Concepts in the Latin Medieval Tradition

Prior to their rediscovery of Aristotle’s De anima , philosophers in the Latin West developed theories of concepts by mining Aristotle’s logical treatises (especially the Categories and On Interpretation ), as well as Platonically influenced works by Augustine, Boethius, and Porphyry. This resulted in several distinctive theories about the ontology of concepts ( intellectus ), the processes of concept formation, and the relationship between concepts and language. These early developments, however, were eclipsed in the thirteenth century by study of the De anima and Arabic commentaries on it. The intense interest in cognition generated a massive vocabulary for the discussion of concepts ( conceptus , species , intentio , similitudo etc.). Comparison of theories of concepts before and after the reception of Aristotle’s De anima demonstrates the extent to which these theories played a dominant albeit shifting role in multiple areas of philosophical and theological discourse, including logic and philosophy of language.