The mark of the mental in the fourteenth century: Volitio, cognitio, and Adam Wodeham’s experience argument

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an original interpretation of the fourteenth-century debate over whether every volitio is a cognitio. This debate, I argue, was at its heart a debate about what constitutes the mark of occurrent mental states. Three participants in this debate – Adam Wodeham, Richard FitzRalph, and John of Ripa – articulated three distinct accounts of the mark of the mental. In doing so, they also developed several philosophical accounts of the intentionality of occurrent affective states.

KEYWORDS:

• consciousness
• intentionality
• volitio
• cognitio

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Jeff Brower, Susan Brower-Toland, Brian Carl, Therese Cory, Richard Cross, Stephen Dumont, Lydia Schumacher, and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments on versions of this paper. I also thank audiences at the 2021 “Affective Intentionality in Medieval Philosophy” summer course at the University of Würzburg and at the Fall 2021 American Catholic Philosophical Association for their insightful comments and questions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For Brentano’s famous discussion of the mark of the mental, see Psychologie, 101-130. All translations in this paper are my own except where otherwise noted.

2 For an early use of the term, see Armstrong, A Materialist Theory, 41.

3 On cognitio, see, e.g. Henry of Ghent: “Sed cum in homine duplex sit cognitio, una sensitiva et altera intellectiva” (Quodlibet I, 92). On volitio, see Pickavé, “Emotion and Cognition”, 100.

4 My focus throughout this paper is on what we would call ‘occurrent’ and what medieval Latin philosophers would call ‘actual’ (actualis) cognitiones and volitiones. I will not consider non-occurrent, habitual cognitio and volitio (e.g. dispositions to occurrent thoughts, sensations, or affective states).

5 For Wodeham’s works and biography, see Courtenay, Adam Wodeham.

6 On FitzRalph’s works and biography, see Dunne and Nolan, Richard FitzRalph; Leff, Richard FitzRalph; Walsh, A Fourteenth-Century Scholar. On FitzRalph’s relation to Wodeham, see Courtenay, Adam Wodeham, 75-81.

7 Ripa’s work has received little attention, and his cognition theory still less. Foundational scholarship on Ripa includes Coleman, “Jean de Ripa”; Kałuża, “La nature des écrits”; Ruello, “Le projet théologique”; and Vignaux, “La connaissance comme apparentia”.

8 In discussing ‘models’ of the intentionality of affective states, I am taking up a theme from Pickavé, “On the Intentionality”, 51.

9 “ … mit dem Namen der psychischen Phänomene bezeichneten wir die Vorstellungen, sowie auch alle jene Erscheinungen, für welche Vorstellungen die Grundlage bilden”. Brentano, Psychologie, 104.

10 “ … ‘intelligere’ … solum connotat aliquid ut apparens illi quod dicitur intelligere. Illud enim videtur constituere formalem rationem intellectionis, quo dempto ab aliquo illud non dicitur intellectio, et quo posito dicitur intellectio. … Sed manifestum est quod a quacumque re tollitur ne sit quoddam habere aliquid praesens per modum apparentis, ab illa tollitur ne sit formaliter intelligere; cuicumque vero hoc competit, illud dicitur quoddam comprehendere”. In this paper, Auriol’s Scriptum will be cited as follows: (Scriptum distinction.part.article; editor, volume.page.line).

11 “ … ipsamet visio est formaliter visi apparitio”. In this paper, Wodeham’s Lectura secunda will be cited as follows: (LS distinction.question; editor, volume.page.line). The second part of the citation will be divided from the first with parentheses rather than a semicolon in footnotes. Where the cited text is taken from the Prologue of the Lectura secunda, the letter ‘P’ rather than a numeral will occupy the ‘distinction’ position in the citation. In the text of Distinction 1, Wodeham indicates that he intended to divide this distinction into four questions, the last of which has three articles. See LS 1.4 (Gál and Wood, 1.251.5); LS 1.4 (Gál and Wood, 1.272.4); and LS 1.4 (Gál and Wood, 1.294.4). However, Gál and Wood, the editors of the excellent critical edition of the Lectura secunda, divide Distinction 1 into six questions, treating what Wodeham appears to treat as articles as questions instead. To avoid confusion, my citations will follow Gál and Wood’s division rather than the division indicated by Wodeham in Distinction 1.

12 “ … illa experientia, quando intelligens vel cognoscens experitur rem sibi praesentem, non est nisi ipsa cognitio recepta in potentia cognitiva qua apparet et cognoscitur res”.

