emergence of theories of mental language in early fourteenth-century philosophy as explanations of complex cognition.
Published: 2005
Language: eng
Number of pages: 235
Description: Most of Ockham's contemporaries and successors included a notion of mental language in their theories of cognition. Notably, Walter Burley held a hybrid view, mixing an Aristotelian view of simple cognition as forms in mind with the belief that complex cognition requires mental sentences. Walter Chatton held a view similar to that of Ockham, and influenced the development of Ockham's mature theory, though he, like Burley, does not omit the notion of forms altogether. The popularity of mental language theory represents a shift in emphasis from theorizing about concept acquisition to theorizing about how concepts, once acquired, are related to their objects. This change is coordinated with the replacement of the notion of forms in mind with that of signification, and is clearly exhibited in Adam Wodeham's proposal of the complexe significabile .Around the turn of the fourteenth century, theories of cognition held by most European philosophers began to include a notion of mental language---the claim that concepts have linguistic properties, and may be analyzed and described using methods and terminology similar to those used for analysis of language. This study begins with a description of two earlier, related accounts of cognition that do not include a notion of mental language: those of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, including Aquinas's notion of a mental word (verbum ), each of which can be described as a theory of 'forms in mind.' Not long after Aquinas, William of Ockham proposed a theory of simple and complex cognition that dispenses with Aristotelian forms, and is the clearest example of a theory based on mental language.Having examined proponents of mental language, is it clear that mental language informs all mental activity? Is language needed to explain complex cognition? The dissertation re-examines Aquinas's view of mental words, and shows how that view could account for the complexity that otherwise seems best explained by mental sentences. Hugh Lawton's criticism provides the only outright rejection of mental language among early fourteenth century thinkers. Finally, Robert Holcot represents a view that accepts mental language, but also leaves room for non-linguistic complex cognition.
Notes: Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-06, Section: A, page: 2248.