Two Models of Thinking - Fordham University Faculty

form of the thing I am thinking about and the form in my intellect may beregarded as the same individual item, i.e. numerically one and the same form.Second, the form of the thing I am thinking about and the form in my intellectmay be regarded as two discrete individuals, which are the same in someimportant respects but are not numerically the same item. The way these twonumerically distinct individuals are one and the same is variously described as“formal” or “structural sameness.” 12 Both interpretations have had theirsupporters among Aristotle’s interpreters. The former interpretation wasfavored in antiquity by Porphyry, according to Avicenna’s testimony, and hasreceived support by several contemporary scholars. 13 The latter interpretationwas explicitly endorsed by Avicenna in opposition to Porphyry and has alsoreceived support in recent years. 14 It was the latter interpretation that wascommonly adopted in the later Middle Ages. Ever since Aristotle’s De animawas translated into Latin and became the object of study (roughly between thetwelfth and the thirteenth century), medieval thinkers agreed on readingAristotle as positing two numerically distinct items, one in the thing I amthinking about and the other one in my intellect. In the thirteenth century, theform existing in my intellect was commonly called “intelligible species” inorder to distinguish it from the form existing in the thing I am thinking about. 15In light of this short outline of Aristotle’s position, his answers to thethree questions concerning what it is to think about something can bereconstructed as follows. First, an act of thinking is an instance of change.More precisely, an act of thinking is a passion, i.e. the reception of a certainform in a subject, i.e. in the intellect, from a certain agent, i.e. from theobject. 16 Second, an act of thinking occurs when the causal process of formimpression and reception started at the level of the senses ends up in the12 For the distinction between these two readings, which Christopher Shields calls“stronger” and “weaker hypothesis,” see Shields, “Intentionality and Isomorphism,” 324–327.13 Avicenna, Liber de anima, pars V, c. 6, 136. Among contemporary interpreters whosympathize with this view, see L. A. Kosman, “Perceiving that We Perceive: On the Soul III, 2,”The Philosophical Review 84 (1975): 499–519; J. Owens, “Aristotle: Cognition a Way of Being,”Canadian Journal of Philosophy 6 (1976): 1–11, reprinted in id., Aristotle: The Collected Papers ofJoseph Owens, ed. J. R. Catan (Albany: SUNY Press, 1981), 74–80; C. Kahn, “Aristotle onThinking,” in Essays on Aristotle’s De anima, ed. Nussbaum and Rorty, 372–375. See also J.Owens, Cognition: An Epistemological Enquiry (Houston, TX: Center for Thomistic Studies, 1992),114.14 Avicenna, Liber de anima, pars V, c. 6, 134–135. See D. L. Black, “Conjunction andthe Identity of Knower and Known in Averroes,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 73(1999), 162–163; M. Sebti, Avicenne. L’âme humaine (Paris: Presses universitaires de France,2000), 97–99. Among contemporary interpreters who sympathize with this view, see Shields,“Intentionality and Isomorphism,” 324–330.15 On the history of the notion of intelligible species, see L. Spruit, Species Intelligibilis.From Perception to Knowledge (Leiden/New York/Köln: Brill, 1994); G. Pini, “Il dibattito sullespecie intelligibili nel tredicesimo secolo,” Medioevo 29 (2004): 267–306.16 Aristotle, De anima III, 4, 429a13–15; b22–25.6