Philosophy of Mind in the Early and High Middle Ages by Margaret Cameron

Author:Margaret Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Animal species differ from each other with respect to the number of pieces their psychological puzzle contains.7 Simple animals, such as worms, have only the sense of touch and perhaps the common sense. Higher animals have all the external and internal senses, and on top of that, human beings have the intellectual powers. This difference between various species brings a further complication to our endeavor to assemble the medieval puzzle: the complete perceptual experience is different in the case of simple animals, higher animals, and human beings. I shall leave the simple animals aside for brevity’s sake, but it is good to remember that the following discussion applies to human beings and higher animals. If we want to know how worms and the like perceive their environment, we need to leave out the more complex psychological functions, that will be discussed below.

A great deal of medieval psychology is related to these psychological powers. Philosophers discussed their physiological aspects and their relation to the bodily organs, the metaphysics and the functions of the pieces, the “mechanics” of the functions, and so forth. Questions were raised, for instance, on the mutual relations of the powers of the soul (Are senses distinct powers or functions of one sensory power? What are the criteria for distinguishing various powers from each other?), the mechanism of sense perception (How do perceptual qualities actualize the senses? What does it mean that the sight is the most spiritual of the external senses?), and the anatomical location of the powers, as well as the relation between cognitive acts and physiological changes. All these aspects are important if we want to understand the details of any medieval theory of perception, but I shall provide here only a general outline of the most important aspects of the discussions, because mostly they are not relevant for our purposes – the metaphysical and other similar details of theories of perception are but a foundation which sets the stage for analyzing their psychological aspects.

Philosophical discussions concerning the mechanics of perception were important in the natural philosophy of the thirteenth century. As I already mentioned, medieval Latin authors combined elements from Aristotle’s philosophy and the Arabic tradition. Moreover, they interpreted Aristotle’s texts in light of the new innovations that Arabic philosophers had made. Two of these innovations are especially important. First, the so-called perspectivist theories of perception that focus on analyzing the rectilinear propagation of light and vision led medieval Latin authors such as Roger Bacon (ca. 1214–ca. 1292), Vitello (ca. 1230–ca. before 1314), and John Peckham (ca. 1230–1292) into detailed discussions concerning the nature of sensible species and optics.8 Second, Avicenna’s theory of the internal senses, which incorporated elements from Galenic anatomy and physiology, played a crucial role in the development of Latin cognitive psychology, including theories of perception. Within the framework set by these two traditions, scholastic authors presented an array of theories that differed in many details.

Generally the process of perception was explained by using a technical term species, which accounted for

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