CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
[60] Having shown from the words of Aristotle and those who followed him that the intellect is a potency of the soul which is the form of the body although that potency which is intellect is not the act of any organ, “because its operation is not shared by any bodily operation,” as Aristotle says, we must now inquire by way of arguments what ought to be made of all this. And since, according to the teaching of Aristotle, it is from acts that their principles are known, our consideration must begin with the proper act of intellect, namely, understanding.
[61] Concerning which there is no stronger argument than that given by Aristotle when he argues thus: “The soul is that whereby we first live and understand, therefore it is a certain form and species” of some body. (414a12-14) He relies on this argument, therefore, characterizing it as a demonstration, for in the beginning of the chapter he says, “For it is not enough for a definitive formula to express as most now do the mere fact; it must include and exhibit the ground also.” (413a13-20) By way of example, he says that what a tetragon or square is demonstrated through the discovery of the proportional mean.
[62] The power and irrefutability of this demonstration is clear from the fact that whoever wishes to differ with it necessarily says what is absurd. That this singular man understands is manifest, for we would never ask about intellect unless we understood, nor when we ask about intellect are we asking about anything other than that whereby we understand. Thus Aristotle says, “”I mean the intellect whereby the soul understands,” (429a23) and concludes accordingly that if something is the first principle whereby we understand, it must be the form of the body, because he earlier showed that that whereby we first do anything is the form. And this is clear from argument: anything acts insofar as it is in act; anything is in act through its form; therefore that through which something first acts must be form.
[66] If however you should say that the first principle of the act which is understanding, what we call intellect, is not form, then you must find a way in which the act of this principle can be an action of this man. There are those who have tried in various ways to do this. One of them, Averroes, held that the principle of understanding which is called the possible intellect is not a soul or a part of the soul, except equivocally; rather, it is a separated substance. He said that the separate substance’s understanding is mine or yours insofar as possible intellect is joined to me or you through the phantasms which are in me and you. He says that comes about in this way: the intelligible species which becomes one with the possible intellect as its form and act has two subjects, one those phantasms, the other the possible intellect. Therefore the possible intellect is continuous with us through its form by way of phantasms, and thus when the possible intellect understands, this man understands.
[64] There are three ways of showing that this amounts to nothing. First, because then the union of intellect and man would not come into being when he does, as Theophrastus maintains and Aristotle indicates in Book Two of the Physics where he says that the goal of the naturalist’s consideration of forms is the form according to which man is generated by man and the sun. Intellect is obviously the goal of the naturalist’s consideration, yet, according to what Averroes says, intellect is not united with man from his generation, but through the operation of sense insofar as he is actually sensing: imagination is “a movement resulting from an actual exercise of a power of sense,” as is said in On the Soul. (429a1-2)
[65] Second, because this union would have not one but diverse causes. For clearly the intelligible species as it exists in the phantasm is understood only potentially, but abstracted from phantasms, in the possible intellect, it is actually understood. If then the intelligible species is the form of possible intellect only insofar as it is abstracted from phantasms, it follows that [possible intellect] is not united with phantasms through the intelligible species but rather is separated from them. Unless perhaps it is said that the possible intellect is one with phantasms in the way in which the mirror is one with the man whose image is reflected in the mirror; but such a union manifestly does not suffice for the union of the act. For it is obvious that the act of the mirror, which is to represent, is not on this account attributed to the man. No more could the action of possible intellect on the basis of the foregoing conjunction be attributed to this man Socrates in order that this man might understand.
[66] Third, even granted that numerically one and the same species were the form of the possible intellect and at the same time in phantasms, such a conjunction would not suffice to explain that this man understands. For it is obvious that just as something is sensed through a sensible species but one senses something through the sensitive power, so something is understood through the intelligible species, but one understands something through the intellective power. Hence the wall in which the color is, whose sensible species is actually in sight, is seen, and does not see; it is the animal having the power of sight, in which such a species is, that sees. The aforesaid union of the possible intellect with man, in whom exist the phantasms whose species are in the possible intellect, is like the union of the wall, in which the color is, with sight in which the species of its color is. The wall does not see, but its color is seen; thus it would follow that man does not understand, but his phantasms are understood, by the possible intellect. It is impossible, therefore, on the basis of Averroes’s position, to show that this man understands.
