Representation and scepticism from Aquinas to Decartes

287 Pages·2017·2.73 MB·English

by  Adriaenssen

REPRESENTATION AND SCEPTICISM
FROM AQUINAS TO DESCARTES
In this book Han Thomas Adriaenssen offers the first compara-
tive exploration of the sceptical reception of representationalism in
medieval and early modern philosophy. Descartes is traditionally
credited with inaugurating a new kind of scepticism by saying that
the direct objects of perception are images in the mind, not exter-
nal objects, but Adriaenssen shows that as early as the thirteenth
century, critics had already found similar problems in Aquinas’s
theory of representation. He charts the attempts of philosophers
in both periods to grapple with these problems, and shows how
in order to address the challenges of scepticism and representa-
tion, modern philosophers in the wake of Descartes often breathed
new life into old ideas, remoulding them in ways that we are just
beginning to understand. His book will be valuable for historians
interestedinthemedievalbackgroundtoearlymodernthought,and
to medievalists looking at continuity with the early modern period.
han thomas adriaenssenisAssistantProfessorintheFaculty
of Philosophy at the University of Groningen. He has published a
numberofjournalarticlesonmedievalandearlymodernphilosophy.
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REPRESENTATION AND
SCEPTICISM FROM
AQUINAS TO DESCARTES
HAN THOMAS ADRIAENSSEN
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Contents
Acknowledgements page vii
ListofAbbreviations viii
Introduction 1
partI theveilofspecies 11
1 ThroughSpeciestotheWorld:AquinasandHenryofGhent 13
1.1 Cognition,ChangeandAssimilation 14
1.2 ApprehendingSpeciesandtheDirectnessofCognition 20
1.3 SpeciesandScepticism 25
1.4 HenryofGhent 29
2 PerceptionwithoutIntermediaries:Olivi’sCritiqueofSpecies 40
2.1 ChallengingtheSpeciesTheory 41
2.2 AugustinianAlternatives 53
2.3 Olivi’sDirectRealism 57
2.4 OlivionRepresentationalContent 64
2.5 ConceptualCognition:TheLimitsofOlivi’sDirectRealism 71
3 Direct Realism about Perception and Beyond: Auriol and
Ockham 81
3.1 AuriolonPerception 82
3.2 AuriolonConceptualThought 87
3.3 OckhamonSeeingwithoutSpecies 99
3.4 ActsoftheImaginationandTheirObjects 110
3.5 ThinkingofUniversals 114
partII theveilofcartesianideas 121
4 TransformationsofCartesianism:MalebrancheandArnauld 125
4.1 Descartes 126
4.2 Malebranche’sIntervention 143
4.3 TheVisioninGod 148
v
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vi Contents
4.4 ArnauldandtheChargeofIdealism 155
4.5 Arnauld’sAlternative 159
5 IdeasandObjectsinDesgabets’sRadicalCartesianism 169
5.1 ProblemsfromFoucher 171
5.2 DesgabetsandDirectRealism 174
5.3 Desgabets’sIntentionalityPrinciple 176
5.4 ReinterpretingtheEssentialBeing 186
5.5 ADestructionofPyrrhonism? 193
6 TheSolidPhilosophyofJohnSergeant 198
6.1 CartesianismasaReligiousThreat 199
6.2 Sergeant’sCritique 205
6.3 Sergeant’sWayofNotions 211
6.4 ThingsintheMind 214
partIII representationsandscepticism 221
7 FromRepresentationtoObject 223
7.1 UnusedRepresentations 224
7.2 OntologicalProblems 227
7.3 OntologyandtheObjectiveBeing 235
8 CriteriologicalProblems 238
8.1 EpistemicOptimism 239
8.2 CanWeTrustOurIdeas? 246
Conclusion 255
Bibliography 260
Index 275
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Acknowledgements
Thisbookhasgrownoutofadissertationwrittenunderthesupervisionof
Lodi Nauta at the University of Groningen. I am grateful to Lodi for all
hisadvice.ThanksarealsoduetoPaulBakker,HenrikLagerlund,Russell
Friedman and Robert Pasnau, who kindly agreed to serve as examiners of
the thesis. The University of Groningen has been a wonderful place to
reworktheproject.WithcolleaguessuchasSanderdeBoer,MartinLenz,
Lodi, Detlev Pätzold, Andrea Sangiacomo and Emily Thomas, it is hard
to imagine a friendlier and more inspiring environment to work on late
medievalandearlymodernthought.
