Universa Philosophia

I have already said in §. 14 that the adequate matter of logic is the proposition, and the mode of knowing: indeed it comprises definition, division, and argumentation: about which we must treat at length in disputation 1. But this mode of knowing is divided into formal and objective. The formal [mode] is the acts of the intellect themselves, by which we define, divide, and argue. They are called the formal mode of knowing; both because the acts themselves are forms extrinsically denominating the objective mode of knowing. For the object is the matter or subject receiving the denomination of the known from the knowing act: as color is and is called seen from vision: and in this complex seen color is as it were the matter and subject, while vision is the form: and also because a thing is formally such when through itself and not through another it has that concept, for example, heat is formally and absolutely heat, because by itself it is such: but light is not formal heat but virtual heat, and absolutely it is not heat, because it is heat precisely in that it can produce heat. So the acts of the intellect are the formal mode of knowing and formally, because by themselves they are a mode of knowing: for to know formally is in the intellect alone, and so is the account of knowing; but this is a mode of knowing: therefore formally and absolutely the formal mode of knowing is a mode of knowing: the objective [mode], however, is a mode of knowing in a qualified sense, that is, the object of the mode of knowing.

The formal mode of knowing can be considered either according to itself, without considering any account that accidentally affects it. Namely, it is considered whether it is an action? whether a quality? whether from the nature of the thing or by absolute power it can be separated from the power? whether vitality is of its concept? and other questions of this kind about the attributes of individual acts: but these pertain to the science of the soul, not to logic: just as the contemplation of a stone according to itself, whether it is living and other such things, pertains to the philosopher. Likewise the mode of knowing can be considered not according to itself, but as affected by some accidental concept, namely by what reason the acts themselves are to be arranged and distributed for right reasoning: namely for inferring the conclusion, whether one must use affirmative acts? or negative? or both? just as we contemplate by what reason wood and stones are to be arranged for a right building. But this second consideration of the mode of knowing is not the science of the soul but dialectic: just as the second consideration of stones is not philosophical but architectural. But these diverse considerations pertain to different faculties, because they rest on different principles: on which I will have seen to it in disputation 1 of the Metaphysics, section 8, especially §. 204. But if the logician sometimes uses the doctrine of the acts of the intellect according to themselves, for example when he disputes what affirmation and negation are, he does this because logic is subalternated to the science of the soul, as I shall say in that disputation 1 of the Metaphysics, §. 209. I shall show there in §. 205 that a subalternated science is not adequately distinguished from the subalternating one: because it borrows certain habits from it.

The objective mode of knowing is the object of the formal mode of knowing: namely the object that is defined, divided, and concluded by argumentation: for man is called the definitum, while animal rationale is the definitio. Thus we speak of the defined and the objective definition. Likewise when we divide man into Peter and Paul, man is the divisum, while Peter and Paul are called partes dividentes: and I would say the same of any object terminating the formal mode of knowing. But it is called a mode of knowing, not because it precisely terminates the mode of knowing—for in that way color would also be called objective vision, and an end objective intention, which is far removed from common usage—but because it so terminates the formal mode of knowing that it seems to preserve in itself a certain account of a mode of knowing: for example, the objects of the premises have a fatal connection with the conclusion, so that the latter is necessarily deduced from them: likewise the objective definition has a necessary connection with the defined, and is the explanation of that concept: likewise the dividing parts more clearly manifest the divided.

This mode of knowing also has a twofold consideration: for it can be considered according to itself, namely what man is? what animal rationale is? what Peter and Paul are, etc. This consideration does not pertain to the logician, but to that faculty with whose object the formal mode of knowing is engaged: for example, to Philosophy, when it is a question of some body of the category of substance: but to metaphysics, when it is a question of a separated substance. Likewise the objective mode of knowing can be considered not according to itself or materially, but formally, as it is objective: that is, as it receives the denomination of a mode of knowing objectively. Just as the architect contemplates a stone, not because he considers its quiddity or attributes—for that pertains to the Philosopher—but he considers it by what reason it can be joined with wood in a building. By the same reason the logician considers by what reason a genus can be joined with a difference to explain a species: objective premises to express the conclusion.

But we must explain what formally constitutes the objective mode of knowing; so that from there you may deduce whether and by what reason it pertains to the logician: for a thing to be placed before the intellect is the same as for it to be known: therefore the objective mode of knowing formally as objective is the same as a knowable mode of knowing. This is first proved from the common definition of a being of reason, namely that which has objective being only in the intellect: which is commonly explained as that which consists only in being known: and so to be objectively in the intellect and to be known are the same, just as to be known only and to be objectively only in the intellect are the same: likewise to be placed before and to be an object are the same: but to be an object and to be known are the same. Therefore to be placed before and to be known are the same. It is confirmed, because to be a subject, a predicate, the middle term of a syllogism, the conclusion, and other such things are formally a mode of knowing: but to be a predicate is to be known through affirmation of it of another: but to be a subject is to terminate predication about itself. Therefore the objective mode of knowing is formally to be a known mode of knowing.

Finally, because to be an object adds something above the intrinsic entity of the thing; but this is nothing intrinsic, but something extrinsic: yet there is nothing extrinsic from which it can receive this denomination of object besides the act of the intellect, therefore it has objective being from the act of the intellect. And so to be objectifiable is to be knowable, and to be actually an object is to be actually known. I do not now dispute about the intrinsic and essential aptitude by which each thing can be known, for this is not distinguished from its entity: and it is an attribute of being as such, about which we must treat in disputation 7 of the Metaphysics. But I am treating of the denomination of the knowable and the known, which I say is an extrinsic denomination from possible or existing cognition; for whether the first aptitude is essential, while the second is accidental to objects, makes no difference to the present undertaking: for my intention is precisely to treat of this second denomination of the knowable, through which animal and rationale and the other modes of knowing are known as compared with one another, so that one object can be inferred or explained through another: which no one will doubt to be accidental to them.

SUBSECTION II. The question is resolved.