University of Notre Dame
Browse

File(s) under permanent embargo

The Subjective Turn: Phenomenal Consciousness and the Metaphysics of Experience in the Fourteenth Century

thesis
posted on 2022-07-11, 00:00 authored by R. Jordan Lavender

This dissertation argues that fourteenth-century debates about the metaphysics of cognitio were debates about the metaphysics of conscious experience. These medieval debates about conscious experience have been overlooked in the rich secondary literature on medieval philosophy of mind. I call the shift by which conscious experience came to be at the heart of medieval debates about the metaphysics of cognition the “Subjective Turn.” The dissertation traces the Subjective Turn by examining the thought of several influential scholastics within their contemporary context, focusing especially on Peter Auriol, Adam Wodeham, William Crathorn, Nicholas of Autrecourt, and John of Ripa. I argue that two deep problems about the nature of conscious experience were central to the Subjective Turn. One is a problem about intentionality: How does the intentionality of experience, of the way things appear to a subject, relate to the intentionality of what medieval philosophers called similitudines, mental likenesses that represent objects in the world? The other is a problem about consciousness: How does the phenomenon of objects appearing to subjects relate to the phenomenon of subjects being aware of or experiencing their own experiences? The dissertation examines the responses to these problems that emerged during the Subjective Turn.

History

Date Modified

2022-07-29

Defense Date

2022-06-20

CIP Code

  • 38.0101

Research Director(s)

Stephen D. Dumont

Committee Members

Therese Cory Christopher Shields

Degree

  • Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Level

  • Doctoral Dissertation

Alternate Identifier

1337861251

Library Record

6262914

OCLC Number

1337861251

Program Name

  • Philosophy

Usage metrics

    Dissertations

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Keywords

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC