Buridan on sense perception and sensory awareness

Gyula Klíma

pp. 157-167

in: Gyula Klíma (ed), Questions on the soul by John Buridan and others, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

Klima's second chapter argues for an alternative interpretation of Buridan's position, presenting it as a purely functionalist, "physicalist" theory of pure sensory awareness. To be sure, the concluding paragraph of the chapter grants that in the case of the human soul, Buridan would certainly take a dualistic position, which definitely adds some further complications to Buridan's account of specifically human consciousness (to be addressed by later chapters in detail). However, it should be pointed out that Buridan takes this dualistic position not on account of his theory of the common sense (for which he explicitly assigns a material organ, namely, the heart, after considering and rejecting the idea that it is in the brain), but because he thinks the intellective soul is immaterial, although he argues that this is not a demonstrated philosophical conclusion, but rather an article of faith.

Cited authors

Buridan Jean