Peter Auriol on Intellectual Memory and Cognition: From the Inner Senses to the Intellect and Back

Abstract In this paper I examine how far the fourteenth-century philosopher and theologian Peter Auriol parallels the senses (with its apprehensive and retentive powers) and the intellect insofar as he posits a sort of intellectual memory, i.e. a “place” to retain non-occurrent intelligible similitudes (or “ species ”), in some sense analogous to sensitive memory which retains sensible similitudes. Most importantly, although Auriol grants intellectual memory, he does not make a real distinction between the intellect’s retentive and apprehensive powers, just as he does not make a real distinction between an intelligible similitude and an act of intellection. On the face of it, Auriol’s view can raise numerous puzzles concerning, e.g., why we aren’t consciously cognizing every object of which we have a similitude, if every act and similitude is “really” the same thing, and whether the senses can admit of any further “real” changes and divisions to help resolve this issue. As I discuss, common to both the intellect and the senses, Auriol admits of a difference in our attentive gaze, at least partially subject to our wills and desires, to help explain which similitude in fact goes into occurrent act. Moreover, given the more corporeal nature of the senses, Auriol further distinguishes different sense powers in terms of the different locations of their organs, where similitudes move between these organs, to help explain further differences in sensitive cognition and memory. Nevertheless, I argue that this difference in the underlying reality of sensitive cognition is consistent with Auriol’s general account which defines cognition, both sensitive and intellective, independently of such absolute foundations.