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Poslední úprava: Anna Tropia, Ph.D. (12.02.2019)
What is the esse obiectivum? This Latin expression refers to the mental content of a concept and is specifically related to the mental world, in opposition to the extra-mental one. If, to most of the scholars, such concept evokes the treatment it received by Réné Descartes (1595 – 1650) in the Meditationes de prima philosophia (1641), its history can be traced back to the medieval scholastic context. For philosophers of 13th century, like Henry of Ghent and John Duns Scotus, used it in their theories of cognition, which are traditionally – and, in the case of Henry, in a very precise way – opposed to the realist position of Thomas Aquinas. According to the Angelic Doctor, a concept is issued from a real process, originated in the sensible domain and progressively dematerialized by means of the intelligible forms and of the intellect as well. In the case of philosophers like Henry of Ghent, such process is differently viewed and described: actual cognition is nothing else but the presence (praesentialitas) of an object in the intellect. Such presence obeys to different rules than those regulating the extramental world- and forms; namely, concepts are other kind of forms than those belonging to the extra-mental world. What does this mean and how is such mental world characterized, are the questions we are going to focus on by reading parts of some of the texts, which have paved the way to Descartes’ theory of the ideas. <br> As most of medieval scholastic texts, Henry’s have never been translated into English; in order to reflect on the special way of existence of ideas and concepts, we will work on a short anthology of texts bringing on the contraposition between esse obiectivum and esse formalis. We will focus on the specific lexicon of the schools – which is the same one that Descartes will later use, as it has been proved, at the beginning of the last century, in the nowadays classical reference text by Étienne Gilson, the Index scolastico-cartésien (1913- reprinted 1979). We shall start with a few crucial loci in Henry of Ghent and John Duns Scotus, proceed to look at what Francisco Suárez has done with the material in his "Disputationes Metaphysicae", and finally arrive at the treatment it received in Descartes' "Meditatio III" and in his polemical exchange with Caterus in Obj. I et Resp. I. |
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Poslední úprava: Anna Tropia, Ph.D. (07.02.2019)
Working on such lexicon in its making and arriving to early modern texts, such as Suárez’s and Descartes’, will provide students with 1/ a better comprehension of medieval and early modern scholastic Latin and with 2/ a more in-depth understanding of a classical philosophical problem. |
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Poslední úprava: doc. Mgr. Jan Palkoska, Ph.D. (11.02.2019)
Texts Henry of Ghent: Quodlibet IV q. 21, ff. 135r-137r; (excerpta) - Quodlibet V, q. 14, 174r-179v (esse obiective vs impressive). (excerpta)The edition of reference for the Quodlibeta is still the incunabulum Henrici de Gandavo Quodlibeta, Parisiis 1518 (reprint anast. Louvain 1961, accessible online: www.prdl.org). John Duns Scotus: Ordinatio I, d. 3, p. 3, q. 1-2 (excerpta from the editio Vaticana: John Duns Scotus, Opera omnia, t. III, Romae, 1954, p. 245ss.) Francisco Suárez, Disputationes Metaphysicae: disp. 2, 1, 1 (reference indicated by É. Gilson, Index-scolastico-cartésien, Paris, Vrin, 1979, p. 49); disp. 54, 2, 6-14 René Descartes, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, III; Obj. 1 + Resp. 1
Some elementary bibliography For the theme of the esse objectivum between medieval and early modern time, it might be helpful to consult the following texts: - Timothy Cronin, Objective being in Descartes and Suárez, Rome, Gregorian university press, 1966; - Giorgio Pini, “Il dibattito sulle specie intelligibili alla fine del XIII secolo”, Medioevo, 29 (2004), pp. 267-306 (for those able to read Italian, this paper is incredibly clear! Worthy to try) - Robert Pasnau, Theories of Cognition in the Later Middle Ages, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997 (although Henry’s claims are here treated in a few pages only) - Giorgio Pini, “Scotus on objective being”, Documenti E Studi Sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale, 26 (2015), pp. 81-103
As for the philosophers: - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/henry-ghent/ by Pasquale Porro - For Scotus and Henry, see Pini (2015) - For Scotus: see also Robert Pasnau, “Cognition”, in The Cambridge Companion to John Duns Scotus, ed. by Thomas Williams, Cambridge, CUP, 2006, pp. 285-311 |
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Poslední úprava: Anna Tropia, Ph.D. (07.02.2019)
We will read and translate together the Latin text each time, after a short introduction and discussion of the problems and the individuation of the technical and current terms. The bibliography indicated might provide an auxiliary tool. The reading of the Latin texts is nevertheless mandatory before each meeting (between 10 and 30 lines, each time). |