Albert the great on the 'language' of animals

American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

Volumn 70, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 41-61

  Resnick, Iruen M ^a   Kitchell Jr , Kenneth F ^a  

^a LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0347798532     PISSN: 10513558     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/acpq199670118     Document Type: Article

References (53)

1. "Habet autem locutionis proprietatem ratio, ut id tantum habeat locutionem quod habet rationem." De peccato originali 2, Patrologia Latina 150: 1081A
2. translated in On Original Sin and A Disputation with the Jew, Leo, Concerning the Advent of Christ, the Son of God. Two Theological Treatises, trans. Irven M. Resnick (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994).
3. Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IVLibris Distinctae, 2, dist. 21, c.4.2, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Grottaferrata: Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1971-81), 1:435.
4. The Lombard attributes this argument to the Glossa ordinaria (Patrologia Latina 134: 64B).
5. Ibid., 2, dist. 21, c. 4.3. Cf. Augustine, Super Gen. 11.27-29, CSEL 28/1, pp. 360ff.;
6. Gregory the Great, Moralia, Patrologia Latina 76: 399C.
7. Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IVLibris Distinctae, 2, dist. 21, c.4.3.
8. ST 2-2.165.2.
9. Albertus Magnus, Commentarii in II Sententiarum, 11.21.6 (ed. Borgnet 27:363).
10. ST 35.6 (ed. Borgnet 32:385-87).
11. For a similar discussion of angelic "speech" see Thomas Aquinas, The Disputed Questions on Truth, q. 9, art. 4-7, trans. Robert W. Mulligan, 3 vols. (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1952-54), 1:427-34.
12. Cf. Summa de Creaturis 25.1 (ed. Borgnet 35/2:243-44).
13. Cf. Liber de praedicabilibus 1.5 (ed. Borgnet 1:9b-10a).
14. De animal IV.2.2 (ed. Stadler 15:398. 2-4).
15. This reference to vox literata et articulata is reminiscent of Priscian's definition, which divides vox into four kinds: articulata, inarticulata, literata, and illiterata-that is, articulated, not-articulated, analysable into letters, and not-analysable into letters. While a distinction between literata and illiterata is not problematic, for Priscian articulata is tied to meaning or signification. See his Institutionum Grammaticarum, 1.1, ed. Martin Hertzius, 2 vols. (Leipsig: G. Teubner, 1855-59), 1: 5-6.
16. For a good discussion of Priscian and other ancient sources on vox articulata, cf. Andrea Tabarroni, "On Articulation and Animal Language in Ancient Linguistic Theory," Versus Quaderni di Studi Semiotici 47/48(1988): 103-21.
17. For a view of medieval traditions, see U. Eco, R. Lambertini, C. Marmo, A. Tabarroni, "On Animal Language in the Medieval Classification of Signs," in On the Medieval Theory of Signs, ed. Umberto Eco and Constantino Marmo (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publ. Co., 1989), 3-39.
18. Compare Albert's views on the physical structures required (for example, De animal 1.2.22 [ed. Stadler, 150-151] with Aristotle's at Historia animalium, 535a25f.
19. There Aristotle labors to distinguish voice (phone), sound (psophos), and speech (dialektos). Albert knew this passage directly through the translation of Michael Scot and also indirectly through Pliny, Historia naturalis 11.112.266-70.
20. Cf. Q. de animal 1.12 (ed. Colon. 12:88.68-71] Aristotle and Pliny (see note 17 for references) have many examples of animal "voices" which are not real voices: the whistles and moans of dolphins, the whiz of a scallop as it moves, the sound of a bird's wings, and the various grunts, clicks, and whistles some fish make with their gills or internally.
21. De an. II.3.22 (ed. Colon. 7/1:130.29-32);
22. On the middle powers of the soul, see De animal. VIII.6.1 (ed. Stadler 15:666.24-31).
23. For a good discussion of intentio and its relationship to both internal ("common") sense and the external senses, cf. Alain de Libera, "Le sens commun au XIIIe siècle de Jean de la Rochelle à Albert le Grand," Revue de metaphysique et de morale 96, no. 4 (1991): 475-96.
