Dominik Perler

It seems quite natural to explain the activities of human and non-human animals by referring to their special faculties. Thus, we say that dogs can smell things in their environment because they have perceptual faculties, or that human beings can think because they have rational faculties. But what are faculties? In what sense are they responsible for a wide range of activities? How can they be individuated? How are they interrelated? And why are different types of faculties assigned to different types of living beings? The six chapters in this book discuss these questions, covering a wide period from Plato up to contemporary debates about faculties as modules of the mind. They show that faculties were referred to in different theoretical contexts, but analyzed in radically different ways. Some philosophers, especially Aristotelians, made them the cornerstone of their biological and psychological theories, taking them to be basic powers of living beings. Others took them to be inner causes that literally produce activities, while still others provided a purely functional explanation. The chapters focus on various models, taking into account Greek, Arabic, Latin, French, German and Anglo-American debates. They analyze the role assigned to faculties in metaphysics, philosophy of mind and epistemology, but also the attack that was often launched against the assumption that faculties are hidden yet real features of living beings. The short "Reflections" inserted between the chapters make clear that faculties were also widely discussed in literature, science and medicine.

Abstract of the book This volume has three aims. First, historians of philosophy have typically focused on the discussions of the moral relevance of emotions, and with the exception of scholars of ancient philosophy, neglected the place of emotions in cognitive life. This collection of articles refocuses the discussion of emotion in the medieval and early modern periods to their role in cognition. Second, though many have aimed to clarify relationship between the later thinkers and their predecessors with regard to issues in metaphysics and epistemology, there has been very little effort at tracing similar lines of thought about emotion. As a whole, the contributions to this volume serve to begin a discussion about the continuities between medieval and early modern thinking about the emotions. In this regard, there is also a discussion of the emotions of cognitive life of the Renaissance. Though we get only a snapshot of a period of philosophical work often passed over, even this snapshot invites questions about how to weave an intellectual history about accounts of our emotions in our cognitive lives. Finally, attention to the concerns that engage philosophers of the medieval, renaissance and early modern periods can inform the contemporary debate regarding the relationship between emotions, cognition, and reason. The thirteen contributions explore this from the point of view of four key themes: the situation of emotions within the human mind; the intentionality of emotions and their role in cognition; emotions and action; the role of emotion in self-understanding and the social situation of individuals.

Gemäß einer weit verbreiteten These, die besonders durch die Arbeiten von R. Popkin prominent wurde, ist der frühneuzeitliche Skeptizismus auf die Wiederentdeckung des antiken Pyrrhonismus zurückzuführen. Gegen diese These wird im vorliegenden Aufsatz argumentiert, dass Descartes’ Außenwelt-Skeptizismus keine pyrrhonische Struktur aufweist. Er beruht vielmehr auf einem Internalismus, der sich nicht in antiken Quellen findet. Die Entstehung dieses Internalismus wird zum einen in historischer Hinsicht untersucht. Anhand der Analyse spätmittelalterlicher Texte wird gezeigt, wie die Annahme von „species intelligibiles“ dazu führte, dass innere Objekte eingeführt wurden, die nur in einer kontingenten Relation zu äußeren Gegenständen stehen. Zum anderen wird in systematischer Hinsicht geprüft, inwiefern der Außenwelt-Skeptizismus aufgrund der internalistischen Annahmen das Produkt einer bestimmten Theorie des Geistes ist und somit nicht als ein „natürlicher Zweifel“ bezeichnet werden kann

Leibniz holds that we cannot give an account of the synchronic and diachronic identity of a person without appealing to a substance. This paper analyses his reasons for this anti-Lockean thesis. It first looks at his theory of substance, paying particular attention to his commitment to the Principle of Sufficient Reason: the existence of a well-ordered series of mental states cannot be sufficiently explained without reference to a substance. The paper then examines the distinction Leibniz draws between the substance as the “real person” and the “appearing person” that comes into existence through reflexive consciousness. It argues that there can be no appearing person without a real person and looks at the relationship between these two types of person. Leibniz’s distinction is still relevant because it shows that questions concerning the metaphysical constitution of a person need to be carefully distinguished from questions concerning the psychological construction of a personality.

Vivarium (VIV) is an international journal dedicated to the history of philosophy and intellectual life from the early Middle Ages to the early-modern era. It is widely recognized as an unrivalled resource for the history of logic, semantics, epistemology, and metaphysics. It welcomes articles on medieval, Renaissance and early-modern thinkers, their ideas, arguments, and writings, as well as the institutional and intellectual life of this period. Editions of texts as brief appendices to the main articles may be added. Articles on early-modern philosophy are welcome if they link it with the medieval and Renaissance traditions. Articles on Arabic and Jewish thought are welcome if there is a clear connection with the Latin tradition. Vivarium also publishes regularly special issues devoted to a particular theme or philosopher.

The journal Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, appearing since 1946, is among the most important academic German language journals. It is open to all topics, approaches, and positions of philosophical thought. Given the increasing differentiation and specialization of the field, it thus constitutes a forum offering its various disciplines the opportunity for mutual recognition and exchange. The articles published in it are subject to an anonymous peer review in which internationally renowned scholars of all areas of contemporary philosophical research participate.

