. At this earlier stage, it does not seem possible to posit any significant difference between human sense perception and animal sense perception. As Aquinas writes in the Summa theologiae, the sensory soul is similarly affected in every case: Now, we must observe that as to sensible forms there is no difference between man and other animals; for they are similarly affected by the extrinsic sensible.22 21

For a clear description of the different internal senses, see Summa theologiae Ia, q. 78, a. 4; Quaestiones de anima, q. 13; Sentencia libri De anima II, c. 13. For details on A ­ quinas’s account of the cogitative power in particular, see Klubertanz 1952; Tellkamp 1999; Tellkamp 2012. For the view that the cogitative is the highest faculty (altissimum) of the sensory soul, see Quaestiones de veritate, q. 14, a. 1, ad 9 (see below, note 26). For a different assessment of what is most eminent in the sensory soul, see Sententia libri De sensu, tr. I, c. 1 (see above, note 11). 22 Cf. Summa theologiae Ia, q. 78 a. 4, ed. Leonina, vol. 5, p. 256: “Considerandum est autem quod, quantum ad formas sensibiles, non est differentia inter hominem et alia

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The way of reception and probably the received sensory species are the same in both humans and other animal species. Although our rational soul plays no role in the phase of sensory reception, after reception, it begins to interact with the sensory image of the wolf. I noted above that a way of interacting consists in selecting among the sensory features those that are explanatorily primary and primitive. My reason rationally organizes the contents of my sensory reception. The fact that I am aware that the animal I encountered in the forest is a wolf depends on the fact that I have already organized the sensory material that comes from the wolf under the concept of ‘wolf’ and this operation permits me to recognize that animal as a wolf. As we shall see better later, if acts of sense perception are not rational in themselves, sense perception could be said to proceed rationally even in the phase of sensory reception, in this sense: from the very beginning of the process, the sensory contents exist so that reason may understand the essences of things. In other words, I may think that my sensory organs are predisposed by nature to receive sensory information from the external world and to predispose this information to be at some later stage organized in a rational way. I may consequently suppose that, at the end of the cognitive process, my general concepts involve some sensory information of things, so that my reason may be said to play a role when I am having a perceptual experience of a thing. ‘Sensory contents that may be at some later stage organized in a rational way’ is however a very broad way of understanding rationality in perception. In any case, this understanding holds only when one looks at the first sensory reception from things. But a more promising way of assessing the interaction between rationality and perception emerges when one considers the mind’s return back to things. Here one thing is noteworthy. When the mind reapplies its concepts to things, its primary purpose is cognitive, i.e. the correct conceptual classification of the thing and its recognition. But its secondary purpose is operative: that of putting one in the condition of performing actions about the thing. With respect to our example of the wolf, such a reapplication allows me to know that the animal I saw in the forest is a wolf, but also to escape it because dangerous.23 Aquinas assumes that the mind realizes both purposes through the cogitative power. This reapplication has some consequences for the process of perceptual experience of a thing. As said above, Aquinas conceives rationality as a metaphysical

23

a­ nimalia: similiter enim immutantur a sensibilibus exterioribus”. (English translation at URL=< https://aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/st-ia-q-78#FPQ78OUTP1>; last access on 16 November 2022). For details, see Sententia libri De sensu, tr. I, c. 13.

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principle on which depend the three operations mentioned above (abstractive, propositional, and inferential reasoning). What is of interest for our argument is that these operations specifically support two idiosyncratic abilities of our rational soul, namely those to perform acts of self-reflection and acts of comparison. Well, these abilities may give us the right perspective from which to assess rationality in perception. Our reason can reflect on the sensory process, perform acts of comparison through involving the cogitative power, and then influence the sensory process for the purposes of the rational activity. But not only this: the sensory soul itself can share such abilities to a certain degree. The human sensory soul can have (A) rationality-like abilities to reflect on itself and (B) to compare sensory contents with each other. Let us consider these abilities in some detail, by beginning with the second, i.e. (B) the comparison of sensory contents. 1.1 Rationality, Perception and the Ability to Compare Things In a text from the Summa theologiae Aquinas says that the cogitative power and the memory are in human beings more eminent than in other animals. This eminency does not depend on the sensory soul as such, but on the fact that those faculties have some affinity and proximity to the rational soul, according to some sort of reflux (refluentia). This leads Aquinas to the conclusion that the cogitative power and the memory in human beings are the same as those present in the other animals, except for the fact that they are more perfect.24 Aquinas says that the affinity between the cogitative power and reason is due to a sort of reflux. The Latin term ‘refluentia’ occurs a few times in A ­ quinas’s works. Dominik Perler is probably right in suggesting to understand it as a “flowing back” and not as a “spillover”, as translated by Robert Pasnau.25 ­Nonetheless, I am not certain that we should refer the reflux to the non-­sensible intentions (e.g., the dangerousness of the wolf) singled out by the cogitative power. We should avoid thinking that some sensory contents flow from the sensory soul to the rational soul and then, once conceptually elaborated, flow back, as if the rational soul extended itself to the sensory part of the human soul. I am not even certain that this flowing back would permit us to speak of rational perception in the case of human beings. 24 See Summa theologiae Ia, q. 78, a. 4, ad 5, ed. Leonina, vol. 5, p. 257: “Ad quintum dicendum quod illam eminentiam habet cogitativa et memorativa in homine, non per id quod est proprium sensitivae partis; sed per aliquam affinitatem et propinquitatem ad rationem universalem, secundum quandam refluentiam. Et ideo non sunt aliae vires, sed eaedem, perfectiores quam sint in aliis animalibus”. 25 See Perler 2020, pp. 229–230.

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However intriguing this reading may be, I think we should refer Aquinas’s speaking of reflux to some abilities and not to the contents of the cogitative power. The reflux of rationality to perception takes the form of the assignment to the cogitative power of its ability to perform acts of comparison among the singular sensibles that are stored in memory. Thus, if a flowing back of the rational soul to the sensory soul really happens, it results in an act of conferring a certain ability on the cogitative virtue rather than in transmitting to it some already conceptually elaborated contents. With respect to this, it may be noted that Aquinas uses the image of reflux to specify the notion of affinity, not to introduce a different kind of operation of the rational soul. As Aquinas said in the early Quaestiones de veritate, the cogitative power is at the upper limit of the sensory part of the human soul and it shares with the rational part a certain discursive ability. In a certain way (quodam modo), it is the cogitative power that dips into the reason and then borrows from it a way of proceeding.26 But no going forth and back of sensory contents seems present, given that, as Aquinas says in the Summa contra Gentiles, the activity of the sensory soul— imagination, memory, and collation—in its entirety precedes the intervention of reason on the sensory images or phantasms produced by the imagination.27 In one sense, it could therefore sound improper to speak of rational perception in the case of human beings. Seeing colours and imagining a thing are 26 See Quaestiones de veritate, q. 14, a. 1, ad 9, ed. Leonina, vol. 22/2.1, pp. 438–439, ll. 263– 277: “Ad nonum dicendum quod potentia cogitativa est id quod est altissimum in parte sensitiva, unde attingit quodam modo ad partem intellectivam ut aliquid participet eius quod est in intellectiva parte infimum, scilicet rationis discursum […]; unde etiam ipsa vis cogitativa vocatur particularis ratio, ut patet a Commentatore in III De anima, nec est nisi in homine, loco cuius in aliis brutis est extimatio naturalis. Et ideo quandoque ipsa etiam universalis ratio, quae est in parte intellectiva, propter similitudinem operationis a cogitatione nominatur”; also Quaestio de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 9; Sentencia libri De anima II, c. 13. In Summa theologiae Ia–IIae, q. 74, a. 3, ad 1, Aquinas generically speaks of a conjunction between the cogitative and the reason, but he does not illustrate how this conjunction holds. Anyway, such a conjunction is what allows the reason to refer rational contents to extramental singulars. See Quaestiones de veritate, q. 10, a. 5, ad 4. 27 See Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 60, n. 1370, eds. Marc, Pera & Caramello 1961, vol. 2, p. 189: “Dicit enim praedictus Averroes quod homo differt specie a brutis per intellectum quem Aristoteles vocat passivum, qui est ipsa vis cogitativa, quae est propria homini, loco cuius alia animalia habent quandam aestimativam naturalem. Huius autem cogitativae virtutis est distinguere intentiones individuales, et comparare eas ad invicem (…). Et quia per hanc virtutem, simul cum imaginativa et memorativa, praeparantur phantasmata ut recipiant actionem intellectus agentis, a quo fiunt intelligibilia actu, sicut sunt aliquae artes praeparantes materiam artifici principali; ideo praedicta virtus vocatur nomine intellectus et rationis, de qua medici dicunt quod habet sedem in media cellula capitis” (punctuation and orthography slightly modified).

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naturally spontaneous processes that humans share with animals. Even the non-sensible intentions that the cogitative power singles out cannot be said to be rational in what they are. The intention of dangerousness of a wolf that a human being has is the same as that had by a sheep. Indeed, animals also apprehend these intentions, but their estimative faculty has no affinity with rationality. So, we cannot distinguish the animal estimative power from the human cogitative power on the account of the sensory contents. The nature of such non-sensible intentions is irrelevant for attributing a rational character to them. What instead changes, Aquinas says, is the mode through which these intentions are apprehended. While animals arrive at them intuitively, human beings need acts of comparison and these acts are typical of human reason.28 This difference leads us to a first way of understanding Aquinas’s claim that human sense perception is also rational and hence different from animal sense perception: it is so because there is some sensory faculty in human beings that can perform rational-like acts. There is also a second way in which one might understand that human sense perception is rational. As Aquinas states, human sense perception is more perfect than that of the other animals because it is predisposed by nature to support human beings’ rational activity. I shall return to this second point later. 1.2 Rationality, Perception, and Reflexivity The affinity between sensory and rational soul can be appreciated even better if one looks at the other ability mentioned above, namely (A) the sensory soul’s ability to reflect on itself. In the Sentences Commentary, Aquinas distinguishes two kinds of self-knowledge. The first obtains when a faculty reflects on its own act and knows what kind of act it is. The second obtains when a faculty reflects on its own act and simply knows that it is performing such an act. If the former kind of self-knowledge is proper to rational soul, the latter can pertain to sensory soul as well. Aquinas introduces further specifications. For example, he excludes that the external senses can have any kind of selfknowledge at all, so they are completely non-reflexive. The reason is that no bodily faculty can reflect on itself, for otherwise some infinite regress could happen, while it is possible for a higher bodily faculty to reflect on a lower one. 28 See Summa theologiae Ia, q. 78, a. 4, ed. Leonina, vol. 5, p. 256: “Sed quantum ad intentiones praedictas, differentia est, nam alia animalia percipiunt huiusmodi intentiones solum naturali quodam instinctu, homo autem etiam per quandam collationem. Et ideo quae in aliis animalibus dicitur aestimativa naturalis, in homine dicitur cogitativa, quae per collationem quandam huiusmodi intentiones adinvenit. Unde etiam dicitur ratio particularis, cui medici assignant determinatum organum, scilicet mediam partem capitis, est enim collativa intentionum individualium, sicut ratio intellectiva intentionum universalium”.

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But since no bodily faculty is lower than external senses, no external sense can perform an act of self-reflection. By contrast, some internal senses, specifically the common sense, can perform acts of self-knowledge of the second kind. It can apperceive that the external senses are perceiving.29 In the Commentary on the De anima, Aquinas argues that just the fact that we can perceive a thing and apperceive that we are perceiving a thing is a proof of the existence of the common sense beyond the five senses.30 If something proto-rational or quasi-rational can be found in perception, it could amount, in Aquinas, precisely to these two abilities: comparison and self-reflection. No rational content however seems present in the sensory material. Although the sensory faculties naturally predispose the sensory image of a thing to be generalized into suitable concepts, sense perception in general remains neutral to the rationality properly said, since no external or internal sense is able to perform an act of self-knowledge of the first kind, Aquinas explains, and consequently to have some content of the conceptual kind. Only reason can have a true knowledge and a true self-knowledge of the process of perception and apperception. It is noteworthy, however, that through self-knowledge and comparison, our reason not only becomes aware of the process of sense perception, but also acts upon it. Here the link between reason and the cogitative power acquires its significance. It is a commonplace for Aquinas that the rational soul cannot 29

See e.g. Scriptum super Sententiis I, d. 17, q. 1, a. 5, ad 3; III, d. 23, q. 1, a. 2, ad 3, ed. Moos 1933, vol. 3, pp. 703–704: “Ad tertium dicendum quod animam reflecti per cognitionem supra seipsam, vel supra ea quae ipsius sunt, contingit dupliciter: uno modo secundum quod potentia cognoscitiva cognoscit naturam sui, vel eorum quae in ipsa sunt, et hoc est tantum intellectus cuius est quidditates rerum cognoscere. […] Alio modo anima reflectitur super actus suos cognoscendo illos actus esse. Hoc autem non potest esse ita quod aliqua potentia utens organo corporali reflectatur super proprium actum, quia oportet quod instrumentum quo cognoscit se cognoscere caderet medium inter ipsam potentiam et instrumentum quo primo cognoscebat. Sed una potentia utens organo corporali potest cognoscere actum alterius potentiae inquantum impressio inferioris potentiae redundat in superiorem, sicut sensu communi cognoscimus visum videre”. See also Summa theologiae Ia, q. 78, a. 4, ad 2; q. 87, a. 3, arg. 3 and ad 3, ed. Leonina, vol. 5, p. 361. 30 See Sentencia libri De anima II, c. 26, ed. Leonina, vol. 45/1, p. 178, ll. 1–14: “Postquam Philosophus ostendit quod non sit alius sensus proprius preter quinque, procedit ad inquirendum utrum sit aliqua potencia sensitiua communis hiis quinque sensibus et hoc quidem inuestigat ex quibusdam actionibus que non uidentur alicuius sensus proprie esse, set uidentur exigere aliam potenciam sensitiuam communem; huiusmodi autem actiones sunt due: una est secundum quod nos percipimus actiones sensuum propriorum, puta quod sentimus nos uidere et audire; alia est secundum quod discernimus inter sensibilia diuersorum sensuum, puta quod aliud sit dulce et aliud album”. For more on Aquinas’s account of self-knowledge, see Putallaz 1991 and Scarpelli Cory 2014.

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act directly on extramental material and singular things. It needs mediation. From the human soul flow faculties that are annexed to the body as well as faculties that are separate from the body.31 The cogitative power is a faculty of the first type and is precisely what supplies the mediation reason needs. It allows general concepts to be referred to singulars and provides singular knowledge, which is required for the cognitive recognition of a thing and for elaborating practical syllogisms that permit us acting in respect to that thing.32 The ability to compare that the cogitative virtue exerts—both in concept formation and in the reverse act of referring concepts to extramental things— explains the sense in which it may be said to have an affinity with reason. Although clear on this point, Aquinas is less clear on how rationality can effectively affect our perceptual experience of a thing. Here a notion that should retain our attention is just that of attention. We noted at the beginning of this paper that Aquinas thinks that some bodily passions can interfere with the correct use of reason. The same can be said for attention. For Aquinas, attention is an act performed by the will, the only faculty of the human soul that has control over its own acts.33 In his Sentences Commentary, he points out that intensifying our attention towards some thing could reduce or completely remove our attention towards another thing. In fact, Aquinas assumes that our soul cannot pay the same attention (or the same degree of attention) to many things at the same time.34 Attention is a factor that can affect the ordinary use of reason, but one could think that it influences sense perception as well. Unfortunately, there is no text where Aquinas illustrates the mechanisms of attention and its function with respect to sense perception, but reading between the lines, one may extrapolate that Aquinas attributes a role to it when our reason actively turns to the sensory process.35 For example, Aquinas notes that rational soul can reflect on 31 See Quaestiones de anima, q. 11, ad 17, ed. Leonina, vol. 24/1, p. 103, ll. 380–384: “Ad septimum decimum dicendum quod ab anima humana, in quantum unitur corpori, effluunt uires affixe organis; in quantum uero excedit sua uirtute corporis capacitatem, effluunt ab ea uires non affixe organis”. For other textual evidence of this belief, see app. ad ll. 381–384. 32 On this, see Scriptum super Sententiis IV, d. 50, q. 1, a. 3, ad s.c. 3. See also Sentencia libri De anima II, c. 13; Quaestiones de veritate, q. 2, a. 7. 33 See e.g. Scriptum super Sententiis II, d. 35, q. 1, a. 1; Summa contra Gentiles I, c. 68. 34 See e.g. Scriptum super Sententiis IV, d. 15, q. 4, a. 2, q.la 5. Aquinas discusses the notion of attention especially with reference to prayer. On this, see Summa theologiae IIa-IIae, q. 83. For more on attention, see also Scriptum super Sententiis IV, d. 49, q. 3, a. 2, ad 3 and a. 3, q.la 3, ad 3; Summa contra Gentiles III, c. 2. 35 See Summa theologiae Ia-IIae, q. 37, a. 1; also Quaestiones de veritate, q. 12, a. 4, ad 3. For more on the notion of attention in Aquinas, see Pasnau 1997, pp. 134–138.

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itself and trace the cognitive process from concepts back to extramental singulars, and attention can allow reason to linger on each of the elements involved in this process. Attention can even separate reason from the sense perception of extramental things and permit it to concentrate on itself.36 But reason can also restrict, expand or direct the process of sense perception towards a given thing, for example by increasing or decreasing the perception of a thing, by selecting the aspect or fixing the point of view from which to perceive a thing, as happens in the case of a thing we expect to see. When waiting for a thing or a person, we are looking or searching for it in the extramental world and, presumably, we modify or adapt our sense perception for the purpose of perceiving that thing.37 Attention also plays a role when a thing is perceived for the first time, Aquinas says.38 And it is likely required even when one attempts to perceive things that normally remain hidden from our ordinary sense perception,39 or to grasp imperceptible portions of time.40 Finally, attention is important for explaining the phenomenon of remembering, since we begin our remembering by addressing our attention to our phantasms.41 It is time to summarize what was said in this section. For Aquinas, human sense perception in itself is neither rational nor irrational. There are, however, two senses in which it may be said to be rational. First, when I perceive a thing for the first time, rationality is not at work. But my sensory faculties are predisposed by nature to be organized in a rational way so that when I perceive a thing for the second time, I perceive and operate upon it by reapplying my concepts to the thing. Only this second act of sense perception might be properly 36

See e.g. Quaestiones de veritate, q. 12, a. 9, ed. Leonina, vol. 22/2.1, p. 396, ll. 117–119: “[…] sicut quando homo ex nimia attentione ad intellectualia vel imaginabilia omnino a ­sensibus exterioribus abstrahitur”; ad 2, p. 396, ll. 152–161: “Ad secundum dicendum, quod quando vis interior intenditur in visione sui obiecti, abstrahitur, si sit perfecta attentio, ab exteriori visione; sed quantumcumque sit perfectum iudicium interioris virtutis, non abstrahit ab operatione exteriori, quia ad interiorem virtutem pertinet de exteriori iudicare; unde iudicium superioris in idem ordinatur cum operatione exteriori; et ideo non mutuo se impediunt”. Here, attention is discussed in the context of prophecy. 37 See e.g. Scriptum super Sententiis III, d. 26, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3, ed. Moos 1933, vol. 3, pp. 814– 815: “Ad tertium dicendum, quod frequenter nomina imponuntur rebus occultis, ex suis signis, sicut essentiales differentiae ex accidentibus nominantur. Signum autem alicujus quiescentis cum extensione appetitus in aliquid desideratum solet esse quod frequenter visum dirigit in illud, ut videat si ex aliqua parte ad ipsum accedat; et ideo dispositio praedicta quietis cum motu dicitur expectatio”. 38 See Scriptum super Sententiis III, d. 9, q. 1, a. 2, q.la 6, ad 3. 39 See e.g. Sententia De sensu, tr. I, c. 17, ed. Leonina, vol. 45/2, p. 95, ll. 188–192; see also c. 15. 40 See e.g. Summa theologiae Ia, q. 67, a. 2, ed. Leonina, vol. 5, p. 164. See also Sentencia libri De anima II, c. 23. 41 See Sentencia libri De sensu, tr. II: De memoria et reminescentia, c. 3.

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called rational, insofar as it alone involves conceptual contents. Reason can reflect on the sensory process and intervene on it, through the mediation of the lower faculties, like imagination, memory and especially the cogitative power, and also with the aid of acts of attention. There is also a second sense in which human sense perception may be called rational and it is insofar as some faculties of it perform acts that have some affinity to those of reason. In this sense, only the cogitative virtue may be called rational strictly speaking, because it alone has the additional ability to compare singular things to each other in order to single out the non-sensible intentions of things. 2

From Perception to Rationality

I must confess that Aquinas is not explicit about the direction of fit from rationality to perception. Rationality seems to exert some kind of control over our acts of sense perception, but it remains unclear how exactly (and when) this control happens. Aquinas says that the sensory soul in humans is also rational and my interpretation has been that it is rational in the sense that it naturally predisposes the sensory contents to be organized in a rational way by the rational soul. It is also rational in the sense that some sensory faculty in humans can perform acts that have a certain affinity to acts of reason. As to be expected, the other direction of fit, that from perception to rationality, appears more promising: how perception influences our rationality. Unsurprisingly, the literature most often follows this way. As we shall see, the analysis of this direction will help us to shed further light on the first direction as well. On the account of what we have said so far, it is not a surprise to find ­Aquinas claim that sense perception is indispensable for rational activity. For example, as he states in Quaestiones de veritate, q. 12, a. 9, the act of judgment is naturally more perfect in a person who uses the senses than in a person who does not use them.42 Aquinas shares the Aristotelian belief that sense perception is a reliable process. It never produces deception, although some environmental interference or bodily conditions (like the distance of the perceived thing, an insufficient illumination, or a malfunction of a bodily organ) can alter the process of sense perception and so increase the possibility of sensory deception.43 The altered action of sense perception on reason, through the imagination,

42 See Quaestiones de veritate, q. 12, a. 9, ed. Leonina, vol. 22/2.1, p. 396, ll. 94–96: “iudicium intellectus naturaliter est perfectius in utente sensibus quam in non utente”. 43 On this, see e.g. Scriptum super Sententiis III, d. 14, q. 1, a. 2, q.la 3.

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can induce reason to make deceptive judgments about perceived things.44 Error arises when the reason wrongly combines perceptions and/or sensory imagines, or wrongly associates them to things.45 If sense perception is not rational in itself, as has been said, it may considered rational insofar as it is a condicio sine qua non for rationality. What does this exactly mean? Aquinas places much emphasis on the fact that our sense perception and reasoning do not falsify reality and never deceive when they grasp their proper objects. Human knowledge is based on reliable perceptions, permitting reason to form true judgments about external things. Any form of reasoning, even the most abstract, involves perceptions and sensory images, and this can obtain in two ways. First, perceptions and/or sensory images are a pre-condition for the first acquisition of knowledge and reasoning abilities. It is not possible to perform acts of reasoning if no perceptive and imaginative material is stored in memory. We cannot think about what we cannot imagine and we cannot imagine what we have never perceived in some way or other. This is so because—as Aquinas often repeats—“our knowledge comes from the senses”.46 Second, perceptions and/or sensory images are also necessary for occurrent reasoning. Aquinas is of the opinion that we cannot perform any act of 44

45

46

See e.g. Summa theologiae Ia, q. 94, a. 4, ed. Leonina, vol. 5, p. 418: “Manifestum est autem ex praemissis quod intellectus circa proprium obiectum semper verus est. Unde ex seipso nunquam decipitur, sed omnis deceptio accidit in intellectu ex aliquo inferiori, puta phantasia vel aliquo huiusmodi. Unde videmus quod, quando naturale iudicatorium non est ligatum, non decipimur per huiusmodi apparitiones, sed solum quando ligatur, ut patet in dormientibus”. This issue is treated in many places: see e.g. Scriptum super S­ ententiis II, d. 5 q. 1, a. 1; d. 7, q. 2, a. 1, ad 1; Summa contra Gentiles I, c. 58 and c. 61; ­Sentencia libri De anima II, c. 13; III, cc. 5–6; Sententia De sensu, tr. I, c. 11; Summa theologiae Ia, q. 17, a. 2, ad 1–2, and a. 3; q. 84, a. 8, ad 2; q. 85, a. 6; Ia–IIae, q. 77, a. 1; In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio IV, lec. 14; IX, lec. 11. See e.g. Summa contra Gentiles I, c. 58 and c. 61; Summa theologiae Ia, q. 17, a. 3, ed. L­ eonina, vol. 4, p. 221: “Sicut autem sensus informatur directe similitudine propriorum sensibilium, ita intellectus informatur similitudine quidditatis rei. Unde circa quod quid est intellectus non decipitur, sicut neque sensus circa sensibilia propria. In componendo vero vel dividendo potest decipi, dum attribuit rei cuius quidditatem intelligit, aliquid quod eam non consequitur, vel quod ei opponitur”; q. 85, a. 6; Sentencia libri De anima III, c. 11. See e.g. Scriptum super Sententiis IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, q.la 2; d. 23, q. 2, a. 3, q.la 2; Quaestiones de veritate, q. 1, a. 10 and a. 11; q. 10, a. 13; Summa theologiae Ia, q. 1, a. 9; q. 17, a. 1; IIa–IIae, q. 27, a. 4; Sententia libri Ethicorum II, c. 1; Expositio super Boetium De Trinitate, q. 6, a. 1; Super librum De causis expositio, lec. 7. On the interplay of senses and reason, see also Quaestiones de malo, q. 3, a. 3, ad 9, ed. Leonina, vol. 23, p. 74, ll. 283–294. See also In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio IV, lec. 15.

