| Duns Scotus's cognitive psychology is often seen as placing emphasis on the immaterial, intellectual aspects of cognition, thus demphasizing the contribution of the body to human knowing. Indeed, his context presses him to discuss the phantasm in the context of what it cannot do, in order to show the importance of the intelligible species; and his explicit account in the Ordinatio of what causes an act of understanding does not include the phantasm, only naming the intellect and intelligible species as essentially ordered, concurrent causes. However, a text from the Reportatio places unusual emphasis on the phantasm, and by sifting through some of the options in Scotus's taxonomy of causality, the role ascribed to the phantasm in the Reportatio can coherently be recast as a third essentially ordered, concurrent cause of understanding---in particular, an instrumental, dispositive cause. Including the phantasm in this causal story reveals a heightened, if sometimes obscured, integration of mind and body in Scotus's cognitive psychology. |
