Ordinatio

On this question there are many ways of speaking. [First opinion] – In one way, every intelligible species naturally preceding the act of understanding is denied, because of the reasons set down for the first side of the question [nn.333-338]. The way of setting it down is this: once the impression is got of the sensible species on the organ of sense and the whole process up to the imaginative power, the agent intellect abstracts from the object in the phantasm and moves the possible intellect to a simple apprehension of the essence, but in such a way that neither does the possible intellect receive an impressed species from the phantasm, nor is the object present to the intellect save because it is present in imagination.

And this is proved from the following deduction: for the sense receives a species other than the act, either because the organ is of the same idea as the medium, or because the species received is a disposition proximate to receiving the action of sensing. Neither of these occurs in the intellect; for the intellect is a non-organic power and is of itself supremely disposed to an act of understanding; therefore etc.

This is said to be Aristotle’s intention in On the Soul 3.4.429a27-28, where he commends the ancients who say that “the soul is the place of species, not the whole soul but the intellective soul.” Now this distinction does not seem true in the sense that other parts do not have species (for there are species in the sensitive part), but because the other parts do not have species as places but do as subjects have accidents; and the intellect does, as a place, have them, because it has them as an expressed form, not an impressed one.

This [n.340] is also taken from On the Soul 3.8.432a8-9, because, according to Aristotle, “we contemplate the ‘what it is’ in phantasms,” and “phantasms are disposed to the intellect as sensibles are to the senses,” and “we understand nothing without phantasms,” and many like things does he say. And from these is the conclusion drawn that he posits no intelligible species, because if an intelligible species were posited the intellect would not contemplate the ‘what it is’ in phantasms but in the intelligible species. Likewise it would not need to be turned toward phantasms, but the intelligible species would suffice, in which it would have present to it the object it would be turned toward.

If it be argued against this from the Philosopher there [n.343[,“it is necessary that either the things are in the soul or the species of things; the things are not there, so the species are,” he replies [Henry, ibid.] that on the part of the intellect, that is, in the intellect, there is an impressed species (which is the habit or the act), or an expressed species (which is the species in the phantasm), or a quiddity (which quiddity, shining forth [in the phantasm], is the species with respect to the singular – for ‘this stone’ is not in the soul but the quiddity, which is the species with respect to such stone).

This is also posited to be the intention of Augustine, who maintains that the word is not generated from the intelligible species but from the habit. For Augustine says, On the Trinity 15.10 n.19, that, “the word is born from the knowledge itself that we hold in memory,” and ibid. ch.11 n.20, “the word is generated from the knowledge that abides in the soul.”

[Second opinion]. Another doctor [Godfrey of Fontaines, Quodlibet 9 q.19, also 1.9] posits the same thing, denying an intelligible species; and he deals with the argument about the organ [n.341] that was touched on in this opinion [n.340].

He posits another argument as well, of this sort:¹ because any power that is in potency to some act is first perfected in such act by the presence of a proportionate agent; but the power of apprehension is a power first ordered to this act, namely to apprehension; therefore by a proportioned first agent is it perfected in this act, which is ‘to apprehend’.²

My argument against this position [n.340]: Whether a singular is understood or not I do not care now [cf. canceled note to n.75]; for it is certain that the universal can be understood by the intellect, and more by philosophers is the intellect posited as a power distinct from the sensitive powers, because of its understanding of the universal, and because of composition and division [sc. in propositions], and because of syllogizing, than because of knowledge of the singular – if it be possible to understand the singular [cf. Henry of Ghent, Summa a40 qq.1, 4].

From this manifest point, then, namely that the intellect can understand the universal, I take this proposition, ‘the intellect can have an object actually universal,¹ per se present to it in idea of object, naturally before it understands’. From this follows the proposed conclusion, that in that prior stage the intellect has an object present [to it] in an intelligible species, and so it has an intelligible species prior to act.

