Mental Content in Ancient Philosophy
191-1911111-1099
Project Director dr. sc. Filip Grgić
Summary:
Ancient philosophers distinguished various types of mental content, in particular sensation, perception, imagination, thought and emotion. This research aims to explore: (i) these types of mental content individually, e.g. kinds of perceptual content in Aristotle, the status of perception in Epicurus, kinds of concepts, their formation and cognitive role in the Stoics; (ii) the relation between various types of mental content, e.g. perception and thought in Plato and Aristotle, memory of perceptions and thoughts in Aristotle, thought and emotion in Epicurus and the Stoics, higher-order monitoring theories of consciousness in Aristotle, the Stoics and Neoplatonists; (iii) the relation between various types of mental content and their objects (intentionality), e.g. fallibility of perception in Aristotle and the Sceptics, infallibility of sensations in Epicurus, presumptions and common notions in the Stoics; (iv) the problem of embodiment and cases for dualism; (v) various types of mental content and anticipations of types of consciousness, e.g. qualia of perceptions and thoughts in Plato and Aristotle, access consciousness in Aristotle and the Stoics, introspective consciousness in Aristotle and the Neoplatonists. The working hypothesis is that some questions and answers concerning mental content in ancient philosophy are peculiar to the ancient, pre-Cartesian paradigm. However, there are questions and answers which are relevant for contemporary discussions of mental content. For example, Aristotle seems to have a sui generis same-order perception theory of consciousness which can be related to the work of Gennaro and Kriegel; the Neoplatonic higher-order thought theory of consciousness can offer some improvements to Rosenthal’s theory; the Stoic view on emotions can be fruitfully meshed with contemporary research on cognitive import of emotions; the Epicurean notion of preconception and the related Stoic notion of common conceptions seem to offer interesting clues about concept formation. Expected results include at least two books in English and at least fifteen articles published in leading academic journals specialising for ancient philosophy.
Project assistants:
Pavel Gregorić
Filip Grgić
Nenad Miščević
Josip Talanga