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reasoning without support from perceptive and imaginative material.47 It is an often-invoked principle that we can reason only through sensory images and perceptions. A proof of the link between reason and sense perception is that an injury to sensory or imaginative organs prevents reason from working correctly or working at all.48 Aquinas at times underscores this point by ­quoting the Aristotelian dictum of the De anima that “knowing is either imagination or not without imagination”. Since knowing is not imagination, a view that Aquinas ascribes to Plato, it follows that it cannot be without imagination.49 One could extend this conclusion to sense perception as well: reasoning cannot obtain without imagination; imagination cannot obtain without sense perception; so reasoning cannot obtain without sense perception. The fact that an injury to the organ of imagination can impede reasoning does not entail however the identity between imagination and reason. In fact, when one of these faculties diminishes, the other one can intensify, and this proves that they are distinct. Moreover, one and the same act of reasoning can be supported by different acts of imagination. Aquinas does not always state clearly the arguments against the reduction of reason to imagination, but we find him regularly express the conviction that reason is a faculty of the human soul separate from the body in its operation and also in its being.50 On my understanding of Aquinas, it would not be improper to ascribe to him a perceptual theory of rationality, if it is understood in the following sense: our reason always performs rational processes by associating perceptive and/or imaginative contents to abstract concepts. These contents are what allows the primitively intentional nature of our concepts (expressed by their functioning as representations or similitudes of the essences of things) to be 47

48

49 50

See e.g. Scriptum super Sententiis II, d. 20, q. 2, a. 2, ad 3, ed. Mandonnet 1929, vol. 2, p. 514: “Ad tertium dicendum, quod cum phantasma sit objectum intellectus possibilis, ut dictum est, secundum statum viae, anima ad suum actum phantasmatibus indiget, non solum ut ab eis scientiam accipiat secundum motum qui est a sensibus ad animam, sed etiam ut habitum cognitionis quam habet circa species phantasmatum, ponat secundum motum qui est ab anima ad sensus, ut sic inspiciat in actu quod per habitum cognitionis tenet in mente”. This argument recurs in many texts of Aquinas. See e.g. Scriptum super Sententiis IV, d. 50, q. 1, a. 2, arg. 1; Quaestiones de veritate, q. 5, a. 10; q. 10, a. 6; q. 26, a. 3; Quaestiones de potentia, q. 3, a. 9 and ad 22; Quaestiones de anima, q. 15; Sententia libri De sensu, tr. II, c. 2; In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio IV, lec. 14; Super primam Epistolam ad Corinthios lectura, c. 13, lec. 3. On such a dictum and Aquinas’s argument, see e.g. Quaestiones de anima, q. 3, arg. 3 and ad 3; Sentencia libri De anima, I, c. 2 and III, c. 4 and c. 6. There is considerable literature on this conviction held by Aquinas. See at least Pasnau 2002, p. 143 ff. and Klima 2009 (see there for further references).

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concretely realized. Jeffrey Brower and Susan Brower-Toland well illustrated this aspect. Our natural concepts are by themselves intentional, but the strings of perceptions and/or sensory images stored in the memory are what bring about the relation of intentionality that our mind, through concepts, has with extramental things.51 In this regard, one could understand natural concepts in Aquinas’s theory as abstract schemes whose function is, among other things, to allow perceptive and imaginative processes to work correctly. Here we may avoid entering into the details of the connection of reason with the sensory faculties. There is extensive literature on this topic.52 For our purpose, it suffices to note that, in his early Sentences Commentary, Aquinas holds that our reason can relate to the phantasms of imagination in two ways: either by deriving knowledge from the phantasms or by using phantasms as examples for applying knowledge. This twofold relation gives the two different ways in which perception may relate to rationality. Our reason can proceed from the unknown to the known, in the first case, or from what is dispositionally known to what is actually known, in the second case.53 The involvement of sense perception in both operations is a consequence of the conviction that imagination presupposes sense perception and imagination is included in every rational act.54 Here I come to the core of my interpretation. Aquinas underscores the involvement of perception into rationality not only by saying that we cannot reason “without phantasms” (sine phantasmatibus), but also that we always reason “by converting to phantasms” (convertendo ad phantasmata).55 In his 51

See Brower & Brower-Toland 2008. I developed this idea in Amerini 2013a. For a recent reappraisal of the topic and a new proposal of interpretation, see Scarpelli Cory 2020. On the argument, see also Băltuţă 2013 and Renani 2018. 52 Among the many studies, see MacDonald 1993; Stump 1998; Spruit 1994; Brower 2001; Scarpelli Cory 2015. See also the references in the previous note. 53 See Scriptum super Sententiis III, d. 14, q. 1, a. 3, q.la 3, ed. Moos 1933, vol. 3, p. 459: “Unde secundum quod se habet intellectus ad phantasmata, secundum hoc se habet ad ­collationem. Habet autem se ad phantasmata dupliciter: uno modo sicut accipiens a phantasmatibus scientiam, quod est in illis qui nondum scientiam habent, secundum motum qui est a rebus ad animam. Alio modo secundum motum qui est ab anima ad res, inquantum phantasmatibus utitur quasi exemplis, in quibus inspicit quod considerat, cujus tamen scientiam prius habebat in habitu. Similiter etiam est duplex collatio: Una qua homo procedit ex notis ad inquisitionem ignoti […]. Alia secundum quam homo ea quae habitu tenet, in actum ducens, ex principiis considerat conclusiones sicut ex causis effectus” (ponctuation slightly modified). See also Quaestiones de potentia, q. 3, a. 9, ad 22. 54 See Summa theologiae IIa–IIae, q. 180, a. 3, ad 1. 55 See e.g. Scriptum super Sententiis IV, d. 50, q. 1, a. 2 and ad 1; Quaestiones de veritate, q. 10, a. 2, ad 7; Summa theologiae Ia, q. 84, a. 7; q. 85, a. 1 and a. 5; q. 89, a. 2; IIIa, q. 11, a. 2; Quaestiones de anima, q. 15, ed. Leonina, vol. 24/1, p. 135, ll. 319–324: “Manifestum est etiam quod

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book devoted to Aquinas’s theory of perception, Anthony J. Lisska shares Peter Geach’s opinion that such a phrase is difficult to elucidate and refers to it as being a metaphor.56 Geach is probably right in underscoring the metaphorical nature of Aquinas’s speaking. But, in my opinion, such a claim works as a metaphor only if one understands it to mean that our mind, in an act of knowledge, consciously converts to itself and to the sensory process every time; if this were the case, it could be difficult to explain psychologically how this could happen. No doubt, at times the conversion to sensory images can take the form of a conscious act of reflection on phantasms. But more often, the conversion to sensory images has to be understood as indicating an unconscious mechanism, the unavoidable involvement of perceptions and sensory images in any act of knowledge whatsoever. In this sense, one might no longer refer it as being metaphorical. Reason needs associated perceptions or sensory images, and this need does not diminish but reinforce (confortat) reason itself, Aquinas says.57 Considering this involvement, if one should not say that perception is rational for Aquinas, one could instead conclude that rationality is perceptual, and this also gives us the extent to which perception can be called rational.58 Aquinas illustrates this involvement by the usual example of the geometer who makes use of particular figures (really drawn as well as imagined) when he demonstrates theorems.59 The conversion to phantasms is important to the point that, as Aquinas noted in the Sentences Commentary, our reasoning can be translated into a verbal language only through the mediation of imagination. Imagination mediates the transfer from thought to voice, sending it to the bodily organs.60 potentie sensitiue sunt nobis necessarie ad intelligendum, non solum in acquisitione scientiae, set etiam in utendo scientia iam acquisita. Non enim possumus considerare etiam ea quorum scientiam habemus nisi convertendo nos ad fantasmata”; Sententia libri De sensu, tr. II, c. 3. 56 See Lisska 2016, p. 274, note 1. 57 See Quaestiones de quodlibet, IX, q. 4, a. 2. 58 On this involvement, see also Scriptum super Sententiis IV, d. 49, q. 3, a. 3, q.la 2; d. 50, q. 1, a. 2, arg. 5 and ad 5, ad 6; a. 2, arg. 1 and ad 1; Quaestiones de veritate, q. 12, a. 12, ad 2; Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 73 and c. 80; Summa theologiae Ia, q. 84, a. 7, ad 3; q. 85, a. 5, ad 2; q. 89, a. 1; IIa-IIae, q. 180, a. 3, ad 1; Quaestiones de anima, q. 2; Sentencia libri De anima III, c. 13; Sententia libri De sensu, tr. II, c. 2. 59 See e.g. Sententia libri De sensu, tr. II, c. 2, ed. Leonina, vol. 45/2, pp. 107–108, ll. 18–37; In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio I, lec. 10; IV, lec. 1; Sententia libri P­ osteriorum I, c. 15. 60 See e.g. Scriptum super Sententiis II, d. 8, q. 1, a. 4, q.la 5, s.c. 1, ed. Mandonnet 1929, vol. 2, p. 211: “Sed contra est, quia in omni locutione exprimuntur quaedam intentiones intellectae. Sed hujusmodi intentiones non possunt pervenire de intellectu ad vocem, nisi aliquo mediante quod est proportionatum ad hujusmodi suscipienda, sicut imaginatio humana”.

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For the present topic, it must be noted that the conversion to phantasms produces different effects in the rational soul and in the sensory soul. In a text from the Summa theologiae, Aquinas says that the rational soul acquires a new capacity of considering things through the mediation of the intelligible species it has abstracted. The sensory faculties of the human soul instead acquire the ability to facilitate the rational soul’s speculation about knowables by converting to the species. Aquinas concludes that every act of rationality is principally and formally (principaliter et formaliter) in reason, but it is materially and dispositionally (dispositive) present in the sensory faculties.61 It is not easy to imagine in concrete the new ability acquired by the sensory faculties in virtue of the intellect’s act of conversion to phantasms. Nor is it clear exactly how a rational act can be said to be materially and dispositionally present in an act of the sensory soul. As far as I can say, one could hold that, for Aquinas, an act of rationality is materially present in the sensory faculties in the sense that every act of reasoning involves sensory contents; and dispositionally present in the sense that every act of the sensory soul operates in a way to dispose the reason to perform rational acts. But what is precisely the ability the sensory soul acquires? One may think that, for Aquinas, every time our reason makes a reasoning through phantasms or reflect on them, the sensory faculties are reshaped in such a way that they facilitate any further speculation by the reason. In a text from the Summa contra Gentiles, Aquinas claims that the sensory faculty confers on the phantasms a certain ‘disposition’ to be more easily received by reason.62 The continuous interaction between sense perception and reason, thus, could in the end be understood to enrich both faculties: on the one hand, the rational soul acquires a new power of consideration, on the other hand, the sensory faculties are more and more perfected as to their function of making the reason to function even better. This holds for the acts but also for the habits, Aquinas says. Both formally pertain to reason, There is not room here to develop further this point. For details, see Amerini 2013b, to which I refer for further literature. 61 See Summa theologiae Ia, q. 89, a. 5, ed. Leonina, vol. 5, p. 380: “Unde per tales actus et ipsi intellectui possibili acquiritur facultas quaedam ad considerandum per species susceptas; et in praedictis inferioribus viribus acquiritur quaedam habilitas ut facilius per conversionem ad ipsas intellectus possit intelligibilia speculari. Sed sicut actus intellectus principaliter quidem et formaliter est in ipso intellectu, materialiter autem et dispositive in inferioribus viribus, idem etiam dicendum est de habitu”. 62 See Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 73, n. 1513, eds. Marc, Pera & Caramello 1961, vol. 2, p. 211: “Dispositiones praedictarum virtutum sunt ex parte obiecti, scilicet phantasmatis, quod propter bonitatem harum virtutum praeparatur ad hoc quod faciliter fiat intelligibile actu per intellectum agentem”.

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but dispositionally can be found in the sensory faculties as well. This seems to be a way of saying that our acts and habits of rationality are in part a natural consequence of the way in which the sensory faculties ‘prepare’ their contents to be rationally processed and stored. This ‘preparation’, not further explained by Aquinas, seems to be the distinguishing factor that makes the sensory soul of the humans more perfect than (and hence distinct from) that of the other animal species.63 3 Conclusion Much has been written about Aquinas’s view of rationality and much else needs to be written. In this study, I stressed the importance of considering the whole interconnection between rationality and perception/imagination. Sensory contents are indispensable for acquiring knowledge, for using it, and also for teaching. If sense perception furnishes material to reason, it is reason that organizes and settles this material in a rational framework. On the one hand, perception facilitates our rationality, because rationality without imagination would not be possible, and since imagination without perception is impossible, rationality too without perception would not be possible. The involvement of sensory perception and/or sensory images concretizes our natural concepts’ primitively intentional nature and also permits the translation of our thought into a verbal language. But on the other hand, our reason also plays a role in sense perception, because it permits us to be aware of the perceptual process, to initiate and to structure rationally the perceptual experience, and to orient the ordinary activity of sense perception of the extramental world. In the end, the common opinion that Aquinas defends a standard view of sense perception may still be held. Our reasoning can be rational or irrational, whereas perception cannot. Perception is simply a source of new information and cannot be considered for rationality or knowledge justification. Our sense perceptions do not express any epistemic or conceptual states. This is true at least for the sensory reception of information from the external world, less true if one looks at the perceptual experience of a thing one can have. I have pointed to some texts where Aquinas stresses the close interconnection between rationality and perception and clarified the different ways according to which one may say that the human sensory soul is more perfect than that of the other animal species. 63

The notion of preparation has a long story, going back at least to Alexander of ­Aphrodisias’s commentary on Aristotle’s De anima. For more on this, see Kessler 2011.

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If rationality intervenes on perception, it does so by conferring to some sensory faculty the possibility of performing acts that are typical of the reason. These are the acts of self-reflection and comparison. Especially the latter makes that special sensory faculty which is the cogitative power, ‘particular reason’. But it is not so because it deals with conceptualized contents that were flowed back from reason, but because the rational soul needs mediation to apply its concepts to the singular extramental things and thus it confers on the cogitative power the ability, typical of the reason, to compare singulars with each other. Only through acts of comparison can one perceive the dangerousness of the wolf, so obtaining a more refined phantasm of the wolf for our reasoning. In one respect, thus, the cogitative power precedes the reason insofar as it ‘prepares’ and enriches the phantasms for it. But in another respect, it proceeds from reason, since only after the converts itself to phantasms, can it compare the phantasms and discover the non-sensible intentions that constitute a more complex and accurate sensory image of the thing. Bibliography Primary Sources

Alcher of Clairvaux, Liber de spiritu et anima, ed. Jacques Paul Migne, Paris: 1844 (­Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, 40). Thomas Aquinas, Pars prima Summae theologiae, qq. 1–49, Rome: Ex Typographia ­Polyglotta S. C. de Propaganda Fide, 1888 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 4). Thomas Aquinas, Pars prima Summae theologiae, qq. 50–119, Rome: Ex Typographia Polyglotta S. C. de Propaganda Fide, 1889 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 5). Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super Sententiis, vols. 1–2, ed. Pierre Mandonnet, Paris: Lethielleux, 1929. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super Sententiis, vol. 3, ed. Marie Fabien Moos, Paris: Lethielleux, 1933. Thomas Aquinas, Liber de veritate Catholicae fidei contra errores infidelium, qui dicitur Summa contra gentiles, eds. Petrus Marc, Ceslao Pera & Petrus Caramello, Turin– Rome: Marietti, 1961. Thomas Aquinas, In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio, eds. Marie Raymond Cathala & Raimondo M. Spiazzi, Turin–Rome: Marietti, 1964. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae De veritate, qq. 1–7, Rome: Ad Sanctae ­Sabinae, 1970 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 22/1.2).

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Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae De veritate, qq. 8–12, Rome: Ad Sanctae ­Sabinae, 1970 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 22/2.1). Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae De veritate, qq. 13–20, Rome: Ad Sanctae ­Sabinae, 1972 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 22/2). Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae De malo, Rome–Paris: Commissio Leonina– Vrin, 1982 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 23). Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De anima, Rome–Paris: Commissio Leonina–Vrin, 1984 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 45/1). Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De sensu et sensato cuius secundus tractatus est De memoria et reminiscentia, ed. René-Antoine Gauthier, Rome–Paris: Commissio Leonina–Vrin, 1985 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 45/2). Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae De anima, Rome–Paris: Commissio Leonina– Éditions Du Cerf, 1996 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 24/1).

Secondary Literature

Amerini, Fabrizio (2013a), Tommaso d’Aquino e l’intenzionalità, Pisa: ETS (­Philosophica,  117). Amerini, Fabrizio (2013b), “Thomas Aquinas on Mental Language”, Medioevo, 38, pp. 73–106. Băltuţă, Elena (2013), “Aquinas on Intellectual Cognition: The Case of Intelligible ­Species”, Philosophia, 41/3, pp. 489–602. Boyle, Matthew (2016), “Additive Theories of Rationality: A Critique”, European Journal of Philosophy, 24/3, pp. 527–555. Brower, Jeffrey E. (2001), “Aquinas’s Abstractionism”, Medieval Philosophy and Theology, 10/1, pp. 85–118. Brower, Jeffrey E. & Brower-Toland, Susan (2008), “Aquinas on Mental Representation: Concepts and Intentionality”, Philosophical Review, 117/2, pp. 193–243. Burnyeat, Myles F. (2001), “Aquinas on ‘Spiritual Change’ in Perception”, in Dominik Perler (ed.), Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality, Leiden–­Boston: Brill (Brill Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 76), pp. 129–153. De Haan, Daniel D. (2014), “Perception and the ‘vis cogitativa’: A Thomistic Analysis of Aspectual, Actional, and Affectional Percepts”, American Catholic Philosophical Q ­ uarterly, 88/3, pp. 397–437.

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De Haan, Daniel D. (2020), “Aquinas on Sensing, Perceiving, Thinking, Understanding, and Knowing Individuals,” in Elena Băltuţă (ed.), Medieval Perceptual Puzzles: ­Theories of Sense Perception in the 13th and 14th Centuries, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Investigating Medieval Philosophy, 13), pp. 238–268. Ghijssen, Harmen (2018), “How to Explain the Rationality of Perception”, Analysis, 78/3, pp. 500–512. Haldane, John J. (1983), “Aquinas on Sense-Perception”, The Philosophical Review, 2, pp. 233–240. Kessler, Eckhard (2011), Alexander of Aphrodisias and His Doctrine of the Soul: 1400 Years of Lasting Significance, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Brill’s European History and Culture E-Books Online). King, Peter (2012), “Emotions”, in Brian Davies & Eleonore Stump (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, Oxford: Oxford University Press (Oxford Handbooks in ­Philosophy), pp. 209–226. Klima, Gyula (2009), “Aquinas on the Materiality of the Human Soul and the Immateriality of the Human Intellect”, Philosophical Investigations, 32, pp. 163–82. Klubertanz, George P. (1952), The Discursive Power. Sources and Doctrine of the ‘vis cogitativa’ according to St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Louis: The Modern Schoolman. Lisska, Anthony J. (2016), Aquinas’s Theory of Perception. An Analytic Reconstruction, Oxford: Oxford University Press. MacDonald, Scott (1993), “Theory of Knowledge”, in Norman Kretzmann & Eleonore Stump (eds.), Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Companions to Philosophers), pp. 160–195. Mailloux, Noël (1942), “The Problem of Perception”, The Thomist, 4, pp. 266–285. Oelze, Anselm (2018), Animal Rationality: Later Medieval Theories 1250–1350, Leiden: Brill (Investigating Medieval Philosophy, 12). Pasnau, Robert (1997), Theories of Cognition in the Later Middle Ages, Cambridge: ­Cambridge University Press. Pasnau, Robert (2002), Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature. A Philosophical Study of Summa theologiae Ia 75–89, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Perler, Dominik (2020), “Rational Seeing: Thomas Aquinas on Human Perception”, in ed. Elena Băltuţă (ed.), Medieval Perceptual Puzzles: Theories of Sense Perception in the 13th and 14th Centuries, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Investigating Medieval Philosophy, 13), pp. 213–237. Putallaz, François X. (1991), Le sens de la réflexion chez Thomas d’Aquin, Paris: Vrin (Études de philosophie médiévale, 66). Renani, Ali Abedi (2018), “Aquinas’ Theory of Knowledge and the Representative ­Theory of Perception,” Aisthema, 5/1, pp. 109–126 Scarpelli Cory, Therese (2014), Aquinas on Human Self-Knowledge, Cambridge: ­Cambridge University Press.

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Scarpelli Cory, Therese (2015), “Rethinking Abstractionism: Aquinas’s Intellectual Light and Some Arabic Sources”, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 53/4, pp. 607–646. Scarpelli Cory, Therese (2020), “Aquinas’s Intelligible Species as Formal Constituents,” Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 31, pp. 261–310. Siegel, Susanna (2016), The Rationality of Perception, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spruit, Leen (1994), Species intelligibilis: From Perception to Knowledge, vol. 1: Classical Roots and Medieval Discussions Leiden-Boston: Brill (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History). Stump, Eleonore (1998), “Aquinas’s Account of the Mechanisms of Intellective ­Cognition”, Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 52, pp. 287–307. Tellkamp, Jörg A. (1995–1996), “Thomas Aquinas’s Theory of Perception: Sources and Doctrine”, Universitas Philosophica, 13/25–26, pp. 45–67. Tellkamp, Jörg A. (1999), Sinne, Gegenstände und Sensibilia. Zur Wahrnehmungslehre des Thomas von Aquin, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 66). Tellkamp, Jörg A. (2012), “Vis aestimativa and vis cogitativa in Thomas Aquinas’s ­Commentary on the Sentences”, The Thomist, 76, pp. 611–640. Torrell, Jean-Pierre (1993), Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin, sa personne et son œuvre, Fribourg–Paris: Éditions Universitaires–Éditions du Cerf (Vestigia: pensée antique et médiévale, 13). Uffenheimer-Lippens, Elizabeth (2003), “Rationalized Passion and Passionate Rationality: Thomas Aquinas on the Relation between Reason and the Passions”, The Review of Metaphysics, 56/3, pp. 525–558.

CHAPTER 6

Thomas Aquinas on Perception Permeated by Rationality José Filipe Silva On a very general level, it is acceptable to say that in an Aristotelian f­ ramework, perception is of different sensible properties, say, color or shape and of that which those sensible properties are properties of, say, that which is both red and round. Although the distinction between the per se and incidental (per accidens) sensibles is a clear-cut distinction on the conceptual level, these aspects appear merged in any perceptual experience of an individual sentient being. In an actual perceptual experience, one only perceives ‘redness’ if there is an individual perceptible object that is red while also being of a certain shape and size because sensible properties can only be perceived as instantiated. Therefore, a comprehensive account of perception requires the inclusion of all those sensible aspects—per se, common and incidental sensibles—that are present to the perceiving subject. In the later Middle Ages, the questions of which sensible attributes beyond the per se sensibles are represented in normal perceptual episodes and by which power(s) are these attributes apprehended became central. As the same explanatory principle that applies to those per se sensibles does not apply to incidental sensibles, medieval thinkers (from Avicenna onwards) were led to develop a schema of internal senses that improves on the schema presented by Aristotle in his De anima and the Parva naturalia,1 for instance with the inclusion of the estimative and cogitative powers. The number and nature of these internal processing faculties or internal senses has been the focus of numerous recent scholarly contributions, and among these, special attention has been paid to the uniquely human c­ ogitative power (animals have the estimative power) and to one author in this tradition, the thirteenth century Dominican Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). What explains this focus on the human cogitative is the role that this power plays, according to Aquinas, in structuring perceptual content, namely by identifying a perceived individual thing as belonging to a kind—or in more medieval terminology, perceiving an individual ‘under a common nature’. This structuring of content seems 1 On this point, see Di Martino 2008, p. 14. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004537712_007

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to require access to conceptual or rational resources, namely the concept of (natural) kind or common nature under which the individual thing is subsumed. To understand the exact nature of the cogitative power and of its operation is therefore consequential for an account of human perception and its relation to non-rational animal perception. While most existing scholarship tries to make sense of Aquinas’ account of the cogitative by focusing on how this cognitive power relates to other cognitive powers, namely by means of its association with the intellect (or reason), I try to make sense of the role the cogitative plays in Aquinas’ theory of perception by focusing on the kind of properties that can be represented in the act or operation of this sensory power. I argue that Aquinas restricts the operation of sensory powers to content about particulars, and as a result, the perception of an individual as belonging to a kind requires the intervention of reason in perceptual e­ xperience. I conclude by making a suggestion about the nature of this intervention, which I describe as being concurrent to rather than transformative of the operation of the ­sensory cogitative power. 1 Rational and Non-Rational Divide in the Nature of Perceptual Experience The key passage for an analysis of Aquinas’ view on the cogitative power is found in his Commentary on Aristotle’s De anima, which I cite in full: If, however, [the object] is apprehended as an individual—e.g., when I see something coloured, I perceive this human being or this animal— then this sort of apprehension in a human being is produced through the cogitative power. This is also called particular reason, because it joins individual intentions in the way universal reason joins universal concepts (…) The cogitative and estimative powers stand differently in this regard. For the cogitative apprehends an individual as being under a common nature, which happens because it [the cogitative] is united with the intellective [soul] in the same subject, thus cognizing of this man that it is this man and this [piece of] wood insofar as it is this [piece of] wood; the estimative, however, does not cognize an individual as being under a common nature, but only as the end point or the starting point of an action or affection, just like a sheep cognizes a lamb not insofar as it is this lamb but insofar as it lactates and this grass insofar as it is food to it.2 2 Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libro de anima, ed. Leonina, vol. 14/1, pp. 121–122, transl. Pasnau 1999, p. 208 (SDA, hereafter), slightly modified.

