Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

WE MUST PRESUPPOSE the definition of intuitive and abstractive cognition that we gave in book 1 of the Summulae, ch. 3: intuitive cognition is “cognition of a present thing,” whereas abstractive cognition is “cognition of an absent thing.” Here presence and absence are not taken intentionally, as the presence or union of the object with the faculty. For it is clear that this presence cannot be lacking to any cognition, since no cognition can arise in a faculty without an object united to and present to that faculty. Rather, cognition is called of a present or absent thing by taking presence and absence as what belongs to the thing in itself. Hence St Thomas says in q. 3 of On Truth, a. 3, ad 8,¹ that the knowledge of vision—which is the same as intuitive cognition—adds something beyond simple cognition that is outside the genus of cognition, namely the existence of things. Therefore it adds real existence, since intentional and objective existence is not outside the genus of cognition. And in Sentences III, d. 14, q. 1, a. 2, q. 2,² he says that “that is properly seen which has being outside the one who sees.” Therefore the existence required by intuitive cognition must be real and physical.

Regarding the proposed difficulty, VARIOUS OPINIONS OF AUTHORS are in circulation. Some considered the distinction between these cognitions on the side of the principle, namely the impressed species. Thus some, as reported by Ferrariensis in Against the Gentiles II, ch. 66, said that cognition made without an intelligible species is intuitive, while cognition made through some species is abstractive.

But this position must be entirely rejected, since no cognition can be elicited without a species. For every cognition depends on an object and a faculty, and this object cannot intentionally inform the faculty, however present it may be in itself, except through a species, unless the object itself has intentional and spiritual being in itself, conjoined to the faculty.

Others say that intuitive cognition is that which knows a thing through its own species, while abstractive cognition knows it through another’s species. Intuitive and abstractive cognition also seem distinguishable on the side of evidence: intuitive cognition is always evident, since it is of the thing in itself, while abstractive cognition abstracts from obscurity and evidence. If it sometimes has evidence, it is not immediately of the thing in itself but of the thing as contained in something else—for example, in its causes and principles, or something similar, or in an image independently of presence.

Others distinguish intuitive cognition on the side of the terminus, or of the object insofar as it terminates cognition, according to the definitions given: one is of an absent thing, the other of a present thing. This position is more common among Thomists. For the distinction on the side of the species—whether cognition is through its own or another’s species, of a thing in itself or in another, obscure or clear—does not concern formalities that properly belong to the account of intuitive or abstractive cognition. Intuitive cognition can be preserved through mediated cognition, or cognition of a thing in another³; abstractive cognition can also be preserved through cognition as evident and clear as intuitive cognition, and likewise it can occur through immediate cognition and species.

The first part is clearly established, because future creatures are seen in the divine essence as in an alien species, and yet God sees them intuitively. That cognition is likewise mediated and of things in another. Similarly, an angel can see intuitively through its own essence as a species the accidents that are in itself; and through a species representing another substance it can see the accidents present in that substance. In St Thomas’s view, the intellect has no direct species of singulars, yet it can intuitively see singular corporeal things when they are present through sense. Therefore neither an appropriate species nor immediate and direct cognition is required.

An example of the second part is God himself, who knows possible creatures abstractively with as much evidence and clarity on the side of the knower as if they were present. Likewise, he can infuse in someone a cognition of the quiddity of a possible thing outside the Word; then that person will know the thing through its own species, yet will know it abstractively. An angel has its own species of a future eclipse, its futurity, and its existence, yet its cognition is abstractive. So too we can remember through its own species an absent thing that we have seen; indeed, we can be directed to its existence as an object, as when from effects I know that God exists and is present, yet this cognition is abstractive. Therefore intuitive and abstractive cognition are not distinguished by these features; we must instead turn to the known terminus: one reaches a thing under its own presence, which physically terminates cognition, the other under absence.

Therefore only a twofold way of distinguishing these cognitions remains, and these ways too are frequent among Thomists. Some distinguish them as essentially different by presence and absence as diverse accounts that are represented; consequently, the representations themselves differ intrinsically and essentially because they represent diverse objects.