13 “ … omnis apprehensio offert et exprimit potentiae, in qua est, illud quod apprehenditur”. While the direct evidence for this interpretation is excellent, Wodeham scholars may worry that this interpretation conflicts with Wodeham’s well-known rejection of Peter Auriol’s view that every experience involves the experienced object itself being placed before the mind’s eye in ‘apparent being’. LS P.4 (Gál and Wood, 1.84-111). Indeed, in a discussion of Auriol’s account of perceptual illusions, Wodeham even tentatively suggests that illusions occur due to erroneous judgements or quasi-judgements, rather than to the experience of a deceptive mental image. LS P.4 (Gál and Wood, 1.97.21-22). But there is no real conflict: As the quotations above show, Wodeham agrees with Auriol that the most fundamental description of the phenomenology of thinking and sensing must be given in terms of objects appearing, image-like before the mind’s eye. And this description applies as much to the phenomenology of judgement as it does to simple apprehensions. But Wodeham, in good nominalist fashion, denies that the truthmaker for the image-like phenomenology of a given mental state is the existence of mental images or of objects in apparent being, rather than the mere act itself (this is precisely the point of the passage quoted in note 12 above).

14 Wodeham thinks the powers of the human soul are not distinct from to the soul itself. LS P.1 (Gál and Wood, 1.9.4-11.55).

15 A contemporary term for a feature similar to the feature Wodeham picks out with the term cognitio is Uriah Kriegel’s ‘subjective representation’ (Kriegel, “Two Notions”).

16 In setting up the issue in this way, I am offering an alternative to the way this debate is typically framed in recent secondary literature, where it is often seen as a debate analogous to the debate in contemporary philosophy over cognitivism about the emotions. (King, “Emotions”, 182; Knuuttila, Emotions, 278-79; Perler, “Emotions and Cognitions”, 265-267; Pickavé, “Emotion and Cognition”, 105, 111). It seems to me that cognitivism about the emotions as it is understood in the recent secondary literature on this medieval debate could not have been the point at issue in the debate over whether every volitio is a cognitio. In the secondary literature on the debate over whether every volitio is a cognitio, cognitivism is understood either as the view that emotions are evaluations of a certain sort – call this ‘strong cognitivism’ – or as the view that emotions are essentially intentional – call this ‘weak cognitivism’. Cf. Scarantino and de Sousa, “Emotion”, Section 5. But neither strong nor weak cognitivism is at issue in the medieval debate. Not strong cognitivism, because even Wodeham thinks that there can be a volitio that is not a judgement or evaluation, as Pickavé notes (“Emotion and Cognition”, 103). Not weak cognitivism, because many medieval philosophers, including many who denied that volitiones are cognitiones, were cognitivists in this weak sense. See especially Section 2 below, in which I argue that Wodeham simply assumes his opponents think volitiones are essentially intentional. Pickavé, who seems to opt for a weak cognitivist interpretation of Wodeham’s claim that every volitio is a cognitio, is aware of the latter problem. He avoids it by suggesting that Wodeham and his opponents disagree not about whether volitio is intentional, but rather about whether a quality’s being intentional is sufficient for it to be a cognitio, with Wodeham holding the affirmative position (Pickavé, “Emotion and Cognition”, 109, 112-113). According to my interpretation, Wodeham and his opponents agreed about the criterion for being a cognitio. Their differing views on the question of whether every volitio is a cognitio instead represented substantive philosophical disagreement about the nature of affective states.

17 One of the most comprehensive discussions of this debate remains Michalski, “Le problème de la volonté”, 309-333. Michalski mistakenly thought that the debate originated with Fitzralph: “Le problème apparaȋt pour la première fois non chez Ockham, le grand innovateur, mais chez son contemporain, Fitz-Ralph” (“Le problème de la volonté”, 310). Walter Chatton’s discussion of the issue in his Reportatio is earlier than FitzRalph’s. See Walter Chatton, Reportatio d. 5, q. 1 (Etzkorn and Wey, 238-242). On the date of the Reportatio, see the introduction to the Reportatio. VII. Note that the attribution of the view that every volitio is a cognitio to Ockham by Etzkorn and Wey is mistaken (Etzkorn and Wey, 239). Michalski was also unaware of several discussions of the topic from around the end of the first quarter of the fourteenth century. I have found discussions of the topic unknown to Michalski in two texts from the 1320s by Robert Greystones and Thomas Hothum. Hothum’s discussion is found in Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 15805, f. 51va-52rb, and 53ra. Greystone’s discussion is found on f. 50va-51va of the same manuscript, and in Westminster Abbey, MS 13, p. 40-60. Kennedy, “Robert Graystanes”, 186. On BNF lat. 15805, see Etzkorn, “The Codex of Paris Nat. Lat. 15.805”. On Westminster Abbey, MS 13, see Kennedy, “Robert Graystanes”. Another location that contains significant discussion of this topic is Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College Ms. 290/682. Locations are cited in Ledsham, “Newly-Identified Scholastic Works in Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, Ms. 290/682”. The topic may have entered scholastic philosophical discourse for the first time in England around the early 1320s, since I have not encountered it in William of Ockham or John of Reading. It does not seem to appear in Paris until at least the 1330s. Before Wodeham addressed the topic, it was also discussed in extant works by John Rodington and Richard Fitzralph. On Rodington, see Michalski, “Le problème de la volonté”, 315-316. On FitzRalph, see Section 2 below. Most secondary literature on the topic other than that by Michalski focuses on Wodeham (see note 16).

