i

I N F O R M AT I O N A N D T H E
H I S T O RY O F P H I L O S O P H Y

In recent years the philosophy of information has emerged as an important area of research
in philosophy. However, until now information’s philosophical history has been largely
overlooked.
Information and the History of Philosophy is the first comprehensive investigation of the history
of philosophical questions around information, including work from before the Common Era
to the twenty-first century. It covers scientific and technology-centred notions of information,
views of human information processing, as well as socio-political topics such as the control and
use of information in societies.
Organised into five parts, 19 chapters by an international team of contributors cover the
following topics and more:

• Information before 500 CE, including ancient Chinese, Greek and Roman approaches
to information;
• Early theories of information processing, sources of information and cognition;
• Information and computation in Leibniz, visualised scientific information, copyright
and social reform;
• The nineteenth century, including biological information, knowledge economies and
information’s role in empire and eugenics;
• Recent and contemporary philosophy of information, including racialised informa-
tion, Shannon information and the very idea of an information revolution.

Information and the History of Philosophy is a landmark publication in this emerging field. As such,
it is essential reading for students and researchers in the history of philosophy, philosophy of
science and technology, and library and information studies. It is also a valuable resource for
those working in subjects such as the history of science, media and communication studies and
intellectual history.

Chris Meyns is a poet, developer and architectural conservationist based in Uppsala, Sweden.
They have published on the history of data, on Anton Wilhelm Amo’s philosophy of mind, and
their book The Philosophers’ Library: Books that Shaped the World (with Adam Ferner) will appear
in 2021. Their current research focuses on vulnerability in information sharing ecosystems.
ii

Rewriting the History of Philosophy

Series editors: Aaron Garrett and Pauliina Remes

The history of philosophy has undergone remarkable growth in the English language philosophical
world. In addition to more and better quality translations of canonical texts there has been a par-
allel expansion in the study and research of sources, thinkers and subjects hitherto largely neglected
in the discipline. These range from women philosophers and late ancient thinkers to new Western
and non-Western sources alike. Simultaneously, there has been a methodological shift to far greater
intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives in the history of philosophy, cutting across the
humanities and social sciences.
Rewriting the History of Philosophy is an exciting new series that reflects these important changes in
philosophy. Each volume presents a major, high quality scholarly assessment and interpretation of an
important topic in the history of philosophy, from ancient times to the present day, by an outstanding
team of international contributors.

The Senses and the History of Philosophy

Edited by Brian Glenney and José Filipe Silva

Molyneux’s Question and the History of Philosophy

Edited by Gabriele Ferretti and Brian Glenney

Information and the History of Philosophy

Edited by Chris Meyns

Thought: A Philosophical History

Edited by Panayiota Vassilopoulou and Daniel Whistler

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-

Handbooks-in-Applied-Ethics/book-series/RWHP
iii

I N F O R M AT I O N A N D
T H E H I S T O RY O F
PHILOSOPHY

Edited by Chris Meyns

iv

First published 2021

by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 selection and editorial matter Chris Meyns; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Chris Meyns to be identified as the author of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Meyns, Chris, editor.
Title: Information and the history of philosophy / edited by Chris Meyns.
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. |
Series: Rewriting the history of philosophy |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020048364 (print) | LCCN 2020048365 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780815355007 (hardback) | ISBN 9781351130752 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Information science–Philosophy–History.
Classification: LCC Z665 .I5777 2021 (print) |
LCC Z665 (ebook) | DDC 020.1–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048364
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048365
ISBN: 978-0-8153-5500-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-3677-5564-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-13075-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
v

CONTENTS

List of figures and tables viii

Notes on contributors x
Acknowledgements xiv

Introduction 1
Chris Meyns

PART I
Information before 500 CE: Natures 11

1 Yinyang information: Order, know-how, and a relation-based paradigm 13

Robin R. Wang

2 Plato on the act of informing: Meaningful speech and education 27

Tamsin de Waal

3 On information in Aristotle: Nature, perception, knowledge 41

Miira Tuominen

4 Information and history of psychiatry: The case of the disease phrenitis 59

Chiara Thumiger

PART II
Information 500–1500: Access 77

5 Vācaspati on aboutness and decomposition 79

Nilanjan Das

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vi

Contents

6 Seeing and recognition in the Arabian Nights and Islamic

Alexander legends 107
Anna Ayse Akasoy

7 Avicenna on information processing and abstraction 123

Luis Xavier López-Farjeat

8 Thomas Aquinas on cognition as information 137

Cecilia Trifogli

PART III
Information 1500–1800: Control 151

9 Leibniz as a precursor to Chaitin’s Algorithmic Information Theory 153

Richard T. W. Arthur

10 Information visualisation in the Philosophical Transactions 177

Chris Meyns

11 ‘Dwindled into confusion and nonsense’: Information in a copyright

perspective from the Statute of Anne to Google Books 198
Stina Teilmann-Lock

12 Information in the pursuit of social reform 211

Lynn McDonald

PART IV
Information in the nineteenth century: (Dangerous) systems 227

13 The nineteenth-century information revolution and world peace 229

Edward Beasley

14 Charles Babbage’s economy of knowledge 245

Renee Prendergast

15 Mendel on developmental information 262

Yafeng Shan

16 Information and eugenics: Francis Galton 281

Debbie Challis and Subhadra Das

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Contents

PART V
Information after 1900: Insurgencies 299

17 The racialization of information: W.E.B. Du Bois, early

intersectionality, and social information 301
Reiland Rabaka

18 The many faces of Shannon information 324

Olimpia Lombardi and Cristian López

19 Computers and system(s) science—the kingpins of modern technology:

Lotfi Zadeh’s glimpses into the future of the information revolution 341
Rudolf Seising

Index 367

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FIGURES AND TABLES

Figures
0.1 N-gram for “information age” and “information revolution”,
1900–2000 10
1.1 A guqin (1634) 18
3.1 A classification of information 42
9.1 A replica of Leibniz’s calculating machine 157
9.2 A diagram of I Ching hexagrams owned by Leibniz 159
10.1 Number of documents published in the Philosophical Transactions,
1670–1879 178
10.2 Percentage of documents published in the Philosophical Transactions
with one or more diagram, map, or graph, 1670–1879 179
10.3 Diagram of a setup for experiments with gunpowder 181
10.4 Diagram of the leg of a turkey 182
10.5 Map of trigonometrical operations 184
10.6 Meteorological map of winds and monsoons 185
10.7 Histogram of atmospheric pressure 187
10.8 Two graphs with “Life-Tables” for “Healthy Districts” of England 188
12.1 Diagrams showing the causes of mortality in the Crimean War 216
15.1 Illustration of the behaviour of a dominating parental trait (denoted
by A) and a dominating hybrid trait (denoted by Aa) 272
16.1 Weather map printing plates 284
16.2 Galton’s counting gloves 285
16.3 Galton’s sextant 285
16.4 A hand-held dynamometer from the Galton Collection 287
16.5 A headspanner from the Galton Collection 287
16.6 Galton’s quincunx 289
18.1 Parts of a general communication system 325

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Figures and tables

18.2 Relationship between the entropies of the source H(S) and of the
destination H(D) of a message in a general communication system 325
19.1 Lotfi A. Zadeh, undated photo, approximately in the 1940s 344
19.2 Headline of Zadeh (1950) in the Columbia Engineering Quarterly 345
19.3 Headline of Zadeh (1954) in the Columbia Engineering Quarterly 345
19.4 Zadeh’s (1960) call for institutions in IRE Transactions 351
19.5 Lotfi A. Zadeh, undated photo, October 1968 353
19.6 Zadeh’s hierarchical stack of methodologies 354
19.7 Participants in the Conference on Graduate Academic and Related
Research Programs in Computing Science, June 1967 356
19.8 Elements of the fuzzy set “computer science” and their grades of
membership 358

Tables
15.1 Scholars cited in Mendel (1866) 264
15.2 Result of the first generation hybrid (Mendel 1866) 271

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CONTRIBUTORS

Anna Ayse Akasoy is Professor of Islamic Intellectual History at the Graduate Center of the
City University of Islam. Her areas of expertise include medieval Islamic philosophy, the rela-
tionship between the Islamic world and other cultures, and the history of falconry.

Richard T. W. Arthur is a philosopher based in Toronto and Professor Emeritus at McMaster

University, Hamilton (Ontario). He specialises in early modern natural philosophy and math-
ematics, the theory of time, and the infinite. He is the author of G. W. Leibniz: The Labyrinth
of the Continuum (Yale UP, 2001), Leibniz (Polity Press, 2014), Introduction to Logic (Broadview,
2017), Monads, Composition and Force (Oxford UP, 2018), and The Reality of Time Flow (Springer
2019) and has several works in preparation.

Edward Beasley is Professor of History at San Diego State University. He is the author of several
books on imperial and racial categories in nineteenth-century England, including The Victorian
Reinvention of Race: New Racisms and the Problem of Grouping in the Human Sciences (2010) and The
Chartist General: Charles James Napier, The Conquest of Sind, and Imperial Liberalism (2017). His
latest book, to be published in 2021, is on the social construction of diabetes mellitus.

Dr Debbie Challis is Education and Outreach Officer at LSE Library. She has curated a
number of exhibitions including Typecast: Flinders Petrie and Francis Galton in 2011 and
written several articles on racial science and archaeology as well as the book The Archaeology of
Race: The Eugenic Ideas of Francis Galton and Flinders Petrie (Bloomsbury, 2013).

Nilanjan Das is Lecturer in Philosophy at University College London. He works on epistem-

ology and Indian philosophy in Sanskrit. His work has been published in Noûs, Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Review of Symbolic Logic, and
Journal of Indian Philosophy.

Subhadra Das is Curator of the Science Collections at University College London. In 2017
she curated Bricks + Mortals, an exhibition and podcast walking tour examining UCL’s pivotal

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Contributors

role in establishing eugenics as a science. Her forthcoming book is about science, power, and
race and why we need to talk about Francis Galton.

Olimpia Lombardi is an electronic engineer and has a PhD in Philosophy from the
University of Buenos Aires. She is Superior Researcher of the National Scientific and Technical
Research Council, Argentina, Director of the Argentine Group of Philosophy of Sciences at
the University of Buenos Aires, Member of the Academie Internationale de Philosophie des
Sciences, in Brussels, and of the Foundational Questions Institute, Charter Honorary Fellow at
the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics, in New York, and Research Associate of
the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Sciences (LSE).

Cristian López has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires and the
University of Lausanne. From April to September 2020, he was Assistant Researcher at
the University of Lausanne, and from October on, FNRS Postdoctoral fellow based at the
CEFISES, University of Louvain. In 2017 and 2018, he was Visiting Researcher at the Munich
Center for Mathematical Philosophy (LMU) and at the University of Oxford. He specialises
in the philosophy of physics, in particular, in the philosophy of time, quantum mechanics, and
space-time symmetries.

Luis Xavier López-Farjeat is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy at Universidad

Panamericana, Mexico City. He has written on Classical Islamic philosophy and is co-editor of
Philosophical Psychology in Arabic Thought and the Latin Aristotelianism of the 13th Century (2013)
and of The Routledge Companion to Islamic Philosophy (2016). In 2018 he published Razones,
argumentos y creencias. He is Associate Director of the Aquinas and ‘The Arabs’ International
Working Group and Editor of Tópicos: Journal of Philosophy.

Lynn McDonald, a Canadian, has a PhD from the London School of Economics, is a former
member of Parliament and is now a Professor Emerita. She is the author or editor of 25
books, including the 16-volume Collected Works of Florence Nightingale and three books on
theorists, including the women contributors. Her latest paper on the subject, “Sociological
Theory: The Last Bastion of Sexism in Sociology,” was given originally as a paper at meetings
of the American Sociological Association.

Chris Meyns is a poet, developer, and architectural conservationist based in Uppsala, Sweden.
They have published on the history of data, on Anton Wilhelm Amo’s philosophy of mind,
and their book The Philosophers’ Library: Books that Changed the World (with Adam Ferner)
will appear in 2021. Their current research focuses on vulnerability in information sharing
ecosystems.

Renee Prendergast is Reader in Economics in the Management School at Queen’s

University Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her main research interests are in technology and devel-
opment and in the history of economic thought. Her publications include Choice of Technique
in Iron Founding (with B. A. Bhat), Machine Tools in Developing Countries (with M. M. Huq),
Development Perspectives for the 1990s (with H. W. Singer), Market Forces and World Development
(with F. Stewart), Contributions to the History of Economic Thought (with A. Murphy), and A
History of Irish Economic Thought (with T. Boylan and J. D. Turner).

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Contributors

Reiland Rabaka is Professor of African, African American, and Caribbean Studies in the
Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is also Research
Fellow at the College of Human Sciences at the University of South Africa (UNISA). Rabaka
is the author of numerous scholarly articles, book chapters, and essays, as well as more than a
dozen books, including most recently Du Bois: A Critical Introduction (Polity, 2021).

