The present dissertation concerns cognitive psychology--theories about the nature and
mechanism of perception and thought--during the High Middle Ages (1250-1350).
Many of the issues at the heart of philosophy of mind today--intentionality,
mental representation, the active/passive nature of perception--were also
the subject of intense investigation during this period. I provide an
analysis of these debates with a special focus on Durand of
St.-Pourçain, a contemporary of John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham.
Durand was widely recognized
as a leading philosopher until the advent of the early modern
period, yet his views have been largely neglected in the last century.
The aim of my dissertation, then, is to provide a new understanding of
Durand's cognitive psychology and to
establish a better picture of developments in cognitive psychology during
the period.
Most philosophers in the High Middle Ages held, in one form or another, the
thesis that most forms of cognition (thought, perception) involve the
reception of the form of the object into the mind. Such forms in
the mind explain what a given episode of cognition is about, its content.
According to what has been called the conformality theory of content, the
content of our mental states is fixed by this form in the mind.
Durand rejects this thesis, and one of the primary theses that I
pursue is that Durand replaces the conformality theory of content
with a causal theory of content, according to which the content of
our mental states is fixed by its cause. When I think about Felix
and not Graycat, this is to be explained not by the fact that I have
in my mind the form of Felix and not Graycat, but rather by the fact
that Felix and not Graycat caused my thought.
This is both a controversial interpretation and, indeed, a controversial
theory. It is a controversial interpretation because Durand seems to reject
the thesis that objects are the causes of our mental states. In the first
half of the present dissertation, I argue that Durand does not
reject this thesis but he rejects another nearby thesis: that objects as
causes give to us 'forms'. On Durand's view, an object causes a mental
state even though it does not give to us a new 'form'. In the second half
of the dissertation I defend Durand's causal theory of content
against salient objections to it.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/65475 |
| Date | 19 June 2014 |
| Creators | Hartman, Peter |
| Contributors | King, Peter |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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