Someofthechaptersinthisbookhavebeenpresentedatconferencesin
Nijmegen, Sherbrooke, London, New York, Liège and Mainz, and I have
learnedalotfromtheparticipantsandaudiencesatalloftheseoccasions.
AtaconferenceinGroningen,DominikPerlerprovidedasetofconstruc-
tivecommentsonapaperthathasdevelopedintoChapter5ofthisbook.
Twoanonymousreadershaveprovidedextensiveandveryhelpfulreports.
I am grateful to them, and to Cambridge University Press for arranging
thesereports.
Althoughthebookmostlyconsistsofnewmaterial,Igratefullyacknowl-
edgepermissionsfromeditorsandpublisherstoreuseportionsfromearlier
papers. Chapter 2 makes use of some material from my ‘Peter John Olivi
onPerceptualRepresentation’,whichappearedinVivarium,49.Chapters2
and3incorporateportionsfrom‘PeterJohnOliviandPeterAuriolonCon-
ceptualThought’,OxfordStudiesinMedievalPhilosophy,2.Somematerial
from ‘The Representation of Hercules. Ockham’s Critique of Species’ in
Documenti e Studi, 26 appears in Chapter 3. A section from Chapter 5
buildson‘TheRadicalCartesianismofRobertDesgabetsandtheScholas-
tic Heritage’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23, published by
Taylor and Francis. Permission to use Vermeer’s The Art of Painting has
kindlybeengrantedbytheKHM-Museumsverband,Vienna.
Finally, and on a more personal note, I want to express my gratitude
to Clazina, who has shared with me in both the joys and the pains of
preparingthisbook.
vii
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Abbreviations
AT Descartes,ŒuvresdeDescartes
CdC Desgabets,CritiquedelaCritique
CSM Descartes,PhilosophicalWritingsofDescartes
CSMK Descartes,PhilosophicalWritingsofDescartes.Correspondence
D Malebranche,DialoguesonMetaphysicsandonReligion
DM Suárez,Disputationesmetaphysicae
ES Auriol,ElectronicScriptumsuperprimumSententiarum
HO HenryofGhent,HenricideGandavoOperaOmnia
LO Malebranche,TheSearchafterTruth
OA Arnauld,ŒuvresdeMessireAntoineArnauld
OCM Malebranche,ŒuvrescomplètesdeMalebranche
OPh. Ockham,OperaPhilosophica
OTh. Ockham,OperaTheologica
QDV Aquinas,Quaestionesdisputataedeveritate
SCG Aquinas,Summacontragentiles
SDA Aquinas,SentencialibriDeanima
SL Ockham,Summalogicae
SQO HenryofGhent,Summaquaestionumordinariarum
ST Aquinas,Summatheologiae
Summa Olivi,QuaestionesinsecundumlibrumSententiarum
TDV Pasnau,‘PetriIoanniOliviTractatusdeVerbo’
References to Aquinas give page numbers in the Leonine edition when
possible. References to books I–III of the Sentences commentary cite the
Mandonnetedition,andtheearlierParmaeditionforbookIV.References
to Olivi’s Summa specify volume and page number in the Jansen edition
betweenbrackets.TheElectronicScriptumiscitedbylineratherthanpage
number.Unlessindicatedotherwise,alltranslationsaremyown.
viii
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Introduction
In his Meditations, Descartes set out to demolish, once in his life, every-
thinghehadlearned,andtosubjectallofhispreviouslyacquiredbeliefsto
an increasingly challenging series of sceptical arguments. The goal of this
project, Descartes confided to Mersenne in a 1641 letter, was to ‘destroy’
the foundations of Aristotelian natural philosophy, and to pave the way
foranewphysics(ATIII297–8,CSMK173).1 Famously,thisnewphysics
dismissed the scholastics’ analyses of bodies in terms of matter and form,
aiming to replace their hylomorphic language for a vocabulary of matter
inmotionthatwasatthesametimeplainer,andmoreexact.