Vivarium (VIV) is an international journal dedicated to the history of philosophy and intellectual life from the early Middle Ages to the early modern era. It is widely recognized as an unrivalled resource for the history of logic, semantics, epistemology, and metaphysics. It welcomes articles on medieval, Renaissance and early-modern thinkers, their ideas, arguments, and writings, as well as the institutional and intellectual life of this period. Editions of texts as brief appendices to the main articles may be added. Articles on early-modern philosophy are welcome if they link it with the medieval and Renaissance traditions. Articles on Arabic and Jewish thought are welcome if there is a clear connection with the Latin tradition. Vivarium also publishes regularly special issues devoted to a particular theme or philosopher.

Spinozas These „Wer eine wahre Idee hat, weiß zugleich, dass er eine wahre Idee hat“ hat zahlreiche Interpreten dazu bewogen, ihm eine ernsthafte Auseinandersetzung mit dem Skeptizismus abzusprechen. Es scheint, als würde er die zentrale Frage, welche unabhängige Garantie wir für die Wahrheit einer Idee haben, einfach ignorieren. Gegen diese Auffassung wird argumentiert, dass sich Spinoza durchaus der skeptischen Herausforderung stellt, und zwar indem er eine theoretische Diagnose formuliert: Der Skeptiker nimmt irrtümlicherweise an, Ideen seien isolierte, von körperlichen Zuständen getrennte Repräsentationen, für die je einzeln eine Garantie gesucht werden muss. Spinoza versucht diese Annahme zu korrigieren, indem er eine holistische, monistische und externalistische Theorie von Ideen entwirft: Eine Idee lässt sich nur erklären, wenn sie einerseits in ihrer Verkettung mit anderen Ideen und andererseits mit Blick auf die körperliche Grundlage erfasst wird. Dann zeigt sich, dass die Garantie für die Wahrheit einer Idee im körperlich verankerten Ideennetz und nicht in einer übergeordneten Instanz liegt

The aim of the series Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind is to foster historical research into the nature of thinking and the workings of the mind. The volumes address topics of intellectual history that would nowadays fall into different disciplines like philosophy of mind, philosophical psychology, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, etc. The monographs and collections of articles in the series are historically reliable as well as congenial to the contemporary reader. They provide original insights into central contemporary problems by looking at them in historical contexts, addressing issues like consciousness, representation and intentionality, mind and body, the self and the emotions. In this way, the books open up new perspectives for research on these topics

It seems quite natural that we have cognitive access not only to things around us, but also to our own acts of perceiving and thinking. How is this access possible? How is it related to the access we have to external things? And how certain is it? This paper discusses these questions by focusing on Francisco Suárez’s theory, which gives an account of various forms of access to oneself and thereby presents an elaborate theory of consciousness. It argues that Suárez clearly distinguishes between first-order sensory consciousness and second-order intellectual consciousness. Moreover, Suárez attempts to explain the unity of consciousness by referring to a single soul with hierarchically ordered faculties that is responsible both for first-order and for second-order consciousness.

The journal Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, appearing since 1946, is among the most important academic German language journals. It is open to all topics, approaches, and positions of philosophical thought. Given the increasing differentiation and specialization of the field, it thus constitutes a forum offering its various disciplines the opportunity for mutual recognition and exchange. The articles published in it are subject to an anonymous peer review in which internationally renowned scholars of all areas of contemporary philosophical research participate.

According to Spinoza, there is no categorical distinction between human and non-human animals: they all belong to the same nature and all consist of bodies with corresponding ideas. This thesis gives rise to two problems. How is it possible to distinguish different types of animals, in particular non-rational and rational ones, if all of them have the same metaphysical structure? And why does Spinoza nevertheless claim that human beings have a privileged status that gives them the right to use non-rational animals? This paper examines these two problems, arguing that the solution to both of them lies in Spinoza’s all-embracing naturalism.

Several commentators, among them R. Rorty, argue that Cartesian ideas are to be understood as internal objects or pictures that are presented to the mind on an 'inner arena'. In this paper I intend to show that such an interpretation is flawed if one takes into account Descartes' definition of ideas as mental a c t s having a representational content. I analyze this definition, paying particular attention to three crucial theses: intentionality is an intrinsic feature of all mental acts; mental acts primarily represent the essence of an object, not the existing object; the object, insofar as it is presented to the mind, determines the socalled Objective reality' of an idea. I reach the conclusion that one ought to be careful in attributing a representational theory to Descartes. His theory may be called representational only if it is understood as a theory about representing mental acts that are immediately directed towards external objects

Spinoza claims that universal notions (notiones universales) are simply based on the comparison of individuals and that they do not refer to universal properties. But he also holds that common notions (notiones communes) refer to something that is common to all individuals. Does this mean that he defends different theories of universals with respect to different types of notions? This paper rejects this interpretation, arguing that Spinoza subscribes to a comprehensive nominalist position. On his view there are nothing but individuals, which, however, can be apprehended in different ways: with respect to their perceptual or their geometric and kinematic properties. These two kinds of properties give rise to two different types of notions, each of them having its own value. Both types are analyzed and related to each other.