The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition (Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, 22) 3030334074, 9783030334079

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Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 22

Seyed N. Mousavian Jakob Leth Fink  Editors

The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition

Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind Volume 22

Series Editors Henrik Lagerlund, The University of Western Ontario, Canada Mikko Yrjönsuuri, Academy of Finland and University of Jyväskylä, Finland Board of Consulting Editors Lilli Alanen, Uppsala University, Sweden Joël Biard, University of Tours, France Michael Della Rocca, Yale University, USA Eyjólfur Emilsson, University of Oslo, Norway André Gombay, University of Toronto, Canada Patricia Kitcher, Columbia University, USA Simo Knuuttila, University of Helsinki, Finland Béatrice M. Longuenesse, New York University, USA Calvin Normore, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6539

Seyed N. Mousavian • Jakob Leth Fink Editors

The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition

Editors Seyed N. Mousavian Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science University of Gothenburg Gothenburg, Sweden School of Analytic Philosophy Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM) Niavaran Tehran, Iran

Jakob Leth Fink SAXO-Instituttet, København, Denmark Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science University of Gothenburg Gothenburg, Sweden

ISSN 1573-5834 ISSN 2542-9922 (electronic) Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind ISBN 978-3-030-33407-9 ISBN 978-3-030-33408-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020, corrected publication 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 The Internal Senses in Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seyed N. Mousavian and Jakob Leth Fink

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Part I Central Questions in Their Historical Contexts 2

Internal Senses and Aristotle’s Cognitive Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deborah Modrak

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3

Alexander of Aphrodisias on the Common Sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pavel Gregoric

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4

Stop Making Sense(s): Some Late Medieval and Very Late Medieval Views on Faculty Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . José Filipe Silva

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Jodocus Trutfetter (c. 1460 –1519) on Internal Senses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pekka Kärkkäinen

45 69

Part II Case Studies: From Historical and Contemporary Perspectives 6

Re-presentation in Avicenna’s Doctrine of Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Meryem Sebti

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Estimative Power as a Social Sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Juhana Toivanen

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Movements, Memory, and Mixture: Aristotle, Confusion, and the Historicity of Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 John Sutton

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Imagination, Non-existence, Impossibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Graham Priest

Correction to: Jodocus Trutfetter (c. 1460–1519) on Internal Senses . . . . . .

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Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 v

Chapter 1

The Internal Senses in Context Seyed N. Mousavian and Jakob Leth Fink

1.1 Aim, Scope and Structure of the Volume The aim of this volume is to contribute to the discussion of the internal senses in the Aristotelian tradition. Since the Aristotelian tradition covers more than 2000 years of interpretation, commentary, criticism and innovation, and since it spans many languages, including Arabic, Greek and Latin, it would be impossible to offer an inclusive and comprehensive account of the internal senses in the Aristotelian tradition.1 We attempt no such thing in this volume. Our scope is limited to a

1 Explaining

other internal sense traditions, apart from the Aristotelian one, goes well beyond the purposes of this volume and, for familiar reasons, cannot be done here. For a thorough introduction to the internal senses in the three dominant linguistic traditions in medieval philosophy, see Harry Austryn Wolfson, ‘The Internal Senses in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew Philosophic Texts’, Harvard Theological Review 28 (1935), 69–133. For the neo-Platonic tradition of the internal senses and its interaction with the Aristotelian one, see Muhammad U. Faruque, ‘The Internal Senses in

S. N. Mousavian () Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden School of Analytic Philosophy, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM) Niavaran, Tehran, Iran e-mail: [email protected] J. L. Fink SAXO-Instituttet, København, Denmark Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 S. N. Mousavian, J. L. Fink (eds.), The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6_1

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handful of questions on the existence and identity conditions of the internal senses in their historical contexts and some case studies about particular internal senses, namely compositive imagination/thinking (mutahayyila/mufakkira) and estimation (wahm), on the one hand, and the relationship between memory and the theories of mixtures and motion and the logic of non-existent objects of imagination, on the other hand. The selection of cases has been based on the current research interest of the authors. The chapters are divided into two main parts: I. Central Questions in Their Historical Contexts and II. Case Studies: From Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. There are four central questions: (i) Does Aristotle acknowledge “internal senses” at all (and, if so, how many internal senses one should pose)? (ii) If Aristotle does not pose any internal sense, particularly “common sense” as one of the most discussed internal senses in the tradition, and explain the functions attributed to the internal senses by some other means, what is Alexander of Aphrodisias’s contribution, the most celebrated commentator on Aristotle’s corpus in the ancient Greek tradition, to the establishment of “common sense” as an internal sense; and how does he explicate its “scope and precise functions”? (iii) Again, on the question of the identity conditions of the internal senses, are there “alternative accounts of faculty psychology that do not posit a multiplicity of internal senses (particularly by taking a different approach to this question, e.g. by focusing on “the unity or plurality of functions within one particular cluster, for instance the sensitive soul”)? And finally (iv) how does a late commentator like Jodocus Trutfetter (c. 1460–1519) answer the question of “division and systematics of the internal senses”? In the second part, each case study is devoted to a specific aspect of an internal sense. This part is divided into two sections: the first two papers take a historical perspective and the last two papers, though historically informed, take a contemporary perspective. There are four cases studies: (i) Starting from Avicenna, what roles do compositive imagination/thinking (mutahayyila/mufakkira) play in Avicenna’s theory of knowledge? (ii) Considering the post-Avicennan Latin Aristotelian tradition, does the faculty/power of estimation have a social dimension and if yes, how does it account for “perceiving and exhibiting social behaviour”? (iii) Turning to “memory”, and independently of the question of Aristotle’s commitment to the existence of the internal senses, how one may explain the basic functions of “memory” by Aristotle’s theory of mixture and movement of a substrata that can transmit “forms” (and if there is such an explanation, how may that account challenge the “grand archive narrative” of memory in the tradition)? And finally, (iv) how may one account for the semantics of the intentional verb ‘imagines’, as expressing the act of imagination, among medieval Aristotelian logicians, in a contemporary language?

Nemesius, Plotinus and Galen: The Beginning of an Idea’, Journal of Ancient Philosophy 10/2 (2016), 119–139. For further references, please see footnote 9 below.

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Below we will try to give a snapshot of what you may find in this volume by sketching some aspects of the context and content of each paper.

1.2 Central Questions in Their Historical Contexts Sense perception weighs heavily in Aristotle’s philosophy of mind. He devotes De anima 2.3–12 and 3.1–2 to its analysis, takes up a range of more specialized issues in De sensu et sensibilibus and pays constant attention to it in more or less all of his extant treatises. Even outside philosophy of mind, sense perception performs significant explanatory duty in the accounts of animal life and survival as well as in moral philosophy and rhetoric. Whether all this makes Aristotle an epistemological empiricist is quite another question, however.2 Aristotle may be read as distinguishing between three perceptibles or forms of sense perception: proper sense perception, common sense perception and accidental sense perception. The first two are identified by being directed at specific perceptibles, so called kath’ hauta perceptibles or perceptibles in themselves. The third, “accidental” sense perception, depends on either proper or common perceptibles in the sense that a white thing or a thing with a certain shape “happens to be” the son of Diares and perceiving this is accidental to the white thing or the particular shape. Proper sense perception is directed at the proper perceptibles for each sense. Colour is the proper perceptible for vision, sound is the proper perceptible for hearing and so on. If you do not see colour, you do not see anything, if you do not hear sound, you do not hear anything and so on. This, then, is special sense perception and it allows for mistakes or error either not at all or to a very small extent. Next is common perception. Common sense perception is directed at a range of perceptibles which accompany special sense perception. These are perceptibles kath’ hauta, so even though they do accompany special sense perception, and in this way depend on it, they are not accidental perceptibles. It is a controversial question what features Aristotle wants to include as common perceptibles, but his list(s) include movement, number, magnitude, simultaneous perception, and perhaps time and other features. Since none of the special senses can by themselves perceive these common perceptibles, it is the job of the “common sense” to do so. The nature and operations of the common sense are even more controversial; but the common sense plays a role in such diverse phenomena as perceptual discrimination, sleep

2 For

a caveat in this regard, see Michael Frede, ‘Aristotle’s Rationalism’, in Michael Frede and Gisela Striker (eds.), Rationality in Greek Thought (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), 157–73. For a mirror image of this issue in the medieval Arabic Aristotelian tradition see, for example, Dimitri Gutas, ‘The Empiricism of Avicenna’ Oriens 40 (2012), 391–436.

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and waking, monitoring the senses, perceiving that we see and hear etc. The sense organ responsible for the common sense seems to be (located in) the heart.3 Finally, in third place is accidental sense perception. This is directed at complex external perceptibles, say a barking dog with smelly fur. Accidental perception is liable to error in a way that special sense perception is not. You might mistake the smelly bear for a smelly dog – and that mistake might well be your last. It is a matter of debate to what extent intellect and intelligible objects are part of accidental perception.4 What about internal sense perception? The sort of perception operative in dreams, hallucinations, memory and self-awareness, among other things, according to Aristotle? These cognitive activities do not require the presence of an “external”, or more specifically “extra-mental”, object to come about. Perhaps, then, there is one or more senses directed at these “inner” phenomena and perhaps they should be called the “internal senses”. Aristotle never explicitly refers to an internal sense. But on some occasions his remarks seem to suggest that he has something like an internal sense in mind. This raises the problem of the “internal senses” in Aristotle, and later on in the Aristotelian tradition, which take centre stage in this volume. As Deborah Modrak argues in chapter one, the three most promising candidates for an internal sense are the perceiving of pleasure and pain, the common sense and phantasia. In addition, one could mention a number of statements that might seem to suggest the distinction between external and internal senses. For example: every animal moves when some perception has occurred in the primary sense organ, either a perception belonging to it (oikeia) or a perception foreign to it (allotria).5

Or: it is clear that the movements resulting from the sense perceptibles – both those from the outside (thurathen) and those originating from the body (ek tou s¯omatos) – do not belong exclusively to those in a waking state but that they also appear, and even more so, when the state that is called sleep has occurred.6

Modrak, nevertheless, points out that there are good reasons to be skeptical about the existence of one or more internal senses in Aristotle’s cognitive theory. Of course, Aristotle’s theory of cognition would be seriously flawed if it did not have room for some of the functions traditionally ascribed to the internal sense(s) (memory, imagination and others). The functions are there, but that does not warrant the further claim that Aristotle acknowledges internal senses as the explanatory basis of these functions. Modrak investigates the three main candidates mentioned above: 3 See

Pavel Gregori´c, Aristotle on the Common Sense (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Mika Perälä, ‘Aristotle on Incidental Perception’, in Juhana Toivanen and Christina T. Thörnqvist (eds.), Sense Perception in the Aristotelian Tradition (in preparation). 5 Arist., Somn.Vig. 2, 456a20–21: “ . . . κινε˜ιται δε` παν ˜ αι᾿ σθησε ´ ως ´ τινoς γενoμ´ νης, η῍ oι᾿ κε´ιας ᾿ η῍ αλλoτρ´ ιας, ε᾿ ν τῷ πρωτ ´ ῳ αι᾿ σθητηρ´ιῳ.” 6 Arist. De insomniis 3, 460b28–33: “ . . . ϕανερoν ` oτι ῞ oυ᾿ μ´oνoν ε᾿ γρηγoρ´oτων αι῾ κινησεις ´ αι῾ ᾿ o` των απ ˜ αι᾿ σθηματων ´ γιν´oμεναι των ˜ τε θυραθεν ´ και` των ˜ ε᾿ κ τoυ˜ σωματoς ´ ε᾿ νυπαρχoυσιν, ´ ῞ ῞ ᾿ α` και` oταν αλλ γ´ νηται τo` παθoς ´ τoυτo ˜ o῝ καλε˜ιται υπνoς, και` μαλλoν ˜ τ´oτε ϕα´ινoνται.” 4 See

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perceiving pleasure and pain, the coordination of the five senses (the common sense), and “imagination” or phantasia. Her conclusion is that none of them meets the requirements in Aristotle’s theory of the senses that would warrant its status as an independent internal sense. If Aristotle did not have the machinery of distinct “internal” faculties, the immediate question is at which stage the internal senses were introduced to the Aristotelian tradition. The second chapter takes up this question in the case of “common sense”. There has been much confusion in the scholarly literature concerning the expression “common sense” (koin¯e aisth¯esis) in Aristotle and the medieval tradition. As Pavel Gregori´c has explained, Aristotle uses this expression very rarely and with different meanings, which suggests that it has not attained the status of a technical term in his lifetime.7 Gregori´c distinguishes two uses of the expression “common sense”, corresponding to two distinct concepts. The first use, or the wider sense of the term, refers to the perceptual part or faculty of the soul taken as a whole, which may include different functions or forms of “perception”, broadly construed. Aristotle uses the expression “common sense” two or three times in his extant works in this sense. More often, he uses “the primary perceptual faculty” (to pr¯oton aisth¯etikon) or even just “the perceptual faculty” (to aisth¯etikon) to express this wider concept. In this use the “common sense” is an umbrella term covering all functions that go beyond perception of basic sensible qualities through the corresponding special senses. The perceptual faculty is thus a complex set of capacities which allows animals not only to perceive various things through the special senses, but also to compare perceptions, to be aware of them, to have appearances and to remember things. The second use, or the narrower sense of the term, refers to a higher-order perceptual capacity with a specific function, namely coordinating and monitoring the special senses. For example, Aristotle seems to refer to the “common sense”, in this narrower sense, when he speaks of a “common capacity that accompanies all the senses” (h¯e koin¯e dunamis akolouthousa pasais, Somn.Vig. 2, 455a16). It seems reasonable to assume that Aristotle uses “common sense” for this “higherorder perceptual capacity” in one or two other places in his extant works. The common sense, in this use, is an important and distinct aspect of the perceptual part or faculty of the soul. This capacity has nothing to do, specifically, with appearances or memory. It is important to observe, however, that in the Arabic and Latin scholastic tradition, the expression “common sense” is used mostly in this narrower sense, for a strictly perceptual capacity that coordinates and monitors the special senses. Philosophers in these two traditions conceived of it as an interior sense located in one of the ventricles of the brain, distinct from the other internal senses that they may recognize, such as fantasy, memory or estimation.

7 See

P. Gregori´c, Aristotle on the Common Sense (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007), 124–25. We would like to thank Pavel Gregori´c for this point.

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To avoid confusion, following Gregori´c’s suggestion, the reader should bear in mind the distinction between these two concepts and the corresponding two uses of the expression “common sense”, one wider, for the perceptual part or faculty as a whole (predominant in Aristotle and the Greek Aristotelian tradition), and the other narrower, for the strictly perceptual higher-order capacity (predominant in the Arabic and Latin Aristotelian tradition). In his study of Alexander’s interpretation of the common sense and its functions, Gregori´c argues that Alexander, while being generally faithful to Aristotle regarding the common sense, made four lasting contributions to the topic.8 First, Alexander restricted the term “common sense” to the unified perceptual power of the soul which excludes phantasia. This is not tantamount to developing a full-fledged theory of the internal senses by Alexander. However, it opened the logical space required for later Aristotelians to assemble the machinery of the internal senses, that has the common sense, memory, and phantasia as distinct non-rational but cognitive “senses”. Second, Alexander’s claim that we perceive ourselves seeing and hearing by means of the common sense, rather than by the special senses, influenced later readings of Aristotle’s passages dealing with awareness of perception, giving preference to Aristotle’s account in De somno et vigilia 2, 455a16–17 over his more widely read account in De anima 3.2, 425b12–25. Third, Aristotle’s statement that the common sensibles are perceived by the common sense, rather than by the special senses, made its mark on later readings of Aristotle’s passages dealing with the common sensibles, most notably of De anima 3.1, 425a14-425b11. In doing so, according to Gregori´c, Alexander failed to pay sufficient attention to the nuanced role of special senses in Aristotle’s account of the perception of the common sensibles in De anima 3.1, 425a14-425b11. Fourth, Gregori´c argues that Alexander’s analogy of the common sense with the centre of a circle in which different radii meet, though surely inspired by Aristotle’s analogy of a point bisecting a line in De anima 3.2, 427a9–14, was a brilliant innovation that intuitively captured the Peripatetic cardiocentric model, leaving a deep impression on later students of Aristotle. Commentators and philosophers in the Aristotelian tradition, then, were happy to attribute internal senses to Aristotle. However, the history of the introduction of the internal senses into the interpretation of Aristotelian philosophy of mind is rather complicated. Here we shall not even try to summarize that history; it has been well described by others on whose work we may rely.9

8 Gregori´ c’s contribution is a slightly revised version of: Pavel Gregori´c, “Alexander of Aphrodisias

on the Common Sense”, Filozofski vestnik 38/1 (2017), 47–64. We would like to thank the editors of Filozofski vestnik for granting us permission to reprint the paper in this volume. 9 See Harry Austryn Wolfson, ‘The Internal Senses in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew Philosophic Texts’, Harvard Theological Review 28 (1935), 69–133; E. Ruth Harvey, The Inward Wits: Psychological Theory in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Warburg Institute Surveys, vol. 6 (London: The Warburg Institute, 1975); Gotthard Strohmaier, ‘Avicennas Lehre von den “inneren Sinnen” und ihre Voraussetzungen bei Galen’, in Paola Manuli and Mario Vegetti (eds.), Le opere psicologiche di Galeno, Elenchos, vol. 13 (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1988), 231–42; Simon

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It is worth noting, nevertheless, that the attribution of one or more internal senses to Aristotle relies partly on Galen’s anatomy of the human brain and partly on Aristotle’s philosophy of mind. Accepting that the brain is the central sense organ naturally leads to giving up on Aristotle’s cardiocentrism and eventually gave rise to the attempts at localization of particular internal senses in particular parts of the brain. By and large Galen’s encephalocentric view prevailed in late ancient medical theories, thus setting the anatomical scene for later medieval theories of the internal senses. Furthermore, it should be noted that Augustine, in the early Latin Christian tradition, talks about a sensus internus with the result, among other things, that the Latin medieval theological and philosophical traditions were already familiar with this notion when Aristotle was re-discovered.10 Long before that, however, the Arabic tradition did ground-breaking work on the internal senses. The truly seminal contribution of the tenth century Arabic translations, adaptations and transformations of the Greek philosophical tradition led to Avicenna’s extremely influential interpretation of the internal senses and their localization in the brain.11 We will shortly be back to the core of Avicenna’s contribution (see section three below). Avicenna’s Kitab al-Nafs from his al-Shifa was translated into Latin in Toledo between 1152 and 1166.12 Its influence on Latin philosophy was immense. In Avicenna’s text, Latin commentators are not only introduced to the five internal senses but also offered a distinction between external and internal perception (or apprehension) in a clear-cut way. Avicenna is, indeed, much clearer on this point than was Aristotle in De anima or anywhere else. In commenting on his division of the three powers of the human soul, vegetative, animative/animal and rational, Avicenna tells us that the power of apprehension is twofold:

Kemp and Garth J. O. Fletcher, ‘The Medieval Theory of the Inner Senses’, American Journal of Psychology 106 (1993), 559–76; Juhana Toivanen, Perception and the Internal Senses: Peter of John Olivi on the Cognitive Functions of the Sensitive Soul (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 225–65; Simo Knuuttila and Pekka Kärkkäinen, ‘Medieval Theories of Internal Senses’ in Simo Knuuttila and Juha Sihvola (eds.), Sourcebook for the History of the Philosophy of Mind (Springer, 2014), 131– 147; Lorenzo Casini, ‘Renaissance Theories of Internal Senses’ in Simo Knuuttila and Juha Sihvola (eds.), Sourcebook for the History of the Philosophy of Mind (Springer, 2014), 147–157; Rotraud Hansberger, ‘Averroes and the “Internal Senses”’, in Peter Adamson and Matteo Di Giovanni (eds.), Interpreting Averroes: Critical Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 138–57. 10 See, for example, Augustine, De libero arbitrio 2.3.8-9. 11 See Avicenna’s De Anima (Arabic Text): Being the Psychological part of Kit¯ ab al-Shif¯a’, ed. F. Rahman (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), Chapter IV, 163–201, and also Avicenna Latinus, Liber de anima I-II-III, ed. S. van Riet (Louvain and Leiden: Peeters & Brill, 1972), 87.19–91.60. 12 For an insightful discussion of the history of this text in the Latin west see Dag Nikolaus Hasse, Avicenna’s De Anima in the Latin West: The Formation of a Peripatetic Philosophy of the Soul 1160–1300, Warburg Institute Studies & Texts (London: The Warburg Institute, 2001).

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S. N. Mousavian and J. L. Fink For there is one power that apprehends from the outside, but another that apprehends from the inside.13

Backed by Avicenna’s authority, Latin commentators are happy to invoke the internal senses and discuss their operations, interrelations and number. That is not to say that there existed one, uncontested theory of the internal senses in the Latin tradition. Unsurprisingly, there is any amount of disagreement on most questions pertaining to the internal senses. Even the question of how many senses one should posit was in dispute. Nevertheless, the standard interpretation among the contemporary scholars has been that medieval and early modern philosophy of mind adhered to a plurality of internal senses. As pointed out by José Filipe Silva, in his chapter, this view is also presented as the majority view among the medieval and early modern commentators on Aristotle’s De anima and Parva Naturalia. In order to qualify this view, Silva introduces a number of medieval and late medieval commentators who do not interpret the internal senses as a plurality. Silva approaches the internal senses in isolation from the question of the unicity or plurality of the substantial forms in a living composite. As he explains, there is a conflation in the literature between the question about the “number of internal senses” and the question about “the unicity versus plurality of substantial forms in a living composite.” By focusing on the faculties that receive, retain and process sensory information Silva offers an overview of commentators with a reductive agenda concerning the internal senses. He demonstrates that this attempt at reducing the number of internal senses goes back to the thirteenth century (Peter John Olivi), and is voiced later by prominent philosophers such as John Buridan and Francisco Suárez and less prominent ones like the Coimbra commentator Manuel de Góis. The question of the “division and systematics of the internal senses” recurs constantly in the Aristotelian tradition. In the last chapter of the first part of this volume, Pekka Kärkkäinen describes the late medieval theologian and philosopher Jodocus Trutfetter’s (c. 1460–1519) presentation of the internal senses and takes this discussion as a guideline to “investigate Trutfetter’s use of Aquinas since there are certain points where the authorities of the via moderna differed from Aquinas’s view”. As a philosopher, Trutfetter is firmly rooted in the via moderna and so is his position with respect to the internal senses which primarily takes a semantic approach to faculty psychology. All this is evident already in the 1514 version of his natural philosophy, but it is reinforced in the abridged revision from 1517. This, however, does not imply that Trutfetter has largely followed Aquinas. For example, in the discussion of the number of internal senses, as Kärkkäinen points out, Trutfetter mainly follows Peter of Ailly and other via moderna authorities. In 13 In

his Book of Salvation (Kit¯ab al-Naj¯at), Avicenna’s chapter on the “Internal Senses” begins like this: “There are some faculties of internal perception which perceive the form of the sensed things, and others which perceive the “intention” [al-ma’na¯] thereof” (Avicenna’s Psychology: An English Translation of Kit¯ab al-Naj¯at, Book II, Chapter VI, ed. and trans. F. Rahman (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), 30). The translated text is from the Latin translation, Avicenna Latinus, Liber de anima, 83, this reads: “Sed vis apprehendens duplex est: alia enim est vis quae apprehendit a foris, alia quae apprehendit ab intus.”

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fact, the particular question of the “number of internal senses” seems to be not that important an issue for Trutfetter. It would seem that in 1514 Trutfetter had his own position on the central question behind the presentation of different views, but in the later edition of his work he focuses on presenting the single most plausible view. Regarding the use of Thomist terminology, the earlier edition would suggest a broader adoption of Thomist views, but this may be due to its way of presenting various positions in the literature more extensively. For example, the 1514 version divides what Trutfetter calls the elicitive power into estimative and cogitative powers, which reflects a particular affinity with Aquinas, and, ultimately with Avicenna’s work on phantasia (see below, Meryem Sebti’s contribution).14 The later edition continues and even reflects more clearly Trutfetter’s general attitudes towards various authorities where he defended the use of the authorities of the via moderna but did not exclude the earlier authorities either.

1.3 Case Studies: From Historical and Contemporary Perspectives The second part of the book is devoted to four case studies that each in one way relates to an “internal sense”: “its epistemic function”, “its social role”, its “underlying mechanism”, or “its object”. We have divided these cases studies in accordance with their dominant perspective into two sections: “from a historical perspective” and “from a contemporary perspective”. Turning to the medieval Arabic Aristotelianism, we arrive at Avicenna’s systematic account of the internal senses and the foundational epistemological roles assigned to them. Before introducing Meryem Sebti’s chapter, let us rather quickly introduce Avicenna’s characterization of the five internal senses as Sebti reports: (1) the common sense (al-h.iss al-mushtarak), which receives the sensible forms from the external senses and synthesizes them [ . . . ] (2) the “formative power” (al-mus.awwira), or “retentive imagination” (khay¯al), which stores the images and forms that are perceived by the common sense from the external world, [ . . . ] (3) the mutakhayyila - whose function is to shuffle images and forms so as to combine and separate them; when used by the rational soul, this power is also called cogitative (al-mufakkira), in the sense that it combines and separates abstract notions, (4) the estimative power (al-wahm), whose main functions are to perceive the non-sensible attributes of things, i.e. their “intention” (ma῾n¯a), as in the case of the sheep’s perception that the wolf intends to harm it, [ . . . ] (5) memory (al-dh¯akira), or recollection (al-mutadhakkira), which stores the intentiones (ma῾a¯ n¯ı) perceived or judged to be the case by the estimation. (This volume)

This general picture of division of the powers of the human soul, in which some senses fill the cognitive gap between external senses and the human intellect (not to be conflated with the Active Intellect, which according to Avicenna is

14 For

an account of Avicenna’s view on phantasia see, for example, Deborah Black, ‘Estimation (Wahm) in Avicenna: The Logical and Psychological Dimensions’, Dialogue 32 (1993), 219–258.

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an independent abstract entity), partly relies on the functions of these powers as “receiving”, “preserving”, and “processing” (or “acting on”) various forms, images or ma῾¯ani (we will not translate “ma῾n¯a”, though we are sympathetic with an interpretation of it along the lines of “content”. The term “content” in our language, however, may be as problematic as the term “ma῾n¯a” in Avicenna’s language. So, after all, it may be reasonable to use “ma῾n¯a” itself). Accordingly, the power that receives “sensible forms”, which is (or has) some form of “content”, is different from the power that preserves that content in virtue of its “retentive” capacity. Similarly, the power whose function is “processing”, by which Avicenna mainly means “composition” (tark¯ıb) and “differentiation” (tafs.¯ıl), is different from the other two powers. The resultant picture, however, is not as neat as one may expect. For one thing, it is not obvious if there is only one power responsible for “composition” and “differentiation” of non-abstract contents, such as images, and abstract ones, such as intelligibles, or there are different powers working on ontologically different kinds of “content”.15 For another, there has been a longstanding debate on Avicenna’s explanation of the roles of the internal senses in acquiring intelligibles.16 Meryem Sebti’s “Representation in Avicenna’s doctrine of knowledge” is a thorough study of mutakhayyila, as distinct from “retentive imagination” (khay¯al) and estimative power (al-wahm). Sebti argues that mutakhayyila, often translated by others as the “compositive imagination” and consistently translated by Sebti as the “power of re-presentation”, “represents reality by means of an imitation [muh.a¯ ka].” This intervention of “imitation” may show that the “proper object of mutakhayyila is not the form itself (or its reflection); it is an image that imitates the original one (apprehended either by the external senses or from the celestial world).” Thus, there is a clear distinction between the function of the intellect and that of the mutakhayyila as well: “While intellection is the reflection of intelligible form, analogous to the reflection in a mirror, the mutakhayyila—conceived as a power of re-presentation—creates its own object by an act of mimesis.” Using this theoretical apparatus, Sebti explains Avicenna’s view on prophetic vision and veridical dreams. The images that are objects of mutakhayyila are composed of “different forms and intentiones preserved in the two different kinds of memories.” Sebti’s explanation of “the epistemological function of images and intentions” is followed by an interesting

15 See

Dimitri Gutas, ‘Intuition and thinking: the evolving structure of Avicenna’s epistemology,’ in Robert Wisnowsky (ed.), Aspects of Avicenna (Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2003), 1–38. For a different interpretation, see Deborah Black, ‘Rational Imagination: Avicenna on the Cogitative Power’, in Luis Xavier López-Farjeat and Jörg Alejandro Tellkamp (eds.), Philosophical Psychology in Arabic Thought and the Latin Aristotelianism of the 13th Century (Paris: J. Vrin, 2013), 59–81. 16 See Dag Nikolaus Hasse, ‘Avicenna on Abstraction’, in Robert Wisnovsky (ed.), Aspects of Avicenna (Princeton, 2001), 39–72. For an alternative interpretation see Deborah Black, ‘How do we acquire concepts? Avicenna on abstraction and emanation: essential readings and contemporary responses’, in Jeffrey Hause (ed.), Debates in Medieval Philosophy Essential Readings and Contemporary Responses (New York: Routledge, 2014), 126–45.

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discussion of one of the most difficult problems in Avicenna’s epistemology, namely “The ontological gap between the sensible and the intelligible.” Focusing on another internal sense, Juhana Toivanen, ‘Estimative Power as a Social Sense’ takes its departure in the remarkable fact that despite the extensive research into the estimative power in medieval Latin philosophy, one of its functions has been almost entirely neglected: its role as the explanation of the sociability of humans and other animals. Toivanen offers a discussion of the basic features of the subject by combining natural philosophy, mainly philosophical psychology, with political philosophy among thirteenth and fourteenth century Latin commentators (Albert the Great in particular but by no means exclusively). These philosophers mainly took their cue from Avicenna. The social aspects of the estimative power reveal themselves as the concern an animal parent exhibits towards its offspring (in many cases) and the friendly behaviour that individuals exhibit towards group members in the case of gregarious animals. Among the philosophers treated, Albert the great devotes most attention to problems related to the social life of animals and its connection with the estimative powers. One central matter of consideration from the point of view of natural philosophy is whether or not an animal through the estimative power perceives it as beneficial to itself to exhibit social behaviour towards offspring or group members. From the perspective of political philosophy, there are two themes of particular importance: firstly, the role of the estimative power with respect to procreation among “political animals”, secondly, the role of the estimative power with respect to animal perception of what is useful and harmful respectively even though animals other than humans cannot express this by use of language. By combining the occasional remarks in commentaries from natural philosophy and political philosophy, Toivanen achieves a rich account of the estimative power’s social aspects and functions, as these were developed by Latin philosophers in the Aristotelian tradition. Section B of the second part of the book contains two papers, one on the underlying mechanism of memory in Aristotle and the other on the objects of “imagination” in medieval Aristotelianism, from a contemporary perspective. This section is intended to promote research in the history of philosophy from a contemporary perspective. As John Sutton explains the main topic of his work, “These features may not be the most central, either for Aristotle or for his interpreters, but they matter in their own right, and raise questions of independent historical and conceptual interest” (this volume). We tend to think that studying such questions is related to the “history of philosophy”, broadly construed, and should be included in the field more permissively. In “Movements, Memory, and Mixture: Aristotle, confusion, and the historicity of memory”, Sutton attempts to explain how Aristotle’s theory of “mixture” and “movement” may help one better understand Aristotle’s theory of “memory” and “recollection” by unpacking the underlying material constraints on the processes of memory and recollection. Sutton’s work introduces a new dimension in the study of the history of views on memory from the perspective of the history of the theories

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of mixture and movement of the substrata that can explain the transmission and perseverance of “forms”. Relating memory and mixture in the Aristotelian framework as Sutton suggests, thus, brings to the fore some historico-philosophical points, most notably the question of the “nature of memory”. “Memory”, as he reads Aristotle, should be grounded in “fluid dynamics”. Following in Ian Hacking’s footsteps, Sutton tries to show how this approach paves the way for a dynamic conception of memory.17 Sutton criticizes the views according to which Aristotle is interpreted “as a key precursor to an entrenched and perniciously mechanistic Western vision of memory as a static archive.” Sutton’s work provides a quick analysis of some views on “mixture”, both of its general theory and of more localized theories of “mixture” in philosophy, psychology, history and historiography. Building on his previous responses to the ‘grand archive narrative’, Sutton ends with an interesting discussion on the ontological status of “basic psychological categories”, including “memory”.18 Graham Priest’s contribution takes a different approach. Let us briefly explain the context. The compositive imagination or mutakhayyila, in Avicenna’s language, does most of the jobs that one may attribute to “imagination”, in modern vocabulary. Imagination, however, easily transcends the realm of “actually existent objects”; one may, or at least it seems to be the case evidently, imagine “(merely) possibly existent objects” and even “impossibilia”. (Note that these objects may be treated radically differently, both ontologically and logically, from contingent objects.) This has been common ground for medieval Aristotelians. However, if by the “internal senses”, and particularly by the compositive imagination, one means a sense or faculty with an object that exists in some sense, then it is hard to reconcile the above faculty psychology with a philosophical view whose semantics of “imagines” allows imagination to reach merely possibilia and/or impossibilia but its metaphysics does not acknowledge any sense in which merely possibilia and/or impossibilia exist. In “Imagination, Non-existence, Impossibility”, Priest looks into the semantics of the intentional verb ‘imagines’, from a contemporary neo-Meinongian point of view, and tries to explain some medieval logicians’ view in the language of contemporary Modal Meinongianism, as introduced by Priest and further defended and developed by Berto and Priest again, among other.19 Priest explains the idea of “ampliation” in medieval Aristotelian logic and interprets it as a technique that works like the “expansion of the domain of quantification”, in modern logic. Then, he argues that “A number of medieval logicians allowed that an intentional verb 17 See

Ian Hacking, Rewriting the Soul: multiple personality and the sciences of memory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). 18 See, in particular, John Sutton, ‘Language, memory, and concepts of memory: semantic diversity and scientific psychology’, in Mengistu Amberber (ed.), The Language of Memory from a CrossLinguistic Perspective (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007), 41–65. 19 Graham Priest, Towards Non-Being (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Francesco Berto, Existence as a Real Property (Dordrecht: Synthèse Library, Springer, 2013); Graham Priest, Towards Non-Being, 2nd Extended Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

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could ampliate a term to an even wider class of objects”. The idea is that Meinongian nonexistent objects perfectly fit the role of these objects of imagination.20 Modal Meinongianism further suggests that a nonexistent object conceived as having a property F, has the property F in some world. Thus, for example, “Anna Karenina does not have the property of jumping under a train in this world, but she does have it in the worlds that realize the story of Tolstoy’s novel”. Modal Meinongianism, Priest argues, provides a framework for understanding “the view of those medievals who were prepared to invoke impossible objects”. The internal senses lie at the center of medieval Aristotelian philosophy of mind and epistemology. Also, as some contributions to this volume demonstrate, a range of contemporary debates in the history of philosophy directly relate to our interpretation and analysis of the internal senses. Admittedly, there is a lot to be said on the central questions and case studies introduced above: Some historical remarks may be speculative, incidental or in need of fine-tuning. We hope that the papers in this volume fill some gaps in the literature on the internal senses and provide some space for further research on the topic. Acknowledgements We would like to thank all the participants in the 2016 conference, The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and all the members of the research programme Representation and Reality. Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on the Aristotelian Tradition, funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. We are specially indebted to the contributors to this volume for their valuable contributions, cooperation and patience. Also, we are grateful to an anonymous reviewer of this volume for his/her insightful and helpful comments and suggestions.

References Avicenna Latinus. (1972). Liber de anima I-II-III (S. van Riet, Ed.). Louvain/Leiden: Peeters and Brill. Avicenna [Ibn S¯ın¯a]. (1959). Avicenna’s De Anima (Arabic Text): Being the psychological part of Kit¯ab al-Shifa¯’ (F. Rahman, Ed.). London: Oxford University Press. Avicenna [Ibn S¯ına¯]. (1952). Avicenna’s psychology: An English translation of Kit¯ab al-Naj¯at (Book II, Chapter VI, F. Rahman, Ed. and Trans.). London: Oxford University Press. Berto, F. (2013). Existence as a real property. Dordrecht: Synthèse Library, Springer. Black, D. (2014). How do we acquire concepts? Avicenna on abstraction and emanation: Essential readings and contemporary responses. In J. Hause (Ed.), Debates in medieval philosophy essential readings and contemporary responses (pp. 126–145). New York: Routledge. Black, D. (2013). Rational imagination: Avicenna on the cogitative power. In L. X. LópezFarjeat & J. A. Tellkamp (Eds.), Philosophical psychology in Arabic thought and the Latin Aristotelianism of the 13th century (pp. 59–81). Paris: J. Vrin. Black, D. (1993). Estimation (Wahm) in Avicenna: The logical and psychological dimensions. Dialogue, 32, 219–258.

20 Again,

Priest’s claim is not that this is the only way to interpret “ampliation”; rather, what he does here can be seen as bringing in a new perspective on how to understand a problem in the history of philosophy.

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Casini, L. (2014). Renaissance theories of internal senses. In S. Knuuttila & J. Sihvola (Eds.), Sourcebook for the history of the philosophy of mind (pp. 147–157). Dordrecht: Springer. Faruque, M. U. (2016). The internal senses in Nemesius, Plotinus and Galen: The beginning of an idea. Journal of Ancient Philosophy, 10(2), 119–139. Frede, M. (1996). Aristotle’s rationalism. In M. Frede & G. Striker (Eds.), Rationality in Greek thought (pp. 157–173). Oxford: Clarendon. Gregori´c, P. (2007a). Aristotle on the common sense. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gregori´c, P. (2007b). Alexander of Aphrodisias on the common sense. Filozofski vestnik, 38(1), 47–64. Gutas, D. (2012). The empiricism of Avicenna. Oriens, 40, 391–436. Gutas, D. (2003). Intuition and thinking: The evolving structure of Avicenna’s epistemology. In R. Wisnowsky (Ed.), Aspects of Avicenna (pp. 1–38). Princeton: Markus Wiener. Hacking, I. (1995). Rewriting the soul: Multiple personality and the sciences of memory. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Harvey, E. R. (1975). The Inward Wits: Psychological theory in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Warburg Institute surveys) (Vol. 6). London: The Warburg Institute. Hasse, D. N. (2001a). Avicenna’s De Anima in the Latin west: The formation of a peripatetic philosophy of the soul 1160–1300 (Warburg Institute Studies & Texts). London: The Warburg Institute. Hasse, D. N. (2001b). Avicenna on abstraction. In R. Wisnovsky (Ed.), Aspects of Avicenna (pp. 39–72). Princeton: Markus Wiener. Kemp, S., & Fletcher, G. J. O. (1993). The medieval theory of the inner senses. American Journal of Psychology, 106, 559–576. Klubertanz, G. P. (1952). The discursive power: Sources and doctrine of the Vis Cogitativa according to St. Thomas Aquinas. Saint Louis: The Modern Schoolman. Knuuttila, S., & Kärkkäinen, P. (2014). Medieval theories of internal senses. In S. Knuuttila & J. Sihvola (Eds.), Sourcebook for the history of the philosophy of mind (pp. 131–147). Dordrecht: Springer. Perälä, M. (in preparation). Aristotle on Incidental Perception. In J. Toivanen & C. T. Thörnqvist (Eds.), Sense perception in the Aristotelian tradition. Priest, G. (2016). Towards non-being (2nd Extended ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Priest, G. (2005). Towards non-being. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scheerer, E. (1995). Die Sinne. In J. Ritter & K. Gründer (Eds.), Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie (Vol. 9, pp. 824–869). Basel, Schwabe. Sutton, J. (2007). Language, memory, and concepts of memory: Semantic diversity and scientific psychology. In M. Amberber (Ed.), The language of memory from a cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 41–65). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Steneck, N. H. (1974). Albert the great on the classification and localization of the internal senses. Isis, 65, 193–211. Strohmaier, G. (1988). Avicennas Lehre von den “inneren Sinnen” und ihre Voraussetzungen bei Galen. In P. Manuli, & M. Vegetti (Eds.), Le opere psicologiche di Galeno (Atti del terzo colloquio galenico internazionale, Pavia, 10–12 settembre 1986. (= Elenchos, vol. 13), pp. 231–242). Naples: Bibliopolis. Theiss, P. (1997). Die Wahrnehmungspsychologie und Sinnesphysiologie des Albertus Magnus: Ein Modell der Sinnes- und Hirnfunktion aus der Zeit des Mittelalters (Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe III: Geschichte und ihre Hilfswissenschaften, Band 735). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Toivanen, J. (2013). Perception and the internal senses: Peter of John Olivi on the cognitive functions of the sensitive soul (Investigating medieval philosophy) (pp. 225–265). Leiden: Brill. Wolfson, H. A. (1935). The internal senses in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew philosophic texts. Harvard Theological Review, 28, 69–133.

Part I

Central Questions in Their Historical Contexts

Chapter 2

Internal Senses and Aristotle’s Cognitive Theory Deborah Modrak

The question I plan to address is: Does Aristotle posit one or more internal senses in theorizing about perception and other types of sensory experience? My initial thought is that there are good reasons to be skeptical. The notion of one or more internal senses seems on the face of it to be in tension with Aristotle’s conception of perception (aisthêsis) as the critical link between sentient beings and the external world. Such senses would be oddities on his conception of a sense as a capacity for the realization of characteristics of external objects as objects of awareness. This is all the more true for Aristotle because, not only does a perception typically have an external orientation, but also his theory of r4 perception is based on a hierarchy of perceptual functions. At the base of the hierarchy are the five senses; all other perceptual and quasi-perceptual functions are explained in terms of a base consisting of the five senses. More complex operations, involving more than one sense, are grounded in the joint functioning of several senses or all five. The simplest such function is the perception of an object common to more than one type of sensing, e.g., the perception of movement; the most elaborate of these are the myriad of perceptual and quasi-perceptual functions assigned to imagination (phantasia). In short, Aristotle’s analytic approach to the theory of perception as well as the external orientation of the five basic sense faculties, count against his recognizing the existence of internal senses. Nevertheless, investigating the question further seems in order, because it would be a limitation of his theory not to provide any explanation of certain kinds of experience, which are very familiar to human percipients and are often thought to involve internal sense perception. I plan to examine three different cases of conscious awareness recognized by Aristotle to determine whether any of these is

D. Modrak () Depatment of Philosophy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 S. N. Mousavian, J. L. Fink (eds.), The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6_2

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a candidate for an internal sense. The first are objects of awareness, most notably pleasure and pain, that seem to be internal; the second are types of sensing that involve the coordinated activity of all the senses; and the third, and many might say, the most promising case that of imagining. In order to investigate these cases, it is necessary to begin by setting out some initial criteria for what it is to be an internal sense. In order to remain true to Aristotle’s approach to cognitive theory, we must restrict our discussion to the putative object of an inner sense and the causal history of instances of the employment of such a sense. These are the only relevant criteria because the characteristics of a cognitive activity, according to Aristotle, are fully determined by the actualization of the object cognized. An internal sense for him would be a psychic capacity for the realization of certain internal objects as objects of awareness. An external sense, such as sight, is the capacity for the realization of a feature of an external object, viz. color, as an object of awareness.

2.1 Internal Objects of Awareness Internal senses are often identified with the perception of bodily states from pleasure and pain to balance to temperature. The first of these receives some attention from Aristotle. However, his emphasis is typically on the role the five senses, particularly taste and touch, play in our perceptions of pleasure or pain. From one point of view, taste and touch are internal, because flesh is the medium for these senses. In this very limited respect, they could be said to be internal to the body. More generally, the realization of the sensible characteristics of external objects through a special sense is always internal to the percipient organ. This, however, does not make a special sense, such as sight, into an internal sense. The typical cases of tasting a flavor or feeling a tactile sensation are cases where the object of the sensing came from outside the body. If the tongue savors a particular sweet serving of honey, the perceived sweetness is a characteristic of the honey that was brought into the mouth from outside the body (here and in the following translations are my own). For it is taste which discriminates between pleasant and unpleasant in food, so that the one is avoided and the other pursued; and speaking generally flavor is an affection of the nutritive faculty. (De Sens. 1.436b15–18)

Taste is closely related to the sense of touch. Touch, too, is most often mentioned in connection with sensing an external stimulus through the skin. The argument for touch’s being internal is based upon tactile contact with the skin or a thin membrane stretched over the skin. Since the membrane would serve as a medium for touch, so too does the flesh according to Aristotle. From this it is clear that that which can perceive the object of touch is internal. For then the same thing would happen as in the other cases; for we do not perceive what is placed on the sense organ, but we do perceive what is placed upon the flesh. (De An. 2.11.423b22–26)

The objects of touch, namely hot and cold, dry and wet, rough and smooth, seem somewhat promising as sensations, which might also originate within the body as a

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consequence of bodily states rather than as a consequence of the external stimulation of the flesh. However, Aristotle does not explore this possibility in the De Anima. The tactile object, which is sensed through the flesh, is external to the body. Aristotle’s commitment to external objects of touch is, inter alia, evident in his argument for attributing a sense of touch to simple animals. For the animal when it touches, if it has no sensation, will not be able to avoid some things and grasp others. In that case it will be impossible for the animal to survive. (De An. 3.12.434b16–18)

As an ensouled body that will come into contact with other tangible objects, the simple animal requires the sense of touch and taste, which is also a contact sense. Touch is essential to living beings and it has a variety of objects. It is also not possessed by hair or bone or any other part of the body that consists of a single element (3.13.435a24–25). Aching joints must hurt somewhere other than in the joint. In short, even if Aristotle’s conception of touch leaves some room for its providing information about what is happening within the body, it is constrained by the requirement that the sense organ for touch must be complex. Flesh seems to have the requisite complexity, whereas many of the internal parts of the body seem to lack it. Moreover, Aristotle’s explicit analysis of tactile perception focuses on its role in providing information about the external world. Similarly, Aristotle’s remarks about pleasure and pain also undercut the possibility that there is an internal sense for them. There is relatively little discussion of pleasure and pain in the psychological treatises. He mentions that taste perceives the pleasant and unpleasant in nourishment in De Sensu (1.436b15–18). In the De Anima, he argues that if an animal perceives pleasure and pain, it must also experience desire (2.3.414b1–6; 3.12.434a2–3).1 Pleasure and pain supervene on perceptions, primarily those of touch and taste. We find a lengthy discussion of pleasure in Nicomachean Ethics10.1–5. There Aristotle addresses the question, what is pleasure? His answer is that pleasure accompanies the appropriate functioning of the senses and the intellect. So long, then as both the intelligible or sensible object and the discriminating or contemplative faculty are as they should be, pleasure will be involved in the activity. (10.4.1174b33-1175a1)

Setting aside the case of the intellect, if we have pleasurable and painful sensations as a consequence of their supervening on perceptions through the five senses, then there is little room for an internal sense that is involved in their apprehension. The typical sense object is external to the organ perceiving it. A feeling of pleasure accompanying a tactile sensation has at its core the external object of that occurrence of touching. This means that the pleasure is experienced by the percipient not as a direct feature of the external environment but as a feature of the perceptual activity. Since the experience is inseparable from perceiving the external object, pleasure is

1 For a critical analysis of the argument for this claim in De Anima 2.3, see C. Shields, comm. 2016.

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not in itself perceptible. It is dependent upon a concurrent perceiving or thinking.2 There is no special sense for pleasure or pain and insofar as a sense is involved, it is a garden-variety, externally oriented sense not a specialized internal sense. Sensations of pleasure and pain seemed to be promising candidates for objects of one or more internal senses. We have discovered that Aristotle’s account of them does not involve any additional perceptual capacities. There is even less evidence for his recognizing that the body has internal senses for balance and other homeostatic objects. However, since Aristotle recognizes the hot and the cold as proper objects of sense, had he had conceived internal temperature as a distinct object, then we would have a basis for attributing the notion of an internal sense to him. The sense of touch has the hot and the cold among its objects (2.11.423b27–29), but the sensing of the internal temperature of the body as such is nowhere mentioned. Sleepiness after eating is, according to Aristotle, due to hot vapors rising to our heads (De Som. 3.457b20–458a10). While this observation might seem to imply an awareness of internal heating, Aristotle does not explore the nature of our awareness of heating as a consequence of eating. It is perhaps noteworthy that he describes food and wine as naturally heating; the ultimate source of the internal heat is the external substance that was ingested. Insofar as the person eating is aware of the heat, it would be through the sense of touch. When Aristotle does mention the hot and the cold as tactile objects, they are consistently construed as features of external objects.

2.2 Common Capacity for Perception Even if Aristotle does not have a conception of a distinct internal sense, he might still conceive the perceptual faculty as a whole in a way that allows it to take on some of the functions of an internal sense. Indeed historically Aristotle’s common sense was construed as an internal sense.3 Since, each sense has a special function and a common function. The special function, for example, of sight is seeing, that of the auditory sense is hearing and similarly with the other senses. But there is also a common faculty associated with them all, through which one is aware that one sees and hears (for it is not by sight that one is aware that one sees; and one judges and is capable of judging that sweet is different from white not by taste, not by sight, nor by both of them, but by some part which is common to all the sense organs). (De Somno 2.455a12–20)

The common capacity of the senses to function as one enables the perceiver to grasp features of her perceptual experience that no sense functioning alone could 2 It

is precisely this dependence upon a concurrent perception of an external object that accounts for the morally pernicious effects of pleasure and pain. Too much pleasure associated with flavors is implicated in gluttony; too much pain associated with the sights and sounds of an approaching hostile army is implicated in cowardice. 3 For a succinct thumbnail sketch of this construal of the common sense, see P. Gregoric, (2007) pp. 9–13.

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grasp. The simplest case of coordinated activity is that of the direct perception of the common objects such as shape and motion (De An. 2.6.418a17–20). Common objects are perceived by special senses acting together. Shape, for example, is accessible through touch and sight; importantly it is experienced as one object perceived through several senses. The shape of the table in front of me is the same object when simultaneously perceived through touch and sight and when perceived singly through either sense. The hardness of the table and the color of the table may also be simultaneously perceived by touch and vision but this perception is parasitic upon touch perceiving hardness and sight color singly. A slightly more complex case is also discussed in the De Anima. Sight does not have access to flavors and so it cannot grasp the difference between white and sweet, nor can the difference between them be grasped by the sense of taste. The remaining possibility, Aristotle argues, is a perceptual faculty possessed in virtue of both senses functioning together as one. In De Anima 3.2, he uses a metaphor to explain this possibility: the judgment is possible because the two affected senses meet in a point, which like the point at the intersection of two lines may be viewed both as divisible and indivisible. That which judges, therefore, is one and judges at one time in so far as it is indivisible, but in so far as it is divisible, it simultaneously uses the same point twice. (3.2.427a11–13)

The De Somno pictures this relation in physiological terms; the sense organs for the five senses are connected to an area near the heart in the center of the body. Because the underlying physiological basis for sensing involves differentiation and unity, the senses themselves are capable of distinct specialized functions and as constituents of a single perceptual faculty capable of a wide range of perceptual and quasi-perceptual functions. At this stage of our discussion, there would seem to be little or no reason to view the common sense as an internal sense. Apperception has been characterized in a way that grounds this perceptual capacity in the functioning of the five proper senses. It cannot be exercised in the absence of the concurrent sensing of external objects. The issue gets murkier when we turn to other activities of the common sense. To the extent that Aristotle has a conception akin to the modern notion of consciousness, it is to be found in the broad role he assigns the perceptual faculty as a whole.4 Functioning as a unified capacity, the perceptual faculty is capable of the type of apperceptual judgments discussed above; it is also the seat of imagination, memory and dreams and its partial immobilization is responsible for sleep. Sleep occurs when the peripheral sense organs are immobilized and no longer send new sensory information to the central organ. The perceptual faculty as a whole also includes among its functions, imagination. Aristotle assigns a number of functions to the perceptual faculty qua imagination. In the next section, we will look at imagination (phantasia) in general, since it is Aristotle’s device for explaining a wide range of types of experience involving sensory awareness. In the remainder

4 Modrak

(1987) chapter six.

