Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910 edition. Excerpt: ...recipiendo speciem." Of. cit. f. 257 r. 3 " Species sensibilis disponat animam sensitivam ut reducat se de potentia ad actum." Op. cit. f. 258 v. Cf. ff. 257, 258. 4 "Ad creandam intellectionem requiritur aliquid alterum praeter intellect urn et speciem intelligibilem; ergo ita est in sensu." Op. cit. f. 85 r. The other main argument against the passivity of sense was that the sensible object--the supposed cause of sensation--may be present to the sense organ, acting physically upon it (and producing there the species sensibilis), while yet sensation does not take place. The inference was that in order to produce sensation there is needed some specific action of the power of sense, which in the case supposed has not come into play--hence the absence of sensation. In answer to these arguments Pomponazzi first denies the analogy between sense and intelligence. He does so on the ground, characteristic of mediaeval thought, that sense has for its object a real thing, intellect only the presentation of a thing2; and whatever may be thought of this conception of intellect and of its relation to sense, the answer is to the point as regards sense-perception itself. The case of an object present to the sense-organ without sensation is capable, Pomponazzi goes on, of explanation without recourse to the supposition of an intermittent " agency " in sense. The occurrence or non-occurrence of cognition by the senses is to be explained by the presence or absence of attention. What is particularly interesting is that Pomponazzi proposes a physical explanation of this case, and of the facts of attention generally. We saw that Albert, following a physical line of enquiry into the relations of sensation and the sensible thing (illustrated by his reading of...