[67] Some, seeing that, on Averroes’s position, it cannot be sustained that this man understands, take another path and say that intellect is united to body as its mover, and thus, insofar as body and intellect become one as mover and moved, the intellect is part of this man, and therefore the operation of intellect is attributed to this man in the same way that the operation of the eye, seeing, is attributed to this man. He who says this must be asked, first, what this singular thing Socrates is. Is he only intellect which is a mover? Or is he what is moved by it—a body animated by vegetative and sensitve soul? Or is he composed of both? So far as his position can be discerned, it appears that he adopts the third possibility, namely, that Socrates is composed of both.
[68] Let us then proceed against them making use of Aristotle’s argument in Book Eight of the Metaphysics, “What then it is that makes man one?” (1045a14) “In the case of all things which have several parts and in which the whole is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the totality is something besides the parts, there is a cause of unity; for as regards material things contact is the cause in some cases, and in others viscocity or some other such quality.” (1045a8-12) “Clearly, then, if people proceed thus in their usual manner of definition and speech, they cannot explain and solve the difficulty. But if, as we say, one element is matter and another is form, and one potentially and the other actually, the question will no longer be thought a difficulty.” (1045a20-25)
[69] But if you should say that Socrates is not some one thing absolutely, but one by the coming together of mover and moved, many incoherencies follow. First, indeed, that since anything is one in the manner in which it exists, it would follow that Socrates is not a being and does not belong in a species or genus; and further, that he would have no action, because only beings act. Hence we do not say that understanding the sailor is the grasp of the whole made up of sailor and boat, but of sailor alone; similarly, understanding would not be Socrates’s activity, but only that of the intellect using the body of Socrates. The action of a part is the action of the whole only when the whole is one being. Anyone who says otherwise speaks improperly.
[70] And if you should say that in this way the heaven understands through its motor, this is to appeal to the more difficult case. We must go by way of the human intellect to grasp the higher intellects, not vice versa.
If it be said that this individual, Socrates, is a body animated by the vegetative and sensitive soul—which seems to follow for those who hold that this man is not placed in a species because of intellect, but because of the sensitive soul ennobled by an illumination or conjunction with possible intellect—then intellect relates to Socrates as mover to moved. But then the action of intellect which is understanding can in no wise be attributed to Socrates. There are many ways in which this consequence is seen to be obvious.
[71] First, because of what the Philosopher says in Book Nine of the Metaphysics, “Where, then, the result is something apart from the exercise, the actuality is in the thing that is being made, e.g. the act of building is in the thing that is being built and that of weaving in the thing that is being woven, and similarly in all other cases, and in general the movement is in the thing that is being moved; but when there is no product apart from the actuality, the actuality is in the agents, e.g. the act of seeing is in the seeing subject and that of theorizing in the theorizing subject.” (1050a30-36) So then, although intellect is said to be united with Socrates as mover, this is of no help in locating understanding in Socrates nor in grounding the claim that Socrates understands, for understanding is an action which is in intellect alone. From this too it is clear that they speak falsely who say that understanding itself, not intellect, is the act of body: there can be no act of understanding that is not the act of intellect, because understanding is in intellect alone just as seeing is in sight alone. Seeing can only belong to that whose act is sight.
[72] Second, because the proper act of the mover is attributed neither to the instrument nor to the moved. On the contrary, the action of the instrument is attributed to the principal mover. It cannot be said that the saw makes the artifact, although the artisan can be said to saw, which is the work of the saw. Understanding is the proper activity of intellect; hence even granting that understanding is an action passing on to another like moving, it does not follow that understanding belongs to Socrates if intellect us united to him only as a mover.