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of this section, we will consider dreaming and memory, which are two specific activities of the perceptual faculty as a whole qua imagination. These activities, which occur in the absence of immediate perceptual stimuli, seem more amenable to being classified as activities of an internal sense. In dreams, residual sensory images remaining in the pipeline from peripheral sense organ to central organ may make their way to the central organ and become objects of awareness. A dream seems to be a kind of phantasma . . . and it is apparent that dreaming belongs to the perceptual faculty but belongs to it qua phantastikon (capacity for phantasia). (De Ins. 1.459a18–22)

Dreaming occurs during sleep and is not to be confused with perceiving something while asleep, e.g. hearing a cock crow (3.462a24–25). It is only a dream insofar as what is presented is not an accurate representation of the immediate environment. That said, dreaming as an exercise of phantasia has its origin in previous perceptions. The sensory contents making up a dream are new arrangements of sensory materials that are present in the psyche. Aristotle turns to physiology to explain how the images (phantasmata) that are representational in dreams exist as dispositional objects.5 The bodily organs of perception, including the central organ of perception, undergo many changes when we are awake and the peripheral organs of perception are bombarded with stimuli. The stronger of these movements are realized as perceptions; but not all these changes become immediate objects of perceptual awareness; many of them remain in the central organ as latent objects of awareness (De Div. 1.463a7–10). During sleep, when the peripheral organs of perception (eyes, ears, etc.) are inactive, some of the physiological changes in the perceptual organs become objects of awareness. Because dreams are realized pieces of perceptions, they can be causes of subsequent behavior by the dreamer as well as being effects of earlier experience (De Div. 1.463a23–30). Again, we find a kind of internalized sensory experience, dreaming, being explained by Aristotle in terms of the reception of sense impressions from the external world albeit at a time and in a form that is unlikely to accurately represent objects in the external environment. The realization of sensory representations in dreams involves an internalized sensory awareness and yet it too seems to fall short of constituting a kind of internal sense because the contents of dreams originate outside our bodies. As Aristotle puts it, our waking perceptual experience paves the way for our dreams (De Div. 1.463a25–31). The materials of which dreams are made are supplied by the external world’s impact on our peripheral sense organs at a time prior to sleeping. Dreaming involves the perceptual faculty as a whole but in its specialized function as imagination (phantasia). Even though in dreams, the objects represented often bear little resemblance to the external objects that acted upon the senses, memories have something

5 For

present purposes, treating dream phantasmata as images is unproblematic. Granted, there has been considerable discussion of the broader question of whether phantasmata are images in the secondary literature. See Modrak (1986) and Modrak, chapter four (1987); for more recent contributions to this discussion, see Scheiter (2012) and Radovic (forthcoming).

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in common with dreams. Memories, too, are a function of the aisthêtikon qua phantastikon, and they, too, involve the re-presentation of sensory material that originated in an earlier perceptual experience. Memory is “the disposition of a phantasma related as a likeness to that of which it is a phantasma “(De Mem. 1.451a15–16). The difference between dreaming and remembering is that the latter must get it right about the external world. For always when one is exercising memory, one says in one’s soul that one heard or perceived or thought this before. (De Mem. 1.449b22–23)

Memory is a complex cognition. On the one hand, it is the re-presentation of some mental content previously apprehended. On the other, it is the awareness of that content as representing an object that acted upon the senses at an earlier time. If I am remembering something that I saw in the past, I must have a visual image, a complex of colored shapes, before my mind’s eye; I must recognize that the present visual image originated in this earlier perception, the object of my memory is the referent of the earlier visual experience. Sometimes Aristotle claims a person may be in doubt as to whether she is having a memory or simply experiencing the object. The sensory representation of a remembered object succeeds in referring to the object of the original perception when the sensory representation is taken as a likeness of that object by the person exercising memory. Because memory is firmly rooted in the world of perception, Aristotle has some difficulty explaining memories of abstract objects. Nothing prevents our remembering kata sumbebêkos some object of which we have knowledge. (De Mem. 2.451a28–29; cf. 1.450a13–14)

Since the immediate object of a memory is a phantasma, an abstract object cannot be remembered kath’ hauto. Like thinking, which is not possible without phantasmata, remembering a previous thought requires but is not reducible to a phantasma. As is clear from this brief discussion of dreaming and remembering, both are internal in that dreams bubble up during sleep and memories are of things no longer present in our perceptual field. They also involve sensory representations. For both these reasons, one might want to call them cases of internal sensing. However, it is also true that all the objects represented sensorially in dreams or in memories were originally supplied by the operations of the peripheral senses. These contents may not accurately represent the external world but they are the result of the interaction between our senses and objects in the external world. To this extent, neither dreaming nor remembering seem to be good candidates to be functions of an internal sense.

2.3 Phantasia The canonical account of phantasia—as commentators are wont to say—is found in De Anima 3.3. After defining the functions of the soul and discussing the basic

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perceptual functions at length in De Anima 2, Aristotle turns in De Anima 3.3 to the nature of phantasia. Phantasia is “that in virtue of which we say an image (phantasma) arises in us” (428a1–2).6 In order to fill out this preliminary account, Aristotle begins by establishing the similarities between perceiving and thinking and then he argues that they are activities of distinct psychic faculties. He also argues against assigning phantasia either to the perceptual faculty of the soul or the rational faculty. Neither sensing nor thinking simpliciter has all the same characteristics as phantasia. Sensing cannot occur in the absence of an appropriate object. For instance, I cannot see red, if there is nothing red in my visual field, but I can imagine red. Thinking sometimes contradicts phantasia, for instance, as when one sees a small golden disk in the sky but thinks that the sun is larger than the earth (428b2– 4). Phantasia has one foot in each camp; it is in some respects like perception and in others like intellection and so Aristotle briefly considers making it a function of the two combined, but this option is quickly ruled out as well. It is clear, therefore, that phantasia will be neither belief together with perception, nor belief through perception, nor a blend of belief and perception. (428a24–26)

Having dismissed the quick and unqualified identification of phantasia with perception or thought or the two combined, Aristotle sets out to build an account of phantasia, which is sensitive to the common features shared by both types of cognitive faculties. Phantasia has an important role to play in the explanation of both the similarities of perceptual and intellectual cognition and their differences. First, however, the distinctive characteristics of phantasia must be determined. One such feature is phantasia’s vulnerability to error, unlike perception; another is phantasia’s widespread occurrence, nearly all animals possess it, unlike intellection; yet another is its dependence upon perception for its origin and its objects. Phantasia is described as a movement because it is an active awareness of certain objects. These objects are the same as the objects that are realized in acts of perceptual awareness, viz. colors-as-seen, sounds-as-heard, etc. Phantasia plays a central role in our cognitive life, both as active awareness and as a source of retained sensory information. All these features, taken together, support the identification of phantasia with a kind of sensory experience that is distinguishable from perception. However, these features also stand in the way of a quick identification of phantasia with an internal sense. For Aristotle, cognitive activities just are the realization of cognitive objects in acts of awareness. The objects of phantasia are the same as the objects of perception; the only difference is the requirement that the objects of perception must be actualizations of perceptible qualities (colors, sounds, etc.) of external objects, which are the immediate causes of the perceptual experience. Phantasia is different, it may, but need not, occur in the absence of an external sensory stimulus. 6 Aristotle

also mentions the metaphorical use of phantasia only to set it aside in 3.3. There is no evidence that when Aristotle appeals to phantasia in other places that he is using the term metaphorically.

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It cannot occur in cognizers, who lack sensory capacities, or in the absence of past or concurrent sensory experience. Because its objects are sensory objects, phantasia is able to bridge the divide between perception and thought. Perception proper is constrained, not only by the requirement that its immediate cause be present in the external environment, but also by the requirement of verisimilitude. Perception of proper objects (sensible qualities such as color or sound) is always correct (3.3.427b11–12) and while other types of perception admit error, for the most part perception provides accurate information about perceptible, external objects. Because its connection with the external world is more attenuated, phantasia is much more liable to error; it admits of error in the case of all three types of sense object (special, common and incidental) (3.3.428b25–30).7 In short, the picture of phantasia that emerges from a careful reading of De Anima 3.3 is one of a very versatile cognitive capacity; phantasia is a distinct way of apprehending sensory objects and phantasia may represent its intentional objects accurately or not, because unlike perception it is not constrained by a requirement of verisimilitude. Taking De Anima 3.3 to be the canonical account of phantasia, some commentators have also been led to identify phantasia with non-veridical appearance.8 This interpretation is problematic, however, because it limits the role of phantasia in ways that would be detrimental to Aristotle’s account of voluntary motion and action and his account of thinking. He needs a concept of phantasia that is indeterminate with respect to the reliability of the sensory content it presents. For this reason, his view is best summarized as follows: phantasia is the awareness of a sensory content under conditions that are not conducive to veridical perception.9 In the case of visual illusion, such as the case of the size of the sun mentioned by Aristotle, phantasia is the awareness of a colored shape that is misleading as to the actual size of the sun. In other instances, such as the triangle contemplated by the geometer, phantasia presents sensorially useful and reliable images. To remember is an exercise of phantasia and in this case it is important to have a content that is often reliable but sometimes not. One of the advantages of the conception of phantasia developed in 3.3 is that as the awareness of a sensory content under conditions that are not conducive to veridical perception, phantasia may be invoked in explanations both of illusory appearance and explanations of accurate recall.10

7 Even phantasia is true in the case of proper objects when perception is also present, but it need not be in the absence of a concurrent perception (3.3.428b27–30). 8 See, e.g., Nussbaum, (1978) pp. 223–321. Conceiving phantasia as appearances has prompted other commentators to downplay the role of imagery in it. See, e.g. Schofield (1978) p. 102. See also Scheiter (2012) and Radovic (forthcoming). 9 For a detailed defense of the Sensory Content Analysis of phantasia, see Modrak (1986) and Modrak (1987). 10 See, for a different interpretation of the canonical account, M. Wedin (1988), chap. 2, which argues for the functional incompleteness of phantasia.

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The sensory character of phantasia is emphasized by Aristotle when he wraps up his analysis in 3.3.11 It is, however, worth noting that the characteristics of phantasia that make it thought-like also play an important part in his arriving at this conclusion. The form of thinking that is at issue is belief (doxa) because it may be either true or false. Having rejected the possibility that phantasia is belief combined with perception (428a24–27), Aristotle ends the chapter with a discussion of the conditions under which phantasia is true and the conditions under which it is more liable to error. The movement that comes about as a result of the activity of perception will differ in so far as it comes from these three kinds of perception. The first is true as long as perception is present, while the others may be false whether it is present or absent. (428b25–29)

As the awareness of a sensory content under conditions that are not conducive to veridical perception, phantasia has the breadth Aristotle desires; any object that can be the content of a perception can also be presented in a phantasma (object of phantasia) and the content so presented may be an accurate representation of an actual object or it may fall short of accuracy due to the conditions under which it is realized. For instance, a visual experience occurring during a fog is much more likely to meet the conditions for phantasia than to meet the conditions for being a veridical perception. To return to the question of whether phantasia should be considered an internal sense; the answer is “probably not”—at least not on our initial characterization of an internal sense. Phantasia like the other candidates for an internal sense that we have examined relies upon the perception of external objects. In its case, the sensory materials made use of may be fragmentary and reassembled in unique ways. Nonetheless, for Aristotle, the primary functions of phantasia are very closely integrated with the external senses; he assigns cases of perceptual illusion and delusion to phantasia as well as all re-presentations of sensory objects. The latter function explains why Aristotle says that thinking is not imagining but is not possible without phantasmata (De An. 3.8.432a13–14). The capacity for all the many functions of imagination is a capability of the sense faculty as a whole. The unifying principle for all the many and varied capacities of the perceptual faculty, the aisthêtikon, is the way in which all of its functions are built upon a base made up of the five special senses. Aristotle argues for the dependence of the common sense on the special senses in the De Anima. He explicitly includes the functions of imagination under the aisthêtikon in the De Insomniis (1.459a12–22) and De Memoria (1.450a23–25). Both are described in terms that make it clear that they involve the apprehension of sensory characteristics of objects that would be perceptible, were they present to the senses. Phantasia is distinct from other functions of the perceptual faculty insofar as it sometimes functions in the presence of an external object of perception and sometimes not. It acts in immediate coordination with other sense faculties, when 11 Cf.

Schofield (1978) which characterizes Aristotle’s conception of imagination in 3.3 as nonparadigmatic sensory experience.

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environmental conditions do not favor veridical perception. For instance, a perceiver has had too much wine to drink and thus, like Alcibiades in the Symposium, fails to recognize who else is in the room. But phantasia also is exercised in any cognitive activity that requires the apprehension of the sensory characteristics of an object that is no longer present to the senses. This explains why Aristotle includes such diverse cognitions as visualizing, remembering, evaluating desirability, and dreaming under a single faculty. Phantasia is the strongest contender for the title of internal sense in Aristotle’s psychology. It is a sense faculty; it is not one of the five senses; it is realized in relation to both perceptible external objects and internalized sensory characteristics of objects. It does differ from other senses, however, in not being a faculty for the direct perception of sensory characteristics; it is a capacity that supervenes on the basic senses. In this respect, phantasia is like other supervenient capacities of the perceptual faculty as a whole. Like other supervenient perceptual capacities, phantasia operates on sense objects initially supplied by the five senses acting individually or together. This dependence on the external senses counts against the identification of phantasia with an internal sense.

2.4 Conclusion So after this long discussion, what are we to say in answer to our starting question, are there internal senses for Aristotle? The answer seems to be: it all depends upon what ‘internal sense’ means. If an internal sense is a basic sense capacity in addition to the five peripheral senses, there are no internal senses recognized by Aristotle. The requirements for a robust Aristotelian notion of a sense have not been met by any of the candidates for an internal sense. However, if an internal sense is not a separate sense but rather a sensory capacity possessed in virtue of the possession of the five senses, then there would be room in Aristotle’s account for it. Since one of the ways that Aristotle insures the unity of the perceptual faculty is by building all instances of sensory activity upon a base of sensory material supplied by the peripheral senses, the objects of this putative internal sense would be in an attenuated way external objects rather than internal ones.

References Gregoic, P. (2007). Aristotle on the common sense. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lloyd, G., & Owen, G. (Eds.). (1978). Aristotle on mind and the senses: Proceedings of the seventh symposium Aristotelicum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Modrak, D. (1986). Phantasia Reconsidered. In Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie. Band 1986. Heft 1, 47–69. Modrak, D. (1987). Aristotle: The power of perception. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Nussbaum, M. (1978). Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Radovic, F. (Forthcoming). Eidola, phantasmata and images in Aristotle. Scheiter, K. M. (2012). Images, appearances and Phantasia in Aristotle. Phronesis, 57, 251–278. Schofield, M. (1978). In G. Lloyd & G. Owen (Eds.), Aristotle on the imagination.” Aristotle on mind and the senses (pp. 249–277). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shields, C. (2016). Aristotle De Anima. Translation with introduction and commentary. Oxford: University of Oxford. Wedin, M. (1988). Mind and imagination in Aristotle. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Chapter 3

Alexander of Aphrodisias on the Common Sense Pavel Gregoric

3.1 Introduction The primary aim of this paper is to present Alexander’s understanding of the common sense and its functions. In doing so, I will keep an eye on Alexander’s agreement with or departure from Aristotle and indicate his contributions to the subject matter. The secondary aim of this paper is to discuss one particular point of departure which came to dominate later reception of Aristotle’s notion of the common sense. Alexander’s most extensive discussion of the common sense occurs in his treatise De anima, towards the end of his account of the perceptual power of the soul (60.14– 65.21).1 Having dealt with each one of the special senses, Alexander indicates that the special senses are subject to certain limitations, and these limitations are addressed by introducing the common sense. The common sense makes appearance also in two later passages of Alexander’s De anima (78.2–23 and 97.8–25), as well as in the Mantissa (119.10–19). Moreover, there are two chapters of the Quaestiones and a stretch of a few pages of Alexander’s commentary on De sensu 7 which

This paper was first published in Filozofski vestnik 38/1 (2017), 47–64. It is reprinted here with minor corrections and additions. 1 All

references to Alexander and the later commentators on Aristotle are to the volumes in the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca series, notably Alexander of Aphrodisias (1882), (1887) and (1901).

P. Gregoric () Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb, Croatia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 S. N. Mousavian, J. L. Fink (eds.), The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6_3

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are informative of his views on the subject.2 However, the Quaestiones and the commentary on De sensu do not explicitly mention the common sense and they add little or nothing of substance to what he says about it in his De anima. Alexander’s conception of the common sense can be summarized as follows. First, he accepts Aristotle’s view that the special senses are unified, and more precisely, that they are unified at the perceptual level. In other words, there is a perceptual power which unifies the special senses, and Alexander calls this power ‘the common sense’ (koin¯e aisth¯esis). Second, that the special senses are indeed unified at the perceptual level is evident from several functions which Alexander, much like Aristotle, takes to be strictly perceptual functions, yet functions which no special sense can achieve as such. The functions that Alexander explicitly attributes to the common sense are: (i) perceptual discrimination, (ii) perceptual awareness, and (iii) perception of the common sensibles. One could argue that here too – with regard to this list of functions – Alexander follows Aristotle, but here one needs to be careful, since Aristotle’s views as to the scope and precise functions of the common sense are notoriously controversial.3 Third, Alexander takes the common sense to be operative in the heart. Having said that, it is important to observe that this is a consequence of Alexander’s view that the whole perceptual power of the soul is located in the heart. Strictly speaking, seeing does not occur in the eyes, according to Alexander, but in the heart – through, or by means of, the eyes. The eyes, being made of the suitable material, are affected by coloured objects, this affection is transmitted to the heart, and only when the affection arrives to the heart, it brings about an act of perception, in this case an act of seeing. So, the eyes and other peripheral sense organs are not the proper seats of the special senses, but only parts of the bodily infrastructure by means of which features of the external world are conveyed to the perceptual power in the heart. In this framework, the perceptual power of the soul located in the heart can at the same time perceive two or more special sensibles, discriminate among them, perceive the features that accompany different types of special sensibles (these are the common sensibles, such as shape or size), and be aware of seeing or hearing. The outlined framework is part and parcel of Alexander’s comprehensive cardiocentrism. Alexander believes that all powers of the soul are located in the heart (with the exception of the intellect, which has no bodily organ). One of his arguments in support of cardiocentrism (De anima 97.8–25) is the following. Given that phantasia is the activity of the soul with respect to the remnants of earlier perceptions, the power to have appearances (to phantastikon) must be located at the same place where the common sense is, ‘and this has been shown to be in the heart’

2 Quaestio

III.7, 91.24–93.22 (Bruns) is on Aristotle’s De anima III.2, 425b12–25; Quaestio III.9, 94.10–98.15 is on Aristotle’s De anima III.2, 427a2–14. In de Sensu 163.18–168.10 (Wendland) is on Aristotle’s De sensu 7, 449a2–20. 3 See Gregoric (2007: 13–15, 193–199).

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(97.14).4 Moreover, where the power to have appearances is, that must also be the location at which acts of assent (sunkatatheseis) take place. And where the acts of assent take place, that must be also be the place where impulses and desires take place, which are the starting points of a chain of physical events that lead to local motion of the animal. Another of Alexander’s arguments in support of cardiocentrism (e.g. De anima 78.5–23, 99.15–39; Mantissa 119.10–19) is that there must be a cognitive power of the soul (to kritikon) which is a differentiated unity in exactly the same way in which the perceptual power of the soul is a differentiated unity. The perceptual power is differentiated insofar as we have the special senses operating on their respective special sensibles, and it is a unity insofar as we have the common sense which discriminates between different special sensibles. Likewise, the cognitive power is differentiated insofar as we have perception and other forms of cognition (phantasia, assent, belief, reasoning, understanding), and it is a unity insofar as we have something which discriminates between the reports of these different forms of cognition. And this cognitive power of the soul must be in the heart. Regarding this comprehensive cardiocentric framework, one naturally wonders if Alexander follows Aristotle here too, given Aristotle’s global hylomorphic thesis from De anima II, namely that the soul is the form of the whole living body. I believe that Alexander does in fact follow Aristotle very closely, for I am confident that Aristotle holds the same cardiocentric view – most strongly expressed in Chapter 10 of De motu animalium – but elaborating on this claim would take us too far from the present topic.5 Following this three-point summary of Alexander’s understanding of the common sense, I wish to draw the reader’s attention to two further points. First, Alexander does not connect the common sense with phantasia, but confines it to the level of perception. I emphasize this because the remark in Aristotle’s De memoria 1, 450a10–11 (‘phantasma is an affection of the common sense’) can be, and often has been, taken to the effect that phantasia is one of the functions of the common sense.6 Alexander ignores that – quite rightly, I think. For Alexander, the common sense is a higher-order strictly perceptual capacity which is directed at operations of the lower-order perceptual capacities, that is the special senses. Second, Alexander is reasonably consistent in using the term ‘common sense’ solely for the higher-order perceptual capacity, as contrasted with the special senses and their operations.7 In that respect Alexander contributed to clearing up the 4 All

translations from Greek are mine, unless indicated otherwise. Corcilius and Gregoric (2013) and Gregoric (2020). 6 See Gregoric (2007: 14–15, 99–111). 7 There are only two occurrences in a latter passage of De anima (78.10 and 12) where Alexander seems to use the expression koin¯e aisth¯esis with reference to the perceptual power of the soul as a whole: at 78.10, where he says that perception as such (in contrast with seeing, hearing etc.) is the work of the common sense, and at 78.12, where he says that we discriminate each type of special sensible object through the respective sense-organ, but we discriminate special sensibles in general with the common sense. 5 See

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terminological mess that Aristotle had left. Namely, Aristotle used the phrase ‘common sense’ in the relevant manner only three times, at De memoria 1, 450a10, De partibus animalium IV.10, 686a31, De anima III.1, 425a27, and probably once again in an incomplete occurrence at De anima III.7, 431b5. It seems that in the first two of these occurrences he used it with reference to the perceptual power of the soul taken most broadly, inclusive of phantasia. So, I am inclined to think that it was due to Alexander’s consistent and specialized use of the term ‘common sense’ that it became the technical term for one internal sense, distinct from phantasia and the other internal senses, in the Arabic and the Latin scholastic tradition.8 Let me now turn to the three functions which Alexander assigns to the common sense, starting with perceptual discrimination.

3.2 Functions of the Common Sense: Perceptual Discrimination Alexander remarks that each special sense not only apprehends the underlying type of special sensible, but also ‘discriminates their differences’ (60.16–17). I understand this to mean that in an act of perception, a special sensible is picked out from its immediate phenomenal environment. Next, Alexander observes that we do not perceive and discriminate only the differences within one type of special sensible, but across two or more types of special sensibles, and he wants to explore what it is that achieves perceptual discrimination of heterogeneous special sensibles. Whatever it is that achieves perceptual discrimination of heterogeneous special sensibles, it has to satisfy two conditions (which were formulated already by Aristotle in De anima III.2): (i) the discriminating thing has to be one and undivided, and (ii) it has to do the job at one and undivided time. The conjunction of these two conditions generates problems, because there seems, prima facie at least, to be no one and undivided thing that can simultaneously apprehend two heterogeneous qualities, such as sweet and white, and even worse, no one and undivided thing that can simultaneously apprehend two homogeneous qualities, among which two contraries – such as white and black – are the toughest case. This is the toughest case, I take it, because it appears to violate the intuitive principle of excluded contraries, the principle on which Plato’s well-known tripartition of the soul in the Republic was based.9 In any case, the most acute problem with perceptual discrimination, in Alexander’s words, is this: ‘How can vision grasp the differences of white and black, if

8 For

a helpful overview of the notion of internal senses in the Arabic and the Latin scholastic tradition, see Di Martino (2013). 9 ‘It is obvious that the same thing will never do or suffer contraries in the same respect in relation to the same thing and at the same time’ (Plato, Republic IV, 436b8–9; translated by P. Shorey, slightly modified).

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it must apprehend both of them at the same time and if the apprehension occurs through becoming like the sensibles? It is impossible for the same thing to become like white and like black at the same time’ (61.27–30). Alexander’s solution to the problem of perceptual discrimination – both of heterogeneous and homogeneous special sensibles – comes in two parts. The relation between these two parts is not at all obvious. In fact, some interpreters have taken them to be two distinct solutions.10 I will argue that the two parts complement each other, as two steps towards an adequate solution to the problem.11 The first part (61.30–63.5) has no direct parallel in Aristotle, as some commentators have observed but failed to explain.12 This part makes the claim that becoming like a sensible in an act of perception is not a case of material change, which exempts it from the principle of excluded contraries. Something can perceive and discriminate two contrary sensibles – or indeed any other combination of homogeneous sensibles, or even any combination of heterogeneous sensibles – because this does not involve any material change, but a different type of change.13 Alexander offers four pieces of evidence in support of the thesis that a different type of change is involved in perception – the ‘immateriality thesis’, as I shall call it. First, the sense of vision (opsis) does not become white and black when it perceives them. Second, air which is lit does not become white and black when it mediates these colours to the perceivers. Third, mirrors and water surfaces that reflect white and black objects do not themselves become white and black. Fourth, unlike mirrors and water surfaces that reflect white and black objects only as long as they are exposed to them, we are aware of white and black even after white and black objects are gone, since perception of them leaves traces due to phantasia; the fact that a white or black object does not need to be present and causally active for me to be aware of white or black, I take it, is meant to show that this is not a case of standard material change.14 If perception does not involve material change, then the perceptual capacity which apprehends all types of special sensibles – though not all of them through the same sense-organs – will be able to discriminate them at one and the same time. And that perceptual capacity is the common sense. This clearly constitutes an important step towards the solution of the problem of perceptual discrimination of heterogeneous sensibles. But what about homogeneous sensibles? Presumably, eyes

10 Bergeron

and Defour (2008: 308). Accattino and Donini (1996: 228). They say very little on the relation between these two steps, however. 12 Accatino and Donini (1996: 228); Bergeron and Defour (2008: 308). 13 Cf. Aristotle, De anima II.5 and the contemporary discussion between ‘spiritualism’ and ‘literalism’ in Aristotle’s theory of perception; a helpful summary of the discussion can be found in Caston (2004). 14 I read lines 62.22–63.5 as the fourth piece of evidence in support of the thesis that a different change is involved in perception, so I would suggest that these lines be transposed to line 16, before the sentence that starts with ei d¯e kai. In his apparatus, Bruns also notes the problem with the location of lines 62.22–63.5. 11 So

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are not affected by white and black materially either, so this part of the solution applies to the case of perceptual discrimination of homogeneous sensibles, too. However, what this part of Alexander’s solution leaves undecided is whether the perceptual capacity which discriminates white and black in the non-material way is vision or the common sense. That is why the second part of Alexander’s solution is needed. This part (63.6–65.2) consists in showing that the perceptual capacity which apprehends all types of special sensibles – the common sense – is a sort of thing which can be both one and many at the same time. Insofar as it is one, it satisfies the two conditions for perceptual discrimination, and insofar as it is many, it conforms to the principle of excluded contraries. How does that work? Very briefly, Alexander uses the same sort of trick that Aristotle used at the end of De anima III.2: he proposes an analogy with a geometrical point. However, whereas Aristotle used the analogy with a point bisecting a line, Alexander innovates: he compares the common sense to the centre of a circle in which different radii meet. Alexander’s idea is this: insofar as the centre is the end-point of different radii, it is many; and insofar as the end-points of different radii coincide in one and the same point, it is one. ‘We should take the common sense to be one and many in the same way,’ he says at 63.12–13. This analogy is further elaborated by Alexander and it deserves a separate discussion, which I leave for Sect. 3.5 below.

3.3 Functions of the Common Sense: Awareness of Perception Like Aristotle, Alexander has no doubt that we are aware of ourselves seeing and hearing, and that this awareness must be of a perceptual kind. However, Aristotle seems to have two different accounts as to what it is that enables us to perceive that we are seeing and hearing. One account is found in De anima III.2 (425b12–25), where Aristotle suggests that it is the special senses that supply us with perceptual awareness. The upshot of Aristotle’s argument in De anima III.2 is that we perceive that we see by the sense of vision, for ‘to perceive by the sense of vision is not a single thing’ (ouch hen to t¯ei opsei aisthanesthai, 425b20). The other account is found in De somno et vigilia 2, where Aristotle says that ‘certainly it is not by vision that one sees that one sees’ but by some ‘common power which accompanies all the special senses’ (De somno et vigilia 2, 455a16–17). This ‘common power’ (koin¯e dunamis) that accompanies all the special senses is standardly identified with the common sense.15 Alexander is perfectly aware of both accounts in Aristotle. He expounds Aristotle’s De anima account at length in his Quaestio III.7. Interestingly, in the course

15 Of

course, there are various ways of reconciling these two accounts; cf. Gregoric (2007: 174– 192), Johansen (2012: 195–198), Perälä (2019).

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of his exemplary exposition, Alexander does not even hint at the second account from Aristotle’s De somno et vigilia, which Alexander himself advocates in his De anima and the Mantissa. Likewise, in his De anima and the Mantissa Alexander does not mention the alternative account he expounded in Quaestio III.7. Presumably, this is because in the Quaestiones Alexander takes his job to be only to elucidate Aristotle’s words as best as he can, and in his own De anima Alexander’s task is to present the Peripatetic doctrine of the soul in its most robust form, admittedly aiming to demonstrate its superiority over the rival Stoic doctrine. In any case, it is interesting that Alexander in De anima opts for the second account regarding the source of perceptual awareness, that is the account from Aristotle’s De somno et vigilia. Alexander says in the relevant passage of his De anima that perceptual awareness is the work of the ‘primary, chief and the so-called “common” sense’ (65.8–10). That this is indeed Alexander’s considered view is clear from two further sources, one direct and the other indirect. The direct source is a passage from the Mantissa (119.13–15): ‘That the common sense is distinct from the special senses is clear from the fact that seeing is perceptible, but not visible.’ The indirect source is a later report in (Ps.)Philoponus’ commentary on Aristotle’s De anima, who compares four different views as to what enables us to be aware of our perceptions. In this report, Aristotle’s view from De anima III.2, according to which it is the special senses that are aware of their own operations (Philoponus 1887, 463.29–32), is explicitly contrasted with Alexander’s view, according to which it is the common sense that supplies awareness of the operations of the special senses: ‘Alexander in his Commentary makes the five senses aware of their underlying sense objects, whereas he makes the common sense aware of both the underlying objects and their activities’ (Philoponus 1887, 464.20–23).16 This is an interesting finding because it shows that, although Alexander’s De anima closely follows Aristotle’s De anima in plan and doctrine, Alexander is sufficiently independent to depart from the particular ideas in Aristotle’s De anima in favour of ideas stated in Aristotle’s other works when such ideas are more suitable for Alexander’s present purposes. And, again, I would argue that it is due to Alexander’s influence on posterity that the common sense came to be regarded as the source of perceptual awareness in the later Arabic and Latin scholastic tradition.

3.4 Functions of the Common Sense: Perception of the Common Sensibles The last function Alexander attributes to the common sense is perception of the common sensibles – features such as shapes and sizes that are accessible to more than one special sense. No doubt Alexander’s attribution of this function is inspired

16 Alexander’s

commentary on Aristotle’s De anima is lost, but the view described in this passage is found in Alexander’s De anima 65.2–10.

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by Aristotle’s De anima III.1, 425a14–28, where he says that ‘for the common sensibles we now have aisth¯esin koin¯en’. Here I would like to make a digression. I have argued elsewhere that the quoted passage from Aristotle’s De anima III.1 should not be interpreted to the effect that the common sensibles are perceived by the common sense. Rather, it should be interpreted in a more nuanced way, as stating that the special senses have a shared sensitivity to the common sensibles.17 Of course, this shared sensitivity to the common sensibles is due to the presence of the common sense which unifies the special senses, but that is not equivalent to saying that we perceive the common sensibles by the common sense. Surely we would all agree that the red colour of a tomato is seen, that is perceived by the sense of vision, but would anyone seriously claim that the round shape of the tomato is not really seen, but perceived by the common sense? I do not think so. Aristotle himself says that we see shapes, sizes, motions, etc.18 To be sure, we would not be able to see these features, had our vision not been unified with the other senses by the common sense; but granted that our vision is thus unified, and given that we have seen and felt many things in the past and compared the reports of our senses, we are now as a matter of fact able to see the common sensibles. Let me put the same point differently. Instead of relegating the perception of the common sensibles to the common sense, I take Aristotle to be expanding the special senses, so that, in addition to perceiving their underlying special sensibles, they also perceive the common sensibles. I have already quoted Aristotle’s remark that ‘to perceive by vision is not a single thing’ (De anima III.1, 425b20–22), with the example of vision discriminating not only colours, but also light and darkness. So, a special sense, on Aristotle’s view, cannot be reduced to its narrow function specified in its definition. The definition accurately captures the essence of a special sense considered in full theoretical abstraction, independently of the perceptual system in which every token of every special sense in fact happens to be embedded. However, since no special sense ever occurs unembedded, I would claim that, in addition to its innate or essential sensitivity to one type of special sensible, each special sense acquires sensitivity to the common sensibles as the animal experiences the world. This acquired sensitivity, of course, presupposes integration of the special senses and functioning of the common sense in the perceiver’s early career.19 With these conditions fulfilled, however, the common sensibles are perceived by the special senses – we can see (and feel) shapes and sizes.

17 Gregoric

(2007: 69–82). e.g., De anima II.6, 418a19–20; III.1, 425b9–11; De sensu 1, 437a5–9. 19 Of course, not every special sense is sensitive to all types of common sensibles, e.g. we cannot perceive shapes by hearing (Aristotle’s claim in De anima II.6, 418a18–19 must be a careless overstatement). Also, not every special sense is equally sensitive to any given type of common sensible, e.g. we are better at perceiving motion by vision than by hearing. I would also argue that the special senses improve their sensitivity to the common sensibles with experience, e.g. our vision gets better or more reliable at perceiving sizes and shapes of distant things. 18 See,

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In contrast to my interpretation of Aristotle, Alexander says very clearly that the common sensibles are perceived by the common sense. His argument at 65.17–19 is that the common sensibles are not visible, because they do not accompany only colours but also other types of special sensibles; they are not tangible, because they do not accompany only tactile qualities but also other types of special sensibles, etc. This argument presupposes that whatever is visible must be a colour or something that accompanies only colours, and it fails to do justice to the very deep intuition that the common sensibles are indeed visible as well as tangible, and so on. I suppose that Alexander’s ascription of perception of the common sensibles to the common sense has influenced generations of interpreters who follow him in taking this, in my opinion, insufficiently nuanced view. However, there are three places in which Alexander seems to contradict himself. Twice in his commentary on De sensu (84.20 and 85.14) he in fact says that it is the sense of vision that apprehends shape and size. More importantly, there is a passage in his De anima which comes some pages after his account of the common sense, where he says: ‘Vision perceives a colour at the same time as it gains perception of size, shape, and motion or rest that come together with the colour’ (83.19–21). Apparently, Alexander also felt the tug of the intuition that the common sensibles are genuinely visible, tangible, and so forth. In any case, ascribing the perception of the common sensibles to the common sense seems somewhat more problematic or counterintuitive than ascribing the first two functions to it, namely perceptual discrimination and perceptual awareness. It is interesting to observe, before moving on to the next section, that Alexander adds ‘distance’ (apost¯ema, 65.14) to the list of the common sensibles, without any indication that in doing so he goes beyond Aristotle. Adding ‘distance’ to the list of common sensibles does not seem to be Alexander’s innovation, however. Already Theophrastus (1857, 36.5 and 54.10 = Diels [1879], 509.21 and 514.32) mentions diast¯ema twice in his De sensu, along with size and motion, so the inclusion of distance in the list of the common sensibles was probably a part of the Peripatetic lore long before Alexander.20

3.5 The Analogy I have pointed out that Alexander’s solution to the problem of perceptual discrimination proceeds in two parts, or rather in two steps. In the first step (62.3–63.5) he appeals to the immateriality of perception, whereas in the second step (63.6–65.2) 20 In

the Mantissa (146.30–31), Alexander distinguishes between apost¯ema, which refers to the distance between the perceiver and the object, and diast¯ema, which refers to the distance between two perceived objects. Apparently, Galen was not aware of that distinction when he criticized Aristotle for failing to explain ‘how we recognize the position or size or distance (diast¯ema) of each perceived object’ (De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis VII.7, 470.17–18 De Lacey); see Ierodiakonou (1999).

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Fig. 3.1 Alexander’s analogy

he introduces the analogy with the centre of a circle in which different radii meet (see Fig. 3.1). I have argued earlier that the first step leaves it undecided whether perceptual discrimination is done by the special senses or by the common sense, so the second step is needed to establish that it is the common sense. In this section I will argue that the first step is also necessary to make the second one work. So, let us look at the second step. Alexander introduces the analogy of the common sense with the centre of the circle (63.6–13), and then applies it first to the case of perceptual discrimination of heterogeneous sensibles (63.13–64.4), and then to the case of perceptual discrimination of homogeneous sensibles (64.4–65.2). In the first application, Alexander argues as follows. Insofar as the common sense is the end-point of different affections produced by the special sensibles in the peripheral sense organs, the common sense is many; insofar as it is an immaterial (as¯omatos, 63.18) power of the entire central sense organ and each part of it, the common sense is one and indivisible. He unpacks this still further (63.19–28): insofar as the common sense is many, it simultaneously perceives different special sensibles, because it is the power and the end-point, as it were, of each sense organ; insofar as the end-points of all sense organs coincide in one and the same thing, namely in the common sense housed in the heart, it discriminates the differences of the perceived special sensibles at one and indivisible time. The upshot of this is that the problem of perceptual discrimination of heterogeneous sensibles is solved because the common sense is both one and many. The analogy is applied in much the same way to the case of perceptual discrimination of homogeneous sensibles. The peripheral sense organ, Alexander observes, is affected at different parts by different homogeneous special sensibles. So, in the toughest case of two contrary sensibles, such as white and black, white

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affects one part of the eye and black affects another part, so that the principle of excluded contraries is respected: it is not one and the same thing in the same part that is both white and black at the same time, but in two different parts. When these two contrary affections reach the central sense organ – and presumably they reach two neighbouring (parapl¯esi¯os, 64.8–9) parts of the central sense organ – they are simultaneously perceived and discriminated against one another by one and the same perceptual power which is the form of the whole central sense organ, i.e. by the common sense in the heart. Insofar as the common sense is one, then, it satisfies the two conditions for perceptual discrimination (that the discriminating thing be one, and that the time of discrimination be one), and insofar as it is many, it conforms to the principle of excluded contraries. That is, insofar as it is many, the common sense simultaneously perceives white and black – white on account of being the immaterial power which informs that part of the central sense organ which is affected by the white colour of an external object, and black on account of being the immaterial power which informs the neighbouring part of the central sense organ which is affected by the black colour of the external object. Observe the stress laid on the immateriality of the common sense: it is because the common sense is immaterial – namely, it is the form of the whole central sense organ – that it can be affected by any number of sensible qualities that arrive from the peripheral sense organs to different parts of the central sense organ.21 Affections arriving from the eyes and from the ears will arrive at different regions of the heart, whereas affections of white and black from two neighbouring parts of the eye will arrive at two neighbouring parts of the same region of the heart; either way, the common sense, being one and the same form of the whole central organ, registers them all at once. As we have seen, the immateriality thesis was introduced in the first step of Alexander’s solution, and now it is clear that the analogy introduced in the second step could not possibly work without it. In other words, had Alexander not introduced the immateriality thesis, his analogy would be badly spoilt. Saying that affections from different peripheral sense organs (or from different parts of the same peripheral sense organ) arrive at different parts of the central sense organ would be analogous to different radii of a circle that terminate in different points around the centre, as shown in Fig. 3.2. In this picture nothing corresponds to a single thing that does the discriminating job! So the immateriality thesis in step one was absolutely necessary for Alexander’s modification of Aristotle’s original analogy with a point bisecting a line.

21 The immateriality thesis is particularly stressed in Alexander’s longer explanation of the analogy,

in Quaestio III.9: ‘For this capacity , being one and, as it were, the end-point of this body of which it is the capacity, since it is the final destination to which the changes travel; being incorporeal, indivisible and uniform everywhere (as¯omatos te ousa, kai adiairetos kai homoia pant¯ei), it is a single capacity, yet it becomes in a way many on account of perceiving similarly the changes in each part of the body of which it is a capacity, whether the change comes about in it in some one part or in several’ (98.12–17).

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Fig. 3.2 Alexander’s analogy without the immateriality thesis

Fig. 3.3 Aristotle’s original analogy

How did Aristotle arrive at his original analogy? He wondered how one and the same thing can simultaneously perceive and discriminate two special sensibles. For two heterogeneous sensibles, like white and sweet, he had a solution. The thing which simultaneously perceives and discriminates two heterogeneous sensibles is much like a physical object which instantiates different properties at the same time – like an apple which is fragrant, red and cold at the same time. There is no problem for one thing to be at the same time like a colour and like a flavour.22 However, this solution did not work for homogeneous sensibles, especially not for the contraries in each type of special sensible; no one thing can at the same time be like white and like black.23 So Aristotle had to find another solution. And he found it in the analogy with a point bisecting a line, which he set forth at the end of De anima III.2, 427a9–14 and repeated at III.7, 431a20–b1 (see Fig. 3.3). The idea of the analogy is that one and the same point can be two contraries at the same time. As Fig. 3.3 shows, point B is the end-point of section AB and the starting-point of section BC. Likewise, a sense can simultaneously perceive two contrary qualities, say white and black, and discriminate them at one and indivisible time. This analogy, I take it, was only meant to show that it is possible that there be something which is one and two contraries at the same time, since being a startingpoint and being an end-point are contraries. But this analogy was not meant to be

22 Aristotle, 23 De

De sensu 7, 449a2–20; cf. De anima III.2, 426b29–427a5. anima III.2, 426b29–427a9.

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unpacked as a suggestion as to how the sense achieves this unity and contrariety at the same time. In other words, Aristotle’s analogy with a point bisecting a line does not contain anything approaching an explanation of the operation of the sense when it simultaneously perceives and discriminates two contrary sensibles. Its sole function was to show that it is not preposterous to think that a sense could do such a thing, not to explain how it does that. One might say that the weakness of Alexander’s analogy with the centre of a circle in which different radii meet is that it fails to show how a single thing can instantiate contrariety at the same time, since there is no contrariety involved in point B being the end-point of radius AB, the end-point of radius CB, etc. This analogy can explain only perceptual discrimination of heterogeneous sensibles, where different qualities like white and sweet are not mutually contrary. There are two ways to reply to this objection. First, one can argue that this is a weakness of Alexander’s analogy only if one judges it from the background of Aristotle’s reasoning at the end of De anima III.2, where the immateriality thesis is not utilized. Alexander’s analogy, as we have seen, is built on different grounds than Aristotle’s analogy. Second, one might propose to amend Alexander’s analogy by drawing different diameters passing through point B (Fig. 3.4), which then accommodates Aristotle’s reasoning. The diameter AC is bisected by point B at the centre, which is at the same time the starting-point of the radius BC and the end-point of the radius AB.24 Fig. 3.4 Alexander’s analogy amended

24 I would like to note a minor inconvenience with the amendment of Alexander’s analogy proposed

in Fig. 3.4. The contraries, which affect the same sense organ, are represented in the amended analogy by two points on opposite sides of the circumference, e.g. A and C or D and E. That spoils

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Returning to Alexander’s original analogy (Fig. 3.1), its comparative advantage over Aristotle’s original analogy (Fig. 3.3) is that it encapsulates a model of how the whole thing works. Its purpose is not only to show that something is possible, as with Aristotle’s analogy with a point bisecting a line, but to explain how perceptual discrimination takes place. The special sensibles affect the peripheral sense organs, and these affections reach the central sense organ. Because there is a single perceptual power informing the whole central sense organ, the affections arriving to the central sense organ from different peripheral sense organs are all perceived at the same time and discriminated from one another. Alexander’s analogy works almost as a diagram of a human being, with a periphery and the heart as a central organ. It is because of the intuitive power of Alexander’s analogy, I suggest, that it became the standard interpretation of Aristotle’s analogy in De anima III.2, used by Plotinus (IV.7.6.11–14), and pretty much all later commentators on Aristotle.25 To conclude this section, if we look at the two steps of Alexander’s solution to the problem of perceptual discrimination – the idea that perception and discrimination are non-material, and the idea that the common sense is like the centre of a circle in which different radii converge – we see that they rely on one another. The first step supplies to the second the crucial premise of immateriality, which allows the common sense to perceive simultaneously and discriminate not only heterogeneous sensibles, such as white and sweet, but also homogeneous sensibles, such as white and black, much like air allows for the simultaneous mediation of white and black in the case of a white Caucasian and a black African staring at each other. The second step in turn completes the first one with the crucial specification that it is one and the same perceptual power located in the central sense organ that perceives and discriminates all special sensibles, including the contraries such as white and black, not the special senses located in peripheral sense organs.

3.6 Conclusion I have argued that Alexander, while being generally faithful to Aristotle regarding the common sense, made four lasting contributions to this topic. First, he restricted the term ‘common sense’ (koin¯e aisth¯esis) to the unified perceptual power of the soul which excludes phantasia. This blazed a trail for later theories of the internal

the analogy as a representation of the cardiocentric model, which requires each radius to represent one peripheral sense organ linked to the central organ located (very roughly) in the middle of the body. 25 Themistius (1899, 86.18–25), (Ps.)Simplicius (1882, 196.31, 200.26, 270.27–29), (Ps.)Philoponus (1887, 481.7–11), Michael of Ephesus (1903, 47.23–48.2), (1904, 105.6–11), Sophonias (1883, 114.24–28). For Alexander as the source of Plotinus’ analogy with the centre of the circle, but also for Plotinus’ familiarity with Aristotle’s original analogy of the bisected line, see Henry (1957, 433–440).

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senses in which the common sense figures as a non-rational cognitive capacity distinct from phantasia, memory, and whatever further capacity various Arabic and Latin scholastic philosophers may have postulated. Second, Alexander’s claim that we perceive ourselves seeing and hearing by means of the common sense, rather than by the special senses, influenced (correctly, in my opinion) later readings of Aristotle’s passages dealing with awareness of perception, giving preference to Aristotle’s account in De somno et vigilia 2, 455a16–17, over his more widely read account in De anima III.2, 425b12–25. Third, Alexander’s statement that the common sensibles are perceived by the common sense, rather than by the special senses, made its mark (incorrectly, in my opinion) on later readings of Aristotle’s passages dealing with the common sensibles, most notably of De anima III.1, 425a14–425b11. Fourth, Alexander’s analogy of the common sense with the centre of a circle in which different radii meet, though inspired by Aristotle’s analogy with a point bisecting a line in De anima III.2, 427a9–14, was a brilliant innovation that intuitively captured the Peripatetic cardiocentric model, leaving a deep impression on later students of Aristotle. That analogy, however, required the immateriality thesis which Alexander supplied in the first part of his solution to the problem of perceptual discrimination, the part that has no direct parallel in Aristotle.

Bibliography Alexander of Aphrodisias. (1882). Quaestiones – De fato – De mixtione (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, Vol. 2, Pars 2, I. Bruns, Ed.). Berlin: Reimer. Alexander of Aphrodisias. (1887). De anima liber cum Mantissa (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, Vol. 2, Pars 1, I. Bruns, Ed.). Berlin: Reimer. Alexander of Aphrodisias. (1901). In librum De sensu (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, Vol. 3, P. Wendland, Ed.), Berlin: Reimer. Accattino, P., & Donini, P. (1996). Alessandro di Afrodisia: L’anima. Roma: Laterza. Bergeron, M., & Defour, R. (2008). Alexandre d’Aphrodise: De l’âme. Paris: Vrin. Caston, V. (2004). The Spirit and the Letter: Aristotle on Perception. In R. Salles (Ed.), Metaphysics, soul and ethics: Themes from the work of Richard Sorabji (pp. 245–320). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Corcilius, K., & Gregoric, P. (2013). Aristotle’s model of animal motion. Phronesis, 58(1), 52–97. Di Martino, C. (2013). Ratio particularis: Doctrine des sens internes d’Avicenne à Thomas d’Aquin. Paris: Vrin. Diels, H. (1879). Doxographi Graeci. Berlin: Reimer. Gregoric, P. (2007). Aristotle on the common sense. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gregoric, P. (2020). The Origin and the Instrument of Animal Motion – De Motu Animalium, Chapters 9 and 10. In O. Primavesi & C. Rapp (eds.), Aristotle, De Motu Animalium (Proceedings of the XIXth Symposium Aristotelicum). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Henry, P. (1957). Une comparaison chez Aristote, Alexandre et Plotin. In E. R. Dodds (Ed.), Les sources de Plotin. Geneva: Fondation Hardt. Ierodiakonou, K. (1999). Galen’s criticism of the Aristotelian theory of colour vision. In C. Natali & S. Maso (Eds.), Antiaristotelismo (pp. 123–141). Amsterdam: Hakkert. Johansen, T. K. (2012). The powers of Aristotle’s soul. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Michael of Ephesus. (1903). In libros Parva naturalia (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, Vol. 22(1), M. Hayduck, Ed.). Berlin: Reimer.

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Michael of Ephesus. (1904). In libros De partibus animalium, De animalium motione, De animalium incessu (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, Vol. 22(2), M. Hayduck, Ed.). Berlin: Reimer. Perälä, M. (2019). Perceiving that We See and Hear in Aristotle’s de Anima. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 101(3), 317–344. Philoponus. (1887). In Aristotelis De anima libros (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, Vol. 15, M. Hayduck, Ed.). Berlin: Reimer. Simplicius. (1882). In libros Aristotelis De anima (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, Vol. 11, M. Hayduck, Ed.). Berlin: Reimer. Sophonias. (1883). In libros Aristotelis De anima paraphrasis (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, Vol. 23, M. Hayduck, Ed.). Berlin: Reimer. Themistius. (1899). In libros Aristotelis De anima paraphrasis (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, Vol. 5, R. Heinze, Ed.). Berlin: Reimer. Theophrastus. (1857). Theophrasti Eresii opera quae supersunt omnia. Vol. 4: Fragmenta (F. Wimmer, Ed.). Leipzig: Teubner.

Chapter 4

Stop Making Sense(s): Some Late Medieval and Very Late Medieval Views on Faculty Psychology José Filipe Silva

During the last few decades, following a period of relative neglect, the topic of the internal senses has received new substantial contributions. Seminal studies from the 1960s and 1970s, namely Wolfson and Harvey,1 as well as the critical edition of Avicenna’s De anima contributed to a safe establishment of the status-quo view on the internal processing faculties, especially in the context of the Aristotelian tradition and its commentators. Of course, in a sense there is only the Aristotelian tradition in what concerns the internal senses, because this is largely an Aristotelian affair: the issue arises mostly in what concerns the model of cognition initiated by Aristotle and interpreted in a variety of ways during the medieval period, especially after Avicenna. I will return to this later on. For now, I want to clear away a related issue in the literature that is often associated with the question of the internal senses but that, to my mind, should be taken separately, if one is to aim at achieving some conceptual clarity on the matter. Here I am referring to the conflation between the number of the internal senses and the question of the unicity versus plurality of substantial forms in a living composite. Traditionally, the human soul is described as being constituted by the vegetative, sensitive, and intellective potentiae or clusters of faculties that explain the range of functions humans are capable of. Faculties, on the other hand, such as the common sense and phantasy in the sensitive soul and the will in the intellective soul are

1 H.

A. Wolfson, “The Internal Senses in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew Philosophic Texts,” Harvard Theological Review 28:2 (1935), 69–133; E. R. Harvey, The Inward Wits: Psychological Theory in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (London: The Warburg Institute-University of London, 1935).

J. F. Silva () Department of Philosophy, History and Art Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 S. N. Mousavian, J. L. Fink (eds.), The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6_4

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cognitive operational units that have modes of operation and proper objects that define them, and in some cases even specific bodily locations. The conflation of the question about a plurality of forms and about the number of internal senses contributes to muddling the water is that if a given author subscribes to the existence of a plurality of forms or potentiae, each of which being a cluster of functions, then the conclusion that there are several powers or faculties (vires) in the soul is unsurprising. In other words, if we approach the issue from the point of view of the plurality of potentiae, will inevitably end up with a plurality of faculties. Instead, I suggest that the best way to proceed is to focus on the unity or plurality of functions within one particular cluster, for instance the sensitive soul.2 The objective is to concentrate exclusively on those faculties that receive, retain, and process the sensory information acquired from the external senses in isolation from how a given author conceives of the soul as a whole, and the relation between the different potentiae within one human soul. Having narrowed the focus to one such cluster of functions, we can proceed to examine what the philosophical tradition says about the unity or plurality of the powers within the sensitive soul. The dominant view, established after the reception in the Latin West of the Aristotelian works on natural philosophy, in particular the De anima, is that there is an array of sensory faculties or internal senses, with the Avicennian schema of five forming the starting point. Overviews of the question in the medieval period, such as the above-mentioned Harvey and Wolfson, emphasize this pluralist account of the internal senses. More recent work includes Perler’s (2015) volume The Faculties for the Oxford Philosophical Concepts series, and Perler and Corcilius’ (2014) edited volume Partitioning the Soul,3 reinforce this focus on pluralist models. As a result, it would seem to the uninitiated reader that all medieval thinkers were on the pluralist side of the debate. (In fact, if these overviews were right, there would be no debate.) I would like to investigate whether there are alternative accounts of faculty psychology that do not posit a multiplicity of internal senses. The main task I set out for this chapter is to show that there were some authors who argue for the reduction of the number of internal processing faculties, in some cases to one allencompassing power. Derivative tasks include understanding what the philosophical justification for such a model is, if there is one, and whether we can find shared, common assumptions underlying this proposed reduction. But this is an ambitious project, which can only be initiated in this chapter. The justification for such an attempt is twofold. On the one hand, it fits well with recent interpretations of Aristotle that tend to read his theory of perceptual functions as the working of one unified perceptual faculty, rather than the ontologically distinct powers that the 2 It

is interesting to observe that the same thing happened in the historiography of the reduced number of internal senses as it did in what concerns the plurality of forms: these two models were largely dominant in the medieval period, but overviews tend to emphasize the opposite view as the “normal one.” 3 D. Perler, The Faculties: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); K. Corcilius and D. Perler, eds., Partitioning the Soul: Debates from Plato to Leibniz (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014).