The assumed premise [n .249, ‘the intellect can understand the universal’] seems manifest enough, because the object is naturally prior to the act; therefore universality, which is the proper condition of an object insofar as it is object, precedes the act of the intellect or of understanding; therefore under that idea too [of universality] must the object be present, because the presence of the object precedes the act.²

I prove the consequence [‘From this follows…’ n.249] first on the part of the universality of the object [nn.352-365], second on the part of presence [of the object, nn.366-369]. On the part of the universality of the object I argue in three ways, one of which is taken from the side of the phantasm representing it, and one from the side of the agent intellect, and one³ from the side of the more and less common.

[Reasons on the part of the representing phantasm] – First I argue as follows: a species has, from the fact it is the sort of species it is, the sort of idea of representing it has, and this in respect of the object under the sort of idea of what is represented. Therefore, while the same species remains, it does not have two representative ideas, nor is it representative with respect to two ideas in the representable thing. But to understand an object under the idea of universal and singular requires a double representative idea or idea of representing, and in respect of a double idea of what is formally representable. Therefore, while the same thing remains the same, it does not represent in this way and that; therefore the phantasm, which of itself represents the object under the idea of a singular, cannot represent it under the idea of a universal.¹

Response [Henry of Ghent, Summa a58 a.2 ad 3]: the same representative in different lights represents an object under different ideas, just as phosphorescent things in daylight represent themselves under the idea of things colored, in light at night under the idea of things luminous.

To the contrary: This representative thing is naturally something first in itself before it represent [anything] in this or that sort of light; for because it is the sort of species it is, therefore does a light agree with it in which it may represent one thing and not another. Otherwise, one would posit, or could posit, that the same species would represent color and sound (but the species as it is in vibrating air represents sound, and as it is in illumed air it represents color), and thus no distinction between the representative things could be shown. Therefore, in the prior stage one must understand a unity of the species in itself before there follow on a unity of the representation and of the object representable by it insofar as it is represented in it or through it. And so something that is the same in this prior stage cannot have a diverse idea of representing, nor can it represent under different ideas of being representable. There is a confirmation, because light does not represent formally, nor is it the formal idea of what is representative, but is only that in which something is represented. Also it seems that the more perfect the light, the more precisely and distinctly in it does that shine forth which the representative thing represents.²

Nor is the example [n.353, of phosphorescent things] of any value for the issue at hand. Rather it is to the opposite, because either two qualities are in such a body, as light and color, one of which multiplies itself in a greater present light, the other in a lesser one, when no other thing moves [the senses] more efficaciously; or each at the same time multiplies itself in a greater light, but what moves more efficaciously is perceived and what moves less efficaciously is not perceived (just as the stars multiply their rays by day and yet are not seen, because something else brighter moves sight more efficaciously); or if there is a single sensible quality in such a body, it causes diverse representatives in different light, namely one in greater light, another in a lesser light. And so it is always the case that there is not the same representative of the object under diverse idea of being representable, however much one and another light come together.

If you reply [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.34 q.5] that the same thing according to the same quality can be similar to diverse things, as one white thing according to the same whiteness is similar to diverse white things – this is nothing to the purpose, because in relations of an essential order there cannot be different things in something that are dependent on two things in the same order; as, for example, of the same measured thing on two measures in the same order, or of the same participating thing on two participated things in the same order, or of the same effect on two total causes in the same order (as was proved in the question about the unity of God previously [Ord. I d.2 n.73]). Therefore, in this relation, where there is not only likeness but imitation and passive exemplification, it is impossible for the same absolute to be referred to diverse things, and thus there cannot be the same species in idea of representing in the case of diverse things under the idea of diverse things.

Second as to the first way³ I argue as follows, because something representative that represents, according to its whole power, something under one idea cannot at the same time represent the same thing or another thing under another idea of object. But the phantasm, in which the universal is understood [cf. n.349], represents, according to its whole power, the object as a singular to the imaginative power, because then there is actual imagination of the object in the singular. And it is plain that this is according to the whole power of the phantasm, because otherwise the imaginative power could not, through the phantasm, have as perfect an act about the object as the object has a nature for being represented by the phantasm; therefore, the phantasm cannot then represent the object under another idea of the representable.

Again, why cannot there be in the imaginative power an act in respect of an object universal in act if there can be a species there in respect of such an object, since the act is a certain species?

