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THEORIES OF PERCEPTION IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY OF

Volume 6

Editors Henrik Lagerlund, The University of Western Ontario, Canada Mikko Yrjonsuuri,¨ Academy of Finland and University of Jyvaskyl¨ a,¨ Finland

Board of Consulting Editors Lilli Alanen, Uppsala University, Sweden Joel¨ Biard, University of Tours, France Michael Della Rocca, Yale University, U.S.A. Eyjolfur´ Emilsson, University of Oslo, Norway Andre´ Gombay, University of Toronto, Canada Patricia Kitcher, Columbia University, U.S.A. Simo Knuuttila, University of Helsinki, Finland Beatrice´ M. Longuenesse, New York University, U.S.A. Calvin Normore, University of California, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

Aims and Scope

The aim of the series is to foster historical research into the nature of thinking and the workings of the mind. The volumes address topics of intellectual history that would nowadays fall into different disciplines like , philosoph- ical psychology, artificial , cognitive , etc. The monographs and collections of articles in the series are historically reliable as well as congenial to the contemporary reader. They provide original insights into central contem- porary problems by looking at them in historical contexts, addressing issues like consciousness, representation and intentionality, mind and body, the self and the emotions. In this way, the books open up new perspectives for research on these topics. THEORIES OF PERCEPTION IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLY

Edited by SIMO KNUUTTILA University of Helsinki, Finland

and PEKKA KARKK¨ AINEN¨ University of Helsinki, Finland Editors Simo Knuuttila Pekka Karkk¨ ainen¨ University of Helsinki University of Helsinki Department of Systematic Department of Systematic Theology Aleksanterinkatu 7 Aleksanterinkatu 7 FI-00014 Helsinki FI-00014 Helsinki Finland Finland

ISBN: 978-1-4020-6124-0 e-ISBN: 978-1-4020-6125-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007938165

c 2008 Springer Science + Business Media B.V. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

Printed on acid-free paper.

987654321 springer.com Contents

Preface ...... vii

Contributors ...... xi

Aristotle’s Theory of Perception and Medieval ...... 1 Simo Knuuttila

Plotinus on Sense Perception...... 23 Eyjolfur´ Kjalar Emilsson

The Stoics on Sense Perception ...... 35 Havard˚ Løkke

Degrees of Abstraction in Avicenna ...... 47 Cristina D’Ancona

The Ontological Entailments of ’ Understanding of Perception .. 73 Alfred L. Ivry

Robert Kilwardby on Sense Perception ...... 87 Jose´ Filipe Silva

Perceiving One’s Own Body ...... 101 Mikko Yrjonsuuri¨

Pietro d’Abano and the Anatomy of Perception ...... 117 Henrik Lagerlund

Id Quo Cognoscimus ...... 131 Robert Pasnau

Seeing and Judging: Ockham and Wodeham on Sensory Cognition ...... 151 Dominik Perler

v vi Contents

Horse Sense and Human Sense: The Heterogeneity of Sense Perception in Buridan’s Philosophical Psychology ...... 171 Jack Zupko

Objects of Sense Perception in Late Medieval Erfurtian .....187 Pekka Karkk¨ ainen¨

Renaissance Views of Active Perception ...... 203 Leen Spruit

Time and Perception in Late Renaissance Aristotelianism ...... 225 Michael Edwards

Malebranche’s Ontological Problem of the Perception of Bodies ...... 245 Martine Pecharman´

Locke on the Intentionality of Sensory Ideas ...... 271 Ralph Schumacher

Author Index ...... 285

Subject Index ...... 291 Preface

Sense perception is one of the classical themes in philosophy. Although perhaps not among the most exciting topics, it is traditionally considered a necessary preamble to many of these, such as the mind-body relationship, consciousness, , and scepticism. This introductory role is not the only for the philosophical interest in perception. It is also a phenomenon which raises important questions about what is perceived, how a perceptual is caused, what the content of perception is, whether this content is conceptual, how perception is related to epistemic attitudes, and so on. While philosophical psychology is the main area in which perception is dealt with in , it is also discussed in the theory of knowledge, cognitive science, philosophical and . In recent years, the rich tradition of various philosophical theories of perception has been increasingly studied by scholars of the history of philosophy of mind. It may be added that there is of course a large number of scientific studies of perception in psychology, physiology and contemporary neuroscience. The aim of this collection is to shed light on the developments in theories of sense-perception in medieval Arabic and Latin philosophy, their ancient background, and traditional and new themes in early modern thought. Aristotle’s treatises On the and On Sense and Sensibilia are the most influential philosophical works on perception. The main tenets of his theory and the central themes of the in medieval Aristotelianism are discussed by Simo Knuuttila.Manyof the questions put forward in this chapter are also dealt with in other papers in this volume. The central Aristotelian idea is that the senses are perceptual powers which are causally activated by the things which are the objects of perceptions. Aristotle’s approach to perception and other psychological matters by analysing various po- tentialities and their interaction has been very popular in the history of philosophy, and even though the physical aspects of Aristotle’s theory are badly outdated, many (though not all) philosophers interested in ancient thought continue to consider it a valuable conceptual model. Another influential ancient theory was Plotinus’ Neoplatonic account of percep- tion, which is discussed by Eyjolfur´ Emilsson. Plotinus reinterpreted the Aristotelian theory from the point of view of his strict dualism. External is restricted to the changes in sense-organs. The real subject of perception is the immaterial soul, which can be directly aware of processes in sense-organs, without being affected by