24. Q. de animal. IV.8 (ed. Colon. 12:143.4-10).
25. Commentarii in I Sententiarum, 27.3.7.
26. Meta. 1.1.6 (ed. Colon. 16/1:8-10).
27. Summa de Creaturis 25.1 (ed. Borgnet 35:244).
28. and De animal XIX.1.9 (ed. Stadler 16:1268-270).
29. Cf. Alexander Neckam, De naturis rerum, c. 20: De voce, ed. T. Wright (London: Rolls Series, 1863), 65-66.
30. De generatione et statu animae secundum naturam 1.1 (ed. Colon. 12:1.66-68).
31. De generations et statu animae secundum naturam 1.1 (ed. Colon. 12:1.61-66).
32. Aristotle Historia animalium 501a25f. cites Ktesias, on the martichora. Ktesias was a fifth-century Greek physician who lived at the Persian court and assisted Artaxerxes at the battle of Cunaxa.
33. His works, Persika and Indika, are lost, but are well-represented in secondary citations, especially the summaries of Photius. Cf. R. Henry, Ctestas: La Perse, L'Inde. Les Sommaires de Photius (Brussels: 1947), 64-65.
34. Cf. Avicenna, De natura animalium, fol. 1.3v.
35. The legend of the manticore was long lived. In antiquity, for example, cf. Pausanias 9.21.4, Pliny, Historia naturalis 8.75
36. Aelian, De natura animalium 4.21.
37. Its popularity was unabated in the Middle Ages. See the twelfth-century version in T.H. White The Book of Beasts (New York: Putnam, 1954), 51-52, 247f.
38. and Thomas of Cantimpré, De natura rerum 4.72 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1973).
39. This is a typical example of a story concerning the race which John Block Friedman classifies as "the hairy men." See The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought (Harvard University Press, 1981), 203f., on their mortality.
40. See De animal XXII.2.1 (ed. Stadler 16:1413.11-22).
41. See Solinus, Collectanea rerum memorabilium 27.23.
42. This story caused the hyena to be depicted frequently in graveyards. See Wilma George and Brunsdon Yapp, The Naming of the Beasts, (London: Duckworth, 1991), 58-59.
43. The manticore was often thought to have human features as well. See George and Yapp, The Naming of the Beasts, 51-53 with III. 26;
44. Beryl Rowland, Animals with Human Faces (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1973), 125-26 with an excellent illustration of a human-faced manticore fleeing while clutching a human leg in its teeth.
45. John Damascene, De draconibus (Patrologia Graeca 94: 1599), has a telling comment when he refutes those who think dragons take on human shape to deflower human females when he rhetorically asks "how many rational natures did God make? ⋯ two ⋯ namely the angels and humans." Mere human shape was never enough.
46. "Psittacus a vobis aliorum nomina discam: Haec per me didici dicere: Caesar, Ave." Rabanus Maurus, De universo, 8.6, Patrologia Latina 111: 246B.
47. De animal. XXI.1.5 (ed. Stadler 16:1336.14-21).
48. We an. II.3.22 (ed. Colon. 7/1:131.62-67).
49. "Sermo est instrumentum quo scientia docentis transfertur in animam discipuli: propter quod etiam viva vox efficacior est ad docendum quam scriptura librorum: quia licet scriptura ostendat res et habitudines earum in scripto, tarnen modum rerum per gestus et nutus affectum non ostendit: quae omnia loquens ostendit." De sen. 1.2 (ed. Borgnet 9:4-5).
50. See the [Ps.] Albertian Liber de apprehensione (ed. Borgnet 5/2:569-70).
51. For a discussion of the Scholastic preoccupation with pygmys, see Joseph Koch, "Sind die Pygmäen Menschen," Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 40(1931): 194-209
52. and John B. Friedman, The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought, 191f.
53. For a very good discussion of divergent Scholastic opinions regarding the "humanity" of the pygmy, with special reference to Albert's work, see especially Theodor Wolfram Köhler, "Anthropologische Erken-nungsmerkmale menschlichen Seins. Die Frage der Pygmei in der Hochscholastik," in Mensch und Natur im Mittelalter, ed. Albert Zimmermann and Andreas Speer, Miscellanea Mediaevalia, 21, 2 vols. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991), 2:718-35.