Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality (review)

Dominik Perler, editor. Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Pp. x + 347. Cloth $107.00.

This collection of fifteen essays originated in a conference on ancient and medieval theories of intentionality at Basel in 1999. Part I: Ancient Theories contains the following papers: Victor Caston, "Connecting Traditions: Augustine and the Greeks on Intentionality"; Richard Sorabji, "Aristotle on Sensory Processes and Intentionality. A Reply to Myles Burnyeat"; Christoff Rapp, "Intentionalität und phantasia bei Aristoteles"; Hermann Weidemann, "War Aristoteles ein Repräsentationalist?"; Richard Sorabji, "Why the Neoplatonists did not Have Intentional Objects of Intellection"; and Dominic O'Meara, "Intentional Objects in Later Neoplatonism." Part II: Medieval Theories contains the following papers: M. F. Burnyeat, "Aquinas on 'Spiritual Change' in Perception"; Dorothea Frede, "Aquinas on phantasia"; Claude Panaccio, "Aquinas on Intellectual Representation"; Dominik Perler, "What are Intentional Objects? A Controversy Among Early Scotists"; Richard Gaskin, "Ockham's Mental Language, Connotation, and the Inherence Regress"; Joël Biard, "Intention et presence: la notion de presentialitas au XIVth siècle"; Elizabeth Karger, "Adam Wodeham on the Intentionality of Cognitions"; Robert Pasnau, "Intentionality and Final Causes"; and Cyrille Michon, "Intentionality and Proto-Thoughts." The entire collection of essays is preceded by a non-historically oriented introduction to the problem of intentionality by Peter Simons titled "Prolegomenon to an Adequate Theory of Intentionality (Natural or Otherwise)."

All of the authors in this book more or less assume the commonly accepted definition of intentionality as the property of mind by which it is directed to or about objects. Although, typically, accounts of the history of intentionality begin with the medieval Scholastics, one great strength of this book is that it explores the roots of the idea of intentionality in ancient Greek philosophy. Caston in his paper notes the interest in problems of intentionality among the early Greek philosophers prior to the appearance of anything like a technical vocabulary to deal with it. And though Caston asserts that the problem is actually thematized by Plato and Aristotle, the book unfortunately omits any discussion of intentionality in Plato and only includes a cursory treatment of the Stoics, by Caston himself. Nevertheless, reading the book straight through in its roughly chronological sequence, one can actually witness the gradual awareness of intentionality as a problem or set of problems over a period of some two thousand years. This work thereby serves as a truly unique contribution to the history of the philosophy of mind.

It is obviously not possible here even to offer a short summary of each of the fifteen varied and rich papers in this collection. Accordingly, I shall single out only several of these that I found particularly stimulating.

Rapp's paper is an exceptionally clear discussion of the question of whether Aristotle's account of imagination indicates his recognition of the general idea of intentionality. Rapp argues that, although Aristotle does recognize the phenomenon of intentionality—particularly in his account of imagination—he does not have a unified and comprehensive position on intentionality. His paper in effect offers a challenge to the approach taken by Caston.

O'Meara, in a rich and highly original paper, argues for a nascent concept of intentionality within the tradition of Neoplatonic realism. He concentrates on the mediating function of concepts in revealing to knowers the structure of transcendent reality. The primary or basic concepts, that is, those that are logical or trans-categorimatical, are images of the transcendent, knowable through a regressive analysis of highly general propositions.

In Part II, Panaccio lucidly marshals the evidence against the traditional interpretation of Aquinas as a "direct realist." Panaccio shows that both the intellectual species and the concept—both necessary intermediaries of cognition—are held by Aquinas to be distinct from the quiddities of the external things cognized. In fact, what is cognized stands to extra-mental reality in a relation of similitudo rather than one of identity, thereby actually contradicting direct realism.

Perler presents a controversy...