"Human Sensation in Galileo and Aquinas: Is Cognition Strictly Material?’ ‘A comparison and contrast of Galileo’s and Aquinas’ explications of sensation. Galileo proceeds largely along a materialist-mechanistic explanation of sensation, Aquinas, while granting sensations material basis is at pains to account for its spiritual or intentional aspect.Galileo’s Assayer (1623) Sensation is determined by properties of objects which are either: *primary or real (objective): shape, or size, position, motion, contact in relation to another body sonly apparent though ‘nothing bu mere names: subjective): tastes, odors, colors, ete. ‘To illustrate the difference: a feather does tickles human skin, not a marble statue. So the former is but a subjective response Such subjective responses are explicable in term of objective qualities of sensation, from lowest to highest: 5, Sight, the most excellent & noble of the senses, though resembling light, this seems less obvious a comparison, Ultimately light may be explicable of the atoms, the ultimate dissolution of corpuscles which is capable of instantaneous diffusion, 4, Sound is experienced by such qualities* in the air as it enters the ear; this corresponds to the element of dit 3. Smell is explicable by these qualities* of corpuscles in nasal passages; this corresponds to the element of fig. 2. Taste is similarly experienced according to these* of small particles, corpuscles, on their contact with the tongue; this corresponds analogously to the element of water. 1. Touch is pleasant/unpleasant according to the ‘smooth/irregular, dull/sharp", texture of the surface”; this quality corresponds to the element of earth. ‘Thus Galileo explains subjective experience according to the objective qualities of these corpuscles. If they are sharp or jagged they register as rough (touch), bitter (taste), foul (smell), etc. The intensity of the sensation is determined by the degree of their motion and their number. In this way the real, or ‘primary,’ qualities of the basic parts of a body explain the apparent, of ‘secondary’ qualities that result in our sensation,Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, |, 78, 3 ¢. (1265-1268) Sense powers, being passive, are set in action by an external object which imparts two kinds of change: Spiritual change occurs when the subject receives the form of the object supraphysically, as the form of a color is “ty the eye’, without the eye becoming that color. Natural/physical change occurs as the subject receives the form of the source in a physical way as heat is absorbed by something heating it. change in a medium (atmosphere) change in the organ itself vs. Galileo's ranking: { Sensation consists of r Physical change: 5. sight 4, sound mvt in atmosphere 3. smell (mvt of fumes: only per accidens) pe 1.touch through moisture of what is tasted direct contact of skin w/ obj (Organ of sensation 5, 4 3. 2. sight sound smell taste |. touch itual change: Intention eth in sense organ color sound odor taste tactile qualities Explanatory element (atoms of instantaneous diffusion: light) air fire ‘luid (water) earthComparison: a 1. Both rank the senses in the same order, following the relative places Aristotle assignes to the four elements. 2. Both understand sight significantly different from the other four senses, in part b/c of its instantaneous motion. leo, these designations are largely analogous. Different sensory are explained by the primary qualities of their corpuscles, not the qualitative determinations we find in Aristotle. Aquinas relies on these quali tive determinations to differentiate types of sensation 2. Aristotle further characterized each of the four elements by pairs of qualities, which are more pertinent to sensation. Galile of this, seems to have foregone it in favor of his corpuscularianism. Aquinas sees sensation in terms of the interchange of these qualities between the object, the medium, and sensation itself. while well aware 3. Aquinas treating sensation as more than a blank mechanism, allows that it may be understood as a combination of v is the interplay of all basic qualities (hot, cold, dry, wet), — This allows for the capacity of sensory discernment. Is qualities, e.g, touch 4, The main contrast lies in Aquinas’ addition of the supra-physical aspect of sensation: a, Though described as ‘spiritual,’ this does not mean non-physical. So we have, from West to highest: 3) Visual intention sight of color received by the eye, independently of physical reception, through a medium, as generally understood. 2) Of the lower four senses the physical reception of the object’s influence which allows for a spiritual change, which is an intentional regard for the sense stimuli 1) Mere physical reception of the object’s influence.8 So w/the exception of touch, sensation can be at a distance. b. For Aquinas sensation is through a medium which is its physical b Sight lacks sucha basis, nt bets entirely immaterial: sight does nt oseur independently of ight, but bit seems to lack a physical medium. 1is is so for several reasons; 1) permits perception not only of the earthly, sub-lunar realm, but also of the heavenly realm; 2) seems to travel, as even Galileo grants, instantaneously; 3) its instantaneousness allows for the immediate perception of whole objects/phenomena, where other senses occur over times 4) allows for the perception of different content, through the same physical locations as other senses do not; 5) its effects do not seem to linger as what travels through other medium. So, while sight seems to lack a physical component that other senses have, it has some physical basis, e.g., is received in a physical organ. is most evident . The major difference is that, in addition to the physical, Aquinas grants a spiritual supraphysical element of sensation. Thi the sense organ.’ with sight: ‘color is in the eye, which does not become the color it sees.’ So the ‘intention of the sensed form comes to be ‘in’ the sense organ, it is also in relation to the object sensed. In contrast to the mere physical reception of an object’s influence, whil ‘Sensation, in addition to the physical reception of forms, also manifests the possibility of an awareness.a Aquinas’ account of sensation, while passive in its reception of forms of physical objects, can be said to allow for the discemment of various qualities according to different intentionalities. 4J.F. Donceel describes three stages in the act of sensation (foi lowell tO Highest) 3. The psychological stage: the sense organ tums, as it were, toward the object, grasps it & knows it: discernment at the behest of higher faculty. 2. The physiological stage: a modification is produced by the stimulus in the sense organ, the spiritual component. 1. The physical stage: an outside stimulus impinges on a sense organ, Aquinas’ physical component. us examples Two pictures that are almost the same. It’s all in the details...when they matter. 1 thought I heard something. Cognition is Intentional. Certainly at the conceptual level: thinking about a notion according to different conceptual intentions: human as ‘social animal,” or ‘creature with a heavenly destiny’ At the perceptual level: how we interpret an image according to various concepts, or how we construe images according to one concept. In sensation: according to the particular details we tend to according to our conceptual or perceptual motives.