Table Of ContentHistorical-Analytical Studies on Nature, Mind and Action 11
Marek Gensler
Monika Mansfeld
Monika Michałowska Editors
The Embodied
Soul
Aristotelian Psychology and Physiology
in Medieval Europe between 1200 and
1420
Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature,
Mind and Action
Volume 11
Editor-in-Chief
Gyula Klima, Fordham University, New York, USA
Series Editors
Russell Wilcox, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
Hendrik Lagerlund, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Jonathan Jacobs, CUNY, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, USA
Advisory Editors
Dan Bonevac, University of Texas, Austin, USA
Sarah Borden, Wheaton College, Wheaton, USA
Edward Feser, Pasadena College, Pasadena, USA
Jorge Garcia, University of Buffalo, New York, USA
WIlliam Jaworski, Fordham University, New York, USA
Joseph E. Davis, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
Stephan Meier-Oeser, Academy of Sciences of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Jose Ignacio Murillo, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
Calvin Normore, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA
Penelope Rush, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia
Jack Zupko, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature, Mind and Action provides a forum for
integrative, multidisciplinary, analytic studies in the areas of philosophy of nature,
philosophical anthropology, and the philosophy of mind and action in their social
setting. Tackling these subject areas from both a historical and contemporary
systematic perspective, this approach allows for various “paradigm-straddlers” to
come together under a common umbrella. Digging down to the conceptual-historical
roots of contemporary problems, one will inevitably find common strands which
have since branched out into isolated disciplines. This series seeks to fill the void for
studies that reach beyond their own strictly defined boundaries not only
synchronically (reaching out to contemporary disciplines), but also diachronically,
by investigating the unquestioned contemporary presumptions of their own
discipline by taking a look at the historical development of those presumptions and
the key concepts they involve. This series, providing a common forum for this sort
of research in a wide range of disciplines, is designed to work against the well-
known phenomenon of disciplinary isolation by seeking answers to our fundamental
questions of the human condition: What is there? – What can we know about it? –
What should we do about it? – indicated by the three key-words in the series title:
Nature, Mind and Action. This series will publish monographs, edited volumes, and
commented translations.
Marek Gensler • Monika Mansfeld
Monika Michałowska
Editors
The Embodied Soul
Aristotelian Psychology and Physiology
in Medieval Europe between 1200 and 1420
Editors
Marek Gensler Monika Mansfeld
University of Łódź University of Łódź
Łódź, Poland Łódź, Poland
Monika Michałowska
Medical University of Łódź
Łódź, Poland
Akademie Věd České Republiky
Narodowe Centrum Nauki
This work was supported by the Polish National Science Centre (NCN) grant n.
UMO-2016/23/B/HS1/00430. The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic has funded
the Open Access publication of the chapter “Buridan Wycliffised? The Nature of the Intellect
in Late Medieval Prague University Disputations” by Lukáš Lička.
ISSN 2509-4793 ISSN 2509-4807 (electronic)
Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature, Mind and Action
ISBN 978-3-030-99452-5 ISBN 978-3-030-99453-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99453-2
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
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Preface
The Embodied Soul: Aristotelian Psychology and Physiology in Medieval Europe
Between 1200 and 1420 explores a wide range of issues of philosophical anthropol-
ogy in the later Middle Ages. The purpose of this volume is to acquaint a wider
audience with the dynamic of the reception of Aristotle-inspired views on psychol-
ogy and physiology and the mind-body problem, which increased vigorously after
the translation of Aristotle’s natural philosophy treatises into Latin. It sheds light on
the writings of both the best-known masters of that time and authors whose works
and ideas have undeservedly fallen into oblivion and still await critical editions and
investigation.
The collection evolved from the papers read at the conference Mind and Body:
Aspects of Medieval Natural Philosophy, which was held at the University of Łódź,
Poland, on 13–14 June 2019, to conclude the project entitled The Problem of Mind-
Body Relation in the Philosophy of Walter Burley.
This book came into being during a very disturbing time, when the COVID-19
pandemic was announced and lockdowns were imposed all over the world. We are
deeply grateful to the authors with whom we had the pleasure to work on this vol-
ume for their determination and engagement in the production of the volume. We
would like to thank all those who encouraged us during this time, and especially our
families for their love and unfailing support.