Others, however, say they differ accidentally, because they do not require formally diverse representations. The same thing can be represented in intuitive and abstractive cognition: namely, the thing with its existence and presence, known and represented in the stated act. They differ only accidentally through a different exercise of terminating cognition. For if the object itself is made present in itself and that very presence is represented in cognition, this alone makes the cognition intuitive. But if the physical presence of the thing, through which the object terminates cognition, is removed while all else on the side of cognition and representation remains unchanged, the cognition becomes abstractive. Hence some also say that intuitive and abstractive are only extrinsic denominations arising in cognition from the thing’s own existence or absence. Others say they are intrinsic modes in the cognition itself—although they do not essentially vary the representation—because they truly belong to the cognition’s own tendency toward the object as terminating in this or that way.

THEREFORE, LET THERE BE ONE CONCLUSION. The formal and proper account of intuitive and abstractive cognition does not essentially and intrinsically vary cognition, but varies it accidentally, although by an accident—that is, through something else and by reason of what it is joined to—it can import cognitions diverse in species.

The first part is drawn from the places of St Thomas cited above, in q. 3 of On Truth and in Sentences III, d. 14. For he says that the knowledge of vision, or intuitive cognition, adds something beyond simple or abstractive cognition that is outside the genus of cognition, namely the thing’s existence. Therefore he holds that they do not signify essential and intrinsic differences, since such differences are not outside the genus of cognition but belong to the very order of what is knowable. To add something outside the seer himself and outside the genus of cognition itself is to add something accidental and extrinsic.

THE FOUNDATION is that intuitive and abstractive cognition do not import diversity in the formal principle of knowability itself. For intuitiveness and abstractiveness in cognitions do not arise from the means, motives, or specifying principles themselves, nor from diverse immateriality, which is the root of cognition, nor from a diverse formal account of representing that which or under which. Therefore they do not import accounts that distinguish by themselves and by the force of their formality.

The antecedent is proved as follows: as we will show in the next article, presence and absence do not pertain particularly to intuitive and abstractive cognition as certain represented things, as though they were certain quiddities. They pertain only insofar as they affect and modify the object in itself, making it coexist or not coexist with cognition. This is clear because a species representing presence itself objectively as a represented thing can be found in abstractive cognition—as when I now know that God is present to me, or that a soul or intellect is present to a body, or when we discuss their presence—and yet we do not see either the soul or God intuitively. The same applies to angelic species, which represent things, their existence, and their presence before they exist; yet angels do not see things intuitively unless those things actually exist in themselves. Therefore presence or absence as represented things do not per se and directly distinguish intuitive and abstractive cognition; presence as represented can be found in abstractive cognition. Rather, presence or absence varies the intrinsic knowable genus only insofar as it is represented as a thing and is per se knowable, or is an object per se, not as a modification and accessory of another, as we will show presently. Therefore the formal account of intuition itself is not an essential difference in the knowable genus.

This is confirmed: presence and absence constitute intuitive and abstractive cognition insofar as they function as modes of a knowable or represented thing. Presence itself does not have the character of an object represented first and per se; it only modifies the represented object, so that cognition terminates at the object insofar as it is present—that is, insofar as it is made coexistent with the knowing faculty—not insofar as presence itself is a represented thing. For, as we said, presence itself can also be reached through abstractive cognition, since it is represented by way of a quiddity, which is proper to abstractive cognition. Therefore presence belongs to intuitive cognition only insofar as it modifies the object, not insofar as it constitutes the object. Hence it is not per se an essential difference, since it does not belong on the side of the specifying principle, which is the object or the account of what is representable, whether that which or under which; rather, it presupposes the principal represented object, of which it is a mode. For it modifies the object’s termination; it does not constitute the motive account. It belongs to that account insofar as it coexists with it terminatively, or on the side of the terminus. All this varies cognition accidentally, as in vision the modification of a common sensible in relation to a proper sensible—for example, whether white is seen in motion or at rest, in this or that position—does not essentially vary vision, since it belongs not on the side of the object per se and formally but on the accidental side of the object. In the same way, with respect to cognition, termination is modified by presence or absence.

From this it follows that if cognitions differ because one regards presence as directly represented and known while the other does not, such cognitions can differ essentially because of a diverse object in its being as a representable object. But they do not differ only in the account of intuitiveness and abstractiveness; they differ in the account of diverse objects represented by way of quiddity and thing.

