Question Fifteen: Is The Possible Intellect Active Or
Question Fifteen
IS THE POSSIBLE INTELLECT ACTIVE OR
PASSIVE AS REGARDS THE CONCEPT
OF A CREATURE?
15.1 The next question concerns the cause of intellection, or how the intellect passes from [potency] to act.
[1] 15.2 The question is this: Granted that the blessed in heaven have some concept or "word''* of the creature as seen in the divine essence, is the possible intellect* purely passive as regards such knowledge?!
Arguments Pro and Con It is argued that it is:
The possible intellect is the recipient of its intellection. But the same subject is not both active and receptive as regards the same thing, for that which receives is in potency whereas that which acts is in act, and the same entity cannot be at once in potency and in act, since these are primary divisions of being. Therefore, the possible intellect has no activity as regards the ''word," and consequently is purely passive.
15.3 For the negative view: If a "word" is formed there, I ask by what is it formed. It cannot be said that it is formed by the object, because intellection is an immanent action* according to the Philosopher,? and if there were any action of the object upon the intellect, intellection would be a transient action.* Neither can it be said that the "word" in this case is formed by the agent intellect,* for the agent intellect, according to the Philosopher,? makes the potentially intelligible an intelligible actually. All of its action, then, is complete before there is actual intellection and hence before there is a "word." Neither can one claim the memory actively forms the "word," because the "word" is formed through the act of knowing
'Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. 1, d.g3, nn.333-553 (III, 201-330); Iv, d.10, qq-8-9 (ed. Vives xvil, 282-304).
? Aristotle, Metaph. x, c.8 (1050a35-1050b).
3 Aristotle, De anima Il, ¢.5 (430a14-17).
QUESTION FIFTEEN
or understanding. The memory does not understand, but every act of understanding pertains to the intelligence itself, according to The Trinity.* Therefore, there is nothing else left in the soul except the possible intellect* that could form the ''word."
Body of the Question 15.4 The question here is not whether it is possible to have a "word" of the beatific object itself, or of the secondary objects seen in the primary object [God], or whether the ''word" of the first and second of these is distinct; but it presupposes there is a '"'word" of the secondary object [i.e., of the creature] and it asks: Just what is the function of the possible intellect in its formation? Therefore, beginning with what is more manifest, we shall inquire first about the formation of a "word" according to the mode of understanding we now possess. And, second, we shall explain how this applies to intellection in heaven.
ARTICLE I
Formation of the Word according to the Manner in Which We Understand in the Present Life 15.5 [Three points to be investigated] As for the first, I assume that there is perfect intellection, for instance, definitional knowledge of a definable object and whether such intellection be the "word" itself or not, at least it does not exist without the "word" of this object. Consequently, if anything is active with respect to this perfect understanding, then it is somehow active in the formation of the "word." Therefore, there are three points to be investigated as regards the cause of our intellection in the present life. First, that in the intellective part of man there is an active principle of intellection. Second, we must see whether this is something of the intellective soul itself or whether it is only the object, which is said to be in the soul inasmuch as in the soul, as an accident but not as a part of its nature, there is something representative of the object.
Third, given that the active principle is something of the soul itself, we shall ask whether it is the agent or possible intellect.
1. In the Intellective Part of the Soul there is an Active Principle of Intellection 15.6 Proof: The first conclusion is established in this way:
We all experience some intellection in us as new, and this is an 4 Augustine, De Trin. xv, c.10, n.19: PL 42, 1071; CCSL 50a, 485-86.
GOD AND CREATURES
absolute form, as we said in [13.8ff.] in the question dealing with this matter. But every absolute form, since it is the term of some action, has an active principle which gives it existence. Therefore, every new intellection in us has an active principle or source. This is intrinsic to the intelligent subject, as is clear from the Philosopher in the De anima®: 'But between the two cases,"—add "of the intellect and the senses' —''there is a difference. The objects that excite the sensory powers to activity, the seen and the heard, etc., are outside." And he continues: '""The ground of this difference is that what actual sensation apprehends is individuals, while what knowledge apprehends is universals, and these are in a sense within the soul.
That is why man can exercise his intellection when he wishes, but his sensation does not depend on himself—a sensible object must be there." Therefore, we have this certain conclusion that the active principle that suffices for this new intellection is intrinsic to the intelligent subject.
15.7 With this in mind, then, we argue further by the method of division that this principle pertains (1) either to the will, or (2) the sensitive part, or (3) the intellective part insofar as this is distinct from both will and sense. The first alternative is unacceptable, at least if we are dealing with the initial intellection, for this precedes every act of the will.® The second alternative, viz., that this principle pertains to the sensitive part as such, cannot be admitted either.
Therefore, by default it pertains to the intellective part of the soul.
15.8 [Three proofs it is not in the sensitive part] The second statement, namely that it does not pertain to the sensitive part, is proved in three ways, the first of which is this: An equivocal effect* is always less noble than its total equivocal cause,* as we gather from Super Genesim.* Intellection, however, is simply more perfect than the phantasm* or any such perfection whatsoever in the sensitive part, for intellection is properly a perfection of the intellectual natura qua intellectual and as such is more noble than the entire sensitive soul, and so more perfect than any perfection therein.®
15.9 The second proof is this: The angel does not always possess all the intellection it can have. Otherwise, since he can know every intelligible object, either he would have one single intellection
> Aristotle, De anima ul, ¢.5 (417b19-25).
6 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. u1, d.42, q.4, n.g (ed. Vivés xii, 451); 1, d.6, nn.
13ff. (Iv, g2ff.).
* Augustine, Super Gen. xu, c.24, 0.51: PL 34, 474-75.
* Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. 1v, d.12, q.3, n.14 (ed. Vives xvn, 590).
QUESTION FIFTEEN
which embraces all intelligibles at once or else he would have as many distinct intellections as there are distinct objects. But neither of these seems a viable alternative.
The first would ascribe too great a perfection to his intellection.
Indeed, it would seem to attribute infinite perfection to it, since even the divine intellect would not surpass it as far as the multitude of objects is concerned. The second hypothesis would seem to ascribe too much perfection to his intellect, for it would know all these objects at once by different acts just as distinctly as it knows one object by one act.
