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Volume two. DreamingIn Christina Thomsen Thörnqvist & Juhana Toivanen (eds.), Forms of Representation in the Aristotelian Tradition. Volume Two: Dreaming, Brill. 2022.
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Volume two. DreamingIn Juhana Toivanen (ed.), Forms of Representation in the Aristotelian Tradition. Volume One: Sense Perception, Brill. 2022.
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4Introduction: On the Conflict Between Common Good and Individual GoodIn Heikki Haara & Juhana Toivanen (eds.), Common Good and Self-Interest in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, Springer Verlag. pp. 1-14. 2024.This introductory chapter delineates the purpose and content of the edited volume. It reflects on how the potential tension and compatibility between self-interest and the common good have been addressed in the history of philosophy, and it elaborates on the theoretical conditions that must be met in order for a real distinction between these two notions to emerge. The introduction also underscores the advantages of exploring this subject over the transitional period from medieval to early moder…Read more
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16Is Socrates Permitted to Kill Plato?In Heikki Haara & Juhana Toivanen (eds.), Common Good and Self-Interest in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, Springer Verlag. pp. 149-168. 2024.This chapter analyses how one thirteenth century Parisian philosopher, Nicholas of Vaudémont (fl. 1370s), understood the tension between the common good in the sense of the good of the community as a whole, and individual good in his commentary of Aristotle’s Politics. The analysis proceeds in relation to two of Nicholas’ questions. The first of them concerns the classical problem of whether or not a virtuous person should sacrifice his life for the sake of his community; and the second question…Read more
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27Common Good and Self-Interest in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2024.This open access volume provides an in-depth analysis of philosophical discussions concerning the common good and its relation to self-interest in the history of Western philosophy. The thirteen chapters explore both renowned and lesser-known thinkers from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, covering also the relevant ancient background. By bridging the gap between the medieval and early modern periods, they provide fresh insights into how moral and political philosophers understood the c…Read more
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29Political animalitySouthern Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.This essay contributes to contemporary discussions concerning so‐called animal politics by drawing from the history of the notion of political animal. Two different historical meanings of the notion are identified: (1) normative political animality that is intrinsically linked with rationality, language, and justice; (2) biological political animality that focuses on collaboration for the sake of a common aim. The former is applicable only to human beings, while the latter can also be used in re…Read more
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5Ontology of Power Relations in Peter OliviIn Jenny Pelletier & Christian Rode (eds.), The Reality of the Social World: Medieval, Early Modern, and Contemporary Perspectives on Social Ontology, Springer Verlag. pp. 41-58. 2023.This chapter concentrates on Peter Olivi’s (ca. 1248–98) theory of the ontological foundations of political power—and, by extension, property and other social institutions. After briefly presenting his view of political power as a relation between a ruler and his subjects (which he presents in his famous Quid ponat ius), the chapter focuses more generally on Olivi’s theory of relations. Drawing from previous works by Alain Boureau, Sylvain Piron, Christian Rode, Robert Pasnau and others, it expl…Read more
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4Pierre de Jean Olivi, les animaux et le jugement rationnel ou non rationnelRevue des Sciences Philosophiques Et Théologiques 106 (3): 443-464. 2022.Si l’on prend la rationalité au sens strict et médiéval du terme, les bêtes ne sont pas « rationnelles ». Mais si l’on adopte un sens plus large et actuel de cette notion, alors les auteurs médiévaux s’accordent à attribuer aux animaux des capacités cognitives particulièrement sophistiquées que l’on peut qualifier de rationnelles. Pierre de Jean Olivi relève ainsi que le sens commun des bêtes constitue une puissance de jugement capable de rassembler, de composer et même de comparer des informati…Read more
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22“Like Ants in a Colony We Do Our Share”: Political Animals in Medieval PhilosophyIn Peter Adamson & Christof Rapp (eds.), State and Nature: Studies in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, De Gruyter. pp. 365-392. 2021.