Rudolf Seising obtained his PhD in Philosophy of Science and the German habilitation
in History of Science from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich after studying
Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy at the Ruhr-University of Bochum. He is College
Lecturer at the Faculty of History and Arts at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
and he is now leading the three-year project “IGGI” regarding a history of artificial intelligence
in West Germany, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Yafeng Shan is Research Associate in Philosophy at University of Kent, UK. He is the

author of Doing Integrated History and Philosophy of Science: A Case Study of the Origin of Genetics
(Springer, 2020) and has published research articles in Philosophy of Science, Synthese, and
Philosophy Compass. He is primarily interested in the philosophy of science, epistemology, and
metaphysics. He completed his PhD at University College London.

Stina Teilmann-Lock is Associate Professor at the Department of Management, Politics

and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School. Her research focuses on intersections of law,
design, and technology and she has published widely on intellectual property law, design, and
digital transformations.

Chiara Thumiger obtained her Dr. PD (2004) from Kiel University and is a classicist and
historian of science. She has worked on a variety of medical themes and authors from the
Hippocratic Corpus (her monograph A History of the Mind and Mental Health in Classical Greek
Medical Thought, published in 2017 by CUP) to the late-antique world and beyond (Mental
Illness in Ancient Medicine. From Celsus to Paul of Aegina, Brill 2018, co-edited with P. N. Singer).
Most recently she has researched the history of the ancient disease phrenitis; the results of this
work are now under submission as a monographic volume. She has also published on tragedy,
ancient animals, and the history of emotions.

Cecilia Trifogli is Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the University of Oxford. She has
published extensively on the medieval tradition of Aristotle's natural philosophy and psych-
ology. She is the author of a book on the English commentaries, Physics (Oxford Physics in
the Thirteenth Century). She also works on the critical editions of medieval philosophical texts. She
has recently edited (together with Silvia Donati and Jennifer Ashworth) the Quaestiones on the
Physics by the Oxford master, Geoffrey of Aspall.

Miira Tuominen is Senior Lecturer of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Stockholm

and before that was Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Social Sciences and
Philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä. Following on from her PhD (University of Helsinki,
2002), Tuominen has mainly published on ancient philosophy and on themes related to know-
ledge, philosophical psychology, and argumentation. More recently, she has been working on
Porphyry’s On Abstinence from Killing Animals on which she has written several articles and a
monograph that has not been published yet.

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Contributors

Tamsin de Waal is currently Visiting Scholar in Philosophy at Columbia University. She

has previously taught at Kings College London and University College London. Her primary
research interests are in the areas of Ancient Philosophy and the Philosophy of Mathematics.

Robin R. Wang is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University, LA. Her

teaching and research centre on Chinese and Comparative Philosophy, particularly on
Daoist Philosophy, women and gender in Chinese culture and tradition. She is the author of
Yinyang: The Way of Heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and Culture (Cambridge University
Press, 2012) and editor of Chinese Philosophy in an Era of Globalization (SUNY Press, 2004) and
Images of Women in Chinese Thought and Culture: Writings from the Pre-Qin Period to the Song
Dynasty (Hackett, 2003).

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newgenprepdf

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editor of this volume would like to acknowledge a debt—both moral and practical—to
all librarians, to book swappers, to indexers, editors, and typesetters, to data analysts, to system
administrators, to file-sharers, to anyone and everyone who sends and receives email, to indie
web developers, to map-makers, to those who install and maintain road signage, to navigators,
to language learners and instructors, to copyists, to open access advocates and science liberators,
to painters, draughtspeople and photographers, to minute takers, to sculptors and sound engin-
eers, to data centre operators, to adblockers, to privacy advocates, to all the information
freedom fighters out there. Plus, a massive thank you to the rebels securing our (and the earth’s)
informational futures.

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7
AVICENNA ON INFORMATION
PROCESSING AND
ABSTRACTION
Luis Xavier López-Farjeat

Introduction

As one of the most iconic philosophers of the classical Islamic intellectual tradition, Avicenna’s
(980–1037) insights into the nature of human cognition still have parlance in contemporary
theories of philosophy of mind, particularly his approach to sense-perception, abstraction,
intentional states, and self-awareness. In his philosophical works the notion of ‘informa-
tion’ (taṣawwur) refers to the process by which the human mind acquires content provided by
sense-perception. Therefore, in this sense, Avicenna has a great deal to say about the topic of
‘information’, that is, the acquisition of cognitive or mental content (maʿnā). Maʿnā is a term
commonly used among Islamic scholars and could refer the meaning of a word, properties of
the external world, and also cognitive or mental content (forms, images, intentions, intelligible
forms or concepts). Generally, Avicenna uses the term in this last sense.
Inspired by Aristotle’s On the Soul and its Peripatetic and Neoplatonic commentators
(D’Ancona 2010; Gutas 2016), Avicenna developed sophisticated explanations for the human
mind’s ability to process information coming from the external world, as well as the way in
which the mind (or ‘intellective soul’, to use Avicenna’s terminology) apprehends intelligible
forms, that is, the highest form of cognitive content. Nevertheless, his explanation for human
cognition is problematic: on the one hand, it can be read as conceiving of knowledge as an
empirical process in which the human rational soul is able to abstract intelligible forms by itself;
on the other hand, his conception of human cognition, at times, raises the need for an external
agent for cognition and, in this sense, relies entirely on a specific cosmological-metaphysical
model. These two approaches, as we shall see, have led to divergent interpretations of Avicenna
regarding the way in which cognitive content reaches the human mind.
Avicenna deals with cognitive processes in several places. However, here I shall limit the
discussion to the Book of the Healing (Kitāb al-Shifāʾ), one of his most important philosoph-
ical works, where his most exhaustive discussion of the cognitive capacities of human beings
is found. The Book of the Healing is an encyclopedic work divided into four main parts: logic,
natural philosophy (which is itself divided into eight sections), mathematics, and metaphysics.
Given that, for Avicenna, the cognitive acts are due to capacities of the intellective soul, he deals
with these acts predictably in the Book of the Soul (Kitāb al-Nafs),1 which is one of the eight

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Luis Xavier López-Farjeat

sections devoted to natural philosophy. After studying several matters such as the heavens, the
celestial bodies, and the characteristics of natural bodies, Avicenna deals with animate bodies or
living beings in the sublunary realm, that is, in the sphere of changing nature. Living beings are
characterized, as can be empirically verified, by their possession of a set of capacities, starting
with the most basic, as displayed by plants (nourishment, growth, reproduction), and con-
tinuing, with increasingly complexity, to more developed capacities, as displayed by animals and
human beings (sense-perception, desire, locomotion, and, in the case of human beings, rational
thought) (Avicenna 1959: 1.5, 39–51).
Avicenna was deeply concerned with the way by which the human mind processes sensible
data in order to produce cognitive content, a process which requires the intervention of several
mediating faculties, distinct from sensation and intellect, such as, for instance, imagination and
the so-called estimative faculty (a faculty that, as will be shown, receives non-sensible content
linked to sensible forms). Hence, he raised several questions in this regard: What is the pro-
cess by which sense data or sensible forms can become concepts or, in Avicenna’s terminology,
‘intelligible forms’? Can these concepts remain in our minds or intellects? Is our mind able to
store ‘intelligible forms’ by itself? Can human knowledge be explained by the personal efforts of
our rational individual soul, or is some external agent needed to explain our capacity to process
sense-perceptions and attain ‘intelligible forms’?
In order to provide a satisfactory response to the previous questions, it is essential to explain
the most basic operation through which the human mind attains cognitive contents or infor-
mation, namely, sense-perception. As will be shown, for Avicenna, sense-perception consists
in extracting or separating the form of perceptible objects (Avicenna 1959: 2.2, 58). This
means that our mind or intellect can take something from the external world and then process
the information it has taken or extracted. This act of ‘extraction’ is what Avicenna means by
‘abstraction’ (tajrīd). Through this process, the human mind apprehends or separates the form
from an external object, transforming it into what we commonly call ‘knowledge’. From this
perspective, it seems that human knowledge can be explained as an empirical process, one which
consists of a human capacity to abstract or separate, by itself, cognitive contents in different
degrees: forms, images, intentions, and intelligible forms. In the last degree, sense-perceptions
are transformed into intelligible forms. Nevertheless—hearkening back to a problem which
originates in Aristotle’s On the Soul 3.5—what is apprehended through sense-perception is
the form of the individuated, particular sensible thing (that is, the form of a particular object),
and what characterizes human cognition—in contrast to animal cognition—is the capacity to
transform individuated forms into non-individuated intelligible forms. In other words, human
beings are able to understand intellectually, that is, to ‘conceptualize’ and, in this sense, tran-
scend the information provided by sense-perception: human beings not only know ‘this horse’,
but also the ‘horseness’ as such. The empirical approach, however, does not fully explain how
sensible forms are transformed into intelligible forms and how these intelligible forms are stored
in our particular minds. This opacity justifies, as some scholars have proposed, why Avicenna
holds the need for an external agent that works both as the provider and the storage of intel-
ligible forms.
To sum up, it appears that Avicenna has two divergent models for human knowledge that,
as will be shown, scholarly literature has intensely debated between, along with raising various
ways to reconcile these divergent models. In what follows, I expand upon the first model by
explaining the importance of sense-perception and introducing Avicenna’s understanding of
‘abstraction’. The aim of this first section is to problematize the empirical approach and pave
the way towards understanding the need for an external agent, which Avicenna calls the ‘active
intellect’ (ʿaql al-faʿʿāl). In the second section, I explore the second model by discussing the

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Avicenna on information and abstraction

different interpretations as to why the ‘active intellect’ is necessary for the cognitive process.
(Here, I shall present my own modest provisional conciliatory position.) However, the aim of
this article is not to provide a resolution or a novel alternative interpretation to this problem,
but to describe the way in which Avicenna understands human knowledge. While avoiding
anachronism, I will ultimately evaluate if this way of explaining cognition has something to say
to contemporary epistemology.

The cognitive content of sense-perception

Sense-perception (idrāk) is a capacity shared by animals and human beings. As mentioned,
Avicenna defines ‘sense-perception’ as the extraction of the form (ṣūra) of a perceptible object
(Avicenna 1959: 2.2, 58–74). The sense-perceptive faculties are divided into two parts, namely,
the external and the internal. The external faculties are the external senses that make possible
the most elementary mode of perception, namely, sensation, which consists in extracting the
sensible forms or properties of the external objects. These sensible forms are impressed on the
organ corresponding to each external sense. The external senses supply information that will
be processed by the internal faculties or internal senses. Avicenna recognizes the following
external senses: (1) sight, which, through the eyes, perceives the image of the forms of colored
bodies; (2) hearing, which, through the eardrum, perceives sounds produced by the vibration
of the air when two solid bodies strike each other; (3) smell, which, through the nasal passages,
perceives the odor of the bodies transmitted through the air; (4) taste, which, through the
nerves distributed in and around the tongue, perceives the sensible forms of tastes when they
are mingled with the saliva; (5) and the sense of touch, which, through the nerves distributed
over the skin, perceives four different kinds of sensations (hot and cold, dry and moist, hard
and soft, rough and smooth) by means of four different faculties. Since Avicenna divides touch
into four faculties, his account comprises a total number of eight external senses (Avicenna
1959: 1.5, 42–43).
Sensation is not the only kind of perception. There are other kinds of perception depending
on the degree of abstraction or separation from matter: the forms, intentions (maʿānī), and intel-
ligible forms or intelligibles (maʿqūlāt). As mentioned, the internal senses, which are located in
the brain, are able to process the information provided by the external senses. So, they can grasp
content and meaning that is not part of sensation, that is, not directly perceived by the external
senses, even if this content is in conjunction with the perceptibility of objects. Avicenna calls
this kind of content ‘intentions’ (maʿānī). These ‘intentions’ are ‘meanings of the external world’
that cannot be reduced to mere sensorial experience or to images, nor are they intellective
content. When Avicenna explains these ‘meanings’, he mentions the well-known example of
the sheep perceiving danger in the wolf. When the sheep faces the wolf, this innocent animal
sees nothing but a mass of dark fur and a pair of jaws and perceives its smell. The sheep does
not ‘see’ or ‘smell’ hostility, unfriendliness, or danger. The senses of sight and smell limit them-
selves to particular sensations that must be processed by some internal faculty that endows the
aforementioned sensations with meaning, so the sheep can ‘understand’ that the wolf represents
‘hostility’ and ‘danger’ (Avicenna 1959: 1.5, 43).
In other words, intentions cannot be identified with the input data coming from the external
senses. Intentions are properties that are recognized in the external world and, in this sense, as
Hasse (2000: 132) holds, they are ontologically independent from the mind and are present in
the perceptible object. They can only be perceived by living beings endowed with the internal
faculties suitable for perceiving them. Through these faculties, human beings, and even some
animals, are able to perceive and abstract the content of the external world thus receiving