It follows, then, that since the angel could understand every intelligible object, it would be able to have some new intellection.
Therefore, it seems that we must attribute to him whatever perfection is present in an intellect able to have some new knowledge.
But it is part of such perfection to have such perfect habitual knowledge as to be only in accidental potency* to understanding,? in the sense that the Philosopher speaks of it in the De anima. Referring to the possible intellect, he says: ""Once the mind has become each set of its possible objects, as a man of science has, when this phrase is used of one who is actually a man of science (this happens when he is now able to exercise the power on his own initiative), its condition is still one of potentiality, but in a different sense from the potentiality which preceded the acquisition of knowledge.' What he means is that even though a mind with a habit that enables it to act on its own is in potency, it is not essential potency, that is to say, in potency to the form or the principle of acting, but only in accidental potency to the intellective operation. And this is a more perfect disposition which enables one to go from the potentiality of operating to its actual exercise.
15.10 It could be objected here™ that it is purely a matter of belief that an angel could have a new intellection, for the principal philosophers did not see this to be the case.
15.11 Also, one could claim that God immediately moves the angel to whatever intellection he happens to have.
15.12 Answer to these objections: Perhaps the Philosopher, who affirms that the angel's intellection is identical with his substance, would say as a consequence of this view that whatever produced his
9 Tbid., u, d.g, q.8, n.8 (ed. Vives xu, 186); g.10, nn.15-16 (ibid., 255-57).
10 Aristotle, De anima wl, c.4 (429b5-10).
11 Godfrey of Fontaines, Quodl. vi, q.7 in corp.
(ed. Hoffmans in PhB m1, Louvain, 1914, p. 168).
GOD AND CREATURES
substance also caused his intellection. Similarly a Catholic, who claims the intellection by which an angel understands himself is coeval* with him and is a kind of proper perfection which is a necessary consequence of his nature, would probably say that such intellection somehow derives immediately from God according to this probable principle: "An accident that is coeval with or proper to its substance stems from the one generating the substance." It does not seem probable, however, that an accident that is per accidens or contingently in the substance was produced by the one generating the substance."
15.13 Confirmation of this: Although God could cause immediately any intellection, if as a matter of fact there would be one, for instance of this object, that he did not cause, but left its causation up to the angel and the natural order of efficient causes, it hardly seems probable that the angel could never know this object, since the soul left to itself and natural causes can attain such knowledge naturally, although through the mediation of the senses. For it does not seem possible that the soul, even with the help of the senses, could apprehend an object which the angel could not grasp without the senses.
15.14 But what is said of the Philosopher seems to substantiate our thesis. For if the Philosopher had realized that an angel could have a new intellection, he would have maintained that at times the angel is in a state of accidental potency, since this is the most perfect disposition anyone could have who is at any time in potency to intellection. Anyone, then, who defends the position that an angel is capable of a new intellection, whether this be on grounds of faith or reason, would have to admit logically that the angel is in accidental potency to this knowledge, even as the Philosopher would, had he held the same thesis. Now one who, on holding some antecedent, would concede a consequent that the Philosopher would have admitted, had he held that antecedent, would agree more with the Philosopher than someone, who, on holding that same antecedent, would deny that consequent, for Aristotle himself would not have denied it, had he granted the antecedent.
15.15 The third proof [of 15.8] is from authority. Augustine' says: "What excels in the soul is called mind." He adds: "A man is not called the image of God according to everything that pertains
2 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. un, d.g, q.11, nn.11-12 (ed. Vives xn, 278-70).
'8 Augustine, De Trin. xv, c.7, n.11: PL 42, 1065; CCSL 50a, 475.
QUESTION FIFTEEN
to his nature, but according to the mind alone." And earlier he had declared:'* "The image of his nature ought to be sought for and found there in us, where there is also the best thing that our nature has."
15.16 From this and other like passages, one would conclude that every image is in the intellective part, understanding by this the part that transcends the sensitive. But an image, as is obvious from the last chapter of The Trinity,* and from many other texts from Augustine, includes both "parent and offspring."?* Hence the ''parent," who begets this knowledge which is the "'offspring'' and hence is the active principle of intellection, is to be found in the intellectual part of man. Therefore, anyone who would claim that the reason for the immediate generation of actual knowledge is the phantasm or some similar form in the sensitive part would not preserve the analogy, it seems, of the mind being the "parent" of its thought in any proper sense.
15.17 Besides, Augustine says in The Trinity: '""The memory of man, and particularly that which beasts do not have, namely, that in which the intelligible things are so contained that they do not come into it through the senses of the body, has in this image of the Trinity a likeness, unequal of course but a likeness of whatever kind it may be, to the Father." He explains this in another passage as follows?8: "But that word of ours... is so born from our knowledge as that Word was also born from the knowledge of the Father."" And in another place he writes!*: '""We attribute to the memory everything that we know."
15.18 According to these texts the memory, which animals lack, viz., that which is properly intellectual, has a likeness to the Father, because our "word" is born from it or from knowledge that is in it, just as the eternal Word is born from the knowledge of the Father.
These quotations suffice, it seems, to show that according to Augustine the active principle of intellection is in the intellectual part properly speaking.
14 [bid., xiv, c.8, n.11: PL 42, 1044; CCSL 50a, 436.
15 Tbid., 1x, c.12, n.18: PL 42, 970-72; CCSL 50, 309-10.
16 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. 1, d.1, n.13
(1, 8); d.g, nn.583-88
(III, 344-47);
u, d.16, g.un., n.g0 (ed. Vivés xu, 45-46).
17 Augustine, De Trin. xv, c.23, n.43: PL 42, 1090; CCSL 50a, 520.
18 Tbid., c.14, n.24: PL 42, 1077; CCSL 50a, 497.
19 Ibid., c.21, n.4o: PL 42, 1088; CCSL 50a, 517.
GOD AND CREATURES
2. Which Factor is Active in Intellection?
15.19 [What the authorities say] As for the second point in [15.5 of] this first article, this much is certain. To cause intellection the concurrence of some part of the intellective soul and the presence of the object, either in itself or in some representation, is required.
But authorities seem to disagree as to which of these factors is active per se.
