Abstract
The internal senses, which, generally speaking, included common sense, the imagination, the estimative faculty, and memory had a central place in the Renaissance understanding of the workings of the human mind. Understood as perceptual powers which mediated between the subject and the object of knowledge, they were considered essential to organize the sensory perceptions individually received by the five external senses into unified representations. Most authors treated common sense and the estimative faculty as powers of the imagination, which was doubtless the most important of the internal senses. Memory, as the ability to visualize what is no longer there, was also often considered part of the imagination, and its role become increasingly important, as testified by the central role of mnemonics in conceptions of the human mind.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Primary Literature
Alberti, Leon Battista. 1755. Ten books of architecture. London: R. Alfray.
Avicenna. 1952. De anima. In Avicenna’s Psychology, ed. F. Rahaman. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ambroise Paré. 1982. On monsters and marvels. Trans. Janis L. Pallister. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Andrea Cattani. ca 1502. Opus de intellectu et de causis mirabilium effectuum. N.p., But thought to be Florence.
Ficino, Marsilio. 1576. In Plotinum. In Opera Omnia, 2 vols, 1537–1800. Basel: Henrici Petri.
Juan Huarte de San Juan. 1604. The examination of mens wits. London: Adam Islip.
Juan Luis Vives. 1782–90. Opera omnia. Ed. G. Mayans y Siscár, 8 vols. Valencia: Monfort.
Leonardo, Da Vinci. 1883. Literary works. Ed. J.P. Richter. London: Low.
Marsilio Ficino. 1987. El libro dell’amore. Ed. Sandra Niccoli. Florence: Olschki.
Marsilio Ficino. 1975. The ‘Philebus’ commentary. Ed. and Trans. M.J.B. Allen. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.
Secondary Literature
Black, Deborah. 1993. Estimation (Wahm) in Avicenna: The logical and psychological dimensions. Dialogue 32 (2): 219–258.
Black, Deborah. 2000. Imagination and estimation: Arabic paradigms and Western transformations. Topoi 19 (1): 59–75.
Casini, Lorenzo. 2013. Renaissance theories of internal senses. In Sourcebook for the history of the philosophy of mind: Philosophical psychology from Plato to Kant, ed. S. Knuuttila and J. Sihvola, 147–156. Dordrecht: Springer.
Giglioni, Guido. 2011. Coping with inner and outer demons: Marsilio Ficino’s theory of the imagination. In Diseases of the imagination and imaginary disease in the early modern period, ed. Y. Haskell. Turnhout: Brepols.
Hasse, Dag Nikolaus. 2007. Arabic philosophy and Averroism. In Cambridge companion to renaissance philosophy, ed. J. Hankins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kemp, Simon. 1996. Cognitive psychology in the middle ages. Westport/London: Greenwood Press.
Mertens, Manuel. 2018. Magic and memory in Giordano Bruno: The art of a heroic spirit. Leiden/London: Brill.
Rossi, Paolo. 2000. Logic and the art of memory: The quest for a universal language. London: Continuum.
Summers, David. 1990. The judgement of sense: Renaissance naturalism and the rise of aesthetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vasoli, Cesare. 1958. ‘Umanesimo e simbologia nei primi scritti lulliani e mnemotecnici del Bruno. In Umanesimo e simbolismo. Atti del IV convegno internazionale di studi umanistici, 251–304. Padua: C.E.D.A.M.
Yates, Frances A. 1966. The art of memory. Random House: London.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Corrias, A. (2021). Senses, Internal. In: Sgarbi, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_1062-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_1062-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-02848-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-02848-4
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities