The essay’s point of departure is O’Callaghan’s insistence that verbum mentis is for Aquinas not a philosophical doctrine, but “a properly theological topic.” The principal evidence for this interpretation consists in the functioning of verbum mentis in certain theological passages as well as its absence in others characterized as philosophical. The essay proceeds by situating Aquinas’s doctrine of verbum mentis within the tradition from which the expression is drawn and by examining the nature of (...) the Summa theologiae. Consequently, Aquinas is seen to espouse a philosophical doctrine of verbum mentis whose presence or absence in a particular passage is a function of both the passage’s goal and the nature of the audience for whom the passage was originally intended. (shrink)

Nella teologia trinitaria di Enrico di Gand, e in particolare nell'uso della nozione di verbum mentis, confluiscono ad avviso dell'A. tre diverse tradizioni che vengono rielaborate in un sistema coerente dal maestro agostiniano. La prima, quella cui aderiscono Tommaso e Bonaventura, insiste sul fatto che le persone sono distinte tra loro proprie per mezzo di relazioni opposte. La seconda, rappresentata da Riccardo di san Vittore, che attribuisce la differenza tra le persone al loro diverso modo di emanazione e (...) di origine. La terza che riprende il modello psicologico della trinità di Agostino ed in particolare l'immagine del Figlio come Verbum. Enrico incorpora i diversi elementi di queste tradizioni in modo originale e sostiene che il Figlio è distinto dalle altre due persone in base al diverso modo di emanazione , ma che è diverso dal Padre e dallo Spirito Santo anche perché è Verbum. L'A. sottolinea la notevole influenza esercitata da Bonaventura sul pensiero trinitario di Enrico, anche dal punto di vista della terminologia utilizzata e ipotizza che ciò sia dovuto al ruolo di «propaganda» delle dottrine bonaventuriane svolto da Ruggero Marston e Matteo d'Aquasparta. (shrink)

In “Verbum Mentis: Theological or Philosophical Doctrine?” (Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, vol. 74, 2000), I argued against a common interpretation of Aquinas’s discussion of the verbum mentis. The common interpretation holds that the verbum mentis constitutes an essential part of Aquinas’s philosophical psychology. I argued, on the contrary, that it is no part of Aquinas’s philosophical psychology, but is a properly theological discussion grounded in the practice of scriptural metaphor, exemplified by (...) such metaphors as “Christ is a rock.” James Doig challenges my alternate interpretation. His argument has three parts. He insists, first, that the discussion of the verbum mentis was a philosophical discussion in Aquinas’s predecessors, and that Aquinas never rejected this tradition; second, that it appears as a philosophical discussion in Aquinas’s commentary on the Gospel of John; third, that in the Summa theologiae, while there is no philosophical reason for Aquinas to discuss the verbum mentis in the context of the essence, powers, and operations of the soul (Ia, qq. 75–89), it is nevertheless a philosophical discussion in the examination of thedivine Trinity (Ia, qq. 27–43) Here I respond to and argue against all three legs of Doig’s counterargument. (shrink)

We consider a “polarized” version of bi-intuitionistic logic [5, 2, 6, 4] as a logic of assertions and hypotheses and show that it supports a “rich proof theory” and an interesting categorical interpretation, unlike the standard approach of C. Rauszer’s Heyting-Brouwer logic [28, 29], whose categorical models are all partial orders by Crolard’s theorem [8]. We show that P.A. Melliès notion of chirality [21, 22] appears as the right mathematical representation of the mirror symmetry between the intuitionistic and co-intuitionistc sides (...) of polarized bi-intuitionism. Philosophically, we extend Dalla Pozza and Garola’s pragmatic interpretation of intuitionism as a logic of assertions [10] to bi-intuitionism as a logic of assertions and hypotheses. We focus on the logical role of illocutionary forces and justification conditions in order to provide “intended interpretations” of logical systems that classify inferential uses in natural language and remain acceptable from an intuitionistic point of view. Although Dalla Pozza and Garola originally provide a constructive interpretation of intuitionism in a classical setting, we claim that some conceptual refinements suffice to make their “pragmatic interpretation” a bona fide representation of intuitionism. We sketch a meaning-asuse interpretation of co-intuitionism that seems to fulfil the requirements of Dummett and Prawitz’s justificationist approach. We extend the Brouwer-Heyting-Kolmogorov interpretation to bi-intuitionism by regarding co-intuitionistic formulas as types of the evidence for them: if conclusive evidence is needed to justify assertions, only a scintilla of evidence suffices to justify hypotheses. (shrink)

