Giacomo Fornasieri

In the eighth question of his Quaestiones de ente, the Late Medieval Theologian William Farinier tackles the issue of the attribute agreement we normally experience between individuals of the same species. The sub ect of his discussion is whether the specific unity we attribute to particulars is something of which they are really endowed with, regardless of any cognitive activity. In sharp contrast with realist thinkers, such as Duns Scotus and Francis Meyronnes, he claims that this is not to be the case. His idea is that specific unity is ontologically mind-dependent, while semantically mind-independent. This claim is not entirely original, though. As it turns out, Farinier makes large use of Auriol's view the matter to shape his own one. His explicit endorsement to some of the most typical aureolistic theses seems to make him one of the few known (for now) full-fledged aureolistae.

In this paper, I examine Peter Auriol’s contribution regarding (i) what it is for a thing to be an intention or a concept and (ii) what kind of relation connects the object cognized to the cognizing mind as soon as intellectual cognition is occurring. First, I consider Auriol’s criticism of Brito’s thesis, according to which intentions are the same as cognitive acts, and “being cognized,” or for a thing to be objectively in the mind, is just for there to be a cognitive act directed at that thing. Then, I discuss Auriol’s thesis, according to which each and every act of thinking must be thought of as a connotative notion, that is, as something implying or connoting an intentional object appearing to the cognizer. In this regard, Auriol’s view, as opposed to Brito’s, allows him to think of “being cognized” as more than an extrinsic denomination of the object cognized, as well as to incorporate into intellectual cognition a phenomenon that proves to be unique to our cognitive life, viz. the fact that we consciously experience what we cognize while we cognize it. Finally, I offer some concluding remarks on Auriol’s doctrine, as well as a brief evaluation of his theory.

Peter Auriol argues that sensation and intellection are both passive and active. They are passive insofar as they involve the reception of species or impressions of extra-mental objects. They are active insofar as both senses and intellect process these species and produce an intentional object. The way in which the senses and the intellect receive and process their own impressions is quite different, though. While perception is beyond our control, Auriol claims that the imagination, and the activity of the agent and possible intellect depend on an act of the will. His idea is that the will pushes the intellect to focus on one of the impressions it receives from external objects, so that the corresponding impression is allowed to be imprinted in the intellect itself and the relevant concept formed. This paper examines the role that Auriol attributes to the will in our intellectual cognition, inasmuch as it is able to determine both (i) what kind of impressions can be picked and then embedded into the mind and, (ii) consequently, which concepts the intellect will form. My view is that, by envisioning the intellect and the will as already interacting during the process of concept formation, and not just during that of choice-making, Auriol provides an account of the intellect and the will strongly integrated with one another, thus offering a unitary vision of our cognitive life.

Whereas several researches have been devoted to Auriol’s philosophical and theological works in the last fifty years, Auriol’s sermons have been basically neglected. The aim of this paper is to partially fill this gap, by focusing on one of Auriol’s sermons: the so-called De Compassione Virginis Sermo. The main argument defended here is that, while put into poetic and rhetorical language, Auriol’s theological insights lose nothing of their theoretical sharpness. They rather acquire an unexpected clarity and power of persuasion, of which the De Compassione Virginis Sermo proves to be a remarkable example. In this regard, analyzing the formal structure of this sermon and examining the manner in which some of Auriol’s most notable tenets are presented there will provide an unusual, but still useful way to approach his rich thought.

Henry of Harclay was a secular late medieval theologian who has been appointed Chancellor at Oxford in the first half of the fourteenth century. Due to the lack of edited texts, his Commentary on Book I of the Sentences is today largely ne- glected. The present contribution aims at offering a provisional edition of Sent. I, d. 1, qq. 1-4. These questions are devoted to human acts of fruition. The topics discussed here regard 1. whether God alone is the object of fruition; 2. whether only rational creatures in the beatific state are able to perform an act of fruition; 3. whether human beings naturally love themselves more than God and, lastly, 4. whether fruition is the same as delight. The edition is preceded by a brief doctrinal introduction, which serves the purpose of providing a general outline of the text’s main contents.

This paper comprises two parts. The first part is an introduction to Auriol’s moderate conceptualism, as it is presented in his Commentary on Book II of the Sentences, distinction 9, question 2, article 1. The second part is an edition of the text. In the introduction, I focus on Auriol’s use of the noetic tool of connotation. My thesis, in particular, is that connotation is a necessary prerequisite to his moderate conceptu- alism. To this purpose, the first part of this introduction will be devoted to a brief presentation of Auriol’s conceptualism. In the second part, Auriol’s theory of essential predication will be presented. In the third part, I will present my claim that Auriol’s theory of essential predication can only be made sense of when read against the background of his theory of connotation as applied to intellectual cognition. Finally, I will offer a collation of Auriol’s Commentary on Book II of the Sentences, dis- tinction 9, question 2, article 1, obtained by collating eight manuscripts, which hand down Auriol’s text, that is, Firenze, Biblioteca nazionale centrale, ms. Conv. Soppr. B.6.121, Firenze, ms. Conv. Soppr. A. 3.120, Napoli, Biblioteca nazionale, ms. VII.C.3, Padova, Biblioteca Antoniana, ms. 161, scaff. ix, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. latin 15867; Pelplin, Biblioteka Seminarium duchownego, ms. 46/85, Vaticano (Città del), Biblioteca Apostolica, ms. Borgiano 404, Vaticano (Città del), Biblioteca Apostolica, ms. Vat. lat. 942.

Although Auriol’s philosophical psychology has received increasing attention among contemporary scholars in medieval philosophy, his use of connotation has gone largely unnoticed. The aim of this paper is to delve into Auriol’s definition of cognition as a connotation. In his view, cognizing is nothing more than making things appear to the mind. Each concept is the extra-mental particular plus its property of being cognized by or appearing to the mind. It is nothing other than a real individual co-signifying or connoting its being conceived. Being thought as a connotation, then, for Auriol intellectual cognition ultimately describes the following experience: the appearance of something to and its conscious reception by a cognizer.