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post-Avicennian tradition retrospectively attributes to him.4 On the other hand, the purpose is to investigate a largely neglected branch in the tradition of philosophical psychology devoted to the unification of psychological functions. In the first part of this paper (sections I-III), I focus on a brief historical/developmental account of theories of reduction in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In the second part (sections IV-V), I will focus on two late sixteenth−/early seventeenth-century models of internal senses, those of Francisco Suárez and Manuel de Góis (also known as the Coimbra Commentary on the De anima). In the conclusion, I will hopefully tie up the loose ends and suggest a general interpretation of the philosophical implications and consequences of such views.

4.1 Setting the Stage The third song of the Talking Heads album from which I paraphrased the title of this chapter is called “Slippery People” and has the lyrics “Try to recognize what is in your mind.” This could easily serve as the motto of any attempt by our medieval thinkers to make sense of the senses that allow us to have access to the things in the world and their properties. To know things in the world, we need to have this information made available to us in ways that are conducive of our cognitive awareness. I shall say very little if anything about this ‘intake’ part of the process, which depends on the exercise of the five sense modalities (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell)—also called the ‘external senses’. Instead, I focus on the stages when the information, which has been made available, is processed and retained for further downstream processing. In order to account for this variety of requirements, medieval thinkers took the soul to be constituted by faculties corresponding to different functions or operations. Some thinkers, most notably Avicenna, thought that this required establishing both a principle of identity—what makes a faculty the kind of thing it is—and a principle of distinction—what makes this faculty different from another one. As is well known, Avicenna proposes that the faculties of the sensitive soul, that is, common sense, retentive imagination, compositional imagination, estimative power, and memory be organized on the basis of three principles: 1. Distinction between those powers that deal with sensible forms (common sense and imagination) and those that deal with intentions (estimative and memory) 2. Distinction between those powers that receive information (common sense and estimative) and those that store information (imagination and memory)

4 See, for instance, D. Modrak, Aristotle: The Power of Perception (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); and A. Marmodoro, Aristotle on Perceiving Objects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

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3. Powers that process information (compositional imagination)5 This scheme allows for classifying the powers and distinguishing them from each other. But the principle of identity is found elsewhere, according to the basic notion that powers are defined by their objects; that is, to each kind of object must correspond a type of power. Different objects require different operations and the type of operation defines the faculty, as the scheme just presented shows. The simplicity of this scheme allowed for (and even stimulated) variation and interpretation throughout the medieval period. Once one reflects on it, however, it starts to make sense to ask two questions: what is the ontological status of these faculties and what is the subject of the operation of a given faculty? These two questions find their answers in the debates over the localization of the faculties and the relation between the powers and the essence of the soul. But under the general historical characterization that distinguishes cognitive faculties on the basis of their bodily location, there is an alternative account that resist this principle of distinction. According to this strand of faculty psychology that will be investigated in this paper, the explanatory focus is not on the identification of distinctive faculties on the basis of distinctive places in the brain and mechanisms of operative nature, but on the subject of the cognitive acts and the nature of the act itself. The core issue to be addressed, when talking about faculties in general and the inner senses in particular, boils down to the issue about the nature of the functions they perform and whether these are taken in such a robust sense as to require the positing of distinct ontological entities in addition to the soul itself. The localization issue raises problems of its own,6 but it can be interpreted in ways that lean one way (unification/simplification) or another (plurification/complexification), because the physical evidence is shown to be mostly inconclusive, as we shall see. This last aspect is of course not surprising once we consider the unlikely (medieval) proposition of postulating that different functions of the soul need to take place in certain bodily locations. This proposition is less problematic at face value in what concerns the external sense modalities, because there is the compelling case that bodily organs require certain dispositions that are proportional to the physical properties of the proper object of that sense. However, this same principle of

5 Avicenna,

Liber de anima seu sextus de naturalibus, edited by S. van Riet (Louvain-Leiden: Peeters-Brill, 1972), I.5, 79–89. See, e.g., Carla di Martino, Ratio Particularis. Doctrine des sens internes d’Avicenne à Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Vrin, 2008), 25–6. Thomas Aquinas, among others, will argue against the need to distinguish between compositional and retentive imagination. On a recent (but contentious) reading of Aquinas’ theory of perception (including his account of the internal senses), see Anthony J. Lisska, Aquinas’ Theory of Perception. An Analytic Reconstruction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). 6 The internal senses do not have organs, like the proper senses, but are located, i.e. have seats where they conduct or perform their operations. A lesion on one of these seats, in most cases brain cavities or ventricles, leads to the loss of the function. The questions of whether this is always the case and whether the lesion has consequences for the remaining psychological functions cannot be addressed here but are interesting in their own right.

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necessary material conditions for the exercise of psychological faculties cannot be simply transferred to the internal senses.

4.2 Olivi: Unification as a Mode of Activity Peter John Olivi is certainly one of the most interesting thinkers of the thirteenth century and he proves this also with respect to his account of the internal senses. In a series of questions in the second book of his Commentary to the Sentences of Peter Lombard, namely questions 62 to 66 he defines the role of the common sense followed by questions concerning the relation between the common sense and the other traditionally mentioned internal senses. Olivi starts by considering the distinction between the functions performed by the common sense and the proper senses and the possibility of there being no common sense. This possibility is quickly dismissed because, whereas the proper senses are directed to the external things and cannot as such have as object its own acts, the common sense is that power at the root of the sense modalities that takes the act of the senses as its own objects. In other words, while we perceive things outside the soul by means of the proper senses, we perceive that we are undergoing a perceptual experience—be that seeing or hearing—by means of the common sense. There is a sense, however, in which we apprehend by the common sense the objects of the proper senses, because one of the key functions of the common sense is to adjudicate between proper sensibles. Olivi claims that this can be done only if the judging capacity has direct access to those sensibles. It soon becomes clear that Olivi builds his argumentation on the basis of two central ideas: the first, as Toivanen (2013) demonstrates, is the centralizing and unifying role of sensation that the common sense, as a unique power, brings or allows. The idea is that there must be one power that receives, judges, and controls what goes on in the sense modalities and that it judges as it were from a neutral point of view. The common-sense perceives all acts of the proper senses (Quaestiones 73, 98; see Toivanen 2013). This leads to the second aspect, which is to consider the common sense as occupying the top of a hierarchy of powers, or better said, as the power that on its own is responsible for all perceptual functions, including awareness of itself as perceiving. This self-awareness clearly derives from the active nature of the sensitive soul.7 The common sense presides, rules, and connects all sense modalities. Significantly, the common sense is at the root of this activity of the soul

7“ . . .

vita quae sentit se sentire corporalia sentiat etiam se ipsam,” Peter John Olivi, Quaestiones in Secundum Librum Sententiarum (Quaestiones, hereafter) edited by B. Jansen (Florence: Quaracchi, 1924), q. 62, 589. (All translations are mine, except when otherwise noted.) In the continuation of the text, Olivi indicates that it is not clear (‘non ita clarum est’) what the content of that act by which the soul is aware of itself is: it can either be that the soul knows what it is or simply that the soul knows that it is. Thank you to a referee for insisting that I make this point clear.

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by controlling and regulating the unified intentional flow of the soul. This unity of the perceptual operations is explained also in terms of a common organic root, which is found in the heart and in the brain (see Quaestiones 73, 97). Whenever this unified intentionality is disturbed by competing stimuli, the common sense, as the root of sensation, must intervene and concentrate the aspectus or directed intentionality to one such stimulus (Quaestiones 59, 555). And this is due to the requirements that flow from what perception is all about, that is to keep the animal life going: to persevere in being. The same reasoning is then applied to the competition between different internal senses, which is the result of the close connection between powers in operation of the same soul—a connection expressed under the designation of ‘colligantia potentiarum’.8 What this mean is that these powers do not operate in a completely independent way, but that the operation of one is related to the operation of the others because the operation of one power is, in a sense, the operation of whole subject. Before continuing I would like to make three further points. The first is the explicit attribution of the source of attention to the sensitive soul, in two forms: the attention of the proper senses directed to their sense organs; and the attention of the common sense that is characterized by a general disposition for taking care of the well-being of the animal. The second point is that if one takes Olivi seriously on this common-sense based attention, we need to re-consider the nature of his direct perceptual realism. Take the following passage: Therefore, know first that the common sense can apprehend immediately no real or present object except the acts of the particular senses by [means of] which it apprehends their objects.9

He seems to be suggesting that what the common sense is primarily aware of, i.e. primarily attends to, are the acts of the proper senses and via them the things those acts are about. Or, if one wishes to be more charitable, one could say that it apprehends the objects of the acts by apprehending the acts that have those objects as objects—this is what he states in the continuation of the text. This suggestion is strengthened by the fact that this act of the common sense is voluntary. The final point concerns what Olivi says about the process of habituation or education (in a weak sense) by which one comes to develop a disposition to behave and judge incoming sensory information in a given way: Just like adult human beings can develop their skills in judging the quality and beneficial nature of a wine, and children become increasingly more proficient in reading.10 The motivation for Olivi to make this point is not to develop a robust account of learning, but rather to collapse the traditional functions belonging to different internal sensory powers, such as estimation and phantasy and memory unto that of the common sense. In 8 Peter

John Olivi, Quaestiones 50, 54; Toivanen 2013, 170. ergo primo quod sensus communis nullum obiectum reale et praesentiale potest immediate apprehendere nisi tantum actus particularium sensuum per quorum actus apprehendit obiecta eorum,” Peter John Olivi, Quaestiones, 594. 10 Peter John Olivi, Quaestiones 605. 9 “Sciendum

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other words, the best way for him to merge an account of intentions in estimation and species in memory with the unified account of the common sense is to give this very robust, all-encompassing role to the common sense. As Olivi grants no role to species, he needs not explain how these are found and retained in the internal senses and is therefore quite free to refute the argument from localization: that is to say, the argument that concludes from the existence of different requirements for the nature of the ventricles in the brain appropriated to the functions of the different powers. As there are no species, there are no different material requirements for the operations of receiving and retaining the species and, therefore, no clear distinction between internal senses based on localization.

4.3 Buridan: Simplification to One An approach with a similar outlook is found in John Buridan, namely in questions 10, 22 and 23 of book II of the De anima.11 Before proceeding to the way Buridan addresses the question of the number of the internal senses, it is necessary to make some general remarks about his theory of perception. In question 10, Buridan make a clear case for the view that perception requires the existence of species. There could be no sensation if there were no reception of the species in the organ of sense, because the species is the representation of the thing and thus that which allows us to perceive the external thing. Existing in a state of first actuality, the soul is disposed for perception, but the act of sensation itself (thus, the second actuality) requires the determination of the species. But he also argues that this reception is not enough for the perceptual act, that is, the act of awareness of a sensible property via its species. The soul is the formative principle of sensation. The conclusion is that perception presupposes a division of labor: species dispose the sense organs in a way that makes them receptive to the act of sensation caused by the soul. I will return to this issue later on in this Section. But this is a general way of describing the process, which needs to be fleshed out in psychological terms of powers and operations. In question 22 about whether it is necessary to posit a common sense in addition to the particular senses, Buridan gives four reasons for an affirmative answer. The first is that the external senses do not perceive their own acts; it is therefore necessary to posit an internal sense that is not itself being changed by the change of the external thing caused in the organs of the proper senses, but is that by means of which one judges that one sees or hears. The second reason is that the external senses cognize nothing in the absence of receiving sensible species. We experience privation, for instance, when we perceive darkness in a dark room with our eyes open. The third reason is that we have experiences of things in their absence, as in the case of dreaming, which could

11 For

a different account of Buridan and the internal senses, see Sander de Boer, “John Buridan on the Internal Senses,” Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 25 (2014), 403–21.

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not be the case if we had not kept the species of those things once present. Fourthly, we are able to combine and separate the images of perceived things, and judge in addition the difference and agreement between the objects of the different sense modalities: we judge that this thing, which is white, is also sweet, just in the way a dog we call also judges that the one it sees is the same one calling him. Neither of these operations can be done by the external senses because this requires a power that knows the objects of the different senses about which it adjudicates, whereas the external senses in their own operations are limited to their own proper object, such as color to sight. Only an internal sense, in this case the common sense, can do so. Once proved that there is an internal sense, Buridan reflects in the following question on the traditional division of the cognitive operations of the sensory soul into distinct faculties. This is an important issue: it is one thing to recognize the existence of different operations and another to assert the need for the different operations to be performed by distinct powers. It is to this second issue that Buridan turns next. His starting point is the question of whether there is, in addition to the common sense, other internal senses. He presents a series of arguments that are worth serious consideration.12 Throughout the question, Buridan lists the full range of psychological faculties found in the tradition, that is, the common sense, phantasy, imagination, memory, estimative and cogitative power. He evaluates their role and describes their functions, but concludes for all of them that each of these functions can be performed equally well by a single faculty, the common sense. To be clear, Buridan is not reducing the number of functions, but rather the number of faculties that would be necessary to perform those functions and thus distinguished on the basis of them. In his words, Different names are imposed on the same power according to the different operations [it performs].13

The claim is that the existence of different operations does not entail the existence of different performing faculties; rather, one and the same power is responsible for all processing functions, and we give different names to those different cognitive functions. For example, we refer to the common sense’s function of considering the species in the absence of the object “phantasy”, but ‘phantasy’ is distinguished from the common sense in a functional or operative sense rather than an ontological one. Buridan is not in the business of multiplying faculties; instead, he takes it that one and the same faculty can perform a multiplicity of operations. The only exception Buridan makes to this unification principle is to the existence of what he calls a non-cognitive power (virtus non cogniscitiva) that retains the

12 “Whether

it is necessary to postulate other internal senses in addition to the common sense” (“Utrum oportet, preter sensum communem, ponere alios sensus interiores”), John Buridan, Quaestiones on Aristotle’s De anima, in P. Sobol, John Buridan on the Soul and Sensation: an Edition of Book II of His Commentary on Aristotle’s Book on the Soul, PhD Dissertation 1984, 23. 13 “Eidem enim virtuti secundum eius diversas operationes imponuntur talis diversa nomina,” John Buridan, Quaestiones . . . , 385.

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acquired sensory information—the species and intentions—and makes it available for further processing. That power is memory. It is worth noting that Buridan presents this conclusion—of the existence of this second power—reluctantly, as if forced to accept it on the basis of experiential evidence, rather than because it is philosophically imposing. In fact, Buridan points out that this retaining noncognitive faculty is not another—in addition to the common sense—from the point of view of the soul, i.e. of the cognitive subject, but from the point of view of the organ and act.14 If I understand what is going on here, it seems that Buridan is saying that retaining species and intentions require the existence of an appropriated organ but that this retention and the power responsible for it are not properly part of the cognitive process. One of the most striking arguments is that if there were other sensory faculties, they would be superior to the common sense because this is at the root of the proper senses; but he claims, the common sense is that superior power with respect to the proper senses. That is why, he argues, Aristotle himself never talked about any other internal sense than the common sense.15 Therefore, also on the basis of authority, there is no other cognitive sensitive internal power beyond the common sense.16

Making it clear that a perceiver need not have different powers to receive and process the species or intentions representative of (aspects of) things present in sensation, Buridan develops a conception of two levels of sensation, one incomplete taking place in the proper senses and another completing taking place in the common sense. Let me explain this, because I think the details are relevant. To completely follow this lead, I will also examine question 25 of the same second book of Buridan’s De anima.17

14 ‘About

the first doubt it must be said in this first conclusion that, in addition to the common sense and the individual cognitive powers, there is another, non-cognitive power that is a retainer of sensible species and intentions. And I do not say that it is another [additional] part of the soul, as it is said of others, but a part of the organ and operation.’ (“De prima dubitatione ponenda est hec prima conclusio, quod, preter sensum communem et singulas virtutes cognoscitivas, ponenda est aliqua virtus non cognoscitiva reservativa specierum sensibilium et intentionum. Et non dico quod sit alia ex parte anime, sicut alias dictum est, sed ex parte organi et operis,”) John Buridan, Quaestiones . . . , 380. 15 ‘Therefore, it was not the intention of Aristotle that there would be another sensitive faculty above the common sense’ (“Igitur non erat intentio Aristotelis quod supra sensum commune esset aliqua alia sensitive virtus”), John Buridan, Quaestiones . . . , 379. 16 ‘ . . . there is no internal sensitive cognitive faculty in addition to the common sense’ (“ . . . preter sensum commune, nulla est virtus sensitive cognoscitiva interior”), John Buridan, Quaestiones . . . , 382. 17 A completely different picture emerges from reading Steneck 1970, because he grounds his interpretation on question 27 of the second book that is not edited in Sobol. Steneck’s reading is based on the first versions of the commentary, whereas Sobol’s edition is from the third lectura. On the difference between these two versions, see Deborah Black, “Imagination, Particular Reason, and Memory: The Role of the Internal Senses in Human Cognition,” in A Companion to Medieval Theories of Cognition, ed. R. L. Friedman and M. Pickavé (forthcoming).

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In this latter question, Buridan establishes an important distinction between sensation as taking place in the (organs of the) proper senses and sensation as taking place in the (organ of the) common sense. The question takes off from the apparent impasse we are left with in question 10: on the one hand, the species which are received in the sense organs are necessary, but not sufficient to explain perception; on the other hand, a number of cases such as the lack of perception during sleep and the phenomenon of double image makes it clear that there is more to perception than having the species in the sense organs. The question then is whether what we call perception includes, already at its basic level, processing faculties. Buridan’s answer is, yes and no. Aristotle had called the common sense and its organ “the first sensitive” (primum sensitivum), which would seem to indicate that whatever is perceived is perceived by the common sense. Moreover, perception seems to include judgment about what is received in the proper senses and the capacity to represent things in different places. But against this evidence, Buridan argues that the reception of intentions in the eye requires the action of the soul in the sense organ, thus vision takes place primarily in the eye rather than in the common sense.18 However, he is quick to add that from these acts of perception is excluded the awareness of having a perceptual experience because we do not perceive ourselves as sensing except by an act formed in the common sense.19

The basic thought is then that the visual experience is sort of “phenomenologically empty,” to use modern terminology, without being integrated into the operation of the common sense and its act of basic awareness of ourselves as experiencing the visual sensation. If we do not attend to the experience, for instance in the case of being distracted or sleeping, we are unable to know that we have sensed (Sobol, ed., 419), despite the fact that something has been received in the external senses. This leads Buridan to conclude that in these cases, there is an incomplete sensation and that such a sensation is complete only when the species that are representative of the sensible things are received at and are processed by the common sense, and we come to be aware of what they represent. Buridan seems to be operating on a different level from the explicit statements found in Olivi, which clearly associated the unity of the internal sense to the unity of the perceptual experience. But there is an unequivocal shared tendency to associate the description of how we perceive, and its somewhat active nature, and the unity of the internal sense that roots this perceptual experience.

18 ‘the

first activity of the sensitive soul is necessary for the making of those intentions and indeed the actual vision of whatever these intentions are representative’ (“ . . . ad quas intentiones faciendas requiritur actio anime sensitive prima, ymo actualis visio cuiusmodi iste intentiones sunt representative”), John Buridan, Quaestiones . . . , 418. 19 ‘But we do not perceive ourselves perceiving except by means of an act formed in the common sense’ (“Sed non percipimus nos sentire nisi per actum in sensu communi formatum”), John Buridan, Quaestiones . . . , 418.

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4.4 Suárez: One Is Enough Francisco Suárez presents a detailed discussion of the internal senses in his Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis De anima, Eighth Disputation, which is divided into two questions.20 There is much to say about the context of this disputation, especially in relation to the issue of his account of perception in general, but this is not the place for such context. Instead my focus is on the principle of distinction between the inner senses. Suárez starts by stating that an internal sense is needed in addition to the external senses (or sense modalities) in order to explain two aspects of the perceptual experience: one, the discerning of the differences between the objects per se of the sense modalities (like color to sight) and two, the perception of the operations or acts of the external senses.21 Once the necessity of such power is asserted, one needs to consider whether one power is enough or several powers must be posited. Traditionally, Suárez goes on to say, up to seven functions of this internal sense are named, namely common sense, phantasy, imagination, estimation, cogitation, memory, and reminiscence.22 The question is whether there is only a nominal distinction between them that corresponds to the different operations, or whether these are really distinct faculties, the ontological status of which needs to be investigated.23 In the continuation of the text, Suárez considers the latter option, listing all these powers together with their specific functions and how they relate to one another. The first in the list is the common sense, which is thought to stand at the root of the different sense modalities. To be at the root is essential for it to perform the function of receiving and judging the objects of the proper senses and it is precisely having

20 I

use the following edition: Francisco Suárez, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristootelis De Anima, ed. S. Castellote. T. 1: Madrid, Sociedad de estudios y publicaciones, 1978; t. II: Madrid, Labor, 1981; t. III: Madrid, Fundación Xavier Zubiri, 1991. In a recent article (‘The Internal Sense(s) in Early Jesuit Scholasticism’, Filosofický cˇ asopis 2 (2017), 133–148), Daniel Heider presents similar conclusions to mine with respect to Suárez and de Góis. As I only had knowledge of Heider’s article after submitting this piece, I wasn’t able to take it into account. 21 ‘In addition to the external senses, it is necessary to postulate an internal sense, which discriminates between the proper sensibles of the external senses and cognises their [i.e., the internal senses’] operations’ (“Praeter sensus externos, necesse est ponere alium sensum interiorem, qui discernat inter sensibilia propria sensuum externorum, et eorum operationes cognoscat”), Disputatio VIII, 3. 22 ‘In this question I consider the interior sense and consider it under these seven names: common sense, phantasy, imaginative [power], estimative [power], cogitative [power], memory and reminiscence’ (“In hac quaestione suppono dari sensum interiorem, ad cuius suppositionem notandum est quod haec septem nomina: sensus communis, phantasia, imaginativa, aestimativa, cogitativa, memoria, et reminiscentia”), Disputatio VIII, q.1, 3. 23 ‘either signify different powers or the same as the source of different activities’ (“sive significent potentias diversas, sive eamdem, prout est principium diversorum actuum”), Disputatio VIII, q.1, 3.

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all the sensibles as objects that define the common sense.24 In order to be able to judge these objects, a power like that needs to know these objects, which is made possible by both the power and the organ receiving the species from the object.25 On the other hand, Suárez notes, the power that is capable of knowing all sensible things, even when these are absent, is phantasy.26 Because it is able to know them as absent, phantasy must not only be able to know, but also to keep them, which is the task often associated with the power of memory. In that sense, we need not distinguish the powers of the common sense and phantasy; rather, we need only say that they are one and the same power (I shall return to this point later on).27 Suárez soon points out that this identification applies also to imagination,28 and then goes on applying this principle of reduction to all the remaining powers. Phantasy is the only power necessary for all these operations because it alone receives and conserves the species of sensible things (sensed and non-sensed intentions), compounds and knows them in their absence. According to Suárez, some have objected to this reduction and claimed instead that we should posit two internal senses rather than just one. Which powers these two are, however, remains a matter of dispute: according to some, it is the common sense and phantasy (the latter including the powers of memory and estimative); according to others, it is one power that is the combination of the functions of common sense and phantasy and another which is the combination of the functions of estimative and memory. Still others object entirely to this simplification and continue to argue for the existence of three, four, five, or even six such internal sensory powers. Among these possibilities, none of which are his own, Suárez elects the view he attributes to Aquinas, which claims that there are four powers—these

24 ‘And

it is called common [due to] the commonness of the object, not because it perceives the common sensibles, but because it knows all the external sensibles’ (“Et dicitur communis communitate obiecti, non quia sensibilia communia percipiat, sed quia cognoscat omnia sensibilia externa”), Disputatio VIII, q.1, 4. See Perler, “Suárez on Consciousness,” Vivarium 52 (2014) [261–86], 271. 25 ‘it supposes that the species is received in the organ, not in the power, which has been disproved above’ (“supponit species recipi in organo, et non in potentia, quod supra improbatum est”), Disputatio VIII, q.1, 4; see also Disputatio VIII, q.1, 10: ‘Moreover, the species themselves are received not only in the organ but also in the power itself’ (“Item, species ipsae non tantum recipiuntur in organo, sed in ipsa potentia”) 26 ‘Therefore, that power, which conserves the species of things sensed in their absence, and that cognizes them through these [species] abstractively, is called phantasy’ (“Illa ergo potentia, quae species rerum sensatarum in absentia illarum conservat, et per illas abstractive cognoscit, phantasia dicitur”), Disputatio VIII, q.1, 4. 27 ‘But clearly this is not necessary because these two are not two distinct powers’. (“Sed forte id non est necessarium, quia istae duo non sunt duae potentiae distinctae”), Disputatio VIII, q.1, 5. 28 ‘Imagination is the same as phantasy, only with the addition of the power to combine sensibles and imagining impossible [things]’ (“Imaginatio est idem cum phantasia, solum addit virtutem componendi sensibilia et fingendi impossibilia”), Disputatio VIII, q.1, 6.

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being the common sense, phantasy, estimative or cogitative, and memory.29 This is, he adds, the most probable because it is based on solid grounds,30 that is, on (i) the distinction between powers that deal with sensed species and those that deal with non-sensed ones (intentions) and on (ii) the distinction between powers that operate in the presence of the object and those that operate in their absence. However, Suárez sticks to his own reductionist view, arguing that: it must be noted that the [number of] internal senses are not to be multiplied because one is more powerful than the other, but that one cannot perform the act of the other; on the contrary, if we posit two internal senses of which one can [do] everything the other can and more, it is superfluous to posit the one which can do less.31

As there is one such powerful internal sense, that suffices to account for all the processing sensory operations. In addition, Suárez argues, the internal senses do not need to follow the same principle of plurality as the external senses because, whereas the latter need to be changed by their proper objects, and are specifically disposed for this change, the former do not.32 The basic idea here seems to be that because the internal senses are not subjected to the same sort of material constraints as the proper senses are, they need not be diversified according to the principle of material dispositions. The internal sense has a higher degree of universality in comparison to the different sense modalities and therefore can execute multiple functions directed to different kinds of objects.33

29 The

list is very close to Averroes, Comm. De anima, III.6, 415–16. On Suárez on Aquinas, see J. B. South, “Suárez on Imagination”, Vivarium 39:1 (2001), 119–51. 30 ‘Thus, the fourth opinion, which among those cited is the most probable, has a twofold basis: the first is sensitive cognition, which is done by means of sensed and non-sensed species: those powers that cognize must be different according to these [sensed and non-sensed species] because the powers that cognize by means of sensible species of different kinds must be different ( . . . ) The second basis is that in the sensitive powers, the powers that cognize in the presence and in the absence of the object are different. (“Quarta ergo opinio, quae inter citatas est probabilior, duplex habet fundamentum: Primum est cognitionem sensitivam, aliam fieri per species sensatas, aliam per insensatas, et potentias cognoscentes per illas esse diversas, nam potentiae cognoscentes per species sensibiles diversarum rationum diversae sunt. ( . . . ) Secundum fundamentum est quod in potentiis sensitivis potentia cognoscens in praesentia obiecti et in absentia sunt distinctae”), Disputatio VIII, q.1, 7. 31 “Pro decisione veritatis est notandum quod sensus interni non sunt multiplicandi per hoc quod unus possit plura quam alius, sed per hoc quod unus non potest afficere actum alterius, nec e contrario, nam si ponuntur duo sensus interni, quorum unus potest quidquid alius et plura, superflue ponitur ille quae pauciora potest,” Disputatio VIII, q.1, 8. 32 ‘although the interior sense knows everything the exterior does, it does not [know] by means of a change [caused] by an object; thus, for this the external senses are necessary because if these did not change [as the result of the action of the object], the interior power would not be able to perceive anything’ (“quamvis ergo sensus interior cognoscat quidquid exterior, non tamen per immutationem obiecti; et ideo ad hoc fuerunt necessarii externi sensus, quia nisi illi immutarentur, non posset interior potentia aliquid percipere”), Disputatio VIII, q.1, 8. 33 The same point could be made mutatis mutandi about the connection between lower sensory powers and higher intellectual powers, subsumed under the concept of sympathy among powers. This is the way both Dominik Perler and Anna Tropia have argued. I think this is probably right.

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Having reached the preliminary conclusion that there are not many internal senses, there could be the case that there are two, Suárez considers, these being the common sense and phantasy. This cannot however be right, as the following argument purports to demonstrate34 : For a faculty to know objects in their absence it must receive their species; If this faculty receives these species, it either does so in their presence or in their absence; It cannot be in their absence, otherwise it would not receive them; It must be in their presence; Therefore, the same faculty knows objects in their presence and in their absence.

The distinction between these two acts—knowing in the presence and knowing in the absence—is not enough to distinguish two faculties; on the contrary, it shows how they (common sense and phantasy) can be—and in fact are—one and the same.35 A similar sort of argument can be made to prove that phantasy and the estimative are, in animals, one and the same power: although there is a distinction

But, as I said at the beginning of this paper, my focus is on the unity of powers or faculties within the same psychological cluster, in this case the sensory one. See Perler, “Suárez on Consciousness”; and Anna Tropia, “Scotus and Suárez on Sympathy: The Necessity of the ‘Connexio Potentiarum’ in the Present State,” in Lukás Novák, ed., Suárez’s Metaphysics in its Historical and Systematic Context (De Gruyter: 2014), 275–92. On the unity of the internal senses, see J. B. South, “Suárez on Imagination”; M. Rozemond, “Unity in the Multiplicity of Suárez’s Soul,” in B. Hill and H. Lagerlund, eds., The Philosophy of Francisco Suárez (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), [154–72] 159; and S. Knuuttila, “Suárez’s Psychology,” in V. M. Salas and R. L. Fastiggi, eds., A Companion to Francisco Suárez. Leiden: Brill, 2014, [192–220] 209–11. 34 ‘It is proved because the faculty cognizing in the absence of the object must receive its species; thus, it either receives those in the presence of the object or in its absence. It is impossible [that it receives them] in its absence because sensible things only change the senses when they are present to them. And the species do not last long in the external senses, and neither do the acts without [being] in the presence of the sensibles. Therefore, as phantasy and memory cannot be changed except by means of a change in the external sense, [these] must be changed in the presence of the object; therefore, they [phantasy and memory] can cognize in the presence of the object. The last consequence follows, namely that the faculty, which can be changed by the object [being] present, can change [by means of] attention and consequently can at the same time be brought into act(uality), and in fact does so necessarily, because in that instant in which it receives the species the faculty is naturally an agent and cannot be impeded [in its action]. Therefore, the faculty that cognizes in the absence of the object can cognize in its presence; hence, it is not necessary to multiply the [number of] faculties on account of the [number of] acts.’ (“Probatur, nam potentia cognoscens in absentia obiecti, debet recipere species illius; ergo vel recipit illas in praesentia obiecti, vel in illius absentia; in absentia est impossibile, nam sensibilia tantum immutant sensus, dum sunt illis praesentia; et in sensibus externis non durant species neque actus, nisi in praesentia sensibilium; ergo cum phantasia et memoria non possint immutari, nisi media immutatione sensus exterioris, debent immutari in praesentia obiecti; ergo etiam possunt cognoscere in praesentia obiecti. Patet ultima consequentia, nam potentia, quae potest immutari ab obiecto praesenti, potest attente immutari, et consequenter potest simul in actum exire, immo necessario exibit, quia in illo instanti in quo recipit species est potentia naturaliter agens, et non impedita; ergo potentia cognoscens in absentia obiecti potest cognoscere in praesentia; non ergo propter hos actus sunt multiplicandae potentiae”), Disputatio VIII, q.1, 8. 35 This is striking in the face of Suárez’ commitment to the view of the real distinction between the soul and its parts—how to make sense of the apparent contradiction between this real distinction

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between non-sensed intentions, like enmity, and sensed ones, like shape, the fact is that the sheep only perceives the wolf as an enemy once it perceives its shape and other accidental features, such as color, smell, etc.36 Therefore, it must be by one and the same faculty that the sheep perceives these accidental features and that it judges the wolf to be an enemy—“this is an enemy”—and these two acts cannot be separable. If the acts are not separable, the same must also be said of the case with their performing faculty.37 Therefore, most likely there is only one internal sense,38 which is phantasia, with only conceptual distinctions between its operations.39

4.5 De Góis: Reduction But Not to One Interestingly, the argument we just saw in the previous section—aimed at showing that common sense and phantasy cannot be two distinct powers—was not able to convince Suárez, but was convincing for the author I will be considering next, the Portuguese Manuel de Góis. In what follows, I concentrate on his Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis Societatis Iesu in tres libros de anima Aristotelis (Coimbra Commentator (CC) or de Góis, hereafter), which was published for the first time in 1598.

and the clear nominalist inclinations of this reduction of the internal senses to one? He clearly denies this possibility for the rational powers of intellect and will, rejecting as absurd that the will would understand and the intellect would will. Part of the explanation can be the particular nature of the sense powers; in fact, Marleen Rozemond (2014, 235, n. 69) notes: “This difference between intellect and will on one hand, and faculties that require a subject that is at least partly corporeal explains an interesting feature of Suárez’s discussion. When he argues that the faculties of the soul are really distinct from it, he focuses entirely on will and intellect. For him the issues would have been obvious and less in need of discussion for the other faculties.” 36 ‘the faculty that cognizes the wolf as an enemy, does not cognize it on any other account except by [means of] cognizing its shape and other external accidents’ (“potentia cognoscens lupum ut inimicum, non alia ratione id cognoscit nisi cognoscendo figuram et alia accidentia illius exteriora”), Disputatio VIII, q.1, 10. 37 ‘It is said that it is adequate that one faculty cognizes the wolf as such and another judges it to be an enemy. But this is unintelligible, as this judgment: ‘Here is an enemy’ intrinsically includes the cognition of that which is the enemy; thus, these are not separable acts that belong to different faculties’ (“Forte dicitur satis esse quod una potentia cognoscat lupum ut sic, ut alia iudicet esse inimicum. Sed hoc non intelligitur, nam hoc iudicium: ‘Hic est inimicus’ includit intrinsece cognitionem huius qui est inimicus; ergo non sunt actus separabiles ad diversas potentias pertinentes”), Disputatio VIII, q.1, 10. 38 ‘It is highly probable that the interior sense is really only one’ (“Probabilissimum videtur sensum interiorem tantum esse realiter unum”), Disputatio VIII, q.1, 10–1. 39 ‘The interior sense is really and formally one faculty, which is only conceptually distinguished according to the diverse acts’ (“Sensus interior est una potentia realiter et formaliter, solum quod distinguitur ratione, secundum quod ad diversos actus comparator”), Disputatio VIII, q.1, 12. Such basic unity has its precursor in Qusta ibn Luca; see Harvey 1975, 41.

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In Book three, chapter three, questions one to four, CC considers at great length the number of the so-called internal senses. According to the tradition, he goes on saying, there are many internal senses but authors disagree on their number. For some, like Avicenna, Al-Ghazali, or Albert the Great, there are five internal senses: the common sense, imagination, the estimative power, phantasy, and memory. Others, such as Thomas Aquinas, dismiss the distinction between imagination and phantasy, and propose instead four internal senses. According to still others, such as Galen, Nemesius of Emesa, and Gregory of Nyssa, the number is limited to three. But instead of focusing on their number, de Góis proceeds to examine the criteria on the basis of which the division of labor between the internal senses is done. The starting point are the traditional two arguments, (1) the argument from localization: to the number of brain ventricles must correspond the number of internal senses.40 (2) the argument from function: the difference between the internal senses resides in the nature of the functions they perform and the operations they execute. To the diversity of cognitive functions must correspond a variety of cognitive faculties. De Góis notes the difficulty to agree on the localization principle, because there is a basic objection about spiritual faculties requiring a bodily home to operate;41 but even if that were true, there is still disagreement concerning the number of brain ventricles where these faculties would be located. For instance, scholars seem to disagree on the evidence for the existence of one or two ventricles in the frontal part of the brain that would host the common sense.42 The disagreement extends to the existence of neural pathways (sensory nerves) leading from this ventricle to the different parts of the body, which would be required as the common sense is the power that connects the information coming from the external senses. The problem with the argument for the diversity of powers is that the evidence concerning the existence of these physiological pathways underlying the psychological functions needs to be unequivocal. De Góis tells us that there is much evidence from Galen that a lesion in a part of the brain, where a given faculty is located, impairs its functioning. Particularly vivid is the telling of the madman 40 ‘Three

principal reasons to uphold the multitude of the internal senses are adduced from the Philosopher. Some argue from the brain ventricles, where the workshops of sensing are said to be located, which are several, three or four, ventricles as is confirmed by anatomical observations’ (“Tribus potissimum rationibus ad internorum sensuum multitudinem sonituendam Philosophi adducti sunt. Quidam ex cerebri uentriculis, ubi sentiendi officinas collocatas esse inquiunt, quos uentriculos plures esse anatomicis obseruationibus constat, nempe tres, quatuorque”), Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis Societatis Iesu In tres libros de Anima Aristotelis Stagiritae, Coimbra 1598, [transcription by Mário Santiago Carvalho, available online at: http://www.uc.pt/fluc/lif/ publicacoes/textos_disponiveis_online/pdf/de_anima], III.3, 1.1, 254. 41 ‘ . . . because as the senses are qualities, which do not occupy place, and thus do not have dwellings’ (“ . . . quia cum sensus sint qualitates, quae non occupant locum, atque adeo nec domicilia”), Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 1.1, 254. 42 Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 1.1, 254.

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in Rome, whose reason was fully operating, but his faculty of judgment severely impaired, leading him to throw from a window, first an innocuous object, but when further incited by the observing mob, to throw a glass jar and finally a child.43 This example seems to show that although there is some basis for postulating the ventricular localization of psychological faculties, it gives no evidence to the number of faculties. The argument from localization is therefore found to be at best inconclusive. CC turns then to considering the merits of the argument from function, that is to say, whether it is possible to establish a distinction between operations which would ground a distinction of powers performing them.44 The basic issue at stake is which operations define each faculty, so that its operations could not be carried by any other faculty (an argument similar to the one found in Suárez). From traditionally accepted requirements, the details of which need not concern us here, CC claims that one could easily accept the existence of three internal senses: common sense, phantasy (phantasia), and memory (III.3, 1.2, 258). However, his own view can be further reduced and he proposes collapsing the distinction between phantasy and memory, and concludes, with Pedro da Fonseca— together with “other [un-named] illustrious philosophers of our time” that there are only two internal senses, phantasy and common sense.45 Among the reasons for this conclusion is that there is no need to posit two faculties to account for short term and long term conservation of species, the roles traditionally associated with (retentive) imagination and (sensory) memory46 ; instead, phantasy is enough to perform both types of retention. The same principle of “one power, multiple functions” is then

43 “In

hoc ergo uis apprehendens integra mansit, quia et uasa, et puerum, et aclamantes rites apprehendebat. Aegrotabat tamen iudicatrix facultas, quia et uasa, et puerum deiiciendum insane aestimabat, nec comminuenda uasa et interiturum puerum inferebat,” Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 1.1, 255. 44 ‘Others ground the differences between the internal senses in the diversity of functions and operations which are administered by these [senses], holding that those functions and offices are so varied and dissimilar that they demand a plurality of faculties’ (“Alii igitur internorum sensuum differentias astruunt ex diuersitate munerum, et operationum, quae ab iis administrantur, quod uidelicet ea. munia, et functiones tam uariae sint, ac dissimiles, ut necessario plures facultates exigant”, Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 1.1, 256. 45 ‘ . . . asserting that there are only two internal sensitive faculties: the common sense and the phantasy’ (“ . . . asserens duas tantum esse potentias sensitiuas internas; sensum communem, et phantasiam”), Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 1.3, 258. Some decades earlier, Philip Melanchthon defended in his Commentarius De anima the existence of only two ventricles in the brain that correspond to the faculties of common sense (sensus communis) and memory (memoria) (ed., Wittenberg 1540, 132–33). 46 ‘Moreover, that there is not a double treasure of both sensed and non-sensed species, as many have it and reason proves, because the same faculty, as they concede, elicits non-sensed species from the sensed ones, and that it [that faculty] joins and composes several [of these]’ (“Praetera quod non sit duplex thesaurus alter specierum sensatarum, alter insensatarum, ut plerique aiunt, ea. ratio probat, quia eadem facultas, ut iidem concedunt, ex speciebus sensatis elicit non sensatas, easque inter se uariae iungit, et componit”), Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 1.3, 258.

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applied to all the other faculties, so that the conclusion is that one should not infer the diversity of powers from the diversity of operations.47 The same power is able to perform a diversity of functions; what is relevant is the type and the requirements for each function. The authority of Aristotle appears as the final argument for this reduction because, as CC points out, he only discusses phantasy and common sense in his work.48 This statement of course requires a tour de force to explain away memory and the acknowledged fact that Aristotle did write a treatise with that name, as de Góis himself notes. His reply is that one should not conclude from the existence of such a work that there is in fact a faculty of memory distinct from the faculty of imagination, but rather that the faculty of imagination performs the function of remembering. Aristotle on the other hand supplies the definite argument against further reduction of the internal senses to one power, a position that would place the Coimbra Commentary closer to the position found in Suárez. De Góis objects to this ultimate reductive move by insisting that Aristotle himself proposed the existence of both common sense and phantasy because he felt the need to explain that the difference in operation between a power that has the object present and one that has it in its absence.49 That distinction is basic and cannot be eliminated: One and the same power cannot operate both in the absence and present of the object. So, the conclusion is that one should not conclude from the diversity of operations the diversity of powers, except in the case of operating with or without the object present. The key claim remains that each of the two admitted internal senses, common sense and phantasy, are to be thought of as many-faceted powers, each responsible for performing a variety of operations.50 Interestingly, de Góis concludes by returning to the issue of localization to conclude that the common

47 ‘ . . . second,

to concede as a true thing that there are not many faculties, although they are called [many] due to the diversity of the modes of operating’ (“ . . . secundo concedere re uera non esse plures potentias, etsi ob diuersitatem modi operandi plures dicantur”), Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 1.3, 259. 48 ‘ . . . because Aristotle in chapter two and three of this book, where he accurately investigates the internal sensitive faculties, does not discover several constitutive ones except two, i.e., the common sense and phantasy’ (“ . . . quia Aristoteles capite secundo, et tertio huis [sic] libri, ubi potentias sensitiuas internas accurate inuestigauit, non plures inuenit, constitutiue quam duas, uidelicet sensum communem, et phantasiam”), Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 1.3, 259. 49 This is a difference to Suárez, who claims that (according to South, at least) that “a power that can know in the absence of an object can know in the presence of the object as well.” 50 ‘It remains thus from those two previous disputations that there are only two internal sensitive faculties, the common sense and phantasy, which due to the diversity of functions are not only called by different names, as we admonished before, but also almost a manifold faculty, not in terms of nature or species, but in terms of variety of operations’ (“Manet ergo ex superiori disputationes duas tantummodo esse internas sentiendi facultates, sensum communem, et phantasiam, quae ex officiorum diuersitate, non solum uaria sortitur nomina, ut supra monuimus, sed etiam quasi multiplex potentia, non natura, et specie, sed operationum faecunditate dici potest”), Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 1.3, 259.

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sense is located in the frontal part of the brain, whereas phantasy occupies the rest of the brain.51 The last aspect I want to consider in this paper, now that the functions and the faculties that perform them have been identified, is whether the same functions can be found in different kinds of beings. To be more precise, the question is whether both internal senses can be found in all animals. De Góis’s reply is that the common sense, as the center for sensation, is found in all animals. The common sense is like the center of the circle, which here stands for the proper senses. As we have seen, de Góis attributes to the common sense the functions of receiving and perceiving the differences between the objects of the proper senses, that is, to judge and distinguish the sweet from the white, meaning that it must be one power that does it. It is also the function of the common sense to perceive the acts of the proper senses, that is to say, sight does not see itself seeing but I see myself seeing by the activity of the common sense. As the result of this all-encompassing power, we do not need to have a specific power in addition to all others that is responsible for keeping attention: rather, de Góis says, to pay attention is nothing other than to tend to the object (III.1, 2, 433). As noted before, De Góis argues that the common sense is found in all animals, but this is not the case for the other internal sense. Phantasy is found to be of a different kind in different beings, with the higher kind being found only in rational beings. Next, I focus on the why of this restriction by examining the distinctive functions of phantasy. These are: (A) (B) (C) (D) (E)

to retain the species (sensed and non-sensed, i.e. intentions) of perceived things; to know things in their absence; to apprehend non-sensed species; to compose and divide sensed and non-sensed species; to reason (discurrere) about particular things.52

Taken in a weaker sense (A, B, and C), as a retentive and processing (/active) faculty, phantasy can be found in most species of animal. However, in a narrower and more proper sense (D, F), phantasy is found only in human beings. It is not credible to think that a power of the sensory soul is able to perform any of the operations indicated in (F) with universal contents,53 but it is possible to consider

51 Commentarii

Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 1.3[-4], 260–61. to retain the species (sensed and non-sensed) of perceived things is traditionally the function of retentive imagination and memory; (B) to know things in their absence is the function of phantasy; (C) to apprehend non-sensed species is the function of estimative/cogitative; (D) to compose and divide sensed and non-sensed species, and (F) to reason (discurrere) about particular things is the function of the cogitative. 53 ‘It is therefore clear, as we have demonstrated elsewhere, that the universal cognition of things does not belong to the powers joined to a corporeal organ, but only to the intellective power’ (“Planum est enim, et alibi a nobis demonstratum, cognitionem uniuersalium rerum non cadere in potentias organo corporeo affixas, sed solam uim intellectricem”), Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 2.1, 262. 52 (A)

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it from the point of view of forming propositions and discursively reasoning about particular things.54 What this means exactly is what de Góis explores next. He starts by presenting a series of arguments against this possibility, namely that: F1 the senses cannot perceive the copula establishing the relation between subject and predicate55 ; F2 the senses cannot operate on their own act (i.e. no operation of the senses can have its own act as the object), which would be the case if the senses were to assent to a judgment arising from itself; F3 to be discursive requires the knowledge of the principles/rules of discourse, which clearly is not the case with the senses.56 The first thing to make absolutely clear is that these functions cannot be performed by the common sense.57 Not that the capacity to judge the information from the proper senses is absent from the common sense, but that in this case no proposition exists: judging here means a direct mode of taking in the data received, that is, of taking the object as appropriated or convenient.58 Now, CC makes it clear that the only way for this capacity to be realized is for it to depend less on being an internal sense and thus a sensory power, and more on account of a certain flux originating in the neighboring faculty of reason.59 That leads our author to assert that the internal sense or faculty of phantasy can have such operations because it is, in the structure of the human soul, in direct contact with the rational power. Phantasy—which, one must be reminded, our author does not distinguish from the cogitative power—has the capacity to operate as a sort of particular reason, as

54 ‘Phantasy

can make propositions from any singular term and reason about singular [things/properties] that belong to that object’ (“Phantasia potest ex utroque termino singulari propositiones conficere, et circa singularia ad illius obiectum pertinentia discurrere”), Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 2.2, 263. 55 Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 2.1, 262. 56 ‘No faculty can reason except that which knows the common rules and principles founding all reasoning, like [the principle] dici de omni et dici de nullo. ( . . . ) Therefore, no sensitive faculty can reason.’ (“Nulla facultas potest discurrere, nisi cui notae sunt communes illae regulae, et principia, quibus omnis discursus innititur, nempe dici de omni, et dici de nullo. ( . . . ) Nulla igitur facultas sensitiua potest discurrere,” III.3, 2.1, 262. 57 ‘The common sense does not compose, nor divide, or reason’ (“Sensus communis non componit, nec diuidit, aut discurrit”, Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 2.2, 263. 58 “Primum pro quauis simplici potentiae cognitione attingente obiectum sibi conueniens, esto ipsam conuenientiam non discernat’; Secundo accipitur iudicium pro cognitione item simplici, qua tamen et obiecti conuenientia, et cognatio, atque discrimen inter res aliquas dignoscitur,” Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 2.1, 263. 59 ‘If those operations exist in the senses, they do not belong to them per se, but from a flow from and vicinity to reason, which is absent in non-rational animals.’ “Nam hae operationes si sensibus insint, non eis per se competunt, sed ex defluxu, et uicina rationis, a qua bruta absunt,” Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 2.1, 262.

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the result of a certain flux from reason (ex defluxu rationis).60 There is something impressively close to Neoplatonist ideas of emanation (ex eodem fonte dimanat), whereby the content of cognitive acts comes from above. In the case of CC, a sensitive power is given an extra boost in its cognitive reach—i.e. in what it can know—by sharing in processing power with reason.61 Phantasy has no access to the principles of reasoning or even the possibility to conceive of the notion of relation, for example; but all it needs is to be the power in the vicinity (and influence) of the intellect, which knows the universal terms of syllogisms, their rules, and the first principles.62 The suggestion that de Góis leaves for our consideration is that in beings endowed with reason there is a hierarchy of cognitive powers largely modular in their functional enclosures. However, that there is also a level of cooperation between powers of different orders, possibly to make the whole system more efficient in global terms. One way to read this is to take it as a re-run of the argument we find in thirteenth century authors of the connection between powers rooted in the same soul (the so-called colligantia potentiarum mentioned earlier), here extended to the sensitive-intellective interaction and integration. But whereas that connection was essential to the operations of the sensory soul, in this case de Góis is obliged to admit that these acts, belonging as they do properly to the intellect, can be said to be of phantasy (thus of the sensory part of the soul) accidentally, due not to what this power is in itself, but to its proximity (in being) and influence (in operation) to the intellect.63

4.6 Conclusion In this paper, I have presented an overview of the development of a unified model of the internal senses and attempted to provide a philosophical justification for

60 ‘ . . . not,

as we have just said, due to the merit of the sensitive part, but to the flowing down from reason because this faculty participates of reason in the same soul, in so far as it flows from the same source’ (“non quasi, ut paulo ante diximus, id merito sensitiuae partis obtineat, sed ex defluxu rationis, quia haec potentia ex eadem anima rationis participe, tanquam ex eodem fonte dimanat”), Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 2.2. 263. 61 ‘ . . . thus, this is proper, as the cogitative [power] attains something of reason due to the association with the intellective power’ (“ . . . ita consentaneum est, ut cogitatiua ex intellectricis potentiae consortio aliquid rationis adipiscatur”), Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 2.2., 263. In a sense, this is close to Aquinas’ statement that ‘the cogitative and memorative [powers] have such eminence in human beings due not to the fact that they are part of the sensitive part [of the soul] but due to a certain affinity and proximity to universal reason, according to a certain overflow’ (“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”, apud Di Martino 2008, 93). 62 Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 2.3, 264. 63 Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis . . . III.3, 2.3, 265.

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the reduction of their number. My suggestion is that this reduction is associated with perceptual activity and the level of awareness implicated in this activity. This holds true, I believe, even if there are levels of reduction and levels of activity in the different authors. Less relevant seems to be a given thinker’s commitment to the unity or the plurality of the substantial forms in the human soul, as we find representatives of either view (Olivi for the plurality, Suárez for the unity) subscribing to the one internal sense model. How strong these hypotheses are in a long historiographical perspective cannot be asserted here, but it certainly deserves further examination. A striking conclusion from the historical sources examined is that there is an alternative model of the internal senses, according to which unity and simplification trumps plurality—a model which has been mostly neglected in the existing overviews of the topic. Acknowledgements The author would like to acknowledge the funding from the European Research Council under the grant agreement No. 637747 for the project Rationality in Perception: Transformations of Mind and Cognition 1250-1550. This chapter was originally presented at the conference The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition held in Gothenburg (June 10-12, 2016). The author would like to thank the audience at this event for comments and suggestions, especially Joël Biard, Henrik Lagerlund, and Sten Ebbesen.

Bibliography Primary Sources Averroës. (1953). Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis De anima libros (F. S. Crawford, Ed.). Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America. Avicenna. (1972). Liber de anima seu sextus de naturalibus (S. van Riet, Ed.). Louvain-Leiden: Peeters-Brill. John Buridan (1984). Quaestiones on Aristotle’s De anima. In P. Sobol (Ed.), John Buridan on the Soul and Sensation: An Edition of Book II of his commentary on Aristotle’s book on the soul. PhD dissertation. Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis Societatis Iesu In tres libros de Anima Aristotelis Stagiritae (Coimbra 1598) [transcription by Mário Santiago Carvalho, available online at: http:// www.uc.pt/fluc/lif/publicacoes/textos_disponiveis_online/pdf/de_anima] Philip Melanchthon Commentarius De anima (Wittenberg 1540). Peter John Olivi (1924). Quaestiones in Secundum Librum Sententiarum (B. Jansen, Ed.). Florence: Quaracchi. Francisco Suárez (1991). Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristootelis De Anima (S. Castellote, Ed.) (T. 1: Madrid, Sociedad de estudios y publicaciones, 1978; t. II: Madrid, Labor, 1981; t. III: Madrid, Fundación Xavier Zubiri).