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Luis Xavier López-Farjeat

pre-intellective or pre-conceptual content, that is, information or, in other words, what Kaukua
(2014b: 109–110) calls ‘quasi or proto-concepts’. This level of perception transcends the recep-
tion of mere sensible data and consists in ‘perceiving the world as something’. Note, however,
that although intentions are already cognitive content, given that they are still particularized,
they cannot be considered intellective content.
The internal faculties that are needed to be able to perceive intentions, according to
Avicenna, are the following: (1) the common sense (ḥiss al-mushtarak), whose function is to
receive and unify the sensible forms provided by the external senses; (2) the retentive imagin-
ation (al-khayāl), devoted to the retention of images; (3) the estimative faculty (wahm), respon-
sible for the reception of intentions that are in turn retained by (4) memory (dhikr); and (5) the
compositive imagination (mutakhayyila), a permanently active faculty that composes and divides
both imaginative forms and intentions. Avicenna adds, in the case of human beings, a faculty
named mufakkira (cogitatio, as it was translated in the Latin world), which is the compositive
imagination (mutakhayyila) under the control of the intellect, whose activity is crucial for pre-
paring the intelligible forms:

Then comes the faculty denominated imaginative in relation to the animal soul, and
the cogitative faculty in relation to the human soul. This is a faculty found in the
middle ventricle of the brain, in the cerebellar vermis, and its function is to combine
and divide at its will any [form] in the images. Then there is the estimative faculty,
found in the posterior area of the middle ventricle. This one perceives the intentions
not perceptible by the senses but that only can be with respect to particular sensible
objects, like the faculty with which a sheep judges that it must flee from the wolf and
love the sheep. It could also act with respect to objects of the imagination by com-
bining and dividing them.
(Avicenna 1959: 1.5, 45)

Note that these faculties provide forms, images, and intentions. These cognitive faculties play
an active role in cognition and, as a consequence, they are providers of pre-intellectual cognitive
content, that is, non-conceptual content common to animals and human beings. The estima-
tive faculty is the highest in the case of animals which, as mentioned in the example of the
sheep perceiving the hostility of the wolf, are able to receive non-sensible content (intentions)
linked to sensible forms, which is stored in the memory and constructed by the compositive
imagination (mutakhayyila). Avicenna explains that the estimative faculty is able to control the
compositive imagination, enabling animals to attain a representation of the external world and
react and act according to what is beneficial for their survival (Avicenna 1959: 4.3, 184–185;
López-Farjeat 2012; 2016). In sum, perception is not limited to the sensitive experience; rather,
it includes the reception of non-material properties conjointly with perceptible objects (Black
1993; 2000). Any living organism endowed with the appropriate faculties to perceive is capable
of retaining cognitive information that allows it to interact with the external world.
In the case of human beings, the operation of the internal faculties is somewhat more
sophisticated. In rational beings the compositive imagination can sometimes act independ-
ently, while at other times it is subordinated to the estimative faculty (as happens in the case of
animals) or to the intellect. When acting independently, the compositive imagination, as already
mentioned, acts permanently, combining and separating images in the mind without any vol-
untary control, as happens, for instance, when dreaming. Note, then, that the compositive
imagination is perpetually providing information to the estimative faculty and, hence, our
mind (or intellective soul, in Avicenna’s terminology) is constantly producing images. But, as

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mentioned, the compositive imagination can be used by the intellect, thus acting as the cogi-
tative faculty:

it is natural for us to combine part of the perceptible objects with other parts, not
according to the form that we have found in them externally nor even affirming that
some of them exist or do not. Thus, in us there must be some faculty by which we do
that. When the intellect is using it, this [faculty] is called the cogitative, while when
the animal is using it, it is called compositive imagination.
(Avicenna 1959: 4.1, 165–166)

The cogitative faculty, thus, is not a distinct faculty, but the compositive imagination assisting
the intellect in its own operation, namely, the attainment of intelligible forms. The proper
function of the cogitative faculty is to provide the intellect with images in which there are
potentially intelligible forms which are not linked to any particular existing individual. The
cogitative faculty separates the particularities or accidents of the specific perceptible objects and
focuses on the intelligible form, for example, after meeting Zaid and Salma, one can imagine
a human being without thinking about Zaid or Salma, in particular, even though the image is
constructed from data gained through meeting Zaid and Salma.
As can be seen, up to this point, Avicenna’s explanation of the cognitive process in the
Book of the Soul emphasizes the role of the internal senses. In a passage that will be commented
upon later (Avicenna 1959: 4.5, 234–236), he explains that the process of intellection consists
in bringing cognitive contents (maʿānī) from potency to act, after having been received by the
internal faculties, that is, the intellect abstracts the content of the internal faculties, transforming
this content into intelligible forms. According to this model, perception is the foundation
for the formation of intelligible forms. Those things that have been extracted from percep-
tible objects and their associations (images and intentions) reach the intellect (ʿaql) completely
separated (mujarrada) from matter and its accidents. But there are some difficulties when trying
to clearly understand how content in the internal faculties can turn into intelligible forms. In
the Book of the Soul, Avicenna seems to suggest that the individual rational soul, by its own
powers, is able to separate any material residue from sensible forms, thus completing the cogni-
tive process by attaining an intelligible form or, in other words, a concept. As Hasse (2001: 46–
58) has pointed out, through the cognitive process, starting with sensation, Avicenna describes
four different kinds of abstraction:2 (1) the external senses abstract the sensible forms of percep-
tible objects; (2) the retentive imagination abstracts the image of the particular form provided
by the common sense; (3) the estimative power abstracts intentions or non-sensible properties
and, in the case of human beings, the cogitative faculty abstracts the particularities of percep-
tible objects; (4) the intellective faculty removes any material residue from the potentially ‘intel-
ligible form’ provided by the cogitative faculty completing the process of abstraction (intazaʿa).
When the abstracted form comes to be in the intellect, it is impressed in what Avicenna
calls the ‘material intellect’,3 that is, the capacity of the intellective soul to receive intelligible
forms. (This process is analogous to the way a sensible image comes to be impressed in the eye.)
But how is it that a cognitive process that, until now, has depended on organic faculties (the
external and internal senses) to obtain mental contents, can, by itself, separate material residue
from its content? Avicenna answers this question in the Book of the Soul 5.5. Here, he explains
the need for the assistance of a separate immaterial intellect, which provides the immaterial
non-individuated intelligible forms to the human intellect. Using Avicenna’s terminology, the
material intellect (that is, our particular intellect) is able to retain the sensible forms and needs
to be actualized in order to understand dematerialized forms, that is, the intelligible forms.4

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Hence, to complete the cognitive process, an external intellect, what Avicenna calls the ‘active
intellect’, needs to provide intelligible forms. Given the limitations of the material intellect,
which depends on organic faculties and could not therefore dematerialized forms by itself,
the active intellect is described as an entirely immaterial and separate intellect that is always
in actuality, which stores every intelligible form. Avicenna’s explanation for the relationship
between the material and the active intellect is complex and raises some problems that, as will
be explained in the following section, have been discussed in depth among scholars in the field.
In general terms, Avicenna’s explanation of the intellective process not only needs to be
understood from an epistemological perspective, but also from a cosmological-metaphysical one.
In his cosmology, Avicenna outlines an emanation scheme (‘emanative’ insofar as it is brought
about through an ‘overflow’ of God’s generosity), in which, through its self-contemplation, the
necessary being (God) causes the existence of a series of intellects. These intellects, through
thinking themselves, the intellect above them, and God, cause the existence of subsequent
intellects (as well as the respective souls and bodies of the heavens). The lowest of these imma-
terial intellects, the tenth intellect proceeding from God, is the active intellect, which eman-
ates on us (Avicenna 2005: 318–326). This emanation includes the emanation of forms to the
world, rendering the active intellect’s role as the storehouse of intelligible forms (Avicenna
2005: 337). According to Avicenna, actualization of intelligible forms is only possible when the
material human intellect and the active intellect interact. This relation is explained as a con-
junction (ittiṣāl) between both intellects. From this perspective, everything indicates that the
active intellect functions as the efficient cause for the human intellection of immaterial intel-
ligible forms. That said, the precise role the active intellect plays in the process has generated
much debate.

Abstraction and emanation

The previous section explored the role of sense-perception in Avicenna’s description of the
cognitive process. It has been shown that the cognitive process culminates in the knowledge of
intelligible forms, which remains ambiguous without appealing to something outside of sense-
perception, namely, the active intellect, whose role is not entirely clear. It appears as if what
is usually called the ‘pre-noetic’ or pre-conceptual level of abstraction, that is, the extraction
of forms and intentions, involving bodily powers both external and internal, is only a kind of
preparation for the intellectual apprehension of intelligible forms via the active intellect. Put
simply, the apprehension of intelligible forms is prompted or stimulated by sense-perception
but comes about through the conjunction with the separate active intellect. What is called
‘intellectual understanding’ involves both sense-perception and the conjunction with the active
intellect. And, given that the active intellect is the storehouse for all the intelligible forms, this
separate intellect delivers forms to the human intellect through an emanation (fayḍ). This doc-
trine is difficult to explain and, of course, is a matter of controversy.
What has been prepared at the ‘pre-noetic’ level is potentially intelligible. When this con-
tent is prepared and almost dematerialized through the cogitative faculty, the active intellect
actualizes the human material intellect by emanating the intelligible form. Thus, human cogni-
tion involves a conjunction, that is, a combination between, on the one side, the dematerialized
form abstracted by the individual intellective soul by its own powers, and, on the other side,
the active intellect emanating the intelligible form. This suggests that, even though the levels of
abstraction occurring at the pre-noetic level are necessary for cognition to take place, in a strict
and complete sense, cognition is the reception of intelligible forms through an emanation. This
was the commonly accepted interpretation of Avicenna among his Medieval Latin receivers,

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like Thomas Aquinas, as well as the interpretation of numerous contemporary scholars, for
example, Étienne Gilson (1930), Fazlur Rahman (1958), Herbert Davidson (1992), Deborah
Black (2005; 2014), Richard C. Taylor (2005; while in 2019 he has reconsidered his position
emphasizing the influence of Themisitus in the understanding of abstraction), and Olga Lizzini
(2010, while emphasizing Avicenna’s Neoplatonic sources).
Other interpreters, like Dag Hasse (2000; 2001) and Dimitri Gutas (2001; 2012; 2013;
2014), have emphasized the importance of abstraction from an empirical point of view, limiting
the role of the active intellect to that of a storehouse for intelligible forms.5 Gutas’ (2012)
approach is particularly interesting. He holds that the rational soul of the newly born infants is
a tabula rasa that, as it grows, acquires information about the external world through experience
(mushāhada), that is, sense-perception and reflection or, in other words, information from the
external and inner world (that is, self-awareness). All of the content received in the material
intellect arises from experience. Thus, the operation of the intellect only consists in the meth-
odic ratiocination of finding middle terms for syllogistic thinking. The intellect (or the mind)
has no innate or a priori content but has a natural disposition (fiṭra) to receive content from
experience. Therefore, according to Gutas, the active intellect does not emanate intelligible
forms to the material intellect. At first sight, this appears to be a strange interpretation, given
that, certainly, Avicenna thinks that the active intellect intervenes in the cognitive process.
Gutas does not deny that Avicenna’s ‘empirical epistemology’ is embedded in an emanationist
cosmological and ontological framework, according to which, as previously explained, the
world is generated by successive emanations from the intellects originating from the necessary
being (God). He clearly sees that there is a tension between Avicenna’s ‘empirical’ explanation
of cognition and his emanationist cosmology. However, he thinks that ‘the concept of the
emanation of the intelligibles from the active intellect has its place in his cosmology and it serves
to solve essentially an ontological problem, not an epistemological one, which is the location
of the intelligibles’ (Gutas 2012: 411). In this sense, from the epistemological perspective, the
function of the active intellect is minimally relevant, limited to storing the intelligible forms.
The storage of the intelligible forms or, in other words, intellectual memory is an intriguing
topic. Recall that for Avicenna, as previously explained, memory, as a part of the internal fac-
ulties, stores only intentions (which are associated with images). But intellective knowledge is
different. How can immaterial, intelligible forms (concepts) be retained in a material body?
Could one simply credit it to a power of the mind? No, because our mind retains, in the
internal faculties located in the brain, sensible forms, images, and intentions, which are divis-
ible and combinable because they are still linked to the sensible realm. The intelligible forms,
in contrast, are immaterial, so they cannot reside in a material receptacle. The only alterna-
tive, thus, is that they are in a separate, immaterial intellect, namely, the active intellect, whose
function is to actively and eternally think the intelligible forms. However, according to Gutas’
interpretation:

The active intellect itself, as the storage of the intelligibles, is completely passive and
never initiates the ‘effluence’; Avicenna is quite explicit about this: ‘The active prin-
ciple [i.e., the active intellect] lets flow upon the [human rational] soul form after
form in accordance with the demand by the soul; and when the soul turns away from it [the
active intellect], then the effluence is broken off’.
[Avicenna 1959: 245–246] (Gutas 2012: 412)

