Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

THREE POINTS make this article difficult. First, whether a reflexive concept is really distinct from a direct one, and what causes this. Second, what is known by a reflexive concept and what its object is. Third, whether direct and reflexive concepts differ essentially.

As to the first, some think that, in order to know one’s own concept, it is not necessary to form another concept of it, as may be seen in Ferrariensis, Against the Gentiles I, chapter 53, § Cum autem obicitur. But St. Thomas expressly says in Summa theologiae I, q. 87, art. 3, ad 2, that “the act by which someone understands a stone is one thing, and the act by which he understands that he understands is another.” Therefore a reflexive concept is also distinct from a direct one, because a distinct act produces a distinct concept. St. Thomas expressed this more clearly in On the Power of God, q. 9, art. 5¹, where he says: “In this respect it makes no difference whether the intellect understands itself or something other than itself. For just as, when it understands something other than itself, it forms a concept of that thing, which is signified by a word, so, when it understands itself, it forms a word of itself, which it can also express verbally.”

Some authors labor to explain the reason for and necessity of this reflexive concept in understanding one’s own concept. It seems, however, that this can be clearly deduced from the cited teaching of St. Thomas in Summa theologiae I, q. 87. We assume only that the intellective power can reflect upon itself, not the sensitive power: both because the intellect regards every being universally, and therefore itself as well, whereas in its act the sensitive power is devoid of what it knows—for example, vision does not itself contain color, and so does not attain itself—and because one body cannot act upon itself: one part always acts on another, while one part of an organ is not sufficient to elicit cognition. On this see St. Thomas in Sentences II, dist. 19, q. 1, art. 1² and Sentences III, dist. 23, q. 1, art. 2, ad 3³; we will discuss it in our books on the Soul, q. 4⁴.

In intellective powers, then, the whole reason for reflexion arises from this: in this life our intellect and its act are not intelligible objectively except dependently on sensibles. Thus our concept, although formally present, is not objectively present so long as it is not formed after the likeness of a sensible quiddity; this can happen only by a reflexion drawn from a sensible object. Such a reflexive concept is not necessary in angels and separate substances, because they directly know their own substance, intellect, and what is in themselves as accidents of their own substance. Consequently, by the same species through which they know themselves, they can also attain those accidents. They do not know themselves reflexively; therefore neither do they know their concept, since the concept, when produced, is intelligible to their intellect no less than their substance is.

THE REASON FOR THIS, however, is derived by St. Thomas in the cited place of Summa theologiae I from the fact that each thing is known insofar as it is in act. The ultimate perfection of the intellect is its operation, because through its operation it is not ordered to perfecting something else, as a transitive action is. Therefore the first thing understood by the intellect is its very act of understanding, since this is most actual in it and consequently first and most intelligible to itself. Nevertheless, different intellects stand differently with respect to this.

For there is one intellect, namely the divine intellect, which is its very act of understanding. Thus in God what understands that he understands himself is the same as what understands his essence, because his essence is his act of understanding. There is another intellect, namely the angelic intellect, which is not its act of understanding, but whose essence is nevertheless the first object of its understanding. Thus, although in an angel what understands that it understands and what understands its essence are distinct in account, it understands both at once in the same act. For understanding its essence is the proper perfection of its essence, and a thing is understood together and in one act with its perfection. There is yet another intellect, namely the human intellect, which is neither its act of understanding nor does its own essence constitute the first object of its understanding. Rather, that first object is something external, namely the nature of a material thing. Therefore what is first known by the human intellect is an object of this kind; by it the object is known; and through the act the intellect itself is known, whose perfection is the act of understanding.

Thus far St. Thomas’s reasoning.

From this it is clearly deduced that the whole root of the reflexion of a concept upon the very act and power of understanding is drawn from the objective character of the intellect itself. For although a concept and cognition are formally present to the power, they are not objectively present. Formal presence is not enough for something to be directly knowable, as Cajetan rightly noted in the same place; objective presence is required. But something cannot be objectively present unless it takes on the conditions of the object of that power. Since the proper object of our intellect is the quiddity of a material thing considered in itself, what is not the quiddity of a material thing is not directly present objectively. To take on its character, it requires reflexion. Thus our concepts, although intelligible in themselves, are not in themselves intelligible in the mode of the quiddity of a material thing; consequently, they are not primarily and directly present objectively except insofar as they are taken in the mode of a sensible quiddity, which they must receive from a sensible object. Because they receive this within the power from an external object known directly, they are said to be known reflexively and made intelligible with the intelligibility of a material being. None of this applies to angels or to God, who directly and primarily understand their own essence and everything in it.

