Logic and the Movement of Reasoning: Pierre Gassendi on the Three Acts of the Mind

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 292-326
Author(s):  
Sorana Corneanu
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Logic ◽  
Logical Operations ◽  
Formal Mechanism ◽  
Pierre Gassendi ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Good Number

Abstract The aim of this paper is to assess the central role the imagination acquires in Pierre Gassendi’s logic. I trace the structuring scheme of the three acts of the mind—common to a good number of late scholastic and early modern logics—to the Thomistic notion of the movement of reasoning in knowledge and argue that Gassendi revisits this notion in his logic. The three acts scheme is from the beginning a bridge between logic and the natural philosophical treatment of the soul. I show how Gassendi’s take on the three acts is similarly poised between his Logic and his Physics and I discuss the rationale, sources and consequences of his attribution of the three acts to the imagination. I argue for the following points: Gassendi’s conception of the logical role of the imagination answers to his empiricist epistemology, his naturalized view of the mind (which involves a defense of thinking in animals) and his notion of a natural logic; it is also operative in his pairing of the formal mechanism of logical operations with a progressive mechanism of the operations of the mind; and it serves as a counterpart to his experimental understanding of the progress of knowledge.1

scholarly journals Body of Knowledge: Renaissance Armor and the Engineering of Mind = Cuerpos del conocimiento: armaduras del Renacimiento y la ingeniería de la mente

2018 ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Felix Jäger
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Other ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Personal Authority ◽  
Historia Natural ◽  
The Mind

This essay charts the role of armor in Renaissance practices of knowledge. Since the advent of gunpowder warfare, armor was largely unfit for combat, yet still became a centerpiece of princely representation and was prominently displayed in early collection spaces. Rather than illustrating chivalric virtues or antiquarian taste, such suits in my reading signal a shift towards a physiological fashioning of learning. Through juxtaposing two key sets of armor – one ‘gothic’ suit situated in the studiolo, the other a ‘grotesque’ garniture for a chamber of curiosities –, my paper traces how these embodied settings conflated epistemological with political sensibilities. While the earlier ensemble acted as a mnemonic ‘prosthesis’ that enhanced the mind of the wearer, the latter evoked natural history imagery to remap the order of things around personal authority. Objects of armor thus spotlight the interplay of material and political culture in engineering the early modern subject.El presente ensayo traza el papel de las armaduras en las costumbres renacentistas del conocimiento. Desde la aparición de las armas de pólvora, las armaduras dejaron de ser apropiadas para el combate, si bien todavía constituyeron una pieza central de representaciones principescas y fueron ampliamente expuestas en espacios de colección. En lugar de ilustrar las virtudes caballerescas o los estilos como antigüedades, estas vestimentas señalan, a mi entender, un giro hacia el conocimiento fisiológico de la moda. A través de la yuxtaposición de dos conceptos clave de las armaduras –uno como vestimenta gótica emplazada en el studiolo (taller de arte), otro como decoración «grotesca» en una sala de curiosidades – mi texto indaga cómo estos elementos ajustados al cuerpo confrontaban las sensibilidades epistemológicas y políticas. Mientras que las primeras actuaban como una prótesis que fortalece la mente del que las usa, las segundas evocan la imaginería de la historia natural para recolocar el orden de las cosas alrededor de la autoridad personal. Las armaduras enfocan de este modo la interacción entre la cultura material y la política en el desarrollo del sujeto moderno.

Towards a Reassessment of British Aristotelianism

Vivarium ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Sgarbi
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural Transition ◽  
Modern Logic ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Aristotelian Tradition

Abstract The aim of the paper is to reassess the role of British Aristotelianism within the history of early modern logic between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as a crucial moment of cultural transition from the model of humanistic rhetoric and dialectic to that of facultative logic, that is, a logic which concerns the study of the cognitive powers of the mind. The paper shows that there is a special connection between Paduan Aristotelianism and British empiricism, through the mediation of British Aristotelianism. British Aristotelians took the ideas of the Paduan Aristotelian tradition and carried them to an extreme, gradually removing them from the original Aristotelian context in which they were grounded and developing what would later become the fundamental ideas of British empiricism.

Conceiving Desire in Lyly and Shakespeare

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Knoll
Keyword(s):  
William Shakespeare ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
John Lyly ◽  
Cognitive Theories ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Considerable Length ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Erotic Desire

Conceiving Desire in Lyly and Shakespeare explores the role of the mind in creating erotic experience on the early modern stage. To “conceive” desire is to acknowledge the generative potential of the erotic imagination, its capacity to impart form and make meaning out of the most elusive experiences. Drawing from cognitive and philosophical approaches, this book advances a new methodology for analysing how early modern plays dramatize inward erotic experience. Grounded in cognitive theories about the metaphorical nature of thought, Conceiving Desire in Lyly and Shakespeare traces the contours of three conceptual metaphors—motion, space, and creativity—that shape erotic desire in plays by John Lyly and William Shakespeare. Although Lyly and Shakespeare wrote for different types of theatres and only partially-overlapping audiences, both dramatists created characters who speak erotic language at considerable length and in extraordinary depth. Their metaphors do more than merely narrate or express eros; they constitute characters’ erotic experiences. Each of the book’s three sections explores a fundamental conceptual metaphor, first its philosophical underpinnings and then its capacity for dramatizing erotic experience in Lyly’s and Shakespeare’s plays. Conceiving Desire in Lyly and Shakespeare provides a literary and linguistic analysis of metaphor that credits the role of cognition in the experience of erotic desire, even of pleasure itself.