[Reasons on the part of the agent intellect]. In the second way⁴ I argue as follows: the agent intellect is a purely active power, according to the Philosopher On the Soul [3.5.430a11-15], both because it is “that by which making all things is” and because it is compared to the possible intellect also “as art to matter;” therefore it can have a real action. Every real action has some real term. That real term is not received in a phantasm, because the thing received would be extended, and so the agent intellect would not transfer it from order to order, nor would [the thing received] be more proportioned to the possible intellect than the phantasm is.⁵ Nor too does the agent intellect cause anything in phantasms, because [a phantasm] is not its passive object, according to the aforesaid authorities [the Philosopher, ibid.]; therefore it [the agent intellect’s real term] is only received in the possible intellect, for the agent intellect is receptive of nothing. That first caused thing cannot be posited to be an act of understanding, because the first term of the action of the agent intellect is the universal in act, because it transfers from order to order; but the universal in act precedes the act of understanding (as was assumed already in the antecedent [n.349]), because an object under the idea of object precedes the act [n.350].⁶ The argument here is not that the phantasm together with the agent intellect cannot cause an intellection, but that it cannot cause an intellection of a universal unless it first causes a species – because the universal in act too precedes by nature the intellection of itself, and the universal is the first term of it.

And there is a confirmation of the reason, because it is [commonly] posited that the agent intellect makes a universal from a non-universal, or makes understanding in act from understanding in potency, as is said by the authorities of the Philosopher [On the Soul 3.5.430a14-17] and of the Commentator [Averroes, On the Soul III com.18]. Since the universal as universal is not anything in existence, but is only in something as representing it under such an idea, these words [‘makes a universal from a non-universal etc.’] will only have meaning because the agent intellect makes something representative of the universal out of that which was representative of the singular, however much the ‘out of’ be materially or virtually understood. Real action is only terminated at something representative of the object under the idea of the universal; therefore the real action of the agent intellect is terminated at some real form in existence that formally represents the universal as universal, because otherwise its action could not be terminated at the universal under the idea of the universal.

Here, about the action of the agent intellect, Godfrey of Fontaines [Quodlibet 5 q.10] removes what gets in the way by separating the quiddity from singularity, not in its being but in its acting on [the agent intellect]. And it does not act on the phantasm, nor on the possible intellect, but touches virtually on the phantasm. This is expounded as follows: in the phantasm there is a ‘what’ [sc. its quiddity] and a ‘this’ [sc. its singularity]; in the light, co-created with the possible intellect, the ‘what’ is the mover of the power so illumined, the ‘this’ is not. An example: if white and sweet are together, the white moves the illumined medium, the sweet does not; therefore, the light abstracts the color from the sweet and separates it as far as moving [the sense] is concerned, and moves aside what gets in the way [sc. the sweet] into something that does not move [the sense].

On the contrary. Either the ‘what’ as it is in the phantasm has sufficient active power to move the possible intellect to an intellection of the universal, and the result is that the universal is not the term of action of the agent intellect. Or it does not [have sufficient power], and another agent is required properly acting in that way, the way that properly active power is lacking to the ‘what’. Again, the ‘this’, the ‘what’ conjoined, is not an obstacle – just as neither to the being of the ‘what’ so neither to its being mover of the intellect. Again, what removes an obstacle has an action prior to the action of that from which the obstacle is removed; grant that [prior] action here, and on what [does it act]? And toward what term? – But this argument is solved by the ‘This is explained as follows’ [n.361], because the argument [here n.362] is against what properly removes [an obstacle], not against what disposes a passive subject for receiving.

Again second, according to this way [the second way, n.351], because the agent intellect in idea of active element does not exceed the possible intellect in idea of passive element; therefore, whatever is caused by the agent intellect is received in the possible intellect. Therefore, the first term of action of the agent intellect is received in the possible intellect, and so since the first action of the agent intellect is to the universal in act, this universal, or that by which it has such being, is received in the possible intellect.