The second part of the conclusion is clearly established, because intuitive and abstractive cognition can sometimes be found in cognitions otherwise distinct in species: either they represent diverse objects or they are under a diverse medium and specifying light. This is clear in the intuitive vision of God in himself as compared with abstractive cognition of him through faith, or in intuitive cognition of Peter as compared with abstractive cognition of a horse. Nevertheless, this essential diversity is not taken formally and precisely from the account of intuitive and abstractive cognition itself, but from other formal accounts that specify these cognitions in the knowable genus. Intuitive and abstractive cognition are joined to them as consequent, accidental accounts, not constitutive ones.

BUT YOU WILL ASK, whether this account of intuitive and abstractive cognition, although not per se an essential difference of cognition, is nevertheless some intrinsic mode in cognition itself, so that it really changes it; whether these are only extrinsic denominations arising from physical coexistence; or what, finally, they are.

It is answered that some think intuitive and abstractive cognition consist only in an extrinsic denomination, insofar as an object is said to be present or coexistent with the cognition itself, or not coexistent. This position can be supported by the example of truth and falsity: the same cognition is called true at one time and false at another solely by an extrinsic denomination, according to whether the object is or is not in itself. Likewise, since intuitive cognition signifies physical coexistence of the object and cognition, while abstractive cognition denies it, cognition is called intuitive or abstractive solely by an extrinsic denomination from such coexistence or noncoexistence. This must without doubt be asserted of God, since the numerically same cognition that is simple intelligence with respect to possibles is made intuitive solely by an extrinsic denomination: the thing itself passes from possibility to futurity or existence, which posits nothing in the divine knowledge itself except an extrinsic denomination. Likewise, that divine knowledge is approving knowledge is only an extrinsic denomination in divine knowledge. St Thomas equates the knowledge of vision with approving knowledge in this respect: that it adds something outside the genus of cognition, in On Truth III, a. 3, ad 8.⁴

This position is probable. Nevertheless, it seems more probable that intuitive and abstractive cognition are something intrinsic in cognitions by their very kind. Thus when a created cognition passes from intuitive to abstractive, or conversely, it is really changed.

The reason is that intuition imports coexistence of the object’s physical presence with cognition, not in any manner whatsoever, but with the attention and tendency of the cognition itself, terminated at such a thing as coexistent with it and modifying the object. But a different termination of cognition through attention to a coexistent thing posits some intrinsic change in the cognition itself; for abstractive cognition does not have such attention and termination to coexistence of presence. Here there is a great difference between the truth or falsity of cognition and the account of intuitive and abstractive cognition. Truth consists in conformity to the thing’s being or nonbeing in such a way that even if someone does not attend to the thing’s being or nonbeing, if he nevertheless makes a judgment, then if the thing does not exist in the way he judges, that judgment thereby loses truth; and if the thing does exist in that way, it acquires truth without any other intrinsic change intervening in the cognition. But for someone to see intuitively, it does not suffice that, while he is cognizing something, that thing be made present in itself. The knower must attend to its presence as coexistent with him, not merely as represented. If this attention is lacking, intuition is destroyed, even though the thing is present in itself, because it is not present in terminating attention and cognition. Thus God is present in himself to the cognition I have of him, and the soul and things in the soul are present in themselves, yet I do not see them intuitively. Therefore a different attention, with such termination of the object as present and coexistent, is intrinsic to cognition; yet it does not essentially vary cognition itself, because it is an accidental modification of the object, like the modification of a common sensible with respect to a proper sensible, which does not vary cognitions essentially, although it requires a different attention and termination. In this way presence as coexistent per se modifies the object, but does not distinguish it essentially; nevertheless, because it requires a different attention, it belongs intrinsically to the act.

As for the objection about intuitive cognition of God, it is answered that just as the same act of God’s will, because of its eminence, is necessary and free through its intrinsic perfection, although it connotes some relation of reason or extrinsic denomination with respect to the object, so the same knowledge, because of its eminence, is intrinsically abstractive and intuitive, approving as well, and at once practical and speculative, effective and ineffective with respect to diverse things, although it connotes some relation of reason or extrinsic denomination with respect to the object. This is not what it formally consists in, but that knowledge or act is not denominated intuitive or free without it. What one act has eminently in God, we have in several acts because of our limitation.