Secondary Sources Bieniak, M. (2010). The soul-body problem at Paris, ca. 1200–1250. Hugh of St.-Cher and his contemporaries. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

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Black, D. (forthcoming). Imagination, particular reason, and memory: The role of the internal senses in human cognition. In R. L. Friedman & M. Pickavé (Eds.), A companion to medieval theories of cognition. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Corcilius, K., & Perler, D. (Eds.). (2014). Partitioning the soul: Debates from Plato to Leibniz. Berlin: De Gruyter. di Martino, C. (2008). Ratio Particularis. Doctrine des sens internes d’Avicenne à Thomas d’Aquin. Paris: Vrin. de Boer, S. (2014). John Buridan on the internal senses. Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 25, 403–421. Harvey, E. R. (1975). The inward wits. Psychological theory in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. London: The Warburg Institute-University of London. Knuuttila, S. (2014). Suárez’s Psychology. In V. M. Salas & R. L. Fastiggi (Eds.), A companion to Francisco Suárez (pp. 192–220). Leiden: Brill. Lisska, A. J. (2016). Aquinas’ theory of perception. An analytic reconstruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McCord Adams, M. (1987). William Ockham. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Pasnau, R. (2002). Thomas Aquinas on human nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Perler, D. (2015). The faculties: A history. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Perler, D. (2014). Suárez on Consciousness. Vivarium, 52, 261–286. Rozemond, M. (2012). Unity in the multiplicity of Suárez’s soul. In B. Hill & H. Lagerlund (Eds.), The philosophy of Francisco Suárez (pp. 154–172). Oxford: Oxford University Press. South, J. B. (2001). Suárez on Imagination. Vivarium, 39(1), 119–151. Steneck, N. H. (1970). The problem of the internal senses in the fourteenth century. PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin. Toivanen, J. (2013). Peter of John Olivi on the cognitive functions of the sensitive soul. Leiden: Brill. Tropia, A. (2014). Scotus and Suárez on sympathy: The necessity of the ‘Connexio Potentiarum’ in the present state. In L. Novák (Ed.), Suárez’s metaphysics in its historical and systematic context (pp. 275–292). De Gruyter. Wolfson, H. A. (1935). The internal senses in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew philosophic texts. Harvard Theological Review, 28(2), 69–133.

Chapter 5

Jodocus Trutfetter (c. 1460–1519) on Internal Senses Pekka Kärkkäinen

5.1 Introduction Jodocus Trutfetter of Eisenach wrote his philosophical textbooks in a situation where the encounters of the so-called Wegestreit during the fifteenth century had produced more or less institutionalized philosophical schools of via moderna and via antiqua. The latter was further divided into schools such as via Thomae, via Scoti, and via Alberti.1 Trutfetter studied at the University of Erfurt, where he also spent most of his academic career in the Faculties of Arts and Theology. Erfurt was considered one of the traditional centres of the via moderna in Germany. The teaching of philosophy according to the via antiqua was never included in the curriculum of its Faculty of Arts. Thomist and Scotist philosophy was taught merely among the religious orders in their own studia. Trutfetter graduated as a Master of Arts in 1484 and soon after that began studies in theology, which resulted in degrees of licentiate in 1493 and doctor in 1504.2 At that time Trutfetter taught philosophy to young Martin Luther in Erfurt, and this is the role for which he has been most famous in modern research literature.3 The original version of this chapter was revised: “Abstract” is incorrect in the previous online version of this chapter which has been corrected now. The correction to this chapters is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6_10 1 On

the emergence of the schools, see Hoenen (2003). Trutfetter’s life and works see Kleineidam (1992), 153–4, 290–2; Pilvousek (2002). 3 On Luther’s studies in the Faculty of Arts, see Kleineidam (1992), 163–169. 2 On

P. Kärkkäinen () Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 S. N. Mousavian, J. L. Fink (eds.), The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6_5

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Even as a doctor of theology, Trutfetter devoted himself to the teaching of philosophy, and among his surviving works there are no theological treatises at all. Two years after his promotion, Trutfetter moved to the University of Wittenberg, in order to establish the teaching of theology according to the via moderna there. However, he obviously had little success, since he returned to Erfurt after four years, and we have no further indication of teaching according to the via moderna at Wittenberg, which was dominated by Thomist and Scotist versions of the via antiqua. For the rest of his life, he stayed in Erfurt.4 Trutfetter was firmly rooted in the Erfurtian via moderna in his teaching, and identified himself as a “Nominalist”, as they called themselves. However, in his discussion on the nature of universals, he was ready to tolerate Thomist and Scotist positions with certain reservations.5 Furthermore, Trutfetter often shows respect for the views of Aquinas, and mentions that he has been writing a commentary on the Summa theologiae.6 The commentary itself has not survived, but Trutfetter’s remark raises an interesting question about his attitude towards the Thomist position. Was he trying to converge towards contemporary Thomist writers or, rather, present a rival reading of Aquinas in the spirit of the via moderna? What we know about the relationships between the via moderna in Erfurt and local Thomists in Leipzig and Wittenberg would support the latter option. There are clear signs of a conflict between Erfurt and Leipzig Thomists during the last decades of the fifteenth century when Trutfetter studied and began his academic career.7 Trutfetter’s experiences in Wittenberg, where Leipzig Thomists had much influence, did not show any signs of co-operation with the Thomists, and his return to Erfurt would rather suggest the contrary. A tendency to form an independent reading of an authority such as Aquinas would not appear as an extraordinary project. One of Trutfetter’s Thomist colleagues in Wittenberg, Andreas Bodenstein of Karlstadt, did something similar concerning the main authorities of a rival school. In Karlstadt’s case, the authorities were Scotus and Parisian Scotist Antoine Syrrect, which he tried to read through the Thomist lenses of John Capreolus.8 The discussion on internal senses gives us an opportunity to investigate Trutfetter’s use of Aquinas since there are certain points where the authorities of the via moderna differed from Aquinas’s view. Nevertheless, the question of Trutfetter’s use of Aquinas raises a further question about his use of authorities in general. At the beginning of his major work on logic, Trutfetter attacks philosophers who can rather easily be identified as contemporary Thomists or Scotists. He rebukes those who rely on the holiness or age of their authorities and calls them “more lovers

4 Pilvousek

(2002), 101–102; Scheible (2007), 12. (2009), 429. 6 Plitt (1876), 11; Jodocus Trutfetter, Summule totius logice, fol. C1v. Reverence of Aquinas was not uncommon to the Erfurt via moderna since Amplonius Rating of Bercka, the founder of the college Porta coeli, had already recommended the study of Aquinas, Giles of Rome, Alexander of Hales and Henry of Ghent. See Kleineidam (1985), 182–183. 7 Tewes (1995). 8 Bollbuck (2012). 5 Kärkkäinen

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of the authority than lovers of the truth”.9 The remark is not so much directed towards older authorities as towards those who are excluding the more recent ones. Trutfetter himself utilizes an exceptionally broad spectrum of authorities and critically evaluates both old and new. Yet the common authorities of the via moderna, such as Ockham, John Buridan, Gregory of Rimini, and Peter of Ailly, take a prominent place among them. Concerning the internal senses and psychology in general, Ailly’s Tractatus de anima is perhaps the most important individual source for Trutfetter. In addition to philosophers, Trutfetter draws extensively on the medieval medical tradition.10

5.2 Sources Trutfetter published his textbook on natural philosophy rather late. Being famous for his works on logic, he was requested to write on natural philosophy as well, which resulted in a large textbook entitled Summa in totam physicen in 1514.11 Its eighth book devotes two separate tractates to De anima and Parva naturalia. Eight pages of the tractate on De anima discuss the internal senses.12 The textbook was published in a revised and abridged edition in 1517, which was further reprinted twice in the following year.13 In the following I will mostly draw from the earlier and more comprehensive edition, but occasionally I will also comment on the later edition if there are some considerable differences. Trutfetter’s Summa is not a commentary on Aristotle, but even in its abridged form neither is it a short compendium of natural philosophical matters. Trutfetter developed his textbook based on the popular genre of commentaries on a compendium called Parvulus philosophiae naturalis.14 The original Parvulus was a widely spread compendium based largely on the Pseudo-Albertist Summa naturalium, and together with Peter of Ailly’s Tractatus de anima, which was similarly influenced by Summa naturalium, the treatises were important instruments in the transmission of the Albertist natural philosophy to fifteenth century university teaching. During the late 15th and early 16th centuries authors of all schools wrote commentaries on it, including Trutfetter’s Erfurtian colleague Bartholomaeus Arnoldi of Usingen.15 Nevertheless, Trutfetter does not call his textbook a commen-

9 Trutfetter,

Summule, fol. B1r. (2009), 430–432. 11 Christoph Scheurl, Letter to Trutfetter. 25 August 1513 (Scheurl [1867], 125). See also Scheurl, Letter to Trutfetter, 13 December 1514 (Scheurl [1867], 138). 12 Trutfetter, Summa in totam physicen (= Summa [1514]), Cc2v–Dd2r. 13 Trutfetter, Summa philosophiae naturalis contracta (= Summa [1517]). The discussion on internal senses is found in fol. 95r–96v. 14 On the genres of Parvulus commentary and compendium, see Verboon (2010), 23. 15 Lalla (2003), 77–78, 87; Pluta (1987), 30–31. 10 Kärkkäinen

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tary on Parvulus and he does not even mention Parvulus by name, but the influence of the genre is visible in the structure of the work.16 Trutfetter’s text consists of two types, which are typographically distinguished by the size of the typeface and line spacing. The first of them is a concise text containing mostly definitions of terms, which is interrupted by a second type that contains introductions on the topic and comments on the first text. The concise type does not strictly follow the text of Parvulus philosophiae naturalis, but is more like Trutfetter’s own elaboration of it, an independent compendium that he comments on himself. A similar pattern can be found in Trutfetter’s works on logic, and in natural philosophy Bartholomaeus of Usingen had published a similar, but a far more concise, kind of textbook.17 There are no explicit references to teaching practices in the text, but we could assume that in some form the textbook consists of material which could be used during lectures and disputations on natural philosophy. In Erfurt, natural philosophy was included in both Bachelor’s and Master’s levels. Bachelor studies included lectures on Physics and De anima, whereas Master studies included De generatione et corruptione, Metheorum, De coelo and Parva naturalia. Trutfetter’s textbooks cover all these topics.18 In the commenting parts of the text, Trutfetter describes various positions of earlier authors, often with full references to specific works, and quotes some of them at length or summarizes the main points. In many cases Trutfetter elaborates the definitions and presents extensive divisions of terms. Sometimes he discusses specific questions, but the arguments for and against specific positions are more brief than those found in the actual question commentaries. These features are also visible in his discussion of internal senses. In order to clarify Trutfetter’s use of authorities, and especially Aquinas, I will focus in the following on two points: first, how Trutfetter presents the division and mutual relationships of the internal senses, and second, how he presents the functions and relationships of the estimative, cogitative, and formative faculties in particular.

5.3 Division and Systematics of the Internal Senses Regarding Trutfetter’s way of distinguishing between the internal senses, one should keep in mind his general idea of a distinction between the powers of the soul. With a reference to arguments found in Ockham, Gregory of Rimini, Peter of Ailly and Gabriel Biel, Trutfetter rejects any real or formal distinction between the powers of the soul, but at the same time also Ockham’s way of distinguishing sensory

16 Kärkkäinen

(2009), 437. Compendium naturalis philosophie. For later editions, see Lalla (2003), 408–409. 18 Kleineidam (1985), 240–241. 17 Usingen,

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and intellectual forms in humans. The discussion on the distinction between the powers earlier in Trutfetter’s work is rather lengthy, and there is no ambiguity in his rejection of Thomist and Scotist positions, which he carefully describes before presenting their criticism.19 The position of the via moderna in this question is therefore an integral part of Trutfetter’s school identity, and even in his discussion of the internal senses, he chooses to underline it by defining the internal senses on the basis of semantic rather than metaphysical terms. Terms like “power of the soul” or terms for powers to which the internal senses belong, do not signify in a simple or absolute way, but are connotative. They stand for or supposit for the essence of the soul, but are distinguished by their diverse connotations to the kinds of operations the soul produces and other similar things, which in the case of internal senses include their organs at least in some manner. In the soul itself there are no real or formal distinctions, but the operations of the soul are acts that are really distinct from the soul and from each other.20 In his discussion of the internal senses Trutfetter states several times that terms denoting internal senses supposit for the soul, but connote different kind of acts that the soul produces.21 He even introduces the concept of internal senses by enlisting different kinds of acts that are familiar to us by experience and that cannot be counted among the acts of the external senses.22 Specifying the object of connotation is obviously not trivial for Trutfetter in this particular case. In the beginning of the passage he names only the acts as the objects of connotation, but at the end of the passage both acts and the organs of the internal senses are counted among the objects of connotation.23 This may reflect the way Trutfetter tries hard to systematize and even harmonize the various positions that posit a different number of faculties following either the number of organs or a distinction between operative and storing powers.

19 Trutfetter,

Summa (1514), fol. Y1r–Y2r, Z3r–Z4r. alii quidam actus animae ... quos connotat hoc nomen potentia sensitiva interior, sive a quibus anima pro qua supponit potentia sensitiva interior sive sensus interior denominatur.” (Trutfetter, Summa [1514], fol. Cc2v). “Has namque et similes operationes non connotat nomen potentia sensitiva exterior, nec ab eis anima sensus exterior sed interior dicitur.” (Trutfetter, Summa [1517], fol. 95r). 21 Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Cc2v–Cc3r, Dd2r. Trutfetter, Summa (1517), fol. 95r–96r. 22 Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Cc2v. Trutfetter, Summa (1517), fol. 95r. 23 “Sunt alii quidam actus animae ... quos connotat hoc nomen potentia sensitiva interior.” Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Cc2v. Cf.: “[Q]uod omnia huiusmodi vocabula distinctas operationes et organa, quorum ministerio anima utitur, connotant et pro anima supponunt.” Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Dd2r. In 1517, Trutfetter expresses himself in a bit more nuanced way by dropping out the use of the term “act” as a synonym of operation and speaking of distinct operations in diverse organs: (a) “Has namque et similes operationes non connotat nomen potentia sensitiva exterior, nec ab eis anima sensus exterior sed interior dicitur.” Trutfetter, Summa (1517), fol. 95r, (b). “[A]nimam sensitivam significari quinque distinctis vocabulis specivocis pro ipsa supponentibus ac distinctas operationes quas in distinctis organis producere potest connotantibus.” Trutfetter, Summa (1517), fol. 96r. 20 “Sunt

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In the 1514 version, Trutfetter begins by presenting three main positions: two, five, or four internal senses. Unlike Peter of Ailly, who does not identify the different positions by authors, Trutfetter relates the first to Aristotle and others following him, the second to medical writers, and the third, which was not mentioned by Ailly, to Aquinas.24 So even here Trutfetter pays special attention to Aquinas’s view. After presenting various opinions, Trutfetter states as his own view that all the aforementioned positions talk about five internal senses: the first and third only “implicitly or virtually” whereas the medical writers posit them “expressly and formally”. With this remark, Trutfetter argues that the different positions do not differ in distinguishing five main types of operations, and for his own purpose this would be enough for a distinction between five faculties.25 After this remark, Trutfetter proceeds to present the individual internal senses, which he does using the fivefold classification. At the end of his discussion, Trutfetter returns to the question of the number of internal senses. There he makes a list of positions regarding the number of internal senses that refers to all possibilities from one to seven as actual positions of some philosophers, with the sole exception of anyone arguing for six internal senses. He notes that the disagreement between the positions is more in the terminology than in the content and refers to the distinction between different terms, which is based on the connotations to different operations and organs. Here he also considers the different organs as a basis for distinguishing the powers, but only in an instrumental sense, whereas the soul is the one principal power of internal perception.26 In all of this, Trutfetter seems to adopt the view of five internal senses, which he locates in their own respective organs in the ventricles of the brain. Unlike his colleague Usingen just a few years earlier, Trutfetter does not clearly adopt the view of only two internal senses, although he identifies it as Aristotle’s view. He notes that it is based on the view of only two organs, heart and brain, which is not as elaborate a view (distinctus) as the position of the medical tradition. In general, Trutfetter does not seem to be very interested in the actual number of the internal

24 Trutfetter,

Summa (1514), fol. Cc2v–Cc3r; Peter of Ailly, Tractatus, c. 3. p. 1 (ed. Pluta 24–25). Trutfetter omits this initial list of positions from the 1517 version. As for Aristotle, Trutfetter does not argue that he would have a detailed theory of internal senses, but merely that his view includes a concept of a unitary sensory faculty, which has been called common sense and a storing faculty called memory. 25 “Sed me iudice universae nunc memoratae opinationes in hoc conveniunt quod quinque sensus interiores vel virtualiter vel formaliter ponunt. Secunda equidem puta medicorum expresse et formaliter, reliquae duae puta prima et tertia implicite et virtualiter, ut facile clarescet intuenti.” Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Cc3r. 26 “Ut itaque rem semel finiamus variis opinionibus et loquendi modis de sensibus interioribus omissis, qui plus verbales quam reales esse videntur, aliis plures aliis pauciores ponentibus hoc finaliter dicendum videtur, quod omnia huiusmodi vocabula distinctas operationes et organa, quorum ministerio anima utitur, connotant et pro anima supponunt, quae pro quanto potest dictas operationes excercere sortitur appellationes talium nominum.” Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Dd2r.

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senses.27 In his later edition of the textbook from 1517, he states even more clearly that the different positions “are saying the same thing”; some of them “explicitly and formally”, while others say the same “implicitly and virtually”. The difference is, according to him, to be found in the use of the terms, and it is “more nominal than real”.28 For Trutfetter the focus is on the differences between the acts, but in the later edition he more clearly adopts the fivefold distinction, and bases it on the distinction between diverse organs and functions. He even presents a definition of the internal senses that encapsulates both aspects: “The sensory soul is signified by five distinct specific words, which supposit it, and connote distinct operations that the soul is able to produce in distinct organs.”29 In this definition Trutfetter is able to omit the careless reference to organs as objects of connotation found in the earlier edition. In the reformulated definition, the terms for internal senses are said to connote operations of the soul, but the operations are not distinguished only by themselves, but according to their respective organs as well. In some sense this mature formulation expresses the core of his view about the distinction between the internal senses. At the same time, it is certainly a sign of Trutfetter’s commitment to the semantic methodology of the via moderna. I will now proceed to make some remarks on Trutfetter’s discussion of individual internal senses, which will further clarify his approach among the variety of opinions found in previous authors.

5.4 Individual Internal Senses Regarding the role of sensory memory, Trutfetter follows the views of Peter of Ailly: memory is not only a storehouse of intentions, but it stores the sensory species as well.30 Unlike imagination, memory stores the species with the notion of time passed. Trutfetter notes that there is also an intellectual memory that stores intelligible species. He is aware of the problems posed by the notion of time: First, it seems that memory cannot be in the sensitive soul since sensitive power is not discursive and perception of time needs some kind of discursive comparison. On the contrary, it seems that it cannot be in the intellectual soul either since past objects are not objects of intellect as bygone. In the 1514 edition Trutfetter brings some arguments for a mediating view, which poses both sensory and intellectual memory,

27 Usingen,

Exercitium de anima, fol. K4r–K5r. However, see also Usingen, Parvulus philosophie naturalis, fol. 105v-106r and idem, Compendium naturalis philosophia, fol. M3r, where the author does not take a definite stance on the number of internal senses. 28 Trutfetter, Summa (1517), fol. 96v. 29 Trutfetter, Summa (1517), fol. 96r. 30 Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Dd1v; Ailly, Tractatus c. 4, p. 6, (ed. Pluta 29).

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and refers to Scotus, Ockham and Aquinas for a further discussion.31 He removes the whole discussion from the later edition, and merely states that there is memory both in the sensory soul and in the intellect.32 In the chapter on De memoria et reminiscentia, Trutfetter analyses the concept of memory in the sense of the act of remembering or habitual memory produced by those acts and defines it as follows: “Memory is a judgement concerning past acts as bygones”, where the past acts are the cognitive acts stored as sensory and intellectual species or obviously also sensory intentions, although Trutfetter does not specifically mention them in this context.33 In the discussion about sensory memory Trutfetter shows some familiarity with the medical literature, as he refers to the views of the Italian medical authors Pietro d’Abano, Pietro Torrigiano, and Jacopo da Forli.34

5.5 Elicitive, Estimative, and Cogitative Faculties Trutfetter’s discussion of common sense and imagination does not contribute much for understanding his position regarding the internal senses. In the question about the organ of common sense Trutfetter adopts more or less the mediating position held by Peter of Ailly, which posits for both the heart and brain certain roles as its organs, but his wording is not clear in this matter.35 The 1514 discussion of the power, which Trutfetter calls elicitive, which he further divides into estimative and cogitative powers, reflects his particular affinity with Aquinas more than the discussions of other internal senses. Here Trutfetter seems to draw from diverse sources. On the one hand, he relies on the standard authorities of the via moderna, above all on Peter of Ailly. On the other, he integrates with it certain terminology that was more familiar to the contemporary Thomists than to colleagues from the Erfurtian via moderna. Trutfetter’s adherence to the authorities of the via moderna can firstly be traced in his view of the objects of the elicitive faculty. Following an Avicennian terminology, Trutfetter states that the task of the elicitive faculty is to elicit intentions, which are not perceived by the external senses, from the sensory species. The perceived intentions, such as the hostility of the wolf towards a sheep, are for Trutfetter not exactly qualities inherent in the external objects of perception like wolves, although they are predicated of the external objects as if they were.

31 Trutfetter,

Summa (1514), fol. Dd1v. Summa (1517), fol. 96r. 33 Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Ll 1r. Trutfetter repeats the definition almost verbatim in the version from 1517. Trutfetter, Summa (1517), fol. Z3v. 34 Trutfetter, Summa (1517), fol. Dd2r. 35 Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Cc3r–Cc4r; idem, Summa (1517), fol. 95r–v; Ailly, Tractatus c. 4, p. 2, (ed. Pluta 26). 32 Trutfetter,

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This is at least implied by the following points. First, Trutfetter underlines that in the cognitive process the intentions are derived from specific perceived accidental qualities such as the “horrible shape of the wolf”. The perception of these qualities is enough for a sheep to feel fear and act to flee. The example of a lion using her tail to give a false impression of friendliness further underlines the fact that intentions emerge and depend on the perception of external features. The same applies even to humans, which Trutfetter exemplifies by the judgement about the stability of the soul and honesty on the basis of manners and conduct.36 Second, Trutfetter considers that there is a significant difference between sensory species and intentions regarding their way of representation. Following Peter of Ailly, Trutfetter notes that sensory species represent the external objects of perception, but intentions not only represent the external objects, but the acts of perception as well. In stating this, Trutfetter does not explicitly say that the intention produced in the sheep does not represent a hostility inherent in the wolf, but the formulation can be quite plausibly read so that the sheep’s intention represents the wolf together with a perception of horrible shapes by the external senses, which are enough to cause fear and for the sheep to escape. Unfortunately, Trutfetter does not explicate exactly what he means when he says that the intentions represent the acts of perception, and neither does his source Peter of Ailly.37 Furthermore, as regards the authorities of the via moderna, it should be noted that Trutfetter follows Buridan and Peter of Ailly in considering the elicitive power as a distinct power of the soul against the equally authoritative views of Ockham and Gabriel Biel who dismissed the estimative power and a distinct act of estimation as superfluous.38 But in his discussion of the elicitive power Trutfetter did not stop with just repeating the view of Peter of Ailly, and here we come to the point where Aquinas comes into view. There are several formulations to be found in Trutfetter’s text that are not present in Ailly’s Tractatus de anima, but that one can find in Aquinas and, for example, in the contemporary Thomist writers in Leipzig, Johannes Peyligk and Magnus Hundt.39 First, Trutfetter subsumes the estimative power as a subspecies of the elicitive power (vis elicitiva), the other being the cogitative power. Unlike Peter of Ailly, and in agreement with Aquinas and contemporary Thomists, Trutfetter states that

36 Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Cc4v. Similarly in 1517, see Trutfetter, Summa (1517), fol. 95v.[A

minor point: above in n. 33, Trutfetter seems to use “t” instead of “c” in words such as “iuditium” and “spetiebus”, but here he seems to use “c”, e.g. “specie”. Is this just Trutfetter following whatever orthography he prefers or could it be a typo in one of the cases?] 37 Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Cc4v; Ailly, Tractatus c. 4, p. 4, (ed. Pluta 28). 38 Buridan, Quaestiones in De anima II.23 (ed. Sobol, 388); Ailly, Tractatus, c. 4. p. 4 (ed. Pluta 27–28); Ockham, Scriptum in I Sententiarum 3.2 (OTh 2, 410–411); Gabriel Biel, Collectorium in quattuor libros Sententiarum I.3.6 (ed. Werbeck and Hoffmann, 231–232). 39 Johannes Peyligk, Philosophiae naturalis compendium; Magnus Hundt, Introductorium in Aristotelis physicen, parvulus philosophiae naturalis vulgariter appellatum cum propria non extranea declaratione. On Aquinas, see Black (2000), 66–68.

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the power is called estimative in animals and cogitative in human beings.40 The terminology itself does not suggest a direct Thomist influence since it had been used earlier by the Erfurtian authors Lutrea and Usingen. At least in Usingen it may derive from the compendium Parvulus philosophiae naturalis.41 Nevertheless, in comparison to his Erfurtian colleagues Lutrea and Usingen, Trutfetter differentiates the estimative and cogitative more straightforwardly in Thomist terms. Whereas Usingen calls the faculty elicitive or estimative, he states that it is “according to some” called cogitative in humans. Nor does Lutrea adopt the Thomist terminology as his own position. In contrast to both, Trutfetter simply divides estimative and cogitative as two subspecies of the elicitive faculty found in animals and humans respectively.42 Moreover, unlike his Erfurtian colleagues, Trutfetter adds the specifically Thomist designation “particular reason (ratio particularis)” without any qualifications to the cogitative faculty, whereas Usingen mentions it only after the phrase “according to some”.43 The difference between Trutfetter and Usingen does not extend to the description of the operation of these faculties: all of them agree that in animals the faculty produces a kind of inference from singulars to singulars, whereas in humans the faculty infers on the level of universals.44 Furthermore, in describing the activity of the estimative power in animals, Trutfetter uses the term “natural instinct”, which Aquinas and the Thomists use in this context. The term is missing from Usingen or Lutrea, even in their descriptions of the Thomist position.45 Against the specifically Thomist way of assimilating phantasia with other internal senses, Trutfetter was more hesitant. He notes that

40 Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Cc4v; Black (2000), 66; Hundt, Introductorium, fol. 238r; Peyligk,

Parvulus, fol. N3r; Ailly, Tractatus, c. 4, p. 4 (ed. Pluta 27–28). Carnificis of Kaiserslautern (Lutrea), Exercitium librorum de anima, fol. 49r; Usingen, Parvulus, fol. 108v. The text of Parvulus commented by Usingen reads: “Estimative, which is called cogitative”. See also the text of Parvulus in Lalla (2003), 400. 42 Usingen, Exercitium de anima, fol. K4v; idem, Compendium, fol. M3v. Cf. Usingen, Parvulus, fol. 108v, where Usingen oddly uses cogitative for both human and animal faculties. Like Usingen, Lutrea refers to the Thomist view as an opinion, but according to his own view there are only two internal senses: common sense and fantasy. Estimation falls under the domain of fantasy. Lutrea, Exercitium, fol. 49r–v. 43 Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Cc4v. See Usingen, Exercitium de anima, fol. K4v; idem, Compendium, fol. M3v; idem, Parvulus, fol. 108v; Lutrea, Exercitium, fol. 49r; Black (2000), 67; Hundt, Introductorium, fol. 238r; Peyligk, Parvulus, fol. N3r. 44 Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Cc4v. Usingen, Parvulus, fol. 108v; idem, Exercitium, fol. K4v. Lutrea is ambiguous here since the corresponding distinction is found only as a part of his description of Thomist opinion. See Lutrea, Exercitium, fol. 49r. 45 Trutfetter, Summa (1514), fol. Cc4v. For Aquinas, see Black (2000), 67. Aquinas uses the expression “natural instinct” in Summa theologiae I.78.4. Both Peyligk and Hund refer explicitly to this passage of Aquinas. Hundt, Introductorium, fol. 238r; Peyligk, Parvulus, fol. N3r. Cf. Usingen, Exercitium de anima, fol. K4v; idem, Compendium, fol. M3v; idem, Parvulus, fol. 108v; Lutrea, Exercitium, fol. 49r–v. 41 Johannes

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“many authors” call this power “fantasy” or “imagination” in the brute animals, but in humans cogitative.46 Finally, in the 1517 edition Trutfetter retains his basic systematic position that divides the elicitive power into estimative and cogitative in animals and humans respectively.47 He also uses the Thomist expression natural instinct to describe the activity of estimation in animals, but does not for some reason mention particular reason.48 He also omits the reference to Thomist theories that assimilate fantasy with imagination and the cogitative power. As was the case with the distinction of internal senses, Trutfetter clarifies the position that he wants to teach, but does not reject the Thomist terminology if it fits into his own position. However, the omissions are not restricted to the description of the Thomist position, but he leaves out the discussion of differences in the manner of representation that he adopted from Peter of Ailly.

5.6 Conclusion Trutfetter’s presentation of the internal senses is firmly rooted in his via moderna type semantic approach to faculty psychology. This is evident already in the 1514 version of his natural philosophy, but it is reinforced in the abridged revision from 1517. It would seem that in 1514 Trutfetter hid his own position on the central question behind the presentation of different views, but in the later edition he focuses on presenting the single most plausible view. Regarding the use of Thomist terminology, the earlier edition would suggest a more broad adoption of Thomist views, but this may be due to its way of presenting the various positions more extensively. The later edition continues and even reflects more clearly Trutfetter’s general attitudes towards various authorities where he defended the use of the authorities of the via moderna but did not exclude the earlier authorities either. Among them, Aquinas and the Thomist position continued to have a specific value for him.

Bibliography Primary Sources Biel, G. (1973). Collectorium in quattuor libros Sententiarum. Prologus et liber primus (W. Werbeck & U. Hoffmann, Eds.). Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr.

46 Trutfetter,

Summa, fol. Dd1r. On Aquinas and the Thomists, see Black (2000), 66–67; Hundt, Introductorium, fol. 226r; Peyligk, Parvulus, fol. N2v. 47 Trutfetter, Summa (1517), fol. 95v. 48 Trutfetter, Summa (1517), fol. 95v.

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Buridan, J. (1984). Quaestiones in De anima. Ed. P. G. Sobol in John Buridan on the soul and sensation. An edition of book II of his commentary on Aristotle’s book on the soul with and introduction and translation of question 18 on sensible species. Dissertation. Indiana University. Hundt, M. (1500). Introductorium in Aristotelis physicen, parvulus philosophiae naturalis vulgariter appellatum cum propria non extranea declaratione. Leipzig: Wolfgang Stöckel. Lutrea, J. C. (1482). Exercitium librorum de anima. Erfurt, Paulus Wider de Hornbach. Ockham, W. (1970). Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum ordinatio, distinctiones II–III (Guillelmi de Ockham Opera Philosophica et Theologica. Opera Theologica 2, S. Brown & G. Gál, Eds). St. Bonaventure: The Franciscan Institute. Peter of Ailly. (1987). Tractatus de anima. Ed. O. Pluta in Die philosophische Psychologie des Peter von Ailly. Amsterdam: Grüner. Peyligk, J. (1499). Philosophiae naturalis compendium. Leipzig: Melchior Lotter. Reisch, G. (1508). Margarita philosophica. In Strasbourg. Scheurl, C. (1867). Christoph Scheurls Briefbuch (Vol. 1, F. F. von Soden & J. K. F. Knaake, Eds.). Potsdam. Trutfetter, J. (1501). Summule totius logice. Erfurt: Wolfgang Schenk. Trutfetter, J. (1514). Summa in totam physicen. Erfurt: Matthias Maler. Trutfetter, J. (1517). Summa philosophiae naturalis contracta. Erfurt: Matthias Maler. Usingen, B. A. (1499). Parvulus philosophie naturalis. Leipzig: Wolfgang Stöckel. Usingen, B. A. (1505). Compendium naturalis philosophie. Erfurt: Wolfgang Schenk. Usingen, B. A. (1507). Exercitium de anima. Erfurt: Wolfgang Schenk.

Secondary Sources Black, D. L. (2000). Imagination and estimation: Arabic paradigms and Western transformations. Topoi, 19, 59–75. Bollbuck, H. (2012). Einleitung. Distinctiones Thomistarum. In T. Kaufmann (Ed.), Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Schriften und Briefe Andreas Bodensteins von Karlstadt, Teil I (1507– 1518). Wolfenbüttel. http://diglib.hab.de/edoc/ed000216/start.htm Hoenen, M. J. F. M. (2003). Via Antiqua and via Moderna in the fifteenth century: Doctrinal, institutional, and church political factors in the Wegestreit. In L. Nielsen & R. Friedman (Eds.), The medieval heritage in early modern metaphysics and moral theory (pp. 9–36). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Kärkkäinen, P. (2009). Psychology and the soul in late Medieval Erfurt. Vivarium, 47, 421–443. Kleineidam, E. (1985). Universitas Studii Erffordensis I. Leipzig: St.-Benno. Kleineidam, E. (1992). Universitas Studii Erffordensis II. Leipzig: St.-Benno. Lalla, S. (2003). Secundum viam modernam: Ontologischer Nominalismus bei Bartholomäus Arnoldi von Usingen. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Pilvousek, J. (2002). Jodocus Trutfetter. In D. von der Pfordten (Ed.), Große Denker Erfurts und der Erfurter Universität (pp. 96–117). Göttingen: Wallstein. Plitt, G. (1876). Jodokus Trutfetter von Eisenach der Lehrer Luthers in seinem Wirken geschildert. Erlangen: A. Deichert. Pluta, O. (1987). Die Philosophische Psychologie des Peter von Ailly. Amsterdam: Grüner. Scheible, H. (2007). Die philosophische Fakultät der Universität Wittenberg von der Gründung bis zur Vertreibung der Philippisten. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 98, 7–43. Tewes, G.-R. (1995). Die Erfurter Nominalisten und ihre thomistischen Widersacher in Köln, Leipzig und Wittenberg. Ein Beitrag zum deutschen Humanismus am Vorabend der Reformation. In A. Speer (Ed.), Die Bibliotheca Amploniana (pp. 447–488). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Verboon, A. (2010). Lines of thought: Diagrammatic representation and the scientific texts of the arts faculty, 1200–1500. Disseration. Leiden.

Part II

Case Studies: From Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Chapter 6

Re-presentation in Avicenna’s Doctrine of Knowledge Meryem Sebti

6.1 Introduction Avicenna’s doctrine of knowledge is known for its complexity, and modern scholars have offered different if not contradictory interpretations of its features.1 Avicenna’s doctrine of imagination is particularly difficult to apprehend. Is the work of imagination, as some texts suggest, a necessary step in the process that leads to intellection, or is imagination, as other texts suggest, a power that frees man from adequacy with reality?

I warmly thank Jonathan Dubé, who revised the English. 1 Avicenna’s

theory of knowledge has been the subject of numerous studies. My aim in this paper is not to enter into controversy with some eminent colleagues. Avicenna’s thought is complex enough to nourish various and sometimes divergent interpretations. The bibliography on this subject is rich and I will here cite some important papers that helped me construct my own interpretation: D. Gutas, “Imagination and Transcendental knowledge in Avicenna”, in Arabic Theology, Arabic Philosophy. From the Many to the One: Essays in Celebration of Richard M. Frank, J.E. Montgomery (ed.,), Leuven: Peters, 2006 pp. 337–354 and “Intellect without Limits: The Absence of Mysticism in Avicenna”, in: Intellect and Imagination in Medieval Philosophy, ed. M.C.Pacheco and J.F. Meirinhos, I, Turnhout: Brepols, 2006, p. 351–372; P. Adamson, “NonDiscursive Thought in Avicenna’s Commentary on the Theology of Aristotle,” in J. McGinnis (ed.), Interpreting Avicenna: Science and Philosophy in Medieval Islam, Leiden: Brill, 2004, 87–111. Dag Hasse, Avicenna on Abstraction, in Aspects of Avicenna, ed. Robert Wisnovsky, Princeton, 2001, pp. 39–82. Cristina d’Ancona, “Degrees of Abstraction in Avicenna. How to combine Aristotle’s De Anima and the Enneads”, in Theories of Perception in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. S. Knuuttila and P. Kärkkäinen, Springer Science, 2008, p. 47–71.

M. Sebti () Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 S. N. Mousavian, J. L. Fink (eds.), The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6_6

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The canonical text often used to describe Avicenna’s doctrine of knowledge belongs to the Psychological part of the Kit¯ab al-Shif¯a (Book of Healing),2 where Avicenna sketches a teleological classification of the soul’s powers. In this classification, each power serves the one above it. At the top of the classification, we find the acquired intellect, which is served by all the other powers. Among the psychological powers of the soul that work for the benefit of the acquired intellect are the five internal senses3 : (1) the common sense (al-h.iss al-mushtarak), which receives the sensible forms from the external senses and synthesizes them so that, for instance, it perceives a vertical rain line where, in reality, there is only a succession of fixed points. It is the power that is endowed with sense perception in actuality (2) the “formative power” (al-mus.awwira), or “retentive imagination” (khay¯al), which stores the images and forms that are perceived by the common sense from the external world, just as it stores the images and forms created or manipulated by the imagination, i.e. from the internal world, which may include anything that descends from the supernal world, ultimately to the imagination, as we will see(3) the mutakhayyila4 - whose function is to shuffle images and forms so as to combine and separate them; when used by the rational soul, this power is also called cogitative (al-mufakkira),5 in the sense that it combines and separates abstract notions-(4) the estimative power (al-wahm), whose main functions are to perceive the non-sensible attributes of things, i.e. their “intention” (ma῾n¯a), as in the case of the sheep’s perception that the wolf intends to harm it, as well as to determine a course of action -in the case of the sheep, to flee when it sees the wolf. This power is responsible for the “consideration of consequences, affection toward relatives, [and] the management of particular activities”. It also has the capacity to combine6 the intentiones (ma῾¯an¯ı) (stored in the power of recollection) with the forms stored in the retentive imagination.

2 Al-Shif¯ a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, I, 5, p. 41. 3 In her remarkable study on the Kit¯ ab al-h.iss wa-l-mah.s¯us, Rotraud Hansberger shows that Avicenna knew a close version (if not the same) to the Rampur ms. of the kit¯ab al-h.iss wa-lmah.s¯us and that his own conception of the internal senses is influenced by this text, specifically, as we will see, his doctrine of dreams and prophecy. See The Transmission of Aristotle’s Parva Naturalia in Arabic, PhD Thesis, 2006, p. 221 and f. 4 I will explain later in the course of my argumentation why I translate this notion by power of re-presentation. 5 “In our nature we combine [synthesize] some perceptible things with others, and we differentiate [analyze] some from others, not according to their form as found externally, nor with the belief in the existence of one of those, nor in its non-existence. So it is necessary that there should be in us a power by which we perform that act. And this is what is called reflective [or: cogitative] when the intellect uses it, and imaginative when the imagining power uses it.” Al-Shif¯a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: alNafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi

al-Amiriyya, 1975, IV, 1, p. 147, l. 14–18. 6 I will examine below if this power can be regarded as a kind of imagination, given its ability to freely compose forms and intentions.

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Given its critical and judging aspect, this power is the highest power in animals; (5) memory (al-dh¯akira), or recollection (al-mutadhakkira), which stores the intentiones (ma῾¯an¯ı) perceived or judged to be the case by the estimation. These five internal senses are thoroughly material: they are located in various parts of the brain and communicate with each other and share information—images, forms— back and forth by means of the spirit or pneuma (al-r¯uh.) that moves within the brain. The knowledge they receive and process is of particular things, and is stored in the brain. According to this description, the mutakhayyila is conceived as a power whose function is to serve the highest activity of the human mind, namely intellection. However, in the same book, Avicenna presents a dramatically different account of the same power. Indeed, Avicenna states in the psychological part of the Shif¯a (IV, 2, p. 153)7 that the specific activity of the mutakhayyila is weakened when used by the intellect. Moreover, it appears that for the Persian philosopher, the mutakhayyila does not function as a mediator in the process of abstraction that leads to the acquisition of the abstract intelligibles. In the aforementioned passage of the Kit¯ab al-Nafs of the Shif¯a , Avicenna describes the mutakhayyila as an autonomous power of the soul and not as a power dedicated to the perfection of the acquired intellect. That power, which he calls the mutakhayyila as well as the “cogitative power” (mufakkira) seems to have a particular function in the classification of the internal senses. How can these two accounts of the same power be held simultaneously? It seems to me that a sound hermeneutic principle is a fecund principle, while being economic in that it allows the unification of the different components of a philosophical system: metaphysics, theory of knowledge, psychology. In this paper, I aim to show that for Avicenna the mutakhayyila or “power of re-presentation” is a power that proceeds by mimesis. That is to say, it imitates sensory data, but also re-presents by imitation the visions that result from the contact of the human souls with the imagination of the souls of the celestial spheres. In this paper we translate “mutakhayyila” as “power of re-presentation” so as to convey with greater precision the epistemological import of Avicenna’s doctrine of the imagination. This translation enables us to qualify the imagination as an active psychical power which is not merely a passive recipient of data from the outside, but rather the creator of original psychical content. Hereinafter, where we use the term “imagination” (in the context of Avicenna’s doctrine), we mean “power of representation.” The use of the term “imagination” allows us to insert Avicenna’s doctrine within the complex history of this psychic power, in both the Greek and Arabic philosophical literature. The interpretation of the Avicennian doctrine of imagination that we propose solves a number of doctrinal problems. Furthermore, the context of Avicenna’s doctrine of knowledge enables us to clearly distinguish between the function of the power of estimation and that of the power of re-presentation. This interpretation also

7 For

an analysis of this passage, see p. XX.

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clarifies the Avicennian doctrine of dreams and explains how it is fully justified to compare as Avicenna does - dreams and visions such as those visions experienced by the prophets. On the metaphysical level, it explains Avicenna’s metaphysical system on the ground of the Neoplatonic notion of participation and establishes that the link between the intellect of man and his power of re-presentation is similar to that which exists between the intellects of the celestial spheres and their souls, which are endowed with imagination. It also sheds new light on the nature of Avicenna’s recitals as H . ayy Ibn Yaqz.a¯ n or the Bird’s Epistle. Finally, it situates the Avicennian conception of imagination as the starting point of a long doctrinal chain which leads to the Ishraq¯ı doctrines of imagination. In the first part of this paper, I will attempt to determine the specificity of the power of re-presentation’s activity and show that Avicenna grants this power a specific heuristic and creative function. I will then show that his intuition is not fully compatible with the principles that underpin his theory of knowledge, namely his strict distinction between sensible powers, which are material and the intellectual power, which is immaterial.8

6.2 The Distinction Between the Retentive Power and the Representative Power Avicenna distinguishes between a power which retains the forms derived from the common sense and a power which can create new psychical contents out of the forms and intentions preserved in the two kinds of memories that man possesses, i.e. the “formative power” or the “retentive imagination” and “memory” or “recollection”. The first is the khay¯al/mus.awwira and the second the muta hayyila/mufakkira. ˘ The former is purely receptive of the forms that stem from sensible perception. Following Avicenna, the forms transmitted by the external senses to the common sense are not preserved by the latter. Rather, these forms are preserved in what Avicenna calls the “formative power” or the “retentive imagination” (al-khay¯al or al-quwwa al-mus.awwira). Its function is to preserve sensible forms in the absence of the corresponding objects of perception so that the soul can use them without having to return to sensory experience Avicenna has not always distinguished the common sense from the retentive imagination. Only in his more mature works does he establish the principle that the same power cannot be both receptive and retentive: Know that the [capacity] of reception (al-qub¯ul) belongs to another power than to the power that preserves. Consider this [using the] example of water. It has the power to receive the design (al-naqsh) and the inscription (al-raqm), in short, the shape (shakl), but lacks the power to preserve it.

8 This

second aspect explains why, in order to fully develop the intuition that allowed Avicenna to conceive imagination as a creative power, ishr¯aq¯ı philosophers had to completely reconsider his theory of knowledge.

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Distinguishing the impression from its retention explains how the soul can recover the forms left by sensitive impressions without returning to the sensible things themselves, thus accounting for the fact that these forms are preserved without being actually present in the mind: The retentive imagination (al-khay¯al) is like the treasurer (al-kh¯azin) and the form it contains is not constantly imagined in act (mutakhayyala bi l-fi l) by the soul, otherwise it would be necessary for us to imagine a multitude of forms together, namely all the forms which are in the retentive imagination. These forms are not in the retentive imagination according to the modality of what is potential; otherwise it would be necessary to return once again to the [external] senses: however, they are preserved in this power.9

The retentive imagination, called “khay¯al” or “mus.awwira”, is therefore “informed” by the received form. It is merely a power of retention. As Avicenna explains, to be actually perceived by the mind a form should be imprinted in the common sense: This power is called “common sense”, it is the center (markaz) of the senses, and their branches (al-sh ab)10 derive from it; the [external senses] lead to the common sense; it is to the common sense that sensation belongs in reality (wa hiya [hadhihi al-quwwa] bi-lh.aq¯ıqa al-lat¯ı tah.ussu).11

By attributing the ability to perceive forms and the ability to preserve them to two distinct powers, Avicenna can thus explain why all perceived forms are not continually represented in act. Only those forms which are imprinted in the common sense are actually perceived. It is therefore the retentive imagination that preserves the forms proceeding from sensory experience. It is a stock of forms, so to speak. It is distinguished from the power that is capable of actively producing new psychic contents that do not directly proceed from the external world. The term used by Avicenna to evoke the impression of shapes in the imagination, as we have seen, is derived from the root rqm,12 which evokes the idea of a mark, imprint, or trace left

9 Al-Shif¯ a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, V, p. 36, the distinction between the inscription in the memory and the wave transmitting the representation is of Stoic origin, as is the example of water. Chrysippus criticizes Cleanthus, who considers that the psychic breath can receive an impression similar to that of the seal in wax. He objects that even a body like water, which is denser than breath, cannot preserve the shape of the seal; cf. Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, VII, 374. This question is treated by J. B. Gourinat, Les stoïciens et l’âme, Paris, 1996, p. 39. 10 The idea of a center from which derives branches could be an influence of Alexander of Aphrodisias who compares the common sense to the center of a circle unifying in itself what comes from different sources. Plotinus also uses the same analogy. For the references, see C. d’Ancona, “Degrees of Abstraction in Avicenna. How to combine Aristotle’s De Anima and the Enneads”, in Theories of Perception in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. S. Knuuttila and P. Kärkkäinen, Springer Science, 2008, p. 47–71, p. 53. 11 Al-Shif¯ a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, IV, 1, p. 147. 12 In his edition of the Kit¯ ab al-nafs of the Shif¯a , Amol¯ı notes the presence of the word “rasm” (trace) instead of “raqm” (inscription) in one of the mss. he had at his disposal; Al-nafs min kit¯ab al-Shif¯a , H.Z. Amol¯ı, Mat.ba῾a maktab al-i῾l¯am al-isl¯am¯ı, Qum, 1417 H/1997, p. 61. In the Arabic

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in the power of reception. In the retentive imagination, each impression constitutes a singular mental form to which the soul can return without having recourse to the external world. The mode of being for these forms in the retentive imagination is as follows: these impressions leave their traces in the retentive power, as so many seals on a block of wax.13 The bodily power of the soul preserves this imprint. To each sensible perception corresponds a trace or imprint left in the retentive imagination. Thus, the forms preserved in this power are nothing but the duplicated forms of some perceptual experiences: for each image I there is a perceptual state P, such that I is an imprint left by P. The retentive imagination is distinguished from the common sense—the instance of perception—only in terms of its capacity to preserve the trace of sensory impressions. The retentive imagination and the common sense are like two sides of the same power. One is turned outwards, the other inwards; one receives impressions, the other holds them. Thus, Avicenna explicitly states in the Shif¯a : The formative power, which is a retentive power, is the last thing in which the forms of sensible things are established, and its face toward sensible things (wajhuhu il¯a almah.sus¯at) is the common sense.14

In The Canon of Medicine (al-Q¯an¯un f¯ı l-t.ibb), Avicenna distinguishes two points of view: that of the physician, for whom these two powers are identical—since their location in the brain is the same (in the front ventricle of the brain), and that of the philosopher, for whom two distinct functions must correspond to two distinct powers.15

Kit¯ab al-h.iss wa-l-mah.s¯us, we find rasm for the imprint left in the mind by the sensibles. For example: “inn al-dhikr h.ifz. rus¯um al-ashy¯a ”, Rotraud Hansberger, The Transmission of Aristotle’s Parva Naturalia in Arabic, PhD Thesis, 2006, Appendix, p. 8. 13 The image of the block of wax is used by Aristotle in De Memoria et Reminiscentia, where he explains that memory is the capacity to receive the impression of the sensible thing and to preserve it, just as the wax retains the imprint of the seal (450a31-b5). Interestingly, in his commentary on De anima, Themistius uses the image of the block of wax to describe the activity of the imagination. Here is the English translation of this passage—not preserved in the Arabic manuscript—which lacks a large part of the paraphrase of the third section of the De anima: “It is the nature [of imagination] to retain in itself, and be stamped with, the imprints that sense perception hands over to it from the objects of perception, after it [itself] has received the imprint; and also [its nature] to be capable of preserving the traces [from sense perception] for some time, even though the objects of perception have gone away”; Themistius, On Aristotle on the soul, trad. R. B. Todd., London, 1996, p. 115. Plotinus also develops the thesis according to which it is the imagination which has the memory of sensible things, cf. Enn. IV, 3 29. 14 Al-Shif¯ a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid andI. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, IV, 2, p. 151. 15 The Canon of Medicine (al-Q¯ an¯un f¯ı .tibb, S. al-Lah.a¯ m (ed.), D¯ar al-fikr, Beyrouth, 1994, I, p. 137.

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6.3 Al-quwwa al-mutakhayyila or the Power of Re-presentation While the formative power, as we have seen, is endowed with the capacity to retain the sensible forms received by the common sense, for its part the mutakhayyila or power of re-presentation has the ability to compose these forms and to separate them without reference to their extra-mental source. The latter is also called the cogitative “mufakkira” (with respect to man).16 This differentiation in Avicenna’s classification of the internal senses between the retentive imagination and the mutakhayyila is pivotal: it establishes the distinction between the imprint left by sensible things in the brain and the active function of the imagination/representation. Following an Aristotelian principle, Avicenna distinguishes between these psychic powers on the basis of the previously established distinctions between their respective objects. Hence, each power is determined according to its primary object. On this ground, the primary object of the retentive imagination and that of the mutakhayyila cannot be the same. Avicenna distinguishes between the form received by the common sense, which is the object of the retentive imagination, and another psychic content that is the result of the compositive/re-presentative work performed by the mutakhayyila. The latter uses the forms and intentions preserved in the two reserves of memory (i.e. the retentive imagination and recollection). This means that the trace I left in the retentive imagination by a perceptual state P is distinct from the psychical content, which is the specific object of the mutakhayyila. By explicitly distinguishing the retentive function from a genuinely active function, Avicenna grants the mutakhayyila an active role with respect to sensible things. Indeed, in establishing this distinction, he solves one of the greatest difficulties of the Aristotelian doctrine of the imagination. In De anima, the phantasm appears, on the one hand, as a movement derived from sensation and inseparable from it (III, 3, 428 b 12)17 and, on the other hand, as the condition of

16 I

will return to this distinction later in my paper, while focusing on the epistemological aspect of the question. 17 “[Aristotle] wants us to know the imagination (al-takhayyul) and to explain the modality of operation (kayfiyya) of its act and how it follows the sensation (al-h.iss). [Avicenna] says that when a thing is supposed to be in motion, its motion is (fully) realized in something else. It is as if the act of the imagination is regarded as a certain movement, and thus it is a movement which takes place only after a movement of the senses. This means that if a sense is moved by a sensible and abstracts its image (mith¯alahu) from it, then the imagination is moved by this sensible and abstracts an image in a different manner than the first abstraction (akhdhan a¯ khar), and preserves it. You know that the sensation is followed by an internal movement which is imagination. It necessarily resembles sensation since it follows it; it preserves [the sensation] according to the modality of reception of the sense [of perception]. It cannot take place without [sensation] and does not exist in what is deprived of sensation. The subject (al-shay ) in which the imagination’s movement follows the sensation (al-h.iss) realizes (yaf al) various things by means of these movements and is also affected by them. His actions and passions are either true or false. By action, [Aristotle] means the composition (al-tark¯ıb) and the separation (al-tafs.¯ıl) that the imagination performs depending on whether it acts alone or in association with sensation. When sensation brings about something,

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thought (III, 7, 431 a 16-17), or even as similar to the first noema (III, 7, 431 b 7, III, 3, 427 b 27-28). The second important distinction between Avicenna’s and Aristotle’s doctrine of imagination is that—as mentioned above—according to the Persian philosopher the function of the power of re-presentation is not to act as a mediator in the process of abstraction that leads to the acquisition of abstract intelligibles18 ; the use of the phantasms is no longer to serve the constitution of noemas.19 Avicenna’s distinction between the retentive imagination and the mutakhayyila (power of re-presentation) is fundamental. He conceives the latter as capable of an activity of synthesis which is not subject to the duty of adequacy with the external world, so that it departs from the characteristic passivity of sensation.20

6.4 The Creative Function of the Power of Re-presentation In the Kit¯ab al-Nafs of the Shif¯a , Avicenna devotes several long and complex developments to the specific activity of the mutakhayyila. The following passage is important in order to understand the epistemic status of this psychic power:

the imagination causes it to correspond to something else. By passion, he means the impression of these compositions and separations in the imagination. What he has gathered here under the name of “imagination” is divided into various active faculties, such as “estimation” (al-wahm) and “the cogitative faculty” (al-fikr), and “conservative powers” (wa-h.a¯ fiz.a), such as the “retentive imagination” (or: formative power) (al-mus.awwira) and “remembrance” (al-mudhakkira), AlTa l¯ıq¯at ῾al¯a h.aw¯ash¯ı kit¯ab al-nafs li-Arist.a¯ .ta¯ l¯ıs, in Arist.u inda l- Arab, p. 75–116, ed. A. Badawi, Koweit, 2nd ed., 1978, p. 97–98. It is interesting to note that in the preserved Arabic translation of Aristotle’s De anima by Ish.a¯ q Ibn H.unayn, the word used to designate “imagination” is “tawahhum”, Arist.u¯ .ta¯ l¯ıs f¯ı-l-nafs, A. Badaw¯ı (ed.), Wik¯ala al-mat.b¯u῾a¯ t, Beirut, 2nd edition, 1980, p. 71. 18 This aspect of the distinction between Aristotle’s and Avicenna’s doctrine of imagination has been stressed by Portelli in “The ‘Myth’ that Avicenna reproduced Aristotle’s ‘concept of imagination’ in De Anima”, op. cit., p. 125. Avicenna states in the Kit¯ab al-Nafs of the Shif¯a : “When the intellectual power consults the particular things which are in the formative power, and the light of the active intellect illuminates them in us, they are then abstracted from matter and its consequents and imprinted in the rational soul; not because these forms themselves pass from the formative power to the intellect nor insofar as the abstract notion obscured by material bonds is intelligible in itself and in relation to its own essence as it is, but in the sense that the consultation of particular things leads the soul to receive the abstract form by emanation from the agent intellect. Thoughts and reflections are movements that prepare the soul to receive the effusion [...]; then the images which are intelligible in power become intelligible in act. Not themselves, but what is gathered from them”, [my translation], al-Shif¯a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, V, 5, p. 208–209. 19 It remains unclear why Avicenna qualifies the mutakhayyila as “cogitative” in man. It is may be because the capacity of creating new psychical contents is specific to man. 20 It is important to stress here that for Avicenna the common sense operates a synthesis on the objects apprehended by the senses. It is at the level of the common sense that sensation becomes perception. On this point, see Meryem Sebti, Avicenne. L’âme humaine, Paris 2000, p. 59 ff.

