Apparentia in the thought of Nicholas of Autrecourt: Intentionality, intersubjectivity, and probabilism in the status of mental being

ABSTRACT

This article sets out to clarify the status of the mental being in the work of Nicholas of Autrecourt (1295/99-1369) concerning the notion of appearance. Three features of mental being emerge from the cognitive process as described by Nicholas, namely (1) the intentional reference of cognitive acts to the thing, (2) the multiplication and comparison of different knowledge in order to grasp the thing in its wholeness, and (3) the mind’s grasping of reality, which occurs, in Autrecourt’s view, in a probabilistic and non-certain way. These three aspects of mental being constitute the outline of Autrecourt’s particular perspective on knowledge.

KEYWORDS:

• Nicholas of Autrecourt
• Theories of knowledge
• scepticism
• experience

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Professor Christophe Grellard, whose profound knowledge of Nicholas of Autrecourt and the Late Middle Ages has enriched my research on this author as well as this article. I am grateful to Professor Massimo Parodi and Professor Elio Franzini, for the dialogue that constantly encourages my research, and to Professor Carla Casagrande, for reading the early versions of this article and her useful advice. Many thanks to all those who contributed to improving the text of this article, certainly including the two anonymous reviewers of the BJHP for their constructive remarks.

Notes

1 In this article, I will focus on Exigit ordo VI, but we should mention the conceptual shift from the sixth to the eighth treatise, where Nicholas seems to radicalise the distance between appearance and being, choosing another terminology. From the opposition apparentia / res extra (or esse fixum) he develops the opposition esse objectivum / esse subjectivum. In this second case, the ultimate criterion of cognition seems to project itself in another dimension that is not a human dimension, but the total cognition of God, who only knows the thing in itself, the esse subjectivum. Through cognitive objects (esse objectiva) the human being can only asymptotically approach complete knowledge without ever attaining it. This conceptual shift is deepened in some contributions by Christophe Grellard, see for example: Grellard, “Sicut specula sine macula. La perception et son objet”; Grellard, “The Nature of Intentional Objects”. For this passage, see also: Salvestrini, “Francescanesimo controverso. Aspetti conoscitivi agostiniani tra francescani e Nicola d’Autrecourt”, 118–120.

2 Exigit ordo (hereafter EO) is the incipit of the text that has been edited in Nicholaus de Ultricuria, Tractatus universalis (hereafter: “ed. O’Donnell”); Treatise VI is found on pages 228–238. All English translations are taken from: Nicholas of Autrecourt, The Universal Treatise of Nicholas of Autrecourt (hereafter: “trans. Kennedy et al.”). In Nicolas d’Autrécourt, ami de la vérité, 153–172, Zenon Kaluza has proposed a different reconstruction of the text and the way its parts fit together than that found in O’Donnell’s edition. For an edition and Italian translation based on the Kaluza’s reconstruction, see: Nicola d’Autrecourt, Il “Trattato”.

3 Autrecourt uses the term ‘object’ for both the thing as cognised and the external thing in the world. In EO VI one can read for example: “Propter quod praemitto quod non omnis actus virtutis comprehensivae est apparentia objecti” (ed. O’Donnell, 228, ll. 4–5), or “omne illud quod est evidens sensibus exterioribus est verum, si aliqua certitudo habeatur de talibus objectis” (ivi, 237, ll. 48–49).

4 The intentionality of knowledge emerges in the texts of Autrecourt not only at a conceptual level, but also at a terminological one, where cognitive phenomena often appear with terms such as defigo, intendo, intentio, aspicio, aspectus that suggest the idea of looking towards an object.

5 See for example EO, VI, ed. O’Donnell, 228, ll. 21–28: “de omni eo intellectus est certus quod est sibi evidens et ultimate evidens vel ipsi secundum actum sensus. Nunc de omni eo quod apparet proprie, qualis apparentia est solum in actu sensuum exteriorum, est hujusmodi, alias non diceretur proprie apparere. Unde de multis judicat intellectus quod sic sunt et eis assentit, quae tamen non dicuntur proprie et potissime sibi apparere quia non sunt ultimate evidentia, ut quod Roma est magna civitas, sed videnti qui esset in Roma esset evidens et omnino clarum.” For the notion of clearness see, for example, ivi, 229, ll. 39–42.

6 See: EO, VI, ed. O’Donnell, 235, ll. 12–15.

7 Autrecourt gives the rule that I have explicated with the Nicholas’ example of Rome see: EO, VI, ed. O’Donnell, 231, ll. 1–8.

8 The sceptical tradition comes to the Middle Ages principally via Cicero and Augustine (mainly his Contra Academicos), but also via Aristotelian texts (Metaphysics and Second Analytics), see: Grellard, “Academicus”, 7–18; Grellard, “Le scepticisme au Moyen Âge”, 55–78.

9 As Grellard notes in the cited article, Denery (see: “Seeing and being seen” and “Nicholas of Autrecourt on saving the appearances”) argues for a unitary interpretation of Autrecourt's work, but without explaining the disappearance of the term apparentia in the second part of EO.

10 In the EO we can distinguish at least two meanings of the ‘product’ or ‘object’ of imagination. The first when the cognitive act goes beyond the immediate perception of the senses and entails a probable knowledge (treatise I for example). The other when Nicholas underlines that the object of imagination, such as that of the senses and the intellect, eternally exists, but with a weaker ontological status (treatise VIII).

