The project has provided a novel conceptualization of what rationality and perception mean in philosophical sources in the late medieval period. In terms of rationality, we need to consider that the scope of rational is not obviously limited to human beings, but that other animals show rational-like behavior (Silva, Perceptual Judgment; Oelze, Theories; Oelze, Animal). At the same time, studies on numerous medieval thinkers showed that lower (non-rational) cognitive faculties in rational beings display a level of processing that is rational-like (Rubini, Accidental; Silva and Di Martino forthcoming; Oelze, Konnen). Reasoning and discursivity here are not to be taken in the sense of what we could call ‘strong rationality’, that is to say processing of information that uses conceptual resources, which are only available in beings that have the power of reason. Instead, reasoning and discursivity here mean use of consequence and inference like processes (or even association) that do not depend on conceptual resources (Silva and Kny, Nicholas; Rubini, Accidental). We could call this ‘weak rationality’. The example are kind identification and category recognition in authors such as Thomas Aquinas and the perspectivists (Alhacen, Bacon). The difference between weak and strong rationality does not apply only to the human-animal divide but seems to apply also to different levels of processing of information in the human cognitive system.
The project has also contributed to a serious reflection of how was perception conceived in the medieval period, in particular about four main issues (aligned with the four main areas of inquiry in the DoA): first, the content of perceptual experience (Silva, Perceptiveness; Silva and Kny, Nicholas; Silva and Toivanen, Internalismi); second, the powers involved in the perceptual process (Silva, Blasius; Silva Stop; Oelze, Geschichte; Kny, Messen; Verboon, La perception); third, the active versus passive nature of perception (Silva, From Agent to Active; Silva, Intentionality; Silva, Chameleonic; Silva, Perception; Silva, Blasius; Silva, forthcoming); fourth, the veridical nature of perception (Silva and Toivanen, Perceptual Errors; Silva and Glenney, The Senses and the History of Philosophy). As the result, researchers in the project have successfully challenged the status quo and brought new insights into the tradition of a single internal sense (Peter John Olivi, John Buridan, Francisco Suárez), the model of incidental perception (Thomas Aquinas, John of Jandun, Francisco Suárez) (Silva and Di Martino, Suárez (in review)), or the non-rational vs rational divide (Albert the Great, Nicole Oresme).
In the same way, research done by team members has showed the inherent polysemy of active perception. Not only this concept can be understood in different ways by different philosophical traditions (Aristotelianism, Augustinianism, Perspectivism, Averroism) but also by different strands within one the same philosophical tradition. RiP researchers have showed the way late medieval period is characterized the development of these strands and by the creative use of elements of all these traditions by individual thinkers. A clear case in point is the (argued) merging of the debates about the Averroist agent sense and the Augustinian active sense (John of Jandun, John Buridan, Manuel De Góis). Work on authors in the so-called second scholastic provide new insight into the transition from the medieval to the early modern period of the debates on perception and the nature of the mind, with special emphasis on the Cartesian picture of the mind and the phenomenon of consciousness (Lähteenmäki, L’Attention).