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The soul prevents the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) from performing its own activity in two ways: this sometimes occurs when the soul is occupied by the external senses while the formative power occupies itself with the external senses; the formative power is moved by what is transmitted to it from the senses, [so that the cogitative power (al-mufakkira) does not submit itself to the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila)].21 In this situation, the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) cannot perform its own activity, nor can the formative power exclusively serve the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) [ . . . ].22 Sometimes this occurs when the soul uses the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) in its own activities such as distinction (al-tamy¯ız) and thought (al-fikra). This also occurs in two different ways: the first by [the soul’s] domination of the power of representation (mutakhayyila) and enlisting it, along with the common sense, so as to compose the forms themselves (bi-a’y¯anih¯a) and to decompose them, so that the soul derives a convincing result. The power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) cannot therefore devote itself to what its own nature demands, but is carried along by the activity of the rational soul. The second way consists in diverting the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) from representations (al-takhayyil¯at) which do not correspond to sentient beings. The power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) then weakens and no longer manages to retain the strength of its projection and exemplification (tashb¯ıh.ih¯a wa-tamth¯ılih¯a). Thus if the power of representation (mutakhayyila) is occupied by both sides, its proper activity weakens.23

This passage is important for our understanding of Avicenna’s conception of the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila). When the soul—by which Avicenna understands the rational soul—dominates this power, it is to “compose the forms themselves.” Avicenna then adds that the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) is endowed with a “proper nature” which is neither that of the senses nor that of the rational soul. Two important terms also appear in this passage in relation to the mutakhayyila, to which we shall return: “tashb¯ıh.” and “tamth¯ıl”, “projection” and “exemplification”. When the mutakhayyila weakens, Avicenna writes, “it no longer manages to retain the strength of its tashb¯ıh. wa-tamth¯ıl”. We are here faced with two puzzling affirmations.

21 This

part of the sentence is difficult to understand. The tree editors (Amoli, Rahman and Anawati/Z¯ayid/ Madhk¯ur) give the same reading and do not report any variant. The Latin translation have “non permittit imaginativam cogitare”, see Avicenna Latinus, Liber De anima, IV-V, S. Van Riet (ed.), Louvain-Leiden, 1968, p. 16. In the ms of the Kit¯ab al-Nafs kept in Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Médecine de Paris, folio 335, line 19 we read: “h.ata l¯a taslimu al-mutakhayyila li-l fikra” (so that the mutakhayyila does not submit to the cogitative power)which makes more sense. 22 I renounce translating the second part of the sentence (wa yak¯ unu m¯a tuh.taj¯an ilayhi min al-h.issi al-mushtaraki th¯abitan w¯aqi῾an f¯ı shu˙gli al-h.aw¯asi al-z.a¯ hiratiwhich) which is obviously corrupted. In his edition, Rahman mentions that there are some other lessons for th¯abitan and w¯aqi῾an, but none of them is conclusive; see Rahman, Al-Shif¯a : al-Nafs, ed. F. Rah.m¯an. Oxford University Press, 1959, p.172. In her footnotes of the Latin Edition, S. Van Riet provides a translation of this sentence which is not really comprehensible (“ce dont ces deux facultés ont besoin et qui vient du sens commun, est stable et est entraîné à s’occuper des sens externes”), see Avicenna Latinus, Liber de Anima IV-V, Leuven-Leyden, 1968, p. 16, note 13–14. 23 Al-Shif¯ a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, IV, 2, p. 153, (emphasis mine).

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6.4.1 Speculation and Mimesis To understand the specific role of the activity of the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila), we must first establish a comparison between the modality of its activity and that of the theoretical intellect. When man uses his theoretical intellect, he is in relation with the Active intellect. Thinking theoretically consists for Avicenna in reflecting the noetic reality that radiates from the active intellect. Unlike the image, which represents what can be absent—thereby taking its place—reflection requires an uninterrupted relationship between what is represented and the source of its manifestation. What is reflected and what manifests it exist simultaneously— exist for each other within the framework of the speculative relationship. Man’s intellect must face the Active intellect and void itself of all opacity in order to reflect the richness of the intelligible world. Thinking presupposes a reorientation, a reversion of the subject, a quasi-transparency which alone makes it possible to become the place of reflection for the illumination that comes from the Active intellect. It would seem, therefore that to the Farabian scheme of imitation,24 Avicenna has substituted a conception of intellection which has the speculative model as paradigm. He insists on the relationship of dependency that unites man’s intellect to the Active Intellect. He also insists on the necessity for the human intellect to revert to the origin of its activity so as to achieve genuine theoretical thinking. Every act of intellection implies a reversion of man’s soul towards the world of separate intellects. Theoretical thinking is a reversion, a return to the origin.25 In the same way that each separated intellect intelligizes only by turning to

24 In

a yet unpublished study devoted to Farabi’s noetic, Philippe Vallat shows very clearly how Farabi considers that intellection necessitates the mediation of a form which is a simile of the original intelligible form: “L’intellection, en somme, actualise et réalise l’intellect en même temps qu’elle actualise et réalise les formes. De l’ensemble des formes devenues immatérielles par son actualisation, l’intellect en acte passe à l’intellection de ces mêmes formes telles qu’elles ont toujours été dans l’Intellect agent: indivisibles, toujours déjà en acte et immatérielles. L’intellect en acte est alors devenu divin, « acquis », intelligible et intellect par soi, car, en s’intelligeant comme ensemble des formes de toujours déjà immatérielles, l’intellect se pense et devient immatériel en acte, de simple disposition quasi matérielle qu’il était pour commencer. Il ne devient pas pour autant identique à l’Intellect agent. Il est tentant, ne serait-ce qu’à des fins de clarté, de supposer que c’est une fois arrivé au terme du processus décrit que Farabi s’est avisé que la portée ontonoétique de l’état atteint par l’intellect acquis, à savoir sa subsistance dans l’être, nécessitait d’en mieux distinguer l’état de l’intellect en acte en introduisant entre les formes devenues immatérielles et les formes de toujours déjà immatérielles, un terme médian, la semblance de la forme ante rem, faisant ainsi de l’identification « formes/intellect » au stade de l’intellect en acte un état seulement conceptuel, spéculaire et transitoire et non, comme au stade de l’intellect acquis, un état essentiel de similitude proche (qar¯ıb al-shibh) ou de quasi identité”, in “L’intellect selon Farabi. La transformation du connaître en être”, in Noétique et théorie de la connaissance dans la philosophie arabe des IXe -XVIIe siècles, Meryem Sebti and Daniel de Smet (eds), Vrin, forthcoming. 25 The doctrine according to which theoretical thinking is a reversion to the origin is Neoplatonic and was spread in Arabic through the Plotiniana Arabica (Aristotle’s Theology -which is in fact a reelaboration of Plotinus’ last three Enneads - and the Proclus Arabus). However, for Avicenna there is no reminiscence, because the soul does not exist until a specific body is disposed to receive

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the source of its being, man thinks theoretically by turning towards the origin of his being. This reversion is the very act by which the intellect grasps itself. Since the human intellect is not immediately transparent to itself as separate and immaterial intellects are, it has access to itself only through the intelligible form it reflects. The human intellect does not receive the intelligible through the mediation of an organ as do the senses with the sensible forms. It reflects the intelligible forms and becomes transparent to itself in the same movement. The reception of intelligible form reveals the intellect to itself—the reflection manifests the intelligible form just as it manifests the intellect to itself. By this double movement, man’s intellect assimilates itself to the celestial intellects which intelligize themselves while intelligizing the intelligible forms. Hence, for Avicenna the paradigm of intellection is speculation. To intelligize is to reflect the intelligible forms in the same way that a mirror reflects what it faces. In thinking theoretically, the human intellect does not create a new form that re-presents the intelligible world; it only reflects it as faithfully as possible. That is why in the aforementioned passage of the Shif¯a Avicenna states that when the rational part of the soul dominates the mutakhayyila, this latter “compose(s) the forms themselves (bi-a y¯anih¯a)”. The meaning of this baffling statement is that there is no re-presentation of the intelligible forms in the noetic process. To intelligize is to reflect as faithfully as possible the noetic reality that proceeds from the Active intellect. The activity of the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) does not operate according to this speculative paradigm. Rather than dealing with the forms themselves, the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) deals with “its own tashb¯ıh.” and tamth¯ıl”, that is to say, its own “projection” and “exemplification” of the perceived reality. To determine the epistemic status of “tashb¯ıh.” and “tamth¯ıl” and to understand how the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) acts as an independent psychic power, we first need to examine Avicenna’s conception of veridical dreams and prophetic vision, since it is during such psychical experiences that the activity of the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) operates with the most independence from the other powers of the soul.

6.4.2 Dreams and Veridical Visions Avicenna recognizes many kinds of dreams; some reflect the daytime preoccupations of the sleeper, while others are bestowed from the souls of the celestial spheres to the imagination of men: these are premonitory dreams. Let us examine these

it. For the question of the co-origination of the soul and the body in Avicenna’s philosophy, see, Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi, “Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul”, in Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Volume 5, Robert Pasnau (ed.), 2017, p. 41–86.

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different categories of dreams, so as to better understand the function of the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) during the dreaming activity: All transient thoughts (al-khaw¯a.tir) are appeased at this moment (i.e. the dawn) and the movements due to projections (ashb¯ah.) have already calmed down. The power of representation (mutakhayyila) is in a state of sleep at that moment and is not occupied with the body, if its relation to the retentive and formative power is not interrupted so that [the power re-presentation (the mutakhayyila)] can use it, then it will better serve the benefit of the soul. For the soul needs that what is transmitted to it be faithfully imprinted in this power. What is imprinted is either the form (al-s.u¯ ra) itself or its imitation (muh.a¯ kiy¯atih¯a).26

Before closely examining the notion of muh.a¯ ka (that I translate as “imitation”), which is crucial for understanding the Avicennian doctrine of the imagination (as laid out in the Kit¯ab al-Nafs of the Shif¯a —chapter 2, Book IV—dedicated to the imagination this notion comes up again and again)27 , we first need to clarify a point. 26 Al-Shif¯ a :

al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, IV, 2, p. 160. 27 The notion is also important in F¯ ar¯ab¯ı’s doctrine of imagination. In chap. 24 of the Kit¯ab Ar¯a Ahl al-Mad¯ına al-F¯ad.ila, entitled “Al-qawl f¯ı sabab al-man¯am¯at”, F¯ar¯ab¯ı explains that the function of the imagination (al-quwwa al-mutakhayyila) has three specific activities: to retain the imprints of the sensible (h.afd.uh¯a rus¯um al-mah.s¯us¯at), the composition of these imprints (tark¯ıb ba d.uh¯a il¯a ba d.), and imitation (al-muh.a¯ ka). The chapter is almost entirely devoted to explaining the dynamics of this activity of mimesis. Nevertheless, Avicenna will later develop a significantly different doctrine: for F¯ar¯ab¯ı, the activity of mimesis is also the prerogative of the intellect; this has important consequences, since for him the imagination is not—as in Avicenna’s theory— the only psychic power of the soul endowed with a creative function; for F¯ar¯ab¯ı, the imagination imitates what comes from the sensible and what comes from the active intellect. It neither imitates what comes from the celestial souls, nor has the privilege to be the only psychic power to have access to the realm of these specific celestial beings. We find in F¯ar¯ab¯ı’s Kit¯ab al-Siy¯asa al-madaniyya, a passage that is very close to what Avicenna will affirm later: “wa-mab¯ad¯ı’u lmaw˘gu¯ d¯ati wa-mar¯atibuh¯a wa-l-sa῾a¯ datu wa-ri’¯asatu l-muduni l-f¯ad.ilati imm¯a an yatas.awwarah¯a al-ins¯anu wa-ya῾qiluh¯a wa-imm¯a an yatahayyalah¯a. Wa-tas.awwaruh¯a huwa an tartasima f¯ı nafsi l˘ ins¯an, daw¯atuh¯a kam¯a hiya maw˘gu¯ datun f¯ı-l-h.aq¯ıqa. Wa-tahayyuluh¯a huwa an tartasimma f¯ı nafsi ¯ ˘ l-ins¯an hay¯al¯atuh¯a wa-mita¯ l¯atuh¯a wa-um¯urun tuh.a¯ kih¯a”, Kit¯ab al-Siy¯asa al-madaniyya, Fauzi M. ¯ ˘ Najjar, Dar El-Mashreq Publisher, Beyrouth, 1993, p. 85. Here is Fauzi Najjar’s translation of this passage: “The principles of the beings, their ranks of order, happiness and the rulership of the virtuous cities, are either cognized and intellected by man, or he imagines them. To cognize them is to have imprinted in man’s soul their images, representations of them, or matters that are imitations of them”; in Medieval Political Philosophy, Ralph Lerner and Muhsin Mahdi (eds), Cornell University Press, Ithaca-New York, p. 40. In the same book, however, F¯ar¯ab¯ı rejects the idea that the celestial spheres are endowed with imagination: “wa- laysa f¯ı-l-a˘gs¯ami al-sam¯awiyyati min al-anfusi, l¯a l-h.a¯ ssasatu wa-l¯a l-mutahayyilatu bal innam¯a lah¯a l-nafsu allat¯ı ta῾qilu faqat.” ˘ (Arabic edition, p. 34 – this part of the text is not translated by Najjar): “the celestial bodies do not have souls nor do they have perception or imagination, they only have a soul which is capable of intellection”. In his French translation, Philippe Vallat rightly states: “l’imagination est ici refusée aux corps célestes”, see Ph. Vallat, Al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı, Le livre du Régime politique, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 2012, p. 16, note 42. This essential difference between F¯ar¯ab¯ı’s and Avicenna’s cosmology has a decisive consequence on their doctrine of imagination. For F¯ar¯ab¯ı, imitation is reserved for non-philosophers, those who do not have the capacity to grasp intelligibles. Avicenna confers on imitation, and therefore imagination, a positive function which is not found in the doctrine of his predecessor.

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During the process that leads man to have a veridical dream, Avicenna states that the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) creates the “imitation of some forms”. We should first investigate the ontological status of the celestial forms the power of representation (mutakhayyila) uses as models to produce its own imitations. This last point cannot be understood without recalling some metaphysical and cosmological elements of the Avicennian doctrine. God knows all things through purely intellectual knowledge: what is, has been and will be. The ten separate intellects of the cosmos also hold part of this knowledge. The souls of the celestial spheres are related to the bodies of the spheres and are endowed with imagination due to their attachment to a body. Through their power of imagination, they are able to represent particular things (tas.awwur li ljuz iyy¯at) and to incline towards them.28 Avicenna states in the Kit¯ab al-Nafs of the Shif¯a : The ideas of all things that exist in the world, past, present and future are in the Knowledge of the Creator (῾ilm al-b¯ar¯ı) and in that of intellectual angels in a certain way; are also present in [the knowledge] of the souls of the heavenly angels in another way. Human souls have a greater affinity with these angelic substances [than with separated intellects] because of the sensitive bodies. There is found neither occultation (ih.tij¯ab) nor avarice (bukhl). The veil comes only from the receptors because of their immersion in the bodies or because of what attracts them towards the lower direction.29

Avicenna states that what exists “in a certain way” in the intellect also exists “in some way in the imagination of celestial souls endowed with a (celestial) body”. Unfortunately, Avicenna does not explain the terms of this correspondence. Let us examine the modalities of the procession from the First Principle in Avicennian metaphysics, so as to determine the ontological status of these “representations of particular things” which are the object of the imagination of the celestial spheres.30 At the peak of the ontological hierarchy is the First Principle, God. As the only being necessary by Itself, He is pure Reality (al-H . aqq al-mah.d.). The First Principle intelligizes his own essence without interruption. He is pure Intellect (VIII, 6, 284). He is also purely intelligible (VIII, 6, 285). His essence is intellect, intelligent

28 “Therefore,

each of the spheres would have a soul imparting motion that intellectually apprehends the good. It would, by reason of its body, have imagination – that is, an imaged representation of particulars and a willing of particular [things]”, The Metaphysics of the Healing [Al-Shif¯a : AlIl¯ahiyy¯at], ed. and trans. M. Marmura. Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2005, IX, 3, p. 325. 29 Al-Shif¯ a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, IV, 2, p. 158. In the Kit¯ab al-Mabda wa-lMa ¯ad, which is considered to be an earlier work of Avicenna, he is still under F¯ar¯ab¯ı’s influence, since he states that, in the case of the prophet, the imagination imitates the intelligibles that are given to man’s intellect by the active intellect (Kit¯ab al-Mabda wa-l-Ma ¯ad, ed. A. N¯ur¯an¯ı, Mc Gill University-Tehran University, Tehran, 1984, p. 119). 30 In his paper devoted to astral imagination, Marwan Rashed considers that the function of the imagination of the celestial spheres is to know and to control the trajectory of the celestial movement; see Marwan Rashed, “Imagination astrale et physique supralunaire selon Avicenne”, in Corpo e anima, sensi interni e intelletto dai secoli XIII-XV ai post-cartesiani e spinoziani, a cura di G. Federici-Vescoviniet al., Brepols, 2005, pp. 103–117.

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and intelligible (῾aql wa ῾aq¯ıl wa ma῾q¯ul). He is the Principle of all existents according to their species and by the mediation of the species of their individualities (ashkh¯as.ih¯a). He knows the causes and their correspondences (mut.a¯ baq¯atih¯a). He knows individuals insofar as they are universal. He intelligizes things at once without this generating multiplicity in Him, nor are they represented in the reality of His essence with their form (l¯a tatas.awwar f¯ı h.aq¯ıqa dhatihi bi-s.u¯ rih¯a, VIII, 7, 291). Yet they emanate from Him inasmuch as they are intelligible (bal taf¯ıd. ‘anhu s.u¯ w¯arih¯a ma’q¯ula). He is more deserving (awl¯a) of being called an intellect than those forms which emanate from his intellection. Since He intelligizes His essence and is the principle of all things, He intelligizes all things from His essence. The relation of the whole to the First is comparable to the relation that exists between the forms of a building that do not exist and which we conceive and then exist. But He knows the order by which things proceed from Him. In these terms, one might wonder what is the epistemological relation between God’s representation of the universals, the celestial intellects’ representations of the universals, and the celestial souls’ representation of the particulars. The celestial intellects perfectly reflect the intellectual reality that proceeds from God’s intellection to Himself. There is no other intelligible reality than this one. But we still face the problem of the objects of representation of the celestial spheres: what is their ontological and epistemological status? In his Commentary on Aristotle’s Theology, Avicenna offers an element of response when he states: The world of the soul is an imitation (muh.a¯ kiya), as far as possible, of the true intelligible form which is in the intelligible world.31

It is precisely the term “muh.a¯ ka”—which I translate as imitation—that describes the process at work in the activity of the mutakhayyila itself. The mutakhayyila has this

S¯ın¯a, Sharh. Kit¯ab Uth¯ul¯ujiyy¯a al-mans¯ub il¯a arist.u¯ , in Arist¯u ῾inda-l-῾arab, ed. A. Badawi, Koweit, 2nd ed., 1978, p. 35–74, pp. 45–46. Despite intensive research through Avicenna’s corpus, I did not find any other characterization of the link between the world of the intellects and the world of the souls. It is worth noting that in Aristotle’s Theology, we find the word h.ik¯aya twice. The first occurrence is in the Prologue, which does not belong to the Ennead. The second one is to be found on page 62 (Badawi’s edition). This passage corresponds to Enn. V, 8.3, (I warmly thank Cristina d’Ancona for giving me a table of correspondence between the Theology and the Enneads). In Plotinus’ text we do not find the Greek equivalent to the Arabic word h.ik¯aya: “νoυς ˜ ῟ ᾿ ῷ.T´ινα αν ῏ ε ι᾿ κ´oνα τις αυτo ᾿ υ˜ ῞ μη` ε᾿ πακτoς ` αυτ ᾿ ι` νoυς ῍ oυν δε` oυτoς, o῾ αε ˜ και` oυ᾿ πoτε` νoυς, ˜ oτι ` ε ι᾿ κ´oνα ε᾿ κ νoυ˜ γεν´ σθαι, ωστε ` εσται ` δε˜ι την ῞ λαβoι; ´ ασα ˜ γαρ ῎ ε᾿ κ χε´ιρoνoς. ’Aλλα` γαρ μη` δι᾿ ει᾿ κ´oνoς”; “But this [primary principle of beauty] is Intellect, always and not just sometimes Intellect, because it does not come to itself from outside. What image of it, then, could one take? For every image will be drawn from something worse. But the image must be taken from Intellect, so that one is not really apprehending it through an image” (Trans. and Greek text, A Armstrong, Plotinus, vol. V, Enn. V, Harvard University Press, 1984, p. 246–247). It thus seems that this notion was added to the Greek original by the Arabic translators. I found this notion neither in the Arabic Parva Naturalia, nor in al-Kind¯ı’s corpus. The root h.ky and its derivatives is used to translate the Greek μίμησ ις in the Arabic translations of Aristotle’s Poetics. What is interesting here is its use outside the poetic context and its inclusion in the metaphysical and epistemological frame. 31 Ibn

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peculiarity that, unlike the other powers of the soul, it is not subjected to the necessity of being faithful to what it receives (either from the external world or from the intellect). The human intellect, as we have seen, is characterized by its capacity to make itself a perfect receptacle; to reflect intelligible forms as faithfully as possible, like a perfectly polished mirror. For their part, the senses are “informed” by the perceived qualities, and the retentive power could just as well be called “informed power”, since its function is only to preserve, in being informed by them, the forms that are synthesized in the common sense. The power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) has this peculiarity that it does not receive the forms as they are, but rather produces a form which imitates the reality that has been apprehended. The mutakhayyila re-presents reality by means of an imitation. Hence, the proper object of the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) is not the form itself (or its reflection); it is a phantasma that imitates the original one (apprehended either by the external senses or from the celestial world). This phantasma is composed from the association or dissociation of the different forms and intentiones (ma῾¯an¯ı) preserved in the two different kinds of memories that man possesses. Thus, if man’s intellect reflects the intelligible reality, his imagination, on the other hand, imitates the forms contained in the imagination of the celestial souls who themselves imitate the intelligible forms, which are the object of the celestial intellects. At the level of the celestial spheres’ souls, there is knowledge of particulars, and this knowledge has a specific epistemic status. It differs from the knowledge of universals which only belongs to intellects. Following Avicenna’s commentary on Aristotle’s Theology, we can consider this particular knowledge as a kind of imitation of universal knowledge. The celestial souls’ knowledge of particulars can thus be understood as an imitation of the loftiest reality above it, namely the celestial intellects. This interpretation entails a phenomenon of correspondence between the different levels of reality, ranging from the celestial world to the material world, which also entails a phenomenon of correspondences at the human level. The intellect of man reflects intelligible reality and becomes transparent to itself in the same movement; and his power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) imitates the forms contained in the celestial spheres’ imagination, just as the imagination of the spheres imitates the celestial intellects. Let us now examine the details of his doctrine of mimesis. On the question of dreams, Avicenna states that true visions of the celestial world (malak¯ut) sometimes occur to man during sleep. These visions are often so lofty that man needs to “transliterate” them with his own symbols to be able to apprehend them. This is why the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) sometimes re-presents what is given to it from the celestial world faithfully, but generally tends to coin imitations of such visions, since it is not capable of fixing them with precision. Avicenna adds that the process which explains prophetic visions is the same as the one that explains veridical dreams. The difference is that in the case of prophetic visions the prophet’s imagination is more faithful to the original vision. However, if dreams require interpretation and divine inspiration (al-wah.¯ı) requires exegesis, it is precisely because the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) reproduces the celestial vision with more or less precision, depending on the activity of the other powers of the soul. Only the prophet, due to the strength of his soul, is able —most of the time, though

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not always—to faithfully re-present the visions. This is why the interpretation of dreams on the one hand, and the exegesis of the revelation on the other, performs the same function as that of memory when one seeks to recall a dream as Avicenna states in the Kit¯ab al-Nafs of the Shif¯a (IV, 2, p. 159). Thus, the images of the heavenly world (al-malak¯ut) constitute for the soul32 something of “a principle or a beginning,” but the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) then takes possession of the soul and distracts it from the original visions, moving from one image to another and preventing the soul from fixing his vision. The result is that only a small part of the dreams will be meaningful, whereas other dreams will be nothing but confused visions (adhgh¯at al-ah.l¯am).33 The power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) imitates by re-presentation the visions issuing from the celestial world and then projects them in the common sense, so that they can be apprehended. But the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) does not faithfully reproduce these visions; it produces an imitation of these visions.34 Mimesis is characteristic of the activity of the mutakhayyila.

32 According

to Dimitri Gutas, the imagination, as an internal sense, i.e. as a corporeal power of the soul, cannot receive any emanated form from the celestial spheres; only the rational soul, being immaterial, can receive an emanated form from an immaterial substance, D. Gutas, “Imagination and Transcendental knowledge in Avicenna”, in Arabic Theology, Arabic Philosophy. From the Many to the One: Essays in Celebration of Richard M. Frank, J.E. Montgomery (ed.,), Leuven: Peters, pp. 337–354. He notes that this paper “is a companion piece” to his “Intellect without Limits: The Absence of Mysticism in Avicenna”, in: Intellect and Imagination in Medieval Philosophy, ed. M.C. Pacheco and J.F. Meirinhos, I, Turnhout: Brepols, 2006, p. 351–372. In both articles, he rejects the possibility of what he calls “mysticism” in Avicenna. Mousavian and Seyed Mostafavi convincingly show that Gutas’ reading is based on false assumptions regarding Avicenna’s ontology of the human soul, see “Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul”, in Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Volume 5, Robert Pasnau (ed.), 2017, p. 41–86 and especially, p. 73–75. 33 This is a Quranic expression (12:44). We also find it in Kind¯ı’s f¯ı m¯ ahiyyat al-nawm wa l-ru’y¯a, Abu Rida, (ed.), 1950/1953, Al-Kindi, Ras¯a il al-Kindi al-Falsafiyya, 2 volumes, Cairo: Dar alFikr al-‘Arabi, p. 295. 34 Interestingly, in the Arabic version of De Somno, we find a similar doctrine. First, we find the idea that the vision in man’s dream has an underlying reality above it and that it is never completely identical with that reality. Here is what Rotraud Hansberger says in her analysis of F¯ı b¯ab al-nawm: “The ma n¯a here presents the dreamer’s objective, true significance and meaning which sometimes the dreamer himself is not even able to obtain and which dream interpreters may know without having access to the corresponding spiritual (and corporeal) forms. The objectivity is guaranteed by the metaphysical framework within which this theory of veridical dreams is set”, vol. 1, p. 87–88. And also: “with regard to the theory of veridical dreams, it is a critical aspect of the metaphysical framework that it allows a hierarchy of forms to be associated with its cosmic hierarchy, a hierarchy of forms that can then be linked to the psychological component of the theory: the three-faculty theory. The hierarchy consists of corporeal, spiritual and intellectual forms: everything that exists in corporeal forms in the world exists in intellectual form in the (universal) intellect. And if the intellect conveys something to the human soul, it will be received as a spiritual form. This is made explicit in the following passage, where the text endeavors to explain why even in a veridical dream things may not look exactly as they do when the prophesied event takes place in the physical world: dream and event are two different representations of the one and the same thing, the underlying intellectual form”, The Transmission of Aristotle’s Parva Naturalia in Arabic, PhD Thesis, 2006, p. 147.

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This understanding of Avicenna’s conception of the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) not only has epistemic implications, it also enables us to interpret Avicenna’s metaphysical system in terms of the Neoplatonic notion of participation.35 The souls of the celestial spheres imitate the separate intellects, and the human soul, through their power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila), imitates the psychical content of the celestial souls. By this imitation, each ontological level participates to the level above it. The power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) is thus the locus of a creative and heuristic process. While intellection is the reflection of intelligible form, analogous to the reflection in a mirror, the mutakhayyila—conceived as a power of re-presentation—creates its own object by an act of mimesis. The power of representation (mutakhayyila) does not faithfully imitate the images of the celestial world. Indeed, we have seen that if divine inspiration (wah.¯ı)36 needs exegesis (ta w¯ıl) and dreams need interpretation (ta b¯ır), it is because the mutakhayyila is seldom faithful to what it receives from the celestial world. It imitates, i.e. creates a new psychical content: Know that rational thought (al-fikr al-nat.q¯ı) is hampered by this power (i.e., the mutakhayyila), and that it is monopolized by it, so when it uses it for a certain form with a view to a certain objective, this power moves rapidly to something else which does not correspond to this form, and from this to a third, so that the soul forgets what was at the beginning. It must use recollection and desire to perform a work of decomposition in reverse [of what the power of re-presentation has composed] until it reaches the point of departure. If it happens accidentally in the state of wakefulness that the soul apprehends something, or if during sleep it reaches the heavenly world (al-malak¯ut) in a way that we will describe later, then if [the soul] strengthens the [mutakhayyila] thanks to its immobility and coercion so that this power holds steadily [the visions] and do not dominate [the soul]—this at the time when the soul tries to keep it steady when the representations [of this power] appear to it (i.e. to the soul)—then the form [that appears] can be perfectly recalled as it is. It will then not be in need, in the case of a waking state, of remembrance in the case of a dream, of interpretation and in the case of a divine inspiration, of exegesis. Interpretation and exegesis perform the same function here as remembrance. If the soul does not succeed in stabilizing what has been seen of it (i.e. of the heavenly world) in the power of remembering as it should be, it is because the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) makes a singular or composite re-

35 Following

Jean François Pradeau’s convincing analyze about Plotinus’ metaphysical system, imitation is a kind of participation: “La μ´ θεζις platonicienne, telle que Plotin la conçoit, ne peut donc être comprise à la manière d’une production d’images successives qui aurait pour auteur le Premier principe lui-même, voué ainsi à produire autant d’images de lui-même qu’il y a de réalités; elle est bien en revanche une part prise à la puissance du Premier par ce qui est issu de lui, et c’est en l’imitation de cette puissance que procède la participation”, J. F. Pradeau, L’imitation du principe. Plotin et la participation, Vrin, Paris, 2003, p. 82. 36 This has tremendous importance for the doctrine of prophecy. Being (sometimes) the result of the mimetic activity of the prophet’s imagination, revelation needs to be submitted to exegesis. This excludes the literal interpretation of the Quranic text. As Avicenna explains in his Ris¯ala alAd.h.awiyya f¯ı amr al-ma ¯ad, some Quranic verses have to be interpreted literally while some others need exegesis, Ris¯ala al-Ad.h.awiyya f¯ı amr al-ma ¯ad, S. Duny¯a (ed.), D¯ar al-fikr al- arab¯ı, Cairo, 1949, p. 46. I am currently working on Avicenna’s doctrine of prophecy and will examine this question in a specific study.

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presentation corresponding to every singular thing that was seen in sleep, or to a composite image which has been seen in a dream, a simple or composite re-presentation. It does not cease reproducing what it saw there by means of an imitation (muh.a¯ k¯at) composed of forms and intentions, so that what the soul by itself manages to fix [from what has been seen] is weaker than what is fixed by the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) and what the retentive power and the power of recalling [manage to] fix with regard to what the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila) has produced. Thus, what is fixed in memory is not what is seen in the heaveny world, but rather what has been imitated by the power of re-presentation (mutakhayyila).37

The mutakhayyila, does not submit to any power of the soul, not even to the theoretical intellect. It obeys its own nature, which is to create a network of correspondence by means of resemblance and imitation.38 It is a power of creation and heuristic activity. Thus, to sum up our interpretation, we would say that at the top of the hierarchy of cognitive powers is the noetic power, which is purely speculative. It reflects the perfection of the intelligible world as is it intelligized from all eternity by the divine intellect. At the bottom are the sensible powers which are informed by the forms received during the process of perception (though it is important to note that a first synthesis is performed by the common sense, which transforms sensation into perception). The power of re-presentation has the ability to deliberately imitate the received data. It is thus a power of creation which allows man to create, by mimesis phantasma that take their sources in his individuality, as nourished by his desire and experience. Each step of the mimetic activity is nurtured by man’s individual experience, as Avicenna explains in a passage on dreams in the D¯anesh-n¯amaye Al¯a¯ı: The interpretation [of the dream] is this. You will say: “what have I seen from the invisible world so that, from what I have seen, the imagination has moved on to something else? For example: what have I seen so that imagination has made a tree of it? ” Therefore, the interpretation is most often made by conjecture and is established by experiment. To every nature, another habit; according to each season and condition, the imagination provides a different imitation (muh.a¯ kat¯ı).39

37 Al-Shif¯ a’: al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Le Caire: alHay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, IV, 2, p. 156. 38 At another level, it is not surprising that poetics is based on the ability to perform mimesis. See, Avicenna’s Commentary on the Poetics of Aristotle: a critical study with an annotated translation of the text, I. Dahiyat, Brill, 1974. Here is another important passage from Avicenna’s epistle On the division of the rational sciences (Ris¯ala f¯ı aqs¯am al-῾ul¯um al-῾aqliyya): “Among [these sciences] is the science of interpretation (῾ilm al-ta῾b¯ır). Its goal is to infer through the oniric (al-h.ulmiyya) re-presentations what the soul has contemplated from the invisible world (῾alam al-ghayb) and that the re-presentative power has re-presented by means of a symbol which is different from [the original vision]”, Ris¯ala f¯ı aqs¯am al-῾ul¯um al-῾aqliyya, in Tis῾ Ras¯a’il f¯ı-l-h.ikma wa-t.abi῾iyy¯at, Cairo, d¯ar al-῾arab, (anonym), second edition, 1926, p. 104–118, 110. (I follow here Jean Michot in his emendation of the text al-h.ulmiyya instead of al-h.ikmiyya, see, Jean Michot, “Les sciences physiques et métaphysiques selon la Ris¯ala f¯ı aqs¯am al-῾ul¯um d’Avicenne. Essai de traduction critique”, in Bulletin de philosophie médiévale, 22, 1980, p. 62–73, p. 67, note 45. 39 Tab¯ı ¯ıy¯ at. D¯anesh-n¯ama-ye al¯a ¯ı, ed. M. Meshk¯at, Tehran, 1353/1974, p. 134. .

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Nevertheless, this recognition of the creative power of the individual within the framework of the Avicennian doctrine of the imagination has no effect on his eschatology. Avicenna characterizes bliss as the state of the man who has realized the complete perfection of his intellect; which means that what properly constitutes his individuality as a human being, such as his experience or the creations of his imagination do not survive in the hereafter.40

6.4.3 Literary Recitals and Individual Creativity This understanding of the power of re-presentation allows us to shed new light on the much debated question of the interpretation of Avicenna’s fictional recitals.41 Rather than to say, as does Amélie-Marie Goichon, that they illustrate, in some way, the arduous speculative developments of his doctrine, without adding anything to them; or to say, as does Sarah Stroumsa,42 that they were coined by Avicenna in order to illustrate the narratives evoked by Aristotle in his Poetics, we can see

40 In several of his works, Avicenna evokes—this is well-known since the work of Yahya Michot—

the thesis of “certain scholars” who consider that after the separation from the body, the souls which have not reached full intellectual perfection, whether they have been morally vicious or virtuous, are endowed with an imaginal survival. The fire of hell that consumes them or the coolness of the streams that quench their thirst are images that their imagination represents to them. These souls that keep their power of imagination even after the death of the body need to “borrow” a body so that their imagination—which is a bodily power—can continue to exist. Avicenna hypothesizes that this substitute function could be performed by the body of a celestial sphere (cf. Y. Michot, La destinée de l’âme selon Avicenne. Le retour à Dieu (Ma῾a¯ d) et l’imagination, Leuven, Peeters, 1986. Avicenna envisions this hypothesis in The Book of Genesis and Return (Kit¯ab al-Mabda wal-ma ¯ad), the Immolation Destination (Ris¯ala al-Ad.h.awiyya f¯ı amr al-ma῾a¯ d), and the Metaphysics of Shif¯a (al-Shif¯a , al-Il¯ahiyy¯at), see Michot’s book, p. 23, where he gives the references to Avicenna’s texts. Within Avicenna’s eschatological framework, the most valuable pleasure is the one of the species and not the one of the individuals. As Olga Lizzini states it: “according to Avicenna, the question of the pleasure of knowing has a meaning that cannot be restricted to human life and its attendant pleasures, but must be directly connected not only to the question of ethics – specifically the relationship between the soul and the body – but also to that of the eternal destiny of the human soul. Intellectual pleasure belongs to the human being not as regards individuals, but as regards the species (or the individuum vagum)”, Olga Lizzini, “Avicenna: the Pleasure of Knowledge and the Quietude of the Soul”, in Quaestio, 15 (2015), pp. 265–273, 271. 41 Ris¯ alat al-T.ayr, H . ayy Ibn Yaqz.a¯ n, S.alm¯an wa-Abs.al, see M. A. F. Mehren, Traités mystiques d’Abou Alî al-Hosain b. Abdallah b. Sînâ ou d’Avicenne, 4 fasicules, Leiden, Brill, 1889–1899 repr. Frankfurt: Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science, 1999. 42 Sarah Stroumsa, “Avicenna’s Philosophical Stories: Aristotle’s Poetics Reinterpreted”, Arabica T. 39, Fasc. 2 (Jul., 1992), pp. 183–206 and A.-M. Goichon, Le récit de Hayy Ibn Yaqzân commenté par des textes d’Avicenne, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1959. H. Corbin’s interpretation goes a little too far, conceiving imagination as a psychic power capable of grasping knowledge of the unseen world ( alam al-ghayb) without taking into account the epistemological limitations inherent to Avicenna’s theory of knowledge, as I will do later in my paper. See H. Corbin, Avicenne et le récit visionnaire, Verdier, Paris, 1999.

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them as an example of this work of correspondence in the context of the creative activity of the human imagination. Starting from a vision received in a dream or during a waking state, the power of re-presentation creates a singular universe, perfectly original, nourished by the desires and unique experiences of its author. The Avicennian recitals beautifully manifest the fruitful creativity of the power of re-presentation: its unique ability to create resonances and correspondences. In the same way as when we interpret our dreams, moving from one correspondence to another and then to the source of vision that gave birth to them, we can do the same with these recitals. We can move from one correspondence to another, all the way to the intelligible reality from which they proceed. However, Avicenna lucidly observes that, as in the case of dreams, it is not possible to know exactly by which symbol each vision has been replaced. In this perspective, Amélie-Marie Goichon was not entirely wrong when she stressed a correspondence between Avicenna’s theoretical doctrine and those recitals, except that the latter are not merely pale shadows of the former. The recitals are the result of the authentic creative activity of the power of re-presentation. They could not have been written by anyone else than Avicenna, and bear the mark of his unique and irreplaceable individuality, as do dreams. According to this interpretation, Avicenna conceives of imagination as a creative power of the soul. Freed from servitude with respect to the received being, the representative power is a power of imitation. We are here in a Neoplatonic framework where imitation is a sign of the creativity of the lower ontological level.43 The celestial souls imitate the celestial intellects and man’s power of re-presentation imitates the celestial souls. There are thus correspondences and resonances in the entire universe. In this system of correspondences, the imagination (or the representative power) plays a role of paramount importance. However, in the context of the Avicennian epistemological system the representative power is limited in that it is only a corporeal power of the soul. Indeed, the principles underlying the doctrine of Avicenna’s theory of knowledge severely limit the heuristic function of the re-presentative power and prevents it from being the most important, if not the only cognitive power of the soul, as will later be the case in ishr¯aq¯ı philosophy.44 We must now examine the difference between the estimative power and the re-presentative power so as to have a more complete view of Avicenna’s epistemological system.

43 See J. F. Pradeau’s book on Plotinus’ notion of mimesis: “Selon qu’elle est qualifiée d’image ou d’imitation, le statut de la réalité n’est plus le même. Dans le premier cas, elle est décrite comme un effet, comme le produit ou la projection d’un modèle; dans le second, elle l’est comme un agent, comme le sujet d’une activité. Cette distinction est étiologique: l’image a pour cause le principe, son modèle, alors que l’imitation a pour cause le principé, qui imite son modèle”, J. F. Pradeau, L’imitation du principe. Plotin et la participation, Vrin, Paris, 2003, p. 82. 44 On this question, see C. Jambet, “Imagination noétique et imagination créatrice”, Cahiers de l’Université Saint-Jean de Jérusalem 5, Paris, Berg International, 1979, pp. 187–206.

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6.5 The Epistemological Function of Images and Intentions The estimative power has the ability to combine and separate forms (s.uw¯ar) and intentiones (ma ¯an¯ı) that are stored respectively in the formative power (khay¯al), which is located in the rear part of the front ventricle of the brain, and in the retentive and recollective power, which is located in the rear ventricle of the brain. Here, the question as to whether the estimative power is a kind of imagination can arise.45 In at least one passage of the De anima (Kit¯ab al-Nafs) of the Shif¯a , Avicenna states that the estimative is the only power responsible for the activity of composition: This power, which composes form and form, form and intention, intention and intention, as though it were the estimative power by its locus of inherence, not insofar as it is a judgmental power, but insofar as it acts to reach a judgment. It is located in the middle of the brain, so that it may be in connection with the two reserves of intentions and forms. It seems that the estimative power is by itself the cogitative, the re-presentative and the recollective powers. It is by itself the judicative power. It is thus judgmental by essence and re-presentative and recollective by its movements and actions. It is re-presentative in that as it acts on forms and intentions and recollective in that its action ends there. As for the formative power, it is its reserve. It seems that the recollection that happens intentionally belongs only to the human being and also that the forms’ reserve is the formative power, i.e. the retentive imagination; [it also seems] that the intention’s reserve is the recollective power. Nothing prevents the estimative power from being by itself a judgmental and representative power (wa l¯a yamna an tak¯una al-wahmiyya bi-dh¯atih¯a h¯akima mutakhayyila) and from being by its movements a re-presentative and recollective power.46

In his early works, Avicenna regards the estimative power as occupying the entire brain. In Remarks and Admonitions, (Kit¯ab al-Ish¯ar¯at wa-tanb¯ıh¯at),47 he reiterates this statement, but adds that its specific location is the middle ventricle of the brain. Avicenna’s classification of the internal senses, as we have seen, is based on the coordination of physiological and psychological data. The location of the internal senses in the brain is directly related to their function: the common sense is at the front, since it is the first to receive the forms from the external senses; the retentive imagination, which retains these forms, is located at the back of the first cavity of the brain, etc. Attributing to the estimative power a location covering the entire brain thus corresponds to the diversity of its functions. According to Avicenna’s principles, the same power can therefore perform various activities, even though by essence it only has one specific activity.

45 F.

Rahman considers that each of the five internal senses listed by Avicenna is a differentiation of Aristotle’s phantasia: “We conclude then that wahm in Avicenna is an operation subsidiary to imagination and that it is therefore a differentiation of Aristotle’s phantasia like the rest of the internal senses”; F. Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology, op. cit., p. 83. 46 Al-Shif¯ a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, IV, 1, p. 150. 47 “Wa-l-thalitha al-wahm wa a ¯ latuh¯a al-dim¯aghu kuluhu, lakinna al-akhassu bi-h¯a huwwa altajw¯ıf al-awsat.”, Kit¯ab al-Ish¯ar¯at wa l-tanb¯ıhat, S. Duny¯a (ed.), D¯ar al-Ma῾a¯ rif f¯ı Mas.r, Cairo, 1957, II, p. 357.

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In a seminal study,48 D. Black analyzes the different functions assigned by Avicenna to the estimative power. Avicenna uses this notion in different contexts: in his logical writings; in discussions on the division of sciences; in discussions about prophecy; in the animal’s self-perceptions; in the formation of fictional ideas and in the formation of the epistemic status of ethical precepts. In his theory of knowledge, Avicenna points out that the specificity of the estimative power is to produce a kind of fictional image it can control. The estimative power thus has the ability to exercise what we could call “eidetic variations”. These variations can be defined as controlled fictional images which offer the intellect an infinite range of possibilities that constitute premises by which to build demonstrations.49 We can find two examples of this process in the Avicennian corpus. The wellknown “flying man” is built on such an eidetic variation. Avicenna urges the reader to produce, by the mediation of his estimative power (yatawahham or law tawahhamta), a strong and striking fantasy: one must imagine a man, dismembered and hanging in the air, oblivious to his corporeality and the world that surrounds him, and devoid of all empirical knowledge. This picture contradicts both sensory experience (it is impossible to have no perception of one’s own body and of our surroundings if we are awake, conscious, and alive) and reason (it is impossible for a heavy body to hang in the air). However, this striking image, constructed by the estimative power, leads the intellect to conceive of human soul as an incorporeal and thus immortal substance. In his Ris¯ala l-Ad.h.awiyya f¯ı-l-ma ¯ad (Epistle on the Occasion of the Feast of Sacrifice), Avicenna again uses a similar method. This time, he uses the roots khyl (yukhayyal lahu) and whm in the same passage: When man must ponder the thing by which one says of him “him” and he says of himself “I”, he imagines (yukhayyal la-hu) that it is by virtue of his body and corporeality. Then, when he thinks of the fact that if his hand, his foot, his ribs, and the rest of his external members do not belong to him, that intention which he has in mind would not disappear. He knows then that these organs [which belongs] to his body are not part of the intention he has of himself. [He can continue this effort] until he reaches the major organs, such as the brain, heart, liver, and what resembles them. When most of them are separated [by imagination], the result is not the immediate disappearance in man of his reality, but [this disappearance] may happen after a longer or shorter interval while the heart and brain remain. As for the brain, we can assume that a part of it can be separated and still, that the intention [the man] has of himself will remain. As for the heart, it is not possible [to separate it] in reality (f¯ı-lwuj¯ud), but it is possible to do so in imagination (f¯ı-l-tawahhum). For man knows that his

48 D.

Black; cf. “Estimation (wahm) in Avicenna: The Logical and Psychological Dimensions”, in Dialogue, 32 (1993), 219–58. 49 This account may seem to contradict the conception of the acquisition of knowledge which I described in the first part of this paper, namely that the intelligibles are received when the mind of man turns toward the Agent intellect. The work of the inner senses disposes man’s intellect to turn towards the Agent intellect; it constitutes a necessary preparatory work of polishing. The middle term of the syllogism is received after that work of preparation for most men (except the prophets and some outstanding minds).

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individual being (anniyya)—to which we are referring—is existent (mawj¯uda), while it is possible for him not to simultaneously know that he has a heart, as well as how, what and where it is.50

In the same way, when Avicenna establishes the principles of his classification of the sciences (this example is also considered in D. Black’s study) he also uses the ability of the estimative power to produce voluntarily eidetic variations on forms stored in the memory: The existents that have no existence unless they undergo admixture with motion belong to two categories. They are either such that, neither in subsistence nor in the estimation would it be true for them to be separated from some specific matter; [...] or else, this would be true for them in the estimative judgment, but not in subsistence.51

As D. Black has observed, the voluntary creation of fictional images appears to be a specifically human feature of estimative judgments. The activity of the estimative power constitutes an intermediary for the intellect, so that it may apprehend the sensible world rationally. The intellect has no access to numbers, for instance— which belong to the second division of the aforementioned classification. That is to say, numbers are not separated from some specific matter in their subsistence, but it is not possible for the intellective power to separate them from matter without the mediation of the estimative power. It is also the activity of this power that helps to determine their epistemic status. Thus, the images and intentions constructed by the estimative power seem to fulfil an important propaedeutic function in the formation of intellective thought. If we consider the distinction between the re-presentative power and the estimative then Averroes criticism52 is unfounded. The first is not a power whose 50 al-Ris¯ ala l-Ad.h.awiyya f¯ı amr al-ma ¯ad, S. Duny¯a (ed.), D¯ar al-fikr al- Arab¯ı, Cairo, 1949, p. 94–95. 51 Al-Shif¯ a: Vol. I, al-Madkhal (Isagoge), edited by G. Anawati, M. El-Khodeiri, F. Al-Ahwani and I. Madkour, Cairo: Al-Matba ah al- Amiriyah, 1952, p. 12–13. This passage is quoted by D. Black; cf. “Estimation (wahm) in Avicenna: The Logical and Psychological Dimensions”, op. cit., p. 235. 52 Averroes criticized Avicenna on this issue, arguing that the estimative power and the mutakhayyila feature the same function. In his analysis, the addition of the estimative power in the classification of internal senses is therefore unnecessary, since the two powers come with the same ability to combine forms in order to produce mental images or phantasma. Deborah Black, in her paper: “Estimation (Wahm) in Avicenna: The Logical and Psychological Dimensions” (published in Dialogue XXXII (1993), 219–58) has examined Averroes’ objections at length, as well as al-Ghazali’s attacks against the Avicennian division of the internal senses. While defending Avicenna against al-Ghaz¯al¯ı’s criticism that he considers unjustified, Averroes criticizes Avicenna on another point. As D. Black stresses in the aforementioned paper, the target of al-Ghaz¯al¯ı’s criticism in Tah¯afut al-fal¯asifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers) is not primarily the notion of the estimative, but Avicenna’s demonstration of the rationality and eternity of the intellect. AlGhaz¯al¯ı believes that if the estimative power, while being in a bodily substrate (i.e. a cavity of the brain), can apprehend indivisible and immaterial concepts such as enmity, then it must also be logically possible for that power to apprehend intelligible forms. If a material power can apprehend something immaterial, al-Ghaz¯al¯ı concludes, then Avicenna’s demonstration of the immateriality of the intellect is not valid. D. Black rightly stresses that this criticism is based on the metaphysical and psychological aspects that underlie Avicenna’s conception of the estimative and ignores its

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function is to help the constitution of the theoretical thinking, but a purely creative psychic power that allows man to create a new psychical content which neither reflects intelligible reality nor faithfully imitates the image of perceived data. Thus, a power of mediation is required between the intellect and the perceptive powers. This power is precisely the estimative. It has the ability to use the data preserved in the two memories so as to prepare man to think theoretically. Therefore, Avicenna is faithful to Aristotle’s affirmation in the De anima according to which there is no thinking without images. The problem is that Avicenna does not always use his own vocabulary rigorously (as we will see, where he uses, in the same passage, the roots khyl and whm), so that the exact function of each power is not easy to determine. Nevertheless, the re-presentative power (mutakhayyila) and the estimative power (wahm) have two distinct functions. The former is a creative and heuristic psychic power that endows man with the possibility of freeing himself from the received data; it is a power that justifies the creativity of the poet, the painter, the novelist and even the prophet.53 The latter is closer to the imagination as conceived by Aristotle: a psychic power that has a propaedeutic function, namely, to be a bridge between the sensible and the intelligible. Nevertheless, if we consider that we have solved a problem and overcome Averroes’ criticism,54 we are still facing some thorny issues. The main difficulty is that—unlike Aristotle—Avicenna does not conceive the intelligible as being abstracted from the sensible. Both belong to two separate realms. Thus, the power

epistemological implications. Moreover, Avicenna did not characterize the estimative power on the ground that its specific objects—the intentiones (al-ma ¯an¯ı)—are immaterial, as al-Ghaz¯al¯ı suggested. Avicenna established that, since intentiones (al-ma ¯an¯ı) are essentially different from sensible forms (al-s.uw¯ar), and since the specific objects of the senses and the imagination are the forms (al-s.uw¯ar), then another power must be required to apprehend the intentions. Al-Ghaz¯al¯ı’s criticism is thus irrelevant since it fails to address the central point of Avicenna’s argument. In The Incoherence of the Incoherence (Tah¯afut al-tah¯afut, ed. M. Bouyges, Beirut, 1987, p. 547), Averroes focuses his criticism on the fact that the imagination and the estimative power perform the same function. D. Black shows that Averroes’ criticism ignores the importance of the function of the estimative power in Avicenna’s theory of knowledge. She states that when the full range of the estimative power’s activities are recognized within Avicenna’s system, the criticisms raised about its usefulness in al-Ghaz¯al¯ı or Averroes then prove unfounded. 53 This does not mean that the prophet is a poet or that the Qur’an is the product of poetic activity. This means that the prophet’s power of re-presentation is active when he receives revelations and that it sometimes imitates the received visions and replaces it with symbols. That is precisely why wah.¯ı (divine inspiration) sometimes requires exegesis, as I previously noted. 54 Deborah Black gives the following explanation for the need of the estimative in Avicenna’s epistemological system: “...even if the activities that Avicenna assigns to the estimative faculty in animals could be accounted for by other sense faculties, such as the imagination, it is clear that Avicenna views the interplay between the sensible and the intelligible in actual human cognition to be sufficiently intricate to demand the positing of a power like estimation, which is poised on the threshold between the two realms”. In my analysis, the need for the estimative power is due to the fact that mediating between the sensible and intelligible realms is not the function of the re-presentative power, but that of the estimative.