THE ARGUMENTS ARE RESOLVED.

First it is argued from the teaching of St Thomas, 1–2, q. 67, a. 5, where he says that the numerically same cognition of faith cannot remain in the fatherland, because “when the difference of a species is removed, the substance of the genus does not remain numerically the same”; and thus “it cannot be that the numerically same cognition, which was formerly enigmatic, later becomes open vision.” From this an argument is formed: St Thomas denies that the numerically same cognition that was enigmatic can become open vision because, when the difference of a species is removed, the substance of the genus does not remain numerically the same. Therefore St Thomas presupposes that open vision is a specific difference of cognition; otherwise his reasoning would prove nothing, since if the account of intuition or vision adds only an accidental difference, the whole substance of that cognition could remain when that difference is removed.

This is confirmed because intuitive and abstractive cognition are formally opposed and formally expel one another from a subject. They are opposed by clarity and obscurity concerning the thing’s presence, since intuitive cognition intrinsically imports evidence and certainty about the thing’s presence, which abstractive cognition does not import. Because of this evidence and certainty, intuitive cognition expels abstractive cognition. They are not merely opposed in a subject as two accidents of the same species; otherwise intuitive and abstractive cognition would be no more opposed to one another than two intuitive cognitions or two abstractive cognitions are among themselves. Hence faith is opposed to the vision of glory in no other way than because faith is abstractive and that vision intuitive.

THE ANSWER IS THAT St Thomas is speaking of open vision and enigmatic cognition, which rest on diverse means and do not include only the mode of intuitive or abstractive cognition. We have already said that although intuitive and abstractive cognition are not essential differences of cognition, they can nevertheless follow and presuppose cognitions distinct in species, to which they are joined when they are found in cognitions constituted by diverse means, lights, or representations. St Thomas explains very well that enigmatic cognition and open vision differ through diverse means in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, ch. 13, lect. 4.⁵

In reply to the confirmation, it is said that intuitive and abstractive cognition do not always differ by evidence and lack of evidence essential to the cognition itself, namely evidence derived from the formal account of the medium by which the specific account of cognition is constituted. For an abstractive cognition can be evident concerning everything represented by an intuitive cognition, although it does not have evidence of presence itself as coexistent with it. But this evidence does not essentially distinguish one cognition from another, because it does not belong on the side of the specifying formal account, but on the side of the object’s coexistence and application. Hence St Thomas says in Sentences III, d. 14, q. 1, a. 2, q. 3,⁶ that “the clarity of vision comes from three things: either from the efficacy of the cognitive power, as one with stronger sight cognizes more clearly than one whose sight is weak; or from the efficacy of light, as one sees more clearly in sunlight than in moonlight; or finally from the conjunction or application of the object, as things nearby are seen more clearly than things far away.” Therefore evidence in intuitive cognition proceeds from the precise and formal force of intuition only in this last way. But such clarity or evidence is accidental and extrinsic, since it depends only on the application and coexistence of presence that is more or less near.

As for what is said about the opposition of intuitive and abstractive cognition in the same subject, it is answered that they are indeed opposed to each other formally by a formality accidental to the cognition itself, but essential to the account of intuition. For example, being terminated or not terminated by a point is not essential to a line, and yet a line cannot have both at once. The same cognition cannot be both true and false because of its opposed termination toward objects, and yet truth and falsity belong to cognition accidentally. Faith and the vision of the fatherland differ not only precisely through abstractive and intuitive cognition, but also through diverse means: faith rests on the testimony of one who speaks, while vision rests on the representation of the thing in itself. In the same way, the vision of the divine essence by St Paul and his memory of having seen it differed not only through abstractive and intuitive cognition but through diverse means of representation. He saw God through God’s representation immediately in himself, but remembered having seen him through a created species immediately representing some created effect, namely the vision itself with respect to whether it exists.

Second it is argued: Intuitive and abstractive cognition differ through diverse formal objects and diverse represented things; therefore they import essential differences in the genus of cognition.