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The passage indicates that there is a structural difference in human and nonhuman perception at least in one respect: the estimative (in non-rational animals) apprehends only individual intentions (intentiones), like this sheep apprehending the hostility of that wolf, and these intentions primarily aim at explaining animal behavior: the object emitted intention triggers an appropriate, species-specific response in the perceiving animal. Intentions are the “the end point or the starting point of an action or affection” and non-rational perceivers access some of those properties by innate instinct (per estimatiuam naturalem). ‘Instinct’ (naturalis estimatiua) here means that the animal executes a certain action towards the perceptual object (say, x) without having epistemic access to the nature of its content, that is to say, without consciously grasping what it means for x to be beneficial or knowing the reason why x is beneficial. The displayed behavior is, as it were, caused by a directive (automatic, species-specific and sub-personal) rather than by a memorandum that explains or provides access to the why of the instruction.3 In contrast to what happens with animals, Aquinas claims in the passage that human beings are, by means of their cognitive power, able to apprehend the individual thing that is perceived “as being under a common nature” (ut existentem sub natura communi), that is to say, “when I see a coloured thing, I perceive it as this human being or this animal”. This text and these particular statements give rise to (at least) two main questions: one, what is the nature of the content—the common nature—under which the perceived individual is subsumed? The passage suggests that this corresponds to universal content. The question then becomes whether the cogitative, as a sensory power, can access this content, and how is it able to do so if, as Aquinas explains in the same passage, the cogitative operates by “join[ing] individual intentions” (collatiua intentionum indiuidualium) in contrast to universal reason, which “joins universal intentions” (collatiua rationum uniuersalium). The passage therefore seems to lead to a paradox: the cogitative power is presented as subsuming particular objects under universal common natures, while its operation is contrasted with that of reason, which alone operates with universal intentions. A growing literature on this topic tries to make sense of some of these issues and what exactly it is that Aquinas’ view amounts to, especially due to the significance of the topic for contemporary debates (for this, see the Introduction to this volume). Scholars tend to agree that the passage cited above is crucial, but it is less clear what exactly Aquinas claims in it. Some have taken the passage to mean that, in addition to low-level sensible properties (color, shape, 3 On occasion, ‘instinct’ may be replaced by association, for example, due to the familiarity of an individual (‘feeder’, ‘master’) to the animal.

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etc.), kinds (common natures) are also represented in perception by the sensory power of the cogitative.4 In other words, the cogitative power is able to identify the ‘common nature’ or kind/species to which the token object belongs by making use of concepts.5 As such, the cogitative perceives this individual and knows its essence as x (wood, man), thus apprehending this individual as instantiating x-ness. According to this interpretation, rational cognitive subjects “spontaneously appl[y] general concepts”,6 and they do so because of an ‘overflow’ or ‘spillover’ of higher order (conceptual) content to the sensory cogitative power, which is due to this power’s proximity to the intellect.7 The content of human perceptual experiences is richly complex due to the interference of rational (/intellectual) powers. The result is the claim that sensory activities of the human soul “are always closely linked to and shaped by those of the rational faculty. Or for short, they are always imbued with rationality” and “always permeated by rational activities”.8 This rational influence, which 4 Rubini 2020, p. 276. 5 Toivanen 2020; and Pasnau 2002, pp. 272–73, who remarks (regarding SDA II, 13) that “­Aquinas is relying on a distinction between sorting individuals by means of the intellect’s concepts and conceiving of those individuals as members of a broader class”. As a result, he argues, this use of concepts does not actively involve the intellect, but it is a function of the cogitative. Interestingly, in doing so, Pasnau corrects his own earlier view (see note 2, p. 444), which I take to be the correct one. In the same passage, however, he notes that the perception of something as universal, such as ‘this (piece of wood) belongs to a certain kind (wood)’, is an intellectual sensation per accidens. But this simply shows that Pasnau recognizes the difficulties in distinguishing the operations of the two powers. My reading will hopefully make it easier: the distinction is between apprehending the individual under a common nature, which is done by the cogitative, and apprehending the common nature under which the individual is subsumed, which is done by the intellect concurrently to the perception of the individual. 6 Perler 2020, p. 228. See also Toivanen 2017, p. 284, who extends this idea to non-rational ­animals, stating that “pygmées peuvent utilizer des concepts généraux, qui se referent à ­plusieurs individus de la même espèce, sans être capables de comprendre l’essence de ces objets individuels”. The claim that pygmies would have access to ‘general concepts’ even if their lack of reason needs to be justified. For a more detailed account of how this may be possible, see Oelze 2018. 7 Perler 2020, p. 30: “the descriptive and normative properties present in the sensory faculty first ‘flow’ to the rational faculty, where they are conceptually evaluated, and then the ­concepts ‘flow back’ to the sensory faculty, where they are immediately applied to what is present”. Although Perler is mostly careful in locating the conceptual resources in the intellect, and thus close to the reading I am proposing here, some of his formulations (like the one just quoted) suggest a transfer of content from the intellect to the cogitative, which then operates with this conceptual content—see, e.g., p. 234, where he claims that a non-­ conceptual element in perceptual content “co-exists with the conceptual element, for which the conceptual power is responsible. (…) Thanks to her cogitative power she [a human perceiver] also subsumes what she sees and smells under some concepts”. 8 Perler 2020, pp. 222 and 230, respectively.

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explains the modus operandi of the cogitative power, is grounded on the metaphysical claim that there is, in each human being, only one soul, and thus all powers of the human soul are, to some extent, rational. Therefore, according to this interpretation, Aquinas’ account fits what Mathew Boyle has called “transformative rationality” (in contrast with an “additive theory of rationality”):9 rationality is not something that is added to the non-rational aspects of the soul, as an extra element as it were, but something that determines and defines the nature of all powers that are rooted in that one and the same soul. In addition to placing Aquinas in the middle of the contemporary debate about the nature of rationality, such a reading makes Aquinas a voice to take into account in the debates over conceptual versus nonconceptual content and the cognitive penetrability of perception. Less clear is his position in this debate: should we think of Aquinas as being in favor of the claim of cognitive penetration, which argues that reason directly interferes with normal perceptual experiences, or should he be understood instead as supporting the view that reason does not interfere directly in perceptual experiences and that the cogitative is a sensory power that has, nonetheless, unmediated access to conceptual content, which receives from reason as the result of a spillover (refluentia)10 and due to its closeness to reason.11

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Perler 2020, citing Boyle 2016. It seems to be that the alternatives of ‘transformative rationality’ and ‘additive rationality’ are not exhaustive. In fact, a third model, which we could call ‘inchoate rationality’, seems better fitted to characterize the medieval theory of human rationality: lower powers of the soul (cognitive and affective) are ordered to the higher powers; for instance, our perceptions are ordered to provide sensible information to the intellective power. Thomas Aquinas, Summae theologiae (ST, hereafter) Ia, q. 78, a. 4, ad 5, ed. Editio Leonina, t. 5, p. 257: “Ad quintum dicendum quod illam eminentiam habet cogitativa et memorativa in homine, non per id quod est proprium sensitivae partis; sed per aliquam affinitatem et propinquitatem ad rationem universalem, secundum quandam refluentiam”. It is unclear to me whether this spillover should be conceived of as taking place whenever there is a perceptual experience or at the outset of their coming together. If it takes place at times when the subject undergoes a perceptual experience, it seems clear that the sensory powers are not encapsulated but rather subjected to the influence of reason. If, on the other hand, the spillover takes place prior to episodes of perceptual experience, the sensory powers would be encapsulated. Conceptually, there are serious problems with both of these options. In the case of the ‘on-occasion’ spillover, one should inquire what triggers it, namely, whether the cogitative power ‘requests’ the conceptual resources from reason or whether reason ‘automatically’ makes them available. Either way, it seems a duplication of efforts. If, on the other hand, this takes place at the outset, it would seem to require that this content must be retained by a sensory power, for instance memory. But Aquinas never advocates that conceptual content is kept by a sensory power for the purpose of identifying high-level properties. Thomas Aquinas, ST I, q. 78, a. 4; Scriptum super Sententiis III, d. 23, q. 2, a. 2, qc. 1, ad 3.

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In what follows, I wish to contribute to this discussion by attempting to disambiguate two aspects that often appear conflated. Although I agree that the perception of an individual as subsumed under a common nature requires rationality, i.e., that it can only be carried out by cognitive beings that are endowed with reason,12 I think this subsuming—of an individual to common nature—cannot be attributed to the cogitative power. For Aquinas, a sensory faculty is not able to represent kinds or even to operate with concepts. ­Second, the cogitative power participates in this subsumption by means of its association with the power of the intellect (“contingit ei in quantum unitur intellectiue”) rather than subsuming on its own as the result of a transferal of cognitive, conceptual content from the intellect.13 In the reading I propose in this article, refluentia should not be taken to mean the spillover of content from reason but rather intervention by the reasoning power, complementing the reach of the cogitative. To be more precise, I intend to show that the cogitative power and the intellect (/reason) together perceive an individual to be of a certain color, shape and size, both as the individual that it is (Socrates) and as an individual of a certain kind (human being). The reason why the transfer of content from reason to the cogitative power cannot be supported is that it entails that a sensory power would be able to handle universal or conceptual content, which clearly goes against Aquinas’ theory of the human soul and his general theory of cognition. For Aquinas, sensory powers are corporeal, i.e., embodied powers, and this entails restrictions on how they operate: they cannot transcend the limits of what is material, and thus their objects are individuated or particularized.14 The cogitative power is one such power, which means that it is not permeable by the type of semantic information necessary for the identification of kinds. For the cogitative to be able to identify this individual thing that is being perceived now as belonging to a certain kind, it would have to both perceive this individual thing in its individuating conditions (red, round, tall, over there, now) and have access to the kind-concept (say, table) under which it subsumes that individual (this table). The problem with this reading is that in several places, including the passage cited at the beginning of this section, Aquinas explicitly contrasts the cogitative as operating on individual intentions and the intellect as operating on universal intentions.15 These passages make clear that the object of the 12 13 14 15

As Aquinas makes clear also in ST Ia, q. 78, a. 4, ad 5. As argued by Rubini 2020, p. 283. Objects are here understood in a formal sense as the sensible features that are specific to a sense power and explain its operation. See e.g. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super Sententiis II, d. 9, q. 1, a. 8, ad 1. That the kind of content here is ‘intention’ rather than ‘sensible form’ is irrelevant. What matters is the

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cogitative power is the individual, whereas kind-properties, like the common nature of ‘humanity’ or ‘human being’, are the purview of reason. For Aquinas, the defining property of an immaterial cognitive power is that it operates on universal content. Of the human cognitive powers, only the intellect operates with this type of content, and thus (or because of this) it is immaterial. But, if the immateriality of the intellect is what explains its capacity to apprehend universal content, which is its proper object, no material power can operate with this kind of content.16 If the cogitative were able to operate on conceptual (or universal) content, this would mean that universal content would not be restricted to powers that are not the actuality of bodily organs, such as the intellect. For Aquinas, however, the immaterial nature of the powers and the universal or conceptual nature of the content proper to that power go hand in hand:17 the intellect needs to be unmixed with corporeal things, meaning that it is not the actuality of any bodily organ, in order to be potentially cognizant of the essences of all material things.18 In contrast, material powers are restricted in their cognitive reach by the dispositions of the corporeal organs through which they operate. The unavoidable conclusion seems to be that only reason, as an immaterial power able of handling universal content, such as kind-concepts, is able and responsible for structuring or subsuming the

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individual or universal nature of that content. Of course, the difference between the two is significant, but not for the issue I am considering here. Aquinas is unequivocal on this. See, e.g., SDA III, 4: “But the differentia by which intellective cognition differs from sensory is that sensing is something corporeal: for sense’s operation does not occur without a bodily organ. Intellective cognition, however, is not something corporeal, because intellect’s operation does not occur through a corporeal organ” (transl. Pasnau, p. 321). There has been some discussion in literature about whether Aquinas is successful in arguing for the immateriality of the intellect on the basis of the kind of content it operates with. On this issue, with extensive bibliography, see Wood 2019. See e.g., Aquinas, ST Ia, q. 79, a. 1, ad 4: “ex immaterialitate habet virtutem ad intelligendum”. Aquinas contends that it is immateriality that makes things capable of being ­understood and capable of understanding. I cannot here fully substantiate the argument, but I take it as undisputable that this is Aquinas’ view on the matter. For details on this, see e.g., Pasnau 2002. Aquinas makes the same point in many places, that is that “potentia sensitiva [est] actus organi corporalis” (ST Ia, q. 78, a. 4); see also SDA III, q. 7, p. 680, transl. Pasnau, p. 345: “For everything that is in potentiality to something and is receptive of it is lacking in that to which it is in potentiality and of which it is receptive. (…) Therefore, the intellect lacks all those things that it is naturally suited to cognize. Therefore, since our intellect is naturally suited to have intellective cognition of all sensible and corporeal things, it must lack every corporeal nature, just as the sense of sight lacks color because it is capable of cognizing color”. See also ST Ia, q.75, a. 2; and ST Ia, q. 79, a. 4, ad 4, where Aquinas makes it clear that abstraction only takes place because the intellect is an immaterial power.

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particular sensory content available to the cogitative. And yet, this principle of the separation of powers just alluded to has been overlooked by scholarship despite being (recognizably) a cornerstone of Aquinas’ philosophy of mind.19 The problem is that the apparently innocuous suggestion that the cogitative, as a sensory power, is able to handle universal content, a notion advocated by such readings of Aquinas, presents a serious threat to Aquinas’ argument for the immateriality of the human intellect and thus for the separability and immortality of the human soul. 2

Perception Permeated by Rationality

The previous section showed that to understand Aquinas’ account of the cogitative power, it is essential to understand what kind of properties are (re)present(ed) in ordinary perceptual experiences and what kind of content the cogitative power operates with. To do so, we need to dig deeper into the role that this power plays in Aquinas’ theory of mind and cognition. One passage in which Aquinas examines the cogitative is in his Commentary to the Metaphysics of Aristotle, where it plays a key role in the acquisition of experience (experimentum): For an experience arises from the association of many singular [intentions] received in memory. And this kind of association is proper to man, and pertains to the cogitative power (also called particular reason), which associates particular intentions just as universal reason associates universal ones. Now, since animals are accustomed to pursue or avoid certain things as a result of [having] many sensations and memory, for this reason they seem to share something of experience, even though it be slight.20

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A good example is Lisska 2016. Lisska devotes great efforts to explain the way the cogitative power cognizes an individual thing (primary substance) as the unified subject of perceptual (visible, audible, etc.) features while showing little interest in explaining how the cogitative power has access to the conceptual resources that allow it to subsume that individual under a common nature. Thomas Aquinas, In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio I, 1, 15, eds. Cathala & Spiazzi 1964, p. 8: “Huiusmodi autem collatio est homini propria, et pertinet ad vim cogitativam, quae ratio particularis dicitur: quae est collativa intentionum individualium, sicut ratio universalis intentionum universalium” (transl. Rowan 1961, p. 7).

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In this text, Aquinas contrasts the same epistemic activity—an experience (experimentum), which results from the identification of something similar in a number of individual perceived objects—in epistemic subjects of a different nature. Whereas for non-rational animals, experience is the result of habit together with memory,21 for human beings, experience is the result of the activity of the cogitative power comparing individual intentions. Significantly, the core activity of the cogitative power is to gather, collate (collatio) or compare individual intentions,22 which Aquinas contrasts with the intellect comparing universal intentions.23 I want to emphasize that despite a certain ambiguity in these passages, Aquinas argues that the rational-like nature of the cogitative power is due to the nature of its operation, comparing and collating intentions, rather than to the nature of the content of its acts because this content consists of individual intentions. Elsewhere, Aquinas refers to the nature of the operation of the cogitative, which he also calls “particular reason”, as being “quasi-syllogistic”;24 the cogitative proceeds quasi-discursively about individual things and operates on individual contents. The notion of experience is again discussed in Aquinas’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (CPA, hereafter) in relation to the question of how the first principles of science come to be known. Aquinas defines experience in CPA II.20.2 as “the apprehension of something arising from many impressions retained in memory” and as “a kind of reasoning about particulars, a reasoning 21 22

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Only animals that possess memory are capable of having this kind of generalized c­ ognition called ‘experience’. See also Scriptum super Sententiis III, d. 23, q. 2, a.2, cited by Tellkamp 2012, p. 633: “Ad tertium dicendum quod illa potentia quae a philosophis dicitur cogitativa est in confinio sensitivae et intellectivae partis, ubi pars sensitiva intellectivam attingit. Habet aliquid ab intellectiva, scilicet quod conferat; unde et in solis hominibus est”. The object of the human intellect is the essence of material things; see, e.g., ST Ia, q. 85, a. 8 and ST Ia, q. 78, a. 4. According to Albert, the corresponding power is phantasia, which operates in a more sophisticated way in human beings due to its connection with reason: see Albertus Magnus, De anima III, tr.1, c.3, ed. Stroick 1968, pp. 168–169. See also Michaud-Quantin 1966. “…quasi syllogistice inquirendo” (ST Ia, q. 78, a. 4). It has been argued (Rubini 2020, p. 282) that the cogitative operates quasi-syllogistically by means of processes of inference, of operating discursively, and of “drawing conclusions”. Other authors (for instance, Perler 2020) are more cautious and avoid using this inferential and discursive terminology. It should be pointed out that regarding this same question, Aquinas uses a similar expression “quasi syllogistice” to describe the act of remembering, which certainly deflates the sense of inference and discursivity at play here. Likewise, Aquinas also applies the notion of refluentia to memory (see Decaix’s contribution to this volume), and in his Commentary on the De sensu, Aquinas notes that memory is the highest/superior power of the sensitive soul. On this, see Amerini’s contribution to this volume, notes 11 and 21.

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which compares one thing to another”. However, in this work, Aquinas emphasizes that “[t]his is an activity proper to reason”,25 which is to say that reason is the power that singles out what is common to these many impressions in memory. The ‘common thing’ is the universal, which “is taken, in all cases, to be the same as it was experienced to be in some cases”, not the same numerically but the same in kind. In the context of a theory of science, that universal constitutes a first principle, a starting point for an investigation into the nature and properties of the subject matter of a scientific field, be that geometry or physics. The universal, which is at rest in the soul, is considered with reference to the particulars from which it has been abstracted, and whenever one thinks of something universal, one cannot but include in the thought a reference to an individual that instantiates that universal.26 Elsewhere, Aquinas calls this reference back to the individuals the conversio ad phantasmata.27 In noting that universals are the objects of the intellect, an immaterial power, and not of the senses, which are material powers, Aquinas is following Aristotle. He also notes that What is sensed properly and per se is clearly the singular. Nevertheless, the sense power knows the universal in some way, since it knows C ­ allias, not only insofar as he is Callias, but also insofar as he is this man, and, similarly, it knows Socrates insofar as Socrates is this man. Because of this pre-existing knowledge in the senses, the intellectual soul is able to consider man in both individuals. But if the sense powers were able to grasp only what pertains to particularity, and were in no way able to grasp, together with this, the universal nature in the particular, it would not be possible for universal knowledge to be caused in us from sense perceptions.28 What Aristotle exactly meant in the original work that Aquinas is commenting on has been the subject of much dispute. Likewise, there are several ways of reading this passage in Aquinas’ commentary. One way is to take it to mean 25 26

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Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics II, 20, transl. Berquist 2007, p. 339. On this, see in particular ST Ia, q. 84, a. 7–8; and Scriptum super Sententiis II, d. 20, q. 2, a. 2, ad 3. A phantasm is the sensory representation of that individual. Were it not for that turn to the phantasm, the argument continues, one would misleadingly consider the essences of material things without referencing their materiality (or as ‘in-mattered’). See e.g., ST Ia, q. 86, a. 1. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics II, 20, p. 341, slightly modified.

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that the senses are able, by combing through the received sense data and by means of a comparison of individual intentions, to grasp higher-order sensible content on their own, namely grasping the universal in the particular and identifying the particular thing as ‘this man’, i.e., as an individual of a certain kind. Another way is to take this higher-order sensible content as not being conceptual or universal, meaning that the senses do not grasp the universal as such but the universal (nature) in the particular.29 According to this reading, the senses make use of some sort of ‘proto-concepts’, that is to say, low level generalizations that are sufficient for the identification of individual objects (in their individuality, e.g. ‘Socrates’, or their similarity to other individuals, e.g. ‘men’) without presupposing the knowledge of the whole essence of a kind.30 Consequently, the sense power would perceive Callias as a human being, but it would not perceive the ‘humanity’ that is instantiated in Callias. A ‘proto-­ concept’ should be thought of as being different from a ‘true’ concept in that the former is a type of general, underdetermined content that does not apply uniformly and necessarily to all instances of a kind, and as such should be thought of as akin to Avicenna’s ‘vague individual’.31 I would like to propose yet another way of reading the above cited passage. I read this passage as saying that the senses perceive the particular individual, and based on this perception, the intellect apprehends (i.e., abstracts) the universal, which is its proper object.32 There is a difference between apprehending 29

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Dominik Perler seems to be close to the reading I am advocating here (2012, especially pp. 41–42). It is also important to note that the term Aquinas uses is ‘collatio’, the comparing of individual intentions, rather than ‘collectio’ (collecting), which would refer to the ­gathering of a universal concept from particulars. On proto-concepts, see also Lisska 2016, pp. 246–247, who argues that sense perception can only play the role it does in “an empiricist theory of knowledge as Aquinas” if the senses already retain some proto-conceptual content. On this, see Black 2011, pp. 259–292; see also Black 2012. On Averroes, see Brenet 2003. An interesting question on its own right is whether this vague individual could be thought of as a case of perceptual learning, according to which perceivers are able to classify objects on the basis of their familiarity with them and without this entailing cognitive penetration (however this is understood). Black reverts to the incremental intellectualization of the ‘vague individual’ in the Latin philosophical tradition from the clear sensory role it has in Avicenna. On the influence of Avicenna and Averroes on Aquinas with regard to the cogitative, see Tellkamp 2012; and Di Martino 2008. In very broad terms, the difference goes down to the fact that for Avicenna, the cogitative power is the human compositive imagination when operating under the influence of the intellect; for Averroes, on the other hand, and as the result of his theory of the intellect, the cogitative is the highest human cognitive power. It would be more proper to say that a human being ‘perceives by means of the senses’ and ‘apprehends by means of the intellect’, instead of using the ‘shorthand’ ‘the senses

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a thing that is the subject of an array of sensible properties and categorizing it as a member of a kind, which requires access to concepts and thus the intervention of the intellect. As I read it, the passage recognizes and asserts these two operations as distinct. In it, Aquinas is simply saying that the same object can be considered under the conditions of particularity by the senses and under the conditions of universality by the intellect. He also explains that there is a sense in which the senses signal to the intellect, by their way of perceiving the individual object, the aspect or nature in which the object is significant or relevant. Perhaps an illustration will help. Let us imagine that I draw a particular house that I have in view. Certain properties of the house that I represent in my drawing help identify what I am drawing as a house, even though I intend my drawing to be a drawing of this particular house that I have in view. Likewise, the senses perceive an individual object under certain features, and these same features can be used as a way to identify the kind that the object belongs to and the universal it instantiates by a power that operates not with the particular as such in view but with the universal. The implications of my proposed reading of this passage for understanding the cogitative power is that it reinforces the view that the cogitative is a sensory power that does not have direct access to universal content, which is the kind of content that is proper to and exclusive of a rational power. I want to point out that I am not the first to notice the relevance of these two just cited passages for thinking about the cogitative. George Klubertanz, in his groundbreaking study on Aquinas’ view of the cogitative power, has noted an important difference between these two passages: whereas in the Commentary on Metaphysics, Aquinas assigns to the cogitative the role of building a unified representation (the experimentum) from the collation of images of many singular things retained in memory, in the discussion on the same topic in the Commentary on Posterior Analytics, Aquinas makes no mention of the cogitative power. Instead, he mentions the ‘senses’ in general.33 Klubertanz’s reading

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perceive’ and ‘the intellect apprehends’, but that would make the text very cumbersome. However, the reader should keep in mind that this is the intended meaning. Klubertanz 1952, pp. 206–211. Lisska (2016, pp. 246–247) tries to explain Aquinas’ (and Aristotle’s) reference to the way the senses know universals with the role, described by Klubertanz, of the cogitative power in the discovery of the universal. But it is one thing to say that the collation of singular images (or representations of singular things) may result in similarities between them being noted and to say that when one apprehends a white thing one apprehends, to a certain degree already at the sensory level, that it is a human being. The difference between the two can be explained as the difference between ‘the perception of x’ and ‘the perception of x as y’—where x stands for a particular and y for a universal. Aristotle (and Aquinas) had in mind the former, not the latter.

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of Aquinas’ understanding of the cogitative has been criticized,34 at least so far as concerns his conclusion that the cogitative power only plays a role in Aquinas’ psychology when practical action is envisaged. Without taking a stand on this issue here, it seems that Klubertanz’s reading is justified with regard to these two texts, especially considering the following aspect (which has been overlooked): the singling out of the cogitative in the Metaphysics passage and its absence in the CPA passage are accompanied by a significant difference between a claim of association by similarity in the former passage (which does not require conceptual resources) and a claim of universality, even if of a lowgrade, in the latter. The difference between the two passages not only relates to which power is responsible for what process, it also concerns the nature of the content involved in each process: in the passage from the Metaphysics, where the cogitative power is mentioned, the process involves individual intentions and not universal ones; in the passage from the CPA, one the other hand, where the content is general, even if vague and rudimentary, the cogitative is not even mentioned. This seems to reinforce the view that what makes the cogitative rational-like is not the content of its acts but the way it operates on that content. There is a final aspect of the CPA passage that is worth considering. The text indicates that it is the perception of individuals, such as Socrates and ­Callias, as a certain kind that allows the intellect to consider what is common to two individuals. In other words, the senses influence the way the intellect processes received information, namely by ‘marking’ individual sensory representations in a way that makes them salient in a certain respect (e.g., their similarity) for the intellect to perform its proper operation, e.g., to grasp the humanity in Socrates and Callias.35 These ‘markings’ allow the intellect to ‘pick up’ or select the common nature under which the individual perceived by the senses is subsumed, and in this way, the sensory powers partially compensate for the limitations of the intellectual knowledge of singulars, which Aquinas takes to

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On a critical reading of this interpretation, see Barker 2012b, pp. 60–61. Perhaps an easier way to put this is to say that the sense powers must process the incoming information in the right way for the intellect to be able to act on it (this would also be in line with what Aquinas says in ST Ia, q.79, a. 4, ad 3). F. Amerini, in his contribution to this volume, suggests a similar reading. On this, see also White 2002, who quotes Aquinas’ Summa contra gentiles II, 76, 13. The talk of saliency makes Aquinas’ position close to that of Alhacen, who claims that the power of discrimination is able to recognize an individual or a kind on the basis of distinctive or salient features (per signa), i.e., properties like a flat nose or the shape of a human being (an upright position) that are to some extent proper to that individual or that kind (De aspectibus II, 4, 21).