Taylor, who disagrees with this assessment, admits that Gutas has provided relevant remarks
concerning the description of cognition as a naturalistic process. However, he rejects the

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interpretation of Avicenna as an empiricist, particularly the diminishment of the role of the

active intellect for the cognitive process to a mere storehouse, rendering its importance prac-
tically null. According to Taylor’s interpretation, the actualization of intelligible forms in
human knowing can only be accomplished through the intervention of the active intellect
(Taylor 2016: 278–279). In a recent contribution, Taylor (2019) points out that Avicenna
describes the active intellect as pure actuality. Hence, the notion of ‘storage’ cannot be taken
literally, because this would imply that the active intellect has the potency to receive the intel-
ligible forms abstracted by the rational soul. From this inconsistency, Taylor critically revises
Hasse’s and Gutas’ interpretations (that is, the active intellect as storehouse), and he raises
relevant objections to both. He argues that they do not determine what kind of activity (and
consequently, the kind of causality) the active intellect carries out in the cognitive process. In
a later article, as Taylor observes, Hasse (2013) explains that the active intellect is Avicenna’s
solution to the impossibility of storing intelligible forms in a material memory. Therefore,
the rational particular soul has the disposition to cause forms, stored in the active intellect, to
emanate to itself whenever it needs them. However, according to Taylor, this position leaves
unclear the causal connection between the human intellect and the intelligible forms of the
active intellect.
Taylor also discusses, in my view, a relevant article by Tommaso Alpina (2014), who tries to
reformulate how the two models could complement each other, that is, the abstractionist (or
empiricist) and the emanationist models. In line with the traditional emanationist interpret-
ation, Alpina holds that the active intellect provides the condition of possibility for the actual-
ization of the human intellect, so its presence is necessary to actualize the potentiality of the
human intellect. At the ontological level, maintains Alpina, the active intellect is the ‘collector’
of intellectual forms. In line with Gutas and Hasse, Alpina states that since Avicenna denies
memory the capability to store intellectual forms, a repository of already acquired intelligible
forms is required. In this way, it is not necessary to acquire a form anew every time we know
something, rather human beings simply recover the forms stored in the active intellect (as if
recovering information from ‘the cloud’, to use a computing analogy). This is only possible
because there is a correspondence between imaginative particulars in the human intellect and
intellectual forms in the active intellect. Alpina explains

Ultimately, imaginative particulars and intellectual forms can be said to be the same
with respect to their essence, namely with respect to the formal core they share, while
they differ according to their way of existence, which is connected with particularity
in one case and with universality in the other.
(Alpina 2014: 165)

Alpina’s interpretation, as Taylor sees, shares the same problem as that of Gutas and Hasse: the
active intellect ‘is a fully actual intellect without potentiality and receptivity, so it cannot literally
“collect” intellectual forms abstracted by the individual soul’ (Taylor 2019: 71).
Taylor’s proposal is to interpret Avicenna as drawing upon Themistius’ solution to this
problem. Taylor shows that, in his Paraphrase of the De Anima of Aristotle (1996), Themistius also
posits the existence of an active intellect that plays an intrinsic role in the formation of intelli-
gible forms. According to Themistius, while the human soul is capable of collecting the images
provided by external senses, the active intellect assists the human soul (the material or potential
intellect) in actualizing itself as a knower of intelligible forms in act, so it can become an actual
intellect. This assistance, however, does not consist in emanating forms upon the individual’s
potential intellect, but in guiding the human intellect:

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in its organization of images towards a sound abstraction on the intelligible in accord

with the corresponding intelligibles in act present in the Agent Intellect itself. This
assures that all abstracted intelligibles are correlated with those in the Agent Intellect
and that science is universal, veridical, and eternal for all. In this way there is a per-
fect identity of the form or essence of the intelligibles in the human intellect with
the form or essence of the intelligibles in the Agent Intellect, with the intelligibles in
each remaining ontologically distinct in distinct subjects. In this, Themistius is not in
accord with Avicenna in denying intellectual memory to the rational soul. But the
Avicennian notion of a connecting with the Agent Intellect for the understanding of
intelligibles in act which had previously been abstracted can be explained using the
Themistian notion of the collaboration and correspondence of the human intellect
and the Agent Intellect in forming the intelligibles in act in the human.
(Taylor 2019: 75)

This is a reasonable way to understand the idea of conjunction with the active intellect. It is
well known that both Themistius and Alexander of Aphrodisias were sources for Avicenna’s
reconstruction of Aristotle’s On the Soul (Gutas 2013). Taylor is not the first to notice this
influence.6 However, as far as I know, he is the first to identify these influential passages. In my
view, Taylor’s approach successfully combines and harmonizes the two apparently divergent
perspectives in Avicenna’s conception of cognition.
Another recent interpretation is that of Stephen Ogden (2020), who, in the line of Jon
McGinnis7 (2007: 130–137; 2013: 52–57) and Alpina (that is, the active intellect as a condi-
tion of possibility for the actualization of the human intellect), tries to reconstruct a via media
between the two perspectives, arguing that the active intellect emanates a power for abstrac-
tion into human beings. In this sense, the abstractionist (or empirical) and the emanationist
approaches are necessary and co-efficient causes of human cognition. Ogden holds that the key
to reconciling abstractionism and emanationism is to understand that the active intellect moves
our potential intellect into actuality by emanating, not the intelligible forms, but the ‘power of
abstraction’. He provides textual evidence from the Book of Demonstration and from the Book of
the Soul. Here, I only quote the latter passage:

For when the intellective faculty examines the particulars that are in the retentive
imagination, and the active intellect sheds light in us upon them (which we discussed),
the things abstracted (mujarrada) from matter and its associations are transformed
and impressed upon the rational soul. Being transformed not in the sense that [the
particulars] themselves are transferred from the imagination to our intellect, and not
in the sense that the intention (al-maʿnā) immersed in the attachments [of matter]—
which in itself and in consideration of its essence is abstract (mujarrad) [from matter]—
makes something like itself. Rather, [it is] in the sense that the revision of [the things
abstracted from matter and its associations] prepares the soul for something abstract
from the active intellect to emanate upon them … Thus, when some relation to this
form takes place for the rational soul by means of the light shed by the active intellect,
then from [the relation to the form] there comes to be in [the soul] something that in
one way is of its genus and in another way is not, just as when light falls on colored
objects, producing an effect that is not in every way [reduced] to their sum. Hence
the things in the imaginative faculty, which are potentially intelligible, become intelli-
gible in actuality, not they themselves but rather what is collected from them. But just
as the effect coming, by the mediation of light, from the sensible forms is not itself

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those forms but rather something related to them, engendered by the mediation of the
light in the recipient facing [the light], so also when the rational soul examines these
imaginative forms and the light of the active intellect comes into a kind of conjunc-
tion with them, [the soul] is prepared for the abstractions (mujarradāt) of these forms
[free] from [material] taints.
(Avicenna 1959: 5.5, 235–236)8

Ogden is right to focus on this passage. As he notes, emanationists and abstractionists have used
this same passage to support their own views. Note that the passage describes both abstraction
and the active intellect’s emanation as necessary for the actualization of the intelligible forms.
According to Ogden’s interpretation, in this passage, Avicenna is arguing that the active intellect
provides, not the intelligible forms, but the power to abstract them, a provision he compares
to light. If we interpret Avicenna this way, with Ogden, abstraction of intelligible forms comes
about through both sense-perception via the individual and voluntary efforts of the human
agent and, at the same time, the efficient causal role of the active intellect via emanation. The
role of the active intellect is neither simply a storehouse for intelligible forms nor the sole causal
source of intelligible forms for the human intellect. It is, rather, responsible for activating the
power of abstraction, so the human intellect can actualize the intelligible forms by itself (even
while requiring a ‘conjunction’ with the active intellect for its abstractive power). This is what
it means to say that abstraction and emanation are co-efficient causes of human cognition.
What I find attractive about Ogden’s interpretation is his emphasis on the substan-
tial proximity between Avicenna and Alfarabi (d. 950), another great thinker of the Islamic
philosophical tradition, better known as ‘the second master’ (Aristotle being the first). Also
influenced by Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius, Alfarabi describes the relationship
of the active intellect and the human intellect as similar to that between the sun and sight
(Alfarabi 1938: 24–27; McGinnis and Reisman 2007: 74–75). Following Aristotle’s theory of
vision, Alfarabi equates the sun, as the source of light, with the active intellect; he does not
equate the active intellect with the light itself. In this sense, following Davidson’s (1992: 50)
description, the light from the sun does four things: (1) it enters the eye and turns its potential
vision into actual vision; (2) it enables potentially visible colors to become visible in actuality;
(3) it itself becomes visible to the eye; and (4) it renders the sun, its source, visible to the eye.
The analogy works as follows: (1) the active intellect turns the human intellect into intellect
in actuality; (2) it transforms (istaḥāla) potential intelligible forms (sense impressions stored in
the imagination, in the case of Alfarabi, and the potentially intelligible forms provided by the
cogitative power, in the case of Avicenna) into actual intelligible forms; (3) it itself becomes
an intelligible object for the human intellect; and (4) it renders the active intellect as an intel-
ligible object for the human intellect. This analogy suggests that the active intellect sheds light
or provides some sort of illumination by which the human intellect is actualized, enabling it to
grasp the forms by abstraction. In the end, abstraction cannot take place without the assistance
of the active intellect.
Regardless of whether this resemblance between Alfarabi and Avicenna is correct or not,
what can be seen is that both involve the interaction between the human intellect and the
active intellect in their explanations of human cognition. (In Ogden’s words, both intellects
are co-efficient causes.) This would explain why Avicenna gives such an active role to per-
ception and, at the same time, he finds that perception needs assistance to grasp immaterial,
non-individuated intelligible forms. In my view, it is not necessary to consider abstraction and
emanationism as two divergent explanations. Avicenna understands both abstraction and eman-
ation as complementary processes.

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I think the abstractionist or empiricist model of Avicenna’s theory of cognition privileges

the role of non-intellectual content (in contemporary terminology, non-conceptual content),
that is, forms, images, and intentions. These contents come from sense-perception as informa-
tion in the mind (the human intellect) for cognition. Hence, according to the abstractionist
or empiricist model, perception plays an active role in providing the human and animal minds
non-conceptual content, for example, in the case of intentional cognition. At this level of the
cognitive process, namely, the pre-noetic, it is possible to describe Avicenna as an empiricist. It
is clear, however, that for Avicenna, perfect knowledge is necessarily attained outside of bodily
powers and mental representations, that is, knowledge transcends the embodied mind.
As shown, the emanationist model emphasizes the role of the active intellect, which can be
understood in several different ways: as that which provides intelligible forms, as that which
provides first principles, or that which actualizes the power of abstraction. I am inclined to
think that the most conciliatory path to Avicenna’s texts blends the influences of Themistius
and Alfarabi, that is, the active intellect as guiding the human intellect and the active intellect
as actualizing the power of abstraction, respectively. In other words, I think Taylor (active intel-
lect as guiding human intellect) and Ogden (active intellect as emanating the human power
to abstract) provide valuable insights into the contributions of Rahman, Black, Lizzini, Hasse,
Gutas, and others. Apart from those scholarly debates on whether Avicenna’s philosophy
is internally coherent, could his understanding of cognition have a place in contemporary
epistemology?