vii viii Preface them in any way. Neoplatonic views influenced medieval Arabic and Latin thought by several routes. The Stoic theory of perception, which is analysed by Havard˚ Løkke, is a third ancient theory which shaped later discussions. This approach was associated with a special causal view of the physiological aspect of perception and psychological assumptions which stressed the activity of the subject in a way which was compatible with the antidualist metaphysics of the Stoics. Some elements of the Stoic theory, such as the conception of self-perception and perceptive attention, were also embedded in Neoplatonic accounts of perception, including the Augustinian tradition. The elements of ancient theories were known to early medieval Latin authors through works of Augustine, the translation of Nemesius of Emesa’s De natura hominis by Alfanus of Salerno c. 1080 and then Burgundio of Pisa c. 1165. The sixth book of Avicenna’s Shifa’¯ , translated by Gundissalinus and Avendauth c. 1150 as Avicenna’s De anima, was another source for Latin psychology before the sys- tematic studies of Aristotle’s psychological works, which received an impulse from the translation of Averroes’s commentaries in c. 1230. Avicenna’s work combined Aristotelian, Galenic and Neoplatonic themes. Its Neoplatonic elements are sur- veyed by Cristina D’Ancona, particularly the role of sense perception in forming universal concepts and Avicenna’s attempt to combine Aristotelian and Neoplatonic ideas of concept formation. Averroes’s interpretation of Aristotle’s conception of the science of the soul is dealt with by Alfred Ivry, as well Averroes’s theory of the sensitive form as an intention in the medium and the soul and, furthermore, the role of these intentions in forming universal concepts. Ivry is particularly interested in how the individual powers of perception and imagination are related to the acts of the intellect, which is understood in terms of non-individual monopsychism. Thirteenth-century commentaries on Aristotle’s psychological works by Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas and others usually took up the questions of the location of the unifying common sense which also was the ultimate seat of all external senses, the nature of the ‘spiritual’ or ‘intentional’ change in the organ and the medium be- tween the object and the sense-organ, and how the sensible and intelligible species which activate perceptual and intellectual capacities are the same as sensible and intelligible forms in the objects. These topics, which were medieval developments of Aristotelian themes, are briefly described in Knuuttila’s paper. Jose´ Filipe Silva discusses the attempt to reconcile Aristotelian and Augustinian ideas in Robert Kil- wardby’s De spiritu phantastico, written in the 1250s. Employing the medical vo- cabulary of the psychic spirit, Kilwardby describes the affects of sense-organs and nerves as corporeal motions. Perceptions themselves are acts of the immaterial sen- sitive spirit, which is continuously aware of the movements of the corporeal spirits. In addition to the Neoplatonic criticism of the passivity of perception, some thinkers were sceptical of the interpretations of the Aristotelian doctrines of the change of the medium and the reception of sensible form without matter. Peter John Olivi criticized the theory of the multiplication of species which combined the Aristotelian idea of the change of the medium with Alhazen’s theory of optics. Olivi took this to imply a representationalist view of perception which was in disagree- ment with the direct realism of his theory of active perception. William Ockham Preface ix found the spiritual change in the medium more problematic than the assumption that perceptual objects activated perceptual powers without any meditation. These questions are dealt with in Robert Pasnau’s book Theories of Cognition in Later Middle Ages, 1997, in which he also argues for the representationalist nature of Aquinas’s account of sensitive and intellectual cognition. In his paper Robert Pasnau re-evaluates his much-debated thesis by discussing the difficulties of scholastic au- thors in explaining the inherence of accidental forms in their subjects and, analo- gously, the actuality of sensible forms in the sensitive soul. Dominik Perler deals with Ockham’s ideas about sensory and intellectual cognition of particular objects, criticism of Ockham’s view by Adam Wodeham, and the conception of sensory de- ception in Ockham. Ockham’s cognitive realism was characterized by a refutation of the spiritual change in the medium and abstract universal objects. He argued that immediate sensory cognition differred from immediate intellectual cognition of present things, the former being pre-conceptual and non-judicative and the latter conceptual and accompanied by a judgement. Wodeham did not accept that there was a gap between sensory and intellectual acts so that we would need a separate act of conceptualizing the content of a sensory act. This controversy revived the question of the cognitive element of perception which was discussed earlier in the Stoic theory. Although medieval discussions of the five senses largely concentrated on sight, all senses were dealt with in treatises on Aristotle’s psychological works and some of them elsewhere as well. One example is Peter John Olivi’s theory of the sense of touch and the perception of one’s own body. This is discussed by Mikko Yrjonsuuri¨ , who also analyses the levels of self-reflexivity in Olivi and compares his views of touch with those of Pietro d’Abano and Descartes. Pietro d’Abano’s extensive