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be indirect (by means of the conversio ad phantasmata I mentioned earlier).36 In De Veritate, Aquinas appears to elaborate on this idea: Thus, it seems that our mind [mens] cannot directly know a singular [thing], but a singular [thing] can be directly known by us by means of the sensory powers that receive the forms from things in the sense organ—and it receives them [the forms] in this way under determinate dimensions and insofar as they lead to the cognition of singular matter. In the same way as the universal form leads to the knowledge of universal matter, the individual form leads to the cognition of signate matter, which is the principle of individuation. However, insofar as it [the mind] is the continuation of the sense powers, which are versed on particulars, the mind becomes acquainted incidentally with singulars. This continuity [of the mind with respect to the sense powers] comes about in two ways. In one way, insofar as the motion of the sensory part terminates in the mind, it happens in the motion that goes from things to the mind; in this way, the mind knows the singular by means of a certain reflection, as for instance when the mind cognizes its object, which is a certain universal nature, [it first] turns to the cognition, to its own act, then to the species that is the principle of its act and finally to the phantasm from which the species is abstracted. In this way, it [the mind] achieves a certain cognition of the singular [thing]. The other way is the motion from the soul to the thing, [a motion] that originates in the mind and proceeds to the sensitive part [of the soul], for the mind rules the inferior powers. In this way, it [the mind] blends with singulars [things] by means of the particular reason, which is a certain power of the sensitive part [of the soul] that combines and divides individual intentions, whose other name is cogitative, and which has a determinate organ in the body, i.e., the middle ventricle in the brain. For the universal sentence that the mind has about the things to be done cannot be applied to a particular action except by means of a certain mediating power that apprehends the singular, as in the case of a certain syllogism whose major premise is universal, which is the sentence in the mind. The minor [premise], however, is singular, which is the apprehension of the particular reason;37 The 36 37

I owe this suggestion to Michon 2001, though I disagree with some of the conclusions in his paper, namely that he takes the cogitative to make use of proto-conceptual resources in perception. Applicatio or usu is here being used as a technical term to mean the operation of a ­psychologic power; see also ST Ia–IIae, q. 16, a. 2. See Rziha 2009, pp. 122–125.

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conclusion is the decision of the singular action, as it seems from what is found in book III of the De anima.38 This passage is interesting for a number of reasons. The first is the way in which Aquinas describes the relation between the mind or reason and the lower sensitive powers in terms of two motions with different directions of fit: one, from the world to the mind, and the other, from the mind to the world. The motion from the world to the mind (a rebus ad animam) underlies the process of abstraction, i.e., whereby the sensory information of singular sensible objects makes its way from those objects to reason via the senses, being ‘stripped of’ its individuating conditions and retaining only what is common to all individuals of that species. The second motion, from the mind to the world (ab anima ad res), is that of reason ruling over the inferior powers by means of the particular reason, namely by applying a general principle to a particular case at hand, resulting in a given (course of) action. The second reason of interest in this passage is the way Aquinas assigns the role of interface of this two-way interchange to the cogitative power: on the one hand, by bringing to the mind information about particular things in the world on which the mind can operate,39 and on the other hand, by allowing the general, universal content that the mind entertains (“the universal ­sentence that the mind has”, which probably means the premise that indicates the good to be done) to be applied to the particular thing that is present to the senses. But while the passage reinforces an understanding of the cogitative as mediating between perception and rationality, the text is unclear about the way this universal content is applied to particular action. One way this application can be understood is to take this content to be transmitted from reason to the cogitative power, which, in possession of that universal content, chooses a course of action among the individual available possibilities. The other way is to consider that this content remains in the mind (mens: intellect or reason) and never transcends this (rational) level, i.e., the universal mental sentence always remains in the mind and is never transmitted to the cogitative power. I think the latter reading of the passage is to be preferred: the universal content in the mind is applied to the particular content entertained by the cogitative power, resulting in a particular course of action, under the direction of reason. Such a reading is supported by what Aquinas says in his Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, book six, lectures seven to nine: action (in 38 39

Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate (De veritate, hereafter), q. 10, a. 5, ed. Leonina, vol. 22/2.1, p. 309. See e.g., Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia IIae, q. 50, a. 3, ed. Leonina, vol. 6, p. 319, with respect to action.

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the sense of behavior) deals with particulars but is guided by universal ethical principles. This means that when human beings act, they ideally do so by applying universal principles to individual courses of action. This is done, psychologically, by means of the operations of two powers: universal reason, i.e., the intellect, and particular reason, i.e., the cogitative power. The application of a universal moral principle to a particular case is done by the cogitative power, which is here described as “the sensory power of judging”, and this application occurs just like applying the concept of a triangle to this triangle I am currently perceiving.40 The ensuing action is the outcome of the joint operation of reason and the internal sense, assisted by natural physical dispositions.41 It is important to note how Aquinas emphasizes the primacy of reason in guiding action and that only the practical implementation of a universal principle to a particular, which is expressed in the minor premise of the action-leading ­syllogism, falls under the purvey of the particular reason. This point about the way lower powers, the cognitive or appetitive, can be directed by higher powers becomes clearer when we compare animal and human action. For Aquinas, non-rational animals have no freedom insofar as their behavior is tied to the perception of the object of their desire, being “ignorant of the basis of their judgement”.42 Animals do not behave the way they do as the result of a process of deliberation, but instead their behavior is determined by a higher power, God, who, by means of nature, endows nonrational animals with ‘instinct’, which can be described as an established set of rules that regulate a pattern of behavior whereby a species-specific reaction follows from certain sensory stimuli. Human sense appetite, on the other hand, is free when it obeys reason because obedience to reason means that one’s actions are not determined by nature.43 The question is then how this obedience (obedire) is to be understood, and I suggest that we take it in a way that argues against the transmission of content from reason to sense: the lower 40

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“Similarly, in mathematics, we know the exterior triangle, or the triangle conceived as singular, because there we also conform to a sensibly conceivable singular, as in the natural sciences we conform to a sensible singular” (Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, VI, 7, n.1214, transl. Litzinger 1993, p. 385). It is worth noting that also non-rational animals are said to be prudent, to a certain degree. On this point, see Pasnau 2002, p. 220. “Sed hoc iudicium est eis ex naturali aestimatione non ex aliqua collatione, cum ratione sui iudicii ignorent”, Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 24, a. 2, ed. Leonina, vol. 22/3.1, p. 686 (emphasis added). It is significant to note that Aquinas talks of the estimative power in non-rational beings that show a ‘likeness’ or ‘semblance’ of reason and that this determines the kind of behavior they display with respect to certain things. “[appetitus sensitivus] in hominibus aliquid libertatis participat, inquantum obedit rationi” (ST Ia–IIae, q. 26, a. 1, emphasis added; see also Quaestiones disputatae De anima, q. 11, ad 15).

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power need not receive any content from above but simply follow the dictates of the higher power. If the sensitive appetite had access to the content and could ‘grasp’ it, then it would not merely obey but conform or assent to it. The lower power, however, seems to be prevented from doing so because this would require being able to access and process universal content. Lower powers obey and participate in reason in the sense of following instructions without having access to the ‘evidence’ (the universal principle) that informs the instructions.44 Behavior is therefore rational from the point of view of the directing-power, but it is blind from the point of view of the executing-power. In De veritate 22.7, Aquinas repeats this same idea, making it clear that the powers of non-rational animals are endowed with certain general notions (speciales conceptiones) that determine their actions, such as that a certain kind of animal (e.g., a sheep) is convenient to its nature. Human beings, on the other hand, have intellectual powers that are naturally endowed with universal principles (indita universalia principia), such as “a natural appetite to be a complete being in goodness”.45 Particular reason decides on a particular action based on universal principles, but it only deals with the particular (singular and contingent) end, thus excluding direct access to the universal principles that guide the action.46 Perhaps an example may serve to illustrate this: a selfdriving car avoids an obstacle by changing lanes, but the justification for the rule it follows is not available to the auto-pilot system. The action is rationallike due to the rational nature of the source of the rule (and its underlying justificatory evidence) rather than to the rationality of the executing system. As access to universal principles requires an immaterial nature, according to the principle of the separation of powers described above, the proximity of the cogitative to the intellect seems like a necessary condition for the cogitative to entertain different particular outcomes or ends, but this is not sufficient for justifying the cogitative power’s purported access to the universal principles that 44

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On this, see also De veritate, q. 25, a. 2, ed. Leonina 22/3.1, p. 733: “Sciendum est etiam quod tam ex parte apprehensivarum virium quam ex parte appetitivarum sensitivae partis, aliquid est quod competit sensibili animae secundum propriam naturam, aliquid vero secundum habet aliquam participationem modicam rationis, attingens ad ultimum eius in sui supremo”. De veritate, q. 22, a. 7, p. 630: “sed homini inditus est appetitus ultimi finis sui in communi, ut scilicet appetat naturaliter se esse completum in bonitate”. On this, see Michon 2001. Aquinas explains that reason directs the appetitive motions, so that lower passions submit to what reason presents as being the right course of action. But this does not mean that reason goes all the way down to the realm of sensibility and enforces its dictates or that it is a case of blind obedience. Rather, the idea is that the natural inclination of powers to be directed to a higher end manifests itself in this basic ‘obedience’.

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guide action. This fits with the broader claim about the relation of ­reason to the cogitative: nothing in Aquinas’ texts discussed up until now requires the transfer of content from reason to the cogitative but can be explained by reason commanding the cogitative to carry out a certain o­ peration. It seems to me that evidence of the intellect’s cooperation with the cogitative, illustrated in passages from SDA (II.13) and ST (I.78, 4), should not be taken as evidence for the claim that the cogitative has access to conceptual (universal) content. If the interpretation that I am suggesting is correct, I still owe the reader an account of the nature of the cooperation between the intellect or reason and the cogitative power. A good example of their joint operation can be found in the passage from De veritate 10.5. Here, Aquinas shows that the two powers operate at the same time and in conjunction with one another while remaining distinct in their own realms (material vs immaterial) and by handling different types of content (individual vs universal).47 I suggest calling this ‘the concurrent model’, according to which there are two tracks that run parallel in every perceptual experience: one is sensory and operates with particular content; the other is rational, and it operates with universal content whenever we are in contact with objects of experience.48 Their collaboration explains how the cognitive subject identifies the perceived individual as under a common nature: this identification should be understood as a combination of motions ad animam, i.e., with the senses providing the mind with sensible individual content, and ab anima, i.e., the mind bringing its cognitive resources to bear on the sensible individual content provided by the senses. As a result, the cognitive subject perceives a particular object as being something of a kind without the cogitative power having access to the knowledge of the essence or nature of the individual thing being perceived, which belongs to the cognitive realm of reason.49

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On this, see also ST Ia, q. 81, a. 3. The same kind of scholarly interpretive dispute is present in Aristotelian scholarship, with authors such as Charles Kahn (1966), who argues for a reading of the Greek philosopher’s understanding of incidental perception that defines reason as complementing the senses, and Stanford Cashdollar (1973), who defends a pure sensory incidental perception. I have no claims for my interpretation to apply to Aristotle. My aim is to understand Aquinas’ position on this topic, not how it relates to the original Aristotelian problem. This idea is inchoately (and in a slightly convoluted manner) presented in Ashley 2013, p. 322. Ashley writes: “Thus, although Aristotle is not explicit on this point, what he says in his De anima about such incidental perception implies that we have an internal sense faculty (the vis cogitativa) that apprehends natures, not as universals, but as present in singulars. Thus, agreeing with Averroes, Aquinas identifies incidental perception that requires cogitation and estimation as involving the perception of a sensible as a ‘this’

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The reading I am proposing here, then, offers a solution to the ambiguities found in the debate about the role Aquinas assigns to the cogitative power in human perception. First, it denies the thesis that Aquinas held higher-order properties to be represented in perception by sensory powers, and second, it denies the notion that conceptual content is transferred to the cogitative power. I have argued that higher order attributes, such as those of a conceptual or universal nature, e.g., ‘(to be a) human being’, are an integral part of the perceptual content of rational perceivers but that these are not represented by (or representations of) the cogitative power. The cogitative apprehends x as a thing/being that is white, moving, tall, etc., while the intellect concurrently apprehends the perceived x as a ‘human being’.50 This interpretation allows us to bring together two aspects of Aquinas’ account of cognition that have traditionally been kept apart in the scholarly debate about the role of the cogitative power in human perception: first, that the content each power operates with is proprietary to that power and respects the nature of the kind of content that it operates with, and second, that the content of one’s (human) perceptual experience of Socrates includes both of these sets of attributes attained through this two-track complementary process. I perceive (sensorily) Socrates as an individual and cognize (intellectually) Socrates as an instance of the kind ‘human’.51 Both the intellect and the cogitative power contribute to this identification, but this is not to say that the cogitative power receives universal content of the kind under which the individual is subsumed nor that it ‘conceptually’ subsumes the individual. Instead, the cogitative power perceives this (individual) as this human being, whereas concomitantly the intellect cognizes this as this human being. So, this

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(hic homo/hoc animal), rather than as an instance of the nature itself that is perceived as being (man, animal)”. This is a case of incidental perception by the intellect because it takes place “right when the thing that has been sensed is encountered” (SDA II, 13, transl. Pasnau, p. 208). One could call this mode of intellectual apprehension ‘recognition’ due to the fact that the cognitive subject applies to the particular perceived being a concept she is already in possession of rather than being a case of abstraction. In other words, it is not about acquiring a universal concept but applying an already acquired concept (or descriptions) to a particular that is currently present to one’s senses. But this is not really made explicit in the analyzed texts but is found in authors contemporary to Aquinas, such as Roger Bacon and John Pecham (as part of the so-called perspectivist tradition). On this fine point, see Barker 2012a. For Albert the Great, on the other hand, the perception of an individual as being of a certain kind is a sensory operation; see De anima III, 1, 2, p. 167. On this, see Ashley 2013, p. 313. It is unclear what the constraints to possible descriptions are under which the individual can be placed. The examples found in Aquinas (and Aristotle) seem to include both individuals (‘Socrates’, in which case it is about this individual as the very same individual he is) as well as universals and relatives (‘human being’, ‘son of’).

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cognitive act has the content of ‘this x is F-ness’, whereby ‘this x’ is the content supplied by the sensory power and ‘F-ness’ is the content supplied by the intellectual power. This means, of course, that the intellect is to be counted as a perceptual power in so far as it operates together with the senses in actual perceptual experiences.52 The benefits of this ‘concurrent two-track model of rationality in perception’ is that it explains the perception of an individual as belonging to a kind in a way that does not require any top-down transfer of information and thus does not violate Aquinas’ principle of the separation of powers—nor, importantly, his argument for the immateriality of the human intellect. That the cogitative power participates in the recognition of the universal “insofar as it is united to the intellective power in the same subject”53 should be taken to mean that the cogitative operates under the direction of reason in representing and apprehending the individual under the universal, but without having the conceptual resources to do it on its own. When we put the three passages together—the passages from the Sentencia de anima (II.13), the Summa Theologiae (I.78; I.86) and the De veritate (10.5)— what we get is not that the intellect knows singulars directly,54 nor that reason acts on the cogitative power, transforming the nature of perceptual acts,55 but that the intellect apprehends the universal and entertains this conceptual content, while at the same time the cogitative entertains the sensory information about the particular. The cogitative power perceives this piece of wood as this particular, and the intellect recognizes that which is universal about/in this particular, that its being is wood. Operating together, the intellect and the cogitative explain how a human cognitive subject is able to perceive ‘this piece of wood’, an individual thing as subsumed under a common nature. F­ urthermore, the talk of the human cognitive subject instead of this or that power is aligned with Aquinas’ preferred terminology because “in a primary sense, neither sense nor intellect cognize, but the human being [does so] by means of both [of these powers]”.56

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It is worth noting that similar interpretations to the one I am here proposing have been suggested for Aristotle and Aristotelian commentators; see e.g., Sorabji 2004; Gregorić & Grgić 2006; and Biondi 2010. SDA II, 13, transl. Pasnau, p. 208. As argued by De Haan 2020, p. 262. As Toivanen (2020, p. 30) argues: “In the holistic model, in contrast, perceptual acts are transformed on the very basic level by the presence of various φs from the other powers of the soul”. ‘…homo praecognoscit singularia per imaginationem et sensum, et ideo potest applicare universalem cognitionem quae est in intellectu ad particulare: non enim proprie

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3 Conclusion Scholarship in medieval philosophy has witnessed a recent shift away from questions about ‘ontological epistemology’, that is to say, about the way sensible things issue species that represent sensible features of those things, how that information is transmitted to perceivers, about the status of the vehicles of transmission (the species), and about the nature of the change they bring about in the senses of a perceiver. Instead, questions about the number and nature of the psychological faculties or powers responsible for processing information acquired by a perceiver by means of her exercise of sense modalities has become the focus of scholarly attention. A consequence of this shift has been to further our understanding of models of medieval mental architecture and the conditions under which the different powers exercise their operation. By means of this development, research on medieval epistemology and psychology has allowed us to grasp both the sophistication of the Aristotelian framework in which most later medieval authors worked while at the same time making us aware of the inherent limitations of that model. One of these limitations concerns the one-directionality of the relation between the senses and the intellect, which has led to an artificial account of human perceptual experience—one that is perhaps credible from point of view of natural philosophy but that is phenomenologically moot: human beings do not perceive random bundles of sensible properties but complex unified objects categorized as tables and cats. Our investigation into Aquinas’ account of the cogitative power, the role of reason in perception and the nature of perceptual content in human experience has shown the elusiveness in demarcating between the domains of sensibility and those of rationality in beings that possess both. Contrary to traditional overviews of the Aristotelian philosophy of perception, the direction of fit is not exclusively from the world to the mind. The Aristotelian model, as developed by medieval thinkers, seems to include a feedback mechanism from the mind to the world. When Aquinas describes these two motions, he contrasts the way some of our cognitive activities are primarily determined by incoming information, while others are primarily determined by reason, directing the lower powers of the soul. Aquinas thus emphasizes that the nature of these directions of determination are quite different: whereas the motion from the world to the mind is concerned with how the content of perception is determined by the objects of the acts of perception, the motion from ­loquendo sensus et intellectus cognoscunt sed homo per utrumque’ (Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 2, a. 6, ad 3, ed. Leonina, vol. 22/1.2, pp. 66–67).

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the mind to the world is concerned with how lower cognitive powers apply universal (and thus rational) content to the particular content that they are capable of handling. A second conclusion is that whichever way we interpret Aquinas’ view of the rational influence on perception, it seems clear that there is such an influence, but it is important to correctly identify its nature. In the reading for which I have advocated in this paper, the cogitative power, together with the other senses, perceives individuals as having a certain shape, size, color, smell (etc.), whereas the intellect concurrently identifies the common nature to which the individual belongs. Only when these powers operate together does the cognitive subject endowed with these powers perceives a human being as the incidental sensible that it is—as this human being—and as the universal under which it is subsumed—as this human being. From this we must conclude that the activity of reason in perception is necessary because conceptual or universal content is beyond the reach of perceptual faculties, which includes the cogitative. In other words, reason needs to step in when perceptual faculties falter. As a result, rationality is operative in perception. Bibliography Primary Sources

Albertus Magnus, De anima, ed. Clemens Stroick, Münster: Aschendorff, 1968 (Alberti Magni Ordinis fratrum praedicatorum episcopi Opera Omnia, 7/1). Alhacen, De aspectibus, in Alhacen’s Theory of Visual Perception, ed. A. Mark Smith, Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2001 (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. N. S., 91,4–5). Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De anima, Rome–Paris: Commissio Leonina–Vrin, 1984 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 45/1). [Thomas Aquinas, A Commentary on Aristotle’s De anima, transl. Robert Pasnau, New Haven–London: Yale University Press, 1999]. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae De anima, Rome–Paris: Commissio Leonina– Éditions Du Cerf, 1996 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 24/1). Thomas Aquinas, In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio, eds. Marie Raymond Cathala & Raimondo M. Spiazzi, Turin–Rome: Marietti, 1964. [Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, transl. John P. Rowan, Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1961]. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, transl. Richard ­Berquist, Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 2007].

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Thomas Aquinas, Pars prima Summae theologiae, qq. 1–49, Editio Leonina, vol. IV. Rome 1888. Thomas Aquinas, Pars prima Summae theologiae, qq. 50–119, Rome: Ex Typographia Polyglotta S. C. de Propaganda Fide, 1889 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 5) [Thomas Aquinas, The Treatise on Human Nature. Summa Theologiae 1a 75–89, transl. Robert Pasnau, Indianapolis– Cambridge: Hackett, 2002]. Thomas Aquinas, Prima secundae Summae theologiae, qq. 1–70, Rome: Ex Typographia Polyglotta S. C. de Propaganda Fide, 1891 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 6). Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae De veritate, qq. 1–7, Rome: Ad Sanctae ­Sabinae, 1970 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 22/1.2). Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae De veritate, qq. 21–29, Rome: Ad Sanctae ­Sabinae, 1973 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 22/3.1). Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, trans. C.J. Litzinger, Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1993. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super Sententiis, vols. 1–2, ed. Pierre Mandonnet, Paris: Lethielleux, 1929. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super Sententiis, vol. 3–4, ed. Marie Fabien Moos, Paris: Lethielleux, 1933–1947.

Secondary Literature

Ashley, Benedict M. (2013), “Anthropology: Albert the Great on the Cogitative Power”, in Irven Michael Resnick (ed.), A Companion to Albert the Great: Theology, Philosophy, and the Sciences, Leiden: Brill (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 38), pp. 299–324. Barker, Mark J. (2012a), “Aquinas on Internal Sensory Intentions: Nature and Classifications”, International Philosophical Quarterly, 52/2, pp. 199–226. Barker, Mark J. (2012b), “Experience and Experimentation: The Meaning of Experimentum in Aquinas”, The Thomist, 76/1, pp. 37–71. Biondi, Paolo C. (2010), “Aristotle’s Analysis of Perception”, Laval théologique et philosophique, 66/1, pp. 13–32. Black, Deborah L. (2011), “Avicenna’s ‘Vague Individual’ and Its Impact on Medieval Latin Philosophy Vague Individual”, in Robert Wisnovsky, Faith Wallis, Jamie Claire Fumo & Carlos Fraenkel (eds.), Vehicles of Transmission, Translation, and Transformation in Medieval Textual Culture, Turnhout: Brepol, 2011 (Cursor mundi, 4), pp. 259–292. Black, Deborah L. (s.d.), “Rational Imagination: Avicenna on the Cogitative Power”, available online: http://individual.utoronto.ca/dlblack/papers.htm (last accessed 23.12.2020 at 13:16).

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Boyle, Matthew (2016), “Additive Theories of Rationality: A Critique”, European Journal of Philosophy, 24/3, pp. 527–555. Brenet, Jean-Baptiste (2003), Transferts du sujet. La noétique d’Averroès selon Jean de Jandun, Paris: Vrin (Sic et non). Cashdollar, Stanford (1973), “Aristotle’s Account of Incidental Perception”, Phronesis 18/2, pp. 156–175. De Haan, Daniel (2020), “Aquinas on Sensing, Perceiving, Thinking, Understanding, and Knowing Individuals,” in Elena Băltuţă (ed.), Medieval Perceptual Puzzles: ­Theories of Sense Perception in the 13th and 14th Centuries, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Investigating Medieval Philosophy, 13), pp. 238–268. Di Martino, Carla (2008), Ratio particularis La doctrine des sens internes d’Avicenne à Thomas d’Aquin. Contribution à l’etude de la tradition arabo-latine de la psychologie d’Aristote, Paris: Vrin (Études de philosophie médiévale, 94). Gregorić, Pavel, and Filip Grgić (2006), “Aristotle’s Notion of Experience”, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 88/1, pp. 1–30. Kahn, Charles H. (1966), “Sensation and Consciousness in Aristotle’s Psychology”, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 48, pp. 43–81. Klubertanz, George P. (1952), The Discursive Power. Sources and Doctrine of the ‘vis cogitativa’ according to St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Louis: The Modern Schoolman. Lisska, Anthony J. (2016), Aquinas’ Theory of Perception: An Analytic Reconstruction, Oxford University Press 2016. Michon, C. 2001, “Intentionality and Proto-Thoughts”, in Dominik Perler (ed.), Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Brill Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 76), pp. 325–341. Michaud-Quantin, Pierre (1966), La psychologie de l’activité chez Albert Le Grand, Paris: Vrin 1966 (Bibliothèque thomiste, 36). Oelze, Anselm (2018), Animal Rationality: Later Medieval Theories 1250–1350, Leiden: Brill (Investigating Medieval Philosophy, 12). Pasnau, Robert (2002), Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature. A Philosophical Study of Summa theologiae 1a 75–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Perler, Dominik (2012), “Why is the Sheep Afraid of the Wolf? Medieval Debates on Animal Passions”, Martin Pickavé & Lisa Shapiro (eds.), Emotion and Cognitive Life in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Perler, Dominik (2020), “Rational Seeing: Thomas Aquinas on Human Perception”, in Elena Băltuţă (ed.), Medieval Perceptual Puzzles: Theories of Sense Perception in the 13th and 14th Centuries, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Investigating Medieval Philosophy, 13), pp. 213–237. Rubini, Paolo (2020), “Accidental Perception and Cogitative Power in Thomas Aquinas and John of Jandun”, in Elena Băltuţă (ed.), Medieval Perceptual Puzzles: Theories of Sense Perception in the 13th and 14th Centuries, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Investigating Medieval Philosophy, 13), pp. 269–303.

