The Intersubjective Sameness of Mental Concepts in Late Scholastic Thought
The Intersubjective Sameness of Mental Concepts in Late Scholastic Thought
Stephan Meier-Oeser discusses intellectual representation in the context of later developments in scholastic philosophy, focusing on the issue of intersubjective understanding. According to an important statement of Aristotle’s De Interpretatione, mental concepts are the same for all men. What does this mean? In what sense is it possible for concepts, as particular mental entities or acts of certain individuals, to be the same for all? Late scholastic logic explored and discussed different interpretations and justifications of this statement which are closely connected to some systematic, fundamental epistemological and truth-theoretical issues, such as the simplicity of concepts, the intellect’s infallibility regarding simple concepts or the existence of veritas simplex, i.e., truth (or even falseness; Descartes’ falsitas materialis) on the level of the so-called “first mental operation” or simple apprehension. The chapter gives a survey of the main positions and central points of these debates from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century.
Keywords: understanding, veridicality, simple apprehension, material falsity
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