[ved 15.20 Augustine says?°: "No one should think that any body acts on the spirit as if the spirit played the role of matter under the domination of the body. For what makes something is in every way more excellent than what is made, and the body is in no way more excellent than the spirit. On the contrary, the spirit excels the body.
Therefore, even though the image begins to exist in the spirit, the body does not produce it there, but the spirit with wonderful rapidity produces it in itself."
15.21 And in The Trinity,?! also, he says: ""The soul fastens together and forces into itself the images of bodies."'
15.22 As for the activity of the object, however, he says??: "The thought, formed from that thing which we know, is the word which we speak in our heart." In the same section he adds: "The word is born from the knowledge itself which is retained in the memory."
And in another passage he writes?*: "The word is a likeness of the thing known from which it is begotten, and it is an image of the thing."
15.23 The Philosopher seems to argue in favor of the object, for that which reduces something from essential to accidental potentiality seems to be an active principle. Now this would seem to pertain to the object, for what makes the object present under the aspect of being actually intelligible is the species* and this is caused by the object.
15.24 The text from De anima,** quoted [in 15.6] favors his opinion: "And these [universals] are in a sense within the soul. That is why a man can exercise his intellection when he wishes." It is as if he said: The intelligible objects are present to the soul, and there20 Augustine, Super Gen. xi, c.16, n.33: PL 34, 467.
21 Augustine, De Trin. x, c.5, n.7: PL 42, 977; CCSL 50, g21.
EMMoy Gl, NAS CuO}, MENGE IAL, "ie, NOs (CLOSE 50a, 486.
28 Tbid., c.12, n.22: PL 42, 1075; CCSL soa, 493.
4 Aristotle, De anima Ul, c.5 (417b24).
QUESTION FIFTEEN
fore the soul is in accidental potency to understand when it wants to.
15.25 On the other hand, this text from the Metaphysics,?® according to some, favors the activity of the potency: 'Speculative thought is an immanent action." If the intellection were not caused by the intellect, it would not be an immanent but a transient action.*2¢ 15.26 [Scotus' own view is that both factors concur] As for this problem, it could be said that both [the soul and the object] concur as active principles of intellection.
And it seems Augustine agrees with this??: "We must obviously hold fast to this principle that everything which we know begets the knowledge of itself within us. For knowledge is born of both, from the one who knows and the object which is known." He also writes?§: "Vision is produced both by the visible thing and the one who sees."" And although he adds there: "The informing of. the sense, which is called vision, is imprinted by the body alone that is seen," this does not count against our position, for the term "vision" is used equivocally, first for the act of seeing, and second for the likeness of the thing seen, and only the latter is caused by the body.
This equivocal usage can be gleaned from a study of many expressions in that chapter.
There is also an argument from reason for our interpretation.
When the intelligible object is actually present to the intellect, an actual intellection of this object is possible. But no intellection can be had without a perfectly active principle. Therefore, either only one of the two factors is the complete active principle, or both together constitute a single complete active principle in such a way that each is partially active.
15.27 [The object alone is not the complete active principle] 'That neither factor alone is the complete active principle is proved first in regard to the object.
(1) No object, in the form of a sensible accident is more noble than intellection itself. But an active principle, to be complete or perfect, if it is equivocal [or unlike its effect], must be more perfect than the form it causes.
25 Aristotle, Metaph. 1x, c.8 (1050a21-1050b1).
26 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. 1, d.3, nn.401-553 (III, 245-330).
27 Augustine, De Trin. Ix, c.12, n.18: PL 42, 970; CCSL 50, 309.
28 Ibid., x1, c.2, n.g: PL 42, 986; CCSL 50, 336.
GOD AND CREATURES
15.28 (2) A second proof for the same is this: Where the object is present to the same degree, the greater the effort and intent to understand, the more perfect the intellection can be. We see this to be so because the more perfect the intellection, the more lasting the impression it leaves. Hence it is this greater voluntary effort that causes somehow a more perfect understanding. Now this would hardly be the case if the object alone were the active cause of this.
For the object is not a free agent essentially, as is clear. Neither is it free somehow by participation, it would seem, for it is not of the same nature as the will. Therefore, it seems it would always act to the utmost of its power.
15.29 (3) The same point can be shown, third, as follows: The operation whereby an agent elicits something through the help of some incidental perfection it has per accidens is not an essential or per se perfection of that agent.?® For example, to heat or even to warm something is not a per se perfection of a warm piece of wood.
It only pertains to wood because of the warmth which is something accidental to the wood. But that by which an object other than the soul is present to the intellect is a per accidens accident, since sometimes it happens to be there and at other times not. If it were the only active principle of intellection, therefore, intellection would not be the proper perfection of the intellect or of man.
15.30 [The intellect alone is not the complete active principle] Second, there is proof that the total activity involved in intellection is not due to the intellect alone, because the act of intellection seems to be a proper likeness of the object.*°
The object also seems to account for the specific character of a given intellection, not indeed as an intrinsic formal constitutive principle, but as a per se extrinsic principle.
Intellection also seems to depend essentially on the object. For that reason the object is referred to the intellection [by Aristotle], a relationship that puts it among the third class of '"'relatives.'* But this would not seem to be correct, if the object were merely an incidental cause [causa per accidens] or just a necessary condition
[causa sine qua non].
15.31 Therefore, I accept the authorities cited [in 15.19-25] in favor of both sides, whether they apply to the intellect or to the object. For it is indeed true that each plays somehow a partial but *® Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. 1, d.3, nn.427-29, 463-70 (111, 260-61, 279-82).
30 Ibid., nn.413-14 (Ill, 250-52).
QUESTION FIFTEEN
active role in intellection. Both are integrated, however, in such a Way as to constitute one complete active principle.*!