18 “ … totaliter mihi displicet”.

19 For the locations of this question in various redactions of the mostly unedited Ordinatio, see the appendices in Courtenay, Adam Wodeham, 188, 200, 204. As Gál and Wood point out, Wodeham lectured on the Sentences at London, Oxford, and Norwich (Gál and Wood, Lectura secunda, vol. 1, 8*). For discussion of the locations at which the Lectura secunda and the Ordinatio were given, see Gál and Wood, Lectura secunda, vol. 1, 30*-36*; and Courtenay, Adam Wodeham, 7-38.

20 “ … dico – non asserendo sed opinando – quod omnis actus appetendi et odiendi, et ita frui, est quaedam cognitio et quaedam apprehensio”.

21 “ … omnis experientia alicuius obiecti est quaedam cognitio eiusdem. Sed omnis actus appetitivus est quaedam experientia sui obiecti, id est quo experitur [anima] tale obiectum, quia omnis actus vitalis est quaedam experientia. Aliter non plus [video] quod esset actus vitalis animae quam species praevia omni actui – si ponatur – vel habitus infusus vel color respectu sui obiecti. Sed omnis volitio et nolitio est actus vitalis. Igitur … ” As Gál and Wood note, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, vat. lat. 955 and Gregory of Rimini’s citation of this passage read quo experitur anima tale obiectum, inserting anima where the manuscript of the Lectura secunda lacks it. Lectura secunda, vol. 1, 278.

22 In this interpretation of experior and its cognates in Latin, I am following Susan Brower-Toland's interpretation of the use of this terminology in Peter John Olivi. “Olivi on Consciousness”, note 5. Peter Auriol uses the term experientia in this way, as does John of Ripa. Scriptum 35.1.2 (Friedman, 18.897-905). For Ripa, see Section 3 below.

23 Auriol’s puzzling use of the term actus vitalis to refer primarily to mental states, even to the exclusion of other states of a living being such as nutrition and growth, is important to the development of fourteenth-century Latin philosophy of mind. My article in progress “Peter Auriol, Ibn Rushd, and the Term Actus Vitalis” will show that Auriol’s puzzling terminological choice was based on his having access to a manuscript containing a correct version of a passage in the Latin translation of Ibn Rushd’s Long Commentary on the Metaphysics that is corrupt in many surviving manuscripts.

24 See note 9.

25 “ … actus volendi ita sit volitio quod ipsa posita in anima, contradictio est quin ipsa anima velit, sicut contradictio est quod albedo informet aliquid quin illud sit album”. For Wodeham making the same point about thought and sensation, see LS 1.5 (Gál and Wood, 1.140.68-70); LS 8.1 (Gál and Wood, 3.16.48-49). The latter passage is cited by Karger. “Adam Wodeham”, note 33.

26 This is just the standard late medieval view that it is within the realm of God’s absolute power to preserve a quality in its immediate subject without the existence of any other quality or substance. For Wodeham’s application of this principle to prove that God can preserve a volitio in a subject without the corresponding cognitio, see LS 1.5 (Gál and Wood, 272.19-23, 273.15-274.22).

27 “ … si in nobis causaretur actus volendi vel nolendi sine apprehensione – secundum communem viam quae negat actum volendi esse apprehensionem quamdam … – maneremus caeci, nec aliquid perpenderemus, sed tantum amaremus non percipiendo nec actum nec obiectum”.

28 The first kind of intentionality is close to what philosophers now call ‘phenomenal intentionality’. See, for instance, Bourget and Mendelovici, “Phenomenal Intentionality”: “Phenomenal intentionality is a kind of intentionality, or aboutness, that is grounded in phenomenal consciousness, the subjective, experiential feature of certain mental states” (emphasis original). But it is often the second kind of intentionality rather than the first that is the focus of secondary literature on medieval theories of intentionality. See, for instance, King, “Rethinking Representation”.

