Ordinatio

Now that these points about being have been seen [nn.129-166], a further doubt remains: whether some other transcendental that seems to have an equal commonness with being could be posited as first object of the intellect. And it is posited that there is and it is this, that ‘true’ is the first object of the intellect and not being. The proof given is threefold.

First as follows [Henry, Summa 48 q.1]: distinct powers have distinct formal objects, from On the Soul 2.4.415a17-22, 6.418a10-17; intellect and will are distinct powers; therefore, they have distinct formal objects, which does not seem it can be sustained if being be posited as the first object of the intellect; but if ‘true’ be posited, distinct objects can well be assigned.

Second as follows [Henry, ibid., a.34 q.3]: being is of itself common to the sensible and the non-sensible; but the proper object of any power is the object of it under some proper idea; therefore, in order for being to be the proper object of the intellect, it is necessary that it be determined and contracted to intelligible being through something by which sensible being is excluded. But such contracting thing seems to be ‘true’, which asserts of itself the idea of the manifestive or of intelligible.

Again, third as follows [Henry, ibid.]: an object is not the proper object of any power save according as it is the proper mover of the power; but something only moves a power as it has some relationship to it; therefore being, according as it is an absolute and not possessed of some relation to the intellect, is not the proximate and immediate object. But that according to which being has formally a relation to the intellect is truth because, according to Anselm On Truth ch.11, “truth is correctness perceptible only to the mind.”

But against this conclusion about truth I argue as follows: the first object, that is, the adequate object [sc. of a power] is adequate to it in commonness or in virtuality or in both primacies run together; the true is in none of these ways adequate to the intellect; being is so adequate, as was made plain [n.137]; therefore etc. Proof of the first part of the minor [“the true is not adequate to the intellect in commonness.”]: the true is not asserted in the ‘what’ of all per se intelligibles, because it is not asserted in the ‘what’ of being nor of anything per se under being. The second part of the minor [“the true is not adequate to the intellect in virtuality”] is proved along with the third [“there is a double primacy in being, of commonness and virtuality”], because things falling under the true, although they include it essentially, do not include all intelligibles virtually or essentially, because this truth, which is in a stone, does not essentially or virtually include stone but, conversely, the being which is stone includes truth – and so about all other beings and the truths of them.

Again, true is a property of being and of anything inferior to being; therefore, when understanding being or anything inferior to being precisely under the idea of the true, it will only be understood per accidens and not according to its quidditative idea. But knowledge of anything according to its quidditative idea is the first and most perfect knowledge of it, from Metaphysics 7.1.1028a31-b2. Therefore, no knowledge of anything precisely under the idea of true is the first knowledge of an object, and so neither is truth the first idea, precisely, of knowing an object.

The argument [n.172] is confirmed from Prior Analytics 2.21.67a33-36: along with knowledge of a mule as mule there stands ignorance of this mule as this mule. For just as (by making comparison with a habit) the inferior is extraneous to its superior, about which superior the habit first is, so much more will the object be extraneous to its property, when making comparison either with the habit or the power.¹

Again, the object of a habit does not naturally precede the object of the power; but the first object of metaphysics, which is a habit of the intellect, is being, which is prior naturally to the ‘true’, and the ‘true’, which is a property of being, is not the first subject of metaphysics; therefore etc.²

I reply to the arguments for the opposite, reducing them to the opposite. To the first [n.168] as follows: because just as the will cannot have an act about something unknown, so it cannot have an act about an object under some formal idea of the object which idea is thoroughly unknown. Therefore every idea according to which something is an object for the will is knowable by the intellect; and so the first idea of the object of the intellect cannot be an idea that is distinguished from the idea of the willable, if in any way there be such [cf. canceled note to n.151].³

This is also plain about all properties of being of which is had a distinct knowledge, as about good under the idea of good just as about true under the idea of true, because, according to Avicenna Metaphysics VI ch.5, “if some science were about all causes, that would be noblest which was about the final cause,” the idea of which cause, according to many, is goodness [cf. Ord. Prol. n.195].