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Rziha, John (2009), Perfecting Human Actions: St. Thomas Aquinas on Human Participation in Eternal Law, Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. Sorabji, Richard (2004), “Aristotle’s Perceptual Functions Permeated by Platonist Reason”, in Carlos Steel, Gerd van Riel, Caroline Macé & Leen van Campe (eds.), Platonic Ideas and Concept Formation in Ancient and Medieval Thought, Leuven University Press (KUL. De Wulf-Mansion centre. Ancient and medieval philosophy. Series 1, 32), pp. 32–99. Tellkamp, Jörg Alejandro (2012), “Vis aestimativa and vis cogitativa in Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on the Sentences”, The Thomisti, 76, pp. 611–640. Toivanen, Juhana (2017), “Entre la raison et la perception: La psychologie animale médiévale et la relation entre les humains et les animaux”, in Michele Cutino, Isabel Iribarren & Françoise Vinel (eds.), La Restauration de la creation: Quelle place pour les animaux? Actes du colloque de l’ERCAM tenu à Strasbourg du 12 au 14 mars 2015, Leiden: Brill (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, 145). Toivanen, Juhana (2020), “Perceiving As: Non-conceptual Forms of Perception in Medieval Philosophy”, in Elena Băltuţă (ed.), Medieval Perceptual Puzzles: Theories of Sense Perception in the 13th and 14th Centuries, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Investigating Medieval Philosophy, 13), pp. 10–37. White, A. Leo (2002), “Instinct and Custom”, The Thomist, 66, pp. 577–605.

CHAPTER 7

Temporality and Small Perceptions in Mid-Fourteenth Century Joël Biard At the core of the global process of cognition we find some factors which lie and intervene in it, without, however, being perceived or cognized as being part of that process while it is performed. In Aristotelian medieval epistemology, this can concern different aspects of the cognitive process. Consider, for instance, the images or species: medievals usually conceive them as cognitive intermediaries, but not as objects of cognition in the cognitive process. Parisian mid-fourteenth century commentators of Aristotle were particularly interested in those non-perceptible phenomena that contribute to the ­cognition—be it sensory or intellectual—of a given object; the way these authors dealt with those non-perceptible phenomena is the focus of my paper. In ­particular, I would like to put the emphasis on an important aspect of this discussion, namely the imperceptible succession of temporal instants which, although is not perceived by us, nevertheless contributes to explain how the sensation and apprehension of a thing present to us (or in conspectu cognoscentis, to use Buridan’s words) occur. Medieval authors discuss the hypothesis of the existence of such a phenomenon in the context of debates about universal knowledge and its relation to the knowledge of the singular. This question has particular significance for nominalistically oriented philosophers, who acknowledge only the existence of singular things. This position is assumed by Nicole Oresme, among others, in a question dedicated to the knowledge of the universal and the knowledge of the singular. While enumerating the various meanings of the term ‘universal’, Oresme considers the possibility that a common thing really exists outside the mind, but immediately dismisses it: “A common thing, […] such as animal in general, as some suppose, […] but the question does not concern this because usually it is not posited”.1 1 See Nicole Oresme, Questiones super Physicam I, q. 4, ed. Caroti et al. 2013, p. 23: “una res communis […] sicut animal in communi, ut aliqui ymaginantur […] Et hoc non intendit questio, quia communiter non ponitur”; Id., Quaestiones in Aristotelis de anima III, q. 14, ed. Patar 1995, p. 417: “aliqui imaginantur universale commune reale […] et de tali dicitur in prooemio © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004537712_008

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For our purposes, an important implication of this nominalistic approach is that singular knowledge and universal knowledge are not directed to different objects (namely, the individual on one hand, the universal form—be it separated or constitutive of the thing—on the other hand), but to one and the same object. Therefore, they constitute different modes of apprehension of that same thing. So the question then is: how do these two modalities of apprehension relate to each other? In this doctrinal context, the analysis of knowledge is not to be started with a first stage in which a thing is placed in simple and immediate contact with a perceptive faculty. For the cognitive process is understood as a global process in which perception implies elements of recognition and proto-judgments that allow us to speak of rationality in the perception. Questions such as this one are discussed within the context of the problem of the priority of the universal over the singular, which is already found in Aristotle and which later medieval thinkers address in two sets of texts: the Questions on the Physics and the Questions on the soul. In what follows, I examine this issue starting from Nicole Oresme’s commentaries and proceeding to consider (briefly) other texts from the same period. As acknowledged by scholars, the respective chronology of Oresme’s, John Buridan’s and Albert of Saxony’s writings is extremely complex and poses problems especially if one takes into consideration not only their commentaries on the De anima, but also their commentaries on the Physics. Since my aim here is not to solve these chronological puzzles, I will limit myself to make two remarks concerning the issue: (1) in the commentaries on the Physics and De anima analysed, I haven’t noticed any doctrinal differences between each authors’ works nor any development in their thoughts; (2) on the basis of what we currently know about these texts, Oresme’s commentaries seems to be the oldest; however, we cannot completely dismiss the possibility that they are preceded by Buridan’s earlier commentaries, which remain undiscovered so far. Moreover, I wish to make a last remark on the question-based commentary on the De anima which the editor, Benoit Patar, has attributed to Buridan2 and entitled De prima lectura to which, for simplicity, I shall refer as Anonymous of Patar (or Anonymus Patarinus). It includes passages that are closely related to Oresme’s commentary, while also developing topics shared by the great majority of ­commentaries written in Paris in the mid-fourteenth century. Although there are no compelling reasons, as far as I know, for settling the question whether the Anonymous Patarinus was written before or after Oresme’s commentary huius quod nihil est”. I would like to thank José Filipe Silva for the English translation, and Barbara Bartocci for her reading and remarks. 2 The arguments for this attribution are not really convincing: see Bakker & De Boer 2011.

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on the De anima, some doctrinal features lead me to conjecture that its author was influenced by Oresme’s commentary. 1

Complexity and Temporality of the Perceptual Act in Nicole Oresme

The best starting point for our analysis is the issue of the status of the universal principles of natural science, tackled by Aristotle at the beginning of the Physics. The problem arises because these universal principles seem hardly compatible with the objects of natural science, for the latter are singular, contingent, and changeable beings with which we get acquainted through the senses. In Oresme’s commentary on the Physics, question 4 of book I is entitled “Whether the universal is known prior to the singular or prior to what is less universal” (Utrum universale sit prius notum quam singulare vel minus universale), whereas question 14 of book III of his commentary on the De anima asks “Whether the intellect knows the universal prior to the singular” (Utrum ­universale sit prius notum intellectui quam singulare). Question 4 takes its starting point from the problem found at the beginning of the Physics mentioned earlier, namely that of the relation between the principles of natural science and the singular and changeable beings with which it deals. While question 14 originates from the De anima’s thesis according to which the universal is either posterior to the singular or it is nothing at all. Although these two questions arise in two different contexts, both focus on the same topic viz the theory of knowledge, as is already clear from the questions’ titles, which are almost identical in wording, apart from a few minor and irrelevant differences. In my view, the reason why Oresme deals with epistemological issues in these two questions, thus leaving in the background topics such as the status of universals and (to a minor degree) the relation between the object of sensory cognition and intellectual cognition, is that for him the thing known is the same.3 This is made explicit in the De anima, where, after a series of qualifications, Oresme reshapes the question: “Whether a thing is known first through a general and universal concept than through a singular concept” (Utrum res prius cognoscatur conceptu communi et universali quam conceptu singulari).4

3 Nicole Oresme is explicit on this point in Questiones super Physicam I, q. 4, p. 25: “idem cognoscitur confuse et distincte respectu diversorum”. 4 Nicole Oresme, Quaestiones in Aristotelis de anima III, q. 14, p. 418.

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1.1 Questions on the De anima Oresme’s work is characterized by the interconnections between the universal and singular dimensions of knowledge on the one hand, and between the sensory and intellectual functions on the other hand. Both interconnections express Oresme’s way of capturing the inherent complexity and rationality of the working of perception, which would be lost if he only remained at the threshold for sensation.5 Such interconnectedness is made immediately evident in Oresme’s ­distinction between two sorts of universality.6 The first is that of the absolute quidditative concept, by means of which we conceive of a thing in a universal way disregarding all circumstances and without any reference to the thing as a singular, e.g., the concept ‘human being’. The second, e.g. ‘this body’, ‘this man’ is a concept by means of which a thing is conceived of under singular circumstances; for instance, we consider a particular body insofar as it is present here and now, without, however, taking into account other aspects of it, such as colour, shape, or as being of this or that species. It is worth noting that, in the logical tradition stemming from Porphyry, ‘this body’ was not deemed to be a universal, but a singular concept. Oresme agrees on that point but he p ­ refers to bring to the forefront the universal dimension of suchlike concepts; for insofar as ‘this body’ entails a certain degree of confusion, it can be applied to other things than this individual. In describing this kind of act of the intellect, Oresme combines the notions of conception and perception: first, the subject conceives confusedly the external world and diverses circumstances (concipiuntur plures circumstantiae); then, when approaching a being, he first conceives of it as an animal (concipitur quod est animal); finally, he perceives that it is Socrates (percipitur quod est Socrates). It is only at the end of this process of conceptual approximation that a singular thing is perceived and a singular

5 The French language distinguishes very clearly between ‘sensation’ and ‘perception’; French psychology post-19th century has always distinguished between sensation as the first and immediate contact with the sensed object and perception, as a more elaborate stage of apprehension by the cognitive system. The Aristotelian theory of sensation as the ‘common act’ of the sentient and the sensible implies such an immediacy, even if one can find in certain texts (biological or zoological) more complex analysis. The philosophy of mind of the Middle Ages witnesses a progressive emergence of the term percipere (for instance in B ­ uridan) side by side with sensatio and sentire. In this context, percipere entails a discrimination of sensible information, which often includes a rudimentary form of judgment of the senses (at least of the common sense). The common use of the term ‘perception’ in the scholarship in English ignores or minimises those differences. 6 Nicole Oresme, Quaestiones in Aristotelis de anima III, q. 14, p. 419.

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concept is formed: “Such third concept is called ‘singular’ because the thing is already perceived as being white and having such and such shape and so on”.7 One may think that here Oresme is merely trying to relocate the notion of perception to the intellect, and that perception should hereby be taken as synonymous with mode of conceiving. This is partially true, but not completely so; or, not only so. In fact, Oresme remarks that whereas the first type of ­concepts—i.e., ‘human being, ‘animal’—is only in the intellect, the s­ econd type of concepts— i.e., ‘this human being’—is both in the intellect and in the sense. This is explained by the fact that it is neither a simple term nor an absolute term, but a connotative term, which is at the same time confused and somehow singular: “Taken in the second way, a concept is in the intellect and in the sense; this is clear because it is at the same time compounded of a species, which is in the intellect, and of species, which are in the sense”.8 Thus, this type of concept is complex since it is in one way (aliqualiter) singular and in another way universal, or better, it is universal in several different ways, depending on the context. And it relates to sense only insofar as it is a hybrid of sensation and intellection, and not insofar as it receives its content from the senses through the mediation of a phantasm, as the first type of concept does. Difficult as it may be,9 this thesis clearly represents a rupture with the A ­ ristotelian doctrine of sensation as the common act of sense and sensed thing.10 Oresme’s innovative theory of the cognitive act has two major c­ onsequences. First, it presupposes a different relation between the singular and the universal, which is not my main focus here;11 second, it implies the introduction of a temporal gap or buffer in the act of perception. The issue of the eventual priority of the universal over the singular, which has a clear ontological dimension in Aristotle, in Oresme acquires a temporal 7 8 9

10 11

Nicole Oresme, Quaestiones in Aristotelis de anima III, q. 14, p. 420: “talis conceptus tertius dicitur singularis quia iam percipitur quod est album et taliter figuratum, et sic de aliis”. Nicole Oresme, Quaestiones in Aristotelis de anima III, q. 14, p. 421: “Conceptus secundo modo dictus est in intellectu et in sensu: patet, quia simul componitur ex specie quae est in intellectu et speciebus quae sunt in sensu”. In a text alluding to this passage, Henrik Lagerlund takes this as a problem for Oresme’s theory, because he argues for the existence of two distinct souls, sensible and intellective. John Buridan on the other hand does not have such a problem due to his strong conception of the unity of the soul; see Lagerlund 2007, p. 79. In any case, nothing allows for the conclusion that Oresme’s commentary is ‘clearly derived’ from that by Buridan as Lagerlund does (all the more since the third lecture of Buridan, from the end of the 1350s, is taken as reference point); in fact, the opposite is probably true. As for the Physics, which contains roughly the same theses, the accepted date is from 1347 or slightly before. See Aristotle, De anima III, 2, 425b26: Ἡ δὲ τοῦ αἰσθητοῦ ἐνέργεια καὶ τῆς αἰσθήσεως ἡ αὐτὴ μέν ἐστι καὶ μία; “The activity of the sensible object and that of the sense is one and the same activity” (transl. Smith 1985, p. 667). See Biard 2017, pp. 18–20; Lagerlund 2007, pp. 75–79.

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dimension in relation to the cognitive act. In question 14 of his commentary on book III of the De anima, Oresme addresses the topic of the ‘first known object’ (prius notum) and, after dealing with the universal, in the second set of responses he focuses on ‘temporal priority’ (secundo de prioritate temporis). Surely, if the universal is taken as an abstract term, it is posterior to the singular. But if it is taken in the second sense described above, namely as a complex term referring to a singular thing, then a more universal concept (e.g. this animal) is prior to a less universal concept (e.g. this horse), and this is possible because the thing is gradually conceptualized. This idea of a gradual conceptualization is based on the model of vision and more precisely on seeing at a distance: “If something is seen far away, it is first conceived as a body, then as an animal and so on”.12 The temporal dimension of the cognitive process is emphasized by a conceptual argument according to which one individuating circumstance is cognized, then two, and then three and so on. This does not mean that perception is an analytic process but that at first the subject has a confused cognition of an object, and then he gradually comes to know the different aspects of it through this or that particular circumstance. And all of this takes time. But the subject is not aware of the time elapsing between these various stages, that are imperceptible: “Third conclusion: at times, this priority is imperceptible”.13 Oresme explains the process by analogy with the visual model, referring explicitly to Alhazen, a point on which we shall return below: While a man sees (homo videt) something at a short distance, although he apprehends (conceptum est) first (prius tempore) that it is body, then that it is an animal, then that it is a human being and so on, however this process (discursus) is so straightforward and quick that the man does not perceive it.14 It is worth noting that Oresme does not use the term ‘concept’ (conceptus) here in its technical sense, but in a wide sense as ‘apprehension’, an apprehension 12

13 14

Nicole Oresme, Quaestiones in Aristotelis de anima III, q. 14, p. 422: “Si aliquid videatur a longe, primo concipitur quod est corpus, deinde quod est animal, etc.”. This point was already alluded to in the initial arguments, as the third and final argument in favour of the priority of the universal: “Tertio, quia si Socrates videat hominem a longe, statim cognoscit quod est hoc corpus singulare, quamvis nesciat si est animal vel homo” (Ibid., p. 418). Nicole Oresme, Quaestiones in Aristotelis de anima III, q. 14, p. 422: “Tertia conclusio est quod quandoque ista prioritas est imperceptibilis”. Nicole Oresme, Quaestiones in Aristotelis de anima III, q. 14, p. 422: “dum homo videt aliquid de prope, licet habeat prius tempore conceptum quod est corpus, deinde quod est animal, deinde quod est homo, etc., tamen iste discursus est ita facilis et in tam brevi tempore quod homo non percipit”.

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which is not necessarily of an intellectual kind because it can also apply to a visual perception (‘homo videt’). There are two further points in the text just quoted I would like to emphasize. One is that the term ‘process’ (discursus) implies a temporal dimension, for it is performed across time, and this contrasts with the idea of vision as immediate intuition. The other is that the imperceptible nature of the process is justified by the fact that it is performed straightforwardly, that is, it usually occurs without problems and because of its brevity. Accordingly, the global act of visual recognition involves a succession of unperceived acts which contribute to its occurrence. 1.2 Questions on the Physics Unexpectedly, the place where this issue of cognitive psychology is more prominent is the Physics. The Questions on the Physics of Oresme were probably written before his Questions of the soul. As I have indicated before, both focus on the same problem. In question 4 (book I) of the Physics, Oresme assumes that we have concepts habitually (habitudinaliter),15 which means that his notion of concept includes both acts and dispositions acquired through those acts. This idea is essential to understand the actual process of visual recognition as well as to explain why and how perceptual errors occur, such as the confusion between perceiving a human being and a donkey. The priority of universal over singular concepts is both natural and temporal: “Second conclusion: the more general concept is and temporally prior”.16 According to Oresme, who explicitly refers to Grosseteste, the more universal concept has natural priority over the others because it is more easy. For my purpose here, it suffices to emphasise that this principle applies both to sensation and to intellection: Just as we first apprehend a house through the sense and then we recognize and inquire about its parts, so we first come to know a thing through a universal concept common to many things, and then we recognize these things.17

15 16 17

See Nicole Oresme, Questiones super Physicam I, q. 4, p. 26: “nunc de facto tot habemus conceptus habitudinaliter de aliqua re, que est in mente nostra, quidditativos ordinatos, quot cognoscimus differentias essentiales illius rei”. Nicole Oresme, Questiones super Physicam I, q. 4, p. 26: “Secunda conclusio est quod conceptus communior est prior et etiam tempore”. The term ‘naturaliter’ was added by the editors but the sentences that follow justify it amply. Nicole Oresme, Questiones super Physicam I, q. 4, p. 26–27: “Sicut prius apprehendimus domum ad sensum et postea distinguimus et investigamus partes eius, ita etiam cognoscimus rem conceptu universali et communi ad plura et postea distinguimus illa”.

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Here we find the classical model of visual perception first from a distance and then approaching the object, which is inherited from Avicenna (who however is not explicitly referred to in the passage). Oresme adapts this model to the conceptualization process; and, more important, he uses it as an explanatory device in addressing the issue of imperceptible succession: Thus, when I conceive Socrates, in my mind I have all these concepts ordered in an imperceptible instant of time, just as vision, too, occurs over time, although imperceptibly by the sense.18 2

Presence of this Pattern in Other Works

The topic of the temporal aspects of perception and, more generally, of the rationality of perception is not addressed so explicitly in commentaries from the previous century. Since it roots back to Aristotle’s remarks about universal cognition (e.g. in the Physics) and about the difference between what is more known to us and what is more known by nature in his theory of knowledge, it is not surprising to find the question taken into account in 13th century ­commentaries on the Physics and the De anima. However, it is only in the 14th century that it is addressed in its full complexity, when it is of importance as a self-standing philosophical problem and not only in relation to major issues as, for instance, the methodological question on the status of the principles in physics. In other words, the conceptual frameworks of the two periods in which this question is formulated is very different. Let us consider some examples from 13th century commentaries. In his commentary on the Physics, Thomas Aquinas evokes the cognitive dimension of the relation between universal and the singular, but deals with the problem very briefly; he just states that both for the intellect as well as for the senses the universal is prior to the singular “with respect to both place and time”. This allows him the opportunity to mention the case of visual perception at a distance and getting closer, which we have discussed before, and the example of children, who call all men ‘father’ before they are able to discriminate between

18

Nicole Oresme, Questiones super Physicam I, q. 4, p. 27: “Unde, quando concipio Sor, habeo in mente mea omnes illos conceptus per ordinem in tempore parvo et insensibili, sicut etiam visio fit in tempore, tamen insensibiliter” (emphasis added).

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any man and their own father, without going into any details on how to interpret these cases.19 Albert the Great elaborates slightly more on this topic in his Questions on the De anima, where he directly raises the question of “how the universal in sense is more known to us” (qualiter universale sit in sensu notius quoad nos) and then makes a digression about this very same question with respect to the intellect.20 Here we find again the same examples and curiosities, but the framework is different, for Albert emphasises the three statuses of the universal (ante rem, in re, post rem) and clearly differentiates between the object of the senses and that of the intellect. For our purposes here, the key point of Albert’s discussion is that he introduces the distinction between vague individual and determined individual (signatum), which is taken from Avicenna and which we will find later in Buridan. Moreover, Albert’s distinction between different modes of sensory apprehension is not without interest to our discussion of ‘rationality in perception’. The external senses apprehend only their proper sensibles, while the common sense apprehends the common sensible, but to this Albert adds a third type of apprehension, by means of reason or estimative power, which merges confused reasons, and allows us to apprehend the subject in which inhere the accidents perceived by the proper senses or the common sense. Despite this complexity of the cognitive process, in Albert intellection and the powers of the sensitive soul, including the estimative power, still remain separated, as well as their respective objects. Moreover, in spite of his reference to Avicenna, Albert does not seem to be aware of the temporal aspect of perception, which plays a central role in Oresme’s analysis of perception, as we have seen. In his commentary on the Physics, Giles of Rome develops this issue further without, however, focusing on psychological acts; instead, he limits himself solely to observing that ‘indistinct’ cognition precedes ‘distinct’ cognition in both the intellectual and the sensory cognitive processes. He also notes, like 19

20

Thomas Aquinas, Commentaria in octo libros Physicorum I, lect. 1a, ed. Leonina, vol. 2, p. 6: “Sicut enim universalius intelligibile est prius notum nobis secundum intellectum, ut puta animal homine, ita communius sensibile est prius notus nobis secundum sensum, ut puta hoc animal quam hic homo. Et dico prius secundum sensum et secundum locum et secundum tempus. Secundum locum quidem, quia cum aliquis a remotis videtur, prius percipimus ipsum esse corpus quam animal, et hoc prius quam quod sit homo, et ultimo quod sit Socrates. Et similiter secundum tempus puer prius apprehendit hunc ut quendam hominem, quam ut hunc hominem qui est Plato, qui est pater eius. Et hoc est quod dicit, pueri primum appellant omnes viros patres et feminas matres, sed posterius determinant, idest determinate cognoscunt quemcumque”. Albertus Magnus, De anima I, tr. 1, c. 6, ed. Stroick 1968, p. 9s.

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Thomas did before him, that in the context of intellective cognition, Aristotle understands ‘singular knowledge’ as knowledge of a more determined species or possibly the last species and not of the individual—a view which we find already defended by Averroes.21 Likewise, the most important commentaries on De Anima from the beginning of the fourteenth century fail to address the issue we have been considering. For instance, in tackling the question “Whether the intellect understands something singular” (Utrum intellectus intelligit singulare),22 Radulphus Brito does not touch upon our issue, he solely observes that the intellect only ­cognizes the singular reflexively. John of Jandun raises the question “If the universal, be it prior or posterior, is in the singular” (An ipsum universale, prius vel posterius, sit ipso singulari).23 And after providing detailed criticism of Platonism, John considers the status of the universal, both as an intention and as a thing. He argues that the former is clearly posterior; as for the latter, the issue concerns the status of the quiddity (genus or species) and its relation to the individual, analysed from the point of view of generation. In the text, this is followed by a question about the priority or posteriority of the first or second intention, but even here there is nothing even vaguely remembering the problem as we find it in Oresme.24 In clear contrast, all Parisian authors from the middle of the century approach the question within the same theoretical framework and make use of the same pool of conceptual resources. 2.1 Anonymous Patar The anonymous text edited by Benoît Patar as the prima lectura of Buridan repeats, to a large extent, the questions raised by Oresme, both in terms of the arguments proposed and the structure of the complex analysis of the different kinds of concepts. This confirms that the questions originally formulated in the context of the Physics were integrated into the questions on the De anima. It would go beyond the scope of this paper to present the Anonymous’ precise articulation of the two sets of concepts which he calls, firstly ‘determined’ and secondly ‘vague’. It suffices to say here that they are taken in a very different sense from the one they have in Buridan: the Anonymous qualifies as vague 21 22 23 24

Giles of Rome, In libros de physico auditu Aristotelis commentaria, prol., lect. 1, ed. 1502, fol. 4ra–va. Raoul le Breton, Questiones in librum tertium de anima, q. 9, ed. Fauser 1974, p. 182s. John of Jandun, Super libros Aristotelis de anima subtilissimae quaestiones I, q. 8, ed. ­Venice 1552, fol. 8vb–12ra. John of Jandun, Super libros Aristotelis de anima subtilissimae quaestiones I, q. 9, fol. 12ra–va: “Utrum universalia sint priora singularibus vel posteriora”.

