In this article I deal with the topic of perceptual self-awareness, focusing on whether a plausible account of sensory self-perception having exterior sensations as its objects requires sensible species representing these acts. I first introduce Aristotle’s two distinct views from On the Soul and On Sleep and Waking as defining the scholastic status quaestionis, then bring in Francisco Suárez’s, Bartholomeo Mastri’s and Bonaventura Belluto’s, and Hugh McCaghwell’s accounts. I show, first, that Suárez’s view, which cannot be substantiated by Scotus’s littera, (...) is rejected by Mastri/Belluto and by McCaghwell in one of his conclusions. Second, I argue that McCaghwell’s second tenet is to be assessed as Suarezian. This shows that Suárez’s philosophy of perception was positively received also by seventeenth-century Scotists. (shrink)

Ockham developed two theories to explain the intentionality of memory: one theory that takes previously perceived things to be the objects of memory, and another that takes one’s own earlier acts of perceiving to be the objects of memory. This paper examines both theories, paying particular attention to the reasons that motivated Ockham to give up the first theory in favor of the second. It argues that the second theory is to be understood as a theory of double intentionality. At (...) the core of this theory is the thesis that one directly remembers one’s own acts, and indirectly also the objects of these acts. The paper analyzes the cognitive mechanism that makes this double intentionality possible and examines the causal account that Ockham gave for explaining the emergence of acts of remembering. It emphasizes that he accepted nothing more than a causal chain of acts and habits, thereby offering an ontologically parsimonious theory of memory. (shrink)

The essay presents some gnoseological themes with reference to the intellect of the separated soul according to John Duns Scotus. Four questions of the Ordinatio IV, d. 45 deal with these themes. In this concret cognitive situation is possible, according to Doctor Subtilis, to get to know the new quiddities of things, in spite of a lack of the empiric cognition. It means leaving behind the conception of generic empiricism and moving to the recognition of more cognitive abilities, as in (...) Aristoteles’s conception. In a post death state intellect continues to have the memory of the quiddities of things known while still connected with the body and can remember concret things and events known by the senses during earthly life. Such a gnoseological notion evidences the cognitive continuity of the human intellect after death, its incorruptibility and cognitive ability at least as such as one had during earthly life. We can see here the connection of philosophic and theological questions, which mutually condition and penetrate each other. According to Scotus it is possible for the intellect of the separated soul to remember the past and to acquire new cognition. Moreover, it is also possible for such an intellect to know the prayers we refer to the blessed in heaven. Such an intellectual approach evidences a strong Augustinian influence on John Duns Scotus’ epistemic conception. (shrink)