The Philosophy and Psychology of Pietro Pomponazzi

by Andrew Halliday Douglas

• Preface   (by Charles Douglas and R. P. Hardie)

CONTENTS

• Introductory Note   (by Charles Douglas and R. P. Hardie)

CHAPTER I
ARISTOTLE IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

Pomponazzi illustrative of the dissolution of mediaeval philosophy.—Pomponazzi and the Greek Commentators.—His positive psychology.—Aristotle’s doctrine of the intellectual soul.—His psychology generally.—Dualism of Aristotelian commentators.—The Soul as Substance.—The conception of Spirit.—Hebrew influences.—Philo.—Neo-Platonism.—Its influence on patristic psychology.—Early mediaeval misconceptions of Aristotle.—Their persistent influence on psychology.—Alexander of Aphrodisias

CHAPTER II
THE ARABIANS AND ST THOMAS

Alexandrian Peripateticism and Persian study of Aristotle.—Neo-Platonic influences in the Arab schools.—Arabian philosophy and the unity of Intelligence.—Averroes’ relation to Alexander.—His extreme dualism self-destructive.—Superseded by Pomponazzi’s positive analysis of thought.—A return to Aristotelian method.—Influence of Arabian interpretation of Aristotle upon Western schools.—Dominican criticism of Averroes.—St Thomas and the doctrine of the unity of Intelligence.—St Thomas’s psychological method of discussion.—His conception of a separate intellectual soul.—The point of departure for Pomponazzi

CHAPTER III
POMPONAZZI AS AN ARISTOTELIAN

The influence of Averroes in Italy.—Italian Averroists.—Decay of Averroism.—Pomponazzi’s return to Aristotle.—Influence of Alexander.—Of Averroes and St Thomas.—Pomponazzi’s interest in Aristotelian psychology.—His denial of immortality.—Averroism and immortality.—Pomponazzi’s controversies.—His commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima.—Publication of his writings.—His contemporary influence and its explanation

CHAPTER IV
POMPONAZZI’S PSYCHOLOGY

Pomponazzi’s problem the soul’s relation to reason.—Averroist dualism.—St Thomas’s conception of “separate” intelligence.—Pomponazzi’s criticism.—The idea of “participation.”—Pomponazzi’s classification of possible theories of human nature.—His criticism of Averroes.—Developed in the De Immortalitate.—Criticism of “Platonism.”—Of St Thomas.—The Thomist psychology and its relation to Aristotle.—The Thomist argument for immortality.—Pomponazzi’s criticism

CHAPTER V
THE SOUL

Pomponazzi’s doctrine of the Soul.—Mortality and materiality.—Thought, abstraction, and sense.—Arguments for immateriality.—Pomponazzi’s view of them.—Thought and matter.—The intermediate position of the soul as intelligence embodied.—Man’s intermediate position in the universe.—Its significance in Pomponazzi’s conception of the soul.—Ideal Intelligence.—Thought as sui generis.—Pomponazzi not a materialist

CHAPTER VI
INTELLIGENCE

Relation of Soul and Reason.—Pomponazzi’s general conception of Human Nature.—Three orders of beings.—Three sorts of souls.—Three ways of knowledge.—Man as microcosm.—Pomponazzi’s estimate of intelligence.—Depreciation of actual human powers and human life.—Of human as compared with absolute reason.—Participation in the immaterial.—Mind and body in man.—Body essential to human knowledge.—The intellectual soul one with the vegetative and sensitive soul.—Body as a whole the instrument of mind.—Note on the words “subject” and “object”

CHAPTER VII
SENSE

Problem of the relation of sense and reason.—The passivity of sense.—Pomponazzi’s interpretation.—Difficulties of the doctrine for the mediaeval mind.—Species sensibilis and its ambiguities.—The conditions and the object of sensation.—The Aristotelian view and mediaeval misconceptions of it.—Albert’s psychology.—Arguments against the passivity of sense.—Pomponazzi’s answers.—His physical explanations.—His recognition of the distinctive and non-physical character of mind.—His dismissal of the categories of activity and passivity.—Criticism of Aristotle.—Communia sensibilia.—Their relation to the senses.—Figure and magnitude.—Number, motion, rest.—Significance in psychological analysis of the idea of common sensibles.—Conditions of sense-perception.—Idea of common sense.—Development of Aristotelian doctrine.—Pomponazzi’s conception of a synthetic element in sensation

CHAPTER VIII
REASON

Confidence in sense-experience.—Illusions of the senses.—Pomponazzi’s account of substance.—Criticism of the Averroist idea of a direct sense of substance.—Pomponazzi’s problem the origin of the idea of substance.—Derivation by a process of discursive thought.—Substance as abstract.—Idea of sensus interior.—Various interpretations.—Function of imagination.—Sense, imagination, and reason.—Order in existence and in knowledge.—Intellectus agens.—Species and intellectio.—Form and faculty.—Arguments against an element added in intellectio.—Pomponazzi’s relation to them.—His relation to the Scotist doctrine.—Ipsa intellectio added not nova species.—Agency in intellection.—Thought as immanently constitutive

CHAPTER IX
KNOWLEDGE

The three “powers” of sensus interior.—The function of imagination and memory.—The hierarchy of nature and human faculties.—The idea of vis cogitativa.—Its inadequacy as an escape from dualism.—Its function in knowledge.—Partly a psychological fiction.—Apprehension of an individual in general relations as distinct from an abstract general notion.—Cogitativa and sense.—Pomponazzi’s more concrete psychology.—His denial of the intuitive character of thought.—And of the intuitive knowledge of thought by itself.—The nature of knowledge and predication.—Nominalism and realism.—Pomponazzi’s criticisms.—His intermediate position.—The distinction between particular and universal not one of content.—The meaning, and knowledge, of the individual.—Argument for intuitive knowledge of universals from the nature of intelligence.—Pomponazzi’s criticism.—Thought in man knows the singular and the universal.—Mediated knowledge.—Summary of Pomponazzi’s view.—His account of the act of conception.—His general position.—His idea of Truth

CHAPTER X
THE NATURE OF VIRTUE

Pomponazzi’s interest in the ethical aspect of his theories.—Moral arguments against his doctrine of mortality.—The attainment by man of the end of his being.—The insufficiency of human life.—The desire for immortality.—Pomponazzi’s estimate of man’s intermediate position.—As determining his end.—And limiting the proper range of his desires.—Pomponazzi’s view of man’s realisation of his end.—In the human race as an organism.—In the moral nature.—Which is more characteristic of man than either speculation or mechanical skill.—The moral vocation of man proper to his place in the universe.—The harmony of virtue.—The sufficiency of human life.—The degree and nature of human happiness.—The moral value of life.—The motive and worth of virtue.—Rewards and punishments in relation to virtue.—Virtue as an end in itself

CHAPTER XI
NATURAL LAW IN HUMAN LIFE AND RELIGION

Pomponazzi’s search for natural causes.—De Incantationibus.—Astrological presuppositions and the idea of an order of nature.—Nature and magic.—The explanation of the marvellous.—Evidence for marvels.—Apparitions and their causes.—Portents and omens.—Sequences and symbols in nature.—Metamorphoses and their significance.—The gift of prophecy.—Its nature and causes.—Answers to prayer.—Natural explanations.—Pomponazzi’s view of prayer.—Its true use religious.—Visions in answer to prayer.—The natural history of religions.—Origin, growth, and decline.—Special manifestations at the origin of religions.—Decline and periodicity