Avicennian issues in contemporary epistemology

As mentioned, at the pre-noetic level, Avicenna raises issues which are still relevant in contem-
porary epistemology and philosophy of mind, namely, whether intentional contents are already
knowledge. Hasse (2000: 127–141) has argued that Avicenna’s explanation of intentional
contents is not a theory of intentionality, as understood in contemporary (post-Brentanian)
terms, given that Avicennian intentional states are part of the process of sense-perception,
not the content of mental acts more generally.9 In my view, although in his explanation of
‘intentions’ Avicenna is referring to the capacity to perceive the connotation of a particular per-
ceptible object, I think he conceives perception as playing an active role in cognition, that is, as
a provider of cognitive contents that become mental states (emotions, decisions, beliefs) which
allow humans and even some animals to react to states of affairs in the external world and direct
their behavior according to particular situations. In this sense, I think that Avicenna’s theory of
perception could be considered in the current discussion of intentional states and the cognitive
value of non-conceptual contents.10
An emanationist cosmology could sound odd for contemporary epistemologists, but the
problem, in the context of immaterial knowledge known by material beings, renders a separate
intellect to complete the cognitive process more palatable. Avicenna is concerned with the
problem of thinking intelligible forms, that is, concepts, by ourselves. He needs the assistance
of an external agent or principle to explain how the dematerialization of mental images takes
place. Avicenna is posing a metaphysical question: can human knowledge be reduced to a
simple relation between the mind and the world, or is there another kind of relation that
allows the human mind to transcend materiality to obtain universal knowledge? To put it in
other words: can knowledge be described in purely empirical terms? Would that even count as
knowledge? It certainly would not count as knowledge in a strong sense within Avicenna’s own
Neoplatonic and Aristotelian tradition. However, this is a legitimate epistemological question.
Avicenna, as do Kant and others, thinks that in order to transform sense-perceptual experience

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into knowledge, that is, intelligent consciousness, the intervention of something transcendent
(or transcendental) to sense-perception is required. Avicenna is convinced that human know-
ledge cannot be explained without the experience provided by sense-perception, however,
he raises the same question many ask today: is sense-perception the only source for human
knowledge?11

Notes
1 I use Rahman’s edition (Avicenna 1959). Sometimes I use the translation by McGinnis and Reisman
(2007) slightly modified to better capture the point I am making.
2 Hasse is referring to Avicenna’s mature works of his middle period including ‘The State of the Human
Soul’ in the al-Maʿād (The Destination), the De anima of the al-Shifāʾ, al-Najāt (The Salvation), and the
Mashriqiyyūn (The Easterners).
3 Avicenna calls this intellect ʿaql hayūlāni, that is, ‘material intellect’. The terminology is confusing since
one might think that it is called ‘material’ because the intellect is itself material. However, the intellect
for Avicenna is immaterial. The name ‘material intellect’ is applied because is the one who receives the
material forms.
4 Avicenna distinguishes in the cognitive process four modes of interaction between the human intel-
lect and the intelligible forms. He refers to the material intellect (ʿaql hayūlāni) (the capacity of the
rational soul to receive immaterial intelligible forms), the dispositional intellect (ʿaql bi al-malakah)
(when the intellect has the fist principles provided by the active intellect), the actual intellect (ʿaql
bi-l-fiʿl) (when the intelligible forms have been attained but they are not actively thought), and the
acquired intellect (ʿaql mustafād) (when the intellect has received the intelligible forms and is actually
thinking them).
5 In Hasse (2013) there is a different perspective regarding the relevance of the active intellect in
abstraction.
6 See Rahman (1952: 101) and Afnan (1958: 145).
7 Ogden agrees with Jon McGinnis that both the emanationist and abstractionist interpretations are par-
tially right; however he is not entirely convinced by McGinnis’s resolution. McGinnis thinks that the
human intellect prepares the intelligible forms through abstraction, while, at the same time, the active
intellect emanates the ‘intellectualizing forms’ upon the forms in the human intellect. These ‘intellec-
tualizing forms’, he proposes, are the intelligible accidents mentioned by Avicenna in the introduction
to the logic of the Shifāʾ. In other words, through abstraction, the intellect abstracts the intelligible
form, itself, of a perceptible object from the external world, while, at the same time, the active intellect
provides the intelligible accidents central to the conceptualization of the form, that is, the differenti-
ating species of the intelligible forms. Ogden thinks, following Hasse (2013), that McGinnis’s theory
lacks textual evidence. In his psychological works, Avicenna never identifies the intelligible forms with
the intelligible accidents mentioned in the Logic, nor does he say that those concepts emanate from
the active intellect. Nevertheless, Ogden thinks that, despite this inconvenience, McGinnis is seeking
a conciliatory way. For his part, Taylor argues that McGinnis is wrong because ‘an essence or form is
classified as particular only subsequent to its realization in a subject’ (Taylor 2019: 60), therefore, there
cannot be particular accidents emanated from the active intellect and received by the sensible form
found in the human mind (specifically in the cogitative faculty).
8 Ogden presents his own translation. I have kept some of his phraseology but I have made several
modifications.
9 Certainly, the proximity between Avicenna’s theory of intentions and modern and contemporary
theories of intentionality would imply a discussion on the definition of ‘intentions’. Hasse is right
in his ontological description of ‘intentions’. He is also right in stating that the relational character
of intentions does not imply that intentions do not have an ontological status. I think, however, that
intentional content is linked to emotions and decisions that could be considered, in contemporary
terminology, ‘mental states’. In this sense, it is possible approach Avicenna to contemporary theories
of intentionality.
10 For Avicenna’s contributions to the concept of intentionality see Kaukua (2014a).
11 I am extremely grateful for the comments of Nicholas Oschman, Stephen Ogden, and Jörg
Tellkamp.

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Avicenna on information and abstraction

References
Afnan, S.M. (1958) Avicenna: His Life and Works, London: George Allen & Unwin LTD.
Alpina, T. (2014) ‘Intellectual Knowledge, Active Intellect and Intellectual Memory in Avicenna’s
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Alfarabi (1938) Risalat fī al-ʿaql (Letter on the Intellect), M. Bouyges (ed.), Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique.
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Black, D. (2005) ‘Psychology: Soul and Intellect’, in P. Adamson and R.C. Taylor (eds.), The Cambridge
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Black, D. (2014) ‘How Do We Acquire Concepts? Avicenna on Abstraction and Emanation’, in J. Hause
(ed.), Debates in Medieval Philosophy, New York: Routledge.
D’Ancona, C. (2010) ‘Degrees of Abstraction in Avicenna: How to Combine Aristotle’s De Anima and
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Davidson, H. (1992) Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes on Intellect, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gilson, É. (1930) ‘Les sources gréco-arabes de l’augustinisme avicennisant,’ Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et
Littéraire du Moyen Age 5, 1–107.
Gutas, D. (2001) ‘Intuition and Thinking: The Evolving Structure of Avicenna’s Epistemology’, in R.
Wisnovsky (ed.), Aspects of Avicenna, Princeton: Markus Wiener.
Gutas, D. (2012) ‘The Empiricism of Avicenna’, Oriens 40, 391–436.
Gutas, D. (2013) ‘Avicenna’s Philosophical Project’, in P. Adamson (ed.), Interpreting Avicenna; Critical
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Gutas, D. (2014) Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Gutas, D. (2016) ‘Ibn Sina [Avicenna]’, in E. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016
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Hasse, D.N. (2000) Avicenna’s De Anima in the Latin West: The Formation of a Peripatetic Philosophy of the
Soul, 1160–1300, London and Turin: Warburg Institute.
Hasse, D.N. (2001) ‘Avicenna on Abstraction’, in R. Wisnovsky (ed.), Aspects of Avicenna, Princeton: Markus
Wiener.
Hasse, D.N. (2013) ‘Avicenna’s Epistemological Optimism’, in P. Adamson (ed.), Interpreting Avicenna: Critical
Essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kaukua, J. (2014a) ‘The Problem of Intentionality’, Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 25,
216–242.
Kaukua, J. (2014b) ‘Avicenna on the Soul’s Activity in Perception’, in J. F. Silva and M. Yrjönsuuri (eds.),
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99‒116.
King, A. (2018) Language Between God and the Poets: Ma‘nā in the Eleventh Century, Oakland: University
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Lizzini, O. (2010) Fluxus (fayḍ), Bari: Edizioni di Pagina.
López-Farjeat, L.X. (2012) ‘Self-awareness (al-shuʿūr bi-al-dhāt) in Human and Non-human Animals
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Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag.
López-Farjeat, L.X. (2016) ‘Avicenna on Non-conceptual Content and Self-Awareness in Non-human
Animals’, in J. Kaukua and T. Ekenberg (eds.), Subjectivity and Selfhood in Medieval and Early Modern
Philosophy, Switzerland: Springer, 61–73.
McGinnis, J. (2007) ‘Making Abstraction Less Abstract: The Logical, Psychological, and Metaphysical
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McGinnis, J. (2010) Avicenna, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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McGinnis, J. (2013) ‘New Light on Avicenna: Optics and Its Role in Avicennan Theories of Vision,
Cognition and Emanation’, in L.X. López-Farjeat and J.A. Tellkamp (eds.), Philosophical Psychology
in Arabic Thought and the Latin Aristotelianism of the 13th Century, Paris: Librairie Philosophique
J. Vrin, 41–57.
McGinnis, J. and Reisman, D. (2007) Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources, Indianapolis: Hackett.
Ogden, S. (2020) ‘Avicenna’s Emanated Abstraction’, Philosophers’ Imprint 30, 2–26.
Rahman, F. (1952) Avicenna’s Psychology: An English Translation of Kitāb al-Najāt, Book II, Chapter VI
with Historico-Philosophical Notes and Textual Improvements on the Cairo Edition, London: Oxford
University Press.
Rahman, F. (1958) Essence and Existence in Avicenna, London: Routledge.
Taylor, R. (2005) ‘al-Fārābī and Avicenna: Two Recent Contributions’, MESA Bulletin 39, 180–182.
Taylor, R. (2016) ‘The Epistemology of Abstraction’, in R.C. Taylor and L.X. López-Farjeat (eds.), The
Routledge Companion to Islamic Philosophy, London and New York: Routledge, 273–284.
Taylor, R. (2019) ‘Avicenna and the Issue of the Intellectual Abstraction of Intelligibles’, in M. Cameron
(ed.), The History of the Philosophy of Mind, Vol. 2: Philosophy of Mind in the Early and High Middle Ages,
New York: Routledge.
Themistius (1996) On Aristotle’s On the Soul, R.B. Todd (transl.), Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Further reading
Alpina, T. (2014) ‘Intellectual Knowledge, Active Intellect and Intellectual Memory in Avicenna’s Kitāb al-
Nafs and Its Aristotelian Background’, Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 25, 131–183.
Black, D. (2014) ‘How Do We Acquire Concepts? Avicenna on Abstraction and Emanation’, in Debates in
Medieval Philosophy, ed. J. Hause, New York: Routledge, 2014.
McGinnis, J. (2010) Avicenna, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Taylor, R. (2019) ‘Avicenna and the Issue of the Intellectual Abstraction of Intelligibles’, in M. Cameron
(ed.), The History of the Philosophy of Mind, Vol. 2: Philosophy of Mind in the Early and High Middle Ages,
New York: Routledge.

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367
INDEX
Page numbers in italic denote figures and in bold denote tables, end of chapter notes are denoted by a
letter n between page number and note number.
aboutness 79–105; decompositionalism about
79–92, 95; as an irreflexive relation 98–101;
as a natural relation 92–96; as a self-linking
relation 96–98
active intellect 128–133, 134n4
Adriaans, Pieter 13
African American studies see Du Bois, W.E.B.
Agassiz, Louis 282
AI Magazine 355
Akerlof, G. 255
Alexander of Aphrodisias 131, 132
Alexander Romance 115, 116, 117
Alexander the Great 111, 113, 115–119
al-Fārābī 132, 133
al-Ghazālī 114–115
Algorithmic Information Theory (AIT) 153–175;
complexity 153, 154–155, 159–160, 161–162,
164; halting probability 153–154, 155;
irreducibility 153, 155–156, 160–161; Leibniz’s
anticipations of 153, 154, 156–162, 157, 159;
Leibniz’s metaphysics and 162–165; physical
dynamics and 166–171; Shannon entropy and
337–338
algorithms, fuzzy 353–354
All the Year Round 238
al-Muqtadir 114
Alpina, Tommaso 130, 131
Altick, Richard 231
al-Wāthiq 111, 117
American Psychiatric Association 59
American Revolution 214, 219
analytical engines, Babbage’s 245, 246, 251,
252, 258n3
367
Anderson, Elijah 302
androcentrism 211
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and
Ireland 287, 288, 291
Aquinas see Thomas Aquinas
Arabian Nights 107–113, 115–116, 119
Arabic literature see medieval Islamic literature
Aristotle 41–56; acquisition of knowledge 51–52;
Avicenna and 123, 124, 131; biology/theory
of nature 43–45, 49; on cognition 43, 46, 47,
50, 51, 52, 137–139; De anima/On the Soul
45–47, 49, 50, 51, 55n37, 55n39, 123, 124,
131, 138–139, 143; environmental information
43–45; Generation of Animals 44; “no action at
a distance” principle 142; Parts of Animals 44;
perception 45–50, 51, 132, 138–139; Physics
44, 55n39; Poetics 112; Posterior Analytics
51–52, 54n29; procreation 54n34; Progression
of Animals 44; reception of information 50–51;
recognition 112; semantic information
49–50, 51
artificial intelligence 158, 355, 362–363
Assilian, Sedrak 354
Association of American Publishers 199, 204–207
Association of British Insurers 292
Astell, Mary 213, 214
Atkins, P. W. 167
Atlanta School see Du Bois, W.E.B.
Augustine of Hippo 52n1, 68, 69, 70
Aurelianus, Caelius 64
Authors Guild 199, 204–207
automata theory 343, 350, 358–359
Averroes 140
368

