This paper argues that three characteristic modern positions concerning intentionality – namely, (1) that intentionality is ‘the mark of the mental’; (2) that intentionality concerns a specific type of objects having intentional inexistence; and (3) that intentionality somehow defies logic – are just three ‘modern myths’ that medieval philosophers, from whom the modern notion supposedly originated, would definitely reject.

This collection of readings with extensive editorial commentary brings together key texts of the most influential philosophers of the medieval era to provide a comprehensive introduction for students of philosophy. Features the writings of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Boethius, John Duns Scotus and other leading medieval thinkers Features several new translations of key thinkers of the medieval era, including John Buridan and Averroes Readings are accompanied by expert commentary from the editors, who are leading scholars in the field.

Ramsey et al.'s article provides a more sensitive framework for comparative innovation than others' operationalisations have done. Nevertheless, a methodology has to be elaborated in order to determine to what degree a behaviour is novel. Psychological processes have to be considered when evaluating the value of reference groups and in order to figure out where to look for innovation.

This paper argues for two principal conclusions about natural language semantics based on John Buridan's considerations concerning the notion of formal consequence, that is, formally valid inference. (1) Natural languages are essentially semantically closed, yet they do not have to be on that account inconsistent. (2) Natural language semantics has to be token based, as a matter of principle. The paper investigates the Buridanian considerations leading to these conclusions, and considers some obviously emerging objections to the Buridanian approach.

This paper analyses the import of three claims extracted from Geach's works concerning theories of predication and the reference of common terms, the notions of being or existence, and the force/content distinction and theories of valid inference, respectively. The paper highlights the theoretical and historical errors involved in these claims as well as their enormous influence and inspiration in the field of the philosophical study of medieval logic and metaphysics.

This paper primarily aims to provide a coherent interpretation of several, apparently conflicting claims made by Aquinas concerning the semantic function of the copula. The paper also argues that these claims can properly be understood only if they are interpreted as forming a coherent part of Aquinas' larger theory of the analogy of being. The Appendix sketches a model theoretical semantics for the reconstruction of Aquinas' relevant ideas, providing the technical means for setting apart the various senses of the verb (...) 'est' and its cognates distinguished by Aquinas. (shrink)

We study the process of observation (measurement), within the framework of a “perspectival” (“relational,” “relative state”) version of the modal interpretation of quantum mechanics. We show that if we assume certain features of discreteness and determinism in the operation of the measuring device (which could be a part of the observer's nerve system), this gives rise to classical characteristics of the observed properties, in the first place to spatial localization. We investigate to what extent semi-classical behavior of the object system (...) itself (as opposed to the observational system) is needed for the emergence of classicality. Decoherence is an essential element in the mechanism of observation that we assume, but it turns out that in our approach no environment-induced decoherence on the level of the object system is required for the emergence of classical properties. (shrink)

Under the traditional classification of medieval positions on the issue of universals, both Aquinas and Buridan would have to be deemed to be “conceptualists”: they both deny the existence of mind-independent, Platonic universals (against “realists”), and they both attribute universality primarily to the representative function of our universal concepts, and thus only secondarily to universal names of human languages (against “nominalists”). Yet, Aquinas is quite appropriately classified as a “moderate realist,” and Buridan as an “Ockhamist nominalist.” This paper will argue (...) that what justifies these more refined classifications is the two authors’ radically different conceptions of the representative function of our universal concepts. The paper will show how this difference results in their opposing judgments concerning the demonstrability of the thesis of the immateriality of the human intellect and will reply to Buridan’s main objection to Aquinas’s argument for this thesis, by pointing out the objection’s conflation of merely indifferent, non-distinctive singular representation with genuinely universal intellectual representation. In its conclusion, the paper will briefly gesture at an important contemporary implication of Aquinas’s thesis concerning a metaphysical limitation of artificial intelligence. (shrink)

This paper contrasts the Thomistic and Cartesian interpretations of what the substantial unity of the body and mind can consist in. A detailed discussion of the Thomistic account of the substantial unity of body and soul identifies especially those principles of the presupposed hylomorphist metaphysical background of this account that Descartes abandoned. After arguing for the consistency of the Thomistic view, briefly outlines how certain developments in late-medieval scholasticism prepared the way for the abandonment of precisely these principles. Finally, the (...) paper shows why from the perspective of the Thomistic principles identified in the first part, Descartes has to appear as someone paying mere lip-service to the thesis of the substantial unity of body and mind. (shrink)

This chapter compares the modern reliabilist strategies, including Buridan’s antiskepticism, considered in the previous chapter with a premodern form of antiskepticism, exemplified by Aquinas’s doctrine of “the formal unity of the knower and the known”, which, as the chapter argues, simply does not allow the emergence of “Demon-skepticism.” In fact, the chapter further argues that the emergence of “Demon-skepticism“ in its most extreme form, allowing an impossibility to appear as a possibility, indicates a serious flaw in the nominalist conception of (...) mental representation. Nevertheless, the chapter further argues that this flaw is easily masked by the apparent success of Buridan’s reliabilist strategy, not requiring the elimination of Demon-skepticism, but rather presenting reasonable ways for us to learn to live with it. (shrink)

This book provides the Latin text and its annotated English translation of the question-commentary of John Buridan (ca. 1300-1360) on Aristotle’s “On the Soul”. Buridan was the most influential Parisian nominalist philosopher of his time. His work speaks across centuries to our modern concerns in the philosophy of mind. This volume completes the project of a volume published earlier in the same series: “Questions on the Soul by John Buridan and Others”. An appealing book for scholars of Aristotle and those (...) who are in the field of Medieval philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter continues the discussion of the issues raised by the chapter 6, focusing on the issue of ontological commitment. The chapter argues that Buridan’s theory of ampliation, reconstructed in terms of quantification with restricted variables, provides a genuine third alternative to the opposing modern views of Quine and “the Meinongians.” Furthermore, the chapter argues that Buridan’s theory thus reconstructed says “all the right things” according to Quine in its object-language; however, it still seems to side with the Meinongians in (...) its meta-language. However, this is just a feature of the reconstruction: “the real Buridan” does not have this distinction, but works out his natural language semantics under conditions of what Tarski described as “semantic closure.”. (shrink)

This paper provides a comparison of three fundamentally different approaches to the issue of ontological commitment. It argues that despite superficial similarities on either side, Buridan’s approach provides an intriguing third alternative to the two commonly recognized modern approaches.

“The problem of universals” in general is a historically variable bundle of several closely related, yet in different conceptual frameworks rather differently articulated metaphysical, logical, and epistemological questions, ultimately all connected to the issue of how universal cognition of singular things is possible. How do we know, for example, that the Pythagorean theorem holds universally, for all possible right triangles? Indeed, how can we have any awareness of a potential infinity of all possible right triangles, given that we could only (...) see a finite number of actual ones? How can we universally indicate all possible right triangles with the phrase ‘right triangle’? Is there something common to them all signified by this phrase? If so, what is it, and how is it related to the particular right triangles? The medieval problem of universals is a logical, and historical, continuation of the ancient problem generated by Plato's (428-348 B.C.) theory answering such a bundle of questions, namely, his theory of Ideas or Forms. (shrink)

Buridan's life, works, and influence -- Buridan's logic and the medieval logical tradition -- The primacy of mental language -- The various kinds of concepts and the idea of a mental language -- Natural language and the idea of a formal syntax in Buridan -- Existential import and the square of opposition -- Ontological commitment -- The properties of terms (proprietates terminorum) -- The semantics of propositions -- Logical validity in a token-based, semantically closed logic -- The possibility of scientific (...) knowledge -- Buridan's anti-skepticism -- Buridan's essentialist nominalism. (shrink)