[Reasons on the part of the more and less common] – According to the third way [n.351] I argue as follows: a less universal habit and a more universal habit are distinct proper habits, otherwise metaphysics as metaphysics would not be a habit of the intellect because it would be about the object the most universal as to all other objects. But it is possible to use a more universal habit without using any other less universal habit, just as it is possible to have an act of understanding about what is more universal (in the way it is considered by that habit) without having an act about what is less universal. But an act of understanding about what is more universal is not had unless it [what is more universal] is present to the intellect under that sort of idea. Therefore, what is more universal can be present to the intellect through something other than that through which there is in the intellect the presence of something less universal. But if an object were precisely understood in the phantasm, the more universal would never be present save in the less universal, because never present save in an imaginable singular. Therefore etc.

Again lastly as to this way [n.351]: the more universal is never apprehended according to its total indifference when it is apprehended in its inferior.⁷ For the total indifference of the more universal is according to the fact that, as conceived, it is the same as any of its inferiors; but never is the more common as conceived in some inferior the same as each inferior, but precisely the same as that in which it is conceived. Therefore, any universal conceived in a singular, or the more common in the less common, is not conceived according to its total indifference; but the intellect can conceive it according to its total indifference; therefore, the more common is not precisely conceived in the less common, or the universal in the singular, and so not the universal precisely in the phantasm. For a phantasm is only properly of the singular, and this insofar as it is a singular of the most specific species – and this if the phantasm is impressed by something properly approximate [cf. n.73].

From the second member¹ [n.351], namely from the presence of the object, the first consequence is proved [n.349]. First as follows: Either the intellect can have an object present to it in idea of intelligible object, without the fact it is present to any inferior power, or it cannot. If it cannot, then, it cannot have any operation without the inferior powers (because it cannot have an object present without them), and if it cannot have an operation without them, then it cannot be without them, according to the Philosopher in his preface to On the Soul [1.1.403a3-10]. But if it can have an object present without the object’s presence to an inferior power, then it has [sc. an operation without the inferior powers]. The consequence is proved because the agents of such presence of the object, namely the phantasm and the agent intellect, are close enough to the possible intellect, and they act by way of nature, and so they necessarily cause in it that of which it is itself receptive.²

Second as follows: the other cognitive powers have an object present to them, not merely secondarily (namely because the [objects] are present to other inferior powers), but in its proper presentiality, just as the common sense has color present to it, not only insofar as color is present to sight, but because it has the species of color present in the organ of the common sense. Therefore, since this is a mark of perfection in the cognitive power (to be able to have an object present to it under the idea in which it is an object of this sort of power), it follows that not only can it have an object present to it because it is present to the imaginative power, but can have it in its proper presentiality, insofar, namely, as it shines forth for the intellect through something that is in the intellect.

Again third; if a power not able to have an act save about an object present to it cannot have that object present save through another power with which it is contingently conjoined, it depends in its operation on such power contingently conjoined with it, and so it is imperfect. But the intellect cannot have an act save about an object present to it and, for you, it cannot have an object present save in the power of imagination [n.340]. But the power of imagination is contingently conjoined to the intellect insofar as it is a power; therefore, the intellect in its operation depends on another power to which it is contingently conjoined, and so this puts an imperfection in it of cognitive power [cf. Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 4 q.7]; but no imperfection is to be posited in any nature unless a necessity appear in such nature; therefore such imperfection is not to be posited in the intellect.

If you object that plurality is only to be posited where there is necessity, here there is no necessity, therefore etc. – I reply: there is necessity when the perfection of nature requires it. Now although this supposit which is man could have an object present in a phantasm, because he is a man, yet the intellectual nature of man, as it is intellectual, does not have an object sufficiently present if it has it only in a presence begged from the imaginative power. This therefore much cheapens intellective nature as it is intellective, because removed from it is that which belongs to perfection in a cognitive power, and that it is found in the sensitive power as in the imaginative power. Therefore, plurality is being posited here on account of necessity, because on account of saving the greater or at least equal perfection of a more perfect nature, greater than belongs to a more imperfect nature.

