A noção de representação e as potências cognitivas da alma animal em Tomás de Aquino

Abstract

Concepts such as intentionality and representation are objects of intense research in philosophy of mind, since they are traditionally considered the hallmark of the mental. Interestingly, these notions also have a long history of speculation in the Middle Ages. It was very common during scholasticism for explanations of the content of a thought to involve an appeal to its representational nature. However, the meaning of these notions was circumscribed to a specific context. This monograph aims to investigate the function that the notion of representation fulfilled in debates about the nature of the animal soul. We hypothesize that the postulates underlying the construction of this notion in scholasticism emerged from philosophical disputes about the extent of the animal soul's operations and the modes of apprehending knowledge, within an environment of adaptation and updating of Aristotle's theory of the soul. We propose to investigate (i) in what sense the notion of representation was crucial for explaining the cognitive operations of the animal soul and (ii) whether speculations about the functioning of the soul, in that context, altered its meaning. The attention given to the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas is motivated by the systematization and conceptual innovation that this debate adds through the postulates concerning the definition and description of the cognitive powers of the animal soul, the operations of the corresponding faculties, and the epistemological and teleological limitations imposed by substantial form.