If you ask what impressed species serves for reflexive cognition of a concept, the reply is drawn from St. Thomas, On Truth, q. 10, art. 9, ad 4 and ad 10⁵: things known through reflexive cognition are not known through their own essence or their own species. Rather, they are known by knowing the object, or through the species of the things about which the act and concept are concerned. For a concept and act need reflexion insofar as they need to be formed after the likeness of the sensible object around which the direct concept operates; therefore they need the species of such an object, so as to be informed after its likeness and known.

Hence St. Thomas says in Sentences III, dist. 23, q. 1, art. 2, ad 3⁶, that “the intellect knows itself like other things, namely through a species—not its own species, but that of the object, which is its form. From this it knows the nature of its act, from the nature of its act the nature of its power, from the nature of its power the nature of its essence, and consequently the nature of the other powers. It does not have distinct likenesses of all these things; rather, in its object it knows not only the character of truth, but every cognition that is in it, etc.” Here St. Thomas clearly teaches how the species of the object serves for cognition of the act, insofar as it represents in its object the character of what is known. For a species remains in the memory not only representing the object, but also representing that it was known. From this relation of what was known the intellect returns to the cognition itself and to its principles. Thus through such a species the species itself can also be attained reflexively, not immediately in itself, but as something belonging to the known object. It is nevertheless possible for the intellect afterward to form separate species of the concept, power, and other things of this kind, in the way that it forms other species from species previously conceived—for example, from the species of a mountain and gold it forms the species of a golden mountain—as St. Thomas teaches in Summa theologiae I, q. 12, art. 9, ad 2.

Concerning the second difficulty, two points must be explained:

FIRST, as to the material object of reflexive cognition—that is, what reflexive cognition concerns—we answer briefly that it includes all those things found in the soul which, from cognition of the object, take on a representation and mode of a sensible quiddity. In this way the intellect returns to know not only the concept and act, but also habits, species, the power, and the very nature of the soul, as St. Thomas says in the place recently cited from Sentences III. When the definition of a reflexive concept says that it is a concept of another concept, this is understood to mean that it is also a concept of everything within the soul that contributes to the concept, as we said in book 1 of the Summulae, chapter 6; or else it means that the first thing attained through reflexion is another concept, and afterward the power, soul, and so on.

SECOND, what must be explained pertains to the formal character that a reflexive concept regards. Here, too, we say briefly, on the same authority of St. Thomas, that formally a reflexive concept regards knowing the nature of that upon which it reflects, in the way it can be known through effects or connotatively, in the mode of a sensible quiddity. Although these things are physically present, they are not made objectively present through themselves, but by means of a likeness and connotation of a sensible quiddity. Since this is to attain that presence as it were in another and not in itself, we are not said to see our concepts intuitively.

From this it follows that through a reflexive concept, insofar as it returns to the direct concept, the concept itself is represented as a certain quality and image, in the mode of the quiddity of an image considered in a signified act; consequently, the thing signified by the direct concept is represented there only very remotely and indirectly. The reason is that in a reflexive concept the very thing signified functions as the term from which that reflexion begins. Therefore the reflexive concept does not represent it as its object and as the term toward which the representation is directed, but only connotes it as the term from which the reflexion began. Although a reflexive concept attains the direct concept as a kind of image, and a movement toward an image also reaches the thing imaged, this is understood when the image is not considered separately and in itself, but insofar as it performs the office of leading to its prototype, as the Philosopher teaches in On Memory and Recollection⁷ and St. Thomas there, lecture 3⁸. In a reflexive concept, however, the movement occurs in the opposite way: from the object to the image. For by knowing the object directly, we reflect in order to know the concept that is its image. Therefore through such reflexion the intellect is directed to the image in the mode of a quiddity and attains it in a signified act. Consequently, it need not proceed through the image to the thing signified, although, as we said, it also attains that thing indirectly insofar as it is the term from which this reflexive movement began.

Concerning the final difficulty, the brief reply is that although “direct” and “reflexive,” insofar as they signify certain movements of the intellect, do not seem to imply essential differences of cognition—just as knowledge formed through reasoning and knowledge without reasoning, if they concern the same object, do not vary the essential character of knowledge—nevertheless, insofar as “reflexive” and “direct” concepts imply different representations and different objects represented, they differ simply in species. For the direct concept is a likeness of the object, while the reflexive concept is a likeness of the concept, act, or power itself; so it is with other cognitions and representations that concern different objects.

THE ARGUMENTS ARE ANSWERED.

