Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

WE PRESUPPOSE that in the intellect the act of cognizing is distinct from the very object cognized and from the impressed and expressed species. For, as St. Thomas says in q. 8. de Potentia art. 1.¹, four things concur in the intellect for cognition: the thing understood, the intellect's conception, the species by which it understands, and the very act of understanding. The reason is that we must necessarily admit in our intellect some vital operation that proceeds from the intellect informed by a species, since the operation and cognition of the intellect are produced by the object and the power, while the object actualizes the power through a species. Again, this operation formally cannot be the very expressed species, or word, formed by the intellect, because if it is formed by that operation, it is formed through some operation, and consequently the operation is distinct from that expressed species. We call the operation the act of understanding; the expressed species, however, is the term or word said and expressed by that act, insofar as it is an act of saying.

This is further confirmed because understanding is considered either as a saying that expresses, or as pure contemplation and cognition. If as a saying, it is essentially the production of a word, and therefore requires that the word be the term of that production. If as pure cognition, it requires the object to be applied and united to it in immaterial being, not only by way of a principle through which cognition is elicited, but also by way of a term in which the object is attained. The term of cognition, however, is not cognition itself; rather, cognition is a tendency toward the object that is cognized. And because the object is not cognized or terminates cognition according to its real and material being outside, but insofar as it is made spiritual and immaterial within, some intelligible form is required in which the object is made so immaterial and spiritual on the side of the term. This is the expressed species or word. All this will be explained more fully in the book On the Soul, question 10.

Since, then, it has been determined whether the impressed and expressed species are signs, it remains to consider this of the very act of the intellect, which is cognition and a tendency toward the object.

THERE IS, THEN, ONE CONCLUSION: The act of understanding, thus distinct from the impressed and expressed species, is not a formal sign in any operation of the intellect in which it is taken.

This conclusion is against some recent authors, even among Thomists; nevertheless, Capreolus in 4. dist. 49. q. 1. and Ferrariensis in 2. Contra Gent. cap. 49, at the end of the section Ex hoc enim, may seem to support it.

THE REASON IS that a sign is essentially representative, whereas the act of understanding is formally not a representation but an operation and tendency toward an object. Hence, when a habit is generated through such multiplied acts, the generated habit is not representative, but a disposition of the power for eliciting acts like itself. Thus St. Thomas, denying in 1. p. q. 12. art. 2. that there is a representative species of God as he is in himself, grants that there is a light of glory, which is a likeness that strengthens the intellect on the side of the power; thus he denies to the light or habit the account of representation. Therefore the act of understanding is likewise not a representation, because acts are like habits; and if representation belonged to either, it would belong much more to a habit, since it is a permanent reality, than to an act, which is an operation.

This is confirmed because if an act were a representation, it would either be a representation distinct from the expressed species or the same as it. It cannot be the same, since the act of understanding is a reality distinct from the expressed species. If it is distinct, then either it represents the same thing as the word, in which case one of them is superfluous; or it represents something distinct, in which case the same thing would not be cognized through the act of cognition and through its term, which is the word.

Finally, that representation of the act of understanding would be either an impressed or an expressed likeness, since there seems to be no intermediate kind of representation between expressed and impressed. If impressed, it is related as a principle impressed or infused from outside into the intellect. The act of understanding, however, cannot be impressed from outside, but arises from within the intellect, since it is a vital act. If expressed, then it is a word and is related as an expressed and produced term; but here we speak of the act of understanding as distinct from the word.

THE ARGUMENTS ARE RESOLVED.

First it is argued: A formal sign is to be a formal cognition of something belonging to a power by way of representation; but all this belongs to the act of cognizing; therefore it is a formal sign.

The minor is proved. That it is a formal cognition is clear, since it is cognition itself, which is the same as knowledge. That it is by way of representation is proved because it unites the object to the power. For understanding, as St. Thomas says in 1. p. q. 27. art. 1. ad 2., consists in this, that it makes one with the very intelligible thing. But to unite in this way is to make the object it unites present to the power; therefore it is a representation.

This is confirmed because an immanent action is not a formal production, but only a virtual one. Formally, however, it is an act in the genus of quality that concerns an object by tending toward it, not by producing it. Although this tendency does not produce the object, it unites the object to the power and consequently represents it, since to represent is to make present or unite cognitively.

THE ANSWER IS that the act of understanding is not a formal sign because it lacks the account of representing, as we said. To the objection against the contrary, the answer is that the act of understanding unites the object by way of an operation tending toward it, not by way of a form that substitutes for it and takes its place. Therefore it does not have the account of what represents, because representation occurs by containing another thing as taking its place, not by operating. Hence a unitive action is not said to represent, although it unites; not every mode of uniting, then, is a mode of representing. Likewise, an impressed species, because it unites as a principle of cognition, does not unite as something that formally represents.

To the confirmation, the answer is that although the act of understanding is a quality, it does not make the object present as a form held on the side of the object and functioning as if taking its place. Rather, it is on the side of the power, tending and operating upon the object. Therefore this is not a representative union, but an operative one, or a union by way of a second act: not as something containing the object, but as something tending toward it.

Second it is argued: Cognition of an external sense is a formal sign, and yet there is no word or expressed image there, as St. Thomas teaches in q. 8. de Veritate art. 5.² and opusculum 14.³ Therefore an expressed likeness is not required for the account of a formal sign; the act of cognizing suffices.

The major is proved, because otherwise there would be no formal cognition in the external senses, and consequently no formal knowledge, since formal knowledge is a formal sign. Indeed, as Master Soto says in book 1 of the Summulae, chapter 3, cognition of the external senses is a term, insofar as concerns its mode of signifying; but it belongs to the account of a term that it be a sign. Therefore the act of an external sense is a sign, and it is not instrumental; therefore it is formal.

This is confirmed because the act of an external sense is truly an immanent act; therefore it is the ultimate completion and perfection of the power; therefore the ultimate and perfect union with the object occurs in it, and consequently representation also, since there is no other union between external sense and object than through the act.

THE ANSWER IS that it is true that an external sense has no word or expressed image in which it cognizes, because on account of its materiality it does not require such union with the object that the object be within the power; rather, it must be carried to an external thing, which is ultimately made sensible as it exists outside the sense. Although cognition of an external sense is an immanent action, it is not necessarily a production and does not regard a term as changed by it; rather, the term is united intentionally and objectively. Nevertheless, it can virtually have the force of production, just as cognition insofar as it is a saying produces a word, love insofar as it is a breathing forth produces an impulse, and external sensation produces a representation⁴ or species, not within itself but in the internal senses, as St. Thomas teaches in 4. Contra Gent. cap. 11. and opusculum 14.⁵ In itself, however, an immanent act is not an action by way of motion and a path tending toward a further term, but by way of ultimate actuality, in which the whole cognition is completed. Therefore St. Thomas often compares understanding to existing itself, in 1. p. q. 14. art. 4. and elsewhere.

As for the proof of the argument, it is said that in an external sense there is formal knowledge by way of cognition, which is the power's tendency toward the object, not by way of a representation, which is a form taking the object's place in the power. Thus, although formal sign is called formal cognition terminatively, because it is the term of cognition, not every formal cognition is a formal sign, namely, the very act of cognizing. Nor does Master Soto call cognition of the external sense a term absolutely, but only in a qualified sense, insofar as it is a certain simple cognition.

To the confirmation, the answer is that the act of an external sense is an ultimate completion by way of a second act, in contrast to a transitive action. For, as St. Thomas says in q. 14. de Veritate art. 3.⁶, an act of a transitive operation has its completion in a term that comes to be outside the agent; the completion of immanent actions, however, is not taken from what is produced, but from the mode of acting, because the act itself is the perfection and actuality of the power. Hence virtue in these powers is not considered according to the best thing it produces, but according to the operation's being good. So St. Thomas. Nevertheless, although the operation of an external sense is the ultimate perfection uniting the object to the power, it does not do this representatively. As we have often said, it is a union by way of a tendency from the power toward the object, not by way of a form substituting for the object; formal representation, however, is the substitution of that which is represented.