15.32 [Solution of some doubts] But here two doubts arise. First of all, how do the two factors make up one complete principle? Second, how are we to interpret in favor of the object certain authorities cited earlier, such as Augustine's statement [in 15.22] that "The word is born from the knowledge itself," or Aristotle's claim that "What knowledge apprehends is universals, and these are in a sense within the soul.'"'®2 15-33 As for the first problem, I say that at times concurrent causes are of the same type or order, as in the case where we have more than one pulling a boat. At other times, however, they are of different types and orders, and this can occur in two ways. Sometimes the posterior cause derives its power from the prior cause, as is the case of the sun* and the father in the generation of a man. In other cases, however, the posterior cause does not derive its power from the anterior, nor does it depend on it for the possession of that power, but only for the exercise of its own power in such a way that the superior cause acts to a greater extent as the principal cause, and the other to a lesser extent. An example, perhaps, would be the father and mother in begetting a child, according to what seems to be asserted in De animalibus** about the mother being somehow active in generation. This seems reasonable, since powers specifically the same should be the consequence of having the same specific form, and male and female, according to the Philosopher,** do not differ specifically. The mother, however, does not receive her active power from the father, nor does she depend upon his for its possession. She only depends on him for the exercise of her own power and plays a less active role.
15.34 Applying this to the case at hand, we could say that the concurrence of intellect and object is not of the first type because the first sort of cooperation is necessary. And this is not because of the nature of the cooperating agents, but because of a lack of strength in one of them, for if his strength were doubled, one alone could do the job. But such is not the situation here, for no matter how perfect the object or intellect was, neither could cause intellec31 Tbid., nn.486-94, 559-62 (111, 289-93, 333-34).
32 Aristotle, De anima ul, c.7 (431b10); cf. supra, nn.6, 24.
38 Aristotle, De animal. generat. 1, cc.17-22 (721a32-730b32).
84 Aristotle, Metaph. x, c.g (1058a2Q-35).
30D
GOD AND CREATURES
tion without the other. On the other hand, they do not cooperate in the second way, since the intellect does not receive its active power from the object, nor vice versa. Therefore, they cooperate in the third way.
15.35, It is not necessary here to discuss which of the two plays the major role.
15.36 As for the second problem [raised in 15.32], I say that for Augustine these three expressions are equivalent: "The word is generated from the memory," '""The word is generated from knowledge in the memory," and "The word is generated from the thing known." For by "knowledge," here, he means the initial act whereby the soul is sufficiently actuated as regards the intellective act. Now the "word" is generated in virtue of this initial act, and since the object shines forth in that act, he says the "'word" is generated from the object. The "word," then, is generated by knowledge as its formal principle, and by the object as shining forth in this principle, a and by the memory insofar as it contains this principle. All such statements of Augustine then, to his mind, speak in favor of an activity on the part of the object.
15.37 A similar interpretation can be given to those texts of Aristotle cited earlier [in 15.6 and 15.9] about "what knowledge apprehends is universals" and ''a man can exercise his intellection when he wishes" or "a man of science .
. is now able to exercise that pow- [124 er on his own initiative." We must understand Aristotle here to be referring, like Augustine, not to "knowledge'' or "science" as the habitual knowledge acquired by repeated acts that gives one the facility to perform similar acts, but rather to whatever it is that makes the object present as something actually intelligible, whether this be an intelligible species or something else. For science is that by which the soul is educed from essential to accidental potency.
Now the science acquired by repeated acts that gives a facility as regards other acts does not precede every actual intellection.
15.38 Similarly, according to Augustine, science is the formal reason or ground whereby memory gives birth or generates. But the science acquired by many repeated acts is not the formal reason or ground for generating any intellection. On the contrary, science itself is generated from many prior acts.
15.39 You might object that the text from Super Genesim* not 85 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. 1, d.g, nn.523-27, 512-14, 504-506
(Ill, 311-14, 303-305, 298-300).
38 Augustine, Super Gen. xu, c.24, n.51: PL 34, 474-75; cf. Supra, 15.20.
QUESTION FIFTEEN
only affirms that the soul is active in intellection, but also denies that the object acts upon the soul. And as for Aristotle, he not only concedes that the object acts, but he also seems to deny that the intellect acts at all, for he speaks of ''thinking as a passive affection.''3?
Answer to the first: It could be said that Augustine denies there that the object acts zmmediately on the soul according to the material being it has in the extramental world.
Answer to the second: Aristotle, it seems, speaks more frequently of the activity of the object and passivity of the potency. The reason for this is that he usually refers to the powers of the soul insofar as they represent that whereby formally we can be operating, for instance, he speaks of the sense as that by which we formally sense, the intellect as that by which we formally understand, just as he says the soul is that whereby we formally live. Now even though the intellect actively causes the intellection, it is not said to understand insofar as it causes this, for if God were to cause this same intellection, we would not say that he understands by virtue of such intellection, but rather that the intellect in which he produces this intellection understands. And, therefore, in the present case we say that the intellect understands not because it causes, but because it receives the intellection. And thus it is true to say that "thinking is a passive affection," because the intellect only understands to the extent that it receives the intellection. But whether the text from the Metaphysics [cited in 15.25] favors the activity of the object or not should be clear from what was said [at 13.81-83] in the question about the act of knowing and appetition.
3. Is it the Agent or the Possible Intellect That is Active in Intellection?
15.40 [Arguments in favor of the agent intellect] Our third main problem in this first article is to determine whether the active principle in the intellective part of the soul is the agent intellect or the possible intellect.** [13] It would seem to be the agent intellect because the possible intellect receives the intellection. If, in addition to receiving the intellection, it should also cause the intellection, with equal reason the possible intellect could be said to be active in regard to the intelligible species it receives, and thus there would be no need of the agent intellect for any intellectual act.
37 Aristotle, De anima Il, c.4 (429b24-25).
38 Cf, Duns Scotus, Ord. 1, d.3, nn.333-568
(III, 201-338).
GOD AND CREATURES
15.41 The fact that the potencies of the soul are distinguished into active potencies and passive potencies confirms this position.
15.42 A second proof that the agent intellect is the active factor is this: The Philosopher,' in distinguishing the agent from the possible intellect, explains that "The intellect as we have described it is what it is by virtue of becoming all things, while there is another intellect that is what it is by virtue of making all things." Hence it seems to follow that the agent intellect is paired with the possible intellect as what is active to what is passive. It is active, then, with respect to everything that the possible intellect can receive and, therefore, also as regards intellection.