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16L'éthique de la personne: Liberté, autonomie et conscience dans la pensée de Pierre de Jean Olivi by Stève Bobillier (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 60 (2): 341-343. 2022.Peter Olivi was an original and controversial thinker whose philosophical ideas have aroused increasing interest within the scholarly community during the last decades. Stève Bobillier's L'éthique de la personne is the first monograph-length study that focuses explicitly on his ethics. Bobillier's central claim is that Olivi approaches ethics from the point of view of an individual person who chooses her actions freely and with full awareness that the choices are up to her. When someone makes a …Read more
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2Elävät kuolleet - Aristoteles, Hobbes ja Fromm modernin zombikuvaston valossaAjatus 76 (1): 229-265. 2019.Zombeja käsittelevät televisiosarjat ja sarjakuvat ovat viime vuosina saavuttaneet suurta suosiota. Esimerkiksi The Walking Dead -sarjan ensimmäinen jakso näytettiin samanaikaisesti 120 maassa, ja sarjaa on sittemmin katsonut tuotantokaudesta riippuen 5–15 miljoonaa katsojaa. Post-apokalyptinen maailma kiehtoo suurta yleisöä, koska dystooppiset tarinat peilaavat erilaisia käsityksiä ihmisten perusolemuksesta ja yhteiskunnan perustasta; sarjaa voi pitää filosofisena ajatuskokeena, jolla testataan…Read more
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58Forms of Representation in the Aristotelian Tradition. Volume Three: Concept Formation (edited book)BRILL. 2022._Concept Formation_ is the final part of the trilogy _Forms of Representation in the Aristotelian Tradition_. It investigates some of the most perplexing and provocative discussions on conceptual thinking in the Greek, Latin, and Arabic reception of Aristotle’s psychology.
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52Forms of Representation in the Aristotelian Tradition. Volume One: Sense Perception (edited book)BRILL. 2022._Sense Perception_ is the first part of the trilogy _Forms of Representation in the Aristotelian Tradition_. It investigates some of the most complex and intriguing aspects of theories of perception in the Greek, Latin, and Arabic reception of Aristotle’s psychology.
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45Forms of Representation in the Aristotelian Tradition. Volume Two: Dreaming (edited book)BRILL. 2022._Dreaming_ is the second part of the trilogy _Forms of Representation in the Aristotelian Tradition_. It investigates some of the most fascinating and enduring discussions on dreams in the Greek, Latin, and Arabic reception of Aristotle’s psychology.
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13Human Sociability in Antonio Montecatini's (1537–99) Commentary on Aristotle's PoliticsJournal of the History of Philosophy 59 (3): 457-481. 2021.ARRAY
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36Medieval Commentators on Simultaneous Perception : An Edition of Commentaries on Aristotle's De sensu et sensato 7Cahiers de l'Institut du Moyen-Âge Grec Et Latin 90 112-225. 2021.This article consists of critical editions of a selection of medieval commentaries on the chapter seven of Aristotle’s De sensu et sensato, which pertains to a particular philosophical problem, namely, the possibility of perceiving many perceptual qualities simultaneously. The commentaries included are written by Adam of Buckfield, Anonymous of Merton, Radulphus Brito, Anonymous of Paris, John Felmingham(?), Walter Burley, John of Jandun, and John Buridan. The most significant discovery made in …Read more
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546Philosophical Problems in Sense Perception: Testing the Limits of Aristotelianism (edited book)Springer. 2020.This volume focuses on philosophical problems concerning sense perception in the history of philosophy. It consists of thirteen essays that analyse the philosophical tradition originating in Aristotle’s writings. Each essay tackles a particular problem that tests the limits of Aristotle’s theory of perception and develops it in new directions. The problems discussed range from simultaneous perception to causality in perception, from the representational nature of sense-objects to the role of con…Read more
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68In The Political Animal in Medieval Philosophy Juhana Toivanen investigates what medieval philosophers meant when they argued that human beings are political animals by nature. He analyses the notion of ‘political animal’ from various perspectives and shows its relevance to philosophical discussions concerning the foundations of human sociability, ethics, and politics. Medieval authors thought that social life stems from the biological and rational nature of human beings, and that collaboration…Read more
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37Perceptual Errors in Late Medieval PhilosophyIn Brian Glenney, José Filipe Silva, Jana Rosker, Susan Blake, Stephen H. Phillips, Katerina Ierodiakonou, Anna Marmodoro, Lukas Licka, Han Thomas Adriaenssen, Chris Meyns, Janet Levin, James Van Cleve, Deborah Boyle, Michael Madary, Josefa Toribio, Gabriele Ferretti, Clare Batty & Mark Paterson (eds.), The Senses and the History of Philosophy, Routledge. pp. 106-130. 2019.Perception of the external world is an essential part of the animal (including human) life, both as a source of knowledge and as a way to survive. Medieval authors accepted this view, and despite general concerns about the reliability of the senses in the acquisition of certain and objective knowledge, they thought that for the most part our perceptual system gets things right when it comes to the perceptual features of things—but not always. Our article focuses on thirteenth- and fourteenth-cen…Read more
