Abstract

This ambitious work is an examination of the origin and development of the doctrine of intelligible species extending from classical thought through late medieval discussions. A second forthcoming volume will carry the analyses into Renaissance controversies, developments of late Scholasticism, and the elimination of the intelligible species in modern non-Aristotelian speculators. The presentation concentrates on printed sources of primary texts and a comprehensive utilization of most of the recent pertinent secondary literature. It is consistently focused on the central issue of the status and function of mediating principles in the mental elaboration of sensory experience. With virtually every significant figure of all major intellectual currents considered, the foundations have been laid for presentations in the forthcoming second volume of Renaissance developments.