It is supposed to be common knowledge about the history of ideas that one of the few medieval philosophical contributions preserved in modern philosophical thought is the idea that mental phenomena are distinguished from physical phenomena by their intentionality, their directedness toward some object. As is usually the case with such commonplaces about the history of ideas, this claim is not quite true. Medieval philosophers routinely described ordinary physical phenomena, such as reflections in mirrors or sounds in the air, as (...) exhibiting intentionality, while they described what modern philosophers would take to be typically mental phenomena, such as sensation and imagination, as ordinary physical processes. Still, it is true that medieval philosophers would regard all acts of cognition as characterized by intentionality, on account of which all these acts are some sort of representations of their intended objects. This course is going to provide a broad survey of the conceptual relationships between intentionality, cognition and mental representation as conceived by some of the greatest medieval philosophers, including Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham and Buridan, and some of their lesser known contemporaries. The clarification of these conceptual connections sheds some light not only on the intriguing historical relationships between medieval and modern thought on these issues, but also on some fundamental questions in the philosophy of mind as it is conceived today. (shrink)

Contemporary "essentialism", if we want to provide a succinct, yet sufficiently rigorous characterization, may be summarized in the thesis that some common terms are rigid designators. [1] By the quotation marks I intend to indicate that I regard this as a somewhat improper (though, of course, permitted) usage of the term (after all, nomina significant ad placitum [2]). In contrast to this, essentialism, properly so-called, is the Aristotelian doctrine summarizable in the thesis--as we shall see, no less rigorous in its (...) own theoretical context--that things have essences. (shrink)

Saint Anselm’s proof for God’s existence in his Proslogion, as the label “ontological” retrospectively hung on it indicates, is usually treated as involving some sophisticated problem of, or a much less sophisticated tampering with, the concept of existence. In this paper I intend to approach Saint Anselm’s reasoning from a somewhat different angle.

This paper argues that Aquinas's conception of the human soul and intellect offers a consistent alternative to the dilemma of materialism and post-Cartesian dualism. It also argues that in their own theoretical context, Aquinas' arguments for the materiality of the human soul and immateriality of the intellect provide a strong justification of his position. However, that theoretical context is rather "alien" to ours in contemporary philosophy. The conclusion of the paper will point in the direction of what can be done (...) to render Aquinas's position more palatable to contemporary philosophers. (shrink)

This paper is not going to offer any criticism of the way Gaven Kerr treats Aquinas’ argument. Instead, it offers an alternative way of reconstructing Aquinas’ argument, intending to strengthen especially those controversial aspects of it that Kerr’s reconstruction left untreated or in relative obscurity. Accordingly, although the paper’s treatment will have to have some overlaps with Kerr’s, it will deal with issues essential to adequate replies to certain competent criticisms of his argument untreated by Kerr. For the sake of (...) the “formally inclined” reader, the paper’s treatment will also include an Appendix offering a formal reconstruction of both the main argument and its sub-arguments to demonstrate the formal rigor of Aquinas’ original. (shrink)

An argument with roots in ancient Greek philosophy claims that only humans are capable of a certain class of thought termed conceptual, as opposed to perceptual thought, which is common to humans, the higher animals, and some machines. We outline the most detailed modern version of this argument due to Mortimer Adler, who in the 1960s argued for the uniqueness of the human power of conceptual thought. He also admitted that if conceptual thought were ever manifested by machines, such an (...) achievement would contradict his conclusion. We revisit Adler’s criterion in the light of the past five decades of artificial-intelligence research, and refine it in view of the classical definitions of perceptual and conceptual thought. We then examine two well-publicized examples of creative works produced by AI systems and show that evidence for conceptual thought appears to be lacking in them. Although clearer evidence for conceptual thought on the part of AI systems may arise in the near future, especially if the global neuronal workspace theory of consciousness prevails over its rival, integrated information theory, the question of whether AI systems can engage in conceptual thought appears to be still open. (shrink)

Lo studio intende mettere in evidenza l'ambiguità della nozione di unità, intesa come entità numerica, con la nozione di unità quale sinonimo di essere. Sul primo concetto verte la parte iniziale dello studio, alla quale segue l'esame del significato ontologico di «uno». Le considerazioni fatte guidano l'A. a valutare i rapporti di relazione fra le nozioni di essere e uno, e quelle di sostanzialità, identità e semplicità in Tommaso. La gerarchia ontologica che ha al vertice l'essere assoluto e l'assoluta unità (...) implica la paradossale impossibilità di «significare» e definire la divinità. (shrink)

