“…the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat,”
Gen. 3:6
“Then saith He to Thomas, ‘Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.'”
Jn. 20:27
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life… That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you…”
Jn. 1:1, 3
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Order of Contents
Article 1
Historical 6+
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Article
1800’s
Alexander, Archibald – 1. ‘Philosophy of the Mind’ in God, Creation & Human Rebellion: Lecture Notes of Archibald Alexander from the Hand of Charles Hodge (1818; RBO, 2023), pp. 34-46
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Historical
On the Whole of History
Hamlyn, David Walter – Sensation & Perception: a History of the Philosophy of Perception (London: Routledge, 1963) 220 pp. ToC
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On the Middle-Ages to the Early Modern Era
eds. Knuuttila, Simo & Pekka Karkkainen – Theories of Perception in Medieval & Early Modern Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer, 2008) 310 pp. ToC
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On Aquinas
Articles
Schmidt, Robert – The Domain of Logic according to S. Thomas Aquinas (Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), ‘Conclusion’
‘Intention’ 306-8
“Cognition, according to St. Thomas, is a form of tendency by which the knower, without ceasing to be himself, becomes something else. A cognitive faculty is a capacity to take on the form of another being. The form received into the intellect is called the intelligible species. By it the knower is given the formal or intelligible determinations of the thing known. Thus informed, the knower actively expresses or acts out the part of the thing known, so that the accidental act of the knower becomes one (in intention) with the act of the thing known…
This intention, expressed by the knower and expressing the thing known, has a twofold relation: it is a form or quality perfecting the knower and a relation of likeness to the thing known. Viewed in this latter relation, according to what it expresses, it is essentially the relation of truth, the conformity of intellect to thing.”
‘Intention of Attribution’ 311-14
Feser, Edward – ch. 4, ‘Psychology’ in Aquinas: a Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: OneWorld, 2010), pp. 114-47
Feser, as an Analytical Thomist, here, for beginners, describes and argues the direct realist view of perception of Aquinas, that persons don’t simply know mental representations of objects, but know, in a way, external objects themselves.
Wiki: “Aristotle was the first to provide a description of direct realism. In On the Soul he describes how a see-er is informed of the object itself by way of the hylomorphic form carried over the intervening material continuum with which the eye is impressed.”
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Book
Lisska, Anthony J. – Aquinas’s Theory of Perception: An Analytic Reconstruction Pre (Oxford University Press, 2016) 300 pp. ToC
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On Scotus
Cross, Richard – ch. 1, ‘Sensation’ in Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition (Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 18-42
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On the Puritans
Quote
John K. La Shell
“Imagination & Idol: A Puritan Tension” in Westminster Theological Journal, vol. 49:2 (Fall, 1987)
“Introduction
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But Puritan psychology also kept its strong Scholastic roots. Although the seventeenth century witnessed important developments in the theory of perception, significant terms often continued to be understood in much the same way as formerly. One such term was “Imagination,” a word which designated the image-making and image-storing faculty of the mind… The following study examines the Puritan definition of the imagination…
I. Puritans and the Imagination
Ever since Perry Miller’s masterful study of New England thought, there has been a tendency to view Puritan psychology as a monolithic intellectual structure. As Richard Baxter notes, that is not quite accurate:
‘But in these things even Christian philosophers differ. 1. Some think, man hath three distinct souls, intellectual, sensitive and vegetative. 2. Some that he hath two, intellectual and sensitive; and that the vegetative is a part of the body. 3. Some, that he hath but one, with these three faculties. 4. Some, that he hath but one, with these two faculties, intellectual and sensitive. 5. Some that he hath but one, with the faculty of intellection and will; and that the sensitive is corporeal.’ (Cited by Ralph Erskine, Faith No Fancy: Or, a Treatise of Mental Images (Edinburgh: W. and T. Ruddimans, 1745) 7)
Baxter is inclined toward the fourth option, but he confesses great uncertainty in the matter.
Baxter’s summary makes it clear that Puritans generally distinguish between the rational and sensitive aspects of human nature. Though there are differences of opinion, most hold that man’s sensitive soul (which includes the faculties of common sense, imagination, and memory) has a kinship with the animals. His intellectual soul is made in the image of God and includes such faculties as reason, will, and conscience. According to Puritan psychology “External objects produce images, or phantasms, of themselves in the five exterior senses-sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell.” After the phantasms have been examined by the “common sense” they pass to the imagination (also called “fancy” or “fantasy”) which stores them for later recollection or for use by the reason. Three observations regarding this general scheme may be made:
1. Scholastic Background
The Puritans derived their psychology from the complicated view of perception developed by the Scholastics. According to this system the essential form of a material object is transmitted through some medium to make an impression on the sense organ.
The Scholastics then require that the phantasm formed by Imagination contain as abstractable the essential form of the intelligible species of the thing known. For the Scholastics, what is known is not something which simply belongs to the knower; the intelligible species is the essential form of the thing known shared by the knower…. [U]pon the Scholastic account of perception the significance of the maxim, Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu [Nothing is in the intellect which has not first been in the senses], is apparent. If material things did not act through a medium upon the sense organs, nothing would be known.
By the early decades of the eighteenth century few Europeans were taking the old Scholastic epistemology seriously. Locke, Newton, and a host of others had made radical changes in man’s comprehension of the universe. However, the old Scholastic dictum could still be defended on the grounds of the newer empiricism which was taking shape. On the other hand, some philosophers in an attempt to salvage the insights of Descartes were willing to divorce knowledge entirely from the senses, thus depriving the imagination of any role in the apprehension of truth. It is against this background that the evangelical controversy over mental images must be seen.
2. Continuity of Definition
In spite of the tremendous changes which were taking place in man’s understanding of man, it is important to remember that the Scholastic definition of “imagination” remained normative for Jonathan Edwards and the Scottish theologians who debated his ideas. Edwards’ own treatment of the term is unambiguous. “The imagination,” he writes,
‘is that power of the mind, whereby it can have a conception, or idea of things of an external or outward nature (that is, of such sort of things as are the objects of the outward senses), when those things are not present, and be not perceived by the senses. It is called imagination from the word “image”; because thereby a person can have an image of some external thing in his mind, when that thing is not present in reality, nor anything like it.
All such kind of things as we perceive by our five external senses, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling are external things; and when a person has an idea, or image of any of these sorts of things in his mind, when they are not there, and when he don’t really see, hear, smell, taste, nor feel them; that is to have an imagination of them, and these ideas are imaginary ideas; and when such kind of ideas are strongly impressed upon the mind, and the image of them in the mind is very lively, almost as if one saw them, or heard them, etc. that is called an impression on the imagination.’ (Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (vol. 2 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards, ed. John E. Smith; New Haven: Yale University, 1959) 210–11.)
Because the imagination is not bound by objects immediately before the senses it is the freest of all the faculties. Its constructions need not correspond to the real world. Therein lies its danger.”
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