This also which I have proved above [nn.352-370] seems to be the express intention of Aristotle in On the Soul [3.8.431b21-23] where, maintaining that the soul is “in some way everything,” he expounds himself by as it were proving that the soul is “sensible things through the senses and knowable things through science.”

Others expound this statement of the Philosopher by saying that Aristotle is not speaking uniformly in this case and that, because about the senses he means it as to impressed species and about the intellect as to the habit of science.

This exposition [n.372] does not seem to be to the intention of the Philosopher because, just as the ancients posited the soul to be everything really in order that it might know everything, so does the Philosopher posit that it is everything not really, but by a certain likeness [n.121]. Now if it were sensibles through the senses because of the impressed species or likenesses, and were intelligibles through the intellect, then either this would be because of the science that is in the intellect, and in this way [the soul] would not be knowables by a likeness, for science in itself (setting aside the species representing the object) is not a likeness of the intelligible; or it would be because of something else representing the intelligible object, and then the intellect would not be intelligibles by the intelligible species but the soul would be through phantasms; for nothing would be there representing the intelligible save the phantasm alone, according to this sort of position.

Again Aristotle in Physics [8.4.255a33-5b5], and in com.30 according to the Commentator, posits that by acquired science the intellect is reduced from essential potency to accidental potency. I ask what does he understand by ‘science’? Not a habit following the act, because when the intellect performed the act it was not in essential potency. Therefore a form preceding the act; therefore, an intelligible species. Proof: both because a phantasm does not reduce the intellect to accidental potency, and because then all science that is said to be a habit of the quiddity of the first object [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 9 q.4; Scotus, Ord. Prol. n.145] would be in imagination; therefore every habit about the same thing would be in the same place, because according to the Philosopher [Posterior Analytics, 2.3.90b20-21] intellect and science are the same habit.

More expressly to this effect is the intention of Augustine. I prove this as follows: for nothing is sufficiently of a nature to generate actual knowledge unless it have an object naturally prior to the act, an object present to it in itself or in something that represents it. But, by denying intelligible species, the whole intellective part does not have an object present to it before the act of understanding, either in itself or in something that represents it; therefore, by denying intelligible species, nothing in the intellective part will be sufficiently of a nature to generate an act of understanding, and so nothing in the intellective part will be sufficiently a memory with respect to such intellections – which Augustine denies in On the Trinity 12.4 n.4 and 15.10 n.17

If you reply that the memory is in the intellective part properly taken, by the fact the intellect has come to be in first act of understanding, and thus is it active with respect to second act of understanding, such that, possessing a confused first knowledge, it is active in respect of a second distinct knowledge – this is against him [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.58 q.2, a.59 q.2; also Scotus, Ord. I d.2 nn.273-280] who thinks this opinion and against Augustine. Against him who thinks this, because he posits [Henry, Quodlibet 5 q.25; cf. infra n.450] that the universal as it is in a phantasm is there as if in the memory; but as moving to an act of understanding it is present there as if in the intelligence. Therefore, by that opinion, to be sure, no act of understanding is of the memory but of the intelligence [cf. Scotus, Ord. I d.2 nn.290-291]. This appears from Augustine On the Trinity 15 ch.21 n.40, “those who attribute to intelligence everything that is thought etc.”

This point is likewise proved by reason, because then: either the act by which the memory is in first act will be the same as the act of intelligence, and then the same thing will be the idea of generating itself. Or it will be different from it, and then it will either be simultaneous with the act of intelligence (and then two acts are together), or it will not be simultaneous, and then memory will formally generate when it will not exist. For memory formally exists by that which, for you [n.376; cf. Scotus, Ord. I d.2 n.299], does not exist when the second act is generated.

If you also say [Henry, Quodlibet 5 q.25] that memory exists through the habit of science, this does not stand along with the opinion, because it says that by the habit the object is only present in a phantasm, and so someone who has the habit must have recourse to a phantasm in order actually to understand. Therefore, the object is not present precisely through a habit but through a phantasm, which is not in the intellective part. And this will be plainer in the response to the authorities of Augustine [nn.345, 393-397], who posits science to be in the memory and not a species impressed on the intellect, as is argued [by Henry, n.345] from his words.¹