The Modern Aristotle: Michael Polanyi’s Search for Truth against Nihilism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Hoinski ◽  
Ronald Polansky
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Michael Polanyi ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
The Face ◽  
Human Desire ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Theoretical Science

David Hoinski and Ronald Polansky’s “The Modern Aristotle: Michael Polanyi’s Search for Truth against Nihilism” shows how the general tendencies of contemporary philosophy of science disclose a return to the Aristotelian emphasis on both the formation of dispositions to know and the role of the mind in theoretical science. Focusing on a comparison of Michael Polanyi and Aristotle, Hoinski and Polansky investigate to what degree Aristotelian thought retains its purchase on reality in the face of the changes wrought by modern science. Polanyi’s approach relies on several Aristotelian assumptions, including the naturalness of the human desire to know, the institutional and personal basis for the accumulation of knowledge, and the endorsement of realism against objectivism. Hoinski and Polansky emphasize the promise of Polanyi’s neo-Aristotelian framework, which argues that science is won through reflection on reality.

The Role of Women in Pursuing Scottish Criminal Actions, 1580–1650

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-250
Author(s):  
Stephanie Dropuljic
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
The Law ◽  
Role Of Women

This article examines the role of women in raising criminal actions of homicide before the central criminal court, in early modern Scotland. In doing so, it highlights the two main forms of standing women held; pursing an action for homicide alone and as part of a wider group of kin and family. The evidence presented therein challenges our current understanding of the role of women in the pursuit of crime and contributes to an under-researched area of Scots criminal legal history, gender and the law.

Cartesian Fingerprints in Beckett's Imagination Dead Imagine

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-243
Author(s):  
Irit Degani-Raz
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Levels Of Abstraction ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Limiting Case

The idea that Beckett investigates in his works the limits of the media he uses has been widely discussed. In this article I examine the fiction Imagination Dead Imagine as a limiting case in Beckett's exploration of limits at large and the limits of the media he uses in particular. Imagination Dead Imagine is shown to be the self-reflexive act of an artist who imaginatively explores the limits of that ultimate medium – the artist's imagination itself. My central aim is to show that various types of structural homologies (at several levels of abstraction) can be discerned between this poetic exploration of the limits of imagination and Cartesian thought. The homologies indicated here transcend what might be termed as ‘Cartesian typical topics’ (such as the mind-body dualism, the cogito, rationalism versus empiricism, etc.). The most important homologies that are indicated here are those existing between the role of imagination in Descartes' thought - an issue that until only a few decades ago was quite neglected, even by Cartesian scholars - and Beckett's perception of imagination. I suggest the use of these homologies as a tool for tracing possible sources of inspiration for Beckett's Imagination Dead Imagine.

Do conhecimento objetivo ao problema corpo - mente

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-113
Author(s):  
Nathalia Gleyce dos Santos Salazar
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Sao Paulo ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Third ◽  
Belo Horizonte ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Mind

Resumo:  Apresenta-se uma discussão sobre o conhecimento e a tese dos três mundos no qual a interação entre estes nos aproxima da verdade do problema corpo-mente, tendo em vista, uma nova proposta de solução. O terceiro mundo é uma peça importante neste trabalho; sendo assim, analisaremos o que Popper designa como Mundo 3, em que ele consiste e o papel da linguagem como diferencial do ser humano. Apresentamos as críticas popperianas às correntes monistas e dualistas, ousando fazer uma crítica a Teoria do Conhecimento tradicional. Desta forma, a proposta apresentada por este filósofo da ciência diferencia-se de tudo que estava sendo feito até então, por isso, o interesse de apresentar essa abordagem pouco trabalhada de Popper. Palavras-chave: Conhecimento. Corpo-Mente. Mundo 3.Abstract: In this work, we present a discussion about knowledge and the theory of the three worlds in which the interaction between them approaches to the truth of the mind-body problem, in view of a proposed solution. The third world is an important piece in this work. Therefore, we will analyze what Popper describes as World 3, what it is and the role of language as a differential of human beings. We present Popper’s criticisms to the monistic and dualistic currents, daring to criticize the theory of traditional knowledge. Thus, the proposal of science presented by this philosopher differs from everything that was being done until then. This explains the interest in presenting this unusual approach to Popper.Keywords: Knowledge. Body-Mind.  World 3. REFERÊNCIASLEAL-TOLEDO, Gustavo . Popper e seu Cérebro. Revista da Faculdade de Letras. Série Filosofia, v. XXIII, p. 59-68, 2007.POPPER, Karl Raimund. A Lógica da Pesquisa Científica. Tradução de Leonidas Hegenberg e Octanny Silveira de Mota.  São Paulo: editora Cultrix. 2007.POPPER, Karl Raimund. Conhecimento Objetivo: uma abordagem evolucionária. Tradução de Milton Amado.  Belo Horizonte, Ed. Itatiaia Ilimitada. São Paulo, Ed. Da Universidade São Paulo, 1975._______.  O Conhecimento e o Problema Corpo –Mente. Tradução Joaquim Alberto Ferreira Gomes. Lisboa, Ed. 70. 1996.   _______. Conjecturas e Refutações: o desenvolvimento do conhecimento científico. Trad. Benedita Bettencourt. Ed. Livraria Almedina, 2006._______.  O Eu e Seu Cérebro. Karl Popper, Jonh C. Eccles;Tradução Silvio Meneses Garcia, Helena Cristina F. Arantes e Aurélio Osmar C. de Oliveira. – Campinas, SP: Papirus; Brasília, DF: Editora Universidade de Brasília. 1991.   _______. O Racionalismo Crítico na Política. Tradução de Maria da Conceição Côrte – Real. Brasília, Editora Universidade de Brasília, 2ª edição, 1994, 74p.SEARLE, John R. La construcción de la realidad social. Trad. Antoni Domènech. Barcelona: Paidós Ibérico, 1995.  