Against what we resolved concerning the first difficulty, the first argument is that the intellect understands the concept or word and the object represented in it by the same act. Likewise, by the same act it is directed to the object and to the act, as St. Thomas teaches in Sentences I, dist. 10, q. 1, art. 5, ad 2⁹. Therefore it does not need a reflexive act to recognize the concept and act.

This is confirmed because a concept and act are present to and united with the intellect much more intimately than the object itself, which is united to the power by means of such a concept. They are likewise immaterial and intelligible in ultimate act; therefore a concept is compared to the light by which an object is illuminated, as St. Thomas says in opusculum 14¹⁰. But what is intelligible in ultimate act does not need another concept or intelligible form in order to be known. Hence light is known through its essence and not through a likeness, as St. Thomas expressly says in Sentences II, dist. 23, q. 2, art. 1¹¹. There he distinguishes the way light is seen from the way a stone is seen, saying that light is not seen by the eye through some likeness of itself left in it, but through its essence informing the eye; a stone, however, is seen through a likeness left in the eye. He signifies the same in Summa theologiae I, q. 56, art. 3. The same is also commonly said of an impressed species: it is already knowable through itself. Therefore a concept, which is more in act than an impressed species, is so all the more.

THE REPLY to the principal argument is that the power is directed by the same act to the object and to the act insofar as the act is the reason for knowing the object, but not insofar as it is a thing known; in this latter respect it needs a reflexive concept. St. Thomas is understood in this way in the place cited by the argument: he is speaking of the act of understanding insofar as it is attained as the reason for knowing the direct object, and in this way it is attained by the same act as its object. The same is true of a concept or word: the concept and the thing represented are understood by the same act insofar as the word is taken as the reason that expresses the object on the side of the term. For this reason, the word itself is sometimes said to be known as what, when the object is known—that is, because it is known as belonging on the side of the terminus “what,” not on the side of the principle, or as that by which the thing is known.

To the confirmation the reply is drawn from St. Thomas, On Truth, q. 10, art. 8, ad 4, at the second place¹², and Cajetan, Summa theologiae I, q. 87, art. 3: a word or concept is present to our intellect formally, but not objectively. For it is an inhering form by which an object is known, but is not itself an object equipped with act, as our intellect requires—namely, in the mode of a sensible quiddity. Therefore, with respect to our intellect, it is neither intelligible nor understood in act through itself. In separate substances, however, a concept is intelligible formally and objectively through itself, because they understand not only sensible quiddity but anything purely spiritual.

And as to the point added about light, the reply is drawn from St. Thomas, On Truth, q. 10, art. 8, ad 10, at the second place¹³: light is not seen through its essence except insofar as it is the principle of visibility and a certain form that gives being to what is actually visible. Light as it exists in the sun itself, however, is seen only through its likeness in the eye, just as a stone is seen. When St. Thomas says in Sentences II that light is seen through its essence, the meaning is that it is by its essence the form of visibility. Insofar as it is such a form, giving color actual visible being, it is not seen through a likeness distinct from the one emitted by the color itself once made visible. As for an impressed species, we say that it is knowable through itself as that by which, but not as that which, or as a thing known; in the latter way it needs a reflexive concept.

Second it is argued that a spiritual thing—God, angels, and whatever is not a material quiddity—cannot be attained by the intellect except by taking on the mode of a sensible object; nevertheless, such things are not known by reflexive cognition. Therefore neither are our concepts nor acts understood reflexively because they are known in the mode of a sensible object. For if they were known as they are in themselves, they would be known directly in the way angels know them.

This is confirmed because reflexive and direct concepts are formed through distinct species, since one species represents the concept and another the object, just as the things themselves are distinct. Therefore they do not stand to each other like a reflexive and direct movement. A reflexive movement must necessarily be continuous with the direct one and proceed from the same principle. For if distinct movements proceed from distinct principles, one is not reflexive with respect to the other.

THE REPLY is that, for the character of a reflexive concept, it is not enough to know something after the likeness of another; rather, what is known must belong on the side of the knowing principle. In this way there is a return from the object to the cognition or principle of cognition. When an external object takes on the mode of another object, there is an order or comparison of one to the other, but no reflexion.

To the confirmation the reply is that whether or not a concept is known through species distinct from the species of the object, it is still said to be known reflexively because this movement of cognition originates from the object. From knowledge of the object someone is moved to form cognition of the concept and species through which it is known. Thus this distinction of principles does not remove reflexion from cognition but rather contributes to it, since the very principles of knowing, or species, are formed through that reflexive movement, continued and derived from cognition of the object.