Index

Avicenna 123–134, 140; abstraction 124, 127, Black, Deborah 129, 133
128–133, 134n7; active intellect 128–133, Blackstone, William 199
134n4; al-Fārābī’s influence on 132, 133; Book Blue Books 232, 233, 234
of the Healing 123; Book of the Soul 123–124, Blum, Edward 310
127, 131–132; contemporary epistemology Boer War 291
and 133–134; emanation 128–133, 134n7; Boltzmann, Ludwig 170
‘intentions’ 125–126, 133, 134n9; material Boltzmann entropy 336
intellect 127–128, 129, 134n3, 134n4; Bonaparte, Napoleon 218, 219, 220
sense-perception 124, 125–128, 132–134; Book of the Healing (Avicenna) 123
Themistius’ influence on 130–131, 132 Book of the Soul (Avicenna) 123–124, 127,
131–132
Babbage, Charles 245–259; analytical engines 245, book privilege system 200, 208n6
246, 251, 252, 258n3; Babbage Principle Booth, Charles 288, 291
249–250; copying processes 247–248; Boswell, James 230
de-skilling of labour 249, 250; difference Boulding, Kenneth E. 347
engines 245, 250, 251, 252, 258n1, 258n5; Bouvet, Joachim 158, 159
division of labour 245, 248–250, 258; On the Brannigan, Augustine 271
Economy of Machinery and Manufactures 246–250, Breger, Herbert 155, 164
252, 253, 254–256; The Exposition of 1851 246, British Association for the Advancement of
253, 256, 257, 259n10, 259n19; innovation Science (BAAS) 234, 246, 253, 287
247, 249, 251–253; knowledge accumulation British Empire see nineteenth-century information
and progress 257–258; measurement devices revolution
247; mechanical notation 251–252; patents British Museum 239
252, 259n14; quality of goods 254–256; Bromley, A.G. 258n2, 258n5
search costs and middlemen 256; standardizing Bronstein, David 51–52, 53n3, 54n29, 55n44
and economizing on knowledge 246–248; Browne, Janet 237
transactions costs 254–256 Brukner, Časlav 330
Bagehot, Walter 236 Buckley, Walter 343
Baglivi, Giorgio 257 Buddhism 118; see also Vācaspati Miśra
Barbon, Nicholas 254 Burgess, Ernest 311
Bar-Hillel, Y 166 Burke, Edmund 214
Barlow, John Perry 198 Burnyeat, Myles 54n32, 55n42, 138, 139
Barwise, J. 166 Burton, Antoinette 239
Bateson, William 273 Butler, Josephine 222
Bauer, Thomas 111 Butler, Judith 222
Bayle, Pierre 172
Beagle 237 Cai Yong 17
Beaumont, Daniel 112 calculating machines 156–157, 157, 158
Beauvoir, Simone de 222 Callender, L. A. 264
Beighton, Henry 186 calligraphy 17
Bell, D. 330 Campbell, Margaret 264
Bell Laboratories 326–328 Campbell-Smith, Duncan 236
Belohlavek, Radim 355 Campell, Donald 333
Benacerraf, Paul 30 Cantor, Georg 155, 164
Benjamin, Walter 107, 109–110, 115, 119 cardiocentrism 64–67
Bentham, Jeremy 213, 235 Carlyle, Thomas 281
Berkeley, Edmund 344 Carnap, Rudolf 334
Bernard de Clairvaux 69 Carnot, Lazare 249
Bertalanffy, Ludwig von 342 Carpentieri, N. 66–67
Bertillon, Alphonse 283 Carroll, Lewis 33
Beveridge, William 291, 293 Carteret, Philip 180, 183
Beveridge Report 293 Case Institute of Technology, Cleveland, Ohio
binary arithmetic 158–159 346–347
biology: Aristotle’s 43–45, 49; in Philosophical Caston, Victor 48, 54n34, 55n39, 55n42
Transactions 180; use of Shannon information in causation: manipulability theories of 333;
336; see also eugenics; Mendel, Gregor; phrenitis as transfer of information 166, 167
birth control movements 291 Caves, Carlton 329

368
369

Index

censorship 6, 200, 201, 208n5 idea/expression doctrine 199; Kant’s theory of

census, UK 232, 292 201, 207; Marle c. Lacordaire 202–203; moral
Chaitin, Gregory see Algorithmic Information rights 202–204; ‘non-consumptive research’
Theory (AIT) concept 204–205, 207; ‘non-display uses’
Chaitin’s constant 153–154, 155 concept 204, 205, 207; right to the integrity of
Chambers, Charles 189 the work 201–202; Statute of Anne (1710) 200;
chaos theory 161 Tonson v. Collins 199
Chartists 231, 232 Corcilius, Klaus 54n27, 55n39
Chicago School 311–312, 314 Correns, Carl 271, 273
Child, Josiah 254 Cover, Thomas 334
Chinese calendar 17 Cratylus (Plato) 29–30, 34, 37, 38n8
Chinese philosophy see yinyang information Creative Commons license system 198
Chraïbi, Aboubakr 115 crime science 283
Churchill, Winston 291 Crimean War 212, 216, 216, 217, 220–222, 233
Cicero 52n1, 67 criminology 283; Du Bois’s sociology of crime
City of Brass, The 108–109, 110–111, 112–113, 311–313
114, 115, 116 crocydism 63
Clarke, J. Lockhart 182 Crookes, William 190
Clement, Joseph 258n2
Cobbett, William 232 Daodejing 20, 22, 23, 24
Cobden, Richard 234 Darwin, Charles 71, 72, 236, 237, 282–283, 287
cognition: Aristotle on 43, 46, 47, 50, 51, 52, data compression 336
137–139; Thomas Aquinas on 137, 138, Dauben, Joseph W. 355
140–147; see also Avicenna Davidson, Herbert 129, 132
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste 254 Davy, Humphrey 250, 251, 259n9
Cole, Henry 234 De anima/On the Soul (Aristotle) 45–47, 49, 50,
Collier, John 165, 166–168, 169, 171, 172 51, 55n37, 55n39, 123, 124, 131, 138–139, 143
Columbia Engineering Quarterly 343, 345 De Candolle, Alphonse 282
common sense 126 de Vries, Hugo 273, 278n35
complexity 153, 154–155, 159–160, Deazley, Ronan 200
161–162, 164 decompositionalism about aboutness 79–92, 95
compositive imagination 126 Dedekind cut 164, 173n22
computing: Babbage’s analytical engine and 245, deflationary view of information 334–335
258n3; Leibniz’s anticipations of 153, 156–159, Defoe, Daniel 201–202
157, 159; see also Zadeh, Lotfi A. Deliverance from Error, The (Al-Ghazālī) 114
Comte, Auguste 216 Delprat c. Charpentier 203
“The Concept of State in System Theory” Descartes, René 114, 186, 218
(Zadeh) 347 de-skilling of labour 249, 250
Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Desoer, Charles A. 344
Caritat, marquis de 209n11, 214 determinism 154, 160–161, 173n13
Condorcet, Sophie Grouchy de 214 Deutsch, David 333
Conference of the Birds 113 developmental series see Mendel, Gregor
Contagious Diseases Act (1862), UK 222 Dharmakīrti 80, 85, 86, 91, 98–100, 101, 104n30
contingency, Leibniz’s theory of 161, Dharmottara 86, 87, 101
162–165, 171 diagrams, in Philosophical Transactions 179, 179,
Cook, Thomas 333 180–183, 181, 182
copying processes 247–248 dialectician 29–30, 37
copyright 198–209; Authors Guild v. Google Inc. Dickens, Charles 230, 238
205–206; Authors Guild v Hathi Trust 206; Dickens, Charles (son) 229
book privilege system 200, 208n6; British Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) 281
common law tradition 199, 200, 201–202; Diderot, Denis 214
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music 205; Daniel Defoe Diebl, F. 274
on 201–202; Delprat c. Charpentier 203; early difference engines, Babbage’s 245, 250, 251, 252,
copyright laws 200–201; fair use defence 205– 258n1, 258n5
206, 209n13, 209n14; French authorial rights Dignāga 86
tradition 199, 200, 202–204, 208n6; Google Dillon, John 234
Books and 199, 204–207; Diocles 65

369
370

Index

Diogenes 116 epistemological idealism 79, 80;

Dionysodorus 37 decompositionalism and 85–91; Reflexivism
direct realism 79; see also Vācaspati Miśra 98–101; Vācaspati’s argument against 91–92
diseases: sexually transmitted 222; see alsophrenitis Erasistratus 65
Disraeli, Benjamin 235 estimative faculty 126, 127
division of labour 245, 248–250, 258 eugenics 281–294; ethics 292–293; forced
Doctrine of Momentariness 80, 83, 102n7 sterilization 292, 293; Galton’s data gathering
Dorrien, Gary 310 283–286, 284, 285, 287; Galton’s data sharing
Doyle, Arthur Conan 291 287–290; Galton’s supporters and collaborators
Dretske, Fred 330, 335 290–291; Nazi Germany 292, 293; positive
Du Bois, W.E.B. 301–315; class formation among eugenics 291, 294; progressive eugenics 294;
African Americans 305–306; color-line concept racism and 282, 292, 293; sexism and 285–286;
305, 306–307; distinctiveness of contributions Sweden 292; welfare states and 293–294
303–304; double-consciousness concept Eugenics Education Society 293
307–308; early life and education 301–302; Eugenics Records Office, University College
intersectionality 302, 308–309, 313–315; “The London 286, 290
Negroes of Farmville, Virginia” 304–305, 312, Eurocentrism 211, 305
314; The Philadelphia Negro 302, 304, 305–306, European Centre for Soft Computing
307, 310, 312, 313, 314; research methods (ECSC) 363
313–314; rural sociology 304–305, 314; social Euthydemus 37
problems discourse 314; sociology of crime Euthydemus (Plato) 37
311–313; sociology of education 311; sociology Evans, John 180
of gender 308–309; sociology of race 306–308; evolutionary theory 71, 72
sociology of racial classes 305–306; sociology of The Exposition of1851 (Babbage) 246, 253, 256,
religion 309–311; The Souls of Black Folk 306, 257, 259n10, 259n19
313; “The Study of the Negro Problems” 313,
314; urban sociology 304, 305–306, 314; Falconer, Hugh 71, 72
the Veil 306–307 Falk, Raphael 273–274
Dunlop, James 191 Farr, William 188, 188, 221, 282
Dunn, Jon M. 330 Fawcett, Henry 235
Durkheim, Emile 216, 303 feminist sociology 308–309
Duwell, Armond 329, 334 Ferguson, Adam 257
dynamometers 286, 287 Festetics, E. 274
Fichant, Michel 169
East India Company 236 Fienberg, Stephen E. 192
Eckert, John P. 341 Fine, G. 39n21
Eckmann, Donald P. 346 Finerman, Aaron 355
Edelman, Bernard 208n3 fingerprints 283
Edinburgh Review 254 Fisher information 337
education: Du Bois’s sociology of 311; floccillation 63
electrical engineering and computer Floridi, Luciano 27, 41, 42–43, 42, 53n4
science 355–359, 356, 358, 360–361; flowing circularity (huanliu) 23–24
Plato on 30–37 forced sterilization 292, 293
electronic classroom 359 Foucault, Michel 204, 313
Ellis, T. H. Noel 275–276 Foundation for the Advancement of Soft
Ellwood, Charles 305 Computing 363
encephalocentrism 64–67 France: copyright 199, 200, 202–204, 207, 208n6;
England and her Soldiers (Martineau) 216, 233 crime science 283; government information
English Men of Science (Galton) 282 231; quality of goods 254
Enlightenment 231, 292; copyright 200–201, 207, Frankel, Oz 232
209n11; principles of 212–213; social reform Frankland, Edward 189
213–215, 217–220 Free Software Foundation 198
entropy 166–167, 168, 170; see also Shannon French Revolution 214, 215, 217–219
information Friendly, Michael 191
environmental information 42–45, 42 “From Circuit Theory to System Theory”
Epicurus 52n1 (Zadeh) 348–349
epigenesis 54n34 Fuchs, Christopher 329