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that can apprehend the intelligible is essentially distinct from the power that can grasp the sensible.

6.6 The Ontological Gap Between the Sensible and the Intelligible First, according to Avicenna the intellectual power does not necessarily depend on bodily powers to perform its activity. In his analysis, some men endowed with a peculiar gift, called “intuition” (h.ads), can receive from the Active intellect, without effort, the middle term of the syllogisms they are seeking.55 Moreover, in the Kit¯ab al-Nafs of the Shif¯a as well as in the psychological part of the Book of Salvation (Kit¯ab al-Naj¯at), he establishes in a long and complex argument that only intellectual thinking can conceive abstractly what we never grasp through imagination, the estimative power, or sense-perception: the full cube, or to use Avicenna’s own example: the abstract assemblage of geometric figures which can only be conceived by a power that grasps the forms which are devoid of any material determination. In the first part of his argument, he considers the case where the shape of an observed individual is imprinted upon the formative power: For the formative power (al-khay¯al) cannot perceive without the represented forms being imprinted on a body in such a way that both itself and the body share the same imprint. Let us suppose that the form imprinted in the formative power is the form of Zaid, exactly according to his shape, contours, and the position of his limbs in relation to each other which, in the formative power, are as distinct from each other as they are in external sight. We maintain that these parts and sides of his limbs must be imprinted on a body and that the sides and parts of his form must fit into the sides and parts of that body.56

The form is received, or as Avicenna puts it, is “imprinted” in the formative power with its spatial determinations. This, according to the Avicennian principles of knowledge, can only take place in a cognitive power endowed with bodily organs. To further clarify his reasoning, Avicenna uses another example: Now from the form of Zaid let us change our example to the form of the square abcd, which has a definite quantity, position and quality, and which has a number of angles. Let us suppose that adjacent to its two angles, a and b, there are two other squares each of which is exactly similar to the other, and that although each lies on a particular side, they are nevertheless similar in form. But the totality of these figures is imprinted on the formative

55 For

a description of intuition (h.ads) as a capacity of the human intellect to hit spontaneously upon the middle term, see D. Gutas, Intuition and Thinking: The Evolving Structure of Avicenna’s Epistemology, in M. C.Pacheco and J.F. Meirinhos (eds), Intellect et Imagination dans la Philosophie Médiévale (Turnhout: 2006), vol.1, 351–72. 56 Al-Shif¯ a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, IV, 3, p. 167, Translated by Rahman, Oxford University Press, 1952, p. 41.

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power as one individual form. Now the square bklm is numerically different from the square eagf, and in the imagination is situated to the right of it and distinct from it in position.57

Avicenna then tries to identify the origin of this difference of position in the formative power and says: Either its difference from the other square is attributable to the form of squareness or to some accident peculiar to squareness other than its form, or to the matter in which this form is imprinted. But this difference is not attributable to the form of squareness, since we have already supposed them to be of the same shape and equal. Nor it is attributable to any accident peculiar to it; firstly, because to conceive it as being on the right side we need not think that it has a particular accident which does not belong to the other figure as well. Secondly, because that accident belongs to the [conceived figure], either in its own essence or with reference to its external existent figure, so that it is at it were, a figure abstracted from an external existent which is in this condition, or it belongs to the conceived figure with reference either to the receptive power or to its material substratum.58

Then Avicenna carefully examines every alternative and rejects the possibility that the square eafg is conceived on the left side of the square abcd and the square bklm on its right due to an accident belonging to the essence of each square, be it a constant or a transient accident. Hence, he contends that: The formative power does not conceive it by connecting some additional factor with it, but conceives it just as it is in itself.59

That is because the formative power lacks the ability to synthesize and separate the received forms. The forms are imprinted upon the formative power as the common sense constitutes them. The function of the formative power is thus only to preserve these forms. This account—describing a power in which the sensible forms are passively imprinted—is consistent with Avicenna’s conception of the formative power. However, the rest of the argument is more difficult to understand.60 Avicenna draws a comparison between the modality of operation of the formative power and that of the intellect. The prerogative of the latter is to synthesize the intelligible forms in order to originate intellectual conceptions (tas.awwur) and intellectual judgments (tas.d¯ıq). The intellect adds to the form containing the three squares the abstract concepts of right and left, i.e. it assigns to each of the two adjacent squares a separate location in space, independently of the material conditions of sensory

57 Al-Shif¯ a :

al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, IV, 3, p. 167, Translation (slightly revised) by Rahman, Oxford University Press, 1952, p. 41. 58 Al-Shif¯ a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, IV, 3, p. 167, Translation (slightly revised) by Rahman, Oxford University Press, 1952, p. 41. 59 Al-Shif¯ a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, IV, 3, p. 167, Translation (slightly revised) by Rahman, Oxford University Press, 1952, p. 41. 60 The example of the squares is also found in the Mub¯ ahath¯at but in a summarized form. There, Avicenna also uses the word khay¯al; Al-Mub¯ah.ath¯at, M. B¯ıd¯arfar (ed), Intish¯ar¯at Bayd¯ar, Qum. 1992, n◦ 1145, p. 367–368.

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perception. If Avicenna only had in mind the formative power, then it is difficult to understand why he would compare it to the intellect since the former is exclusively a receptive power while the latter—as well as the estimative—has the ability to perform synthesis and analysis. Moreover, Avicenna examines later on in his argument the case of imagined things that have no existence in the external world. It is difficult not to think that what he has in mind in the course of this argument is the estimative power, namely the power that has the ability to build eidetic variations: In the case of the universal square61 it becomes possible [to conceive it] through a factor which the intellect adds to it, namely the concept of right and left (h.add al-tay¯amin wa h.add al-tay¯asir). And such a concept is correct only in the case of a universal and rational intelligible. But in the case of this individual figure this concept cannot be found to the exclusion of the other, except on the strength of some factor by which the addition of this particular concept rather than the other is justified. And the formative power does not suppose it so through some condition which it then adds to [the figure], but does so at once just as it is without supposition. Thus the formative power does not conceive this figure as being on the right and that one as being on the left, except through some condition which is already added to this or that figure. There (i.e. in the realm of the intellect) the concept of right and left may be added to the square (which has not already been qualified by any such accident) just as one universal concept is combined with another. Here (i.e. in the sphere of the formative power), on the other hand, if the square has not already been qualified by an individual and defined position, no concept can be added to it afterwards. It is not supposition which gives it this particular position in the formative power, but it is the previous possession of that position which renders such a supposition possible.62

The modality of perception which is characterized here—in contrast to that of the intellect—is not exclusively that of the receptive power, but is rather the modality of perception of all the bodily faculties, including that of the re-presentative power and the estimative. This text discusses the ability to compose images from the forms received in the sensory experience and stored in the two memories (the retentive power and the recollective power, or from the imitations of these forms in the case of the re-presentative power). So we have, on the one side, an epistemic scheme that presents the work of the internal senses as a synthetic work performed on the data transmitted by the external senses. As we have seen, this synthetic action attains a high level of abstraction in the case of the estimative power. On the other hand, we have a demonstration about the nature of the forms obtained through the work of the internal senses, i.e. the demonstration by means of the example of the squares. It seems to be an important argument since it is found both in the De anima of the Shif¯a’ as well as in the psychological part of the Naj¯at.

61 Here,

Avicenna means the universal concept of a square, which can only be conceived by the intellect. 62 Rahman, p. 43–44. Al-Shif¯ a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, Cairo,1975, IV, 3, p. 169, translation slightly revised.

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What this argument clearly states is that the heuristic capacity of the internal senses may not exceed a certain limit: being bodily powers, they are irreparably endowed with the characteristics of materiality; i.e. they are essentially receptive and passive in relation to the external world. The difficulty with this argument is that it is partly based on the strict distinction between the mode of operation of bodily faculties and that of the incorporeal power, i.e. the intellect. This argument must be read in conjunction with another argument also developed by Avicenna in the Kit¯ab al-Nafs of the Shif¯a (V, II, p. 187-192) where he states that the intelligible form cannot inhere in something material and, therefore, cannot be the object of a power acting by means of a bodily organ. In the course of this argument, he stresses a sharp distinction between the nature of intelligible forms and the nature of the forms that are the object of the imagination: No intellectual form is endowed with a shape or number; if that were so, it would be an imagined form, not an intelligible one.63

Confirming the result of the “argument of the squares”, he also states: The forms that are imprinted in corporeal matter are nothing but the projections (ashb¯ah.) of individual divisible things. And each part of the latter has an actual or potential relationship to a part of the former.64

The form conceived by the estimative power or by the re-presentative power is spatial, and is, therefore, comparable to the sensitive form: it is unique and endowed with unique qualities by which it is radically different from all other conceived forms. However, it has no internal unity; its unity is conferred to it by the matter in which it inheres and its divisibility also depends on its locus of inherence. This feature makes it radically different from the intelligible form, which, as Avicenna shows in a complex demonstration, carries its own principle of unity and therefore cannot inhere in divisible matter. Like the reflection of something in a mirror, it has its own unity while something imprinted in a matter is composed by a multitude of traces. Avicenna explicitly states that the object on which the re-presentative power, the estimative, and the intellect are operating is not the same. The composed image or phantasm inheres in matter. Its uniqueness is due to the fact that it inheres in a bodily organ. On the contrary, the intelligible form is one and indivisible in itself.65 It is not divisible either in potentiality or in actuality and that is why it cannot inhere in a material substrate. The distinctive feature of the intellect is its ability to reflect such forms and to synthesize them so as to produce an intellectual judgment. 63 Al-Shif¯ a :

al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, V, 2, p. 189. 64 Al-Shif¯ a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, V, 2, p. 191–192. 65 Al-Shif¯ a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs, ed., G.C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid and I. Madhk¯ur, Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya, 1975, V, 2, p. 187. I summarize here the long argument (p. 187–192) used by Avicenna (chap. 2, book V) to prove that an intelligible form cannot inhere in a matter and cannot therefore be apprehended by a physical power.

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It seems to me that this description of the nature of the form, as conceived by the internal senses, is in sharp contrast to what Avicenna says about the function of the power of re-presentation as well as the function of the estimative power. The power of re-presentation and the estimative produce the synthesis of the perceptual manifold which is given passively by the five senses. This creative work becomes yet more evident if we consider our ability to produce images of objects of which we have had no prior sense perception. We have seen that the object of the representative power is a production that is different from what is merely given or received: it is then the very act by which a fundamental difference is introduced between two orders—the order of natural causality and that of re-presentation. The latter, as the act of imagination is the ability to produce its own object. Thus, the object of the re-presentation is not given, it is constituted. In this perspective, as O. Boulnois66 rightly stresses, we are no longer within the scope of the Aristotelian theory of knowledge. Avicenna, as I have stressed before, considers re-presentation as an act of mimesis. He uses the root “h.ky”, which I have chosen to translate as imitation. However, the Latin translators of the Kit¯ab al-Nafs of the Shif¯a translated it using the term “repraesentare”. The re-presentative power imitates, it re-produces the object: it is not a mere donation. If we examine the posterity of Avicenna’s theory of knowledge, we find that philosophers after him do not maintain this strict distinction between the mode of operation of the internal senses and that of the intellect. Neither Abu-l-Barak¯at alBaghdadi, who is very critical of Avicenna’s theory of knowledge, nor Fakhr alD¯ın al-R¯az¯ı, preserve the strict distinction established by the Persian philosopher. Even his direct disciple, Bahmany¯ar, reduces the distinction present in Avicenna’s psychological doctrine of knowledge between sensitive and intellectual faculties, and confers a predominant function to the power of imagination.67 Besides, in the context of Avicenna’s theory of knowledge, the phantasm produced by the internal powers (be it the re-presentative imagination or the estimative)—unlike intelligible forms—is spatial. The figures projected by these powers move in a space that is different from the logical space of the intelligible forms (for Avicenna, these forms are the object of the intellect through a syllogistic order. It is the same order that man apprehends through his intellect, so in that sense one can speak of a logical space). The Avicennian paradigm of scientific knowledge nonetheless seems to be that of a synthetic knowledge, since he considers that knowing intelligibles is to know the middle terms of the propositional syllogisms.68 This knowledge is acquired either

66 Olivier

Boulnois, Être et représentation, Paris, 1999, p. 96. “Il ne s’agit plus de la présentation synthétique de la chose même dans l’imagination [...], mais de la production d’une présentation tenant lieu d’une chose absente [...]. La représentation n’est plus apprésentation, mais reproduction.” 67 On this, see Meryem Sebti, “Intellection, imagination et aperception de soi dans le Livre du Résultat (Kitâb al-Tahs.¯ıl) de Bahmanyâr Ibn al-Marzûbân”, in Chôra, 2006, pp. 189–210. 68 The synthetic demonstration begins with simple elements to arrive at the most complex. The syllogistic demonstration is a synthetic demonstration. A demonstrative process which, starting

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through intuition (h.ads), or instruction. This conception of knowledge also marks the limitations of the heuristic activity of internal senses in the process of acquiring the theoretical science, and dramatically limits the scope of the intuition that led him to postulate the existence of a creative psychic power, freed from the yoke of reality. Nonetheless, it remains that Avicenna laid the foundations for a doctrine of re-presentation/imagination that has no precedent among Muslim thinkers, and that has enjoyed a long posterity among išr¯aq¯ı philosophers.

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inda l- Arab (2nd ed, pp. 75–116). Koweit. Avicenna. (1926). Ris¯ala f¯ı aqs¯am al-῾ul¯um al-῾aqliyya, in Tis῾ Ras¯a’il f¯ı-l-h.ikma wa-t.abi῾iyy¯at (2nd edition, p. 104-118). Cairo: d¯ar al-῾arab, (anonym). Avicenna. (1949). Ris¯ala al-Ad.h.awiyya f¯ı amr al-ma ¯ad (S. Duny¯a, Ed.). D¯ar al-fikr al- arab¯ı, Cairo. Avicenna. (1952). Al-Shif¯a: Vol. I, al-Madkhal (Isagoge) (G. Anawati, M. El-Khodeiri, F. AlAhwani, and I. Madkour, Eds.). Cairo: Al-Matba ah al- Amiriyah. Avicenna. (1957). Kit¯ab al-Ish¯ar¯at wa l-tanb¯ıhat (S. Duny¯a, Ed.). Cairo: D¯ar al-Ma῾a¯ rif f¯ı Mas.r. Avicenna. (1959). Al-Shif¯a : al-Nafs (F. Rah.m¯an, Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Avicenna. (1968). Avicenna Latinus, Liber de Anima IV–V (S. Van Riet, Ed.). Leuven-Leyden. Avicenna. (1353/1974). T.ab¯ı ¯ıy¯at. D¯anesh-n¯ama-ye al¯a ¯ı (M. Meshk¯at, Ed., p. 134). Tehran. Avicenna. (1975). Al-Shif¯a : al-T.ab¯ı iyy¯at 6: al-Nafs (G. C. Anawati, S. Z¯ayid & I. Madhk¯ur, Eds.). Cairo: al-Hay a al- ¯amma li-Shu ¯un al-Mat.a¯ bi al-Amiriyya. Avicenna. (1978). Sharh. Kit¯ab Uth¯ul¯ujiyy¯a al-mans¯ub il¯a arist.u¯ . In Arist¯u ῾inda-l-῾arab (A. Badawi, Ed.). Koweit. Avicenna. (1984). Kit¯ab al-Mabda wa-l-Ma ¯ad (A. N¯ur¯an¯ı, Ed.). Tehran: Mc Gill UniversityTehran University. Avicenna. (1992). Al-Mub¯ah.ath¯at (M. B¯ıd¯arfar, Ed.). Qum: Intish¯ar¯at Bayd¯ar. Avicenna. (1994). al-Q¯an¯un f¯ı .tibb (S. al-Lah.a¯ m, Ed.). Beyrouth: D¯ar al-fikr. F¯ar¯ab¯ı. Kit¯ab al-Siy¯asa al-madaniyya. In R. Lerner and M. Mahdi (Eds.), Medieval political philosophy. Ithaca/New York: Cornell University Press.

Secondary Sources Adamson, P. (2004). Non-discursive thought in Avicenna’s commentary on the theology of Aristotle. In J. McGinnis (Ed.), Interpreting Avicenna: Science and philosophy in Medieval Islam (pp. 87–111). Leiden: Brill.

from an abstract geometric figure, manages to reveal the solution of a given problem is an analytical process.

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Black, D. (1993). cf. “Estimation (wahm) in Avicenna: The logical and psychological dimensions”. Dialogue, 32, 219–258. Boulnois, O. (1999). Être et représentation. Paris: PUF. d’Ancona, C. (2008). Degrees of abstraction in Avicenna. How to combine Aristotle’s De Anima and the Enneads. In S. Knuuttila and P. Kärkkäinen (Eds.), Theories of perception in Medieval and Early Modern philosophy (pp. 47–71) Dordrecht: Springer. Gourinat, J. B. (1996). Les stoïciens et l’âme. Paris: PUF. Gutas, D. (2006a). Imagination and Transcendental knowledge in Avicenna. In J. E. Montgomery (Ed.), Arabic theology, Arabic philosophy. From the many to the one: Essays in celebration of Richard M. Frank (pp. 337–354). Leuven: Peters Gutas, D. (2006b). Intellect without limits: The absence of Mysticism in Avicenna. In M. C. Pacheco & J. F. Meirinhos (Eds.), Intellect and imagination in Medieval Philosophy (pp. 351– 372). Turnhout: Brepols. Hansberger, R. (2006). The Transmission of Aristotle’s Parva Naturalia in Arabic. PhD thesis. Hasse, D. (2001). Avicenna on Abstraction. In Aspects of Avicenna (Robert Wisnovsky, Ed., pp. 39–82). Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers. Jambet, C. (1979). Imagination noétique et imagination créatrice. In Cahiers de l’Université SaintJean de Jérusalem (Vol. 5). Paris: Berg International. Michot, J. (1980). Les sciences physiques et métaphysiques selon la Ris¯ala f¯ı aqs¯am al-῾ul¯um d’Avicenne. Essai de traduction critique. In Bulletin de philosophie médiévale (Vol. 22, pp. 62–73). Mousavian, S. N., & Saadat Mostafavi, S. H. (2017). Avicenna on the origination of the human soul. In R. Pasnau (Ed.), Oxford studies in Medieval Philosophy (Vol. 5, pp. 41–86). Oxford, Oxford University Press. Pradeau, J. F. (2003). L’imitation du principe. Plotin et la participation. Paris: Vrin. Rashed, M. (2005). Imagination astrale et physique supralunaire selon Avicenne. In Corpo e anima, sensi interni e intelletto dai secoli XIII-XV ai post-cartesiani e spinoziani, a cura di G. FedericiVescoviniet al., Brepols, pp. 103–117. Sebti, M. (2006). Intellection, imagination et aperception de soi dans le Livre du Résultat (Kitâb al-Tahs.¯ıl) de Bahmanyâr Ibn al-Marzûbân. In Chôra, pp. 189–210. Vallat, P. (forthcoming). L’intellect selon Farabi. La transformation du connaître en être. In M. Sebti & D. de Smet (Eds.), Noétique et théorie de la connaissance dans la philosophie arabe desIXe -XVIIe siècles. Vrin.

Chapter 7

Estimative Power as a Social Sense Juhana Toivanen

Abstract The estimative power has been widely discussed in modern scholarly literature. This chapter complements the existing picture by analysing medieval Latin views concerning its role as the explanans of the social behaviour of humans and other animals. Although medieval authors rarely focus on this function, the chapter shows that the estimative power plays an important explanatory role both in philosophical psychology and political philosophy.

7.1 Introduction The estimative power has been widely discussed in modern scholarly literature. This chapter complements the existing picture by analysing medieval Latin views concerning its role as the explanans of the social behaviour of humans and other animals. Although medieval authors rarely focus on this function, the chapter shows that the estimative power plays an important explanatory role both in philosophical psychology and political philosophy. Modern scholars sometimes point out, mostly in passing, that the estimative power had this role in medieval philosophy. Especially those working on Avicenna’s (980–1037) psychology remind us that in addition to being responsible for the reaction of a sheep that perceives a wolf, the estimative power accounts for the behaviour of the sheep in relation to its lamb—a behaviour that can be characterised as friendship or sociability.1 However, research usually focuses on higher level

1 See

Dominik Perler, “Why Is the Sheep Afraid of the Wolf? Medieval Debates on Animal Passions,” in Emotion and Cognitive Life in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, ed.

J. Toivanen () University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 S. N. Mousavian, J. L. Fink (eds.), The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6_7

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cognitive functions that broaden the scope of the perceptual process (accidental perception, perception of harmfulness), on metaphysical and epistemological questions concerning the key term intention, on the logic and structure of emotional reaction to perceived objects, on animal cognition, etc.2 The merits and philosophical interest of these studies cannot be questioned, but at the same time, passing over the analysis of the social function of the estimative power is startling. The present chapter aims to fill this gap by focusing on medieval discussions concerning estimation as a social sense—as the power that is partially responsible for the sociability of animals that live together in smaller or larger groups.3 There are two remarks that need to be made before we can go on. The first of them is terminological. I use ‘sociability’ as an umbrella term, which refers to a number of psychological, metaphysical, biological, ethical and even theological traits and properties that explain the existence and forms of social life of human beings and other social animals—from the most intimate relations within a family to the institutional level of a political community, and everything in between. Due to the breadth of the concept, it would be pointless even to try to consider every aspect of medieval discussions concerning sociability.4 Instead, I concentrate on those ideas that have something to do with the estimative power. The other remark also concerns the scope of the present contribution. Medieval theories of the internal senses have been discussed in modern scholarship, and I simply presume that the reader is fairly well acquainted with the basic functions of the estimative power, the mechanism of its operations, and the general psychological framework in which it played a central role—all of which were largely invented

Martin Pickavé and Lisa Shapiro (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 35; Deborah Black, “Imagination and Estimation: Arabic Paradigms and Western Transformations,” Topoi 19 (2000): 68. 2 The literature on the estimative power in Avicenna and his Latin followers is voluminous. One may begin with Dag Nikolaus Hasse, Avicenna’s De Anima in the Latin West: The Formation of a Peripatetic Philosophy of the Soul 1160–1300 (London/Turin: The Warburg Institute/Nino Aragno Editore, 2000), 127–53. A useful philosophical analysis is Anselm Oelze, Animal Rationality: Later Medieval Theories 1250–1350 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), esp. 52–120. 3 Peter von Moos has analysed the social role of the sensus communis in psychological and theological discussions of the middle ages. He mentions the estimative power, but his approach is quite different form the one adopted here: the social element is related to the early traces of the modern notion of common sense as some kind of shared understanding in which people can be reasonably expected to agree. See Peter von Moos, “Le Sens Commun Au Moyen Âge: Sixieme Sens et Sens Social. Aspects Épistémologiques, Ecclésiologiques, et Eschatologiques,” in Entre Histoire et Littérature: Communication et Culture au Moyen Âge (Firenze: Sismel/Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2005), 525–78. 4 For instance, the theological idea of original sin had an important explanatory role in medieval theories of human sociability, as medieval authors often considered political power as a remedy for the fallenness of humankind (see, e.g. Herbert A. Deane, The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine (New York/London: Columbia University Press, 1963); Paul Weithman, “Augustine and Aquinas on Original Sin and the Purposes of Political Authority,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 30, no. 3 (1992): 353–76.). A comprehensive exposition of medieval theories of sociability would have to take this idea into account, but it can be left aside here.

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by Avicenna and embraced by Latin authors. In other words, I leave aside the metaphysical, epistemological, and psychological details of the theories that figure in this essay. After all, they are less relevant for my purposes than the social function of the estimative power.5 Yet, it may be worthwhile to recall that it is a power of the sensory soul, which allows non-human animals to perceive the significance of an external thing to themselves—it makes a kind of perceptual judgement that the perceived object is useful, harmful, or relevant for the well-being of the perceiver in some other way. My central claim is that the estimative power plays an important explanatory role for the social behaviour of humans and other social animals. This claim is approached from two perspectives and in two contexts. I begin by rummaging through medieval discussions concerning the internal senses in order to find traces of the social function, in section two. Then, in section three, I turn to medieval discussions concerning gregarious and political animals and read them through the general theory of the estimative power. By juxtaposing these two perspectives—philosophical psychology and political philosophy—I hope to give a broader analysis of the social function of the estimative power than I could do by concentrating only on one of them. The result is a kind of an intersection between theories of internal senses and medieval political philosophy.

7.2 Estimation and Social Relations As I already mentioned, medieval Latin discussions concerning the social function of the estimative power have not been subjected to a systematic analysis before. There may be a simple explanation for the neglect: medieval philosophers rarely make anything of the positive affections or the social function of the estimative power. One might expect that they would have made a fair amount of philosophically interesting remarks, but they did not. This fact raises a question: Why did they pass over the possibility of elaborating on this issue? One possible reason is that their intention was to explain what the estimative power is, and for this purpose, it is sufficient to give one example—the sheep and its behaviour when it sees a wolf. Philosophers aimed at presenting a general psychological theory, and they did not feel the urge to provide a comprehensive list of all forms of animal behaviour that the estimative power explains, let alone to enter a detailed discussion concerning them.

5 In particular, I pay no attention to terminological differences. Medieval authors used aestimativa, vis aestimativa, aestimatio, and (often in relation to humans) the variants of vis cogitativa. It was quite typical to consider the latter as the human counterpart of the animal estimation. For discussion, see Carla di Martino, Ratio Particularis: Doctrines des Senses Internes d’Avicenne à Thomas d’Aquin, Études de Philosophie Médiévale 94 (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2008); Juhana Toivanen, Perception and the Internal Senses: Peter of John Olivi on the Cognitive Functions of the Sensitive Soul (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2013), 231–45.

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Whatever the case, the topic is fortunately not a complete dead end. Despite the relative silence about the social function of the estimative power, there is a sufficient amount of material for raising philosophically relevant and interesting points and questions. The idea that the estimative power is responsible for the ability to be social towards other beings first arises with Avicenna. He presents, in his De anima, two examples that are supposed to illustrate what the operations of the estimative power are and how it functions. In the translation by Dominicus Gundissalinus (c. 1110–c. 1190) and Avendauth, these examples are as follows: Then there is the power of estimation [ . . . ] which is in a sheep that discerns that the wolf is to be avoided, and that its own lamb is to be cared for (miserendum).6 [ . . . ] and the concord (concordia) that a sheep apprehends7 in its fellow, and in sum, the intention (intentio) by which the sheep rejoices in the company of its fellow [ . . . ].8

Grasping the enmity of the wolf is relevant for the sheep, because it acts on the basis of a desire for self-preservation; in order to survive, one must avoid murderous beasts and other harmful things. The psychological mechanism begins with the perception of the sensible qualities of the wolf, which is accompanied by an estimation (i.e., a judgement) that the wolf is harmful. This estimative judgement arouses fear, which causes the flight of the sheep. The Latin translation employs the technical term intentio (Arabic: ma ¯an¯ı), which should not be confused with the modern notion of intentionality, and which does not signify any special type of property that inheres in the object. Instead, it refers to a judgement about the significance of the perceived object that the estimative power makes.9 Without going into the metaphysical and psychological details that surround this concept, we may suppose that (1) the judgement that the sheep makes in relation to the lamb, and (2) the judgement of concord between it and its fellow sheep, are exact opposites of the (3) judgement of enmity that it makes in relation to the wolf. This means that these estimative acts cause positive emotions, presumably some kind of love. Sheep love their flock, enjoy being with other sheep, love their offspring, and have an emotional desire to take care of them.

6 “Deinde

est vis aestimationis [ . . . ] quae est in ove diiudicans quod ab hoc lupo est fugiendum, et quod huius agni est miserendum.” (Avicenna, Avicenna Latinus: Liber de Anima Seu Sextus de Naturalibus, ed. S. Van Riet, vol. 1 (Louvain/Leiden: E. Peeters/Brill, 1972), 1.5, 89.) Miserere means literally “to feel compassion”, “to pity.” 7 Apprehendere is a general term that covers an array of cognitive operations ranging from sense perception to intellectual understanding. Medieval Latin authors often use it in relation to the estimative power, probably because they want to emphasise that, strictly speaking, the estimative act is not a perception. 8 “[ . . . ] et concordia quam apprehendit de sua socia et omnino intentio qua gratulatur cum illa [ . . . ]” (Avicenna, Liber de Anima, vol 2, 4.1, 7). Dominik Perler translates concordia in this context as “sociability” (Perler, “Why Is the Sheep Afraid,” 35), and although the translation is far from literal, it grasps the social aspect of the term well. 9 Dimitri Gutas, “The Empiricism of Avicenna,” Oriens 40 (2012), 430–31. On estimative judgement, see Oelze, Animal Rationality, 100–129.

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As is well-known, the Latin translation of Avicenna’s De anima had an enormous influence on later philosophical discussions concerning psychological issues. Medieval Latin authors follow Avicenna’s lead, and although they often concentrate on the reaction to the hostile wolf, many of them also mention the intentiones, which are relevant for sociability. Human beings and other animals perceive both friendliness and hostility (amicitia et inimicitia).10 However, many medieval authors (but not all11 ) think that intentiones are a kind of affective properties that inhere in the object and actualise the estimative power, even though they cannot be perceived by external senses. In other words, they tend to reify intentiones. The estimative power is a natural and innate ability to perceive these insensible properties, and it explains the behaviour of animals—and to some extent also that of humans.12 For instance, Roger Bacon (1210/14–92) claims that: “[ . . . ] and conversely, the species (species) of the friendly and harmonious substance of another sheep soothes the organ of the estimative power, and therefore one sheep does not flee another.”13 He does not elaborate further the social function of the estimative power, but there is no reason to doubt that his idea can be generalised. Animals have the ability to perceive other animals as their friends, just as they grasp the hostility of their enemies.14

10 “Et

huius quidem virtutis sedes est medius ventriculus cerebri. Hec virtus est instrumentum virtutis, que proculdubio in animali est occulta apprehensiva vel estimativa; ipsa quidem est virtus, qua ovis iudicat, quod lupus est inimicus et filius est dilectus, et hoc iudicium secundum modum existit non rationale. Amicitia enim et inimicitia non sunt sensu percepte, non ergo eas comprehendit nisi virtus alia [ . . . ]” (John of la Rochelle, Tractatus de Divisione Multiplici Potentiarum Animae, ed. P. Michaud-Quantin, Textes Philosophiques Du Moyen Age 11 (Paris: Vrin, 1964), 2.35, 110). 11 For instance, Peter Olivi (c. 1248–98) argues that intentiones are not a special kind of objects (Peter of John Olivi, Quaestiones in Secundum Librum Sententiarum, ed. B. Jansen, Bibliotheca Franciscana Scholastica Medii Aevi 4–6 (Florence: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1922) (hereafter Summa II), q. 64, vol. 2, 603–606; see Toivanen, Perception and the Internal Senses, 335–8 (note that I have changed my mind with respect to Avicenna’s view). 12 “Et sic est de multis que sunt nociva et contraria complexioni animalium, et eodem modo de utilibus et convenientibus. Nam si agnus numquam viderit agnum, currit ad eum et libenter moratur cum eo, et sic de aliis. Bruta igitur aliquid sentiunt in rebus convenientibus et nocivis. [ . . . ] Nam oportet quod sit magis activum et alterativum corporis sentientis quam lux et color, quia non solum inducit comprehensionem, sed affectum timoris vel amoris vel fuge. Et hec est qualitas complexionis cuiuslibet rei qua assimulatur alii in natura speciali vel generali, per quam ad invicem confortantur et vigorantur [ . . . ]” (Roger Bacon, Perspectiva, ed. D.C. Lindberg, Roger Bacon and the Origins of Perspectiva in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 1.1.4, 12–13.) 13 “[ . . . ] et econtrario species substantie amice et convenientis alterius ovis comfortat organum estimative, et ideo non fugit una ovis aliam.” (Roger Bacon, De Multiplicatione Specierum, ed. David C. Lindberg, Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature: A Critical Edition, with English Translation, Introduction, and Notes, of De Multiplicatione Specierum and De Speculis Comburentibus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 1.2, 24–25.) Bacon uses here another technical term, species, which refers to a form of the object that transmits the information from the object to the perceiver. 14 “Ad hoc dicendum quod amicitia et inimicitia est in animalibus mediante extimatiua, que est suprema in istis [ . . . ]” (Peter of Spain, Questiones Super Libro De Animalibus Aristotelis, ed. F.N. Sánchez, Medicine in the Medieval Mediterranean (Farnham/Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 8.2, 240).

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The other Avicennian example that was transmitted to Latin authors pertains to the relation between a sheep and its offspring, and it can be seen as a basis for another social function, namely, the care for another. Gundissalinus follows Avicenna’s scheme closely in his Tractatus de anima, and he mentions both (1) taking care of the lamb and feeling compassion for it, and (2) the concord that one has with one’s fellows.15 As usual, neither of these functions is explained in detail, but some information concerning the former can be found in Gundissalinus’ explanation of emotions. In short, he accepts Avicenna’s theory of emotions, and conceptualises the reactions of the concupiscible power as acts of desiring pleasurable and useful things.16 However, there are also more complex cases: Sometimes in animals there is found an affection, not to their concupiscence, but like the affection of a mother for her son and the affection of a wife for her husband and like the affection of someone who desires to get out of a cage or shackles. [ . . . ] All these follow estimative powers, for they [scil. animals] do not desire before they have estimated the desired .17

Apparently Gundissalinus thinks that affections of this kind are not typical concupiscible desires. He provides a lengthy and somewhat convoluted argument, the point of which seems to be that they can be considered desires, even though they do not aim for anything that is directly pleasant for the subject.18 One possible reading of the passage is that he is talking about a desire for the good of another. A mother takes care of her son due to an affection (affectus), even though the wellbeing of the son is at least potentially distinct from her own well-being. Similar affections are attributed to non-human animals, and they result from the judgements of the estimative power. As Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) later explains, animals are incapable of conceptualisation, and thus the sheep lacks the concept of ‘offspring’ 15 “[ . . . ]

vis quae est in ove diiudicans quod ab hoc lupo est fugiendum et quod huius agni est miserendum.” (Dominicus Gundissalinus, “The Treatise De Anima of Dominicus Gundissalinus,” ed. J.T. Muckle, Mediaeval Studies 2 (1940) (hereafter De anima): 9, 71.) “Sed quae non sunt sensibiles ex natura sua sunt sicut inimicitiae et militia et quae a se diffugiunt sicut hoc quod ovis apprehendit de lupo, et concordia quam habet cum socia sua.” (Ibid., 9, 73.) There is a difference in wording: Avicenna Latinus speaks about “concordia quam apprehendit de sua socia,” and Gundissalinus about “concordia quam habet de socia sua.” I do not think that the difference is philosophically significant. 16 Gundissalinus’ view can be found in De anima, 9, 80–81. For discussion, see Simo Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), 226–36. 17 “Aliquando autem invenitur in animalibus affectus non ad concupiscentias suas, sed sicut affectus matris circa filium suum et uxoris circa virum suum et sicut affectus eius qui desiderat exire a carcere vel a compedibus. [ . . . ] Hae autem omnes sequuntur virtutes aestimativas, non enim appetunt nisi postquam aestimaverint volitum.” (Gundissalinus, De anima, 9, 81.) The text quotes almost verbatim Gundissalinus’ own translation of Avicenna, but the translation uses caveis instead of carcere. The latter term refers to a human prison rather than to an animal cage, whereas the former is used more in relation to animals. 18 The example of escaping is particularly odd. One might think that getting free would be pleasant for the subject; it is also unclear why the situation is not explained in terms of an irascible passion away from a harmful thing, the shackles. For discussion on the same passage in Avicenna, see Knuuttila, Emotions, 222–24.

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and may not even grasp the lamb as an individual. The estimative power allows it only to perceive the lamb as something to be nursed and taken care of.19 But this means that the sheep has a cognitive power that explains its social behaviour. Certain affections that arise on the basis of estimative perception are social by their nature. A similar approach with minor variations can be found in several medieval works. For instance, John of la Rochelle explains that sheep judge by their estimative powers that they should live together (cohabitare) with their offspring.20 The terminological shift underlines the social function of the estimative power. Another example is John Blund’s (c. 1185–1248) Tractatus de anima, which brings together the two aspects of the estimative function: [ . . . ] estimation is a power placed in the middle ventricle of the brain in order to perceive non-sensed intentions which are in individual and sensed things. It judges [ . . . ] that this lamb, which is the lamb of this sheep, should be looked after. The Commentator (Avicenna) calls an intention an individual quality which is not picked up by sensation, which is either harmful or useful to a thing. Harmful, such as that quality which is in a wolf and because of which the sheep flees from it; useful, such as that property which is in the sheep and because of which the lamb approaches it.21

On the one hand, the sheep grasps the lamb as something to be looked after and taken care of. On the other hand, the lamb perceives the sheep as useful to itself. The result is a two-way explanation of the social bond between parents and offspring. Both have an estimative judgement about the other, and this causes positive emotions that lead to social behaviour.22 19 Thomas

Aquinas, Sentencia Libri De Anima, Opera Omnia Iussu Leonis XIII P.M. Edita 45/1 (Rome/Paris: Commissio Leonina/Les Editions du Cerf, 1984), 2.13, 122; Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature: A Philosophical Study of Summa Theologiae Ia 75–89 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 270–72; Oelze, Animal Rationality, 57–69. 20 “Est autem estimativa, sicut dicit Avicenna, vis ordinata in summo concavitatis medie cerebri, apprehendens intentiones sensibilium, sicut est vis in ove, diiudicans quod a lupo est fugiendum, et quod cum agno cohabitandum.” (John of la Rochelle, Summa de Anima, ed. J.G. Bougerol, Textes Philosophiques Du Moyen Age 19 (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1995), 2.101, 248.) Otherwise the point is familiar, but John uses the term cohabitatio, which suggests that the estimative power incites the sheep to live with its lamb. 21 “[ . . . ] estimatio est vis ordinata in media concavitate cerebri ad apprehendendum intentiones non sensatas que sunt in rebus singularibus et sensibus, diiudicans [ . . . ] quod huius agni, qui est agnus ipsius ovis, est miserendum. Intentionem appellat Commentator qualitatem singularem non cadentem in sensum, que est vel rei nocitiva vel expediens. Nocitiva, ut illa proprietas que est in lupo propter quam ovis fugit lupum; expediens, ut illa proprietas que est in ove propter quam eam appetit agnus.” (John Blund, Treatise on the Soul, ed. D.A. Callus and R.W. Hunt, trans. Michael W. Dunne, Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 19, 137– 39). 22 The connection between estimative acts and sociability appears also in Peter Olivi’s Summa quaestionum super Sententias. He claims that the apprehension of friendliness, friendship, sociability, and usefulness—not only for oneself but also for one’s kin and friends—is an estimative act of the soul: “[ . . . ] inimicum vero nobis dicimus quod ad nostrum malum habet promptum affectum, per contrarium vero sentimus illud nobis esse amicum quod nostro bono sentimus esse benevolum et sociale. Ergo haec non possunt ab aliqua potentia apprehendi nisi in respectu ad praedicta, puta, quia apprehenditur ut utile ad delectationem hanc vel illam vel ad vitandam hanc

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Medieval authors are not particularly interested in providing a systematic treatment of the exact scope of friendliness among animals, but they seem to think that different species are on a scale of increasing sociability. The example concerning the sheep and the lamb pertain only to close relationships between members of the same family. It shows that the estimative power accounts for certain social feelings, but these feelings cannot be used to distinguish more generally social animals from those that behave nicely only towards their own kin. The intentio of friendliness is grasped in relation to one’s offspring. This makes sense, since most higher animals take care of their offspring—also those which do not lead a social life in any proper sense—and even though we should not underestimate the social aspect of this kind of behaviour, it has a restricted scope. The other function, the concord that obtains between an animal and its fellows, is more inclusive. In some cases, the amicable relations can be extended to other members of the same brood, and there are animals that perceive all members of the same species as their friends; various species of birds and other gregarious animals are often mentioned in this connection. At the other end of the scale are predators, which perceive other members of their species as enemies because they compete for the same resources.23 On the other hand, medieval authors did not think that estimating another being as one’s friend is necessarily limited to one’s own kind. There are several pairs of animal species that naturally react to each other as friends. Albertus Magnus provides a list that includes, for example, the following: The black raven is a friend of the fox [ . . . ] The raven and the genus of crocodiles [ . . . ] are friendly and often live together. [ . . . ] a particular serpent dwells in rocks and mountains and is a friend of the fox, as if it were of its genus. The leopards, however, dwell together because of their mutual friendship.24

Although Albertus makes the qualification that the friendship of the raven and the fox is not true friendship, the general message is clear. In his commentary on the De anima, he specifies further that friendly relations between animals require the

poenam vel illam vel utile ad perfectionem sui vel suorum vel amicorum.” (Peter of John Olivi, Summa II q. 64, vol. 2, 604.) “Praeterea, ipse amor ovis ad agnum, quem sentit agnus eius per sensibilia signa, quae sentit in ove, non est minor aut ignobilior respectu in ipso fundato, immo et forte idem est sentire unum quod et reliquum.” (ibid., 606). 23 Albertus Magnus, De animalibus Libri XXVI, ed. H. Stadler (Münster: Aschendorffische Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1916), 8.1.2–3, 574–81; id., Quaestiones Super De Animalibus, ed. E. Filthaut, Alberti Magni Opera Omnia, Vol. 12 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1955), 1.8, 85–86; Thomas Aquinas, Sententia Libri Ethicorum, Opera Omnia Iussu Leonis XIII P.M. Edita 47.1–2 (Rome: Ad Sanctae Sabinae, 1969), 8.1, 443a. 24 “Corvus autem niger est amicus vulpis [ . . . ] Corvus autem et cocodrilli genus [ . . . ] amicantur et cohabitant frequenter. [ . . . ] serpens quidam manet in lapidibus et montanis et est amicus vulpis, sicut sit de genere eius. Leopardi autem manent simul propter amicitiam eorum ad invicem.” (Albertus Magnus, De animalibus 8.1.3, 580–81; translated by K.F. Kitchell & I.M. Resnick, in Albertus Magnus, On Animals: A Medieval Summa Zoologica (Baltimore/London: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1999), 677–78, slightly modified.)

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estimative power and its ability to transcend the confines of the external senses that perceive only sensible qualities: The third degree of apprehension is that by which we receive not only the sensible [qualities] but also certain intentions (intentiones), which are not imprinted on the senses, but which we nevertheless never notice without the sensible [qualities]. Such [intentions] are being social, friendly, pleasurable in association (convictu), and affable, as well as the contraries of these.25

Moreover, the social behaviour of animals does not have to be innate. Sometimes it is learned and results from the social environment. Medieval authors often repeat Avicenna’s idea that animals may learn to fear things that are not their natural enemies; a dog that is beaten with a stick develops a fear towards all sticks. Similar kinds of learning can take place in relation to positive social affections. For instance, when dogs learn to recognise their owners and become attached to them, a kind of social bond emerges between them. The social bond is based on the estimative power, at least for the animal: When a dog acquires some dispositions through instruction and habituation [ . . . ] so that it habitually loves and estimates many things, which it did not love before, or hated, or did not know, then certainly a habitual friendship and prudence is acquired in its powers and organs [ . . . ]26

Dogs and other animals can be habituated to live with humans, and this habituation changes the way their estimative powers function. Just like an animal may learn to avoid things that it does not fear naturally, it can learn social behaviour. In sum, the estimative power has two social functions—or perhaps two versions of one function—in addition to self-preservation. The estimative power accounts for (1) taking care of one’s offspring, and (2) the amicable relations within one’s flock and sometimes beyond it. The exact nature of these social functions is not developed further in the context in which the estimative power is discussed. Although it is clear that the sociability of sheep and other social animals is based on the estimative power, the examples that medieval authors use leave several questions open. For instance, we are not told whether the sheep judges that taking care of the lamb is useful for itself, or whether the action should be conceived of in altruistic terms.

25 “Tertius

autem gradus apprehensionis est, quo accipimus non tantum sensibilia, sed etiam quasdam intentiones quae non imprimuntur sensibus, sed tamen sine sensibilibus numquam nobis innotescunt, sicut est esse socialem et amicum et delectabilem in convictu et affabilem et his contraria [ . . . ]” (Albertus Magnus, De Anima, ed. C. Stroick, Alberti Magni Opera Omnia 7/1 (Aschendorff: Monasterii Westfalorum, 1968), 2.3.4, 101–102). 26 “Quando etiam canis per doctrinam et assuessionem acquirit aliquos habitus [ . . . ] ita quod habitualiter amat et aestimat multa quae prius non amabat vel odiebat nec noverat: tunc utique habitualis amicitia et prudentia eius potentiis et organis acquiritur [ . . . ]” (Peter Olivi, Summa II, q. 63, 601). “Unde videmus canes et leones magnam fidelitatem habere amicitiae ad nutritores et dominos suos.” (Ibid., q. 111, 282.) See also Bacon, Perspectiva, 2.3.9, 246–47. Note that Olivi attributes the estimative function to the common sense and not to a distinct estimative power (Juhana Toivanen, “Peter Olivi on Internal Senses,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 15, no. 3 (2007): 427–54).

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It is also unclear if the joy that the sheep receives from its fellows is a function of acquiring something useful from them, or sheer pleasure that is unrelated to the well-being of the sheep. In other words, it is difficult to say whether the social functions are forms of self-preservation or independent of it. On the other hand, the contrast between selfpreservation and other-regard may be misleading. It is easy to notice some echoes of the Stoic concept of oikeiôsis in the medieval examples of social estimation.27 Loving and taking care of one’s offspring can be seen as a matter of identifying with them. Likewise, the concord (concordia) that prevails in the relations between sheep in the flock may be construed in terms of an identification with a larger group.28 From this perspective, the social functions of the estimative power are like further stages in one and the same process, which begins with an innate drive for selfpreservation and is then extended to others. While taking care of one’s offspring is a social behaviour that serves the preservation of the species, it does not necessarily stem from a motivation distinct from self-preservation. If an animal identifies itself with its offspring, the two inclinations merge into one.29 In this way, the social behaviour may be a matter of self-preservation, with the twist that the ‘self’ is understood in a dynamic and broad sense.

27 For

discussion, see Jacob Klein, “The Stoic Argument from Oikeiôsis,” in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 50 (2016), 143–200; Juhana Toivanen, “Perceptual Self-Awareness in Seneca, Augustine, and Olivi,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 51, no. 3 (2013): 355– 82. For the presence of Stoicism in the Middle Ages, see Gerard Verbeke, The Presence of Stoicism in Medieval Thought (Washington DC: The Catholic university of America Press, 1983); Sten Ebbesen, “Where Were the Stoics in the Late Middle Ages?” in Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations, ed. S.K. Strange & J. Zupko (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 108–31. 28 It is notable that Cicero uses the terms concordia and aestimare in connection to Stoic teaching (Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum Libri Quinque, ed. L.D. Reynolds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 3.21). However, he seems to attribute the apprehension of concordia only to humans and it does not refer explicitly to social concord. 29 Note that for Aristotle, the desire to leave behind a similar to oneself is a form of self-preservation in the sense that reproduction allows individual animals to partake in the everlasting species. See DA 2.4, 415b3–8; GA 2.1, 731b24–732a1; J.G. Lennox, “Are Aristotelian Species Eternal?,” in Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology: Studies in the Origins of Life Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 131–59. Albertus Magnus argues that: “Et prima est mariti et uxoris, quae convenit homini secundum quod coniugale animal, per naturam inditam ei communiter cum omnibus animalibus et plantis, secundum quam inditum est unicuique appetere tale, alterum relinquere posse, quale est ipsum: hoc enim est esse divinum quod omnia appetunt propter conservationem speciei.” (Albertus Magnus, Commentarii in Octo Libros Politicorum Aristotelis, ed. A. Borgnet, B. Alberti Magni Opera Omnia, Vol. 8 (Paris: Vivès, 1891), 1.1, 9a.) See also Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, ed. P. Caramello (Turin: Marietti, 1948–50), 1.60.5 ad3.

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7.3 Social and Political Animals It is not a surprise that the most elaborate discussion concerning the social function of the estimative power comes from Albertus Magnus. Unlike many other philosophers, he was interested in non-human animals and their behaviour for their own sake, and he produced two extensive commentaries on Aristotle’s zoological works—Quaestiones de animalibus and De animalibus libri XXVI.30 He asks in the former work whether there are animals that must live in society (in societate), that is, whether there are social animals that live together in organised groups.31 The answer begins as follows: It must be said that some animals gather together and are social, some are solitary, and some behave in both ways. To prove this, it must be understood that there are four interior powers of the sensory —namely, the common sense, imagination, estimation, and memory. The estimative power receives intentions (intentiones), which senses do not receive, and the better estimative powers animals have, the better they take care of themselves (sibi cavent et provident). Wherefore certain flying animals are always in community, due to the dryness of their brain, where the estimative power thrives. Such are, for instance, cranes and bees.32

Albertus’ claim could in principle be understood in such a way that cranes and bees have poor estimative powers, and therefore they need others in order to survive, while those animals that have good estimative powers can take care of themselves.33

30 De

animalibus is a collection of Aristotle’s three major writings concerning the animal kingdom (Historia animalium, De generatione animalium, and De partibus animalium), translated by Michael Scot from the Arabic in 1220 or a little earlier. For the Latin reception of De animalibus see Miguel Asúa, The Organization of Discourse on Animals in the Thirteenth Century: Peter of Spain, Albert the Great, and the Commentaries on “De Animalibus” (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1991); Baudoin van den Abeele, “Le ‘De Animalibus’ d’Aristote Dans le Monde Latin: Modalités de Sa Réception Médiévale,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 33 (1999): 287–318. 31 “Utrum aliqua animalia debeant vivere in societate?” (Albertus Magnus, Quaest. de animal., 1.8, 85.) There is a caveat with respect to Albertus’ Quaestiones. It is a reportatio of a series of disputed questions from 1258, written down by Albertus’ student Conrad of Austria, and it may not be a completely accurate representation of Albertus’ position. See Irven M. Resnick and Kenneth F. Jr. Kitchell, “Introduction,” in Albert the Great, Questions Concerning Aristotle’s On Animals, trans. Irven M. Resnick and Kenneth F. Jr. Kitchell, The Fathers of the Church Medieval Continuation 9 (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 4–6. 32 “Dicendum, quod quaedam animalia sunt aggregabilia vel sociabilia et quaedam solitaria et quaedam se habent utroque modo. Ad cuius evidentiam intelligendum, quod cum quattuor sint vires sensitivae interiores, scilicet sensus communis et imaginativa, aestimativa et memorativa, et aestimativa est receptiva intentionum, quas sensus non recipit, secundum quod animalia meliorem aestimativam habent, secundum hoc melius sibi cavent et melius provident. Unde quaedam animalia volatilia propter siccitatem cerebri, in quo viget aestimativa, semper sunt in societate, sicut grues et apes.” (Albertus Magnus, Quaest. de animal., 1.8, 85.) 33 This is roughly one of the arguments that Aquinas gives for human sociability in his De regno. In comparison to many animals, humans are less competent in estimating which things are useful and harmful to them. That is why they need to live with others and specialise in one task. See Thomas Aquinas, De regno ad regem Cypri, Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P. M. edita, vol. 42 (Roma: Editori di San Tommaso, 1979), 1.1, 449b–50a.