11 See EO, VI, ed. O’Donnell, 231–232.

12 With the expression ‘constitution’ – which is not ‘construction’ – one intends to indicate, in general, the progressive and dynamic process of knowledge in the search for truth that emerges in some Nicholas’ texts. See for example: EO, VI, ed. O’Donnell, 232 and 235.

13 See the Latin text: “Et advertendum quod aliquando sic contingit quod intellectus habet illud in ratione apparentiae circa quod est actus judicandi, sed non totum illud, ut cum aliquis videt solem, ut infra dicemus, illud quod apparet sibi est minus tota terra. Nunc quia sequitur totaliter visum, judicat quod ibi nihil est praeter illud quod videtur, et ita enuntiat quod totum illud quod videtur moverit ab oriente in occidentem est minus tota terra; et ita illud objectum circa quod est actus judicandi est apud intellectum in ratione apparentiae, sed forsan non totum, de quo alias plenius inquiretur; et sic est falsitas in actu judicandi licet non sit in actu apparentiae”.

14 See, for example, when Nicholas examines the case of dream and wakefulness and underlines that the full appearance attracts and draws the intellect: EO, VI, trans. Kennedy et al., 106; ed. O’Donnell, 229.

15 See the commented passage below: EO, VI, ed. O’Donnell, 232.

16 Knowledge as a progressive and ongoing process will be accentuated in the second part of the Exigit ordo in the context of the conceptual shift mentioned above.

17 In the definition of the Ultrecurian notion of apparentia the influence of law is probably important, as mentioned earlier, in particular regarding the notion of testis and the central role of the distinction between full and not-full proofs, see: Salvestrini, “Diritto e retorica”, 7–21.

18 The rhetorical and juridical ideas of circumstances and normality, also connected with a controversial idea of constitution of truth, help to understand this part of Nicholas’ theory of knowledge. For the rhetorical and the juridical meaning of these notions see: Giuliani, Il concetto di prova, 65–69, 95–99; Giuliani, La controversia, 96 sqq.; Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric. A Treatise on Argumentation, 71–74.

19 For a more detailed exposition of the circumstances in Nicholas see: Salvestrini, Bellezza retorica. Un percorso tematico in Nicola di Autrecourt, Ch1.3.

20 See Latin text: “secundum quod dictum est de lumine imaginis, sequeretur quod nullus posset dicere de existentia vera subjectiva albedinis vel alicujus rei. Non enim potest dicere nisi per suam apparentiam; nunc dicetur quod illa apparentia terminatur ad imaginem rei et non ad aliquid existens subjective in re extra”.

21 See the Latin text: “Non enim potest dicere nisi per suam apparentiam; nunc dicetur quod illa apparentia terminatur ad imaginem rei et non ad aliquid existens subjective in re extra. Dicendum quod immo visus videns albedinem, quod aliquid videat certum est. Hoc dicit sua apparentia et quod est extra oculum et in tali loco; et concedo quod haec omnia sunt vera. Nunc, quando non mutatur visio ad quodcumque se divertat et quoquo modo existens, et realiter illud sibi apparet, imponit illud nomen et dicit quod ibi est vera albedo habens esse fixum vel subjectivum”.

22 This interesting role of the touch in order to give a ‘direct’ access to the thing is present also in some Aristotelian text such as, for example, De anima II, 11.

23 See, for example EO, VI, ed. O’Donnell, 232, ll. 6–10: “Nunc, quando non mutatur visio ad quodcumque se divertat et quoquo modo existens, et realiter illud sibi apparet, imponit illud nomen et dicit quod ibi est vera albedo habens esse fixum vel subjectivum; quando non sic, imponit nomen et appellat illud imaginem, sicut quando homo videtur in speculo vel quando homo videt ripam moveri”. Here the knower observes the thing from different perspectives and the appearances are like witnesses from which one progressively comes to the knowledge of the thing in its entirety.

24 See ivi, 228, ll. 29–31: “Nunc etiam presentetur cibus quem dicis dulcem febricitanti; est omnino sibi evidens in gustando quod illud quod gustat est amarum; non dico quod ille cibus sit amarus, sed illud quod gustat. Aliquis videt rubedinem ubi dicis albedinem esse; dico quod est sibi clarum et evidens rubedinem esse et sic in allis”. Here the class of ‘normal’ perception based on pleno lumine can emerge in the comparison with appearances from different knowers (feverish vs healthy, those who see red versus those who see white).

25 Concerning the oscillation between positions, see: Dal Pra, Nicola di Autrecourt, Ch3.

26 For the importance of the view in the thought of Autrecourt, see: Kaluza, “Voir: la clarté de la connaissance”, 89–105.

27 Latin text from O’Donnell’s edition: “Respondeo: vide qualis potest fieri hic ostensio. Si quaeras: quid intelligis per colorem?, respondebitur forsan: illud quod videtur; et si quaeras: quid intelligis per ‘videre?,’ istud quid nominis ostenderetur ignoranti per apparitionem oculorum ejus … ecce! sibi dicerem, hoc appello videre; unde meliori modo non posset sibi ostendi.”

28 For the rhetorical aspects of the ostension, see Parodi, “Scetticismo e retorica”, 386–387.

29 For a reliabilist account of Nicholas’ probabilism, see: Grellard, “Nicholas of Autrecourt on Knowledge”, 179. The probable as a reply to scepticism can be also connected with some Academic explanations of knowledge, such as those of Carneades, but in Nicholas the solution is closer to the Augustinian interpretation (see Contra Academica III).