The consequence is clear, because there is no other principle for essentially distinguishing cognitions than their formal objects; and representations are distinguished by the diverse things represented. The antecedent is proved as follows: intuitive cognition, precisely as intuitive, regards an object as formally present to it, and it differs from abstractive cognition by this formality. In intuitive cognition the thing’s presence itself is represented, since it is known and reached as a thing known; it does not suffice that presence be in the object itself unless it is also represented in the cognition. This is clear in someone who does not notice a thing passing before him, and in the other examples given above. Therefore intuitive cognition does not import the thing’s presence as purely entitative and physical, outside the genus of cognition, but as represented and cognitively attained.

If it is said that this presence is represented in an exercised way, not as a thing directly represented, against this there are two counterinstances. The first concerns the cases of nouns and verbs, which, as we said in the Summulae, q. 2, a. 3, have concepts physically distinct from their direct concepts, though not categorematically distinct; nevertheless, they do not differ through diverse represented things, but through a diverse exercised connotation of the same represented thing. The second counterinstance concerns the formal account under which one cognition is essentially distinguished from another; yet it is neither represented nor reached by direct cognition, for then it would be the account that, not under which.

This is confirmed because present and absent essentially distinguish acts of appetite; therefore they also distinguish acts of cognition.

The consequence follows from the parity of reason between good and true with respect to present and absent. The antecedent is proved as follows: fear and sadness differ only by reason of an absent or present evil, just as hope and joy differ by reason of what is present and absent. Therefore presence and absence alone diversify these acts in species.

THE ANSWER to the principal argument is that intuitive and abstractive cognition do not differ through diverse formal objects in their being and formality as knowable, but in the being and formality of some accidental condition and mode. It is one thing for something to be formal and essential to intuitive cognition itself, another for it to be formal and essential to cognition itself. For example, the capacity to disperse sight is essential to white insofar as white is essentially distinguished from black, but it is not essential to a human being. Similarly, an object insofar as present or absent, with respect to its coexistence with the cognition itself and the object’s application, is essential to intuitive and abstractive cognition, but not to cognition itself. Thus intuitive and abstractive cognition are essentially distinguished from each other and differ by definition, as white and black do; but these differences are accidental to cognition itself. For, as was said, they do not regard presence and absence as grounding diverse knowability and immateriality, but as grounding the application of the object’s physical coexistence in terminating cognition.

As for what is said about diverse representation, it is answered that intuitive and abstractive cognition do not formally and by their own force differ through diverse represented things. For abstractive cognition too can represent presence on the side of the represented thing. Thus I now think of God as present to me, and I know evidently through effects that the soul is present to me, yet I see neither God nor the soul intuitively. Therefore these representations do not differ through diverse represented things, through connotation or relation to a distinct represented thing, or through distinct formal accounts under which things are represented, which essentially contribute to representation; they differ only through a diverse termination at presence as coexistent with cognition itself, as has been explained. Hence not every variation in representation is an essential variation unless it is reduced to a diverse account of that which or under which in the representation itself. Likewise, in external vision not every change essentially varies vision—for example, a change only in a diverse common sensible, such as seeing white in motion or at rest, with this or that position or shape, does not essentially vary vision itself but varies it accidentally, as we said. In the same way, presence or absence does not essentially vary cognition insofar as it imports a diverse termination of cognition toward presence as coexistent with it. But if presence and absence also function as represented things, they can vary cognitions as their diverse objects; this is not so when they only serve as a condition pertaining to the coexistence of the object’s presence with cognition.

From this the answer to the counterinstances given is also clear. For if the different cases of nouns distinguish concepts essentially, this is because they import some diverse relation or connotation in the object to the thing represented—for example, to the thing by way of agent or possessed, in the manner of “what,” “whose,” or “to whom.” Such relations are understood to affect the represented thing itself and to be founded in it; all the more so does a diverse account under which. But intuitive and abstractive cognition, according to their precise formality, do not signify presence or absence itself as representable things. As we have already said, the presence of a thing can be a thing represented through abstractive cognition, as when I know abstractively that God is present. If some abstractive cognition does not represent presence as a represented thing, while intuitive cognition does, then those representations differ essentially not by the precise force of intuitive and abstractive cognition, but because of the general account of representing diverse objects. Therefore, keeping to the precise formality of intuitive and abstractive cognition—which does not require diverse represented things or a diverse relation or connotation founded in the represented thing itself, but only a diverse termination and application of the object according to coexistence with cognition—they do not essentially vary concepts, just as white does not when seen in motion or at rest, or cognition does not when made true or false by coexistence with the thing’s being.