15.43 A third proof is found in [Aristotle's] statement that the agent intellect "is a certain habitual state like light.''*? Intellectual light, however, appears to be the active principle for knowing intelligible truths, according to [Augustine's] explanation in The Trinity: "The nature of the intellectual mind is so formed as to see those things which, according to the disposition of the Creator, are subjoined to intelligible things in the natural order, in a sort of incorporeal light of its own kind, as the eye of the flesh sees the things that lie about it in this corporeal light."
15.44 A fourth argument based on [Aristotle's further description of the agent intellect]**: ""The active," he goes on to say, "is always more noble than the passive factor, the originating force than the matter which it forms.'' He wants to say, then, that the agent intellect is either more noble, or at least no less noble, than the possible intellect. Now the "image" [of God in us] consists of what is best in our nature, as was proved from Augustine [in 15.15] in the first part of this article. The agent intellect belongs to the image, and it obviously must be part of the memory. Now memory has two functions, one to conserve the object or likeness [species] of the object; the other to express or generate its actual knowledge. Now the first function obviously cannot pertain to the agent intellect, since it is not a receptive or conserving power. Hence, its function must be the second, namely, to express knowledge.
15.45 [Arguments in favor of the possible intellect] In favor of the possible intellect, however, we have the following arguments:
First, there is Aristotle's explanation [in 15.43] that the agent in89 Aristotle, De anima Ml, c.5 (430415).
40 Tbid. (430a16-18).
'1 Augustine, De Trin. xu, c.15, n.24: PL 42, 1011; CCSL 50, 378.
42 Aristotle, De anima I, c.5 (430a18-20).
QUESTION FIFTEEN
tellect is "like light," which the Commentator'* interprets in this way. As light somehow converts potential color into actual color, so the agent intellect transforms the potentially intelligible into what is actually intelligible. Therefore, its action ends with the object as actually able to be known, which is prior to intellection itself.
15.46 This is confirmed by the observation of the Commentator* that if things were the way Plato assumed they were, no agent intellect would be needed. Hence the agent intellect is only introduced to make the object actually universal. But this precedes actual intellection.
15-47 A second argument is based on the Commentator's*® explanation that the agent intellect is postulated in order that it may transfer the object ''from one order to another." This transfer can be taken to mean one that moves from the sensible to the intelligible order, and hence from the corporeal to the spiritual order. But why is something needed to effect this transfer? The reason seems to be that a corporeal agent has no basis for acting on anything but a corporeal patient, for such an agent requires that the patient be located next to it. Otherwise it would be as if the patient were not present to such an agent. Therefore, a corporeal agent can never be the immediate cause of something spiritual, and consequently it cannot be the proximate reason why anything is transferred from one order to another. This seems to be Augustine's argument in Super Genesim.*® But when an object that is actually intelligible becomes actually known, there is no transfer of this sort from one order to another. Hence the agent intellect is not required in such a case.
15.48 This is confirmed by the fact that no such transfer from one order to another is postulated for something known to be actually willed, because the actually known is sufficiently commensurate to the will. Hence it follows that since the actually intelligible present in the intellective memory is an equally commensurate intelligible, namely, as regards its being understood actually, no power is needed to transfer such an object from one order to another.
15.49 A third argument is this: If the agent intellect were per se active for actual intellection, then, by the same token, it would be
43 Averroes, De anima 1, com. 18 (Averrois Cordovensis Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis de Anima, ed. F. Stuart Crawford, Medieval Academy of America, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, p. 439).
44 Tbid., com. 18, p. 440.
2MDide WU Syepe44 0:
'6 Augustine, Super Gen. xu, c.16, n.33: PL 34, 467.
B07
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necessary to postulate an active and possible potency wherever any power is assumed to be both the cause and the recipient of its own operation. Thus, for instance, an agent and possible will would be required according to the common opinion that the will is both the agent and recipient of its volition. Similarly, if anyone assumed the sense faculty to be active, perhaps because he held the sensation itself to be something more noble than the external sensible object, he would have to distinguish an agent sense and a possible sense.
Since the Philosopher himself never assumed any such distinction between "agent" and "possible" except in regard to the intellect, it would follow that the basis for such a distinction is not something the intellect has in common with the other potencies, and hence not because the power is both the agent and recipient of its action.
15.50 A fourth argument can be drawn from [Augustine's]* statement in The Trinity that "Knowledge is born from both the one who knows and from the object that is known." But it is not the agent intellect but the possible intellect that knows. Therefore, intellection is born of the possible intellect, and hence it is active as regards intellection.
15.51 [Conclusions that follow from the first opinion] In this section, then, if one held to the first view, he could say that the agent intellect has two sequentially related actions. The first is to make the potentially intelligible actually intelligible, or the potentially universal, actually universal. The second is to make the potentially understood actually understood.
The first of these functions would be understood as follows: From the phantasm or sensible image in the imagination there would be produced in the intellect by virtue of the agent intellect an intelligible species, or something in which a thing appears as actually intelligible and which can be called, for brevity's sake, an intelligible species. And this very real production of one representation from another is accompanied by a metaphorical "transformation" of one object into another, namely, of something sensibly imaginable into something intelligible. And this metaphorical description is a reasonable account of what goes on, because the object has a similar sort of existence as object [esse obiectivum] in the one representation as it does in the other. Therefore, in the real change whereby a spiritual representation is produced with the help of a corporeal representation, namely, where a universal representation is produced with the help of a singular representation, one can speak or '7 Augustine, De Trin. 1x, c.12, n.18: PL 42, 970; CCSL so, 309.
QUESTION FIFTEEN
think of a similar "transformation" of a corporeal object into a spiritual one, or of a singular object into a universal one.
The second function would consist in transforming the potentially known into the actually known. In this case also there is a metaphorical "transformation" of objects corresponding to the real transformation on the part of those things whereby one tends towards the objects, for actual intellection really follows the intelligible species. And just as the first transformation from potency to act is ascribed to the agent intellect, so also is the second, both metaphorically as regards the objects and really as regards those things in which the objects are represented. For to the extent that the intelligible species would be generated by the agent intellect from the phantasm, the actually intelligible would be generated, metaphorically speaking, from the potentially intelligible. And in the second act, as actual intellection is generated from the potentially intelligible, so, metaphorically, objects potentially intelligible become actually intelligible.
