Abstract
Having discussed the general Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) worldview in the previous chapter, we now turn to the A-T view of human cognition, with particular emphasis on how human cognition is seen as relating to non-human cognition, and how the A-T approach differs from modern approaches. Here, we discuss in detail the A-T enumeration of sensory and intellectual powers, and how they relate to each other. We also review the history of how psychology, as a field, has viewed human and non-human cognition over time, and why those views have generally been unsuccessful. We particularly discuss the behavioral and computationalist/functionalist approaches to cognition. This chapter argues that there are marked benefits to the A-T view on human and non-human cognition in comparison to what is generally on offer in contemporary psychology.
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Acknowledgement
The section “A-T Cognition” was adapted, in part, and with permission from the Institute of Mind and Behavior, from the section The Aristotelean-Thomistic Philosophical Model, pp. 195–200, in Stedman, J. M., Kostelecky, M., Spalding, T. L., & Gagné, C. L. (2017). Animal cognition: An Aristotelian-Thomistic Perspective. Journal of Mind and Behaviour, 38, 193–214.
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Spalding, T.L., Stedman, J.M., Gagné, C.L., Kostelecky, M. (2019). Human and Non-human Cognition. In: The Human Person. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33912-8_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33912-8_3
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