Papers by Dr. Mark Barker
This paper suggests several summa genera for the various meanings of in-tentio in Aquinas and bri... more This paper suggests several summa genera for the various meanings of in-tentio in Aquinas and briefly outlines the genera of cognitive intentiones. It presents the referential and existential nature of intentions of harm or usefulness as distinguished from external sensory or imaginary forms in light of Avicenna's threefold sensory abstraction. The paper offers a terminological clarification regarding the quasi-immaterial existential status of intentions. Internal sensory intentions account for a way in which one perceives something, as is best seen in light of the distinction between formal and material objects. Against the imagist account of intentions that denies the memorative power an immanent object, it shows that the memorative's proper and immediate object is the intention of the past, while its extrinsic mediate object is the imaginary phantasm. A lThOugh TheRe hAS BeeN much discussion of cognitive intentionality in recent years, Aquinas's comments on those intentions found in the internal senses (as distinguished from the myriad other kinds of intentions) have never been the object of an ex professo study. 1 This paper aims to show that an analysis of such intentions is indispensable for understanding Aquinas on the psychology of both human and non-rational animals. The first section suggests several summa genera for the various meanings of intentio, outlines the genera of cognitive intentiones, and lists the kinds of internal sensory intentions. Section two analyzes Aquinas's account of the referential and existential nature of intentions as distinguished from external sensory forms and imaginary phantasms in light of Avicenna's doctrine of intentions. This section suggests applying the Aristotelian principles of form and matter to the objects of the internal senses, and elucidates three essential characteristics of estimative or cogitative intentions. The third section suggests a terminological clarification regarding the immaterial status of cognitive sensory forms and intentions. The fourth section studies Aquinas on individual intentions and argues that the animal estimative has access to them. The fifth section argues that the intention of the past is the proper object of the memorative power and then presents the two functions of memory shared by humans and animals.
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Papers by Dr. Mark Barker