The article deals with the analysis of Kyiv-Mohyla conceptions of intellectual cognition in the context of the European scholastic tradition. There were analysed Traktat o duszy [The Treatise on Mind] by Kasian Sakovych, and handwritten philosophical courses by Inokentiy Gizel, Theophan Prokopvych and Georgiy Konyskyi.The article shows that Sakovych, Gizel and Prokopovych supported a typical scholastic di-vision of intellectual powers into the active and passive intellect, although Prokopovych expressed doubts about the necessity of this division. Unlike them, Konysky in 1749-51 (...) totally denied the division of the intellect. The article argues that Prokopovych’s and Konyskyi’s change in the interpretation of intellectual powers was influenced by modern philosophy, mainly by Cartesianism. In general, the views of Mohylian authors on the problem of intellectual cognition are marked by some eclecticism, combining elements of different scho-lastic schools. They followed Francisco Suarez and Scotists defining creative power of the possible intellect and the formal difference between two kinds of intellectual powers. However, they, especially Inokenitiy Gizel, went by Thomistic interpretation of verbum mentis. At the same time, the professors of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, like other scholastic philosophers, recog-nised the necessary connection between cognitive powers of different levels. In their view, cognitive powers belong to the human being as a complex substantial system. The article proves that Kyiv-Mohyla concepts of intellectual cognition express a range of clearly modern ideas; nevertheless, they are also oriented to the ideas that modern philosophy denied. (shrink)

Ockham is usually considered the first to hold a proper theory of mental language, but Aquinas is willing to call the concept, or the act of intellect by which something is understood, a verbum mentis or “mental word.” This essay explores the sense in which Aquinas regarded concepts as language-like. It argues that Aquinas's understanding of concepts and their objects meant that his application of syntactic and semantic analysis to them did not and could not lead in the (...) direction of theories of mental language as it was conceived by nominalist philosophers. -/- (Version for download here is uncorrected proofs. Please cite from published final version.). (shrink)

In the present article I examine Robert Kilwardby’s reading of Augustine’s and Anselm’s theories of the verbum mentis. The article is divided into three sections. In the first, I examine how Kilwardby’s criterion for personal distinction within the divine Trinity is applied to the powers of the rational soul. Kilwardby considers Anselm’s understanding of the Augustinian solution unable to support the real distinction of persons. In the two remaining sections, I inspect the two models of thinking: thinking as (...) speaking and thinking as seeing. It will be argued that Kilwardby accepts the seeing model and rejects the speaking model. (shrink)

This paper looks to make a small contribution to the critical engagement between philosophical Thomism and phenomenology, inspired by the recent work of the German phenomenologist and hermeneutic thinker Günter Figal. My suggestion is that Figal’s proposal for a broad-based hermeneutical philosophy rooted in a renewed realism concerning things in their externality and “objectivity” provides great potential for a renewed encounter with Thomist realism. The paper takes up this issue through a brief examination of some of the more problematic idealistic (...) features of Kantian and Husserlian thought, before turning to consider how these aspects of the tradition are reframed within Figal’s phenomenological realism. The Thomist position concerning the relation between things and their understanding (including the complex matter of the verbum mentis) is then raised, drawing both on Aquinas’s own texts and the interpretations of Jacques Maritain. Some striking emerging affinities between this tradition and Figal’s hermeneutic phenomenology are noted. (shrink)

