Elena Baltuta: Bonaventure and Pecham on Colligantia and the Need for Attention
John Pecham’s theory of perception seems to contain a tension. On the one hand, Pecham appeals to natural colligantia (natural union) as the principle that unites the soul and the body. He inherits this notion, most probably, from his teacher, Bonaventure. For Bonaventure, the soul and the body are united such that “one draws the other to itself and communicates its properties to it.” Such a conception of the natural union between the soul and the body has epistemic consequences: bodily affections do not remain at the corporeal level, but they acquire significance at the level of the soul. On the other hand, Pecham states that sensation requires more than colligantia. The soul must turn toward bodily changes, act attentively toward them, and transform itself into the likenesses that change the body. This raises the question of this talk: if colligantia already accounts for the body-soul interaction, why does Pecham need attention at all? I will argue that Pecham needs attention because, for him, colligantia primarily explains the soul-body possibility of sensation, not the occurrent act of perceptual acts. He also sees colligantia as natural cooperation and not as communication of properties between the body and the soul. Attention performs, as I will show, three functions that colligantia cannot fulfil. First, it preserves the ontological nobility of the soul, preventing the bodily affection from directly determining sensation. Second, it transforms perception from a passive communication between the body and the soul into an active operation of the soul. Third, it explains how bodily affections become occurrent acts of perception.
Michael Chase: Philosophical Schools in Pre-Ammonian Alexandria: The Testimony of Synesius?
The paper begins with what little we know about philosophical education in Alexandria c. 250-500 CE. I shall then discuss the debate between Synesius and his anonymous (monkish? pagan? Some odd mix of both?) adversaries on how best to achieve contemplation of the divine or intelligible world. I end with some parallels from the early works of Augustine.
Maximillien d'Audiffret: Newton's Powers Theory of Matter in De Gravitatione
In De Gravitatione Isaac Newton purports to explain the ‘three chief truths of metaphysics’ (God’s existence, creation ex nihilo, and the mind-body distinction) with his theory of matter. I investigate the philosophical and historical reasons why Newton held this peculiar view. I submit Newton views matter as reducible to qualitative causal powers which are permanently active and are efficacious by their presence in, rather than interaction with, things (following the distinction made by Marmodoro 2021), which is motivated by an implicit commitment to the metaphysical principle that an effect must have a likeness to its cause. Newton thus ‘makes’ matter intelligible by reducing it to the intelligible properties that constitute it. Given Newton's possession of Gregory of Nyssa’s works, and the similarities between their theories of matter argued on similar grounds, I further speculate that Newton held this view due to influence from Gregory of Nyssa.
Nadja German: Language and Thought in Early Arabic Philosophy
From the outset, philosophy in the Arabic linguistic sphere is distinguished by the presence of two competing anthropological models. A core issue at the centre of these debates during the formative period (ca. 900–1200 CE) is the question of how language and thought are related: Is thought as such independent of and prior to language, as the Greek-inspired, Aristotelian falāsifa have it? Or is thought, by contrast, dependent on and relative to language, as scholars not (or less) influenced by the Greek heritage would maintain? In my talk, I will delve into this controversy, with particular emphasis on the lesser-known "language-first" position and its driving forces.