370
371

Index

Fudge, Bruce 109, 118 Habermas, Jürgen 313

Fuller, Margaret 222 Hahn, Hugo 286
fuzzy algorithms 353–354 Halkias, Georgios 117
fuzzy sets 352–354, 354, 355, 357–358, 358, 362 Hall, Stuart 311
fuzzy systems 355 Halley, Edmond 184, 185, 191
halting probability 153–154, 155
Gabbidon, Shaun 312–313, 314 Hamlyn, D. W. 139, 147n12
Galen 63–64, 65, 73n34 Hamori, Andras 109, 110
Galton, Clare J. 292–293 Hanfeizi 20, 22
Galton, David J. 292–293 Hansard 232
Galton, Francis 281–294; data gathering 283–286, Hardware Description Languages 252
284, 285, 287; data sharing 287–290; English Hart, Albert Bushnell 303
Men of Science 282; ethics 292–293; Eugenics Hartley, Ralph 326–327
Records Office 286, 290; Hereditary Genius 282, Harvard Law Review 205, 209n14
283–284, 291; influences on 282–283; Inquiries Hasse, Dag 125, 127, 129, 130, 133, 134n9
into Human Faculty 281, 286; lectures 288, 289, Hathi Trust Digital Library 206
291; Natural Inheritance 289; objectification Haughton, Samuel 190
of women’s bodies 285–286, 285; quincunx/ Hayden, Patrick 333
Galton Board 288, 289; regression and Hayles, Katherine 207
correlation 288; supporters and collaborators He Guanzi (Pheasant Cape Master) 15
290–291; weather maps 284, 284 Headrick, Daniel 232
gambling 336–337 hearing 125
Garrett, Elizabeth 222 Heaton, John Henniker 236–237
Gärtner, Carl Friedrich von 263, 264, 265–268, Hegel, G.W.F. 112
269, 270, 277n5 Henry, Devin 45, 53n12
gender: campaign for women’s suffrage 292, 308; Heraclitus 29
Du Bois’s sociology of 308–309; eugenics Herbert, Sidney 221
and women 285–286; exclusion of women’s Hereditary Genius (Galton) 282, 283–284, 291
scholarship 211, 212, 222–223; Galton’s heredity 262–263, 273–276, 278n37; see also
objectification of women’s bodies 285–286, 285 Galton, Francis
Generation of Animals (Aristotle) 44 Hesse, Carla 209n11
Germany, eugenics 292, 293 Hill, Rowland 233–235, 237
Ghadar Party 239, 240 Hippocratic Corpus 61, 62–63, 65–66
Gibbs entropy 336 Hobbes, Thomas 157, 213
Gillman, Susan 308–309 Hoffmann, E.T.A. 109
Gilson, Étienne 129 horse riding, in early Chinese texts 19–21
Ginzburg, Carlo 239 Household Words 238
Gioja, Melchiorre 249 Huainanzi 19–20
Gladstone, William Ewart 232 Huangdi Neijing 15, 24
Glander, Timothy 328 huanliu (flowing circularity) 23–24
Gliboff, Sander 264 hubu (complementary or mutual support) 23
Gliddon, George 282 Hughes, Donna M. 282
Gödel, Kurt 155, 161, 164 huhan (mutual inclusion) 22
Goldingham, John 184 Hume, David 214
Google Books 199, 204–207 Hus, Jan 68–69
Gould, Stephen Jay 71, 72 Huskey, Harry 347
Graham, A. C. 14, 18 Huxley, Thomas 282
Gramsci, Antonio 308 hybridism 277n5; see also Mendel, Gregor
graphs, in Philosophical Transactions 179, 179, hyper reading 207
186–190, 187, 188
Great Exhibition 233, 252 I Ching hexagrams 158, 159
Greco-Roman medicine seephrenitis Ibn Faḍlān 114
Greek philosophy see Aristotle; Plato Ibn Ḥazm 113, 114
Gregory, David 180 Ibn Sīnā see Avicenna
Guillemin, Ernst Adolph 343 idealism 79, 80; decompositionalism and 85–91;
guqin (musical instrument) 17, 18 Reflexivism 98–101; Vācaspati’s argument
Gutas, Dimitri 129, 130, 133 against 91–92

371
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IEEE Transactions of Education 360–361 Karnell, Gunnar 199

Illustrated London News 238 Kater, Henry 184
“Impact of Computers on the Orientation of Kaukua, Jari 126
Electrical Engineering Curricula” (Zadeh) Kennedy, Philip 112, 113
360–362 Kim (Kipling) 239
incompleteness theorems 153, 154, 155, 161, 164 Kipling, Rudyard 239
Indian Mutiny 231–232 Kleene, Stephen 350
Indian philosophy see Vācaspati Miśra Klir, George J. 355
indirect realism 79; see also Sautrāntika Klir, George Jiří 342–343
decompositionalism Knight, Charles 231, 234, 235
Industrial Revolution 342 Kolmogorov, Andrei 153, 162, 167, 337
‘The Infinite Monkey Cage’ (radio program) 287 Kölreuter, Joseph Gottlieb 263, 264, 277n5
information: classification of 42–43, 42; concept Kosman, A. 54n34
of 13, 27, 41, 42 Kosso, Peter 331
information revolutions see nineteenth-century Krishnamacharya, E. 81
information revolution; Zadeh, Lotfi A. Kumārila Bhaṭṭa 83–84, 100
information theory 342, 346; quantum Kusukawa, Sachiko 182
information theory 329, 332–333; see also
Algorithmic Information Theory (AIT); labour: de-skilling of 249, 250; division of 245,
Shannon information 248–250, 258
inheritance 262–263, 273–276, 278n37; see also Labour Party, UK 217
Galton, Francis Lacordaire, Jean-Baptiste-Henri Dominique
Inquiries into Human Faculty (Galton) 281, 286 202–203
Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) 350, 351 Lahore Museum 240
Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) 346, 348; Laidlaw, Zöe 232
IRE Transactions on Automatic Control 352; Landauer, Rolf 330, 331
IRE Transactions on Information Theory 346, 349, Laplace, Pierre Simon de 154, 160–161
350, 351 Layzer, David 170, 172, 174n38
intellectual property rights: patents 252, 259n14; Legendre, Adrien-Marie 249
see also copyright lei (category or kind) 15–16
International Health Exhibition 286 Leibniz, Gottfried 153–175; anticipations
International Statistical Congress 215 of Algorithmic Information Theory 153,
intersectionality see Du Bois, W.E.B. 154, 156–162, 157, 159; binary arithmetic
IRE Transactions on Automatic Control 352 158–159; calculating machine 156–157, 157,
IRE Transactions on Information Theory 346, 349, 158; complexity 153, 159–160, 161–162,
350, 351 164; computing 153, 156–159, 157, 159;
Islamic literature see medieval Islamic literature contingency 161, 162–165, 171; infinite
Islamic philosophy: al-Fārābī 132, 133; notion of series 163–164; irreducibility 153, 160–161;
intention 140; see also Avicenna physical dynamics and information 168–171;
Principle of Equipollence 169–170; Principle
Jackson, Richard 232–233 of Sufficient Reason 161, 164, 171
Jahr, Fritz 292 Leval, Pierre 205, 209n14
James, Joy 308–309 Lewis, David Levering 301, 304
James, William 303 Li, M. 167
Jaynes, Edwin 166 libraries, automated 359–360
Jefferson, Thomas 219–220 Liezi 16–17, 20–21
Jerome 69 Liji (Record of Rituals) 15
jiaogan (interaction or resonance) 22–23 Linnaeus, Carl 268, 277n5
Johnson, Brian 310 Lister, Martin 186, 187
Johnson, Samuel 230 literary copyright see copyright
Johnson, Terrence 310 Lizzini, Olga 129, 133
Jones, M.L. 257 Locke, John 212, 213
Jozsa, Richard 332–333 lógos (statement) 28–29, 38n3
Lombroso, Cesare 283, 289
Kahn, Jonathon 310 London School of Economics 217, 288, 291, 293
Kant, Immanuel 201 London Statistical Society 232, 246
kāraka theory 83–84 Lowenschuss, Oscar 350

372
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Lubbock, John William 189, 190 Mill, John Stuart 216–217, 236, 250, 256
Luhmann, Niklas 343 Miller, James Grier 343
Lull, Ramon 157 Mīmāṃsā philosophy 79, 83–85, 99
Mohist Canon 15
Macaulay, Catharine 214, 218 Mokṣākaragupta 81
McCarthy, John 350 Momentariness, Doctrine of 80, 83, 102n7
McClung, Nellie 222 Montagu, Mary Wortley 213
McCulloch, J.R. 254 Montesquieu 217, 218
McGinnis, Jon 131, 134n7 Montgomery, Deane 350
machine reading 207 Montgomery, James 114
Malthus, Thomas 246, 283 Moore, James 283
Mamdani, Ebrahim H. 354 Morris, Aldon 314
Mandeville, Bernard 254, 257 Morton, Paul 347
manipulability theories of causation 333 Moss, Lenny 273
maodun (contradiction and opposition) 22 Müller-Wille, Staffan 270
maps, in Philosophical Transactions 179, 179, multivalued logic 350
183–186, 184, 185 Murray, Francis J. 344
Marle, Charles-Louis 202–203
Marle c. Lacordaire 202–203 Nägeli, Carl Wilhelm 265, 271, 276
Marshall, Alfred 250 Napier, Charles 233
Martin, Henry Newell 189 Napp, Franz Cyrill 274, 275
Martineau, Harriet 216, 216, 233 National Association for the Promotion of Social
Marx, Karl 215, 250, 258, 303, 305, 313 Science 221
material intellect 127–128, 129, 134n3, 134n4 National Health Service (NHS), UK 293, 294
mathematical theory of communication see National Portrait Gallery, London 281
Shannon information Natural Inheritance (Galton) 289
Mauchly, John W. 341 nature, Aristotle on 43–45, 49
Maxwell, James Clerk 327 Nazi Germany 292, 293
Mead, George Herbert 311 Needham, Joseph 13
meaningful speech, Plato on 28–30, 37 Negentropy Principle of Information
measurement devices 247 (NPI) 166–167, 168, 170
mechanical notation, Babbage’s 251–252 “The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia” (Du Bois)
medicine: traditional Chinese 22, 23; see alsophrenitis 304–305, 312, 314
medieval Islamic literature 107–119; Alexander Nestler, Johann Karl 274, 275
legends 111, 113, 115–119; al-Ghazālī Neumann, John von 328, 336
114–115; Arabian Nights 107–113, 115–116, Newcastle, Duke of 221
119; Benjaminian storytelling 108–111, 119; Newton, Isaac 218
The City of Brass 108–109, 110–111, 112–113, Nightingale, Florence 189, 212, 215, 216, 216,
114, 115, 116; geographical literature 111; 217, 220–222, 233
Ibn Ḥazm 113, 114; Niẓāmī 113, 119; nineteenth-century information revolution
recognition in 111–115 229–240; census 232; cultural effects of
Menander 67, 73n36 imperial communication 237–239;
Mendel, Gregor 262–279; dominance and government information 231–233; Penny
recessiveness 271–273, 271, 272; Gärtner’s Postage 233–235, 236, 237; postal system 229,
influence on 263, 264, 265–268, 269, 270; laws 233–237; publishing 230–231, 238; telegraph
of developmental series 268–273, 271, 272, system 229, 231–232, 235; working classes and
278n37; novelty of work 270–273, 278n36; 231, 234
research context of work 262–268, 264; study Niẓāmī 113, 119
of heredity and 262–263, 273–276; Unger’s “no action at a distance” principle 142
influence on 264–265, 268 Northern Star, The 231
Menn, S. 54n20, 54n21, 55n39 Nott, J. C. 282
Meno (Plato) 30, 31–34, 35–36, 37 Nyāya philosophy see Va- caspati Miśra
mental illness see phrenitis
Merivale, Herman 232 O’Connor, Feargus 231
Merkel, Angela 363 Ogden, Stephen 131–132, 133, 134n7
Mesarović, Mihajlo D. 342–343, 347 Olby, Robert 264
Mill, Harriet Taylor 216 Oldenburg, Henry 178

