 One of the most interesting and original aspects of Olivi’s philosophy is his critique of the standard Aristotelian model of cognition. The starting point of this critique is the Augustinian conception of the ontological superiority of the soul with respect to the body, which leads Olivi to insist that perception and intellectual understanding cannot be passive reception of external stimuli but must be understood as active processes. On the conventional medieval view, a cognitive power simply receives impressions from the world, in the form of sensible or intelligible species. Olivi argues that such an account leaves out a crucial element, the focusing of the cognitive power’s attention on the object to be cognized: