Theories of cognition in the later Middle Ages - spot

339 Pages·2012·4.71 MB·English

Theories of cognition
in the later Middle Ages
ROBERT PASNAU
St. Joseph's University
q;.::.~ CAMBRIDGE
- ::: UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Robert Pasnau 1997
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1997
Typeset in Palatino
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pasnau, Robert.
Theories of cognition in the later Middle Ages / Robert Pasnau.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-521-58368-3
1. Knowledge, Theory of - History. 2. Cognition - History.
3. Philosophy, Medieval. 4. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274.
5. Olivi, Pierre Jean, 1248 or 9-1298. 6. William, of Ockham, ca.
1285-ca. 1349. 1. Title.
B161.P37 1997
128'.2'0902 - dC20 96-36249
C1P
A catalog record for this book is available from
the British Library
Transferred to digital printing 2003
Contents
Preface page vii
List of abbreviations x
Introduction 1
1 The philosophical-historical context 4
2 Thomas Aquinas and the theory of species 11
3 Challenges to the theory 18
PART r: FUNDAMENTALS
1 Immateriality and intentionality 31
1 Cognition as intentional information 31
2 A materialist theory of sensation? 42
3 The intentionality criterion 47
4 Ockham on the intentionality criterion 60
2 Intentionality made mysterious
1 Physical, not intentional (Roger Bacon and
William Crathom)
2 Intentional, not physical (Olivi)
3 Existing, but not really (Peter Aureol)
4 From fictions to actions (Ockham)
3 Form and representation
1 The natural likeness account (William Crathom)
2 Representation without resemblance (William of
Auvergne) 101
3 Form and likeness in Aquinas 105
4 Causal connections 113
5 The act itself as likeness 121
v
Contents
4 Passivity and attention 125
1 Cognition as a kind of being affected 126
2 Attending to the object (Olivi) 130
3 Judging and attending (Aquinas) 134
4 A mixed account (Scotus) and pure passivity (Ockham) 146
PART II: REPRESENTATIONS AND REALISM
5 Are species superfluous? 161
1 Direct realism via action at a distance (Ockham) 162
2 Direct realism via spiritual attention (Olivi) 168
3 Explaining illusions 181
4 Species and parsimony 189
6 Aquinas and direct realism 195
1 The official position 197
2 The act-object doctrine 200
3 Two versions of representationalism 209
4 Through the species and to the world 213
7 The veil of species 220
1 Hercules and his image (Henry of Ghent) 221
2 Would God deceive us? (William Crathorn) 229
3 The species as a veil (Olivi) 236
4 Hercules returns (Ockham) 247
8 Word and concept 254
1 Word and concept in Aquinas 256
2 Concepts as acts (Olivi) 271
3 Abandoning ficta (Ockham) 277
Conclusion: A new form of knowing 290
Appendix A: The identity of knower and known (Aquinas) 295
Appendix B: Henry of Ghent and intelligible species 306
References 311
Index 321
vi
Preface
T
HIS is not a survey of later medieval theories of cognition but a study
of some of the central aspects of the debate during that time. My pri
mary focus is on two authors from the thirteenth century, Thomas Aqui
nas and Peter John Olivi, and one from the fourteenth century, William
Ockham. Readers hoping to learn about other philosophers from this
period will occasionally be rewarded, but more often disappointed.
The choice of these three figures was not arbitrary. I believe that
Thomas Aquinas presents the most impressive and coherent statement
of the dominant Aristotelian theory of cognition, and I believe that
Peter John Olivi and William Ockham offer the most interesting and
innovative challenge to that theory. In the chapters that follow, I argue
that these two Franciscan philosophers developed a fundamentally
new account of the workings of our cognitive systems. Their insight, in
brief, was to see that a theory of cognition might be formulated without
the sorts of representations that, on the standard view, served as inter
mediaries between us and the world. My pursuit of this theme has
forced me to take a selective approach. Authors who were originally
envisaged as playing integral parts in the study, in particular Henry of
Ghent and William Crathorn, have been consigned to the supporting
role that better suits their more-limited contributions. Other important
figures from the period, in particular John Duns Scotus, did not exten
sively contribute to this particular debate. This study focuses, then, on
what has struck me as the most important development in cognitive
theory during the later Middle Ages. Such judgments must certainly be
tentative, given the poverty of our current understanding of medieval
philosophy, and they are, naturally, to some extent subjective. I hope
and expect that, as we learn more about medieval philosophy, others
will uncover aspects of the medieval debate over cognition that are
equally significant and interesting.
