The paper investigates relations between the notions of intentionality and cognition in medieval philosophy. (The investigation is restricted to Latin works written between ca. 1240–1320, mainly those by Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome, John Duns Scotus, and Peter Auriol.) It is argued that two different conceptions of intentionality (or esse intentionale) were endorsed by medieval philosophers. In the first conception (called "Aristotelian" here) "to be intentional" is a physical property of the form insofar as abstracted from the matter. On the contrary, the proponents of the second conception (called "Scotistic") ascribe the property of being intentional to the objects insofar as they are grasped by a cognitive act. Further, it is argued and documented (against some Thomistic commentators) that only the second notion of intentionality relates to the notion of cognition. Esse intentionale in the first meaning, as demonstrated here, is neither sufficient nor even necessary condition of being cognitive.
Johannes Rudbeckius (1581–1646), one of Sweden's most influential figures in theology, pedagogy, and church-state relations in the 17th century, published two books on logic: Logica ex optimis et præstantissimis autoribus collecta & conscripta (1625) and Controversiæ logices vel potius earum epitome (1629). In this paper, I present and critically discuss Rudbeckius's view on the nature of logic as it can be reconstructed from these two works. This requires, in particular, identifying the larger intellectual framework within which Rudbeckius operated. The single most important philosopher having affected Rudbeckius's ideas on logic is Jacopo Zabarella (1533–1589), which leads me to consider at some length the views on logic that Zabarella puts forward in his De Natura Logicæ (1578).
In the second half of the sixteenth century, many universities influenced by Salamanca adopted the Summa theologiae as the textbook for teaching scholastic theology. At the same time, the universities decided that some minor chairs should teach one of the Sentences commentaries written by one of the following authors: Duns Scotus, Durand of Saint-Pourçain, or Gabriel Biel. As a result, some commentaries on these commentaries (so-called supercommentaries) started to appear. This is most notably the case when it comes to the University of Coimbra, where Aquinas's Summa became the textbook only very late and where the chairs of Scotus, Durand and Biel were instituted in the second half of the century. This article provides a list of questions making up thirteen commentaries produced in Coimbra, where, unlike what happened in Salamanca, the professors belonged to different religious orders (the commentaries presented here were written by one Cistercian, one Carmelite, two Augustinians, one Franciscan and one secular). It also presents the list of questions of one commentary connected with a Franciscan convent. Some reflections on the need to study late-scholastic manuscripts as well as on the structure of these commentaries are also offered.
Rudolf Schuessler Was There a Downturn in Fifteenth-Century Scholastic Philosophy?
In the history of scholastic philosophy, the fifteenth century is traditionally regarded as a period of decay, a downturn between the heights of fourteenth-century nominalism and the Spanish revival of scholasticism in the sixteenth century. This paper sets out to challenge this received view. First, however, the received view is confirmed on the basis of sixteenth-century lists of ecclesiastical writers containing very few notable scholastic philosopher-theologians for the fifteenth century. On the other hand, the same lists show a significant increase in notable scholastics in the fields of practical ethics and jurisprudence. The overall picture signals a shift of philosophical and theological activity from theoretical towards practical concerns. If practical philosophy is not considered to be of lesser rank than theoretical philosophy, there was thus no downturn of scholastic philosophy in the fifteenth century.
Duns Scotus and Aquinas agree that whereas God comprehends Himself or even is his own comprehension, no creature can ever comprehend God. In the 17th century, the two Scotists Bartolomeo Mastri and Bonaventura Belluto discuss comprehension in their manual of philosophical psychology. Although they attempt to articulate a genuine Scotist doctrine on the subject, this article shows that they in fact defend a stance close to the one endorsed by contemporary scholastics outside the Scotist school. The article situates their discussion within 17th-century scholasticism (authors cited include, among others, the Scotists Theodor Smising and Claude Frassen, the Jesuit philosopher-theologians Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza, Luis de Molina, Rodrigo de Arriaga, and Diego Ruiz de Montoya, as well as the eclecticist Jean Lalemandet). The article furthermore highlights the theological motifs in Mastri and Belluto's discussion of comprehension. Although they claim that their discussion does not transgress the limits of Aristotelian psychology, all of their arguments are theological in nature. From this I conclude that in this particular context (within their Cursus philosophicus) our two Scotists clearly start out with a set of theological convictions, rather than with any particular philosophico-epistemological beliefs.
The paper aims to present a critical evaluation of Dietrich von Hildebrand's account of value. This account is von Hildebrand's most important and original contribution, not just to general value theory but to philosophy as such. I first present this account by explaining, in detail, his analysis of the so-called categories of importance. Then I critically examine the philosophical originality and merit of von Hildebrand's account of value. I do so by arguing against his claim that value, in the sense of the important in itself, is not in the centre of "traditional ethics".
The paper describes the theory of the so-called "value-blindness" created by Dietrich von Hildebrand. The importance of the topic becomes apparent especially as its elaboration reveals a complex and dynamic relationship between moral cognitivity (esp. the cognition of values and disvalues) and fundamental moral attitudes (moralische Grundhaltungen) of the cognizing subject. The article presents Hildebrand's teaching on moral blindness as a coherent theory that was first introduced in the early work Sittlichkeit und ethische Werterkenntnis, and subsequently in the late Graven Images. By way of a conclusion the author examines the relation between Hildebrand's theory of moral blindness to Aristotle's doctrine of acrasia. The significance of Hildebrand's theory for fundamental systematic questions and problems of moral philosophy thus becomes manifest.
In our contribution we continue our discussion with L. Novák, who criticised our paper "Různá pojetí matematiky u vybraných autorů od antiky po raný novověk." Novák's critique titled "Tomáš Akvinský instrumentalistou v matematice?" served as an incentive for us not only to clarify certain points, but also to deepen our original exposition. We focused on Aquinas's understanding of mathematics, the middle sciences and philosophy. We still insist that two substantially different interpretations of these disciplines are possible. On the one hand, there is much evidence for Aquinas's realistic approach to mathematics and the middle sciences. On the other hand, ideas can also be found in Aquinas's texts supporting an instrumentalist reading. In our opinion, it is important to point out these two approaches to the mathematical sciences in order to adequately understand the subsequent evolution of the history of ideas, especially in the modern period.
In response to Novák's polemic attack I try to remove some misunderstandings and defend compatibilism about free will. My main argument goes thus: Let us take for example two agents who both decide not to kill. The first one makes his choice out of his dilemmatic mental state of incertitude and perplexity. Conversely the second person understands the sense of moral principles so clearly that she makes the right decision with necessity. Since the morality of the second person surpasses that of the fi rst, my point is that the libertarian thinker puts in confl ict morality and freedom: The more a person (the latter agent) is virtuous, the less she is free (for the supposed necessity of her volition is taken to be incompatible with freedom in the libertarian theory). And – on the other hand – the less an agent (the former one) is moral, the more he is free. Indeed, he would be free while the latter unfree if it were true (as the libertarian believes) that freedom entails contingency. This is a peculiar rule of proportion. Compatibilism avoids such a peculiarity.