It is somehow usual to grant that Augustine has given a former presentation of the famous argument of Descartes named the Cogito, and we ordinary think that the difference between the two authors is that the first one thinks of the inhabitation of Truth or Verbum, which transcends the ego. The paper is an attempt to think in a different way the sources of interiority in Augustine and Descartes. Based on Confessions and on De Trinitate, I trace the Greek (...) sources of the scheme of the movement of return and elevation, which defines the reflection and the access to the interior through verbum mentis. The distance that Descartes takes with the notion of reflection, in his definition of the thought, indicates an important difference in their conceptions of the interiority. (shrink)

It is somehow usual to grant that Augustine has given a former presentation of the famous argument of Descartes named the Cogito, and we ordinary think that the difference between the two authors is that the first one thinks of the inhabitation of Truth or Verbum, which transcends the ego. The paper is an attempt to think in a different way the sources of interiority in Augustine and Descartes. Based on Confessions and on De Trinitate, I trace the Greek (...) sources of the scheme of the movement of return and elevation, which defines the reflection and the access to the interior through verbum mentis. The distance that Descartes takes with the notion of reflection, in his definition of the thought, indicates an important difference in their conceptions of the interiority. (shrink)

L'exégèse a une histoire récente qu'enrichissent les problématiques des sciences humaines ainsi que les réflexions théologiques. L'article expose les grandes lignes de cette évolution depuis l'encyclique Providentissimus Deus , qui reconnaît, bien que timidement encore, l'importance du point de vue historicocritique, jusqu'au document de la Commission biblique pontificale L'interprétation de la Bible dans l'Église , qui intègre l'herméneutique contemporaine attentive à la place du lecteur dans l'interprétation du texte offert à sa lecture. La constitution conciliaire Dei Verbum constitue un (...) moment décisif de cette évolution en définissant l'Écriture et la Tradition comme «un unique dépôt sacré de la Parole de Dieu confié à l'Église». (shrink)

Presents Bernard Lonergan's five "verbum" articles that originally appeared in Theological studies. For Thomist students and scholars this "verbum" study offers a careful appraisal of the Thomist theory of knowledge as well as an introduction to the concepts found in Father Lonergan's "Insight". Since the concept of "verbum" dynamically affects the thought of Aquinas, it is necessary to grasp this concept to understand Thomist metaphysics and rational psychology. Lonergan has carefully analyzed and explicitly outlined "verbum"--An integral (...) part of the Thomist theory of knowledge. "Verbum" is examined as a tool of definition and for its impact on understanding, logical thought procession and related ideas stemming from "verbum". Discusses "the word" and its relation to abstraction. Focusses on St. Thomas' immediate concern in finding in Aristotle the point of insertion for Augustinian thought and in fusing a phenomenology of the subject with a psychology of the soul. (shrink)

The treatise of E.W. von Tschirnhaus «Medicina mentis»… is discussed in this article in the context of formation of Kant’s transcendental criticism. The study of theoretical sources of Tschirnhaus’s epistemology shows that, despite the strong influence of Spinoza and Leibniz, Tschirnhaus is closer to the Cartesian tradition. Trying to eliminate the metaphysical back-grounds from philosophy, he brings together empirical and rationalist traditions as close as possible. Such «critical convergence» results in the «subjective turn» that leads to Kant's transcendental idealism.

Prefatory. The Logic of Theism .–Our world, the thing or complex of things, which is continuous and co-ordinate with our present perception, is self-transcendent. The proof is from observation, from our reactions, which are often more sensitive than our direct observations, from the testimony of philosophers, expert psychologists, and poets . To say that our world is self-transcendent is to say that it presents itself to our minds as indigent of some sort of supplement or complement having some sort of (...) ontological status which it implies in some capacity. The problem of the Logic of Theism is the problem of determining, assigning a definite value to, these “somes.” In other words, the proof of God is the proof that what “our world implies” when it is made determinate corresponds with the received conception of God in such a way as to justify the substitution of the name God for the indication “what our world implies.”. (shrink)

El presente artículo presenta las grandes líneas de la hermenéutica agustiniana de Is 10,23 LXX en sermones ad populum de Agustín de Hipona. En su predicación aparece este locus exegético de la Patrística que se remonta a autores como Ireneo de Lyon y Orígenes de Alejandría. Brevemente veremos cómo aparece la mención y exégesis del texto de Isaías a lo largo de la producción agustiniana, para luego detenernos en la utilización del texto por parte de Agustín en contexto homilético. Nociones (...) de retórica clásica y elementos teológicos mostrarán la finalidad y la riqueza de la ratio interpretandi agustiniana. (shrink)