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However, his point is more likely that a certain amount of dryness of the brain enhances the estimative power, and that bees, cranes and other similar animals are able to grasp that living with other individuals of their kind is useful and beneficial for them.34 These animals live together, form various kinds of communities, and engage in common projects, because they find them useful. The ability to know that common life is beneficial is the first and most fundamental level of sociability, which manifests itself in different kinds of behavioural traits: animals collaborate, collect food, and protect their storages and homes against predators together; they wander about, migrate, and live in herds; they gather together when they see a predator because the flock provides safety; sometimes they even have leaders and a division of labour.35 All these operations are useful for animals, and Albertus establishes an intrinsic connection between the estimative power and the social life of animals by emphasising this fact. In principle, the better estimative power an animal has, the more social it is. The picture is a bit more complicated, however. Albertus raises a counter-argument, according to which all animal species would lead a social life if it were truly useful for them. Since there are many animals that do not form stable communities, perception of usefulness cannot be the cause of the sociability of animals. In effect, this argument questions the relation between social life and the ability to grasp it as useful. Albertus does not accept the main point of the argument. He says that even though social life would help all animals to avoid external threats and acquire

34 Peter of Spain states explicitly in his De animalibus that the estimative power functions better and

accounts for social behaviour in those animals whose brain is dry. I have not been able to confirm that Albertus accepts the idea that dryness of brain indicates a well-functioning estimation, but he uses Peter’s commentary amply, and he also writes that: “Aestimatio autem talis maxime inest apibus propter opera artificiosa, quae faciunt, et propter yconomicam et regnum, quod custodiunt domestice et civiliter collaborantes.” (Albertus Magnus, De animalibus 7.1.1, 496; On animals, 586.) Moreover, (1) he argues elsewhere that excessive dryness and humidity hinder the use of the estimative power (Albertus Magnus, De animalibus, 8.6.1, 669), which shows that a welltempered brain is best for estimation but does not rule out the possibility that dryness is beneficial within certain limits; (2) memory was generally thought to be better if dry, and imagination was at least occasionally treated in the same way; (3) birds were usually thought to have good estimative powers, as they build nests and so forth; (4) bees were generally considered as highly sophisticated animals, capable of doing various things that require good estimative power. On memory, see David Bloch, Aristotle on Memory and Recollection (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2007), 137–228; Ruth E. Harvey, The Inward Wits: Psychological Theory in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (London: The Warburg Institute, 1975), 18 & 26. On bees, see Guy Guldentops, “The Sagacity of the Bees: An Aristotelian Topos in Thirteenth Century Philosophy,” in Aristotle’s Animals in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. C. Steel, G. Guldentops, and P. Beullens (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1999), 275–96. On the relation between Albertus and Peter, see Asúa, Discourse on Animals, 115– 26. For dryness of brain and social function of the estimative power, see also Peter of Spain, Quaest. de animalibus, 1.2, 130–31; Ps.-Peter of Spain, “Problemata,” in The Organization of Discourse on Animals in the Thirteenth Century: Peter of Spain, Albert the Great, and the Commentaries on “De Animalibus,” ed. Miguel Asúa (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1991), 361–62. 35 Albertus Magnus, De animalibus, 1.1.3, 15–18; see also Peter of Spain, Quaest. de animalibus, 1.2, 130–32.

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benefits, different species are endowed with different estimative powers, and thus only some of them actually live together. Many predators, especially birds of prey, fare better when there is no competition for food. They estimate solitary life as useful for them, because then they do not have to compete with others. They also do not have to avoid external threats, since they are afraid only of other members of their own species.36 The estimative power accounts for the way of life, be it solitary or social, and different species value things differently mainly because they follow specific diets. Animals that have food aplenty tend to be social, while those that have more difficulties in finding their nourishment (predators) live in solitude.37 Albertus’ view is not exactly the same as the one that was hinted in Avicenna’s example concerning the concord within a flock. Avicenna emphasises that animals enjoy each other’s company, and especially if the idea is understood in terms of some kind of identification with the flock, we may think that something more is going on in the estimation-guided relations of animals than simple utility. In Albertus’ picture, it is possible to think of the behaviour of animals as nothing but a means for self-preservation in the strict sense, since the utility that animals acquire from social life is related to their own individual survival: a sheep benefits from the company of others of its kind, because when a predator attacks the herd, the likelihood of the survival of an individual is greater due to the size of the group. We need to be careful, however, in attributing different views to Albertus and Avicenna. The ideas discussed so far are poorly developed, and it is unclear how the details of the estimative process and the scope of one’s self-preservation should be understood. What is clear is that nature has made certain animal species such that they estimate the company of others both useful and pleasurable, and this point is accepted by both authors. The idea that many other animal species besides humans are social was widespread and it was repeated also in commentaries on Aristotle’s Politics. Medieval philosophers adopted Aristotle’s conception of human beings as political animals by nature, and they also tended to acknowledge that ants, bees, cranes, and other animals, which not only live together but also collaborate in order to reach a

36 “Item, si aliqua passio conveniat alicui propter aliquod medium, posito medio poneretur et passio.

Nunc autem animalia non viverent in societate, nisi ut melius convenientia operentur et fugiant nociva; sed hoc est utile cuilibet animali; ergo omnia animalia erunt sociabilia. [ . . . ] Ad secundam rationem dicendum, quod licet utile esset omni animali esse in societate, ut melius consequatur convenientia et fugiat nociva, tamen diversa animalia per diversas aestimativas diversimode moventur. Columbae enim cum nutrimentum quaerunt, videtur esse eis utilius in societate, et similiter anatibus et ancis. Unde viso accipitre vel falcone in unum conveniunt et hoc propter timorem avium rapacium et inimicarum. Sed avibus rapacibus videtur melius esse in solitudine, quia non timent nisi aves sui generis, per quas impediantur a suis praedis.” (Albertus Magnus, Quaest. de animal., 1.8, 85–86.) 37 This point is often made in commentaries on the Politics. Medieval authors argue that animals lead different ways of life depending on the abundance of their food. See, e.g., Anonymous of Milan, Quaestiones in Libros Politicorum, Milano BAmbros. A 100 Inf., 1.14, fol. 6va–7ra; Peter of Auvergne, Quaestiones Super Libros Politicorum, Paris BN Lat. 16089, 1.19, fol. 279va–280ra.

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common aim, can be considered as political.38 It is not altogether clear whether or not these non-human animals were thought to be political exactly in the same way as humans are,39 but even when medieval authors posited a difference, they were not questioning the social behaviour of other animals. In the context of commentaries on the Politics the estimative power as a source of sociability of animals is rarely mentioned, but it is not completely absent either, as the examples below show. Moreover, by reading political commentaries from the perspective of the social function of the estimative power, it is possible to find important connections between the social (or political) behaviour of animals and the estimative power. In the remainder of this essay, I shall consider medieval versions of two arguments that stem originally from Aristotle’s Politics 1.2—the so-called genetic and linguistic arguments—from the perspective of philosophical psychology. By such means we may arrive at a more complete picture of estimation as a social power. As is well known, Aristotle argues at the beginning of his Politics that the association between man and woman constitutes the very basis of more complex communities of human beings.40 The genetic argument for the naturalness of the political community (polis, civitas) is based on the idea that the former association is natural and forms the core of the household. Political community develops from it through a natural process, and therefore it can be considered natural.41 Thomas Aquinas’ version of this argument begins as follows: Therefore, [the power of reproduction] does not belong to them by their choice (ex electione), that is, by their reason choosing it, but belongs to them by an aspect common to them, other animals, and even plants. For all these things have a natural desire to leave after them other things similar to themselves, so that reproduction specifically preserves what cannot be preserved the same numerically. Therefore, there is such a natural desire even in all the other natural things that are corruptible.42

38 Aristotle’s

view is complicated, and various interpretations have been presented. One may begin with David Depew, “Humans and Other Political Animals in Aristotle’s History of Animals,” Phronesis 40, no. 2 (1995): 156–81; Geoffrey Lloyd, “Aristotle on the Natural Sociability, Skills and Intelligence of Animals,” in Politeia in Greek and Roman Philosophy, ed. V. Harte & M. Lane (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 277–93. 39 For discussion, see Irène Rosier-Catach, “Communauté Politique et Communauté Linguistique,” in La Légitimité Implicite, ed. J.-F. Genet, vol. 1, Histoire Ancienne et Médiévale 135 (Rome/Paris: École française de Rome/Publications de la Sorbonne, 2015), 232–37; ead., “‘Il N’a Été Qu’à L’homme Donné de Parler’: Dante, Les Anges et Les Animaux,” in Ut Philosophia Poiesis: Questions Philosophiques Dans L’oeuvre de Dante, Pétrarque et Boccace, ed. J. Biard & F. Marian (Paris: Vrin, 2008), 13–37. 40 Aristotle also provides a slightly different account of the fundamental constituents of a polis which focuses on citizens instead of households. See Mogens Herman Hansen, Reflections on Aristotle’s Politics (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2013), 19–31. 41 Pol. 1.2, 1252a24–1253a4. 42 “Hoc igitur non competit ei ex electione, id est secundum quod habet rationem eligentem, set competit ei secundum rationem communem sibi et animalibus et etiam plantis. Omnibus enim hiis inest naturalis appetitus ut post se derelinquat alterum tale quale ipsum est, ut sic per generationem conseruetur in specie quod idem numero conseruari non potest. Est quidem igitur

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The desire to leave behind a similar to oneself is natural for humans, animals, and plants. In the case of plants this natural desire does not require anything on top of the vegetative power of procreation. It is not a psychological desire in the modern sense of the term. By contrast, in the case of animals, the desire is or includes a psychological element, an emotion of desire. Consider self-preservation. The natural desire for it does not explain the actual behaviour of animals alone—in order to actually strive for those things that contribute to self-preservation, and to avoid the contrary, animals need the cognitive information provided by the estimative power and the motivating emotion that initiates the proper behaviour. Likewise, the emergence of the emotion of desire is a necessary component of the process that leads to procreation, and this emotion stems from an estimative evaluation that another animal is a suitable mating partner.43 To the best of my knowledge, medieval Latin authors never explicitly argue that the process goes like this, but as I suggested above, this indicates only that they were not interested in making exhaustive lists of all the cases in which the estimative power affects the behaviour of animals. Instead, they gave a couple of illustrative examples and probably thought that the reader would get the point and understand that the same mechanism is at play in all situations, in which the action of an animal is based on an emotion. As a matter of fact, we may suppose that at least according to some medieval authors, the estimative power functions in relation to all perceptual acts, and that animals therefore perceive everything around them from the perspective of the relevance to their well-being. After all, the internal senses can be understood as forming a dynamic whole in which all the powers are active all the time.44 Animals do not have as much control over their actions as humans do. Although humans cannot decide to have or not have the urge to reproduce, they can choose whether they mate or not, and with whom they mate. Thus, Aquinas’ argument that the natural inclination to this association is “not by choice” refers to the natural

huiusmodi naturalis appetitus etiam in omnibus aliis rebus naturalibus corruptibilibus.” (Thomas Aquinas, Sententia Libri Politicorum, Opera Omnia Iussu Leonis XIII P.M. Edita, vol. 48 (Rome: Ad Sanctae Sabinae, 1971), 1.1/a, 73b, trans. R.J. Regan in Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Politics (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2007), 10; I have slightly amended the translation.) 43 Aquinas argues elsewhere that animal desires always require a cognitive act (ST, II-1.26.1). Moreover, all emotions are based on an estimative judgement (see, e.g., Knuuttila, Emotions, 239). 44 For instance, Avicenna presents different divisions of the internal senses—threefold in medicine and fivefold in philosophy (Avicenna, The Canon of Medicine (Al-Q¯an¯un F¯ı’l-Tibb), ed. L. Bakhtiar, trans. O.C. Gruner and M.H. Shah (Great Books of the Islamic World inc., 1999), 8.1, §557, 163–64). This suggests that the division into different powers is an analytical tool that reflects our theoretical needs (Kaukua, “Avicenna on the Soul’s Activity,” 102). I have argued in favour of this interpretation in relation to Latin authors in Juhana Toivanen, “Perceptual Experience: Assembling a Medieval Puzzle,” in The History of the Philosophy of Mind, vol. 2, Philosophy of Mind in the Early and High Middle Ages, ed. M. Cameron (London/New York: Routledge, 2019), 134–56.

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origins of this inclination, not to its consummation.45 By contrast, a sheep does not discriminate between different wolves but fears all of them, and medieval authors probably thought that the positive social drive functions in the same way, and that animals desire to mate with all suitable partners. Even so, the estimative power is needed in order to differentiate between suitable and non-suitable partners—to make a difference between other sheep of the opposite sex and, say, dogs and humans. The association between male and female exists for the sake of (1) the preservation of the species, and also of (2) self-preservation. Aquinas argues that: “[ . . . ] in the case of human beings, male and female live together not only for the sake of procreation of sons, but also for the sake of those things that are necessary for human life [ . . . ]”46 Acquiring the necessities for life requires division of labour, and although Aquinas claims that this is peculiar to humans, animals are often granted the ability to collaborate for the sake of the common good.47 Given that the estimative power (or its human equivalent, the cogitative power) allows animals and humans to seek for those things that preserve the species and the individual, it seems perfectly natural to think that the same power is responsible for the social behaviour towards one’s partner and offspring. As mentioned above, probably neither of these motivations should be understood as conscious aims that figure in the experience of animals when they form couples. Instead, they can be considered as final causes that account for the existence of this association. The genetic argument can be understood from this perspective. What about the other argument, the one that is based on the human ability to use language? It establishes a connection between the political nature of human beings and the ability to speak about what is just and what is unjust. Humans use language to express their views concerning just distribution of goods, and this normative dimension is crucial in political communities.48 For my purposes, two aspects of the argument are relevant. First, Aristotle begins it by comparing humans to other animals: “It is clear that a human being is more of a political animal than a bee and any gregarious animal.”49 The comparison suggests that being political is a 45 The

idea that human beings choose their partners was widely accepted. See Pavel Blažek, Die Mittelalterliche Rezeption der Aristotelischen Philosophie der Ehe von Robert Grosseteste bis Bartholomäus von Brügge (1246/1247–1309) (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2007); Marco Toste, “The Naturalness of Human Association in Medieval Political Thought Revisited,” in La Nature Comme Source de La Morale Au Moyen Âge, ed. M. van der Lugt (Firenze: SISMEL–Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2014), 113–88. 46 “[ . . . ] in hominibus mas et femina cohabitant non solum causa procreationis filiorum, sed etiam propter ea. quae sunt necessaria ad humanam vitam [ . . . ]” (Thomas Aquinas, Sent. EN 8.12, 488b.) 47 “[ . . . ] formicas et apes [ . . . ] artificiose operentur casas, et provideant in futurum sibi, et operentur in commune.” (Albertus Magnus, De anima 3.1.7, 173; see also Albertus Magnus, De animalibus, 1.1.3, 16; ibid., 1.1.4, 21–23). Note that we must distinguish between collaboration and division of labour. Medieval authors seem to be unwilling to attribute the latter to animals, even though they usually accept that many animals set up a leader for themselves. 48 See, e.g., Rosier-Catach, “Communauté Politique,” 227–37. 49 In the Latin translation of Moerbeke, the sentence goes as follows: “Quod autem civile animal homo omni ape et omni gregali animali magis palam.” (Aristoteles latinus, in Thomas Aquinas,

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biological trait that comes in degrees, in which case humans and other animals form a continuum, and the political life of humans is not radically different from the communal life that certain other animal species lead.50 Medieval authors may not have accepted this fundamental similarity between humans and other animals that were often called political, but there is no doubt that they endorsed the idea that many animal species are social—and not only towards their offspring, as we have seen: animals grasp a certain kind of concord (concordia) in their fellows. Given that this ability was accounted for by appealing to the estimative power, the comparison of the linguistic argument can be understood as a comparison between non-human animals that are social (or political) due to their estimative power, and human beings who have an additional normative and rational layer in their social life.51 The second important aspect of the linguistic argument is that Aristotle mentions usefulness and harmfulness as elements that are relevant for justice, and medieval philosophers follow suit.52 They say that the animal voice can express only pain and pleasure, and human language is needed to talk about usefulness and harmfulness.53 It is not always clear whether they mean to deny that animals are able to cognise the latter pair of properties, or only that they are unable to communicate about them. Yet, it seems all too easy to read the linguistic argument in the former way. The exclusion of usefulness and harmfulness from things that other animals can express with their voices is surprising. One would expect that medieval authors would have altered the linguistic argument so as to be in line with their views concerning animal psychology; after all, the argument itself does not require denying the ability to perceive, apprehend and express usefulness and harmfulness to non-human animals.54 It would be enough to say that they cannot grasp the normative element that is related to justice, which would leave room for the possibility that animals can give, say, warning cries when they see something hostile without yet feeling pain. But that is not what medieval authors say. A charitable

Sent. Pol., 1.1/b, 1253a8–9; I have used Reeve’s translation of Aristotle, but amended it slightly in order to reflect the Latin more closely.) 50 This reading is in line with Aristotle’s biological conception of the political animal that he develops especially in the Historia animalium. See Depew, “Humans and Other Political Animals,” 156–81. 51 Whether we should make a distinction between social life (based on the estimative power) and political life (that involves the rational aspect), or simply call both political but in different degrees, is a question that cannot be dealt with in this context. An informative discussion on political animals other than humans, and the idea that the human is more political than them, can be found in Jean Louis Labarrièrre, Langage, Vie Politique et Mouvement des Animaux: Études Aristotéliciennes (Paris: Vrin, 2004), 61–127. 52 Aristoteles Latinus, in Thomas Aquinas, Sent. Pol. 1.1/b, 1253a8–18. 53 See, e.g., Thomas Aquinas, Sent. Pol. 1.1/b, 79a; Giles of Rome, De Regimine Principum, ed. H. Samaritanius (Rome, 1607), 3.1.4, 409–10. 54 As a matter of fact, one might think that Aristotle himself should have altered the argument. Trevor Saunders has pointed out that the denial of aisth¯esis of what is beneficial and harmful goes against what Aristotle says elsewhere (Aristotle, Politics, Books I and II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 69–70).

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reading could be devised by suggesting that animals cannot use their voices to indicate harmful and useful things as such, but they can express the emotions of fear and desire that the estimative apprehension of useful and harmful things causes. This would explain why certain medieval authors deny the ability to communicate about these properties without compromising animals’ ability to estimate things in light of their usefulness and harmfulness. All this is speculation, however. They do not elaborate on the matter more, probably because their interest lies elsewhere and they are reluctant to distance themselves from Aristotle too much in the context of the linguistic argument. However, the argument can be interpreted in a way that allows attributing the ability to perceive usefulness and harmfulness to animals while holding that only humans can speak about them. Let me quote from Guido Vernani of Rimini’s (c. 1280–c. 1344) commentary on the Politics. Guido begins by claiming that human beings are more political than bees and suchlike animals due to the ability to use language. Then he goes on to explain: For simple voice is a sign of sorrow and pain, and therefore it is given not only to humans but also to other animals, so that they can convey mutually their conceptions and communicate reciprocally. And this is the highest that God gave to other animals. For, they do this due to the estimative power, which is the highest among all sensory powers. By contrast, speech signifies not only joy and pain, but also useful and harmful, which are the matter of justice and injustice, since to have more or less useful good or harmful than one should have is unequal and unjust.55

Guido makes it clear that humans can speak about justice in relation to useful and harmful things. This leaves open the possibility that humans are not the only animals that can perceive usefulness and harmfulness in external things. Rather, humans are special in that they can discuss about just distribution of useful and harmful things.56 The crucial issue is not the ability to speak about usefulness and harmfulness as such; it is the ability to speak about justice that is related to them that matters. This is a fair interpretation of Aristotle’s argument, at least if we accept that his aim is to establish the political nature of human beings and explain how humans differ from other animals in this respect. Guido’s argument is important also because he explicitly introduces the estimative power to the linguistic argument. This indicates that certain animals, such as bees and cranes, are social (either gregarious or even political) because they 55 “Simplex

enim vox est signum tristitie et doloris, et ideo data est non solum hominibus, sed etiam aliis animalibus, ut per vocem possint suas conceptiones mutuo nuntiare et ad invicem communicare. Et hoc est summum quod Deus dedit aliis animalibus. Faciunt enim propter virtutem extimativam, que est altior inter omnes potentias sensitivas. Sermo vero, sive locutio, non solum significat gaudium et dolorem, sed etiam utile et nocivum, que sunt materia iustitie et iniustitie. Nam habere plus vel minus quod oporteat de bono utili vel de nocivo, et inequale est et iniustum.” (Guido Vernani of Rimini, Super Politicam, Venice, BMarc. Lat. VI 94 (2492), 1.1.4, fol. 59rb; emphasis mine.) 56 The same idea can be found also in Aquinas’ commentary on the Politics: “[ . . . ] consistit enim iustitia et iniustitia ex hoc quod aliqui adequentur uel non equentur in rebus utilibus et nociuis.” (Thomas Aquinas, Sent. Pol. 1.1/b, 79a.)

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can judge that it is useful for them to live together and collaborate. This level of sociability applies also to human beings, but humans are more social/political than bees and cranes, because the ability to consider useful and harmful things from a normative perspective adds a further layer to human communities. In order to defend this interpretation, a close reading of medieval discussions concerning the concept of the political animal would be necessary, but this is not the place to do that; it suffices to underline the significance of the fact that the social function of the estimative power can be used to support this view.

7.4 Conclusion Medieval philosophers did not discuss much about the social function of the estimative power. Although it is difficult to say why they did not elaborate on it more, I hope that I have been able to show that the reason was not that they would not have believed in its existence. They wrote little but enough, and they made it clear that many forms of social behaviour can be accounted for by appealing to estimative acts, which prompt animals to live together in a way that is useful for them. There are two contexts in which the social function of the estimative power appears. Medieval authors mention it when they discuss philosophical psychology and the theories of the internal senses; and it is raised in discussions concerning the sociability and the political nature of animals and humans, in relation to Aristotle’s Politics and his zoological works. Combining the views found in these quite different domains allows us to understand better the explanatory role that the estimative power has for sociability. In particular, it underlines that human beings and other animals belong to a continuum with respect to their sociability. Various fundamental aspects of social life are due to the estimative power, which plays a central role in explaining the behaviour of non-human animals. Since the same power also figures in human psychology, there are good reasons to believe that humans and other animals share certain psychological traits also when it comes to their social/political nature. This affinity does not mean that there would not be important differences as well, but these differences manifest themselves against a shared background.57

57 This research has been funded by the Academy of Finland and Stiftelsen Riksbankens Jubileums-

fond. I would like to thank the editors and the participants of the workshop The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition (Gothenburg 2016) for useful comments on an earlier version of this paper. I am also grateful to Ville Suomalainen for his assistance in practical matters.

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Chapter 8

Movements, Memory, and Mixture: Aristotle, Confusion, and the Historicity of Memory John Sutton

Abstract Aristotle frequently discusses specific material constraints on memory and recollection. This essay reinterprets his fluid physiological psychology of memory, which depends on the stability of bodily movements or traces, in light of his general theory of mixture. It proposes new ways to link memory and metaphysics in the Aristotelian tradition; counters a popular historical narrative which sets Aristotle at the origin of a static Western ‘archival model’ of memory; and suggests the relevance for contemporary philosophy and science of Aristotle’s view of the potential existence of movements in memory.

8.1 Introduction: Memory, Mixture, and History This essay homes in on two related aspects of Aristotle’s account of memory, one often noted but sometimes discounted, the other of more speculative import. These features may not be the most central, either for Aristotle or for his interpreters, but they matter in their own right, and raise questions of independent historical and conceptual interest. The first feature is Aristotle’s definite and recurrent attention to the specific material constraints on the processes of memory and recollection. As suggested by his general hylomorphism about psyche and body, attention to the biological realization of psychological processes crops up throughout Aristotle’s psychology. But the topic concerns him particularly in the De Memoria and elsewhere in the Parva Naturalia, as is noted both by those modern commentators who lament the fantastical errors of his outdated psychophysiology, and by those who work harder to appreciate its intriguing puzzles and its historical significance. On a second Aristotelian topic, then, I suggest that there are unnoticed conceptual connections between Aristotle’s concerns about the stability of the internal fluid

J. Sutton () Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 S. N. Mousavian, J. L. Fink (eds.), The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6_8

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motions which underlie memory processes, on the one hand, and his unique approach to the theory of mixtures, on the other hand. The evidence for such connections between mixture and memory is definite if indirect. My exposition below starts from memory and works back to mixture, but the evidence for these conceptual connections can be laid out up front as follows. Aristotle explicitly links his theory of mixture (Sect. 8.5 below) to a number of problems in the psychology and psychophysiology of perception and the senses, canvassing both a range of options and a preferred solution which, he says, he has described ‘in the treatise on mixture, where we dealt with this subject generally, in its most comprehensive aspect’ (De Sensu 3, 439b-440b; compare De Sensu 7, 447a, and Sect. 8.4 below). He treats other topics in physiological psychology, including memory and dreams, as raising puzzles about the persistence of specific movements in internal media (Sect. 8.2 below). In particular, Aristotle discusses the psychological roles of vital heat and pneuma in terms of problems about the enduring potential or actual presence of the movements by means of which specific impressions or traces persist within dynamic fluid systems (Freudenthal 1995; Sect. 8.3 below). So, I argue, it is reasonable to draw on the conceptual resources of Aristotle’s theory of mixture to examine problems in the psychophysiology of memory, or at least to raise the possibility that such relations could be profitably investigated. Approaching Aristotle on memory and mixture in this way also has three further useful historical or historico-philosophical implications. Even if there remains some gap between memory and mixture in Aristotle’s own work, these broader avenues remain worth exploring, as I show in the final section of the essay (Sect. 8.6 below). Firstly and most obviously, scholars of subsequent Aristotelian traditions can keep an eye out for later connections across these two domains: since many commentators on Aristotle in distinct periods cared about both memory and mixture, I predict that sensitivity to possible conceptual links between the two domains among historians of philosophy will bring to light new and interesting material. Secondly, in relation to the history and historiography of memory, and in line with the ongoing aim of better integrating the history of ideas with broader questions in cultural history and cognitive history, we want to know what kind of history ‘memory’ has, or what ‘memory’ is if it really has a cultural and historical nature as well as its biological and neural nature, if it genuinely is – as Ian Hacking (1995) convincingly argued – both a natural and a human kind. I identify and criticise a popular grand historical narrative on which Aristotle is a key precursor to an entrenched and perniciously mechanistic Western vision of memory as a static archive. In sharp contrast, I argue that both Aristotle’s own view and many or most dominant Western approaches to memory have been grounded instead in fluid dynamics, and as a result have been messier, more open, and more interesting than this grand narrative of archives allows. Finally, in the perennial re-assessment of the relevance of Aristotle’s views, and of their conceptual utility in offering distinct perspectives on our own debates and theories, two related questions stand out to which these links between memory and mixture might speak. In our dramatically different psychologies and neurosciences of memory, we still want to understand better how highly dynamic material

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media and mechanisms can (imperfectly but genuinely) support the stability and persistence of some memories; and we still want to know how distinct past events or experiences can be retained over time and accessed again.

8.2 Aristotle’s Fluid Physiological Psychology of Memory Both memory and recollection, for Aristotle, rely on bodily changes or movements. Being able to take an ‘affection’ or an ‘imprint’ as a likeness or copy, as memory requires, depends on the right physical conditions: ‘memory does not occur in those who are subject to a lot of movement, because of some trouble or because of their time of life, just as if the change and the seal were falling on running water’ (450a32ff.) Recollection, in turn, ‘is a search in something bodily for an image’ (453a14). In what follows I can neglect other important aspects of Aristotle’s account, and many points of philosophical disagreement among modern commentators (Sorabji 1972; Annas 1986; Bloch 2007), because my aim is to pose some natural and specific questions about this corporeal substrate, about the role of movements in memory, which arise on any interpretation of the psychology of memory which is grounded or realised in these bodily movements. Aristotle suggests that weak or poor memory arises when the requisite changes are not ‘able to persist within such people and avoid being dispersed, nor during recollecting does the movement easily take a straight course’ (453b2-4). So certain changes or movements form the physical basis of the affection or image which we can regard as a copy, thus remembering the distinct thing of which it is a copy, rather than merely as a figure in its own right. How should we think of these movements and their status? Sorabji plausibly argues that Aristotle does not think they exist only intermittently, only at the present moment of remembering, for ‘these same changes or images’, Aristotle says, ‘remain’ or ‘persist’ (450b10-11, 453b2-3): we remember many things dispositionally even when we are not remembering them actively or occurrently. Sorabji goes on: Presumably, the continuous existence which he attributes to the mental image is a merely potential existence, the potential existence which is supplied by the continued actual existence of the physical trace. (Sorabji 1972, p.16)

This motivates our initial questions. This ‘continued actual existence’ of the physical trace provides the causal continuity between past experience and present remembering: this grounds the difference between an image of memory and a newly acquired or reacquired image (Sorabji 1972, pp.10–11, referring to Martin and Deutscher’s [1966] causal theory of memory). But can each distinct physical trace or change or movement really have a ‘continued actual existence’ as thus required, and if so how? Such questions are easy to answer for those memory theorists who really do defend an archival model, in which the physical basis of each distinct memory is a discrete and localised single item. For example, the brilliant natural philosopher

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Robert Hooke contributed to a vibrant debate about memory in seventeenth-century England by developing a detailed vision of separate stored items located on the coils of memory: These ideas I will suppose to be material and bulky, that is, to be certain Bodies of determinate Bigness, and impregnated with determinate Motions, and to be in themselves distinct; and therefore that not two of them can be in the same space, but that they are actually different and separate one from another. (Hooke 1682/1705, p.142)

Because these distinct stored ‘bodies’ have no intrinsic dynamics, Hooke argues that at all stages of the memory process they must be directed by a separate soul: ‘no Idea can really be formed or stored up in this Repository without the Directive and Architectonical power of the Soul’, which deploys its ‘power’ from ‘the Center of the Repository’ (p.140, p.147; cf Sutton 1998, pp.129–144; Stevenson 2005; Lewis 2009). In comparison, Aristotle’s picture of memory is much more dynamic: his memory images, as Chappell (2017, 400) puts it, ‘clearly have a life, and a liveliness, of their own’. There is no single wax block onto which distinct marks are impressed. Notably, Plato’s discussion of a wax block model had pinpointed a concern that impressions might become ‘less distinct’ through being ‘crowded together for lack of space’, or might in many conditions ‘collapse and get blurred’, whereas a good memory needed to keep impressions ‘clear and well-spaced’, with every item quickly distributed to ‘the proper impressions’ (Theaetetus 194c-195a). For Aristotle, the residual sensory movements which will form the material basis of memory and recollection as well as dreams are always in motion: like the little eddies which are ever being formed in rivers, so the sensory movements are each a continuous process, often remaining like what they were when first started, but often, too, broken into other forms by collisions with obstacles. (De Insomn., 461a9-11)

If this is the kind of ‘continued actual existence’ which Sorabji attributes to physical memory traces, then concerns about the stability and persistence of such traces, or their capacity to ‘take a straight course’ (453b4), seem pressing. How and under what conditions can these dynamic traces avoid problematic kinds of interference which might make them unlike what they were when first started? And how can discrete movements be individuated, as seems necessary to ground the capacities to remember and recollect particulars, if the medium of storage and retention is thus entirely fluid? To probe these concerns more fully, we need to back up to examine broader domains of Aristotle’s deeply unified natural philosophy. I first underline the background in his physiological psychology, before opening the enquiry out further to argue that related issues about the persistence of components crop up across a number of other areas of Aristotle’s psychology, ethics, and politics. Thinking of some of these problem areas as parallel or analogous to the theory of mixture, an independent part of Aristotle’s philosophy, may offer a fruitful and integrative new perspective.

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8.3 Pneuma, Pathology, and Potentiality Whether Aristotle’s attention is focussed on the formal operations of psyche, as in De Anima, or also includes more detailed consideration of the biological matter which psyche informs, as in many parts of the Parva Naturalia, he views the nutritive and sensitive soul as operating across the whole of living bodies in certain structured physical processes (Beare 1906; Tracy 1969; Webb 1982; Freudenthal 1995; Sisko 1996; van der Eijk 1997). In particular, interconnected systems of concocted bodily fluids have features and movements which are characteristic, both of the species and often of the temperament of the individual animal. Specifically, vital heat informs matter. Vital heat is not ordinary heat, but formative heat (GA 2.3, 737a1f). Because it is not just hot air, and differs from the elements, it can play formative rather than merely efficient causal roles. With regard, firstly, to reproduction and nutrition, vital heat carried in the semen transmits specific formative movements (Webb 1982; Cooper 1988; Furth 1988; Freudenthal 1995). At a general level, it informs matter so as to perpetuate species. Ontogenetically, the heart is the first part formed, and as the arche the heart then generates the body’s vital heat. Differences in concocted blood derive from differences in vital heat, and then result in differences in the parts of the body such as flesh and bone as they are formed. In considering the sensitive soul, the heart or perhaps its central chamber functions as the central organ in perception. Sensation, imagination, and memory all involve the same general systems for the reception, transmission, persistence, and reactivation of motions in certain inner media. To the extent that he seeks to show how such motions are transmitted and preserved, and in the absence of an account of the nervous system, Aristotle invokes a theory – or at least ‘a research programme’ creatively adapted from existing medico-philosophical ideas (Freudenthal 1995, 112) – of pneuma, a substance mixed from air and heat. Pneuma is a substrate in which the vital heat, as a quality, can inhere. Because blood’s function is nutrition alone, the vital heat inheres not in it but in the connate pneuma which is carried in both blood and semen. Blood is continually turned into pneuma as wet and hot interact producing hot air. If pneuma was ordinary hot air, it would separate off from the blood and rise as vapour. In that case, it could not play a role in the preservation of sensory impressions and sensible forms. But the ‘pneumatization’ of blood is enduring. Just as semen contains pneuma in the form of tiny bubbles (GA 2.2), so in the blood the aeriform pneuma remains suffused in the liquid, lasting there out of its natural place, rather as in the action of heat on milk, the bubbles which form throughout the liquid have a continued existence as the liquid’s volume increases (Freudenthal 1995, 119–123). These formative features of pneuma as carried in the blood fit it to play the central informational role in the operations of the sensitive soul. Sensations cannot reach the heart through the blood itself, but are conveyed with it, in the pneuma (Webb 1982; Freudenthal 1995, 130–134). This is explicit in the cases of smell and hearing, which

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operate through ‘passages (poroi) full of connate pneuma, connecting with the outer air and terminating at the small blood vessels around the brain which extend thither from the heart’ (GA 2.6, 744a2ff). Likewise, in initiating animal motion, the nature of pneuma is to expand and contract, such that it is a fitting ‘tool of movement’ (MA 10, 703a19ff). The mechanics of sensation and motion, then, operate through a kind of fluid hydraulics conceptually not unlike later theories involving the coursing of fleeting ‘animal spirits’ through the nervous system (Sutton 1998; Smith et al. 2012). While animal spirits were thought to be derived from blood, whereas pneuma was a distinct substance carried in the blood, in each system and through the two fluid media Aristotle’s point holds that ‘the character of the blood affects the temperament and the sensory faculties of animals in many ways’ (PA 2.4, 651a13f). Most commentators pay less attention to these internal operations of the sensory system than to open questions about the external wing, so to speak, of Aristotle’s account of perception, about relations between external objects and the sense organs. But the psychophysiology has intriguing features. The impression left by initial sensory movements is the affection which can survive the end of occurrent sensory stimulation, remaining present ‘even when the perceptions have departed’: Aristotle compares the way projectiles continue to move after losing contact with ‘that which set up the movement’, noting however that in the sensory case we can have qualitative change as well as change of place (459a30ff). Such residual movements may be found ‘lurking in the organs of sense’, surprising us for example with images at the moment of awakening (462a11-13). These mechanisms of persistence for sensory impressions are vital psychologically and epistemologically, for understanding requires ‘retention of the percept’ to take us beyond momentary perceiving (An Po II.19, 99b-100a). But the same mechanisms also operate beyond our control, most notably in sleep, when as blood sinks inwards towards the heart, ‘so the internal movements, some potential, others actual, accompany it inwards. They are so related that, if anything move the blood, some one sensory movement will emerge from it, while if this perishes another will take its place’ (461b12-14). So here it appears, contrary to Sorabji’s interpretation of the De Memoria, that not all of the movements or physical traces themselves have a ‘continued actual existence’. Aristotle continues by clarifying this: the ‘residuary movements . . . are within the soul potentially, but actualize themselves only when the impediment to their doing so has been relaxed’ (461b16-18), sometimes thereby leading to the rapid metamorphoses of movements which give rise to dreams. Not all of these residual movements, then, are actual all the time: it seems that they can sometimes remain in a potential state. Within the hylomorphic framework, the material constraints on sensing, remembering, and so on involve operations which are successful for the most part, in so far as corporeal conditions remain suitable. But specific factors can destabilize the appropriate regularity of movements, bringing internal confusion, threatening the identity of individual movements or the possibility of their eventual reseparation. In the cases of memory and recollection, as also for dreams, Aristotle works through various kinds of pathology, uncertainty, and failure, some of which are problems of reidentification and reseparation. If the internal conditions are too moist or too frayed or too

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hard, due either to enduring temperament, specific circumstances, or ‘time of life’, memory will not function properly. The obliteration, obstruction, blockage, or mixing of movements between the sense organs and the central organ can bring psychological disturbance or confusion (461a10-24; PA III.10, 672a29-30). In contrast, in favourable physiological circumstances the calmness of the blood creates conditions in which movements can be preserved and retain their distinctness and integrity. What’s required is inner discipline – some kind of stability of the movements, the proper blending of the internal mixture. We can push this line of thought further by investigating how Aristotle deploys ideas about mixture in other domains, before then addressing his explicit theory of mixture to test out possible mutual relations across these parts of his scheme.

8.4 Mixture in Philosophy and Psychology In rejecting the view of some of his predecessors that ‘the soul is a kind of harmony’, Aristotle firmly denies that the soul is the ‘composition of the ingredients in the mixture’, and in particular argues against Empedocles that ‘the soul is a different thing from the mixture’. But he says it is appropriate to use the term ‘harmony’ in connection with health, and to characterize ‘the successful performance of bodily functions in general’: there are many different kinds of composition and ratios of ingredients in the mixtures making up the different parts of the body. He refers again here to the distinctive mixtures of elements that yield flesh and bone respectively (DA 1.4, 407b-408a). With psyche as form thus distinguished from any such harmony or ratio of ingredients, Aristotle is free to deploy concepts of mixture elsewhere. He does so widely, in some cases drawing on or explicitly referring to his metaphysical treatment of mixture in On Generation and Corruption, which I discuss in Sect. 8.5 below. Firstly it is worth briefly noting just how widely concepts of mixture extend within and outside natural philosophy in Aristotle. As shown in detail in T.J. Tracy’s magnificent study Physiological Theory and the Doctrine of the Mean in Plato and Aristotle (Tracy 1969), the language and frameworks of Aristotle’s physiology recur, and are both explicitly and implicitly applied, across a dizzying array of contexts. The same holds for mixture and related notions: the semantic fields of Aristotle’s key terms are not neatly divided or bounded. His views on marriage and on friendship, for example, include and can be partly understood in terms of ideas of proper blending. Likewise in key chapters of Politics Book IV, Aristotle applies this same framework to think about the range of possible relations between the poor and the rich, and also between democracy and oligarchy. Various forms of admixture of rich and poor can form a politeia. In a true union of oligarchy and democracy, both labels can reasonably be used when ‘the fusion is complete. Such a fusion there is also in the mean; for both extremes appear in it’ (Politics IV.8, b14-19): while a true mixture will integrate both ingredients fully, those ingredients still somehow remain present. So, ‘in a well-tempered polity there should appear to

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be both elements and yet neither . . . ’ (1294b35; see also Phillips 1992). Turning back to natural philosophy, we can move past questions about the persistence of compounds in physics (Freudenthal 1995) and further references to mixtures and ratios of ingredients elsewhere in biology (334b-335a, 389b27, 642a17-24, 734b36), to work a way back to the links between mixture and memory by an alternate path through the senses. In chapter 3 of De Sensu, reacting to theories of colour perception based on mixture offered by his predecessors, Aristotle considers three theories. Colours might appear, firstly, through juxtaposition, when minute quantities of black and white are combined, with the appearance of other colours resulting from the limitations of our perceptual ability to see the minimal parts. Or, secondly, colours might result from the layering or ‘superposition’ of white and black parts in different ratios. In each case, Aristotle complains that the components would be unaffected, and that as a result the perception of colour would depend on the position of the observer. In contrast, on his own view, the genuine mixture of colours which necessarily occurs when bodies are mixed requires the ingredients to be ‘wholly blent together, as we have described it in the treatise on mixture, where we dealt with this subject generally, in its most comprehensive aspect’: this is why ‘when bodies are thus mixed, their resultant colour presents itself as one and the same at all distances alike; not varying as it is seen nearer or farther away’, independent of visual capacities. Such ‘complete interpenetration’ is the ‘most perfect form’ of ‘natural mixture’. The different ratios of ingredients in combination then explains the diversity of colours (439b-440b; see Beare 1906; Sorabji 1991). Aristotle also refers to mixture in his accounts of other senses. A different danger in ways of thinking and applying mixture theory comes up in considering the distinctness of the objects of perception in chapter 7 of De Sensu. ‘It is easier’, Aristotle suggests, ‘to perceive each object of sense when in its simple form than when an ingredient in a mixture . . . the reason being that component elements tend to efface each other’. He is again referring to his own theory of mixture, in which ‘some one thing is formed’: either one or both of the ingredients, depending on the specifics of the mix, will have had ‘some of its individuality removed’ (447a). So when we perceive two ‘equal but heterogeneous’ stimuli, we tend to perceive only the compound and neither of its constituents because ‘they will alike efface one another’s characteristics’ (447a26). In this perceptual context, then, Aristotle himself links the psychology with the metaphysics of mixture. My suggestion is that the same issues operate in the background in his works on the internal senses, especially in relation to memory, sleep, and dreams, and that the requirements of his theory of true mixture pose significant challenges in these psychological realms. The final step in building this case takes us to a direct consideration of the account offered in On Generation and Corruption.

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8.5 General Theory of Mixture So the theory of mixture exemplifies the unity of natural philosophy: in a typically looping Aristotelian theory-structure, common macroscopic examples illustrate and support an analysis in physics or metaphysics which then plays a role in return in explaining a range of everyday phenomena. Though Aristotle does not link mixtures quite so directly to morality as some of his predecessors and his successors, despite the range of applications which I have just noted, there are ethical undertones to the task of characterizing the right form of blending for Aristotle too. Showing how true mixture or fusion, krasis, differs from other ways in which ingredients can or could combine is an important goal. In particular, Greek philosophers cared about distinguishing true mixture from cases in which ingredients are entirely destroyed and confused. Plato had articulated both the tainted morality of confusion and the tendency for all natural mixtures to slip into such confusion: this is arguably an important strand in the history of dualism, in that it seemed across contexts for Plato that only an entirely external designer or source of order can effectively ‘combine many things into one and again resolve the one into many’ (Timaeus 68b-d; compare Laws 10, 886–892). In contrast, in their different ways Aristotle and the Stoics would both aim to identify immanent forms of true mixture or proper blending in nature. But this is not an easy task. Aristotle’s theory of mixtures has received rich and ingenious treatments both from his historical commentators and from contemporary interpreters (Joachim 1904; Sharvy 1983; Mansfeld 1983; Sorabji 1988; Bogen 1996; Fine 1996, 1999; de Haas 1999; Cooper 2004; Frede 2004), in work on which my discussion relies. There is no definite consensus on how or whether Aristotle successfully distinguishes true blending from confusion, and the key issues in assessing this puzzle and interpreting his approach are, I suggest, closely related to the issues that crop up in understanding the psychophysiology of memory. The core problems concern the ontology of movements – actual and/or potential – in the mixture. My suggestion is that the way some movements endure in pneuma, in ways that support both memory and recollection as well as imagining and dreaming, are analogous to – or just one form of – the ways that ingredients endure in potentiality in a true mixture. Aristotle does not make these links as explicit as he did for colour perception in De Sensu, so there remains a speculative element to this suggestion. But in each domain, potential instability or confusion may derive from the peculiarities of matter and movement. Aristotle first argues, again, that true mixture or blending differs from, and is not explained by or analyzed in terms of, the juxtaposition of unaltered ingredients, like beans or grains in a heap or a troop of cavalry seen from a distance, as in atomist accounts. These ingredients are mixed only metaphorically, forming a mosaic rather than a uniform mixture, and leaving the ingredients in themselves unaltered. In contrast, Aristotle will demand total homogeneity in a true mixture (GC 327 b34328a18).

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So it is much more of a challenge for Aristotle to distinguish genuine mixture from cases of full-scale generation and destruction, of two forms (GC 327b3-8). There is no true mixture, first, when one ingredient dominates, destroying the other or subsuming it, as when a large body of water receives a drop of wine. But there is also no true mixture when both ingredients are entirely destroyed or obliterated, losing their identity, and unavailable for recovery. In contrast to this latter case of confusion, genuine mixture for Aristotle requires the persistent existence of all ingredients, in some sense to be explained which differs from that of the atomist account. Each ingredient must retain its power (dunamis), and be recoverable or reseparable from the mixture, otherwise it has been destroyed and something entirely new generated from the confusion of prior ingredients. Before homing in on Aristotle’s positive account, we can pause to evaluate this particular kind of generation, in which ingredients are confused. The original ingredients are annihilated, their identity lost in the mix in a non-reversible process: they ‘have no existence at all’ (GC 327b7). Perhaps an analogous process can happen in the context of psychophysiology, when unfavourable conditions lead to the interference or confusion of the residuary physical movements which should link past experience to memory. So, for Aristotle, the state of the ingredients in the mixture must be both the same as it was before the combination (so as retain their powers and avoid confusion), and not the same as it was (so as to avoid mere juxtaposition, and genuinely to mix). He explains this proper blending by way of his metaphysics of potentiality. The ingredients can both ‘“be” in one sense and “not-be” in another’ (GC 327b2427). While in the mix, they are potentially what they are not now actually. We are justified in saying that they persist and are not destroyed, as they would be in a case of confusion, because their powers are preserved (GC 327 b31-32; on ‘dunamis’ here see Sorabji 1988, pp.67–68; Cooper 2004). There is a new compound which is actually different from the ingredients (in their altered states) which form it (328b18, b23): but it is (potentially) decomposable again into those ingredients. Is this ‘a very nice balancing act’, as Sorabji calls it (1988, p.67)? Aristotle’s account has certainly proved fruitful, spawning criticism, interpretation, and alternatives from the Stoics and the Peripatetics through the Renaissance naturalists and on into modern discussions of chemical combination (Long and Sedley 1987; Todd 1976; Joachim 1904). My discussion again centres on puzzles about issues close to those arising in the psychophysiology. The problems for Aristotle result from the different demands on his theory of mixture. The fact that ingredients can be reseparated out, rather than for example being reconstituted, means that they must be there all along: this is precisely parallel to the requirement in the theory of memory that there must be a causal connection between past experience and present memory, rather than for example the knowledge of the past being relearned or freshly acquired, as would have happened if the relevant movements had been destroyed and had their existence interrupted. Without recovery of the distinct movement that is a sensory residue, memory will lose its grip on the past. Yet it is not clear what kind of potentiality is retained by the ingredients. What is present only potentially must still have effects while in the mix, before reseparation.

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As commentators have remarked, the kind of potentiality required seems different from those Aristotle allows elsewhere (Joachim 1922, pp.180–181, discussing Philoponus and Zabarella). The potentiality of ingredients in a true mixture can’t be like the potentiality of a person’s knowledge of geometry before actually studying the subject, for unlike that knowledge the ingredients have previously existed in actuality, just as the sensory movements resulting from experience were once actual and distinct. Nor can it be like the potentiality of the geometer’s knowledge when it is not in use, for the ingredients have been altered in the process of combination and do not remain distinct as they were when in actual existence, just as sometimes the sensory movements do not remain distinct when not in use. A suggestion made by Philoponus has remained popular: the ingredients have been tempered or changed, so their existence in the mixture is like the knowledge of a drunken geometer when trying to solve a problem (Joachim 1922, p.181). Potentiality here is perhaps relative, or a matter of degree, as at GA II.1, 735a10-12, where the differences between a geometer asleep, awake, and studying are picked out as points on a spectrum of potentiality. If potentiality is thus a matter of degree, then the boundary between true mixture on the one hand, in which recovery of the original ingredients is possible, and cases of confusion on the other hand may not be sharp. As the degree of potentiality of the ingredients in mixtures becomes gradually smaller, so we come closer to cases in which they are destroyed. There are clear cases at both extremes, but there will also be cases in which it is hard to say whether ingredients retain their distinct existence and their power after the alteration undergone in combination. Aristotle appears to be aware of this tendency of mixtures to slip towards confusion. Towards the end of the chapter on mixture, he discusses material constraints. Some materials, like liquids, are most easily mixed because they are divisible, susceptible, and most easily modified (GC 328b3-5). We can think again here of the effects of any non-standard physical and physiological conditions on the residuary movements which need to be recovered in memory and recollection. In the context of physics, not all ingredients are equally susceptible: ‘some things adopt a hesitant and wavering attitude towards one another, for they appear somehow to be only slightly “mixable”, one, as it were, acting in a “receptive” manner, the other as a “form”’ (328b9-12). So when, for example, tin and bronze are mixed, ‘the tin almost vanishes, behaving as if it were an immaterial property of the bronze: having been combined, it disappears, leaving no trace except the colour it has imparted to the bronze’ (328 b12-14). In a number of cases, then, ingredients can all but vanish, leaving only vestigial traces which barely amount to a persistent power. So on Aristotle’s approach, the specific way that the ingredients remain potentially in a true mixture will have to be identified afresh in each particular case. This is perhaps appropriate, directing our attention to specific techniques of reseparation and the particular ways in which potentially existing ingredients have effects in individual compounds composed of different materials. What matters is the kind of assistance or addition required for the ingredients to retreat to their own nature, to change into actuality in a way quite different from coming to be anew. Reseparation may require assistance. For example, a sponge dipped into wine alters and actualizes

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the water which had been mixed: this catalyst assists in the return of the ingredient to an actuality which had been merely potential in the blend. Alexander of Aphrodisias discussed a number of examples in which such assistance is required for ingredients (once mixed) to return or recede to their own nature. This backed his criticism of the Stoic theory of total blending, according to which the ingredients retain their actual existence throughout a homogeneous blend: for Alexander, the Aristotelian approach is the only middle ground between an atomist approach in which no real mixture has occurred, and the Stoic confusion in which (he argues) no reseparation would be possible if actual ingredients were totally blended.