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28The Personal and the Political: Love and Society in the Roman de la RoseIn Jonathan Morton & Marco Nievergelt (eds.), The ‘Roman de la Rose' and Thirteenth-Century Thought, Cambridge University Press. pp. 111-130. 2020.This article concentrates on manifestations of medieval political philosophy in the Roman de la Rose. In particular, it focuses on two themes, which are crucial for understanding the very foundations of political and social life of human beings: (1) the origins of political community, private property and other social institutions; and (2) the relationship between love and justice, and the political relevance of these two concepts. The first part of the article discusses Jean de Meun’s view con…Read more
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314Extending the Limits of Nature. Political Animals, Artefacts, and Social InstitutionsPhilosophical Readings 1 (12): 35-44. 2020.This essay discusses how medieval authors from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries dealt with a philosophical problem that social institutions pose for the Aristotelian dichotomy between natural and artificial entities. It is argued that marriage, political community, and language provided a particular challenge for the conception that things which are designed by human beings are artefacts. Medieval philosophers based their arguments for the naturalness of social institutions on the anthrop…Read more
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17The Fate of the Flying ManOxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 3 (1). 2015.This chapter discusses the reception of Avicenna’s well-known “flying man” thought experiment in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Latin philosophy. The central claim is that the argumentative role of the thought experiment changed radically in the latter half of the thirteenth century. The earlier authors—Dominicus Gundissalinus, William of Auvergne, Peter of Spain, and John of la Rochelle—understood it as an ontological proof for the existence and/or the nature of the soul. By contrast, Matthew …Read more
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7Cognitive Dispositions in the Psychology of Peter John OliviIn Nicolas Faucher & Magali Roques (eds.), The Ontology, Psychology and Axiology of Habits (Habitus) in Medieval Philosophy, Springer. pp. 185-204. 2018.This chapter discusses Peter John Olivi’s conception of the role of dispositions in sensory cognition from metaphysical and psychological perspectives. It shows that Olivi makes a distinction between two general types of disposition. Some of them account for the ease, or difficulty, with which different persons use their cognitive powers, while others explain why people react differently to things that they perceive or think. This distinction is then applied to Olivi’s analysis of three differen…Read more
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Estimative power as a Social SenseIn Jakob Fink & Seyed N. Mousavian (eds.), The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, Springer. pp. 115-136. 2020.The estimative power has been widely discussed in modern scholarly literature. This chapter complements the existing picture by analysing medieval Latin views concerning its role as the explanans of the social behaviour of humans and other animals. Although medieval authors rarely focus on this function, the chapter shows that the estimative power plays an important explanatory role both in philosophical psychology and political philosophy.
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Perceiving As: Non-conceptual Forms of Perception in Medieval PhilosophyIn Elena Băltuță (ed.), Medieval Perceptual Puzzles: Theories of Sense Perception in the 13th and 14th Centuries, Investigating Medieval Philoso. 2019.The aim of this chapter is to take a closer look at medieval discussions concerning the phenomenon of ‘perceiving as,’ and the psychological mechanisms that lie behind it. In contemporary philosophical literature this notion is usually used to refer to conceptual aspects of perception. For instance, when I perceive a black birdlike shape as a crow, I may be said to perceive the particular sensible thing x as an instance of a universal crowness φ, that is, as belonging to a natural kind and falli…Read more
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43Cognitive Dispositions in the Psychology of Peter John OliviIn Nicolas Faucher & Magali Roques (eds.), The Ontology, Psychology and Axiology of Habits (Habitus) in Medieval Philosophy, Springer. pp. 185-204. 2018.This chapter discusses Peter John Olivi’s conception of the role of dispositions in sensory cognition from metaphysical and psychological perspectives. It shows that Olivi makes a distinction between two general types of disposition. Some of them account for the ease, or difficulty, with which different persons use their cognitive powers, while others explain why people react differently to things that they perceive or think. This distinction is then applied to Olivi’s analysis of three differen…Read more
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1Beasts, Human Beings, or Gods? Human Subjectivity in Medieval Political PhilosophyIn Jari Kaukua & Tomas Ekenberg (eds.), Subjectivity and Selfhood in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, Springer. pp. 181-197. 2016.Human beings are not only self-conscious minds but embodied and social beings, whose subjectivity is conditioned by their social surroundings. From this point of view, it is natural to suppose that the development and existence of a subject that is distinctively human requires contact with other people. The present contribution discusses medieval ideas concerning the intersubjective constitution of human being by looking at the medieval reception of two ideas, which Aristotle presents at the beg…Read more
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Entre la raison et la perception: La psychologie animale médiévale et la relation entre les humains et les animauxIn M. Cutino, I. Iribarren & F. Vinel (eds.), La Restauration de la création: Quelle place pour les animaux?. pp. 275-297. 2018.
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University of GothenburgDepartment of Philosophy, Linguistics, Theory of ScienceAdjunct Professor (= Title of Docent)
Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
Areas of Specialization
13th/14th Century Philosophy |
Medieval Philosophy of Mind |
Medieval Political Philosophy |