29 “Alioquin volitio non plus esset nisi inclinatio quaedam, sicut inclinatur lapis deorsum nesciens quo feratur, nec magis complaceret mihi vel optarem per desiderium B rem, quam lapis per modum gravitatis C locum”.

30 “ … teneo hanc partem scilicet quod volitio respectu alicuius rei non est cognitio eiusdem quamvis fortassis volitio rei sit cognitio sui ipsius propter hoc quod ipsa est presens intellectui”. This question corresponds to what Dunne, following the order of BNF 15853, identifies as Question 6, Article 4 of Fitzralph’s commentary (“Richard Fitzralph's Lectura”, 408, 409).

31 “Sic enim arguit Augustinus 10 De trinitate 3 capitulis 19 et 22 quod mens cognoscit se semper per se quia semper sibi presens est”.

32 “ … actus non est experientia nisi obiecti”.

33 See note 7.

34 “ … omnis perceptio actualis obiecti est aliqua experientia spiritualis … nam omnis perceptio obiecti est quaedam sensatio intentionalis vel intellectualis ipsius; quilibet enim qui percipit aliquid sentit illud vitaliter”.

35 “ … quodlibet gaudere et tristari est percipere, est enim spiritualiter sentire et consimiliter de aliis actibus et passionibus voluntatis”.

36 “Constat quod perceptibilitas potentiae appetitivae ut sic est alia quam perceptibilitas potentiae quae est potentia intellectiva”.

37 “Ad rationem igitur respondeo et nego maiorem, non enim omnis experientia vitalis ipsius obiecti est notitia, licet quaelibet sit perceptio obiecti. Non enim omnis perceptio est notitia”.

38 This is similar to the issue of intermodal versus intramodal intentionalism in contemporary philosophy of mind. See Jeff Speaks, “Attention and Intentionalism”, 326.

39 See note 9.

40 This will become especially clear when we examine what I call Ripa’s Mode of Perceiving Argument below: In the Mode of Perceiving Argument, Ripa argues by reductio that if any volitio is a cognitio, that volitio must be a cognitio plus some additional way of experiencing an object, x. Ripa then argues that x cannot itself be composed of a cognitive mode of perceiving an object plus some additional element x, on pain of infinite regress. Thus, it is clear that Ripa thinks that the volitional mode of perceiving an object does not have as a component a way of experiencing that would count as cognitive – it is phenomenologically different from cognition ‘all the way down’.

41 Ripa’s basic strategy in distinguishing the phenomenology of cognitio from that of volitio is to characterize cognitio in a visual, iconic way, while denying that this characterization applies to volitio. Thus, for instance, Ripa writes that “No act of the will as such is an image and likeness of [its] object. But every cognitio is a likeness (similitudo) and appearance (species) or image (imago) of the object cognized” ( … nullus actus voluntatis potest esse respectu voluntatis cognitio. Ista conclusio probatur primo sic: nullus actus voluntatis ut sic est imago et similitudo obiecti. Omnis cognitio est similitudo et species sive imago obiecti cogniti. Ergo nulla volitio sive nolitio est cognitio, et ita de quolibet actu voluntatis) (Vat. lat. 1082, f. 80vb). And Ripa often simply uses the Latin noun for an act of sight, visio, to refer to any cognitio whatsoever, for instance in the latter half of the Prologue: “ … omnis visio, in qua aliquid obicitur ut in specie, per prius est cognita visio ipisus enigmatica” Lectura, Prologue, q. 1, a. 4 (Combes, 294.38-40).

42 “ … si quaelibet volitiva est cognitiva, sequitur quod volitiva potentiae intellectivae praecise aliquam perceptibilitatem superaddit. Aut igitur secundum illam potentia volitiva est cognitiva vel non. Si sic, et non est pure cognitiva, ergo aliam superaddit et sic erit processus in infinitum. Si non, ergo aliquis actus potest esse vitalis et perceptio respectu potentiae volitivae per rationem perceptibilitatis quam superaddit intellectivae et si sic dato tali actu ipse est perceptio potentiae volitivae et non cognitionem. Ergo non neccesario eo ipso quo aliquis actus est <volitio> est <cognitio>. Patet ergo conclusio”. Even though Ripa seems to associate being cognitiva or being a cognitio with the “intellectual power” here, he does not think that sensations are not cognitiones. In fact, elsewhere in the Lectura Ripa suggests that sensations, like thoughts, are perceptiones of the intellectual soul. Lectura, Prologue, q. 1, a. 4 (Combes, 254.61-79).

43 I thank an anonymous referee for a very clear suggestion about how to improve the presentation of this argument.