Epistemological Problem of Ens Rationis in Post-Tridentine Scholasticism and Contemporary Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31649/sent44.01.042Keywords:
post-Tridentine scholasticism, ens rationis, being of reason, intentional being, objective being, potencies of the soul, fantasy,, beyond-true judgment, artificial intelligenceAbstract
The article analyzes the possibility of using the post-Tridentine scholastic concept of the being of reason to address issues in the philosophy of artificial intelligence (AI). The authors argue that the concepts of the being of reason developed by Pedro da Fonseca and Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza can serve as a tool for analyzing cognitive processes in AI language models. This is grounded in two key premises: first, artificial intelligence processes replicate the processes of natural human intelligence; second, the scholastic distinction between real being and being of reason enables a clear differentiation between real and fictional objects that exist only due to the cognitive operations of AI. By examining the causes underlying the emergence of the being of reason (powers of the soul and operations of the intellect), the authors draw parallels with contemporary algorithms used to generate fictional objects. As a result, it is concluded that the scholastic concept of the "ens rationis" points to an analogy between the mechanisms of forming beings of reason in the human intellect and the generation of fiction produced by AI systems.
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