15.52 Similarly, one could postulate a twofold passive aspect in the possible intellect corresponding to the twofold activity of the agent intellect. The first of these would be the reception of the intelligible species from the phantasm through the first action of the agent intellect; the second would be the reception of intellection it- ~I hoc self from the intelligible species through the second action of the agent intellect.
And according to this interpretation both agent and possible intellect would pertain to the intellective memory. The agent intellect, however, would not belong to it in virtue of its first function, which is to make the potentially intelligible actually intelligible. Indeed, the memory in act would be the term of such an action, for it would be in virtue of such activity that the intellect would have the object present to it as actually intelligible. It would be in virtue of its second action that the agent intellect would be included in memory, since the function of memory would be to make express the actual knowledge of intellection, and the agent intellect's second action would contribute to this action. The possible intellect, however, would be called memory insofar as its reception of the intelligible species is concerned, whereas it would be called intelligence so far as second receptive role is concerned.
15.53 [How this theory would solve the counter-arguments in 15.45-50] According to this view, one could reply to those arguments that seemed to support the contrary position on the grounds o09
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that the first function, that of abstraction, is more proper to the agent intellect than the second, that of causing intellection, for this kind of activity could be something it shares with other powers. But no other power transfers the object from one order to another, 1.e., from the corporeal to the spiritual order. Even the will, which some claim, in causing its action, transforms metaphorically its object from the intelligible to the appetible order, needs no "'agent will" to effect the transfer. That is to say, no agent is required to prepare its object to become actually "volible" in the way the agent intellect prepares the object to become actually intelligible, because once the object is actually known it can be an object of volition, and hence no action is needed to prepare the object for the will.
Therefore the authorities cited do affirm what is true of the first act of the intellect. And even though at times it is said that it is only for this purpose that an agent intellect is postulated, this is still true of that function that is proper to this intellect, for only here is there a power that prepares an object; for the second act is not something proper to an agent of such virtue, for other powers can be active in operating, once their object is given.
15.54 [Conclusions that follow from the second opinion] But if one held the other view, viz., that the possible intellect is the active factor in intellection, and that the action of the agent intellect is limited to abstracting the object, then one would have to say that the agent intellect does not pertain to the memory, but that its action (as regards sensibles) ends at the memory, since it ends at that form through which the object as actually intelligible is shown to the intellect, and this is the form that constitutes perfect memory.
As for pure intelligibles, however, such as spiritual things, it would have no action whatsoever. This would be true whether such things were understood directly or by means of a species, since they could cause such by their own power. The possible intellect, however, would belong to the memory not only insofar as it retains all the representations of objects actually intelligible, but also insofar as it actively expresses actual knowledge.
15.55 [How this theory would solve the counter-arguments in 15-40-44] One could then answer those arguments adduced against this view.
As for the first [in 15.40], one can say the operative potency is not [19] active as regards its object, even though it is active as regards its act about the object. That it can cause its own intellection, therefore, is
QUESTION FIFTEEN
no reason to claim the possible intellect can cause the intelligible species.
15.56 As for the confirmation [in 15.41], one could say that if we speak of potency insofar as it implies a relationship, then we may well divide potencies into the active and the passive. But if we are referring to what underlies this relation, as we commonly do when we speak of a potency, for example, when we say that heat is a potency for heating, then there is no need to distinguish active from passive potencies. Otherwise the will would have to be two potencies.
15.57 As for the other argument [in 15.42], Aristotle's words that the agent intellect is "what it is in virtue of making all things' must be understood to mean "making all things actually intelligible."
This can be gathered from what follows about "light makes potential colors into actual colors,''** since it makes them actually visible. This is understood in the sense that even though the nature of color as an absolute quality remains the same in the dark, nevertheless it is not able to be seen, if we are speaking of proximate potency, for whenever two causes must concur to have an action, one of them—the second—is not in proximate potency unless the other
—the first—concurs. Now for color to act upon sight, another cause, namely the light, is required for the action; therefore, color is only proximately visible when it is illuminated. In this way too, the phantasm cannot produce the intelligible species without the concurrent action of the agent intellect.
The agent intellect, therefore, makes all things actually intelligible in the sense of putting them in proximate potency to being known. For in the intelligible species it makes appear what was only in remote potency before, because they appeared there in a material representation which presented them in their singularity. But [Aristotle] nowhere says that the agent intellect is that which makes all things actually known.
Consequently, the conclusion that the agent intellect's action is coextensive with the possible intellect's receptivity must be taken in the same sense as referring to making and receiving something actually intelligible, not something actually understood.
15.58 As for the third argument [in 15.43], it is the truth of a principle that is seen in the meaning of its terms. The meanings of these terms, however, as actually intelligible and universal, appear in the intellect through the action of the light of the agent intellect,
48 Aristotle, De anima 11, c.5 (430a16-17).
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not in the sense that the light is the immediate cause of seeing them.
It is only the mediate cause, insofar as, in causing the meaning of the terms to become intelligible, it subsequently causes through those terms the act of seeing the truth of the principles.
15.59 As for the fourth argument [in 15.44], one could say that the agent intellect is more noble than the possible precisely in regard to sensible objects, for it is just in respect to these objects that it acts on the possible intellect.
15.60 [Scotus' own view] Regarding this third section of this article, then, it seems that we should retain Augustine's distinction in The Trinity*® between memory, intelligence, and will. Comparing
Aristotle's distinction of agent and possible intellects with this, we see that only the possible intellect corresponds to intelligence because only this receives the act of intellection. And Aristotle himself generally speaks this way of the intellect, viz., as that by which we understand or that by which we receive intellection. The possible intellect also corresponds to memory insofar as it pertains to memory to store habitual knowledge according to Augustine, who speaks in The Trinity®® of "the science or knowledge we retain in the memory." Thus Aristotle refers at times to the possible intellect as that by which we know or that by which we have knowledge or science, which transforms the intellect from essential to accidental potency.
; 15-61 As for the other act of the memory which consists in generating actual knowledge, it is clear that this still pertains to the possible intellect per accidens, for when an active form exists in some subject, the action resulting from such a form pertains to the subject per accidens, just as, for example, the wood warms per accidens. Now that by which the object plays an active role in producing intellection [viz., the intelligible species] is a form in the possible intellect. Hence the possible intellect is at least productive per accidens.