[73] Third, because in those things whose activities are transitive, passing over into other things, actions are attributed in opposite ways to movers and moved. Thanks to building the builder is said to build and the building to be built. If then understanding were a transitive action like motion, it still ought not be said that Socrates understands because intellect is united to him as a mover, but rather that intellect understands and Socrates is understood. Or perhaps that intellect by understanding moves Socrates and Socrates is moved.
[74] Sometimes it happens that the action of the mover passes into the thing moved, as when that which is moved moves because it is moved, e.g. when the heated heats. In this way someone might say that that which is moved by the intellect, which in understanding moves, understands by the very fact that it is moved. Aristotle, from whom we take the principle of this argument, resists this claim in Book Two of On the Soul. For when he said that that whereby we first know or are healed is a form, namely science and health, he adds, “For the activity of that which is capable of originating change seems to take place in that which is changed or altered.” (414a11-12) In explaining this Themistius says, “Although knowledge or health are sometimes from others, as from a a teacher or a physician, nonetheless we have shown that, in things that are from nature, the activity of that which is capable of originating change is in what is changed or altered.” It is Aristotle’s meaning, therefore, and evidently true as well, that when the moved moves and has the action of a mover, there must be in it some act from the mover whereby it performs an action of this kind; it is thanks to this that it primarly acts, and this is its act and form. For example, when something heated heats from the heat which is in it from the heater.
[75] Given that the intellect moves Socrates, whether by illumining or in some other way, then the impression made on Socrates by the intellect is that whereby Socrates primarily understands. However, Aristotle has proved (429a9-b5) that that whereby Socrates primarily understands, as he senses by sense, is potentially all things and for this reason has no determinate nature other than to be possible. Consequently it is not mixed with body but separate. Granting then that there is some separate intellect moving Socrates, it would still be necessary that the possible intellect of which Aristotle speaks is in the soul of Socrates just as sense, which is that whereby Socrates senses and is potentially all sensible things, is.
[76] Should it be said, however, that this individual, Socrates, is neither composed of intellect and an animated body, nor an animated body alone, but only intellect, well, this was the view of Plato who, as Gregory of Nyssa says, “because of this difficulty did not want man to be of body and soul, but to be a soul using and as it were clothed with a body.” But Plotinus, as Macrobius reports, claimed that the soul itself is man, saying, “Therefore the true man is not what is seen, but that which rules what is seen. Thus when at death animation departs from the animal, the body falls widowed from the ruler and it is this which is seen in man and is mortal. Every mark of mortality is alien to the soul which is truly man.” Yet Simplicius, in his commentary on the Categories, numbers Plotinus among the greatest commentators on Aristotle.
[77] This doctrine does not seem far distant from the words of Aristotle, who says in Book Nine of the Nicomachean Ethics, “For it is characteristic of the good man to exert himself for the good, and he does so for his own sake, that is, for the sake of the intellectual element in him.” Of course, he says this, not because man is intellect alone, but because intellect is the chief thing in man. Hence in the sequel he says that “just as the state and every other organized whole seems to be that which is the chief thing in it, so too man,” and adds that “any man either is this, namely intellect, or it especially.” It is in this sense that I appraise Themistius’s words earlier and Plotinus’s now when they say that man is soul or intellect.
[78] That man is not intellect alone nor soul alone is proved in many ways. First, by Gregory of Nyssa who, having mentioned Plato’s view, adds, “This saying is puzzling and difficult: how can the soul be one with its garment? For a tunic and its wearer are not one thing.” Second, because Aristotle in Book Seven of the Metaphysics proves that “man and horse and the like” are not form alone, “but terms which are thus applied to individuals, but universally, are not substance but something composed of this particular formula and this particular matter treated as universal, but when we come to the individual, Socrates is composed of ultimate individual matter; and similarly in all other cases.” The proof of this is that no part of the body can be defined independently of some part of soul and, the soul being gone, flesh and eye are such only equivocally, which would not be the case if Socrates were intellect or soul alone. Third, it would follow that, since intellect moves only through the will, as is proved in Book Three of On the Soul, (433a22) this would be among the things subject to will that man could keep his body or shuffle it off when he wished, which is manifestly false.
