Duns Scotus's Theory of CognitionRichard Cross provides the first complete and detailed account of Duns Scotus's theory of cognition, tracing the processes involved in cognition from sensation, through intuition and abstraction, to conceptual thought. He provides an analysis of the ontological status of the various mental items (acts and dispositions) involved in cognition, and a new account of Scotus on nature of conceptual content. Cross goes on to offer a novel, reductionist, interpretation of Scotus's view of the ontological status of representational content, as well as new accounts of Scotus's opinions on intuitive cognition, intelligible species, and the varieties of consciousness. Scotus was a perceptive but highly critical reader of his intellectual forebears, and this volume places his thought clearly within the context of thirteenth-century reflections on cognitive psychology, influenced as they were by Aristotle, Augustine, and Avicenna. As far as possible, Duns Scotus's Theory of Cognition traces developments in Scotus's thought during the ten or so highly productive years that formed the bulk of his intellectual life. |
Contents
| 1 | |
1 Sensation | 18 |
2 Intuitive Cognition | 43 |
Abstraction and Concept Formation | 64 |
Intelligible Species | 81 |
5 The Ontological Status of Cognitive Acts | 102 |
6 The Mechanisms of Occurrent Cognition | 122 |
7 The Soul and its Powers | 138 |
8 Semantic Internalism and the Grounds of Intentionality | 150 |
9 Mental Language and the Nature of Conceptual Content | 171 |
10 The Ontological Status of Mental Content | 182 |
Concluding Remarks | 200 |
| 205 | |
| 213 | |
| 219 | |
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Common terms and phrases
abstractive cognition according act of cognition actual agent intellect Aquinas Aquinas’s argues argument Aristotelian Aristotle Aristotle’s Avicenna causal role Chapter claim cognitive act concept conceptual content discussion distinction divine Dominik Perler Duns Scotus end term essence example existence external extramental object feature God’s cognition Godfrey of Fontaines habit haecceity Henry of Ghent Henry’s immaterial inherent intel intellectual cognition intelligibile intelligible species intentional intentionalI intentionality intuitive cognition John Duns Scotus kind measured medieval memory mental acts mental content merely metaph metaphysical nature occurrent cognition Ockham ontological partial cause particular Pasnau passage perfect Peter King phantasm Pini possible intellect present production Quod Quodlibet real relation realI relevant representation requires Scotus holds Scotus’s account Scotus’s view seems sensation sense sensible species sensory simply singular soul species in medio substance such-and-such syntactic talking theory thing thought tion universal vatican Wadding Wolter and Bychkov