This is not a survey, in part because there are all too many surveys of
vii
Preface
medieval philosophy and not nearly enough close studies of particular
topics. I believe that within later medieval philosophy there is scarcely a
single topic - no matter how well known - tha t is not crying out in need
of careful study and criticism. For example, there is probably no part of
Aquinas's work that is better known and more widely discussed than
his claim that sensible and intelligible species are the quo of cognition:
not the objects of cognition, but that by which we come to know the
world. Nevertheless, in Chapter 6 I argue that the standard (indeed,
unquestioned) reading of this claim is badly mistaken. Such misread
ings are spread throughout the study of medieval philosophy, in every
comer. One needs only to pick a topic.
My
own choice of topic came while studying at Cornell University.
This work is a substantially revised and expanded version of my 1994
Ph.D. dissertation. (Together with Pasnau 1995a it entirely supersedes
that work, aside from the translations included as an appendix to the
dissertation, most of which I plan to publish eleswhere.) This book
could not have been written without substantial help from a great many
people. First and foremost, I am indebted to my advisor at Cornell,
Norman Kretzmann. It would be wrong to say (as former students are
sometimes tempted to say at such points in their careers) that I learned
from Kretzmann everything I know about medieval philosophy. In fact,
that would in a sense understate his influence, which manifests itself
not in any particular substantive views that I hold (we disagree on
numerous points of interpretation) but in the way I have learned to
think about and write about philosophy. It is for this training that I am
most grateful to him.
Many others have contributed to this work, either through their
encouragement or through reading and criticizing some or all of the
chapters. In particular, I want to thank Carl Ginet, Scott MacDonald,
John Marenbon, Sydney Shoemaker, John Carriero, Jeff Hause, Paul
Hoffman, Hannes Jarka-Sellers, Joe Moore, Dominic Perler, Dave Robb,
Carol Roberts, Eleonore Stump, Martino Traxler, and an anonymous
reader for Cambridge University Press. While at Cornell, I was fortu
nate to be a part of the Medieval Studies Program. A completion-year
fellowship from the Mellon Foundation, through Medieval Studies, al
lowed me not just to complete the dissertation, but to tum the disserta
tion into a book. I have also read various chapters at philosophy depart
ments throughout the country, as a job candidate, and I often received
helpful feedback on those occasions. I want to give particular thanks to
VIll
Preface
my colleagues at Saint Joseph's University for their support and
encouragement.
I would not be studying medieval philosophy, and perhaps not phi
losophy at all, if not for Jim Ross's influence on me at the University of
Pennsylvania. For this influence, I remain deeply grateful, but I am also
left somewhat puzzled: what would I be doing now if Ross hadn't spent
long hours with me, a mere undergraduate, discussing such obscure
topics as Cajetan on Aquinas on Aristotle (compared to Armstrong) on
universals?
Finally, I want to thank my parents, who didn't laugh when I told
them I wanted to be a philosopher, and my wife, who I'm sure will
always laugh when she thinks of me as a philosopher.
IX
Ab breviations
PETER JOHN OLIVI
II Sent. Quaestiones in secundum librum Sententiarum (1922-26, Jan
sen [ed.], in three volumes)
Quod. Quodlibeta quinque (Citations are to the 1509 Venice edition)
TDV Tractatus de verbo (edited in Pasnau [forthcoming], from the
Lectura super Iohannem)
THOMAS AQUINAS
(For convenience, citations to DW, InDA, InDMR, InDSS, and InPH
give, in brackets, the section numbers of the Marietti editions [for DUI,
the Keeler edition]. Also, I have retained the conventional chapter num
bering for InDA, rather than adopting the new numbering of the
Leonine edition.)