[79] It is therefore evident that the intellect is not joined to Socrates as a mover; but, even if it were, it would not advance the claim that Socrates understands. Those who wish to defend this position, therefore, must either admit that they themselves understand nothing and are unworthy participants in the debate, or admit what Aristotle concludes: that that with which we first understand is species and form.
[80] This can also be concluded from the fact that this man is placed in some species. The species is derived from form; therefore that through which this man has a species is form. But each thing has its species from that which is the principle of the proper activity of the species; the proper operation of man as man is understanding: it is in this that he differs from the other animals and that is why Aristotle locates ultimate happiness in this activity. But the principle thanks to which we understand is the intellect, as Aristotle says; therefore it must be united to the body as form, not indeed in such a way that the intellective power is the act of some organ, but because it is a power of the soul which is the act of a physically organized body.
[81] Moreover, the position under discussion would destroy the principles of moral philosophy, for it would take away what is in our power. Something is in our power thanks to will, which is why the voluntary is defined as that which is in our power. But will is in intellect, as is evident from Aristotle in Book Three of On the Soul (432b5) and from the fact that intellect and will are found in separate substances as well as from the fact that something is loved or hated universally. We hate the genus of robbers, as Aristotle says in the Rhetoric .
[82] If then intellect is not something of this man such that it is truly one with him, but is united to him only through phantasms or as a mover, will would not be in man, but in the separated intellect. And thus a man would not have dominion over his acts, nor could anyone be praised or blamed for his acts, which is to destroy the principles of moral philosophy. And since that is absurd and out of keeping with human life—it would be unnecessary to take counsel or to pass laws —it follows that intellect is united to us in such a way that we are truly one with it, which can only be in the way suggested, namely, that it be a power of the soul which is united to us as our form. It follows then that this must be held without any doubt, not because of the revelation of faith, as our opponents say, but because to deny it is go against things manifestly obvious.
[83] It is an easy matter to refute the arguments put forward on behalf of the opposite view. For they say that it follows from their position that intellect is a material form, and is not free of every sensible nature, with the consequence that whatever is received in intellect is received as in matter, individually and not universally. And further that if it is a material form, that it is not understood in act, and thus intellect is incapable of understanding itself, which is manifestly false. No material form is understood in act, but only in potency: it becomes understood in act through abstraction.
The answer is obvious from what has been said earlier. For we do not say that the human soul is the form of body according to the intellective power, which according to Aristotle’s teaching is not the act of any organ. (429a27-28) The soul, with respect to the intellective power, is immaterial and receives immaterially and understands itself. Hence Aristotle significantly says that soul is the place of forms “not the whole soul, but the intellect.” (429a28-29)
[84] If it be objected to this that a power of the soul cannot be more immaterial or simpler than its essence—well, that would be a good argument if the essence of the human soul were the form of matter in such a way that it did not exist of itself but only in dependence on the existence of the composite. Other forms have no existence or operations of themselves without a sharing in matter, and are therefore said to be immersed in matter. The human soul exists in its own right and is to a degree united with a matter that does not wholly capture it—this form is greater in dignity than to be a capacity for matter. Nothing prevents its having some operation or power to which matter does not attain.
[85] Let him who says this consider that if this intellective principle whereby we understand existed separate and distinct from the soul which is the form of our body, it would be of itself understanding and understood and not sometimes understanding, sometimes not. Nor would it need to understand itself by way of intelligibles and acts, but would do so through its own essence like other separated substances and it would not be fitting that it need our phantasms in order to understand. The order of things is not such that higher substances require lower substances for their own principal perfection, no more than celestial bodies are formed or perfected in their operations by lower bodies.
The claim that the intellect is some principle separated in substance and yet is perfected and comes actually to understand through species taken from phantasms is, therefore, improbable in the extreme.