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those concepts that are more or less universal, while he calls ‘determined’ singular concepts, such as ‘this body’, ‘this animal’ or ‘this human being’. Returning now to our main topic, after discussing the aforementioned articulation in detail, the Anonymous acknowledges that the more “indifferent”, viz more universal, concepts are prior to less “indifferent”, viz less universal, concepts. Specifically, he recognizes that the kind of priority at stake here is temporal priority, as he openly says when talking about priority in the case of determined concepts that capture a thing under certain particular circumstances, like the concept ‘this human being’: in concepts of the first kind, namely those by which we conceive a thing under the singular circumstances, concepts which are more indifferent are prior to concepts which are less indifferent.25 Although some might argue that the temporal dimension is not emphasised here, the continuation of the text shows that this temporal dimension is assumed as evident, and that the priority at stake is temporal and not ontological or natural. In his discussion of the issue, the Anonymous resorts to the analogy of vision and the experience of getting closer to an object. And, when describing priority, the Anonymous admits its imperceptibility due to the brevity of time: “Although such priority is imperceptible because of the brevity of time”.26 And it is this that allows him to reply to the first quod non argument, which had admitted the existence of simultaneous multiple determinations in the act of apprehension of a thing as when, for example, while apprehending Socrates, I conceive of him simultaneously as both human being and as animal. The Anonymous rejects it on the basis that perception, as a global process, involves an imperceptible succession of acts. 2.2 Albert of Saxony, Physics It seems unlikely that the questions about the soul attributed to Albert of Saxony are authentic, but fortunately for us Albert discusses the problem of the priority of universal concepts in his Questions on the Physics, which were written before Buridan’s last lecture, but after Buridan’s tertia lectura and Oresme’s Questions on the Physics. How does Albert approach the problem 25 26

Anonymous Patar, Quaestiones in Aristotelis De anima I, q. 4, ed. Patar 1991, p. 197: “in c­ onceptibus primo modo dictis, scilicet quibus concipimus res cum circumstantiis singularibus, conceptus magis indifferentes conceptibus minus indifferentibus sunt priores”. Anonymous Patar, Quaestiones in Aristotelis De anima I, q. 4, p. 197: “licet illa prioritas propter parvitatem temporis sit imperceptibilis”.

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which interests us in his commentary on the Physics? Question five of book two comes very close to what we have been discussing, for there he inquires “If a thing is conceived first through a universal concept than through a singular concept or through a more universal concept than through a less universal concept” (an res prius concipiatur conceptu universali quam singulari vel conceptu magis universali quam conceptu minus universali).27 The four arguments that Albert brings against the priority of the universal are the same as those found in the Anonymous of Patar. The same is true for the distinction between the six ways of understanding the universal. In Albert’s treatment of the question, an important role is assigned to the distinction between ­concepts by which a thing is conceived of under certain singular circumstances and ­concepts by which a thing is conceived of as naked (nude) of any.28 He calls ‘singular concepts’ the first kind of concepts and ‘universal concepts’ the second ones. Although Alberts departs from the Anonymous’ terminology (‘vague’ and ‘determined’), he agrees with him that singular concepts come with varying degrees of indifference, they can be more or less indifferent (hoc animal, hoc hominem).29 After a series of further qualifications, which come close to what we found in both Oresme and Anonymous Patar, Albert settles the question by stating that among singular concepts the more indifferent ones have priority over the others, while among universal concepts those more universal have the highest priority. To support this conclusion Albert resorts to the model of the visual experience of someone approaching an object from afar, which appeals to purely universal concepts, viz simple concepts that correspond to terms like ‘animal’ or ‘human being’. But this kind of concepts are dependent on those concepts by which the thing is conceived of under particular circumstances.30 27 28 29

30

Albert of Saxony, Quaestiones in Aristotelis Physicam I, q. 5, ed. Patar 1999, vol. 2, p. 71. Albert of Saxony, Quaestiones in Aristotelis Physicam I, q. 5, vol. 2, p. 71. The same ­expression is found in Anonymous Patar, Quaestiones in Aristotelis De anima I, q. 4, p. 194: “conceptus quo res concipitur nude”. Albert is aware that this distinction can be taken to go against the idea of a singular concept. He clarifies: “Tunc dico quod conceptus primo modo dictus, scilicet quo concipitur res cum aliqua circumstantia singulari, quamvis unus eorum sit magis indifferens alio, tamen quilibet eorum debet dici conceptus singularis ; et ratio huius est quia per talem conceptum concipitur quod aliquid est hoc corpus vel quod aliquid est hoc animal, etc.” (Quaestiones in Aristotelis Physicam I, q. 5, vol. 2, p. 72). Albert of Saxony, Quaestiones in Aristotelis Physicam I, q. 5, vol. 2, p. 74: “Septimo dico quod talis conceptus dependet et causatur ex conceptibus primo modo dictis; unde prius concipitur cum talibus circumstantiis quam sine talibus circumstantiis”; the same conclusion is found in the Anonymous Patar, Quaestiones in Aristotelis De anima I, q. 4, p. 196: “Septimo. Dico quod conceptus talis causatur ex conceptibus primo modo dictis ; unde prius concipitur homo cum talibus circumstantiis quam sine talibus circumstantiis”.

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In order to further support his conclusion, Albert introduces the imperceptibility of this unfolding: “Although sometimes we do not perceive such priority because of the brevity of time”.31 And, in order to refute the objection of simultaneity, he argues: To the first argument I reply that I do not conceive Socrates, who is near me, to be a human being in the same way I conceive him to be an animal, but I first conceive him to be animal than to be a human being, although such priority (prioritas) is imperceptible (imperceptibilis) for me because of the brevity of time.32 2.3 John Buridan We shall now turn to consider how this question is addressed in Buridan’s texts. The last lectures on the Physics and On the soul are very closely related, and in each of them one might find various elements of Buridan’s theory of knowledge developed in lengthy questions. In contrast, the text found in the Vendôme manuscript does not expand on this particular issue at great length;33 there we find only an analysis of the different senses of universal, followed by a lengthy discussion on the complexe significabilia, which seems to be disconnected from the rest of the text. 2.3.1 Questions on the Physics In the last lecture on the Physics, Buridan develops a series of arguments that differ from those developed in the texts discussed previously, mostly because they include many elements of his theories of terms, of the universal, and of the different types of intellection, at times straying into digressions in which Buridan often refers the reader to his Questions on the Metaphysics for a longer discussion of these issues. Buridan makes it clear that this question concerns mental terms, namely concepts which are in the soul and by which this soul either conceives things indifferently or conceives each singular thing individually. Here we find his famous saying that a thing is perceived (percipitur) 31 32

33

Albert of Saxony, Quaestiones in Aristotelis Physicam, I, q. 5, vol. 2, p. 76: “licet aliquando talis prioritas propter parvitatem temporis a nobis non percipiatur”. Albert of Saxony, Quaestiones in Aristotelis Physicam, I, q. 5, vol. 2, p. 77: “Ad primam dico quod Socratem existentem prope me non ita concipio ipsum esse hominem sicut concipio ipsum esse animal sed prius concipio ipsum esse animal quam hominem, licet propter parvitatem temporis talis prioritas est a me imperceptibilis” (emphasis added). John Buridan, Quaestiones de anima, secunda lectura (MS Vendôme 169), q. 4, ed. Patar 1991, pp. 731–736.

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singularly when it is perceived “in the prospect of the person cognizing” (in prospectu cognoscentis), which suggests the idea of visual field or of perspective.34 This idea is further specified by appealing to sensory experience, but here it is clear that for Buridan there is a seamless transition from sensation to intellection.35 In what concerns the question of whether things are known more ­universally before being known less universally, Buridan worries about refuting different opinions before stating that we know things first through the more general concepts. Once again, he compares intellectual cognition with sensory cognition; in this context, Buridan clarifies the distinction between the vague singular and the determined singular—in a more rigorous way than any of his predecessors.36 As for the universal concepts, he orders them in the following way: The universal which is prior in the intellect is that to which a vague singular corresponds priorly in the sense; but the vague singular of the more universal in the sense is prior to the vague singular of the less universal.37 In this text however Buridan seems to partially dismiss the conceptual framework which we have set out above, as he makes no reference to the imperceptible temporal succession, except in a cursive and elusive way when he notes that the intellect of an adult, contrary to that of a child, has acquired the capacity to immediately apply concepts more or less general. However, in the tertia lectura, a work that generally is closer to Oresme’s view,38 Buridan had explicitly suggested 34 35

36

37 38

John Buridan, Questiones super octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis, secundum ultimam l­ ecturam [henceforth, Qu. Phys, ultima lectura] I, q. 7, ed. Streijger & Bakker 2015, p. 68. John Buridan, Qu. Phys, ultima lectura I, q. 7, p. 68: “Sensus autem exterior obiectum suum apprehendit confuse cum magnitudine et situ ad ipsum, tamquam apparens in prospectu eius aut longe aut prope, aut ad dextram aut ad sinistram. Ideo percipit obiectum suum singulariter tamquam demonstratum hic vel ibi”. The text goes on, clarifying how internal sense, imagination, and memory act on that respect. John Buridan, Qu. Phys, ultima lectura I, q. 7, p. 74: “Sensus autem, qui non cognoscit nisi singulariter, apprehendit rem dupliciter: uno modo secundum singulare vagum ; alio modo secundum singulare determinatum. Voco autem singulare vagum ut hic homo, hoc veniens, et singulare determinatum ut Socrates vel Plato”. John Buridan, Qu. Phys, ultima lectura I, q. 7, p. 75: “Illud universale est prius apud intellectum cui correspondet singulare vagum prius apud sensum; sed individuum vagum universalioris est prius apud sensum quam individuum vagum minus universalis”. It is important to note that in the older version of the Physics that we have (almost identical with the tertia lectura of the Physics), Buridan gives a solution to the problem of

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that this process entailed a temporal dimension: “The intellect is disposed to more particular concepts only if he already possess those more general”.39 And in a very furtive way he notes that the use of several hierarchized concepts for the same object is not simultaneous, but occurs in an imperceptible time: “But we, who are now habituated by means of universal and particular concepts, we can can immediately form both kind of concepts, without perceptible lapse of time”.40 2.3.2 Questions on the Soul In the last lecture of his Questions on the De anima, Buridan addresses the problem twice, namely in book I, question 5 (“Is the universal nothing or something posterior to the singulars?”) and then in book III, question 8 (“whether the intellect cognizes the universal prior to the singular or vice-versa”).41 The question in book I reprises traditional arguments and distinguishes between the different senses of universal, but Buridan acknowledges that the formulation of the question (“to inquire whether in the soul the universal mental terms are prior to the singular mental terms”) does not fit properly into the structure of book I. Thus, he limits himself to present a few conclusions, leaving the more detailed discussion of the issue to book III and to the Physics. The question is then properly addressed in the lengthy question eight of book III of the De anima, which refers back to the Physics. Once again, this question provides the occasion, if not even the pretext, for elucidating many of the key aspects of Buridan’s theory of knowledge. Buridan makes it clear that the universal concept ‘human being’ presupposes the conception of singulars like Socrates and Plato (i.e. determined

39 40 41

the non-perception of error which is different from Oresme’s and which consists in not applying the correct specific concept: “videns a longe equum tu iudicabis quod est animal et iudicabis bene quod non erit homo, nec canis, sed nondum poteris distinguere utrum sit equus vel asinus, et sic tu habes de isto conceptum inferiorem conceptu animalis et tantum indifferentem equo et asino; et isti sunt tres conceptus generis propinqui, sed tu non attendebas ad hoc quia non est nomen impositum illi generi” (Questiones in octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis, I, q. 4, MS Cesena Malatest. S VIII 5 (M), fol. 7vb, unpublished transcription by Jean Celeyrette). John Buridan, Questiones in octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis, I, q. 4, fol. 7vb: “Sed intellectus non est dispositus ad conceptus specialores nisi prius habuerit universaliores”. John Buridan, Questiones in octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis, I, q. 4, fol. 7vb: “Sed nos qui sumus iam habituati per conceptus universales et speciales, statim sine tempore perceptibili possumus formare utrosque”. See John Buridan, Quaestiones de anima, tertia lectura, ed. Klima, forthcoming 2023; French transl. Biard 2019, pp. 119–129 and pp. 570–593.

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individuals) since there is nothing in the intellect that was not before in the senses and that the senses only deal with singular things. However, both the senses and the intellect apprehend the singular thing under more common (confused) determinations prior to apprehending them under less common, and thus increasingly more precise, determinations. The prototypical case is always that of vision: For if I see Socrates approaching me from a distance, I will judge that he is a body before judging that he is an animal, and I will judge that he is an animal before judging that he is a human being, and I will judge that he is a human being than before judging that he is Socrates, and so in the end I will apprehend him through the concept from which the name ‘Socrates’ is taken.42 The passage makes it clear that this is a process with different stages, and that it is a seamless process between sensation and intellection: But we will perceive this animal or this human being through the sense and then through the intellect first in a confuse way along with place than in an universal way, by abstracting animal or human being from the ­representation of the place.43 In the sense the vague singular more universal is prior to the vague singular less universal, for the sense perceives this body first than this this animal. For that reason, while abstracting the intellect judges the more universal first than the less universal, as the body first than the animal.44 Nevertheless, here Buridan does not refer to the issue of the lapse of time between such different kinds of apprehensions and therefore does not address the question about the perception of such a lapse of time. 42

43 44

John Buridan, Quaestiones de anima, tertia lectura III, q. 8, § 33: “Si enim Socrates veniens videtur a longe, prius iudicabo quod est corpus quam quod [em. quamque edit.] est animal, et prius quod est animal quam quod est homo, et prius quod est homo quam quod est Socrates, et sic ultimo apprehendam eum secundum conceptum a quo sumitur hoc nomen Socrates”. John Buridan, Quaestiones de anima, tertia lectura III, q. 8, § 33: “Sed prius per sensum et consequenter per intellectum iudicabimus hoc animal vel hunc hominem confuse cum situ quam universaliter, animalem vel hominem abstrahendo a repraesentatione situs”. John Buridan, Quaestiones de anima, tertia lectura III, q. 8, § 33: “Modo apud sensum, prius est individuum vagum magis universalis quam individuum vagum minus universalis, nam sensus prius iudicat hoc corpus quam hoc animal. Ideo abstrahendo, intellectus prius iudicabit magis universale quam minus universale, ut corpus prius quam animal”.

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Relevant Textual Sources

Before proceeding to our conclusion, a few words ought to be spent on the implicit and explicit sources relevant to address this issue within the framework presented here. The first reference is classical and ubiquitous, even if it is almost always left implicit: it is the model of the visual perception from a distance and approaching an object, which medieval thinkers ultimately associated with Avicenna.45 We find this reference already in texts from the thirteenth century, for instance in Thomas Aquinas, and it is found in all the texts we have considered in this article: i. Nicole Oresme, Questions on the Physics: the experience of vision and getting closer to an object is used as an argument in favour of the thesis of the natural and temporal priority of the more universal.46 ii. Nicole Oresme, Questions on the De anima: the same experience is alluded to twice, in a very cursive manner.47 iii. Albert of Saxony, Questions on the Physics: the experience is alluded to without any specific reference. iv. Anonymous Patar, Questions on the De anima: the experience is described twice without any specific reference, once among the initial arguments in favour of the priority of the universal; another, in the context of explaining the imperceptible temporal succession (which is close to a reference to Alhazen, which we will discuss below). v. John Buridan, Questions on the Physics (ultima lectura): this is the first of the texts we have considered that makes an explicit reference to ­Avicenna, even if it does not specify in which work: And Avicenna gives an indication more evident on that issue, viz that when you see at a distance Socrates approaching, first you perceive and judge that it is a body, while still ignoring if it is an animal or a stone or a bramble.48

45 46 47

48

See Avicenna, Liber primus naturalium, tr. 1, c. 1, ed. Van Riet 1992, p. 11. Nicole Oresme, Questiones super Physicam I, q. 4, p. 27. Nicole Oresme, Quaestiones in Aristotelis de anima III, q. 14: a first time, in the initial arguments to attest the priority of the singular over the universal, he points to the p ­ riority of “hoc corpus singulare” over the cognition that it is an animal or a human being (p. 418)—this quite confused argument will be later on refuted with the assistance of Alhazen; a second time, in the context of the increasingly complete perception of the ‘circumstances’ (p. 420). John Buridan, Qu. Phys. I, q. 7, p. 61: “Et Avicenna super hoc ponit signum manifestius quod tu videns a longe Socratem venientem primo percipis et iudicas esse corpus, ­ignorans adhuc utrum sit animal aut lapis aut dumus”.

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Subsequently, while rebutting an opinion on the order of concepts, Buridan refers to Avicenna’s view on the same topic for the second time.49 It is worth noticing that in the tertia lectura on the Physics he explicitly mentions the name of Avicenna on that same topic.50 vi. John Buridan, Questiones de anima (tertia sive ultima lectura), book I, question 5: mentioned without any reference.51 vii. John Buridan, Questiones de anima (tertia sive ultima lectura), book III, question 8: the text alludes to Avicenna twice: first in one of the arguments in favour of the priority of the universal, citing him explicitly.52 Second, later on in the question Buridan mentions the same idea without however mentioning Avicenna.53 In Avicenna, the argument concerns the theory of vision, which he approaches from a psychological point of view that inevitably involves some considerations about the relation between the different cognitive faculties. More relevant to us is the fact that the texts we have been discussing make use, though not explicitly, of material taken from optics: i. Oresme, Questions on the Physics, book I, question 4. In this question about the causes of visual errors, such as, for example, the perception of Plato as a donkey, Oresme alludes in a general way to the ‘perspective’ as well as to the book De natura daemonum, a work attributed to Witello. It would not be too bold to suggest that the reference to the ‘perspective’ in the sentence “as is clear in the Perspectiva and as is declared in the last book of the De natura daemonum” should be taken as a reference to Witello’s Perspectiva.54 ii. Oresme, Questions on De anima. Oresme makes a first reference to Alhazen’s Perspectiva in a question about the relation between intellect and 49 50

51 52 53 54

John Buridan, Qu. Phys. I, q. 7, p. 74. We find the same allusion to this schema, but without the reference, in the reply to the first argument (p. 76). John Buridan, Questiones in octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis, I, q. 4, tertia lectura, unpublished transcription by Jean Celeyrette: “sicut declaravit Avicenna, tu ad sensum prius iudicas illud quod tu vides a longe esse corpus hoc quam hoc animal, et prius hoc animal quam hunc hominem” (MS Cesena Malatest. S VIII 5 (M), fol. 7vb). John Buridan (Quaestiones de anima ed. Klima et alii, I, qu. 5, § 17. John Buridan, Quaestiones de anima, III, q. 8, § 9: “Et Avicenna evidentius ponit efficaciam illius signi, scilicet si Socrates venit et videas eum de longe, tu prius iudicabis illum esse corpus vel animal vel hominem quam posses iudicare quod sit Socrates”. John Buridan, Quaestiones de anima, III, q. 8, § 33; text quoted supra, note 43. Nicole Oresme, Questiones super Physicam I, q. 4, p. 28: “sicut patet in Perspectiva et sicut declaratur ultimo in libro De natura daemonum”. In the edition, ‘perspectiva’ is not used as a title, but I think it should be considered as a title of the work, both in the case of Witello and in the case of Alhazen, as cited in the Questions on the soul.

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sense. This reference appears in a context where Oresme is stating that purely quidditative concepts are only in the intellect, whereas the concepts ‘in the second sense’—that is those that conceive of a thing under a certain particular circumstance—are both in the sense and in the intellect, as explained above. Here Oresme explicitly refers to Alhazen: “And Alhazen says just that in the First and Second book of the Perspectiva”.55 Important for our purposes is the fact that it is precisely in this text that Oresme makes a most significant reference to the Perspectiva as a source for the imperceptible character of temporal priority: “Third conclusion: whenever this priority is imperceptible, as Alhazen claims in the Second book of the Perspectiva because […] this process is so straightforward and quick that men cannot perceive it”.56 This quotation is decisive and in the text it refers to, Alhazen writes: And many intentions of visible thing, which are comprehended through reason and discernment, are comprehended in an extremely short time, and it does not appear that their comprehension occurs by means of reason and discernment because of the quickness of the mind, by which such intentions are comprehended.57 iii. Albert of Saxony, Questions on the Physics. Albert also makes an explicit reference to the Perspectiva of Alhazen when dealing with the topic of colour perception, as an illustration of seeing at a distance: “This is clear according to Alhazen in the Second book of his Perspectiva, who says that when I see whiteness, I perceive first this colour than that it is this w ­ hiteness, but we do not perceive such priority and posteriority 55

Nicole Oresme, Quaestiones in Aristotelis de anima III, q. 14, p. 421: “Et hoc solum dicit Alhazen in I° et II° Perspectivae”. See Alhazen, Opticae libri septem II, c. 3, n. 68, ed. Basel 1572, p. 70—this passage concerns the relation between the perception of the thing and the comprehension of its quiddity. 56 Nicole Oresme, Quaestiones in Aristotelis de anima III, q. 14, p. 422: “Terta conclusio est quod quandoque ista prioritas est imperceptibilis, sicut ponit Alhazen in II° quia […] iste discursus est ita facilis et in tam brevi tempore quod homo non ­percipit”. 57 Alhazen, Opticae libri septem II, c. 1, n. 12, p. 31: “et plures intentiones uisibilium, quae comprehenduntur per rationem et distinctionem comprehenduntur in tempore ualde parvo, et non apparet quod comprehensio earum fit per rationem et distinctionem, propter uelocitatem rationis per quam comprehenduntur istae intentiones”; cf. perhaps also II, c. 3, n. 71, p. 72: “Et propter hoc uisus comprehendit uisibilia consueta comprehensione ualde ueloci in tempore latente sensum; et non erit inter oppositionem uisus et rem uisam, et inter comprehensionem quidditatis rei uisae assuetae tempius sensibile in maiori parte”.

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because of the brevity of time”.58 For once, Albert is the most precise of the authors studied, as he accurately cites Alhazen, who writes: And again we say that the comprehension of a colours qua colour is prior to the comprehension of the quiddity of colour, namely that vision first comprehends a colour and discerns that it is a colour before it discerns the kind of colour it is. […] and if the thing was of colours which were comprehended almost always before, these are comprehended in a shorter time; and between this second instant of time, and the first instant in which vision comprehends a colour qua colour, there is no ­perceptible time.59

iv.

Albert combines the Avicennian experience and the text of Alhazen, and he wraps it all up together for explaining that the brevity of time is the reason why the difference between these conceptions concurring to the apprehension of the object is not perceptible. We can therefore say that the Questions on the De anima by Oresme and the Questions on the Physics by Albert are the texts that most clearly expose the key conceptual framework here investigated, even if the essential of this account can also be found in the Anonymous Patar. Anonymous Patar, Questions on the De anima. In a very similar way, in fact, the Anonymous Patar refers to Alhazen as the source for the experience of seeing at distance and getting near: For if someone sees afar Socrates approaching, first he conceives of him to be this body, then this animal, then this human being, then Socrates. Similarly, if someone starts seeing Socrates at a close distance, he conceives first that he is a body than an animal, and first this animal than this human being, although this priority is imperceptible because of the brevity, as Alhazen says in the second book of his Perspectiva.60

58

Albert of Saxonia, Questiones super Physicam I, q. 5, vol. 2, p. 75: “Istud patet per Alhazen in II° suae Perspectivae, sic dicentem quod, cum video albedinem, prius iudico quod est hic color quam quod est haec albedo, sed propter parvitatem temporis talem prioritatem et posterioritatem non percipimus”. 59 Alhazen, Opticae libri septem II, c. 2 (falsely 11), n. 19, p. 36: “Et iterum dicimus quod comprehensio coloris in eo quod est color est ante comprehensionem quidditatem coloris, scilicet quod uisus comprehendit colorem, et sentit quod est color antequam sentiat cuiusmodi sit coloris. […] et si [res] fuerit ex coloribus quos fere semper ante comprehendebat, comprehenduntur in minore tempore, et in instanti secundo, inter quod et primum in quo comprehendit colorem quatenus et color, non est sensibile tempus”. 60 Anonymous Patar, Quaestiones in Aristotelis De anima I, q. 4, p. 197: “Nam si aliquis videat Socratem venientem a longe, primo concipit eum esse hoc corpus, deinde hoc animal, deinde hunc hominem, deinde Socratem. Similiter si aliquid incipiat videre Socratem

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Here as well as in Oresme a connection is established between this and another aspect that provides the framework for that theory, that is the simultaneous perception of multiple quidditative concepts: To the first [argument], when it is proved that a universal concept is caused at the same pace as a singular one, for when I start seeing Socrates near me I conceive that he is a human being at the same pace as I conceive that he is an animal, I deny it, as I said in the positio it was made clear by Alhazen in the second book of his Perspectiva.61 v.

In Buridan, on the other hand, the optical sources are less frequent; consequently, the imperceptibility of successive perceptions is less emphasised, except in his tertia lectura of the Physics, as we have seen. Undoubtedly this is because in these later versions he uses the initial question as a pretext to develop at length other aspects of his theory of knowledge.

4 Conclusion We have identified a group of mid-14th century texts that (1) shows a common framework for analysing the problem of the non-perceptible factors contributing to perception, and (2) solve it by combining similar conceptual strategies and a set of references to the same sources. The list of texts above is not intended to be exhaustive, rather it provides the bulk of the commentaries relevant to the issue, namely Nicole Oresme’s Questions on the Physics and his Questions on the De anima, the Questions on the De anima by the Anonymous Patar, and Albert of Saxony’s Questions on the Physics. We have not found the overall argumentative structure of this framework in 13th century commentaries on the Physics and De anima, where we have only found separately some key distinctive elements of this structure. On the other side, it remains for future research to trace its development, for instance by looking at Marsilius of Inghen. We have limited ourselves to discussing John Buridan, noting that he

61

de prope, prius concipit eum esse corpus quam hoc animal, et prius hoc animal quam hunc hominem, licet illa prioritas propter parvitatem temporis sit imperceptibilis, sicut declarat Alhazen in II° suae Perspectivae”. Anonymous Patar, Quaestiones in Aristotelis De anima I, q. 4, p. 198: “Ad primam [rationem], cum probabatur quod aeque cito causatur conceptus universalis sicut singularis nam cum incipio videre Socratem prope me, ita cito concipio quod est homo sicut quod est animal, nego, sicut dicebatur in positione esse declaratum per Alhazen in II° suae Perspectivae”.