8.6 Mixture and Memory in History and Historiography As I noted above, for Aristotle the quality of psychic life depends on the state of the internal environment and the particular qualities and motions of the soul’s material substrate. In considering memory and recollection, the key supporting internal systems are fluid – the movements which are the residues of sense, and which should remain distinct and clear to ground memory, are movements of the pneuma carried in the blood. There is always a possibility that, at the level of these material constraints on or conditions for memory, specific movements may be blurred or obliterated, difficult or impossible to reseparate out within the fluid medium which carries them all, thus leading to instability or pathology in psychology. Though in De Memoria Aristotle does not cross-reference his general theory of mixture as he does in De Sensu, the parallels between problems arising in the cases of memory and mixture are striking. In the absence of a more explicit account of the status of the many residual movements carried in the same fluid substrate, it is reasonable to consider the theory of mixture as offering at least a model for a way in which each might retain its powers and be reseparated. In the case of memory as opposed to recollection, we can only rely on the general state of our bodies and our fluids to create conditions in which we can remember accurately and distinctly, attributing all and only the right images to the past, and warding off the various pathologies which Aristotle describes. But in active recollection, there is at least the possibility of indirect intervention in and control of the reseparation of movements, in some cases acting as our own catalysts. Recollection exploits the patterns of motions, in which ‘one change is of a nature to occur after another’ (451b10), in sequences which have often been established not by necessity but by habit. This opens up the possibility of method and self-regulation in recollection: we can actively hunt for the successor change (451b16ff), seeking to exploit the associative relations between motions, some of which sequences have more order than others (451b-452a). In recollection, control is at least possible as we move ourselves, dealing with our own images as we engage in the search or hunt ‘in something bodily’ (453a14). I can use the fact that Aristotle ends De Memoria with further consideration of the pathologies and idiosyncrasies of fluid material movements as a bridge to

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a final set of historical and historiographic remarks about mixture and memory. Many scholars note that Aristotle’s remarks on identifying or reseparating images in recollection influenced later practices and techniques of artificial memory (Rossi 2000; Beecher and Williams 2009). Not so common is an acknowledgement that the arts of memory were often in part an attempt to discipline and direct internal physiological movements. In seeking to control or bypass ‘natural memory’ with the ‘artificial memory’, adepts across a range of historical contexts and traditions internalized rich and complex external resources in order to reshape and order their recollective capacities. In a sense, this is to acknowledge that there is no easy immanent principle of proper blending in psychophysiology. Externally-derived physical or cultural scaffolding is a more reliable source of order than was likely to emerge from the intrinsic dynamics of bodily fluids (Sutton 2000a, 2010). More generally, then, historians of the Aristotelian traditions investigating memory and the internal senses may find interesting connections to theories of mixture. Changing interpretations of Aristotle’s physics and metaphysics of mixture from medieval philosophy through the Renaissance (Weisberg and Wood 2003; Wood and Weisberg 2004) might be fruitfully combined with attention to memory and its bodily aspects. Just mapping parallels in later commentaries across De Memoria and De Insomniis on the one hand, and the material on mixture in De Generatione et Corruptione on the other hand may turn up points of conceptual contact. More broadly, the history of medical psychology in the mixed AristotelianHippocratic-Galenic traditions of humoral theory which dominated Western theory and practice for so long involved practices of regimen and self-regulation which had central psychophysiological elements, because the humors and especially the fleeting animal spirits did not easily retain distinct traces (Sutton 1998, chapter 2). The state of the nervous fluids and spirits depended, in ongoing interaction, on the state of the blood and by way of the blood on a range of environmental and emotional factors. Discourses and practices of the animal spirits, through into the eighteenth century, exhibited the same rich unity of natural philosophy that we saw in Aristotle. Medical psychology and moral physiology were heavily anchored around monitoring of the ‘non-naturals’: air or climate, food and drink, sleep and wake, motion and rest, evacuation and repletion, and passions or perturbations of mind (Rather 1968; Niebyl 1971). In continual interaction with the blending of internal fluids, the non-naturals combined not only to produce an individual’s current, fragile balance against imminent physiological stagnation or excess, but also to ground ongoing psychological stability. Contrary to much mythologizing by modern philosophers, these views did not disappear with the ‘scientific revolution’ or with the ‘mechanical philosophy’, but were newly entrenched or implemented in Descartes’ highly dynamic picture of brain, memory, and the passions (Sutton 1998, 2000b; Hutchins et al. 2016). In this long-standing ecological framework, the material basis of human psychology was mixed or porous, open to a variety of worldly influences. It is in language reminiscent of Aristotle’s psychophysiology of inner mixture that Nicolas Malebranche, for example, develops Descartes account of the ‘crossing’ of traces in the brain, lamenting that it is ‘nearly impossible

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for so many traces, formed without order, to avoid becoming mixed up and bringing confusion into the ideas’: this is why remembering many things is often incompatible with ordered reason and judgement (1674/1980, II.II.4, p.141; Sutton 1998, 111). Medical historians convincingly show that despite the rhetoric of revolution and discontinuity in some seventeenth century natural philosophy and medicine, the non-naturals, the animal spirits, and associated practices of regimen, ‘which provided a medically useful classification of man, and a somatic theory of human behavior, were preserved into the nineteenth century’ (Temkin 1973, 181; compare Wear 1995: 360). One way to trace the further influence of these links between memory and mixture would be to return to the history of dualisms, and to the modern urge to impose control over these inner processes and mixtures, to find transcendental ways of warding off confusion (Stafford 1991; Latour 1993; Schmidgen 2012). But here I want to conclude by considering a different historiographical tradition, in which Aristotle is firmly entrenched as a key source of a foundational Western metaphor or model of memory as an archive. Representative of what we might call this ‘grand archive narrative’ of theories of memory is Jens Brockmeier’s book Beyond the Archive: memory, narrative, and the autobiographical process, a sustained attack on ‘the venerable notion of memory as a storehouse, an archive of the past’ (Brockmeier 2015, viii). Brockmeier gives Aristotle a central role, at the origin of the narrative, in the establishment of the archive: Despite their differences, both the Platonic and the Aristotelian tradition shared the same basic assumption of human memory as a storehouse of experience and knowledge, the archival model. Authorized by the two towering founding fathers of Western philosophy, the archival metaphor indisputably turned into the ‘governing model’ for all subsequent thinking on remembering. It became the ‘cognitive archetype’ of memory. (Brockmeier 2015, 72)

Across ‘Western common sense’, philosophy, and science alike, we have been condemned ever since to what Brockmeier sees as a deeply problematic archival assumption ‘that there is a specific material, biological, neurological, and spatial reality to memory – something manifest – in the world’ (Brockmeier 2010, 6; cf 2015, 1–5). Aristotle allegedly helped to create this extraordinarily tenacious and widespread homogenizing picture of memory as an archive: ‘over long periods in the cultural history of the West, people’s thoughts and ideas about their memory and the nature of their memories were amazingly stable and uncontested’ (Brockmeier 2017, 41). This is both a pernicious and an outdated vision of memory, which has unfortunately led to the ‘exclusion of people’s cultural life worlds’ from philosophy and psychology alike (Brockmeier 2015, 9). Though it is ‘astonishing’ that researchers in the modern cognitive and neurosciences have not realised that the archival model has had its day (2010, 20), with Brockmeier’s help we can now finally develop ‘a postarchival approach to remembering’ (2015, passim). Only at last now ‘the idea of memory’s continuity, stability, coherence, and — based on these — its moral weight and ethical status as an unassailable authority of truth and authenticity’ is ‘about to be dismantled’ (2010, 9–10, 2015, 307).

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Brockmeier couples these historical claims about the homogeneity and universality of the ‘archival model’ of memory with an ‘epistemological nominalism’ about memory’s ontology: our concepts of memory do and should not ‘reflect ontologically the true nature or essence of “memory”, but serve as useful instruments’ (2015, 26). Here he is in line with other critical historians of psychology who argue that ‘basic psychological categories refer to historical and social entities, and not to natural kinds’ (Smith 2005). Kurt Danziger, author of a history of theories of memory, complains that mainstream psychology has ‘too easily assumed that psychological objects, like memory for example, have essential qualities forever fixed by nature’ (2001, cf 2008). Anna Wierzbicka argues that ‘memory’ is ‘a twentieth-century invention’, and not ‘something that “exists” independently of the English language’ (2007). I have responded previously to the theoretical or conceptual aspects of this ‘grand archive narrative’ (Sutton 2007). One striking implication is that, for Brockmeier and colleagues, memory actually was archival when (or if) ‘we’ thought it was: ‘with its written conceptualization in Plato’s dialogues . . . a shift occurred: memory activities changed their location and took up their abode in the individual mind’ (Brockmeier 2015, 67). Rather than trying to tease apart what’s right about the historicity of memory from this overly strong articulation, which gives words and theories too much immediate causal power, here instead I query the first-order history behind this narrative, building on the account of memory and mixture in Aristotle offered above to contest its basic historical claims. Brockmeier claims that there has been, since Plato and Aristotle, a homogeneous Western picture of memory as an archive, in both everyday and elite conceptions, a vision of memory as a unified, distinct, reified, fixed, individual, internal, universal, archival thing. But this historical claim is in severe tension with the real history of memory and mixture in Western thought, in which as I have shown a central role is played by dynamic and interconnected bodily fluids, from pneuma to animal spirits. It’s not only that Western views have been much more diverse, dynamic, contested, and fragmentary than this grand narrative allows, but that in many contexts memory has been understood in the West to be grounded in fleeting and fluid inner processes rather than a static archive. In contrast to the fixity of the archive model, there has been a persisting and rich holism in Western ideas about the psychophysiology of remembering. And, thus, it has often been precisely through memory and the body that we have been seen as deeply connected to or embedded in our cultures and our world. Neither Aristotle nor Descartes can rightly be convicted of entrenching a vision of memories as separate, static inner items, because both saw remembering as the fragile achievement of dynamic, open, interactive, fluid systems which spanned body and world. There are much richer, messier, and more interesting histories to Western theories of memory than the grand archive narrative allows. As a final frame for our topics, I conclude with a note on the enduring interest of the problems about memory and mixture we have addressed. Both philosophers and scientists still feel the attraction of seeing memory as mixture, but both still have to face the consequent challenges of understanding how dynamic material media and mechanisms can (imperfectly but genuinely) support the stability and

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persistence of some memories, and how distinct past events or experiences can be retained over time and accessed again. Stuart Hampshire compared human memory to a compost heap, in which ‘all the organic elements, one after another as they are added, interpenetrate each other and help to form a mixture in which the original ingredients are scarcely distinguishable, each ingredient being at least modified, even transformed, by later ingredients’ (1989, 121). In the influential connectionist approaches to memory of the late twentieth century, the idea of superpositional storage gives rise to concerns which, at an abstract level, would be entirely recognizable to Aristotle. For Jeff Elman, for example, Once a given pattern has been processed and the network has been updated, the data disappear. Their effect is immediate and results in a modification of the knowledge state of the network. The data persist only implicitly by virtue of the effect they have on what the network knows. (1993, 89)

In Hinton et al.’s (1986, 80) blunt statement, ‘patterns which are not active do not exist anywhere’. It is partly in response to such constructivist approaches to memory in mainstream psychology that in recent years the dominant causal theory of memory in philosophy (Martin and Deutscher 1966) has been challenged (Michaelian 2016, Robins 2016). If the physical traces which ground dispositions to remember are so implicit or potential, if the ingredients and distinct components of the past are so thoroughly blended, it is not clear that traces of particular past events can retain and continue to exert their distinctive powers (Ramsey et al. 1990; O’Brien 1991). As in Aristotle’s psychophysiology, the presence of the before in the after can come to seem too minimal. Some philosophers argue therefore that memory is only incidentally about the past, and has at least as much to do with future thinking or episodic simulation (De Brigard 2014, Michaelian 2016). Although it is a topic for another occasion, in my view something like Aristotle’s picture of potentiality as a matter of degree is a useful tool for responding to these lines of thought, and for retaining the idea that the past can still in one way be present in the mix. Acknowledgements My sincere thanks to the editors of this volume, and to the organisers of the outstanding 2016 conference at Goteborg, from which I learned a lot. Seyed Mousavian’s questions in particular have helped me improve the final version. The ideas developed in this essay were first investigated in 1993, when I presented talks on confusion and mixture to audiences in philosophy and ancient history at Macquarie University and the University of Sydney. I returned to the topic during a visiting fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh in 1999, for which I am very grateful, and presented a talk in the Edinburgh Department of Philosophy. Among those who influenced, helped, or challenged me on those earlier versions of this material I remember and thank in particular Rick Benitez, Deborah Brown, Paolo Crivelli, Stephen Gaukroger, Richard Holton, Rae Langton, Catriona Mackenzie, Doris McIlwain, Dory Scaltsas, Godfrey Tanner, and Harold Tarrant. My colleagues in the McGillbased Early Modern Conversions project, especially Ben Schmidt, Mark Vessey, Bronwen Wilson, and Paul Yachnin encouraged me to return to these topics. For more recent assistance I am grateful to Graeme Friedman and to Christine Harris-Smyth. The penultimate version of the essay was written in 2017 while I was a Collaborative Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy in the School of Advanced Study at the University of London: I am very grateful to Ophelia Deroy, Barry Smith, Richard Somerville, and all those at the Institute for making my stay so enjoyable.

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References Annas, J. (1986). Aristotle on memory and the self. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 4, 99– 117. Beare, J. I. (1906). Greek theories of elementary cognition from Alcmaeon to Aristotle. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Beecher, D., & Williams, G. (Eds.). (2009). Ars Reminiscendi: Mind and memory in Renaissance culture. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. Bloch, D. (2007). Aristotle on memory and recollection. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Bogen, J. (1996). Fire in the belly: Aristotelian elements, organisms, and chemical compounds. In F. A. Lewis & R. Bolton (Eds.), Form, Matter, and Mixture in Aristotle (pp. 183–216). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Brockmeier, J. (2010). After the archive: Remapping memory. Culture & Psychology, 16, 5–35. Brockmeier, J. (2015). Beyond the archive: Memory, narrative, and the autobiographical process. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brockmeier, J. (2017). From memory as archive to remembering as conversation. In B. Wagoner (Ed.), Handbook of culture and memory (pp. 41–64). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chappell, S.-G. (2017). Aristotle. In S. Bernecker & K. Michaelian (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of philosophy of memory (pp. 396–407). London: Routledge. Cooper, J. M. (1988). Metaphysics in Aristotle’s embryology. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, 214, 14–41. Cooper, J. M. (2004). Two notes on Aristotle on mixture. In Cooper, knowledge, nature, and the good: Essays on ancient philosophy (pp. 148–173). Princeton: Princeton University Press. Danziger, K. (2001, August 15). Whither the golden oldies of ESHHS: The historiography of psychological objects. Amsterdam. Danziger, K. (2008). Marking the mind: A history of memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. De Brigard, F. (2014). Is memory for remembering? Recollection as a form of episodic hypothetical thinking. Synthese, 191, 155–185. de Haas, F. A. (1999). Mixture in Philoponus: An encounter with a third kind of potentiality. In The commentary tradition on Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione: ancient, medieval and early modern (pp. 21–46). Brepols: Turnhout. Elman, J. (1993). Learning and development in neural networks: The importance of starting small. Cognition, 48, 71–99. Fine, K. (1996). The problem of mixture. In F. A. Lewis & R. Bolton (Eds.), Form, matter, and mixture in Aristotle (pp. 82–182). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Fine, K. (1999). Mixing matters. In D. S. Oderberg (Ed.), Form and matter: Themes in contemporary metaphysics (pp. 65–75). Oxford: Blackwell. Frede, D. (2004). On generation and corruption I.10: On mixture and mixables. In F. de Haas & J. Mansfeld (Eds.), Aristotle: On generation and corruption, Book I (pp. 289–314). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Freudenthal, G. (1995). Aristotle’s Theory of Material Substance: heat and pneuma, form and soul. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Furth, M. (1988). Substance, form, and psyche: An Aristotelian metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hacking, I. (1995). Rewriting the soul: Multiple personality and the sciences of memory. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hampshire, S. (1989). Innocence and experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hinton, G. E., McClelland, J. L., & Rumelhart, D. E. (1986). Distributed representation. In D. E. Rumelhart & J. L. McClelland (Eds.), Parallel distributed processing: Explorations in the microstructure of cognition (Vol. I, pp. 77–109). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Hooke, R. (1682/1705/1971). Lectures of Light. In The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke (ed. R. Waller (London, 170S); reprinted with an introduction by T. M. Brown). London: Frank Cass and Co., 1971. Hutchins, B. R., Eriksen, C. B., & Wolfe, C. T. (2016). The embodied Descartes: Contemporary readings of L’Homme. In D. Antoine-Mahut & S. Gaukroger (Eds.), Descartes’ Treatise on Man and its reception (pp. 287–304). Berlin: Springer. Joachim, H. H. (1904). Aristotle’s conception of chemical combination. Journal of Philology, 29, 72–86. Joachim, H. H. (1922). Aristotle on coming-to-be and passing-away: A revised text with introduction and commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Latour, B. (1993). We have never been modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lewis, R. (2009). Hooke’s two buckets: Memory, mnemotechnique and knowledge in the early Royal Society. In D. Beecher & G. Williams (Eds.), Ars Reminiscendi: Mind and memory in Renaissance culture (pp. 339–363). Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. Long, A. A., & Sedley, D. (1987). The Hellenistic philosophers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Malebranche, N. (1674/1980). The search after truth (T. M. Lennon & P. J. Olscamp, Trans.). Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Mansfeld, J. (1983). Zeno and Aristotle on mixture. Mnemosyne, 36, 306–310. Martin, C. B., & Deutscher, M. (1966). Remembering. Philosophical Review, 75, 161–196. Michaelian, K. (2016). Mental time travel: Episodic memory and our knowledge of the personal past. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Niebyl, P. H. (1971). The non-naturals. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 45, 486–492. O’Brien, G. J. (1991). Is connectionism commonsense? Philosophical Psychology, 4, 165–178. Phillips, J. (1992). Aristotle’s abduction: The institution of frontiers. Oxford Literary Review, 14, 171–195. Ramsey, W., Stich, S. P., & Garon, J. (1990). Connectionism, eliminativism, and the future of folk psychology. In J. E. Tomberlin (Ed.), Philosophical perspectives, 4: Action theory and philosophy of mind (pp. 499–533). Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing Company. Rather, L. J. (1968). The ‘six things non-natural’: A note on the origins and fate of a doctrine and a phrase. Clio Medica, 3, 337–347. Robins, S. (2016). Representing the past: Memory traces and the causal theory of memory. Philosophical Studies, 173, 2993–3013. Rossi, P. (2000). Logic and the art of memory. London: Bloomsbury. Schmidgen, W. (2012). Exquisite mixture: The virtues of impurity in early modern England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sharvy, R. (1983). Aristotle on mixtures. Journal of Philosophy, 80, 439–457. Sisko, J. E. (1996). Material alteration and cognitive activity in Aristotle’s De Anima. Phronesis, 41, 138–157. Smith, R. (2005). The history of psychological categories. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36, 55–94. Smith, C. U. M., Frixione, E., Finger, S., & Clower, W. (2012). The animal spirit doctrine and the origins of neurophysiology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sorabji, R. (1972/2004). Aristotle on Memory. London: Duckworth. Sorabji, R. (1988). Matter, space, and motion: Theories in antiquity and their sequel. London: Duckworth. Sorabji, R. (1991). From Aristotle to Brentano: The development of the doncept of intentionality. In H. Blumenthal & H. Robinson (Eds.), Aristotle and the Later Tradition - Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, supplementary volume, 227–259. Stafford, B. M. (1991). Body criticism: Imagining the unseen in enlightenment art and medicine. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Stevenson, C. (2005). Robert Hooke, monuments, and memory. Art History, 28, 43–73. Sutton, J. (1998). Philosophy and memory traces: Descartes to connectionism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Sutton, J. (2000a). Body, mind, and order: Local memory and the control of mental representations in medieval and renaissance sciences of self. In G. Freeland & A. Corones (Eds.), 1543 and all that: Word and image in the proto-scientific revolution (pp. 117–150). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Sutton, J. (2000b). The body and the brain. In S. Gaukroger, J. Schuster, & J. Sutton (Eds.), Descartes’ natural philosophy (pp. 697–722). London: Routledge. Sutton, J. (2007). Language, memory, and concepts of memory: Semantic diversity and scientific psychology. In M. Amberber (Ed.), The language of memory from a cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 41–65). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sutton, J. (2010). Exograms and interdisciplinarity: History, the extended mind, and the civilizing process. In R. Menary (Ed.), The extended mind (pp. 189–225). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Temkin, O. (1973). Galenism: Rise and decline of a medical philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Todd, R. B. (1976). Alexander of Aphrodisias on stoic physics: A study of the De Mixtione. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Tracy, T. J. (1969). Physiological theory and the doctrine of the mean in Plato and Aristotle. Chicago: Loyola University Press. van der Eijck, P. J. (1997). The matter of mind: Aristotle on the biology of ‘psychic’ processes and the bodily aspects of thinking. In W. Kullmann & S. Föllinger (Eds.), Aristotelische Biologie (pp. 231–258). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Wear, A. (1995). Medicine in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1700. In L. I. Conrad, M. Neve, V. Nutton, R. Porter, & A. Wear (Eds.), The Western Medical Tradition (pp. 215–361). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Webb, P. (1982). Bodily structure and psychic faculties in Aristotle’s theory of perception. Hermes, 110, 25–20. Weisberg, M., & Wood, R. (2003). Richard Rufus’s theory of mixture. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 988, 282–292. Wierbicka, A. (2007). Is ‘remember’ a universal human concept? ‘Memory’ and culture. In M. Amberber (Ed.), The language of memory from a cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 13–39). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wood, R., & Weisberg, M. (2004). Interpreting Aristotle on mixture: Problems about elemental composition from Philoponus to Cooper. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 35, 681–706.

Chapter 9

Imagination, Non-existence, Impossibility Graham Priest

9.1 Introduction Imagination is one of the most important human abilities. It is deployed in the most mundane parts of human life, such as deciding what to have for breakfast. But it is also at the core of all creative acts, of the kind performed by scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, novelists, musicians, political reformers, visionaries. And it does not take long to see that it is puzzling. I can clearly imagine things that do not exist, and never will exist, such as Anna Karenina, and the Taj Mahal in London. But if I kick something, it has to be there to be kicked. How can I imagine something if it is not there to be imagined? Even worse, the things I imagine may even be impossible. A mathematician imagines that a certain equation has a solution, and then proves that there can be no such thing: it is a mathematical impossibility. How can I imagine something when it is impossible for it to exist? Questions such as these were familiar to the great medieval logicians. In this essay we will look at what they had to say about the matter, and what to make of this in the light of contemporary developments in logic. An interesting synergy will emerge.

G. Priest () Departments of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, NY, USA The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 S. N. Mousavian, J. L. Fink (eds.), The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6_9

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9.2 Ampliation We are dealing with medieval logic at its height in the 13th and 14th Centuries. Whilst there is significant disagreement between the logicians of this period on many matters, there is a framework that is generally accepted. This is term logic. Statements deploy terms (such as man or white), and the logical properties of these statements are delivered by the properties of these terms.1 The general logic of the day is syllogistic, inherited from Aristotle. According to this, inferences are composed of statements of one of four forms: A: E: I: O:

All S are P No S are P Some S is P Some S is not P

where S and P are terms. For our purposes we can concentrate on one of these. (Similar considerations apply to the others.) Take the I form. Under what conditions is this true? It is true just if: • s1 is P , or s2 is P , or . . . where s1 , s2 , . . . is an enumeration of all the Ss that exist. (In medieval jargon, S has determinate supposition.) However, what of: • Some S will be P • Some S was P Consider the first. (Similar comments apply to the second.) This can be true if some S that will exist, but does not do so yet, is P . The matter is handled by the doctrine of ampliation. The future tense ampliates the term S to include all those things that are or will be S. So the future tense I form is true if2 : • s1 will be P , or s2 will be P , or . . . where s1 , s2 , . . . is an enumeration of all the things that are or will be S. (We need the things that are S now, as well as that will be S. For suppose that Smith exists now, but will die. This is sufficient to make ‘Some man will be dead’ now.) The enumeration includes non-existent things. For the medievals had a very robust sense of reality. Future and past objects, like the Antichrist and Socrates, do not exist— though they will or did exist.

1 For

a general account of the matter, including a discussion of the various technical notions employed, see Read (2015). 2 In modern terms, we would say that the domain of quantification is expanded to a wider set of objects; but of course, the medievals were not operating with the modern notion of a quantifier.

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We are not finished yet. What of: • Some S could be P The doctrine of ampliation applies here too. The modal qualification could ampliates S to all the things that are or could be P . So the modalised I form is true if: • s1 could be P , or s2 could be P , or . . . where s1 , s2 , . . . is an enumeration of all the things that are or could be S. The enumeration, then, includes mere possibilia, things that do not exist—now or at any time (though they could do). Here, for example, is Jean Buridan (c.1295-c.1360) on the matter3 : A term put before the word ‘can’ . . . is ampliated to stand for possible things even if they do not and did not exist. Therefore the proposition ‘A golden mountain can be as large as Mont Ventoux’ is true.

William of Sherwood (1200–1272) and other 13th Century figures speak quite unguardedly of terms ampliated to things that do not exist.4 And Paul of Venice (1369–1429) states categorically5 : The absence of the signification of a term from reality does not prevent the term’s suppositing for it.

We see, then, that the medieval logicians had no problem about, as we would now put it, quantifying over things that do not exist, and invoking them in their semantic and logical theories. Indeed, in this way they were just being faithful to their Aristotelian heritage. In the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle says6 : . . . one can signify even things that are not.

And in On Ideas, 82.6, we have7 : Indeed, we also think of things that in no way are . . . such as hippocentaur and Chimaera.

3 Buridan

(2001), p. 299. Rijk (1982), p. 172. 5 Paul of Venice (1978), p. 13. 6 An. Post. 92b 29–30. Translation, Aristotle (1984). 7 The authenticity of this text is sometimes disputed. For a defence, see Fine (1993), from which the quotation comes (p. 15). 4 De

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9.3 Imagination We can now turn to imagination.8 A number of medieval logicians allowed that an intentional verb could ampliate a term to an even wider class of objects. Thus, Marsilius of Inghen (1340–1396) writes9 : Ampliation is the supposition of a term . . . for its significates which are or were, for those which are or will be, for those which are or can be, or for those which are or can be imagined.

Thus, in ‘I understand the Antichrist’, the Antichrist supposits for—refers to, as one would now put it—an object that does not exist, but will exist10 ; in ‘I am thinking of Vulcan’ (Vulcan being the sub-Mercurial planet posited unsuccessfully by astronomers in the 19th century), Vulcan refers to an object that does not exist, and never did; and in ‘I am imagining the first female Pope of the 21st century’, the first female Pope of the 21st century refers to something that may or may not exist. Given this application of the doctrine of ampliation, then, statements of the form ‘x imagines y’ state a relationship between x and y. x exists; y may or may not do so. Even if it does not exist, it is a perfectly good object, and so “there” to be thought about.

9.4 The Properties of Non-existent Objects So the semantics of the verb imagine and other intentional verbs may invoke objects that do not exist. But what are the properties of these objects? If an object exists, its properties are, in principle, straightforward. The Pope (Francis) has the property living in Rome, being able to speak Latin, etc. But what of non-existent objects? Take an object that does not exist, but will (let us suppose), the Antichrist. According to the Bible, the Antichrist is a liar, and denies that Jesus is Christ.11 But the sentence ‘The Antichrist is a liar’ is (currently) false, since the subject of the sentence fails to refer to an existent object, something it would have to do to satisfy the predicate ‘is a liar’. But it will be true in the future, when the Antichrist exists. The Antichrist, then, has the properties we take him(?) to have in a future time. Similarly Socrates does not have the property of living in Athens. (No searching in Athens would find him there.) But in 400 BCE he did have that property.

8 I note that what I am discussing here is the semantics/metaphysics of imagination. The psychology

of imagination (what is going on between the ears) is another matter—though, in the big picture, both of these things must fit together. 9 Marsilius of Inghen (1972), p. 182. 10 Buridan (2001), p. 299. 11 ‘Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.’ 1 John 2: 22.

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What of a merely possible object, such as my third child? I know of no discussions of the matter in medieval texts. But it is not difficult to see what the analogue of the temporal view is, if one is entitled to invoke possible worlds. These are not a part of the standard medieval logical paraphernalia,12 but they are completely orthodox in contemporary logic. According to this view, there is only one actual world, but there are scenarios that realise non-actual states of affairs, for example, one in which the United States lost the war of Independence, and is still a British colony. The mathematics of such things is now well understood, though their metaphysical status is still a matter of dispute.13 Granted that we may invoke such things, they can play exactly the same role with respect to merely possible objects that the past and the future play with respect to past and future objects. Thus, Vulcan does not actually have the property of being the closest planet to the Sun; but it does in those worlds where the 19th century astronomers got it right. Or consider my third child. Call them Dana. Dana does not actually have the property of being my third child. No searching in the registry of births and deaths of any country would find them. However, Dana does have the property of being my third child where I had a relationship which engendered my first two children, and then resulted in Dana as well. The view I have been describing is now often called Modal Meinongianism.14 According to this, there is one actual world, but many non-actual ones. And non-existent objects have their characterising properties at worlds other than the actual. Thus, as another example, Anna Karenina does not have the property of jumping under a train in this world, but she does have it in the worlds that realise the story of Tolstoy’s novel. Why this view is called modal, is obvious. It is called Meinongianism because it is one of the contemporary ways of coherently articulating the thought of the Austrian philosopher Alexius Meinong (1853–1920). As we now see, it might more properly be called Modal medievalism. Contemporary English-speaking philosophers often take Meinong’s view to be an aberration, a moment of insanity, which was soon corrected by the common sense of Russell and Quine. It is no such thing. It is a highly common-sense view, and one which has been relatively orthodox throughout the history of Western logic. It is the Russell/Quine view—that the particular quantifier, some, means some existent— which is the historical aberration. If I am thinking of God, I am certainly thinking of something. But it hardly follows that God exists.15

12 Though

some scholars have suggested that they can be found in Scotus, and even Avicenna. See, e.g., Wyatt (2000). 13 On these matters, see Priest (2008), chs. 2 and 3. 14 It is explained and defended at length in Priest (2005). 15 For a full defence of this history see ch. 18 of the second edition of Priest (2005).

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9.5 Impossibilia So much for non-existence. Let us now turn to impossibility. Some of the things I can imagine, such as my third child, are logically possible. But some are impossible, such as the greatest prime number. What is one to say of these? Some medieval logicians balked at the idea that intensional verbs ampliate the domain of objects to impossibilia. Thus, Buridan says16 : Every term which supposits, supposits for that which is or can be or will be or has been ; but . . . it is impossible that a chimera can be, or can have been or can come to be . . . [Hence] ‘A chimera is thinkable’ is false.

Note that a chimera is a standard medieval example of an impossible object. It is not simply something which has parts of a lion, a goat, and a serpent, but something which has the essence of a lion, goat, and serpent, too. Since—according to Aristotle—a (primary) substance can have only one essence, this is impossible. But some logicians thought that ampliation could extend to impossibilia too. Thus, here is Paul of Venice again17 : Although the significatum of the term ‘chimera’ does not and could not exist in reality, still the term ‘chimera’ supposits for something in the proposition ‘A chimera is thought of’, since it supposits for a chimera.

And as much as 150 years later, we find Fransisco Suárez (1548–1617) saying18 : The imagination is the same as fantasy with the sole addition of the power of composing sensibilia and fabricating impossibilia.

That is, fantasy represents things of the senses, but imagination can combine them in new ways, and deliver impossibilia.19 And it must be said, that as far as imagination goes, this seems right. I can imagine, deep in a trench of the Pacific Ocean, a pearl that is both round and square. I cannot picture this; but there are many possible things I cannot picture either, such as a ciliagon—a thousand-sided figure. Imagination is not tied to visual imagery—or even sensory imagery. Thus, I can imagine, the greatest prime number, an impossible object. Indeed, I can imagine things and not know whether or not they are possible. I can imagine a proof of Goldbach’s conjecture. Whether this is possible, no one currently knows. (Goldbach’s conjecture—that every even number

16 The

passage if from Buridan’s Questions on the Sophistical Refutations. It is cited by Ebbesen (1986), p. 137. Ebbesen says ‘Buridan holds that the ampliative force of ‘opinabilis’ [believable] does not extend to impossible entities’. I note that, for him, though ‘a chimera’ does not supposit for (denote) an impossible object, it does signify (mean) something, viz., ‘animal with the parts of a goat, lion, and serpent’. 17 Paul of Venice (1978), p. 13. 18 Imaginatio est idem cum phantasia solum addit virtutem componendi sensibilia et fingendi impossibilia. (Suárez 1978, p. 6.) 19 For more on Suárez, see Silva (2020).

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greater than 2 is the sum of two prime numbers—is a famous unsolved problem of number theory.) To accommodate this fact in Modal (medieval) Meinongianism, one needs not just possible worlds, but impossible worlds. Impossible worlds are worlds that realise impossible scenarios, such as there being a greatest prime number; and an impossible object is one which can have the properties in question only at an impossible world. Impossible worlds are perhaps more exotic in contemporary logic than impossible worlds. However, their mathematics is just as straightforward as that of possible worlds,20 and whatever reasons there are for invoking possible worlds, hold just as much for impossible worlds.21 The view of those medievals who were prepared to invoke impossible objects can, therefore, be happily accommodated in Modal Meinongiansm.

9.6 Other Imaginings Something else that can easily be accommodated is the following. We can certainly imagine objects, such as Anna Karenina and the greatest prime number; but we can also imagine states of affairs, or events, as in ‘I am imagining Socrates sitting’ or ‘I am imagining Socrates walking past the Parthenon’. For present purposes there is not much difference between states of affairs and events. So I shall just speak of the former; similar comments apply to the latter. ‘I am imagining Socrates sitting’ states a relationship between myself and a state of affairs. But what exactly is a state of affairs? With the machinery of worlds at our disposal, we can simply take the situation of Socrates sitting to be the set of worlds where Socrates is sitting. Quite generally, the state of affairs, s, is just the set of worlds where s obtains.22 Again, we see the need for impossible worlds. If situations are simply subsets of worlds, and if there were no impossible worlds, then every impossible situation would be the empty set. So if I imagine any impossible situation, I imagine every impossible situation. But this cannot be right. I can imagine there being a proof of Goldbach’s conjecture; I can imagine there being a proof of the negation of Goldbach’s conjecture. But one of these situations is mathematically impossible. Or in the story ‘Sylvan’s Box’,23 Priest and Griffin find a box that is both empty and has something in it. Reading the story, you will imagine the situation. But I can imagine there being a proof of Goldbach’s conjecture (or its negation) without imagining Priest and Griffin finding Sylvan’s box. (Try it!) 20 See

Priest (2005), esp. ch. 9 of the second edition. Berto (2013). 22 Technically, the power set of the collection of worlds is a subset of the domain of quantification, and an object in the domain is a situation if it is one of these. 23 See Priest (2005), 6.6. 21 See

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So far we have been talking of locutions of the form x imagines y. But there are also locutions of the form x imagines that A, where A is a whole sentence. Thus, I can imagine—horribile dictu—that Trump will be the next president of the US,24 or I can imagine that 289 is a prime number.25 In Modal Meinongianism an intentional operator, such as I imagine that, is treated essentially as one treats the modal operator,  (it is necessary that) in the standard semantics for modal logic. Thus, for any agent, x, the operator corresponds to a binary relation between worlds—the accesibility relation—and x imagines that A is true at a world, w, if A is true at all the worlds accessed by w.26 One might think (as I did for a while) that imagining that A is the same as imagining the situation described by ‘A’; but it is not. For example, it might be true that I remember from my schoolboy history that Caesar crossed the Rubicon. But I can’t remember Caesar crossing the Rubicon, since I wasn’t there. Similarly, if I imagine Hitler being assassinated in 1938, an image of the assassination comes to mind. But now, instead, I imagine myself in Germany in the 1930s. I imagine the rise of the Nazis. I then imagine that someone assassinates Hitler. Maybe Goering takes over. No image of the actual assassination need come to mind.

9.7 Conclusion Medieval logic and contemporary logic still have much to teach each other. This essay is a case-study in the matter. Contemporary logicians can learn that taking some objects not to exist is a perfectly coherent view; and indeed the view that all objects exist is not only highly counter-intuitive, but a bit of dogma from the first half of the 20th century. They can also learn that “Modal Meinongianism”—or at least its temporal version—was standard fare in medieval logic. On the other side of the ledger, techniques of contemporary logic, and especially the technology of possible—and impossible—worlds can be used to articulate the medieval views on intentionality in general, and imagination in particular, with a mathematical precision and rigor that was unavailable to logicians at the time. You might well suppose that there is more to the matter than this. I imagine that there is.27 24 As

is probably clear, this was written before November 2016. I now no longer have to imagine this: I have to live with it; and it is not just the dictum that is horribilis. 25 It isn’t: 289 = 172 . 26 So if we let  be the operator imagines that, then w  aA iff for all w  such that wR w  , w    A; where, here,  is the relation that holds between a world and a sentence which is true at it, and R is the accessibility relation for the operator  and agent denoted by ‘a’. For full details see Priest (2005), ch. 1. 27 A version of this paper was given at the conference The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, University of Gothenburg, June 2016. I am grateful to those present for their helpful comments and suggestions.

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References Aristotle. (1984). In J. Barnes (Ed.), The complete works of Aristotle. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Berto, F. (2013). Impossible worlds. In E. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http:// plato.stanford.edu/entries/impossible-worlds/. Buridan, J. (2001). In J. Klima (Ed.), Summulae de Dialectica. New Haven: Yale University Press. De Rijk, L. M. (1982). The origins of the theory of properties of terms. In N. Kretzmann, et al. (Eds.), The Cambridge history of later medieval philosophy (pp. 161–173). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ebbesen, S. (1986). The chimera’s diary. In S. Knuuttila & J. Hintikka (Eds.), The logic of being (pp. 115–143). Dordrecht: Reidel. Fine, G. (1993). On ideas: Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s theory of forms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marsilius of Inghen. (1972). In A. Maierù (Ed.), Terminoliga Logica della Tarda Scolastica. Rome: Editzioni dell’Ateno. Paul of Venice. (1978). In F. del Punta & M. Adams (Eds.), Logica Magna: Secunda Pars, Tractatus de Veritate et Falsitate Propositionis et Tractatus de Significatio Propositionis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Priest, G. (2005). Towards non-being. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2nd (extended) edition, 2016. Priest, G. (2008). Introduction to non-classical logic: From if to is. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Read, S. (2015). Medieval theories: Properties of terms. In E. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-terms/. Silva, J. F. (2020). Stop making sense(s): Some late medieval and very late medieval views on faculty psychology. Chap. 4 of this volume. Suárez, F. (1978). In S. Castellote (Ed.), Commentaria una cum questionibus in libros Aristoteles de anima (Vol. 1). Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones. Wyatt, N. (2000). Did Duns Scotus invent possible worlds semantics? Australiasian Journal of Philosophy, 78, 196–212.

Correction to: Jodocus Trutfetter (c. 1460–1519) on Internal Senses Pekka Kärkkäinen

Correction to: Chapter 5 in: S. N. Mousavian, J. L. Fink (eds.), The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6_5

Owing to an oversight “Abstract” is incorrect in the previous online version of chapter 5. This has now been corrected as below. “Jodocus Trutfetter’s presentation of the internal senses is firmly rooted in his via moderna - type semantic approach to faculty psychology. This is evident already in the 1514 version of his natural philosophy, but it is reinforced in the abriged revision from 1517. It may seem that in 1514 Trutfetter hides his own position in the central question behind the presentation of different views, but in the later edition he focuses on presenting one most plausible view. Regarding the use of Thomist terminology, the earlier edition would suggest a broader adoption of Thomist views, but this may be due to its way of presenting the various positions more extensively. The latter edition continues and even reflects more clearly Trutfetter’s general attitudes towards various authorities, where he defended the use of the authorities of the via moderna, but did not exclude the earlier authorities either. Among them Aquinas and the Thomist position continued to have a specific value for him.”

The updated online version of this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6_5

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 S. N. Mousavian, J. L. Fink (eds.), The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6_10

C1

Index

The index covers only the main text of the articles. Persons and things mentioned in the notes are not covered. Furthermore, only historical names are included. This means that there are no entries for the contemporary scholars that are occasionally mentioned in the main texts of the chapters. Ancient, medieval and early modern individuals are listed alphabetically according to their first name. Aquinas as Thomas Aquinas under “T”, Suárez as Francisco Suárez under “F” and so forth. Modern authors, Alexius Meinong for instance, are listed the other way around: last name followed by first name A Abstraction, 10, 36, 83, 85, 87, 89, 90, 109 Abu-l-Barak¯at al-Baghdadi, 111 Albert the great, 11, 60, 125, 126 Alcibiades, 27 Al-dh¯akira, see Memory Alexander of Aphrodisias, 2, 6, 29–43, 87, 148 Alexander of Hales, 70 Al-Ghazali, 60, 105 Al-hiss al-mushtarak, see Common sense Al-mus.awwira, see Formative power Al-mutadhakkira, see Recollection Al-r¯uh. (spirit), see Pneuma Al-wahm, see Estimative power Ampliation, 12, 13, 158–160, 162 Amplonius Rating of Bercka, 70 Andreas Bodenstein of Karlstadt, 70 Animal gregarious, 11, 117, 122, 130, 132 non-human, 117, 120, 125, 128, 131, 133 political, 11, 116, 117, 125, 127, 128, 130–133 ‘Anna Karenina’, 13, 157, 161, 163 Antoine Syrrect, 70

Apost¯ema, see Distance Apperception, 21 Arabic tradition, 7, 32, 35 Archive, see Memory Aristotelian tradition, 1, 3–6, 8, 11, 13, 66, 133, 138, 149, 150, 164 Assent, 31, 64 Atomist, 145, 146, 148 Augustine, 7, 116, 124 Avendauth, 118 Avicenna’s, 2–12, 45, 47, 48, 60, 83–112, 115, 116, 118–121, 123, 127, 129, 161 Awareness, 4, 6, 17, 18, 20–26, 30, 34, 35, 37, 43, 47, 49, 51, 54, 66, 124

B Bahmany¯ar, 111 Bartholomaeus Arnoldi of Usingen, 71, 72 Belief, 24, 26, 31, 84 Block of wax, see Wax Blood concocted, 141 Bodily states, 18, 19

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 S. N. Mousavian, J. L. Fink (eds.), The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 22, DOI10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6

167

168 Brain, 5, 7, 48, 50, 51, 60, 61, 63, 74, 76, 85, 88, 89, 103–105, 121, 125, 126, 142, 149

C Cardiocentric model, 6, 42, 43 Celestial spheres, 85, 86, 93–99, 101 Centre of a circle, see Circle Changes, 22, 33, 39, 51, 57, 58, 107, 119, 123, 139, 142, 147, 148 ‘Chimera’, 162 Circle, 6, 34, 38, 39, 41–43, 63, 87 Civitas, 128 Cogitative faculty/power Mufakkira (see Composite imagination) Colour juxtaposition, 144 mixture, 144, 145, 147 superposition, 144 Common sense technical term, 5, 32 Compositive imagination/thinking, 2 Concord, 118, 120, 122, 124, 127, 131 Consciousness, 21, 56, 58 Creativity, 101, 102, 106

D Delusion, 26 Descartes, René, 149, 151, 154, 155 Desires, 19, 26, 31, 99, 100, 102, 118, 120, 124, 128–130, 132 Determinate supposition, 158 Diares, 3 Discrimination, 3, 30, 32–34, 37–39, 41–43 Distance as a common sensible, 37 Dominicus Gundissalinus, 118, 120 Doxa, see Belief Dreams, 4, 10, 21–23, 27, 51, 84, 86, 93–95, 97–100, 102, 138, 140, 142, 144, 145 Dualism, 145, 150

E Eidetic variation, 104, 105, 109 Elicitive power/faculty, 76–79 Emanation, 10, 65, 90 Emotion, 115, 116, 118, 120, 121, 129, 132, 135, 149 Empedocles, 143 Enmity, 59, 105, 118 Eschatology, 101, 116

Index Estimation, see Estimative power Estimative power and sociability, 121 ¯ 91, 93 Exemplification (tamthil), External, 4, 7, 9, 10, 17–27, 30, 39, 46–49, 51, 52, 54–60, 73, 76, 77, 84, 86–88, 90, 91, 97, 103, 104, 107–110, 117, 119, 123, 126, 127, 132, 142, 145, 149 Extra mental, see External

F Faculty/power, 2 Faculty psychology, 2, 8, 12, 45–66 Fakhr al-D¯in al-R¯az¯i, 111 Flavour, 40 Flesh, 18, 19, 51, 141, 143 ‘Flying man’, 104 Form celestial, 10, 93, 95–98 immanent, 145 intelligible, 10, 90, 92, 93, 97, 99, 105, 108, 110, 111 sensible, 9, 10, 47, 84, 86, 89, 93, 106, 108, 141 substantial, 8, 45, 66 See also Species Formal distinction between the powers of the soul, 72 Formative faculty/power, 9, 72, 84, 86, 88–91, 94, 103, 107–109 Francisco Suárez, 55, 58

G Gabriel Biel, 72, 77 Galen, 2, 6, 7, 37, 60 Galenic, 149 Giles of Rome, 70, 131 Goldbach’s conjecture, 162, 163 Grand archive narrative, see Memory Gregory of Nyssa, 60 Gregory of Rimini, 71, 72 Guido Vernani of Rimini, 132

H H . ads, see Intuition Harmony, 143 Heart, 21, 30, 31, 38, 39, 42, 50, 74, 76, 104, 105, 141, 142 Henry of Ghent, 70 Hierarchy, 17, 49, 65, 95, 98, 100

Index Hippocratic, 149 Homogeneity, 145, 151 Hooke, Robert, 140 Humoral theory, 149 Hylomorphism, 137

I Illumination, 92 Illusion, 25, 26 Image, see Phantasma Imagination, see Phantasia Impossibilia, see Objects, impossible Impressions, 6, 22, 43, 77, 87, 88, 90, 138, 140–142 Instinct, 78, 79 Intellect acquired, 84, 85 active, 9, 92–95, 107 theoretical, 92, 100 Intellection, 10, 24, 83, 85, 92–94, 96, 99, 111 Intelligibles abstract, 10, 85, 90 Intentionality, 50, 118 Intentions, 8–10, 47, 51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 63, 75–77, 84, 86, 89, 100, 103–104, 107, 116–118, 121, 123, 125 See also Ma‘n¯a Internal senses (Arabic tradition) five, 7, 9, 18, 19, 21, 60, 74, 84, 85, 103 Internal senses (Aristotle), 4, 17–27, 103 Internal senses (Greek tradition), 2 Internal senses (Latin tradition) connotative, 73 defined in semantic terms, 8 plurality, 8 unity, 54 Intuition (h.ads), 37, 86, 107, 112 Ishraqi¯ doctrines of imagination, 86

J Jacopo da Forli, 76 Jodocus Trutfetter, 2, 8, 69–79 Johannes Carnificis of Kaiserslautern (Lutrea), 78 Johannes Peyligk, 77 John Blund, 121 John Buridan, 8, 51–54, 71 John Capreolus, 70 John of la Rochelle, 119, 121 John Scotus, 58, 67, 70, 76, 161, 163

169 K Khayal (retentive imagination), see Formative faculty/power Krasis, see Mixture L Languages, 1, 2, 10–12, 130–132, 143, 149, 151 Latin tradition, 8 Localization, 7, 48, 51, 60–62 Logic, 2, 12, 70–72, 116, 157, 158, 161, 163, 164 Logical space, 6, 111 Love, 118, 123 Lutrea, see Johannes Carnificis of Kaiserslautern M Magnus Hundt, 77 Malebranche, Nicolas, 149 Ma‘n¯a, 8 See also Intention Manuel de Góis, 8, 47, 59 Martin Luther, 69 Medical tradition, 71, 74 Meinong, Alexius, 161 Meinongianism modal, 12, 13, 161, 163, 164 neo-meinongian, 12 Memory an archive, 2, 12, 138, 150, 151 grand archive narrative, 2, 150, 151 intellectual, 75 material constraints on, 11, 137 mechanistic vision of, 12, 138 a non-cognitive power, 52 sensory, 23, 50, 61, 75, 76 a storehouse, 150 Mimesis, 10, 85, 92–94, 97–100, 102, 111 Mirror, 3, 10, 33, 93, 97, 99, 110 Mixture, 2, 11, 12, 105, 137–152 Movements residual sensory, 140 Mufakkira (cogitative power), see Composite imagination Mutahayyila, see Composite imagination ˘ N Nemesius of Emesa, 60 Neo-Meinongian, see Meinongianism Neoplatonic, 86, 92, 99, 102 Neoplatonist, see Neoplatonic

170 Nerves, 60 Nervous system, 141, 142 Nominalist, 59, 70 Non-existent things, 158

O Object abstract, 23 future, 161 of imagination, 85, 95, 97 impossible, 13, 162, 163 of memory, 23, 56, 151 past, 23, 25, 75, 158, 161 possible, 13, 161–163 of touch, 18, 19 Oikeiôsis, 124, 135 Organ central, 21, 22, 39, 42, 141, 143 peripheral, 22

P Particular reason (ratio particularis), 48, 53, 64, 78, 117 Passages (poroi), 6, 29, 31, 35–37, 43, 50, 73, 78, 85, 88, 90, 91, 93, 94, 96, 98, 100, 103–106, 120, 142, 162 Pathology, 141–143, 148 Paul of Venice, 159, 162 Pedro da Fonseca, 61 Perceptibles accidental, 3, 4 common, 3 special, 3, 4 Perception immateriality of, 37 simultaneous, 3 Perceptual faculty/power, 5, 6, 20–22, 24, 26, 27, 29–32, 39, 42, 46 Peripatetic, 6, 7, 35, 37, 43, 116, 146 Peter John Olivi, 8, 49, 50 Peter Lombard, 49 Peter of Ailly, 8, 71, 72, 74, 76, 77, 79 Phantasia, 4–6, 9, 17, 21–27, 30–33, 42, 43, 55, 56, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 78, 103, 162 Phantasma, 22–24, 26, 31, 97, 100, 105 Phantasy, see Phantasia Philip Melanchthon, 61 Philoponus, 35, 42, 147 Philosopher, 5, 6, 8, 11, 43, 60, 61, 70, 71, 74, 85, 86, 88, 90, 94, 105, 111, 112, 117, 125, 127, 131, 133, 139, 145, 149, 151, 152, 157, 161

Index Physician, 88 Pietro d’Abano, 76 Pietro Torrigiano, 76 Plato, 32, 46, 143, 145, 151 Pleasure and pain, 4, 5, 18–20 Plotinus, 2, 42, 87, 88, 92, 96, 99, 102 Pneuma, 85, 138, 141–143, 145, 148, 151 Point bisecting a line, 34, 39–43 Point of an intersection, see Point bisecting a line Polis, 128 Political community, 116, 128, 130 Poroi, see Passages Possibilia, see Objects, possible Possible worlds, 161, 163, 164 Potentia (plur. potentiae), see Faculty/power Power of representation (mutahayyila), see Composite imagination˘ Primary perceptual faculty, 5 Principle of distinction, 47, 48 Principle of identity, 47, 48 Privation, 51 ¯. ), 91, 93, 94, 102, 110 Projection (tashbih Prophetic vision, 10, 93, 97 Ps.Philoponus, 35, 42, 147

Q Quine, Willard van Orman, 161

R Radius (plur. radii), 6, 34, 38, 39, 41–43 Ratio particularis, see Particular reason Real distinction, see Formal distinction etc. Reception, 22, 29, 46, 51, 54, 86, 88, 89, 93, 125, 141 Recollection, 9, 11, 84, 85, 89, 99, 103, 126, 137, 139, 140, 142, 145, 147–149 Reminiscence, 55, 92 Renaissance, 6, 7, 45, 126, 146, 149 Representation, 10, 13, 22, 23, 26, 42, 51, 77, 79, 85, 87, 91, 94–96, 98, 99, 111, 125 Retentive imagination, 9, 10, 47, 48, 63, 84, 86–90, 103 See also Formative faculty/power Roger Bacon, 119 Russell, Bertrand, 161

S Scotist, 69, 70, 73 Self-preservation, 118, 123, 124, 127, 129, 130 Semantic theory, 8, 79, 159

Index

171

Sense perception, see Perception Sensibles, see Perceptibles Shape, 3, 21, 23, 25, 30, 35–37, 59, 77, 86, 87, 107, 108, 110, 149 Sheep, 9, 59, 76, 77, 84, 115, 117–124, 127, 130 Sight, 18, 20, 21, 47, 52, 55, 63, 107 Skin, 18 Sleep, 3, 4, 20–23, 54, 93, 94, 97, 99, 100, 142, 144, 147, 149 Sociability, 11, 115, 116, 118, 119, 121–123, 125, 126, 128, 133 Soul, 2, 19, 29, 45, 72, 84, 116, 140 Species, 51–54, 56–58, 61–63, 75–78, 80, 96, 101, 119, 122, 124, 126, 127, 130, 131, 141 Square, 107–110, 162 Stoic, 35, 87, 124, 145, 146, 148 Sweet, 18, 20, 21, 32, 40–42, 52, 63 ‘Sylvan’s Box’, 163

Time, 3, 21–23, 30, 32–34, 37–42, 58, 59, 61, 69, 72, 75, 88, 97, 99, 104, 116, 129, 139, 142, 143, 152, 160, 164 To aisth¯etikon, see Perceptual faculty Toledo, 7 To pr¯oton aisth¯etikon, see Primary perceptual faculty Touch, 18–21, 47

T Tactile sensation, 18, 19 ¯ see Exemplification Tamthil, ¯. , see Projection Tashbih Taste, 18–21, 47 Term, 5, 6, 10, 13, 24, 31, 32, 42, 61, 64, 73, 78, 85, 87, 96, 104, 107, 111, 116, 118–121, 129, 143, 158–160, 162 Thomas Aquinas, 48, 60, 120–122, 124, 125, 129–132 Thomist, 9, 69, 70, 73, 76–79

W Wahm (also Al-wahm), see Estimative power Wax, 87, 88, 140 Wegestreit, 69 White, 3, 20, 21, 32–34, 38–42, 52, 63, 144, 158 White and black, 32–34, 38, 39, 42, 144 William Ockham, 71, 72, 76, 77, 80 William of Sheerwood, 159 Wolf, 9, 59, 76, 77, 84, 115, 117–119, 121

U Universals, 57, 63, 65, 70, 78, 96–98, 109, 151

V Veridical dreams, 10, 93, 95, 97, 98 Via antiqua, 69 Via moderna, 8, 9, 69, 70, 73, 75–77, 79 Vision, see Sight Vital heat, 141