15.62 But if the further question is asked as to whether the act of generating knowledge pertains per se to the same intellective part, one can hold, according to what has been said [in 15.51 or 15.54], that this pertains either to just the agent intellect or to the possible intellect alone, and consequently the one or the other would belong to the memory. Or one could postulate a third alternative, namely, that the act of generating intellection pertains to both, but to the *° Augustine, De Trin. x, c.11, nn.17-18: PL 42, 982-84; CCSL 50, 329-30.
5° Ibid., xv, c.10, n.19: PL 42, 1071; CCSL 50a, 486.
QUESTION FIFTEEN
agent intellect to a greater degree and to the possible intellect to a lesser degree. It does not follow that just because both belong to one nature, one cannot have a greater and the other a lesser causal action as regards the same action. This is clear from the analogy of the intellect and will, one of which, many claim, is the principal agent in certain actions while the other plays a subordinate role, yet they constitute but one nature. According to others, however, the case here is not really similar because both intellect and will do not immediately attain the same causal effect, but one, by means of the operation it causes, moves the other to its operation.
15-63 In brief, if the real distinction of potencies, either in terms of something absolute or in terms of real relations, is not admitted, but it is claimed that one and the same absolute reality, somehow unlimited, is the immediate principle of different acts, but is called now this potency, now that, with reference to different acts, then the first way seems probable.*!
ARTICLE II
How the Notion or Word is Formed in the Intellect of the Blessed in Heaven [21] 15.64 [The intellect of the blessed can have a notion of the creature known in its own right] As for the second article, I say that the intellect of the beatified can have a "word" of the creature known in its own right [7m genere proprio],>? and that the possible intellect plays the same role in its formation as it now does, for according to the words of Augustine®*: "God so governs the things he has created, that he lets them perform their own actions." Therefore, in heaven the action which naturally pertains to the perfection of nature will remain.
15.65 But it is doubtful whether the blessed intellect has a "word" proper to a creature as seen in the divine essence. But if it does, one would have to say the role of the possible intellect in its formation is the same whether it is seen in the divine essence or on its own
[like anything else of its kind].
15.66 [There is no word of the creature as seen in the divine essence] But one could say in heaven there is no '"'word" of the object as seen in the divine essence for these reasons:
51 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. u, d.16 (ed. Vivés x11, 23-47).
52 Ibid., d.3, q.11
(ed. Vivés xu1, 270-80); Iv, d.45, q.2 (ed. Vivés xx, 279307).
53 Augustine, De civit. Det vil, c.g0: PL 41, 228; CCSL 47, 212.
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One who has a "word" [or notion] of a thing immediately grasps the object of which it is the 'word.' But a stone, seen in the divine essence, is not attained immediately as the object of the act of vision, for it is only attained this way in itself. But in heaven only the divine essence is attained immediately, for it alone moves [the intellect] in a primary sense, and hence it moves it to grasp the essence itself.
15.67 Also, the proper "word" of anything is begotten of scientific knowledge or of a likeness or species of the object itself. Now the memory of the beatified, however, contains neither the science nor the species of a stone, as seen in a "word," because through a "word" nothing is seen except in its own right.
15.68 Likewise, the divine essence and what is seen therein are perceived by the same act. But the envisioning intellect would not have a "word" of the essence seen because then it would not be seeing the essence immediately. Therefore, it would not have a "word" of the thing seen in that essence.
[22] 15.69 [Objections] These reasons, however, are challenged.
Against the first [in 15.66]: Although a conclusion can be known through a principle [or premise], it can also be known immediately as an object of knowledge, for inferred or discursive knowledge does not have as its terms just the principle on which the inference was based, for then it would be necessary to continue further back and as a consequence the inferential process or discourse would never end. But the conclusion is the inferred term of a demonstrative syllogism. Therefore, once the inference is over, the intellect possesses immediate knowledge of the conclusion.
By the same token, then, although the divine intellect moves [the intellect of the beatified] initially to the vision of itself, nevertheless, because it is a mover without limitation, it moves [the created intellect] secondarily to the vision of the creature. Therefore, when this process is over, the intellect can see the creature as an object envisioned immediately.
15.70 The second [in 15.67] is challenged in this fashion: What suffices to generate a "word" of any object is a perfect memory, whether this contains the object in question actually or virtually, even as habitual knowledge of the principle can be enough to generate actual knowledge of the conclusion. There is no need that the memory contain the knowledge of the object formally; that it is contained virtually suffices. And so the intellect of the blessed, having the divine essence actually present as intelligible, also has a proper
QUESTION FIFTEEN
memory as regards the vision of that essence, and with this, it has a perfect memory that contains virtually the vision of the creature; for as the creature is contained virtually as to its entity, so is it contained as to knowability. Therefore, the one beatified does have a memory or knowledge adequate to produce a 'word' [or notion] proper to the stone. And it does not follow in this second argument, any more than it does in the first, that resulting vision will be that of the object functioning "in its own right" [in proprio genere] since this sort of vision takes place by means of some "reason for seeing" that is taken from some created thing.
15.71 Against the third reason [in 15.68] it is argued: No act is proper knowledge of any object, if this act can remain in the intellect and still that object is not known in any way. Now the vision of the divine essence can remain in the beatified intellect without this intellect seeing the stone. Therefore [the vision of the divine essence is not proper knowledge of the stone]. Proof of the major: The formal ground in the intellect for knowing this stone as an object is this act itself, inhering in the intellect, of knowing the object. Now it does not seem possible that the proximate formal reason for something [like knowledge of the object] is in anything without there also being there that of which it is the formal reason, just as whiteness cannot be present in anything without its being white.
15.72 Furthermore, if the act of vision of the essence itself were the same as that of everything seen in it, then by the same token one finite act could envision the infinity of possible creatures to be seen in that essence, for the same reason for denying there is any impossibility for two or three objects [being envisioned in such an essence] would hold for all objects whatsoever.
15.73 Also, the validity of the entailment is not evident; if the vision of the divine essence and the stone is the same, then, if there is a '"'word"' of the stone, there is also a "word" of the essence.
