Rethinking Intentionality, Person and the Essence: Aquinas, Scotus, Stein (Investigating Medieval Philosophy, 21)

The volume offers a series of systematic studies on the concepts of intentionality, essence and person in medieval philosophy and phenomenology, with special focus on Aquinas, Scotus and Edith Stein. Contents 6 Figures and Tables 8 Figures 8 Tables 8 Notes on Contributors 9 Editors Introduction: Once Again, Medieval Philosophy and Phenomenology 10 Acknowledgements 17 Primary Literature 17 Secondary Literature 18 1 Aquinas on Conscience and Consciousness 19 1 Introduction: Two Unconnected Phenomena? 19 2 The Cognitive Dimension of synderesis 22 3 The Cognitive Dimension of conscientia 29 4 Conclusion 37 Primary Literature 40 Secondary Literature 40 2 Duns Scotus and Unexplained Intentionality 42 1 Objective Being 44 2 The Causal Account of Intentionality 47 3 Relations to the Object 49 4 Conclusion 55 Primary Literature 56 Secondary Literature 56 3 John Duns Scotus on the Human Cognition of Singulars in the Present State 59 1 Introduction 59 2 Pro and contra: Aporias? 62 2.1 The Senses Know the Singulars, the Intellect Knows the Universals 63 2.2 Yes, We Can (?) 64 2.3 No, We Can’t 68 3 ... ​But We Must Know Singulars 73 3.1 How Are Singulars Known? 75 4 Some Conclusions and Some Examples 78 Primary Literature 80 Secondary Literature 81 4 “How Many Angels”: Scotus, Stein, and Love of Singularity 83 1 “Love of Singularity, Desire for Novelty” 84 2 From the Corners to the Center? 90 3 Scotus and Radical Haecceitism 99 4 The High Cost of Haecceity 104 5 A New Model for Singular Thought 108 6 Conclusion: Stein as Lover of Singularity 111 Ancient and Medieval Sources 112 Contemporary Authors 115 5 Intentionality as Vital Striving? Edith Stein and Thomas Aquinas 118 1 Introduction 118 2 Neo-Scholasticism and Intentionality 121 3 Edith Stein: “The I is alive, and its life is its being” 124 3.1 Vitality of the I 124 3.2 Vitality and Intentionality 127 4 Thomas Aquinas on Intellect as a Form of Life 132 5 Word vs. Life? A Retrospective on Intentionality in Scholasticism, Neo-Scholasticism, and Edith Stein 137 Primary Literature 141 Secondary Literature 142 6 “Principia Individuationis”: Edith Stein between Early Phenomenology, Aquinas, and Scotus 144 1 Status Quaestionis 144 2 Stein’s First Form of “Scotism” 147 2.1 “... if I understand him correctly”: Stein’s Footnote on Scotus 147 2.2 Jean Hering and Individual Essence (Wesen) 154 3 Stein’s Second Form of “Scotism” 159 3.1 Formal and Material Ontology: an Overview 159 3.2 The Being-Socrates of Socrates 164 4 Conclusion: Stein, Phenomenology, and haecceitas 168 Primary Literature 170 Secondary Literature 171 7 Essential Being or Unity Less than Numerical Unity? Stein and Scotus on the Universal 173 1 Introduction 173 2 Similarities in the Debate Regarding Universals 173 2.1 Stein’s Articulation of the Problem of Universals 173 2.2 Scotus’s and Stein’s Extreme Realism 175 2.3 Brief Defenses of Extreme Realism 179 3 Differences between Scotus’s and Stein’s Extreme Realism 180 3.1 Unity Less than Numerical versus Essential Being 180 3.2 Stein on Essential Being 182 3.3 Essential Being as a Kind of Potency? 186 4 Conclusion 188 Primary Literature 189 Secondary Literature 190 8 The Human Person and the Problem of Its Constitutive Layers 191 1 The Problem of Personhood in Stein’s Early Phenomenological Works 194 2 The Being and Life of Persons: Intensities of Periphery and Center, Surface and Depth 197 3 On the Possibility of Occasional Personhood? 206 Primary Literature 208 Secondary Literature 208 9 Stein on Forms of Affective Intentionality 210 1 Introduction 210 2 The Affective Intentionality Thesis: the Brentanian and the Early Phenomenological Versions 212 3 Stein on the Stratification of the Affective Life 218 4 Varieties of Affective Intentionality in Stein 225 5 Concluding Remarks 229 Primary Literature 231 Secondary Literature 231 10 The Intentionality of Matter: the Personal Character of Nature in Edith Stein’s Potency and Act 233 1 The Expressiveness and Intentionality of Nature 234 2 The Spirit and Intentionality of Matter as Objective Spirit 239 3 Spirit that Matters: a Metaphysics of Breath 242 Primary Literature 247 Secondary Literature 247 Index 249 What is the relationship between the concept of person and the concept of intentionality? Is the phenomenological notion of essence somehow related to that of medieval philosophies? What kind of entity is the person understood in her irreducible singularity? These are some of the questions that the chapters in this book seek to address and develop by focusing on the thought of Aquinas, Scotus and Edith Stein. Indeed, the editors of the book are led by the conviction that a fruitful dialogue between medieval philosophy and 20th century phenomenology may prove useful in addressing questions and problems that are still relevant in contemporary debates. The book is divided into three sections, devoted respectively to medieval philosophy, phenomenology and some of the possible systematic and historical intersections between them. Contributors are Sarah Borden Sharkey, Antonio Calcagno, Therese Cory, Daniele De Santis, Andrew LaZella, Dominik Perler, Giorgio Pini, Francesco Valerio Tommasi, Anna Tropia, and Ingrid Vendrell Ferran.