As to what, therefore, is taken in the argument [n.168] about the distinction of objects, I reply: distinct powers are disposed to each other in three ways – either they are altogether disparate or they are ordered, and then either in the same genus (as the higher and lower cognitive power), or in another genus of powers, as the cognitive power in relation to its appetitive power.

In the first way distinct powers have altogether distinct objects, because none of them (from the fact they are disparate) is per se operative about the object that another is per se operative about. Such are the exterior senses, as sight and hearing.

In the second way distinct powers have subordinate objects, such that, as the superior power can have per se an act about anything that the inferior power can, so the first object of the superior power contains under it the first object of the inferior power – otherwise that object would not be adequate to the superior power. Hence the first object of sight is, in its commonness, contained as inferior under the first object of the common sense.

In the third way powers are so disposed that if the appetitive power be adequate to the cognitive power in operating about all objects whatever, the same thing would be the first object of each power, and under the same formal idea on the part of the object. But if the appetitive power have an act about some knowable things and not others, then the object of the appetitive power will be inferior to the object of the cognitive power.

To the issue in hand. Intellect and will fall into the third member [nn.177, 180], and if the will be posited to have an act about everything that can be understood and understood under any idea, the same thing will be posited as the object both of the will and of the intellect and under the same formal idea. If not but it is case that the will only has an act about intelligibles that are an end, or beings for an end, and not about things merely objects of speculation, then the will’s object will be posited as in some way a particular with respect to the object of the intellect; but the fact will always remain that being is the object of the intellect

The second reason [n.189] I bring to the opposite side, because an object proportioned to a superior power is common to the object proper to an inferior power (from the aforesaid distinction [nn.177, 179]) – and so being, according as it is something that abstracts from the sensible and non-sensible, is truly the proper object of the intellect, because the intellect, as the superior power, can have an act both about the sensible and about the non-sensible. Hence this abstraction, which seems to be a non-appropriation [sc. of the sensible and non-sensible], is sufficiently an appropriation in respect of the superior power. Herewith do I reply to the argument that the commonness of being to the sensible and the non-sensible is the reason for appropriating it to the power that is operative about each object per se, of which sort is the intellect. And although under being as thus common the sensible be contained, yet it is not the sensible in common, that is the object of sense, but only an intelligible, adequate to the intellect, because it is not necessary for a respect proper to an inferior to be proper to a superior. Such a respect is what the ‘sensible’ states, a respect that belongs to some quality, to all and only it [sc. sensible quality]. But the ‘intelligible’, although it belongs to some being in a way that the sensible does not, yet not to all and only it; rather, it belongs to no sole being save to being in common; not as it is ‘this something’, as a certain intelligible singular, but as it is common to every intelligible, and this according to some mode of commonness stated before [n.137].

The third argument [n.170] I take to the opposite, because I say that the idea of an object is that according to which the object is mover of the power, just as the idea of what is active or acts is said to be the form according to which the agent acts. Now such idea of an object cannot be a respect to a power; and in this way does the Philosopher speak in On the Soul 2.7.418a26-30, where he assigns the first object of sight. He says that “that which sight is of as of its object is the visible,” not in the first mode per se but in the second, so that it is placed in the idea of the visible [Averroes, On the Soul, II com.66]. But if the formal idea of the object of a power were a relation to such power, then the first object of sight would be the visible per se in the first mode, because visibility itself would be the formal idea of the object. And then it would be easy to assign first objects, because the first object of any power would be the correlative of such power – as visible the correlative of sight, audible the correlative of hearing.⁴ And in this way did the Philosopher not assign first objects of powers, but he assigned certain absolutes [sc. not relations], for example color of sight, sound of hearing etc. [ibid. 6.418a10-17]. Hence if ‘true’ state a formal respect to the intellect (about which elsewhere [Scotus, Quodlibet q.8 nn.13-14, and infra n.323]), the consequence is the opposite of what is proposed on this point [sc. by Henry, n.170]. From this follows that that idea is not the formal idea of the object, but things other than it.

It is plain, then, from what has been said [from the beginning of the question, n.129, onwards], that nothing can as fittingly be posited to be the first object of the intellect as being – neither some virtual first nor anything else transcendent, because proof about anything else transcendent is through the same means as was the proof about the true [nn.171-183].