Łódź, Poland Marek Gensler
Łódź, Poland Monika Mansfeld
Łódź, Poland Monika Michałowska
v
Contents
1 The Development of Aristotelian Psychology and Physiology
in Medieval Europe Between 1200 and 1420: Introduction . . . . . . . . 1
Marek Gensler, Monika Mansfeld, and Monika Michałowska
2 Physiology of Taste and Intentionality in John Blund’s
Tractatus De Anima . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Riccardo Fedriga
3 Anthropology of Gilbertus Anglicus’ Compendium medicinae . . . . . . 37
Agnieszka Kijewska
4 A Stain on the Bronze: Some Medieval Latin Commentators
on De insomniis 2, 459b23–460a32 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Christina Thomsen Thörnqvist
5 Pygmies, Twins, Monsters: Human Nature
and Its Borderlines in Albert the Great . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Evelina Miteva
6 Why Philosophers Father Foolish Children: Peter of Spain,
Albert the Great, and James of Viterbo on the Transmission
of Intellectual Qualities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Mario Loconsole
7 Bodily Prerequisites of the Mind:
The Spirit as the Highest Product of Digestion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Marilena Panarelli
8 The Role of the Intentio Individualis in Albert
the Great’s Sense Perception Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Paloma Hernández-Rubio
vii
viii Contents
9 Death, the Intellect and the Resurrection of the Dog:
Geoffrey of Aspall’s Questions on the De Longitudine
et Brevitate Vitae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Michael W. Dunne
10 Medieval Views on the Subject of Thought
and the Intellectual Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Cecilia Trifogli
11 A Medieval Defence of Innatism: The Case of James of Viterbo . . . . 213
Martin Pickavé
12 The World of Senses. On the Process of Cognition
in Walter Burley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Monika Mansfeld
13 “Is Touch One Sense or Several?” A Late Medieval
Scientific Question. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Chiara Beneduce
14 Buridan Wycliffised? The Nature of the Intellect
in Late Medieval Prague University Disputations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Lukáš Lička
Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Chapter 1
The Development of Aristotelian
Psychology and Physiology in Medieval
Europe Between 1200 and 1420:
Introduction
Marek Gensler , Monika Mansfeld , and Monika Michałowska
Abstract The chapter is devoted to various aspects of philosophical anthropology
in the views of Latin authors of the Later Middle Ages. The boundaries of the period
are set by two important historical occurrences: the translation of Aristotelian natu-
ral philosophy treatises into Latin at the turn of the thirteenth century and the early
signs of crisis in scholastic philosophy precipitating the rejection of the pre-modern
vision of human being as a psychosomatic unity by early modern science. It pres-
ents, in a chronological order, the changes and developments in the understanding
of mutual relations between the soul and the body. It takes into account not only the
areas of interest (reproduction, nutrition, growth, motion, perception, cognition,
etc.) but also the forms of the analyzed works (literal commentaries, paraphrases,
questions, treatises). Moreover, it pays attention to the way in which those works
formed an interlocking chain through two and a half centuries of history with sev-
eral recurrently crossing trails, some of which were frequented throughout the
period, while others were of a more ephemeral character.
Keywords Medieval philosophy · Philosophy of nature · Philosophical
anthropology · Mind-body problem · Aristotelianism · History of physiology ·
History of psychology
This work was supported by the Polish National Science Centre (NCN) grant n. UMO-2016/23/B/
HS1/00430.
M. Gensler (*) · M. Mansfeld
University of Łódź, Łódź, Poland
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
M. Michałowska
Medical University of Łódź, Łódź, Poland
e-mail: [email protected]
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1
Switzerland AG 2022
M. Gensler et al. (eds.), The Embodied Soul, Historical-Analytical Studies on
Nature, Mind and Action 11, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99453-2_1
2 M. Gensler et al.
1.1 Introduction
The volume entitled The Embodied Soul. Aristotelian Psychology and Physiology in
Medieval Europe between 1200 and 1420 is devoted to various aspects of philo-
sophical anthropology in the views of Latin authors of the Later Middle Ages. The
boundaries of the period are set by two important historical occurrences: the transla-
tion of Aristotelian natural philosophy treatises into Latin at the turn of the thir-
teenth century and the early signs of crisis in scholastic philosophy precipitating the
rejection of the pre-modern vision of man as a psychosomatic unity by early modern
science, which apparently rendered the scholastic vision of the world obsolete. The
period included between those dates was by no means uniform in its doctrinal char-
acter, since the dynamic of reception and accommodation of new ideas resulted in
different forms of presenting issues belonging to that area of speculation. The vol-
ume sheds light on some aspects of that dynamic in the writings of both the best-
known masters of that time and those whose works and ideas have been neglected
so far and still await critical editions and investigation. For this reason, texts included
in this volume address both general and particular problems.
An important criterion of the volume’s structure and of the historical-doctrinal
analysis of those works is the time of their composition. Accordingly, the editors
have decided to arrange them primarily in a chronological order. However, two
further criteria have also been taken into consideration: the form of the analyzed
works (literal commentaries, paraphrases, questions, treatises) and the area of inter-
est (reproduction, nutrition, growth, motion, perception, cognition, etc.). As a result,
the order of the texts in the volume has been coordinated in such a way that they
form an interlocking chain of studies leading the reader through two and a half cen-
turies of history along several recurrently crossing trails, some of which were fre-
quented throughout the period, while others were of a more ephemeral character or
soon ran into dead ends.
1.2 The First Phase: Aristotle’s De anima and Avicenna’s
Liber sextus naturalium
The scholastic commentary tradition of Aristotle’s treatises on psychology and
physiology started with the Latin translation of two texts, viz. Aristotle’s De anima
and Avicenna’s Liber de anima (Sextus de naturalibus), in the second half of the
twelfth century.1 Their appearance in the Western institutions of learning coincided
in time but it was not a mere coincidence: the reception of each of them was signifi-
cantly influenced by the reception of the other. The reason for it was that the novel
ideas from Aristotle had to be juxtaposed and coordinated with the established
psychological doctrines of neo-Platonic origin. Avicenna’s neo-Platonic
1 See Hasse (2000).