Füchsische Poetologie. Zur Spiegelfiktion im Reynke de Vos (1498)

POETICA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 193-218
Author(s):  
Hannah Rieger
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Ancient Rhetoric ◽  
Wooden Frame ◽  
Legal Proceedings ◽  
Middle Low German ◽  
Specific Material

Abstract The Middle Low German Beast Epic Reynke de Vos (1498) is about two legal proceedings against the fox Reynke, who is charged by the other animals with the tricks he played on them. When he is sentenced to death, Reynke defends himself by delivering speeches that are constructed as described in ancient rhetoric. Part of those speeches is Reynke’s lie about his treasure, which he would give to the lion if he pardoned him. Reynke describes three pieces of jewellery as part of this made-up possession, one of which is a mirror. When Reynke describes it, he also tells Aesopic fables that are carved into its wooden frame. His fictional artefact, especially the interplay of its specific material and the content of the fables told, has a poetological level. In his description, Reynke hybridizes the political discourse of the early modern period, in which the virtue of prudentia becomes more and more important, with the rhetorical competence to deliver speeches and tell fables. In his fiction of the mirror he draws up a poetological draft that combines the role of a rhetor in court with his well-known properties of being clever and cunning. By describing the artefact, Reynke shows how to use rhetorical strategies, especially to tell fables, as an instrument to gain acceptance and to acquire political influence.

Healing Touch: Clothed Images of the Virgin in Early Modern Portugal

2020 ◽  
pp. 51-78
Author(s):  
Diana Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
Physical Contact ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Healing Touch ◽  
Devotional Art ◽  
Healing Power ◽  
The Many ◽  
Santa Maria

Over the last decades there was a growing interest in religious materiality, miraculous images, votive practices, and how the faithful engaged with devotional art, as well as a renewed impetus to discuss the long-recognized association between sculpture and touch, after the predominance of the visuality approach. Additionally, the neglected phenomenon of clothing statues has also been increasingly explored. Based on the reading of Santuario Mariano (1707–1723), written by Friar Agostinho de Santa Maria (1642–1728), this paper will closely examine those topics. Besides producing a monumental catalogue of Marian shrines and pilgrimage sites, this source offers a unique insight into the religious experience and the reciprocal relationship between image and devotee in Early Modern Portugal, and is a particularly rich source when describing the believers’ pursuit of physical contact with sculptures. This yearning for proximity is partly explained by the belief in the healing power of Marian sculptures, which in turn seemed to be conveniently transferred to a myriad of objects. When contact with the images themselves was not possible, devotees sought out their clothes, crowns, rosary beads, metric relics, and so forth. Items of clothing such as mantles and veils were particularly used and so it seems obvious they were not mere adornments or donations, but also mediums and extensions of the sculptures’ presence and power. By focusing on the thaumaturgic role of the statues’ clothes and jewels, I will argue how the practice of dressing sculptures was due to much more than stylistic desires or processional needs and draw attention to the many ways believers engaged with religious art in Early Modern Portugal.

Witches, Female Weather Makers, and Poisoners in the Carolingian Empire

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-211
Author(s):  
Christoph Galle
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
General Situation ◽  
Carolingian Empire ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
Witch Hunt

<?page nr="201"?>Abstract The question about the role of women within medieval societies associatively makes one think of witches who allegedly were up to mischief by using poison or all kinds of magic to inflict maliciously harm on other people. But this impression results too much from an uncritical reception of such propagandistic conceptions that arose from the later medieval and early modern witch-hunt ideology. This cliché of medieval witches neither does justice to the general situation nor can it be transferred to the entire Middle Ages, as a representative view into the Carolingian empire of the eighth and ninth centuries shows.

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