work Conciliator differentiarum philosophorum et medicorum contained among other things discussions of such psychological and physiological views of percep- tion as were thought controversial in the early fourteenth century. Henrik Lagerlund analyses d’Abano’s views of sense-organs, the natural and spiritual changes in the medium and the perception as a mental act. These considerations were known to Renaissance authors; d’Abano’s book was printed many times since 1472. While Ockham argued for a plurality of forms in living , as many Franciscan thinkers did, John Buridan (d. after 1358) thought that each individual had only one soul of its own which was ultimately responsible for their various functions. Jack Zupko discusses Buridan’s position that the human soul, as distinct from the soul of animals, is indivisible and non-extensive. The sensations of human beings conse- quently differ from those of animals, even when the sense-organs are similar. Zupko stresses that in Buridan’s view the operation of the human senses is miraculous. There is no explanation of how the empirically observed functions of the senses are related to the sensory activity of the soul. Another controversial question among the followers of Ockham and Buridan pertained to whether external perceptions were about perceptible qualities or whether they also involved a perception of the substance. Pekka Karkk¨ ainen¨ deals with this debate among late medieval nominal- ists in Erfurt, particularly Johannes de Lutrea and Bartholomaeus Usingen. Lutrea regarded the objects of sense perception as consisting exclusively of accidents, x Preface since only they and not the substances cause the sensory cognition. According to Usingen’s Buridanian position, the object of perception is an undifferentiated whole consisting of a substance and its accidents, which are not differentiated until the intellect is involved in the process. According to Usingen, the object of sight is coloured rather than merely colour. In this analysis the external senses cognize in a concrete manner, as distinct from Lutrea’s ‘abstract cognition’. While Aristotle’s view of the senses as passive powers was the dominant position in thirteenth-century Western Aristotelianism, as well as being popular later, it was criticized on the basis of Neoplatonic ideas and also qualified by those Aristotelians who accepted Averroes’s suggestion that there is an agent sense analogous to the agent intellect. Leen Spruit deals with the arguments for an active perception in Re- naissance authors outside the Peripatetic camp, such as Nicholas of Cusa, Marsilio Ficino and Bernardino Telesio, as well as the reactions of some sixteenth-century Aristotle commentators to the Averroist idea of agent sense, particularly those of Agostino Nifo, Cajetan and Zabarella. Aristotle’s psychology remained popular in the seventeenth century, and one subject in this tradition is studied in Michael Edwards’s article on the discussion of Aristotle’s remarks on time and perceiving time in commentaries on Aristotle and in various textbooks in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, including the works of Zabarella, Franciscus Toletus, Hieronymus Dandinus, Juan de Guevara and the Coimbra commentaries. The ‘modern’ theories attempted to explain the non-introspective basis of the traditional phenomenology of perceptions by means of purely physical causality without the concepts of perceivable forms and spiritual species, thus separating the perceptual content from how things were in themselves. These approaches were developed in different ways in Telesio’s material pansensism, Hobbes’s mechanis- tic , Gassendi’s and Descartes’s dualism. Among the most in- fluential ideas formulated in this context were the representationalist theories of Descartes and Locke. Martine Pecharman´ discusses the notion of representative ideas in Descartes’s philosophy of brain and mind and Malebranche’s critical revi- sion of this. Ralph Schumacher examines the problems of simple ideas in Locke’s theory of primary and secondary qualities. The articles of this volume are mostly based on papers delivered at a symposium in Helsinki in April 2004. This meeting was part of the European Science Founda- tion program From to Science and was financed by European Science Foundation and the History of Mind Centre of Excellence (Academy of Finland). The aim of the workshop was to elucidate the medieval reception of an- cient theories of sense perception and particularly late medieval and early modern developments which partially deviated from the ancient heritage. The papers con- centrate on the so-called external senses and related themes. Many of the central ideas of these traditions are discussed, although the collection is also meant to shed light on less studied subjects and open up new question horizons.

Simo Knuuttila University of Helsinki, Finland Pekka Karkk¨ ainen¨ University of Helsinki, Finland Contributors

C. D’Ancona R. Pasnau University of Pisa University of Colorado

M. Edwards D. Perler Christ’s College, Cambridge Humboldt University Berlin E. K. Emilsson University of Oslo M. Pecharman´ CNRS-CRAL, France A. L. Ivry New York University R. Schumacher Humboldt University Berlin S. Knuuttila University of Helsinki J. F. Silva National Research Council University of Porto “Academy of Finland” L. Spruit P. Karkk¨ ainen¨ University of Rome “La Sapienza” University of Helsinki M. Yrjonsuuri¨ H. Løkke University of Jyvaskyl¨ a¨ University of Oslo

H. Lagerlund J. Zupko University of Western Ontario Emory University

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