The Embodied Soul : Aristotelian Psychology and Physiology in Medieval Europe Between 1200 and 1420

This book contains a collection of papers devoted to the problems of body, mind and soul in medieval Europe between 1200 and 1420. Modern discussions of the mind-body relationship seldom look back into the past further than the psycho-somatic dualism of Descartes which started the mechanistic approach in biology and medicine. The authors of the volume go beyond that fault line to investigate the tradition of medieval natural philosophy and its ancient sources and analyze the issues forming a borderland between physiology and psychology. They also demonstrate that the medieval tradition was rich and diverse for it offered a wide variety of the discussed problems as well as the methodological approaches. This volume is the first attempt to cover a diversity of topics and methods employed in the medieval debates on body, mind and soul as well as their interrelationships. The Embodied Soul is a must-have for all those interested in puzzling dilemmas of how a living organism functions and how its inner life can be explained as well as for all those interested in the history of thought in general. Chapter 14 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com. Preface Contents Chapter 1: The Development of Aristotelian Psychology and Physiology in Medieval Europe Between 1200 and 1420: Introduction 1.1 Introduction 1.2 The First Phase: Aristotle’s De anima and Avicenna’s Liber sextus naturalium 1.3 The Second Phase: Parva Naturalia’s Translatio Vetus and Averroes’s Commentaries 1.4 The Third Phase: The Reception of the Last Wave of Translations References Chapter 2: Physiology of Taste and Intentionality in John Blund’s Tractatus De Anima 2.1 On Blund’s De anima 2.2 Body, Soul and the Senses 2.3 What the Soul Is 2.4 Touch and Taste 2.5 How Flavour is Manifested to Taste 2.6 Voluntary Attention 2.7 Perception, Qualities and Sense Data 2.8 Perception and the Source of True Knowledge References Primary Literature Secondary Literature Chapter 3: Anthropology of Gilbertus Anglicus’ Compendium medicinae 3.1 The Shadowy Figure of Gilbertus Anglicus 3.2 From Ancient to Scholastic Medicine 3.3 In Search of the Definition of the Soul 3.4 The Problem of the Soul’s Immortality 3.5 The Problem of Intellect 3.6 Conclusion References Primary Literature Secondary Literature Chapter 4: A Stain on the Bronze: Some Medieval Latin Commentators on De insomniis 2, 459b23–460a32 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Adam of Buckfield and Albert the Great 4.3 Some Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Quaestiones on De insomniis 2, 459b23–460a32 4.4 Conclusion References Primary Literature Secondary Literature Chapter 5: Pygmies, Twins, Monsters: Human Nature and Its Borderlines in Albert the Great 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Pygmies and Human Reason 5.3 Twins and Human Fate 5.4 Conclusion: Humans or Monsters? The Intention of Nature References Primary Literature Secondary Literature Chapter 6: Why Philosophers Father Foolish Children: Peter of Spain, Albert the Great, and James of Viterbo on the Transmission of Intellectual Qualities 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The Salernitan Question and Peter of Spain’s Quaestiones super libro “De animalibus” 6.3 Albert the Great’s Quaestiones super libris “De animalibus” 6.4 Sperm, Complexion, and Generation 6.5 Heat and Moisture in Albert’s Physiology: Old Men and Generation 6.6 Two Faces of Melancholy: Aristotle and Galen 6.7 What Is Unnatural Melancholy? 6.8 James of Viterbo’s Quodlibet IV, Question 23 6.9 Conclusion References Primary Literature Secondary Literature Chapter 7: Bodily Prerequisites of the Mind: The Spirit as the Highest Product of Digestion 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Aristotle’s Notion of Pneuma 7.3 Galen’s Pneumatology 7.4 Costa ben Luca’s Definition of Spirit 7.5 Avicenna’s Connection Between the Humours and the Spirits 7.6 Albert the Great: The Spirit as the Highest Product of Digestion 7.7 Conclusion References Primary Literature Secondary Literature Chapter 8: The Role of the Intentio Individualis in Albert the Great’s Sense Perception Theory 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Albert the Great and the Individual Intentions 8.3 The Inner Senses, Avicenna, and the Animal Problem 8.4 Averroes and the Intentio Individualis 8.5 Albert the Great: Paraphrases and Intentio 8.6 Accidents, Forma Totius, and Praedicatio per se Tertio Modo 8.7 Conclusion References Primary Literature Secondary Literature Chapter 9: Death, the Intellect and the Resurrection of the Dog: Geoffrey of Aspall’s Questions on the De Longitudine et Brevitate Vitae 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Manuscripts 9.3 Authenticity 9.4 On the Death of the Intellectual and Sensitive Souls 9.5 Conclusion Appendices Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3 References Primary Literature Secondary Literature Chapter 10: Medieval Views on the Subject of Thought and the Intellectual Soul 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Aquinas’s View 10.3 Aristotelian Evidence Against the Independence of Thought from the Body 10.4 Aquinas’s Defence of the Independence of Thought 10.5 Giles of Rome 10.6 Thomas Wylton References Primary Literature Secondary Literature Chapter 11: A Medieval Defence of Innatism: The Case of James of Viterbo 11.1 Introduction: Thomas Aquinas on Innatism and Related Mistakes 11.2 James on Innate Perception and Intellectual Cognition 11.3 James of Viterbo on Pre-existing Forms in Matter 11.4 Innate Virtues 11.5 Conclusion: Back to Aquinas References Primary Literature Secondary Literature Chapter 12: The World of Senses. On the Process of Cognition in Walter Burley 12.1 Introduction 12.2 The Process of Cognition as a Process of Abstraction 12.2.1 The External Senses 12.2.2 The Internal Senses 12.2.3 The Intellect 12.3 Active and Passive Elements of the Human Sensorium 12.4 Object of Cognition 12.5 Conclusion References Primary Literature Secondary Literature Chapter 13: “Is Touch One Sense or Several?” A Late Medieval Scientific Question 13.1 Introduction: The Issues Presented by Touch 13.2 Two Late Medieval Reflections on the Unicity or Plurality of the Sense of Touch 13.2.1 Tommaso del Garbo on the Unicity or Plurality of the Sense of Touch 13.2.2 John Buridan on the Unicity or Plurality of the Sense of Touch 13.3 Conclusion References Primary Literature Secondary Literature Chapter 14: Buridan Wycliffised? The Nature of the Intellect in Late Medieval Prague University Disputations 14.1 Introduction 14.2 Prague University Disputations Around 1400: Scholarly Practices and Manuscript Sources 14.3 The Intellect Disputed: A Review of Sources 14.4 The Nature of the Intellect: Conceptual Tensions Between Materialism and Immortality 14.5 Doctrinal Sources and Positions in Prague Disputations 14.6 Conclusion References Primary Literature (Manuscripts & Editions) Secondary Literature Author Index Subject Index