But Descartes’s parting of ways with Aristotelian tradition here raises
fundamental questions about his account of cognition and representa-
tiontoo.Fortraditionally,scholasticcognitivepsychologyhadbeenfirmly
rootedinAristotelianontology.AccordingtoThomasAquinas,forexam-
ple,formetoperceivearedobjectwasformyeyetotakeovertheformthat
gives the object its colour. Generally speaking, all cognition consisted in
theassimilationofsubjectandobjectofcognition,theformertakingover
the latter’s form. But once the Aristotelian ontology of forms came under
attack in the seventeenth century, it became necessary for philosophers
suchas Descartesto rethink this accountof cognition.As one scholar has
putit,theoriginsofearlymoderncognitivetheory‘lieinDescartes’srejec-
tionoftheAristotelian-Scholasticontologyanditsaccompanyingaccount
2
ofhumancognition’.
ButifthefoundationsunderAristoteliantheoriesofcognitionhadfallen
intodisrepute,whatdidDescartesputintheirplace?Eversincetheseven-
teenth century, Descartes’s readers have struggled with this question, but
one influential answer has it that, in the Meditations, Descartes put forth
3
a specific variety of representationalism or indirect realism. According to
1
SeeGarber,‘SemelinVita’,fordiscussion.
2Dickerson,KantonRepresentation,5.
3See,forexample,Secada,CartesianMetaphysics,83–91;andNewman,‘IdeasandPerception’.
1
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2 Introduction
that theory, the cognition of any thing involves at least three entities: an
act of cognition, an inner representation or ‘idea’ and finally an external
object.Inthisscheme,theinnerrepresentationistheimmediateordirect
objectofcognition.Theexternalobject,bycontrast,iscognizedmediately
orindirectly.
Whether or not this answer succeeds in doing justice to Descartes’s
texts is a question that I will come back to in Chapter 4 below. For
now, the crucial point is that, in the eyes of many of Descartes’s con-
temporaries, Cartesian representationalism opened up a cleavage between
inner and outer world. The outer realm is crowded by trees, horses and
men, the inner by representations of trees, horses and men. And with the
gap between mind and world that so opened up, arose the challenge for
Descartes and his followers to explain how it is that we have access to the
worldatall.TheScottishphilosopherThomasReidintheeighteenthcen-
turydidnotseethatsuchanexplanationwasforthcomingfromwithinthe
theoryofideas.Ashegloomilyputitinonefamouspassage:
Thetheoryofideas,liketheTrojanhorse,hadaspeciousappearancebothof
innocenceandbeauty;butifthosephilosophershadknownthatitcarried
in its belly death and destruction to all science and common sense, they
4
wouldnothavebrokendowntheirwallstogiveitadmittance.
Twocenturieslater,RichardRortymaintainedthattheCartesianmindwas
5
shutofffromdirectaccesstotheworldbya‘veilofideas’. Andaccording
toHilaryPutnam,
ourdifficultyinseeinghowourmindscanbeingenuinecontactwiththe
‘external’ world is, in large part, the product of a disastrous idea that has
haunted Western philosophy since the seventeenth century, the idea that
perceptioninvolvesaninterfacebetweenthemindandthe‘external’objects
6
weperceive.
To be sure, these statements may require shading. Philosophers have
pointed out that representationalism may not be all that ‘disastrous’, and
7
Reid certainly was not the most charitable reader of Descartes. Even so,
when Descartes wrote that ‘the mind, when it understands, in some way
turns to itself, and inspects one of the ideas which are in it’ (AT VII 72,
4Reid,WorksI132.
5Rorty,PhilosophyandtheMirrorofNature,140.
6Putnam,ThreefoldCord,43.
7Onthefirstpoint,seeJackson,Perception,148–9;Greco,PuttingSkepticsinTheirPlace,90–107;and
Nadler,‘DoctrineofIdeas’,92.Onthesecond,seeHaldane,‘ReidandHistory’;andClemenson,
Descartes’sTheoryofIdeas,57–70.
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