In this paper, I will primarily argue for the consistency of Aquinas’ conception, according to which the human soul, uniquely in God’s creation, is both the inherent, material, substantial form of the human body, and the subsistent immaterial substance underlying the immaterial operations of its immaterial, rational powers, namely, intellect and will. In this discussion, I will point out that typical challenges to Aquinas’ conception usually rely on semantic or ontological assumptions that can plausibly be denied in Aquinas’ own conceptual (...) framework. Since the issue of consistency merely assumes the less than self-evident claim of the immateriality of the human intellect, I will also provide a brief sketch of what I take to be Aquinas’ most promising proof of this claim. (shrink)

Common representational content allows the Buridanian classification of human concepts discussed in the fourth chapter, which provides the first thoroughgoing, systematic survey of Buridan’s conception of a mental language. The chapter discusses the divisions of concepts into syncategorematic and categorematic, simple and complex, absolute and connotative, and singular and common concepts. Besides presenting these classifications, the chapter provides a detailed discussion of the idea of conceptual complexity as semantic compositionality, its role in Buridan’s nominalist program of “ontological reduction,” and his (...) precarious positioning of his account of the distinction between the representational contents of universal and singular concepts “somewhere between” those of Ockham and Aquinas. The discussion relates the emerging issues to contemporary concerns in the philosophy of mind and language, such as the possibility of forming genuinely singular concepts and simple substantial concepts that would allow some terms of our language to function as rigid designators; the differences between consciousness and mental content; and the problem of universal representation without real universals. (shrink)

This volume features essays that explore the insights of the 14th-century Parisian nominalist philosopher, John Buridan. It serves as a companion to the Latin text edition and annotated English translation of his question-commentary on Aristotle's On the Soul. The contributors survey Buridan's work both in its own historical-theoretical context and in relation to contemporary issues. The essays come in three main sections, which correspond to the three books of Buridan's Questions. Coverage first deals with the classification of the science of (...) the soul within the system of Aristotelian sciences, and surveys the main issues within it. The next section examines the metaphysics of the soul. It considers Buridan's peculiar version of Aristotelian hylomorphism in dealing with the problem of what kind of entity the soul (in particular, the human soul) is, and what powers and actions it has, on the basis of which we can approach the question of its essence. The volume concludes with a look at Buridan's doctrine of the nature and functions of the human intellect. Coverage in this section includes the problem of self-knowledge in Buridan's theory, Buridan's answer to the traditional medieval problem concerning the primary object of the intellect, and his unique treatment of logical problems in psychological contexts. (shrink)

Is there a grammar of the name ‘God’? In an obvious and trivial sense there certainly is. This term, being a part of the English language, has to obey the grammatical rules of that language. So, for example, by consulting the relevant textbooks and dictionaries we can establish that ‘God’ is a noun, so it can function as the subject or predicate of simple categorical sentences, but it cannot, for example, function as a verb or a preposition.

The lectures presented here are the by-product of my teaching in Yale's Directed Studies program from 1991 through 1993 (hence the title, for want of a better). In fact, being what they are, lecture notes for an introductory philosophy course, they present rather elementary material. Yet, I flatter myself, they do not lack certain originality in the treatment of some of the basic questions of traditional metaphysics and epistemology. In any case, over the past couple of years they proved to (...) be quite useful in teaching my several other courses, especially in medieval philosophy. Thus, being too elementary for transforming them into scholarly papers, on the one hand, yet, containing what I think to be both philosophically interesting and pedagogically useful ideas, on the other, I decided to publish them here, in the Net's formally less stringent medium. Here they can easily be accessed by people who think what they need is a clear and simple discussion of the intriguing philosophical points themselves, rather than the meticulous and sometimes cumbersome scholarly discussions of the texts that raised them (a description which fits, at least, the majority of my students). Given these considerations (as well as the author's lack of time), the lectures are presented here basically unedited, in the form as they were actually delivered, without any notes or references (disregarding the occasionally inserted page numbers, serving as reminders for myself, referring to the texts we used in class). However, anyone who is interested in the more detailed scholarly discussion of some of the topics touched upon here may wish to check some of the papers listed on my.. (shrink)