This early work by Robin G. Collingwood was originally published in 1924 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Speculum Mentis' is an academic work on the subject of philosophy. Robin George Collingwood was born on 22nd February 1889, in Cartmel, England. He was the son of author, artist, and academic, W. G. Collingwood. He was greatly influenced by the Italian Idealists Croce, Gentile, and Guido de Ruggiero. Another important influence was his father, a (...) professor of fine art and a student of Ruskin. He published many works of philosophy, such as Speculum Mentis (1924), An Essay on Philosophic Method (1933), and An Essay on Metaphysics (1940). (shrink)

Riassunto : Per la teoria della documentalità gli oggetti sociali sono atti iscritti e per la teoria della mente estesa le menti si estendono a processi o dispositivi esterni al corpo. Pur per motivi diversi, le due teorie convergono nel ridurre le differenze fra menti e documenti, e hanno a loro supporto la dimensione semiotica di menti e documenti; eppure, in una certa lettura, tali teorie risultano implausibili se si considera che le proprietà delle cose che chiamiamo “menti” non sono (...) identiche alle proprietà delle cose che chiamiamo “documenti”. Ciò chiama in causa una implicita tesi comune alle due teorie, quella di un esternismo forte che può essere messo in discussione in favore di un esternismo moderato o interazionista. Parole chiave : Diritto; Documentalità; Esternismo; Oggetti sociali; Ontologia sociale; Mente estesa; Maurizio Ferraris Minds are not documents: In the theory of documentality, social objects are understood as inscribed acts; in extended mind theory, minds are considered to extend beyond the body to external processes and devices. Although for different reasons, these two theories rely on the semiotic dimension to reduce the differences between minds and documents. Yet, in a certain reading, such theories are implausible if we consider that the properties of the things we call “minds” are not identical to the properties of the things we call “documents”. This calls into question a common thesis implicit in both theories: that moderate or interactionist externalism can be used to challenge strong externalism. Keywords : Law; Documents; Extended Mind; Externalism; Social Objects; Social Ontology; Maurizio Ferraris. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es interpretar la Germania de Tácito en tanto texto etnográfico y autoetnográfico, i.e. como crítico de la sociedad romana. Se rechazan los presupuestos filosóficos de “No Place like Rome: Identity and Difference in The Germania of Tacitus” de Ellen O’Gorman (§1), se analiza la escritura etnográfica de Tácito a través de la guerra y el comercio, enfatizando las ideas de forma, belleza, materia, mores y mente (§2). Por último, se destaca el uso utópico y de (...) crítica interna que adquiere el texto de Tácito (§3). (shrink)

This paper examines cognitive processes from an evolutionary, ecological and systemic perspective. Starting from Darwinian theory and the development of Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, the reference to evolutionary biology allows a rethinking of minds as complex phenomena "at the crossroads" between organisms and the environments they inhabit and contribute to build. It is proposed that this vision opens a space to overcome philosophical traditions that see in the minds "things" and in cognition a mirroring or representation of the world, to come (...) to an understanding of the former in terms of complex systems and to interpret the latter through the concept of "enaction". (shrink)

The present paper deals with the diachronic evolution of the Cartesian concept of intuitus, focusing particularly on the reasons for its (at least lexical) dismissal in Descartes's mature elaborations of his metaphysics. In section 1, I address the notion of intuitus presented in the Rules, showing that this concept is pivotal in Descartes' early epistemology of evidence. In section 2, I argue that such a concept can be traced back to certain distinctive elements of the Late Scholastic debate on angels (...) and human knowledge, from which Descartes could have drawn some of his early ideas. In section 3, I analyze the reasons behind Descartes' dismissal of the notion of intuitus, arguing for a deliberate choice, due both to epistemologico-metaphysical and theological reasons, on which I dwell focusing especially on Descartes' letters. -/- . (shrink)