CT Compendium theologiae (Leonine V.42)
DW Tractatus de unitate intellectus contra Averroistas (Leonine
V·43)
ImCor. Super secundum Epistolam ad Corinthios lectura (Marietti,
1953b)
InDA Sentencia libri De anima (Leonine V.45,l)
InDMR Sentencia libri De memoria et reminiscentia (Leonine V.45,2)
InDSS Sentencia libri De sensu et sensa to (Leonine V-45,2)
InDT Super librum Boethii De trinitate (Leonine V.50)
InJoh. Super Evangelium S. Ioannis lectura (Marietti, 1952)
InMet. In duodecim Libras Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio (Mar-
ietti, 1971)
InPH Expositio libri Peryermenias (Leonine V.1*,l)
InPhys. In octo Libras Physicorum Aristotelis expositio (Marietti, 1954a)
QDA Quaestiones disputatae de anima (Robb, 1968)
x
Abbreviations
QDM Quaestiones disputatae de malo (Leonine v.23)
QDP Quaestiones disputatae de potentia (Marietti, 1953a)
QDSC Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis (Marietti, 1953a)
QDV Quaestiones disputatae de veritate (Leonine V.22)
Quod. Quaestiones quodlibetales (Marietti, 1956)
SCG Summa contra gentiles (Marietti, 1961-67)
Sent. In quatuor libros Sententiarum (Parma, 1856)
ST Summa theologiae (Marietti, 1950-53) (la = first part; 1a2ae =
first part of the second part; etc.)
WILLIAM OCKHAM
(All citations are to the (1967-89) edition, either the Opera Philosophica (=
OPh) or the Opera Theologica (= OTh).)
ExPer. Expositio in librum Perihermenias
ExPhys. Expositio in libros Physicorum
ExPor. Expositio in librum Porphyrii de Praedicabilibus
Ord. Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum (Ordinatio)
Quod. Quodlibeta Septem
QPhys. Quaestiones in libros Physico rum
QV Quaestiones Variae
Rep. Quaestiones in libros Sententiarum (Reportatio)
SL Summa Logicae
xi
Introduction
OUR
histories of Western philosophy pass in virtual silence over an
era that they should celebrate. The later medieval period, in particular
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, represents one of the great
flowerings of creative philosophical activity. It was then that western
Europe literally rediscovered philosophy, in the writings of Aristotle, a
discovery that led to the renewal of systematic philosophical thought.
Out of this ferment came work as deep and original as any that philoso
phy has since seen. One could never learn any of this, however, from
our histories of philosophy; they tend to skip, with a few apologetic
murmurs, from the fourth century B.C. to the seventeenth century. So,
too, run our philosophy curriculum and the research interests of the
professors who teach in our universities.
This may seem overstated: not that I have overstated our neglect of
the period, which could hardly be overstated, but that I have overstated
the value of later medieval philosophy. But in fact we aren't yet in a
position to have an informed debate on the merits of the Scholastic era.
This is not just, or even primarily, a matter of our not having the Latin
texts (although a great many important texts remain in manuscript
form, never edited) or our not having translations of those texts (al
though few of the most important works of the Scholastic period have
been published in English translations). The primary impediment to
our appreciating later medieval philosophy is that there has been no
sustained tradition of sophisticated philosophical commentary on the
period. Generations of our finest philosophers have illuminated figures
like Plato, Aristotle, and the British empiricists, laboring to show that
what looks obsolete remains interesting, and what looks confused is in
fact cogent. No such attention has ever been paid to the Scholastic
period, and for this reason more than any other the era's luster remains
dull.
This study was written in the hopes of contributing to the renovation
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