One of the first to criticize the conformality or species theory of cognition, in the late thirteenth century, was Peter John Olivi. He argued, contrary to Aristotle and Aquinas, that the mind is active in its cognition of the world; it attends to the object, and it is this move on his part that puts the species theory of cognition in a completely different light. In fact, there seems little point in postulating a species through which the object is cognized. He argues:
> Third, because the attention will tend toward the species
Either in such a way that it would not pass beyond so as to
Attend to the object, or in such a way that it would pass beyond. If in the first way, then the thing will not be seen in itself but only its image will be seen as if it were the thing itself. That is the role of a memory species, not a visual one. If in the second way, then after the inspection of the species it will inspect the object in itself. In this way it will cognize the object in two ways, first through the species and second in itself. It will indeed be like when someone sees an intervening space and then beyond that sees the fixed object. (Peter John Olivi, Quaestiones in secundum librum Sententiarum, III, q. 74, 123.)
In this passage, it seems clear that for Olivi the species is a thing in itself and that there really are three things involved in the cognition of an object: the object, the species, and the cognizer. The species is on his view a representation, namely a thing that stands in for the object in the mind. The main problem he sees with the theory is hence epistemological. How can we be sure we are cognizing the object and not the species. Ockham will later repeat this objection (see Toivanen 2009, Chap. 4). Olivi hence argues that this third representing thing is not needed and that the mind can attend to the object directly.
World History