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does not generally apply this very same conceptual framework to address the problem, although his tertia lectura of the Physics come close to it. We also do not find it in Peter of Ailly. Nor in Blasius of Parma, who deals with the problem in his Questions on the Physics, but not in his Questions on the De anima, and he does so in a very different manner. This framework consists of two elements. The first is the unprecedented nesting of the sensory and intellective dimensions of the cognitive process understood in its globality. This is not a case of confusion, in particular of confounding sensation and intellection. There is an order, that takes place over a period of time. But there are transitions and points of correspondence, more than ruptures and strong oppositions. Sensory cognition is not confined to the immediacy of a common act of the sentient and that which is sensed, as it is the case in Aristotle. Perception, and particularly vision, is a complex process and is constituted by a chain of acts. Nicholas Oresme expresses well this complexity by combining singular apprehensions or conceptions and universal apprehensions or conceptions. But in the same way as there are different types of singulars, there are also different types of universals, which are combined with a particularizing determination (‘this human being’, ‘this animal’, which can signify x or y) or conceived of by themselves (‘human being’, ‘animal’). These complex sets are included in the general idea of conceptus; the concept is not merely the act of intellection, not merely the mental term, but, at least in these texts, it is also the act or series of acts (and the acquired dispositions) that include both the singular apprehension and the universal apprehension. Another term to designate certain acts of this series is perhaps percipere. One can therefore speak of ‘rationality in perception’, even if each of the terms in that expression must be used with caution and demand qualifications. There certainly is something conceptual in the apprehension of natural things, from the first contact, insofar as the apprehension makes use ipso facto of the habitual concepts (of the habitus, i.e. dispositions). And there certainly is discursivity or proto-discursivity, found furthermore in animal behaviour, as Buridan discusses at length. From the point of view of faculty psychology, that protodiscursivity arises from the ratio assimilated to the cogitative. But we think that, in the context of a descriptive psychology, less emphasis should be placed on the rupture between the sensitive powers in a broad sense and the intellective powers, and more emphasis should be placed on the interconnections and combinations among those different dimensions. What is decisive in this framework is the focus on a theory of vision. The ­reference to the Avicennian experience of approaching the object from afar and the classic (from Antiquity onwards) analogy between to see and to think (theorein) is not enough. These authors refer explicitly or implicitly to the

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optics (the perspectiva) and allude to Alhazen, either directly or via Witello. It is this aspect that considerably transforms the conception of the cognitive process in general. Because Alhazen, beyond the passages cited by our authors, stresses the temporal nature of the process of perception, even when this temporal element is not perceptible. And this concerns many aspects of his theory, from the vision of light and colour to syllogistic reasoning.62 The second element of this framework is the duration and temporal extension of perception in certain cases, which is grounded precisely in this context. This extension is not perceived because it takes place in a too small amount of time. This results in the quasi-immediacy of the act by which I recognize that the thing close to me is a human being, despite the priority of the concept of body, animal, etc. That extension is nonetheless decisive to understand the whole process and the interconnections described above. The priority appears sometimes in the experience described by Avicenna, or in the error that gave rise to the sophism ‘Your father is a donkey’, but in most cases it is not noted because of the brevity of the process. That is why I have suggested, in a slightly provocative way, the idea of ‘small perceptions’ in the sense Leibniz has said that thousands of unconscious perceptions must concur in order for me to hear the sound of the sea: Besides, there are hundreds of indications leading us to conclude that at every moment there is in us an infinity of perceptions, unaccompanied by awareness or reflection; that is, of alterations in the soul itself, of which we are unaware because these impressions are either too minute and too numerous, or else too unvarying, so that they are not sufficiently distinctive on their own. But when they are combined with others they do nevertheless have their effect and make themselves felt, at least confusedly, within the whole […] To give a clearer idea of these minute perceptions which we are unable to pick out from the crowd, I like to use the example of the roaring noise of the sea which impresses itself on us when we are standing on the shore. To hear this noise as we do, we must hear the parts which make up this whole, that is the noise of each wave, although each of these little noises makes itself known only when combined confusedly with all the others, and would not be noticed if the wave which made it were by itself.63 62

See Alhazen, Opticae libri septem II, c. 1, nn. 11–13, pp. 31–32 (on vision and syllogism); c. 2, nn. 19–21, pp. 36–38 (on light and colour); c. 3, nn. 69–71, pp. 70–72, etc. 63 Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, eds. Remnant & Bennett 1996, preface, pp. 7–8.

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But it is important to make it clear that this explanation is not grounded only in the object, just like when we perceive a form we perceive globally a large number, even an infinity, of points, but it is grounded in the cognitive power and its acts. It is also worth pointing out that it is possible to extend such analysis to the imperceptible temporal differences in the case of certain visual illusions, as, for example, to the common circle of fire that we see from the extremity of a rotating torch, and to the other imaginary cases in which we perceive as continuous what is discontinuous, which are found in Oresme’s works.64 This aspect of perception is not touched upon in the present paper, since I have restricted myself to show how a plurality of cognitive acts, the succession of which is imperceptible (imperceptibilis), compose a single ‘perception’. When this framework is addressed in its complexity, it seems to represent a new development in cognitive psychology from the mid-fourteenth century. Bibliography Primary Sources

Albertus Magnus, De anima, ed. Clemens Stroick, Münster: Aschendorff, 1968 (Alberti Magni Ordinis fratrum praedicatorum episcopi Opera Omnia, 7/1). Albert of Saxony, Quaestiones in Aristotelis Physicam, in Expositio et Quaestiones in Aristotelis Physicam ad Albertum de Saxonia attributae, ed. Benoît Patar, 3 vols., ­Louvain: Peeters, 1999 (Philosophes médiévaux, 39–41). Alhazen, Opticae thesaurus: Alhazeni Arabis libri septem, ed. Friedrich Risner, Basel: Nicolaus Episcopius, 1572. Anonymous Patar, Quaestiones in Aristotelis De anima, in Le Traité de l’âme de Jean de Buridan [de prima lectura], ed. Benoît Patar, Louvain: Institut supérieur de ­Philosophie, 1991 (Philosophes médiévaux, 29), pp. 165–491. Aristotle, On the Soul, transl. J. A. Smith, in Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, 2 vols., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985 (Bollingen series, 71/2), vol. 1. Avicenna, Liber primus naturalium: Tractatus primus de causis et principiis naturalium, ed. Simone van Riet, Louvain-la-Neuve–Leiden: Peeters–Brill, 1992 (Avicenna ­Latinus). Buridan, John, Questiones super octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis (secundum ultimam lecturam), ed. Michiel Streijger & Paul J. J. M. Bakker, Leiden: Brill, 2015 (History of Science and Medicine Library, 25). 64

See Celeyrette 2007, pp. 95–96.

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Buridan, John, Questiones in octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis, in MS Cesena Malatest. S VIII 5 (M), unpublished transcription by Jean Celeyrette. Buridan, John, Quaestiones de anima, secunda lectura (MS Vendôme 169), in Le Traité de l’âme de Jean de Buridan [de prima lectura], ed. Benôit Patar, Louvain: Institut supérieur de Philosophie, 1991 (Philosophes médiévaux, 29), pp. 731–777. Buridan, John, Quaestiones de anima, tertia lectura in John Buridan’s Questions on ­Aristotle’s De anima (third and final redaction), ed. and transl. Gyula Klima, Peter Sobol, Peter Hartman, and Jack Zupko, Cham: Springer, forthcoming 2023. [French translation: Questions sur le traité De l’âme d’Aristote, transl. Biard, Paris: Vrin, 2019 (Bibliothèque des textes philosophiques)]. Buridan, John, Quaestiones de anima, secunda lectura (extract), ms. Vendôme 169, in Le traité de l’âme de Jean Buridan [de prima lectura], ed. B. Patar, Louvain, Institut supérieur de Philosophie, 1991 (Philosophes médiévaux, 29), p. 729–777. Giles of Rome, In libros de physico auditu Aristotelis commentaria, s.l. 1502. John of Jandun, Super libros Aristotelis de anima subtilissimae quaestiones, Venice: Girolamo Scoto, 1552. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, New Essays on Human Understanding, eds. Peter Remnant & Jonathan Bennett, 2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Oresme, Nicole, Questiones super Physicam (Books I–VII), ed. Stefano Caroti, Jean Celeyrette, Stefan Kirchner & Edmont Mazet, Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2013 (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 112). Oresme, Nicole, Quaestiones in Aristotelis de anima, in Expositio et quaestiones in ­Aristotelis De anima, ed. Benoît Patar, Louvain: Peeters, 1995 (Philosophes médiévaux, 32). Raoul le Breton, Questiones in librum tertium de anima, in Der Kommentar des Radulphus Brito zu Buch III De anima, ed. Winfried Fauser, Münster: Aschendorff, 1974 (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters. Texte und Untersuchungen. N. F., 12). Thomas Aquinas, Commentaria in octo libros Physicorum, Rome: Ex Typographia Polyglotta S. C. de Propaganda Fide, 1884 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, 2).

Secondary Literature

Bakker, Paul J. J. M. & Sander De Boer (2011), “Is John Buridan the Author of the Anonymous Traité de l’âme edited by Benoît Patar?”, Bulletin de Philosophie médiévale, 53, pp. 283–332. Biard, Joël (2017), “Le Nominalisme au Moyen Âge tardif”, in Fabrizio Amerini & ­Laurent Cesalli (eds.), Universals in the Fourteenth Century, Pisa: Edizione della ­Normale, pp. 5–36.

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Jean Celeyrette (2007), “Apparences et imaginations chez Oresme: Question III. 1 sur la Physique et Question sur l’apparence d’une chose”, Revue d’histoire des sciences, 60, pp. 83–100. Lagerlund, Henrik (2007), “John Buridan on Psychology and Language”, in Paul J. J. M. Bakker & J. M. M. H. Thijssen, Mind, Cognition and Representation: The Commentary Tradition of Aristotle’s De anima, Aldershot: Ashgate (Ashgate Studies in Medieval Philosophy), pp. 69–85.

CHAPTER 8

Rational Perception in Application: Nicholas of Cusa on Perceiving This Apple Christian Kny A recent paper develops a close reading of Nicholas of Cusa’s statements about sense perception, reconstructing the underlying theory as one of rational, active perception.1 While this paper is illuminating regarding the general shape of Nicholas’ theoretical stance and some of the questions related to it, it barely addresses concrete perceptual scenarios—unsurprisingly, as it makes sense to get a solid grasp of the theory before applying it to examples. The latter is what I am concerned with here.2 A perceptual scenario—the perception of this apple—will be discussed as an example of what happens in the cognitive apparatus of a perceiver in Nicholas’ terms. As our contemporary theories of perception are substantially different from the one Nicholas puts forward,3 this discussion has to take the shape of a thought experiment: temporarily accepting Nicholas’ theoretical framework in order to explore its explanatory potential regarding perceptual experiences. This potential, as I aim to show, is significant. Nicholas is able to account for a wide range of successful and unsuccessful cases of perception. Given the tools and knowledge he has access to, he does well at capturing different perceptual experiences. Applying his theoretical framework to an example also shows, however, the difference between theorizing about an act of perception in isolation of its practical context, and accounting for such an act within this context. While Nicholas, despite some vagueness, is successful enough in the first regard, he does not provide enough detail or do enough work to explain perception in the full complexity of the surroundings in which it takes place.

1 See Kny & Silva 2017. See ibid., p. 177, note 4 for a brief overview of earlier contributions regarding Nicholas’ take on sense perception. 2 It thus makes sense to read the two papers in conjunction as complementary pieces. One of them focuses on the theoretical framework and the texts based on which it can be developed, the other focuses on the applicability of this framework and the conclusions that can be drawn from putting it to work. 3 See Mohan 2015 for a comprehensive overview that not only discusses perception from the viewpoint of contemporary philosophy, but also briefly addresses key approaches of the past. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004537712_009

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To show this, I have to start with a few preliminary pieces of essential information about Nicholas’ anthropological assumptions and the concepts employed in his account of perception. As there is enough research on these topics, I will keep my remarks very brief. The second section of this paper consists in an account of the different manners of how perception does or does not take place in the context of the thought experiment. Based on this account, I will discuss a few of the strengths and weaknesses of the theory behind the example in the third and final section. 1

Preliminary Information

To understand the following thought experiment, preliminary information is necessary in two regards. First, there is the bodily and mental, i.e., anthropological, setting within which perception takes place. For Nicholas, humans are mind-body unities, the leading part of whose is the mind (lat. ‘mens’). The mind performs a variety of hierarchically ordered tasks—intellection, rational thinking, perception, and the vegetative functions. As intellect, the mind is an immaterial cognitive entity, pondering the essence of things, itself and god. In the body, the mind controls organs and body parts by means of corporeal spirits (lat. ‘spiritus’). These spiritus are described as fine-grained and agile bodily tools, directed by the mind through the blood vessels as their pathways. It is important to note that rational, discursive thinking is among the bodily activities for Nicholas, together with perception and the vegetative functions.4 Second, there is the mechanism of how information about an object reaches the sense organs of a perceiver. Central to this mechanism are what could be translated as ‘sensory forms’ (lat. ‘species sensibiles’). Together with other types of species, they play a major role in later medieval theories of cognition.5 4 The work offering the easiest access to this anthropological picture is Nicholas’ Idiota de mente. Written roughly in the middle of the two decades during which he produced his works, it contains a compact overview of key assumptions he put forward and thus provides a good foundation for examining his treatment of specific topics and questions in his earlier and later texts. For the basic functions human minds perform, see De mente, c. 5, n. 80; for a more detailed characterisation of those functions involved in cognition, see ibid., c. 7, nn. 99–106; for a description of the bodily processes taking place during sense perception, see ibid., c. 8, nn. 112–115. Good starting points for Nicholas’ anthropology are Leinkauf 2006, pp. 182–203; Mandrella 2012, pp. 271–287; Moffitt Watts 1982. Regarding Nicholas epistemological stance, see note 12 below. 5 Given the major role species play in the later Middle Ages, it is no surprise that there is extensive scholarship on the topic. Lagerlund 2017 provides a compact overview of key figures in the medieval discussions as well as important research about these discussions. See Pasnau

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Generally, species can be understood as carriers of information, mediating between objects of cognition and subjects of cognition as well as between different organs and faculties within subjects of cognition. Species sensibiles are of the former type, mediating between objects and subjects of cognition. The way Nicholas understands them,6 they are emitted by objects and transport information about these objects through a medium to the sense organs predisposed to receive them. 2 Perceiving ‘This Apple’ While this is not a lot of preliminary information, it is enough to understand the thought experiment of sensory perception I want to discuss in this paper. The scenario is the following: A scholar (‘Y’ for brevity’s sake) is sitting at her desk on which, amongst writing tools and some books, lies an apple—this apple. It is of round shape and coloured in warm shades of red and green, surrounded by the dark brown hues of the desk and the various colours of book covers. The apple smells sweet, with a hint of acid in it; it is smooth and firm to the touch and would offer a rich mix of sweet and sour flavours if Y were to take a bite. I will enrich this setting in the following discussion to make certain points, but at its centre is always Y’s perception of this apple. Now, what exactly ­happens, according to Nicholas, when she sees, smells, touches or tastes it? Overall, there are three possible perceptual scenarios: successful perception, faulty perception and no perception at all. 2.1 Scenario One: No Perception One of these scenarios is easy to describe and thus the perfect starting point. What happens when it occurs is simply: nothing. There is no perception of this apple. In order to perceive it, in Nicholas’ theoretical framework, Y needs to receive and process species sensibiles emitted by this apple, but this can fail to happen in three ways. The species sensibiles could (1) not even arrive in her sense organs because something prevents their transmission through the medium. A solid obstacle like a pile of books could prevent, for example, 1997, Perler 2004, Spruit 1994, Spruit 1995, and Tachau 1988 for some key monographs in the context. 6 As many other authors since the 13th century, Nicholas is heavily indebted to Roger Bacon (De multiplicatione specierum being the key text) in this regard. Lindberg 1998, pp. liii–lxii and Tachau 1988, pp. 3–26 provide two compact analyses of Bacon’s position.

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the visual species sensibiles of this apple from passing through the air between the apple and Y. The species never even reach her eyes and she cannot perceive what is behind the pile of books.7 The species sensibiles of this apple could (2) arrive in Y’s sense organs without her taking notice of them. It is possible that her mind, directing the corporeal spiritus through her body and to her sense organs, simply does not pay attention to what the spiritus encounter in the sense organs. Y could be so focused on her writing, for example, that she is oblivious to her surroundings and does not even realize there is an apple in her field of vision.8 It is important that the apple actually is in Y’s field of vision, however. If this were not the case, (1) would apply. The species sensibiles could (3) reach Y, but her sense organs are not disposed to receive them. This case is mostly hypothetical, but I want to mention it for the sake of completeness. It requires none of Y’s senses to work as there has to be no perception of this apple—temporary or prolonged states of unconsciousness might fall into this category, but one would still have to look closely whether they actually belong to (3) instead of (2). 2.2 Scenario Two: Successful Perception The complexity of the situation increases when perception actually takes place. If Y successfully perceives this apple on her desk, a process consisting of two main steps takes place, according to Nicholas. Step one of this scenario is that the species sensibiles emitted by this apple arrive in Y’s sense organs and cause what Nicholas calls an ‘excitatio’:9 arriving in sense organs, the species sensibiles interrupt the flow of the spiritus controlled by Y’s mind, and she becomes mentally aware that something just changed. This change is, quite literally, an information. Species are also called ‘forms’ (‘formae’),10 and when they arrive in an organ they change its state from the form it was in to the form that has arrived. The sense organs take on the informational structure of what they receive. Thus, if Y removes the pile of books blocking her view of this apple, her eyes receive the species emitted by the latter and take in the new visual situation. The same thing happens under appropriate perceptual conditions with her ears, nose and organs of touch and 7 8 9 10

The way Nicholas discusses species sensibiles, he has to hold that they are corporeal entities; see Kny & Silva 2018, pp. 198–200. As such, other corporeal entities can prevent the transmission of species sensibiles by physically blocking their path. I will come back to the role of attention in the following section. For now, it suffices to say that it is a necessary condition for perception to take place. See Kny & Silva 2018, pp. 179–181, 183–188 (with note 19 for some historical context). Nicholas uses the terms ‘forma’, ‘species’ and ‘signum’ synonymously or at least loosely. See, for example, Nicholas of Cusa, Compendium, c. 5, n. 14; De beryllo, c. 4, n. 5.

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taste. All of them take on the form of this apple when its species sensibiles reach them, triggering Y’s attention. Once the excitatio has taken place and Y has become aware that there is a change in her sense organs, step two of this perceptual scenario takes place. This is when it actually makes sense to speak of perception in the first place, according to Nicholas, as the excitatio is merely a trigger event that initiates the process leading to perceptual content.11 Two cognitive powers are utilized by the mind once its attention is triggered. One of them is, unsurprisingly, sensory. The mind accesses the new situation in the sense organs, assimilating itself to the changed state of these organs by means of the respective spiritus.12 The result of this assimilation is what could be described as a canvas of data13 for each of the senses. Regarding visual perception, one could compare this to an impressionist painting seen from a very short distance—a variety of colours next to and blending into each other. If the distance between the viewer and the painting is short enough, it is impossible to tell what the painting shows. Everything seems blurred. It might be harder to come up with good examples for the other senses, but the pattern is the same for Nicholas. In the senses, the mind is confronted with visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory and tactile information, but this information is presented in a blurred manner.14 Sensory assimilation to this apple lacks distinction and definition, so that Y could not even speak of this apple based only on what she senses. Taking vision as an example once again, she would sense shades of red, green and brown, but would not be able to attribute the reds and greens to this apple and of the 11 12

13

14

See note 9. Nicholas describes cognition in general and perception in particular as an act of assimilation to what is cognized. He specifies that cognitive assimilation is an asymptotic process, that is: while humans get closer to the objects they engage with in terms of cognition, they never fully reach them. This holds for material objects like this apple as well as for immaterial objects like ideas or, most prominently, god. A lot of research about Nicholas’ epistemological stance is in German—see Eisenkopf 2007; Kny 2018; Kremer 2004; Mandrella 2010; van Veltoven 1977, to name some important pieces. There are a few contributions in English as well: see Hopkins 1986; Miller 2004; Spruit 1995, pp. 20–28. In the later Middle Ages, as Silva & Thörnqvist 2019, p. 232, put it, ‘assimilation’ is “a placeholder for a process by means of which any external thing is made present to a cognitive subject that becomes like it”. I am not entirely happy with the term ‘data’ here, due to its usage in our everyday language as well as in a certain subset of contemporary theories of perception. As I do not see a better option, however, I use it to signify the product of the mind’s sensory (not rational) assimilation to what is encountered in a sensory organ when it has been informed by a species sensibilis. Nicholas uses the adverb ‘confuse’: see for example De coniecturis I, c. 8, n. 32; II, c. 16, n. 157; Idiota de mente, c. 5, n. 82; c. 8, n. 114.

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shades of brown to the table. She would not be able to pick out this apple from the sensory background of data it is embedded in, identifying it as one object against the backdrop of others. This picking out is the task of the second cognitive power involved in ­perception: reason (‘ratio’). The key feature of reason, for Nicholas, is order. Reason distinguishes, discriminates and defines, unifying (unstructured) data into individual objects.15 Using reason to access what is received in the senses, the mind brings structure and order into the blurred sensory canvases. It assembles the information made accessible through the senses. Thus it is her reason by means of which Y distinguishes the colours she sees and attributes them to objects they belong to. Reason separates the sweet, slightly acidic fragrance of this apple from other smells; its curved shape from the flat surface it is resting on. Generally speaking, reason picks out the apple from the surroundings it is embedded in, making it possible to perceive one qualified object (among others). Employing her reason, Y also combines the information accessed through the different senses, and by doing this, she creates a likeness or representation of the object she is confronted with. As she assimilates herself to the object by means of her senses, she also assimilates herself to it rationally. Y thus constitutes her perception of this apple. Now when humans perceive something, they do not usually see, hear, smell, touch or taste a canvas of blurred data first and make perceptual sense of it at a later point in time. Rather, they perceive objects right away. Y establishes a cognitive relation between the object in front of her and herself, and perceives this apple. Nicholas can account for this sort of experience. According to him, the activities of the senses and reason do not take place one after another, the canvases of data being finished first and reason accessing them afterwards. Y’s mind employs its sensory and rational capacities together to create the representation of the object in front of her, which constitutes her perception of this apple. Her mental awareness has to be triggered first by an excitatio, but the perceptual process taking place afterwards is a joint operation of senses and reason, both contributing to the success of this process.16 2.3 Scenario Three: Faulty Perception Perception does not always go right, however, and this brings us to the third and last scenario involving this apple and Y—faulty perception. As in the first scenario, there are different ways in which things can go wrong. 15 16

See Nicholas of Cusa, De coniecturis I, c. 8, n. 32; II, c. 12, n. 133; Idiota de mente, c. 5, n. 83; c. 7, n. 102 for a few enlightening passages. See Kny & Silva 2018, pp. 181, 188, 196–198. See Kny & Silva 2017, pp. 186–191; pp. 208–211 for an evaluation of the interpretive options in this regard and the textual evidence Nicholas provides.

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Step one of this third scenario is identical with step one of the second s­ cenario, successful perception. Again, species sensibiles emitted by this apple arrive in Y’s sense organs and cause an excitatio: they interrupt the flow of the spiritus controlled by her mind, and she becomes mentally aware that something just changed. The informational state of her sensory organs changes as they adapt to the new situation, taking on the form of this apple when its ­species sensibiles reach them. Step two is where things go wrong, and there are four possibilities of how they can go wrong. Two of those cases can occur when it comes to the contribution of Y’s sensory organs to the perceptual process. Her organs are informed by the species sensibiles emitted by the object in front of her, but the information process is not successful, that is, the data she encounters rationally is incomplete or corrupted. This could be due (4) to the species themselves being affected. Imagine Y working in a big, spacious library instead of a small room. If she were picking up a book from a shelf far enough away, all she could see on her desk would be a small, round, coloured object. The species emitted by this apple would have to travel such a long distance between the apple and Y’s eyes that the details would be lost and she might not even perceive the object as an apple.17 Faulty perception could (5) be due to the impaired function of at least one of her sensory organs. The problem could be temporary or permanent—in both cases, Y being unable to process necessary information regarding this apple might lead to a faulty perception of the object in front of her. Generally, in cases (4) and (5), the canvases of data provided by means of the sensory organs are incomplete or corrupted. If enough information is lacking, Y will have a hard time creating an appropriate representation of the object that emitted the data. Things can also go wrong when it comes to reason’s contribution to the perceptual process. There is (6) a possibility that Y does not correctly assess the data her reason finds in at least one sensory organ. Her senses provide the correct data, but Y fails to impart order in an adequate manner. Structuring the canvas of visual information she is confronted with, for example, she could fail to correctly identify the warm shades of red and green as belonging to a three-dimensional object lying on top of another (correctly identified) three-dimensional object, which is brown. Because of this failure, she might arrive at something like the vision of an apple painted onto the surface of the desk. Similar mistakes could be made regarding the other senses, and they would all be mistakes of distinction and unification—the contents of a canvas 17 In Compendium, c. 5, n. 11 Nicholas describes different stages of clarity when hearing something, and I have transferred this description to a visual example here. See Kny & Silva 2017, pp. 199–200 for an analysis of the passage.

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of data not being attributed correctly to the sources emitting them. Depending on the gravity of the mistakes she makes, it might become difficult or even impossible for Y to identify the object in front of her as this apple. The other potential ­failure when it comes to her reason’s contribution the perceptual process is a failure of combination. Her senses (7) provide the correct data and she adequately imparts order on what is provided by each of the senses. However, Y could fail to assemble this data into the perception of this apple. Lack of attention, a bad fever or drugs come to mind as a few potential causes in this regard. To summarize this third scenario, there are four potential reasons, which— alone or in combination—can lead to faulty perception of this apple. When it comes to the contribution of Y’s senses to the perceptual process, either the species sensibiles they receive can be corrupted or the sense organs receiving them can be dysfunctional, both cases resulting in incomplete or corrupted data in the sensory organs. When it comes to her reason’s contribution to the perceptual process, she can fail to impart the correct order onto the data provided by one or more senses or she can fail to assemble the data accessed through the different senses into the appropriate representation of this apple. In all four cases, species sensibiles are received, an excitatio is triggered and perception takes place. Yet the perceptual process is not successful due to issues either with the sensory or rational aspect of it. Whatever Y perceives, it is not this apple. 3 The Theory behind the Example: Nicholas of Cusa on Rational Perception The different scenarios of what can happen between Y and this apple in terms of perception give insight into both strengths and weaknesses of the theory behind the example. I want to elaborate on some of these strengths and weaknesses and thereby expand our understanding of Nicholas’ take on perception. 3.1 Attention The first aspect I want to address becomes apparent when looking at the role of attention in Nicholas’ model of sense perception. As mentioned above in the context of Scenario One, Nicholas considers it possible that no perception takes place because a perceiver does not notice a potential object of perception. The example he himself consistently brings up in this regard is that of passers-by:

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I.

that which is visible is not attained by the sense of sight in the absence of the intellectual power’s endeavour. Indeed, we experience this fact when, being intent on other matters, we do not distinctly notice a passerby;18 II. often we do not recognize passers-by […]; paying attention to other things, we do not attend to them;19 III. we do not notice passers-by when we are inattentive.20 Given the phrasing of these passages, it is important to quote all three of them, because there are two possible interpretations of what they express. The first possibility is that Nicholas wants to say that we21 do perceive ­something, but we do not perceive it distinctly. (I) and (II) can be taken to ­support this assumption. They speak of “not distinctly noticing” and of not “recognizing” someone, suggesting that there is some kind of perception, albeit not a clear or precise one. In (II), the translation is an interpretive choice that has to be explained instead of being explanatory (the Latin verb used is ‘deprehendere’, which could be translated with ‘perceive’ or ‘notice’ as well), but (I) cannot be discarded in similar fashion. Along this first line of interpretation, we would thus be aware of something or maybe even someone passing by. Yet if asked to describe what or who just passed us by, we could answer that question vaguely—undiscerningly—at best. If this is what Nicholas means, then my reference to attention in Scenario One under (2) is problematic. For, strictly speaking, it would not be true that there is no perception of the apple due to a lack of attention. The second possibility is that Nicholas indeed wants to say that we do not perceive the passers-by at all. We are so focused on something else or generally inattentive that we are not even aware that something is 18

19 20 21

Nicholas of Cusa, De coniecturis II, c. 16, n. 157: “Visibile enim non attingitur per sensum visus absente intensione intellectualis vigoris”. The English translations of the Latin text are by Jasper Hopkins (freely available on ; last accessed on May 29, 2022). Nicholas of Cusa, De quaerendo deum II, n. 33: “Praetereuntes enim […] saepe non ­deprehendimus, dum attenti ad alia non advetimus, et pluribus loquentibus nobis illum tantum intelligimus, ubi nostra est attention”. Nicholas of Cusa, Compendium, c. 13, n. 41: “praetereuntes enim, si non sumus attenti, no videmus”. I take over Nicholas’ ‘we’ from the quoted passages to make their discussion and the ­following sections more pleasant to read. ‘We’ stands for ‘humans’—non-humans would require a separate discussion due to the fact that for Nicholas, (human) perception is an inseparable collaboration of reason and the senses, and the extent to which non-human animals are rational is a contested matter in the later Middle Ages. See Oelze 2018 for an overview in this regard. To my knowledge, there is no research on Nicholas’ stance in this debate. The position he briefly sketches in De mente, c. 5, nn. 82–84, however, seems to deny animals rationality while endowing them with a lesser power of distinction, which joins their sensory powers in reason’s stead.

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passing us by. This line of interpretation finds support in (III) and has the same amount of explaining to do regarding (II) as the first interpretive possibility. If the two lines of interpretation would be mutually exclusive, the second one would be easier to argue for. According to Nicholas, it makes little sense to even speak of ‘perception’ when reason is not actively engaged with the species received in the senses, and central to the example with the passers-by is that reason is not active—be it in general or concerning a specific object of p ­ erception. As discerning is exactly what reason does, Nicholas’ choice of ‘discernere’ in (I) can simply be taken to indicate an absence of rational activity and therefore perception. Again, “distinctly notice” is a translation that requires an explanation. It is neither necessary nor productive, however, to assume that the two interpretations are mutually exclusive. We experience a complete lack of perception as well as vague perception in our daily lives, and Nicholas can account for both of these experiences by means of different types of attention. This is exactly where one of the strengths of his position lies. In Nicholas’ cognitive picture, reason needs to be actively present in a given sensory organ to turn a blurred canvas of data provided by this organ into objects of perception. Without a minimal level of rational attention, there is literally no thing we could perceive,22 and there are cases in which we completely miss something. Yet there is also a broad spectrum of cases in which we are not fully attentive, ranging from barely perceiving that there is some thing to missing out only on minor details of what is perceived. Nicholas can incorporate both types of cases into his cognitive picture. First, there is no perception without a threshold amount of attention to what is going on in the senses. Here, we actually have a relation of mutual exclusion—there is perception or there is not. S­ econd, once the threshold is crossed and we perceive something, we can gradually pay more or less attention to the data provided by one or more senses, thereby perceiving more or less clearly.

22

On the background of mutual exclusion, representatives of the first interpretive line would have to argue that the blurred canvas, being present even without rational attention to it, is sufficient to speak of perception. While not inherently wrong, this argument is problematic from an interpretive as well as from an experiential perspective. With regard to the former, the argument rests upon undermining Nicholas’ view that perception consists in a close collaboration of sensory and rational activity by eliminating the rational part of the collaboration and still calling the process ‘perception’. With regard to the latter, the argument requires us to qualify a cognitive process so minimal that not even objects are distinguished from each other as a case of perception. There would have to be perception without perceiving any thing at all.

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3.2 Perception as an Activity There is a second aspect of Nicholas’ take on perception I want to discuss: the fact that he characterizes it as a rational activity. I will not go into detail regarding the rational aspect of this characterization, as there is not much I could add to what has already been put forward.23 It suffices to say that for Nicholas, as described in the previous section of this paper, the senses and reason of a ­perceiver collaborate closely to bring an act of perception about. The senses provide unstructured information, which is unified into distinct objects by ­reason. Employing both senses and reason, a perceiver’s mind thus creates perceptual content. What I instead want to focus on is the assumption that perception is an activity. According to this assumption, perception is something that does not simply happen to us. It is something we do. It is obvious that we do something when we open or close our eyes, or when we plug or unplug our ears. Such activities are meant to enable or disable the perceptual capacities of sensory organs altogether, but they are different from the activity in active perception. They are taking place before a given act of perception does or does not occur. In Nicholas’ terms, eyelids and earplugs belong to mechanisms potentially preventing species sensibiles from reaching sensory organs, i.e., they are part of Scenario One, case (1). The activity characteristic of active perception, on the other hand, is characteristic of perception. The mind has to employ senses and reason if anything is to be perceived at all. Information about the outside world does come into the sensory organs by means of species sensibiles, but then the mind has to engage with this information to create perceptual content. This is not an automated process, as the discussion of attention in the previous part of this section has shown. A data-carrying impulse from the outside and the activity of the mind are the two necessary conditions for perceptual content to be created. None of them would be sufficient on its own.24 A key question regarding Nicholas’ account of active perception is whether this activity has to be conscious. If this were the case, the account would be severely lacking in plausibility. There are cases in which we put conscious effort into perceiving something, be it because we are trying to make sense of something unfamiliar or because we want to gain as much information as possible about something we encounter. Yet there are countless cases every day in which we navigate our surroundings by means of perception without 23 24

See Kny & Silva 2018. A compact description of this interaction between perceiver and perceived can be found in Nicholas of Cusa, Compendium, c. 11, n. 35. See Kny & Silva 2017, pp. 202–203 for an analysis of the passage.

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putting effort into it or even being aware that we perceive. If Nicholas identified active with conscious perception, he would have serious issues when it comes to explaining these countless cases. As he does not claim that perception has to be a conscious activity, however,25 there is no issue here. On the contrary, Nicholas is well equipped to deal with both types of cases just described by attributing different degrees of attention to them. Having had this apple on her desk for a few days, it has become a regular part of Y’s field of vision when working. She is seeing it lie there, in a manner of speaking, and may avoid pushing it off the desk when moving books around, but she is not consciously focusing on it any more. There is a low level of attention to the apple as part of what Y normally perceives when working, but she mostly ignores it. Now if the apple is suddenly gone, she might be startled by the sudden, unaccounted-for change in her usual perceptual field at work. This could lead to an alert and highly attentive state in which Y consciously takes in every perceptual detail in order to figure out what happened to the apple. Once the problem has been solved, Y can go back to a low level of attention regarding the apple. Generally, perception requires the mind’s activity in Nicholas’ picture, which is closely connected with different degrees of attention. Perception can be a conscious activity, but it does not have to be. 3.3 Explaining Perceptual Errors One potential challenge to Nicholas’ notion of perception are perceptual errors.26 On the surface, it might appear as if Nicholas should have a hard time explaining such errors. Perception requires species sensibiles to be emitted from objects as the informational basis of perceptual content. Yet when we mistake something for something else or perceive something that is not even there, how can this be accounted for in terms of species? If we merely mistake something for something else, the possible answers are already given above in Scenario Three. Nicholas can argue that the cause of the mistake are either corrupted species sensibiles or errors in the sensory or rational processing of the species. A more challenging case are illusions in which we perceive something that does not exist at all. For when a perceiver has an illusion of something non-existent, where should species sensibiles come from? It is absurd to assume that a non-existent object emits species out of non-existence. However, without species arriving in Y’s sensory organs, what could trigger her to, say, see an illusionary apple on her desk? In such a case, one has to turn to the mind’s role in perception. Two conditions have to be 25 26

See the discussion of Attention above. See Silva & Toivanen 2019 for a recent survey of the issue in the later Middle Ages.

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met in order to explain an illusion in Nicholas’ terms. First, content has to be created by the mind that can be mistaken for the result of perception. Using stored memories,27 for example, Y’s mind could come up with an apple that ‘looks’ and ‘smells’ very much like the apple on her desk. Second, she has to be convinced that the apple present to her cognitive faculties is not an illusion, but actually on the desk in front of her. Something has to go wrong, causing Y to misjudge what she ‘perceives’ as an appropriate representation of an object existing in the outside world, brought to her attention through species ­sensibiles. There is a variety of possible reasons for this to be the case—­ hallucination due to prolonged starvation or the effect of psychoactive substances being two examples. I do not want to argue that Nicholas is better off when it comes to handling perceptual errors than other medieval or contemporary authors. It would take up too much space to argue this convincingly. What I do want to argue is that Nicholas’ take on perception grants him access to a sufficient amount of explanatory tools to account for perceptual errors. Both in cases of mistaking existing objects for something else and in cases of making up illusionary objects altogether, plausible explanations can be developed on the basis of his position. 3.4 Perceiving Objects in Context A much more problematic issue than the ones discussed so far is the p ­ erception of objects in context. It is one thing to argue for the assumption that when they perceive something, perceivers create perceptual content by assimilating themselves sensorily and rationally to species sensibiles emitted by an object. Yet we usually do not just perceive one object in isolation. Instead, we perceive an object in context, i.e., together with all the other objects making up our perceptual experience at a given point in time—this apple is not floating in a vacuum, it is lying on Y’s desk, surrounded by books, etc. The desk, the books and the other objects in her field of perception emit species sensibiles as well. How can Nicholas explain that she perceives this apple on a desk between books in a room at any given point in time? In principle, I see four options to account for this. Different species sensibiles could (A) automatically merge when encountering each other in a medium. Consequently, it would be possible that only one species informs an organ, 27

Memory, in the context of sensory and rational cognition, has the function of storing and retaining the representations of cognized objects in order to make them available when they are not present to the senses any more. See Nicholas of Cusa, De docta ignorantia II, c. 2, n. 103; De coniecturis II, c. 14, n. 145; Compendium, c. 4, n. 9.

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granting the perceiver access to multiple objects in the outside world. Different species emitted by different objects could (B) inform an organ in such rapid succession that the perceiver does not or cannot consciously notice it. This would allow sensory organs to process species sensibiles one at a time. One could (C) assume that different species sensibiles can inform one sensory organ at the same time—either the entire organ or each species a different part of it. It is (D) also a possibility that sensory organs combine different species sensibiles into one, if they arrive at the same time. Closely connected to all of these options are the physics of species transmission from objects to perceivers. As Nicholas holds that species sensibiles are corporeal entities,28 there is the question of what is happening in the medium through which species travel. Objects have to be emitting species permanently, so there have to be a lot of them in any part of any medium at any given point in time.29 That requires an explanation of how they either, in the context of (A), merge, or how they, in the context of (B)–(D), manage to get past each other on their way to perceivers. Collisions seem likely and (A) has the ­advantage of making use of them. However, species would have to merge in a way that they provide the correct structure of information to perceivers. If Y wants to touch this apple on her desk successfully, for example, it is important for her to see its shades of red and green in the correct visual location. If only one species, containing both the colours of the apple and everything else in her field of vision, informs her eye, the distribution of all the colours belonging to all the objects it carries data about has to be correct relative to Y’s point of view. She cannot sort out that shades of red and green are coming from right in front of her whilst shades of brown come from the left and right, as she would need different species from which to derive this information. Thus, for (A) to work, one would have to assume that species more or less ‘know’ which sensory organ of which perceiver they are going to inform in order to allow for successful acts of perception. That would give the species of this apple more cognitive capacities

28 29

See note 7. Nicholas is rather silent about the specifics of the emission and transmission process. The most extensive description can be found in Compendium, c. 4, n. 8–c. 5, n. 15. Looking at Roger Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum II, c. 1, l. 1–VI, c. 4, l. 76 (see Lindberg 1998, pp. lxiii–lxxi for a brief summary), the similarities with Nicholas’ sparse comments (in terminology as well as in content) are striking. While I cannot examine here to which extent Nicholas knew Bacon’s theory and to which extent he embraced it, it does make sense to bring Bacon into the discussion due to the similarities of Nicholas’ statements to what Bacon puts forward.

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than the apple itself, which is so unlikely that it justifies ruling out (A) and looking at (B)–(D) for answers.30 Options (B)–(D) have the advantage of not having to explain exactly how the species sensibiles behave in the medium they travel through as long as they arrive at a perceiver’s sensory organs one at a time. Such an explanation should still be given in order to formulate a coherent and satisfactory theory of perception,31 but it can be postponed without making it impossible to discuss how perception in context might be accounted for. Option (B) looks appealing. There would always be only one species informing one sensory organ at a given point in time. However, due to information processes following each other quickly, perceivers would still be able to perceive more than merely isolated bits and pieces as long as they have the capacity to retain the perceptual content generated successively and to combine this content into a bigger perceptual picture. Memory could perform this function. (B) would also do justice to reason as Nicholas describes it, as it would be reason’s task to impart order on rapidly changing states of sensory organs in a way that through constant, dynamic adaptation objects are perceived in context at any given point in time. Option (C) could only work if different species informed separate parts of one organ at a given point in time. If they were to inform the same organ entirely, I do not see how one could explain the perception of objects in space—say, Y seeing this apple lying on her desk, blocking vision of the piece of desk underneath it. If the respective species arrived at the same time and informed her eyes wholly, how should she be able to tell which object is in front of which? Additionally, there would be the ontological problem of how one thing (an eye) could take on the forms of different things at the same time. Different 30

31

According to the ontological view Nicholas is a representative of, there is a hierarchy of beings with god at the top and irrational, non-sentient objects like stones at the bottom. An important tenet of this hierarchical picture is that nothing depending in its existence on something else can excel its origin in terms of capacities and abilities (see Nicholas of Cusa, De coniecturis I, c. 4, n. 12–c. 8, n. 36 for a rendering of this hierarchy with regard to cognitive capacities). Species sensibiles having more (pseudo-)cognitive capacities than the objects emitting them are impossible in this ontological picture. See Roger Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum II, c. 1–VI, c. 4 for a detailed attempt and Lindberg 1998, pp. lxiii–lxxi for an analysis of it. Bacon describes species transmission as the multiplication of corporeal forms through a medium. In the medium, collisions between species take place and can lead to one of two outcomes. Either the stronger species conceals the weaker one, so that only the stronger one actually affects a perceiver. Alternatively, the stronger species eliminates the weaker one, so that—again—only the stronger species actually affects a perceiver. Regarding those collisions, see ibid. III, c. 3, ll. 68–81 and Lindberg 1998, pp. lxvii–lxviii for a brief description and critique.

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species informing different parts of a sensory organ would avoid these problems. If the species informed parts of a sensory organ in a way that represents the distribution of objects in space, perceivers could gain insight into this distribution when they rationally assemble the data provided by different species in different parts of a sensory organ. Option (D), at closer inspection, seems quite impossible. First, as species sensibiles are constantly arriving at Y’s sensory organs, it would be difficult to explain where one combination process stops and the next one starts. Second, according to Nicholas, the arrival of a species in a sensory organ is the trigger event for an act of perception to begin and, with it, the rational activity that is a part of perception. As there is no rational activity before rational activity starts, the combination of multiple species sensibiles into one would have to be carried out by the sensory organs. Yet, according to Nicholas, sensory organs in themselves are not capable of activities like combination, unification or distinction.32 It is therefore highly questionable how the combination of different species sensibiles into one (before an act of perception is even triggered) should be explained. That leaves us with (B) and (C) as the most plausible options of accounting for perception in context. (B) is a somewhat constructivist option, as perceivers put together the context in which they perceive objects by integrating the perceptual content created on the basis of rapidly changing informational states of sensory organs into a bigger and dynamic perceptual picture. In (C), on the other hand, the context is delivered to perceivers. They do not have to create the bigger perceptual picture, they only have to decipher it by correctly locating the different species informing different parts of a sensory organ at a given point in time. As Nicholas emphasizes the active nature of perception and of cognition in general throughout his works, (B) seems like the better place to start. To decide which of the two options makes more sense in the end, a discussion of at least some of the issues by Nicholas himself would be necessary. As there is no such discussion, it is of little value to keep speculating. Two more or less plausible answers to the problem of perception in context is all we have. 3.5 Discussing the Details This brings me to the last, and more general, point I want to address here. As the relative lack of quotations and the abundance of terms like ‘could’ and ‘would’ in the previous parts of this section show, Nicholas is rather sparse 32

See Nicholas of Cusa, De coniecturis I, c. 8, n. 32; II, c. 16, n. 157; Idiota de mente, c. 5, n. 82.

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when it comes to discussing the details of his account of perception. One of his bigger weaknesses (not just regarding perception, but in his works in general) is that he is very good at drafting captivating ideas and thoughts, but lacks the will or interest to flesh them out. He often does not address critical questions or potential flaws of the positions he develops and rarely provides enough detail for readers to come up with clear answers or solutions themselves. At best, one is often left with one or more plausible conjectures of how Nicholas might have dealt with certain issues of what he presents. Regarding perception, there are quite a few questions (beyond the ones discussed already) that are left unanswered to various degrees: Do we primarily perceive external objects or the species emitted by these objects? How exactly does the transmission process of the species sensibiles from emitting object to receiving subject work? How exactly does the immaterial mind control the material spiritus by means of which it is active in the body? The answers to these questions have major consequences regarding the physiology of perceivers and the physics of perception as well as the relation between the material and the immaterial aspects of cognition in general. Yet Nicholas does not provide answers or even address the questions. 4 Conclusion Nicholas’ take on perception does, as the discussion of the different perceptual scenarios has shown, well enough when applied to perceptual experience. Not only can it account for cases of successful perception, it can also explain why sometimes there is no perception at all while in other cases perceptual errors prevent us from perceiving successfully. The role attention plays in the context of perception contributes to this versatility, extending the range of perceptual experiences that can be explained in a satisfactory manner. The fact that Nicholas describes perception as an active process involving both sensory and rational capacities connects his take on perception with contemporary approaches to the subject in which perceiving is not taken as a merely mechanical input-output event. The biggest problem, when it comes to evaluating Nicholas’ take on perception, is the lack of detail he provides. While this already comes into view when trying to reconstruct his theory of perception, applying the theory to an example brings it into much sharper focus. A perfect example in this regard is perception in context. It is a real issue for Nicholas not necessarily because it is impossible to account for it within his perceptual framework, but because it is impossible to know which explanatory route he chose or would

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have chosen. Not taking the time for a thorough application of the theory to an example, one might miss this—there is a big difference between considering what happens when, say, a certain species of colour hits an eye, and trying to explain how exactly Nicholas would describe what happens when someone perceives this apple on a desk. Bibliography Primary Sources

Nicholas of Cusa, De docta ignorantia, ed. Karl Bormann, Hamburg: Meiner, 2008 (Nicolai de Cusa Opera omnia, 1). Nicholas of Cusa, De coniecturis, eds. Josef Koch, Karl Bormann & Hans G. Senger, Hamburg: Meiner, 1972 (Nicolai de Cusa Opera omnia, 3). Nicholas of Cusa, De quaerendo deum, in Opuscula I, ed. Paul Wilpert, Hamburg: Meiner, 1959 (Nicolai de Cusa Opera omnia, 4). Nicholas of Cusa, Idiota de mente, in Idiota de sapientia, de mente; De staticis experimentis, ed. Renate Steiger, Hamburg: Meiner, 1983 (Nicolai de Cusa Opera omnia, 5). Nicholas of Cusa, Compendium, eds. Karl Bormann & Bruno Decker, Hamburg: Meiner, 1964 (Nicolai de Cusa Opera omnia, 11/3). Nicholas of Cusa, De beryllo, eds. Karl Bormann & Hans G. Senger, Hamburg: Meiner, 1988 (Nicolai de Cusa Opera omnia, 11/1). Roger Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum, in David C. Lindberg, Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature. A Critical Edition, with English Translation, Introduction, and Notes, of De multiplication specierum and De speculis comburentibus, South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998, pp. 1–269.

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Lagerlund, Henrik (2017), “Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy”, in ­Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, Stanford: The Metaphysics Research Lab, URL = ; last accessed on May 29, 2022. Leinkauf, Thomas (2006), Nicolaus Cusanus. Eine Einführung, Münster: Aschendorff (Buchreihe der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, 15). Lindberg, David C. (1998), Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature. A Critical Edition, with English Translation, Introduction, and Notes, of De multiplicatione specierum and De speculis comburentibus, South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press. Mandrella, Isabelle (2010), “Selbsterkenntnis als Ursachenerkenntnis bei Nicolaus Cusanus”, in Walter A. Euler, Ylva Gustafsson & Iris Wikström (eds.), Nicholas of Cusa on the Self and Self-Consciousness, Åbo: University Press, pp. 111–133. Mandrella, Isabelle (2012), Viva imago. Die praktische Philosophie des Nicolaus Cusanus, Münster: Aschendorff (Buchreihe der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, 19). Miller, Clyde L. (2004), “Knowledge and the Human Mind”, Christopher M. Bellitto, Thomas Izbicki & Gerald Christianson (eds.), Introducing Nicholas of Cusa. A Guide to a Renaissance Man, New York: Paulist Press, pp. 299–318. Moffitt Watts, Pauline (1982), Nicolaus Cusanus. A Fifteenth-Century Vision of Man, ­Leiden: Brill (Studies in the History of Christian Thought, 30). Mohan, Matthen (ed.) (2015), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Perception, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oelze, Anselm (2018), Animal Rationality. Later Medieval Theories 1250–1350, Leiden: Brill (Investigating Medieval Philosophy, 12). Pasnau, Robert (1997), Theories of Cognition in the Later Middle Ages, Cambridge: ­Cambridge University Press. Perler, Dominik (2004), Theorien der Intentionalität im Mittelalter, 2nd ed., Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann (Philosophische Abhandlungen, 82). Silva, José F., & Christina Thomsen Thörnqvist (2019), “Introduction: Assimilation and Representation in Medieval Theories of Cognition”, Vivarium, 57, pp. 223–243. Silva, José F. & Juhana Toivanen (2019), “Perceptual Errors in Late Medieval ­Philosophy”, Brian Glenney & José F. Silva (eds.), The Senses and the History of Philosophy, London–New York: Routledge (Rewriting the History of Philosophy), pp. 106–130. Spruit, Leen (1994), Species Intelligibilis. From Perception to Knowledge, vol. I: Classical Roots and Medieval Discussions, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History). Spruit, Leen (1995), Species Intelligibilis. From Perception to Knowledge, vol. II: ­Renaissance Controversies, Later Scholasticism, and the Elimination of the ­Intelligible Species in Modern Philosophy, Leiden–Boston: Brill (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History).

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Tachau, Katherine H. (1988), Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham. Optics, Epistemology and the Foundations of Semantics 1250–1345, Leiden: Brill (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 22). Van Velthoven, Theo (1977), Gottesschau und menschliche Erkenntnis. Studien zur Erkenntnislehre des Nikolaus von Kues, Leiden: Brill.