373
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Index

On Liberty (Mill) 216, 236 floccillation 63; in Greek traditional discourses

On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures 60–62; as metaphor 67–70; pulse and 63–64
(Babbage) 246–250, 252, 253, 254–256 phrenology 282
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Physics (Aristotle) 44, 55n39
(Darwin) 236, 282–283 Pitt, William 219
On the Soul/De anima (Aristotle) 45–47, 49, 50, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford 238
51, 55n37, 55n39, 123, 124, 131, 138–139, 143 Plato 27–40, 41, 42, 69; accessing information
ontological idealism 79 34–37; Cratylus 29–30, 34, 37, 38n8;
Open-Source Movement 198 dialectician 29–30, 37; education 30–37;
Orel, Vitĕzslav 270, 274–275 Euthydemus 37; lógos as unit of information
Owen, Richard 239 28–29, 38n3; meaningful speech 28–30, 37;
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Meno 30, 31–34, 35–36, 37; names as
(ODNB) 281 descriptions 29–30, 37; Parmenides 30, 39n13;
Phaedo 30, 32, 33, 34, 37; Phaedrus 30, 32;
Pall-Mall Gazette 222 Protagoras 35; questioning process 34–37;
Palsky, Gilles 191 recollection process 30–34; Republic 30, 34, 35,
Paris Book Guild 200, 208n6 36–37; Sophist 28–29, 36, 40n45, 42; Theaetetus
Park, Robert 311 30, 35, 36, 37, 38n3
Parks, Rosa 222 Playfair, William 189
Parmenides 29 Plot, Robert 186, 187
Parmenides (Plato) 30, 39n13 Plutarch 62, 67, 68, 116, 117
Parsons, Talcott 343 Poetics (Aristotle) 112
Parts of Animals (Aristotle) 44 Polak, Elijah 344
Pascal, Blaise 156, 257 Polemon 113
patents 252, 259n14 Porter, Bernard 238
Paul, Diane 283 postal system 229, 233–237
Pearson, Karl 290–291, 293 Posterior Analytics (Aristotle) 51–52, 54n29
Pennant, Thomas 181, 182 Prabhākara Miśra 85
Penny Magazine 231, 233 Principle of Equipollence 169–170
Penny Postage 233–235, 236, 237 Principle of Sufficient Reason 161, 164, 171
Penrose, Roger 332–333 procreation, Aristotle on 54n34
perception 45–47; Aristotle on 45–50, 51, Progression of Animals (Aristotle) 44
132, 138–139; Avicenna on 124, 125– Prony, Gaspard de 249–250
128, 132–134; Plato on 30, 33; see also Protagoras (Plato) 35
Vācaspati Miśra psychiatry seephrenitis
perception-based system modelling 355 Punch 238
Perkins, Jacob 189 Pylyshyn, Zenon 48
Perry, J. 166 Pyrrho 114
Persian literature 113
Peter Chrysologus 68, 70 quantum information theory 329, 332–333
Peter Lombard 68 quantum theory 161, 170
Petrie, Flinders 290 qubits 329
Phaedo (Plato) 30, 32, 33, 34, 37 questioning process, Plato on 34–37
Phaedrus (Plato) 30, 32 Quetelet, L.A.J. 215, 217
The Philadelphia Negro (Du Bois) 302, 304, quincunx/Galton Board 288, 289
305–306, 307, 310, 312, 313, 314 Qur’an 109, 111, 112, 114, 115, 118
Philip of Harveng 70
Philosophical Transactions 177–193, 178; costs of race and racism 236, 281, 283, 291, 301, 303,
visualisations 179–180; diagrams 179, 179, 305–308, 310, 313; eugenics 282, 292, 293;
180–183, 181, 182; graphs 179, 179, 186–190, see also Du Bois, W.E.B.
187, 188; maps 179, 179, 183–186, 184, 185; Ragazzini, John Ralph 343
tables 187–188, 191, 193n2; user performance Rahman, Fazlur 129, 133
benefits of visualisations 190–192 Ramsay, William 190
phrenitis 59–74; in Arabic translations 66–67; in realism 79; see also Vācaspati Miśra
Christian literature 68–70; embodied features recollection process, Plato on 30–34
of 62–64; encephalocentric versus cardiocentric Reflexivism 98–101
interpretations 64–67; fever and 62–63; regression to the mean 288

374
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Index

religion, Du Bois’s sociology of 309–311 336–337; manipulability view 333; physical

Republic (Plato) 30, 34, 35, 36–37 interpretation 330–332, 335–336; physical
retentive imagination 126, 127 neutrality of 329; property-view 331; quantum
Revue Nationale 203 information theory and 329, 332–333; roots
Ricardo, David 246 of Shannon’s theory 326–328; in statistical
Richards, Thomas 238 mechanics 336; substance-view 331
Robbins, Herbert E. 350 Shaw, George Bernard 291
Rockefeller Foundation 293 Sheep Breeder’s Association, Brünn 275
Roscoe, Henry Enfield 189 Shields, Margaret C. 193n3
Rosenberg, N. 246, 248 Shijing 13
Roy, William 183, 185 shu 19–21
Royal Geographical Society 287 Sidgwick, Henry 246
Royal Society 156, 246, 250, 252, 253, 259n16, sight 125, 132
287; see also Philosophical Transactions Sign of Four, The (Conan Doyle) 291
Royal Statistical Society 217 Singh, Princess Sophia Duleep 292
Royce, Josiah 303 slave trade 219–220
Rücker, Arthur 290 Sloane, Hans 191
Rupert of Deutz 69 Sluiter, Ineke 60
smallpox 213
Sabine, Edward 190 smell, sense of 125
Sackette, John 182 Smith, Adam 214, 215, 217, 248
St George’s Medical School, London 294 Smith, Dorothy 222
Saint-Simon, Henri 214–215 Smyth, Charles Piazzi 183
Sallām the Interpreter 111 social contract theory 213, 214
Sandler, Iris 273 Social Darwinism 294
Santayana, George 303 social physics 215
Sarkar, Sahotra 273–274 social reform 211–223; abolition of the slave trade
Sarvāstivāda philosophy 79, 80, 83 219–220; Mary Astell 213, 214; Condorcet
Sautrāntika decompositionalism 79–92, 95 214; Denis Diderot 214; David Hume 214;
Say, Jean-Baptiste 254 John Locke 212, 213; Catharine Macaulay 214,
Schmoller, Gustav von 303 218; Harriet Martineau 216, 216; John Stuart
Schrödinger, Erwin 166–167, 168, 170 Mill 216–217; Florence Nightingale 212, 215,
Schumacher, Benjamin 332 216, 216, 217, 220–222; L.A.J. Quetelet 215,
Scientific Management 250 217; requisites for advances in 212–213; Henri
Scott, Dominic 31–32 Saint-Simon 214–215; Germaine de Staël 212,
Sedley, David 37 215, 217–220, 222; Voltaire 213, 214; Beatrice
Sedulius Scottus 70 Webb 217; Mary Wollstonecraft 214, 218
semantic information 42–43, 42, 49–50, 51 Society for General Systems Research 347
Seneca 67–68 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
sense-perception: Avicenna on 124, 125–128, (SDUK) 231, 233, 234
132–134; Plato on 30, 33 Sociological Society 291
sexism: campaign for women’s suffrage 292, 308; Socrates 27, 29, 30, 31–32, 33–37
Du Bois’s critique of 308–309; eugenics and Solomonoff, Ray 153
285–286; exclusion of women’s scholarship Sophist (Plato) 28–29, 36, 40n45, 42
211, 212, 222–223; Galton’s objectification of sophists 35, 36, 37
women’s bodies 285–286, 285 Sorabji, Richard 139, 141
sexually transmitted diseases 222 The Souls of Black Folk (Du Bois) 306, 313
Shannon, Claude 324, 327–328, 341, 343, 344, South Kensington Museum, London 286, 288
350; see also Shannon information Spencer, Diana 119
Shannon index 336 Spencer, Herbert 283, 305
Shannon information 324–338, 342, 346; Spinoza, Baruch 162, 164
algorithmic complexity and 337–338; Staël, Germaine de 212, 215, 217–220, 222
applications of 335–338; in biological sciences Stallman, Richard 198, 208n2
336; concept 328–330; data compression statistical mechanics 166, 170, 336
336; epistemic interpretation 330, 331–332, Statute of Anne (1710) 200
335; formal view of 334–335; formalism of Stephen, James 232
Shannon’s theory 324–326, 325; gambling sterilization, forced 292, 293

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Index

Stevens, Leslie 281 201–202; welfare state 293–294; see also Galton,
Stopes, Marie 291 Francis; nineteenth-century information
storehouse awareness 88–89, 90, 104n28 revolution
Storyteller, The (Benjamin) 109–110 United States: copyright 199, 200, 204–207;
“The Study of the Negro Problems” (Du Bois) eugenics 291, 292, 293; postal system 236;
313, 314 see also Du Bois, W.E.B.
suffragette movement 292, 308
Sutherland, Edwin 311 Vācaspati Miśra 79–105; aboutness as a natural
Sweden, eugenics 292 relation 92–96; aboutness as a self-linking
Swift, Jonathan 254 relation 96–98; aboutness as an irreflexive
Sylvester, James Joseph 177 relation 98–101; argument against idealism
system theory 342–343, 344, 345, 346–349, 91–92; how decompositionalism leads to
355, 362 idealism 85–91; partial argument for Sautrāntika
Systems Symposia 346–347 decompositionalism 82–85
Szilard, Leo 327 Vaibhāṣika philosophy 80, 83
van Dijk, Peter J. 275–276
taste, sense of 125 Victorian Britain see nineteenth-century
Taylor, Richard C. 129–131, 133, 134n7 information revolution
Taylorism 250 visualisation in Philosophical Transactions 177–193,
telegraph system 229, 231–232, 235 178; costs of 179–180; diagrams 179, 179,
teleportation 332–333, 334, 335 180–183, 181, 182; graphs 179, 179, 186–190,
Theaetetus (Plato) 30, 35, 36, 37, 38n3 187, 188; maps 179, 179, 183–186, 184, 185;
Themistius 130–131, 132, 133 tables 187–188, 191, 193n2; user performance
thermodynamics 167, 170, 327 benefits 190–192
thinking machines 343, 344–346, 345 Vitànyi, P. 167
Thomas, Joy 334 Voltaire 213, 214
Thomas, William 311 von Neumann entropy 337
Thomas Aquinas 129, 137–148; cognition
137, 138, 140–147; intelligible species 138, Wagner, Adolf 303
143–145, 146; intentional species 142–143, Wallace, Alfred Russel 236
145, 146–147; phrenitis 70; role of species in Waller, John C. 284
cognition 145–147; sensible species 138, 143, Ward, Lester 305
144, 145, 146; spiritual/intentional vs natural Ware, Colin 191
existence 140–142 Warhol, Andy 119
Thompson, Benjamin 179, 180, 181 Washington, George 214
Tilling, Laura 186, 192 weather maps 284, 284
Times, The 221 Weaver, Warren 341
Timpson, Christopher 332, 334 Webb, Beatrice 217
Tocqueville, Alexis de 216, 231 Webb, Sidney 217
Touati, Houari 114 Weber, Max 303, 305
touch, sense of 125 Weinbaum, Alys Eve 308–309
transactions costs 254–256 Weissing, Franz J. 275–276
transduction 48 Weldon, Walter 290
Treitschke, Heinrich von 303 Weyl, Hermann 154, 159, 160, 172n3
Trollope, Anthony 235 Wheeler, John Archibald 172
Tschermak, Erich von 273 Whewell, William 189–190, 192, 246
Turgot 254 Wiener, Norbert 341, 343, 344
Turing, Alan 154, 155, 158, 342, 343 Wilberforce, William 219
Turing machine 155, 162, 174n31 William of Auvergne 68
Twain, Mark 236 Wired 198
Wollstonecraft, Mary 214, 218
Uddyotakara 100 women’s suffrage see suffragette
Ulrich, Werner 350 movement
Unger, Franz 264–265, 268 Wood, Roger J. 275
United Kingdom: census 232, 292; Contagious World Health Organization 59
Diseases Act (1862) 222; copyright 199, 200, Wortham, Robert 314

376
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Index
Wright, Earl 312, 314
Wymore, Albert Wayne 342–343
xiang (images) 16, 25n16
xiangyi (interdependence) 22
Yamanaka, Yuriko 115
Yijing 16
yinyang information 13–26; in calligraphy 17;
Daodejing 20, 22, 23, 24; description of 13–14;
flowing circularity (huanliu) 23–24; guqin
(musical instrument) 17, 18; Hanfeizi 20, 22; He
Guanzi 15; horse riding 19–21; Huainanzi
19–20; Huangdi Neijing 15, 24; hubu
(complementary or mutual support) 23; huhan
(mutual inclusion) 22; jiaogan (interaction or
resonance) 22–23; joined yinyang calendar
17; as know-how 18–21; lei (category or
kind) 15–16; Liezi 16–17, 20–21; Liji (Record
of Rituals) 15; maodun (contradiction and
opposition) 22; Mohist Canon 15; as order of
things 14–18; relations-based model 21–24;
Shijing 13; shu 19–21; in traditional Chinese
medicine 22, 23; xiang (images) 16, 25n16;
xiangyi (interdependence) 22; Yijing 16; Zhouli
(The Rites of Zhou) 23; Zhuangzi 14; zhuanhua
(change and transformation) 23; “Zun Deyi” 19;
Zuozhuan 16
Yogācāra philosophy 79, 86; see also Dharmakīrti
Young, Jason 310
Young, Robert M. 238
Young, Sydney 190
Yu the Great 19
377
Zadeh, Lotfi A. 341–364, 344, 353; automata
theory 343, 350, 358–359; automated libraries
359–360; biographical sketch 343–344; call for
an institute 350–352, 351, 363; “From Circuit
Theory to System Theory” 348–349;
computing with words 354–355, 354; “The
Concept of State in System Theory” 347;
education in electrical engineering and
computer science 355–359, 356, 358, 360–361;
electronic classroom 359; fuzzy algorithms
353–354; fuzzy sets 352–354, 354, 355,
357–358, 358, 362; fuzzy systems 355;
“Impact of Computers on the Orientation of
Electrical Engineering Curricula” 360–362;
information theory 342, 346; IRE Transactions
on Automatic Control 352; IRE Transactions
on Information Theory 346, 349, 350, 351;
multivalued logic 350; perception-based system
modelling 355; sabbatical at
Institute for Advanced Study 350; system
theory 342–343, 344, 345, 346–349,
355, 362; thinking machines 343, 344–346,
345; views of the future 344–346, 345,
359–362
Zeilinger, Anton 330
Zhouli (The Rites of Zhou) 23
Zhuangzi 14
zhuanhua (change and transformation) 23
Zirkle, Conway 270
Znaniecki, Florian 311
“Zun Deyi” (“Respecting Virtue and
Rightness”) 19
Zuozhuan 16
378