In reply to the confirmation, it is said that there is a different account in acts of appetite and acts of cognition, because appetite tends toward good or evil, and the account of good or evil varies essentially according to diverse suitability or unsuitability. Suitability or unsuitability depends especially on presence or absence of the thing, because a present object makes appetite rest, whereas an absent one makes it move, since appetite is in the manner of inclination and weight. But weight behaves one way at the center and another outside the center. Therefore the presence or absence of an object greatly contributes to varying the formal account of the object in what functions by way of inclination. Cognition, however, is perfected within the faculty itself by drawing things to itself; it is always perfected through their presence in knowable and intentional being. Hence unless this kind of presence varies, there is no variation in the essential account of cognition. Thus what remains of the object’s physical presence—whether it coexists or does not coexist with cognition—belongs outside the genus of that cognition and is considered per accidens, because it no longer pertains to intentional presence.

Finally it is argued, that if intuitive and abstractive cognition do not vary cognition essentially but accidentally, they are either extrinsic or intrinsic denominations. They are not extrinsic, for then the same numerically identical cognition could at one time be intuitive and at another abstractive, just as the same cognition can be true or false. And if presence and absence are compared with respect to intuitive and abstractive cognition as a common sensible is compared with respect to vision, it is clear that presence and absence cannot function as an extrinsic denomination; for the tendency toward a common sensible is not an extrinsic denomination in vision. But if intuitive and abstractive cognition are intrinsic modes, they can be nothing other than a tendency and order toward the object, which essentially varies cognition. Nor can it be understood how these intrinsic modes vary the concept accidentally without varying the representation itself in its relation to the represented thing.

Indeed, there is no division of cognition by intrinsic modes unless there is also an essential division, just as distinction by clarity and obscurity essentially varies cognition, although obscurity is not the formal account but an intrinsic mode of cognition.

Finally, some examples can be offered that seem to prove this essential distinction. The practical and speculative are essential differences, yet the practical signifies an order toward an operation, which is outside its account. Good and evil are essential differences of a human act, yet evil can be taken from some intrinsic circumstance.

THE ANSWER IS THAT intuitive and abstractive cognition are accidental modes that belong to the genus of cognition reductively as modes, not as essential species; and, as we said, it seems more probable that they are intrinsic modes. When it is said that they are the very order or tendency toward the object, we say that formally and directly they are not the order toward the object in its account as a represented object, but modifications of that order insofar as they make cognition tend toward the object not only as represented but as coexistent with cognition. Thus the account toward the object, as represented and known, formally constitutes cognition; toward the object represented in this way as coexistent with cognition there is instead a modifying relation. When we compare the account of intuition with the order and relation to a common sensible, the example holds in this respect: a common sensible is not represented primarily, but is represented as modifying color by an accidental modification related to visibility. Likewise, in intuitive cognition presence does not function as a thing directly represented—for it can also be represented in abstractive cognition—but as modifying the represented object by an accidental modification, as was said. Yet this example does not hold with respect to the coexistence involved.

When it is said that division by intrinsic modes is also essential, it is answered that modes can be called intrinsic either because they modify the formal account of the constitutive principle itself, and thus are intrinsic to the constitution, or because they are not extrinsic denominations, although they do not intrinsically modify the constitution. Division by modes of the first kind is also essential, because the mode cannot vary without the constitution depending on it varying; division by modes of the second kind is accidental, as was said.

As for the examples, it is answered that the practical and speculative differ essentially because that order toward an external operation arises from principles and means of knowing different from the formal account of the speculative; it does not signify only a diverse application and coexistence of the object, as intuitive and abstractive cognition do. Rather, it involves diverse formal principles for knowing the object in a compositive or resolutive way. As for what is said about the difference of moral evil, it is indeed an essential difference with respect to an act considered within the moral genus. Nevertheless, a circumstance is not the source of the species of an evil moral act unless that circumstance passes into a principal condition of the object, as is said in 1–2, q. 18, a. 10. Intuitive and abstractive cognition, however, are always circumstances of cognition, because they pertain to that coexistence.