15.74 [Reply to the objections] To the first of these [in 15.69], it might be admitted that what is known through another, could be known indeed immediately. But this would be so if it were known precisely in this other in the way the divine intellect knows the creature in its essence alone and not through the creature as an immediate object, because it would demean the divine intellect to know it in any other way. Something analogous could be said of the beatified intellect if it had a "word" of the creature in its vision of the divine essence.
15.7% In answer to the second [in 15.70] it could be said that the
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divine essence prior to its being in the understanding of the blessed is not present to a created memory, because no form representing that essence has been formed in the beatified intellect. But it is the vision itself that is first caused in the beatified intellect, and this is produced in understanding itself.
15.76 Or another answer would be that this immediate vision is caused by the divine will, as was said in [14.36-37 of] the question immediately preceding. Now the vision of the stone is caused in the same way, and consequently neither of these visions is generated by memory, neither the memory of the one seeing these things, nor by any other memory.
15.77 Against this it is objected that the intellection of the divine essence contains virtually the intellection of the stone. Therefore, the first of these intellections generates the second and then this second represents a "word."
I reply: The intelligence or understanding does not generate ''a word." Or it can be said that both visions are caused immediately by the divine will.
15.78 To the third objection [in 15.71], the argument would seem to militate against the divine intellect knowing its essence and secondary objects in one and the same act, and yet all deny these are two different acts. Hence the major of the argument must be denied, unless it is understood exclusively of the first object.
15.79 As for the answer to the other objections, look elsewhere.*+ Reply to the Initial Arguments [24] 15.80 [To the first argument in 15.2] As for the first argument, if one holds in the third section of the first article [15.40ff.] that the agent intellect is active and the possible intellect passive, then it is not according to the same aspect that the soul moves and is moved to intellection. On the other hand, neither do agent and possible intellect represent distinct subjects, for this is not the way these two are distinguished.*® If, however, one claims that the possible intellect is active in regard to intellection, then it is the same thing that moves and is moved to intellection and this according to the same entity.
15.81 And if one says this is impossible because the same thing according to the same aspect cannot be both in potency and in act,
54 See Appendix, Addition 15.79.
55 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. u, d.25, n.20
(ed. Vivés x11, NEI WZN Gy les Tava.
512-51 (I, 303-305); U1, d.g, q.8, n.16 (ed. Vives xu, 200); q.11, n.5 (ibid., 272-74); d.2, q.bo, n.12 (ed. Vives x1, 540).
QUESTION FIFTEEN
I answer: Every action that results in a form that is not active is the work of an equivocal,* not a univocal* agent. If it were univocal, the form whereby it acts would be the same in kind as that which it produces, and thus the resulting form would be active. Now an increase in size and many alterations as well as local motion generally are not active forms. Therefore, the mover in these cases, and in general the agent of equivocal effects, is not in the same kind of act as is the term to which the mobile is in potency, but it is rather the sort of act that contains this term virtually or eminently. And thus it would be claimed here that in the soul the ground for containing intellection virtually as an equivocal effect and the ground for receiving it are the same.
15.82 Against this it is argued that whatever has a more noble form is unsuited by nature to receive a less noble form. Therefore, if it possesses the inferior form in a more noble way, namely, virtually, then it is not suited by nature to receive it formally.
15.83 This is confirmed from the fact that on the same grounds one could claim that anything that is formally one sort of thing would also be virtually the same sort of thing, and thus anything could be transformed by itself.
15.84 To this I say that a form of the same kind cannot be had in a greater and lesser degree at the same time; neither can two contrary forms, nor one such contrary and another intermediary form, be present at once in the same subject. But two disparate forms can coexist, even if they fall under the same remote genus, like [the qualities} of heat and color, of which one, however, is more noble than the other.
15.85 As for the confirmation [in 15.83], one could say that here the caution is relevant about transferring oneself from the role of opponent to that of respondent because of a defect in the argument.°* Neither does it seem to obligate the respondent to any more than proving one manifest necessary truth, for instance, that not everything moves itself.
And as for the proof introduced with the words "on the same grounds," etc., one could say that although the fact that "being in potency to such and such a thing formally" is not inconsistent with "being this sort of thing virtually," and vice versa, so far as the meaning of the terms goes, for otherwise wherever such terms obtained this inconsistency would be present, nevertheless, in certain cases some accompanying factor in one of the terms makes it incon56 This seems to refer to one of the classical rules for debate. See some of the medieval logical treatises under the heading De obligatione.
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sistent with the other. And then, by virtue of the matter in the special case, it is true that what is virtually such cannot be formally such. But this is not per se because the subject has this form virtually but for some concomitant reason.
For example, the sun is hot virtually, and nevertheless it cannot receive heat formally. But the reason it cannot be formally hot is not that it is hot virtually, because Saturn which is virtually frigid cannot be hot formally. The reason for this impossibility, however, is common to the sun and Saturn, namely that a celestial body cannot receive an elementary form or the form of any perishable body, nor vice versa. And so in the case at hand, something, which is able to have this form, has at the same time something which makes it impossible to contain this form virtually, just as wood has something which makes it impossible to contain heat virtually, but this is not because it is receptive to heat, but because it has such a form as that characteristic of a [chemical] compound.
15.86 [Answer to the argument to the contrary in 15.3] As for the argument for the opposing view, when it is argued about the object
[not causing the word], because the action is immanent, I grant the action, i.e., the operation, is an action that is simply immanent in the power operating; but as for the action which falls into the category
"action" which results in this [quality which is the] operation, there is indeed some action which is immanent not only in the sense of being in the same subject, but also in the same intellective part [of the soul], and according to one view explained in the third part of the first article [15.54], it is immanent in the possible intellect. However, for such an intellection there is some action which is not immanent, viz., that which proceeds from the object.
15.87 When it is argued [in 15.3] that "the memory does not understand," this proof fails on two counts. (1) The fact that something is not a matter of memory does not permit one to conclude it does not pertain to the possible intellect. Quite the contrary, for as it was pointed out in the third section [15.60], either the possible intellect itself is the memory or at least it is necessarily included in the memory. (2) The other mistake is this: That the memory does not understand does not imply it is not active in such a way that intellection is the end product of its action. However, the word is not the terminal product of intellection, but results from some productive action that falls under the category ''action."