Disputationes metaphysicae

1. Before judgement there can be understood in the intellect the power of understanding itself, the intelligible species, under which I comprehend the other habits, the very act of knowledge as it is in becoming, and the apprehension itself. It can be doubted, then, first, whether this truth can be said to be in the intelligible species, or in the act, or in the concept, or in the habit, or in the power of understanding itself. For St. Thomas, Contra Gentiles I, c. 59, first reason, in the words cited above, indicates that it is only in the concept or word of the mind, where Ferrariensis so understands him, and adds that it is not in the act of understanding, because it is not an image nor does it represent the object. Whence he infers that truth is in the intellect prior in the order of nature to the intellect knowing the thing represented through the concept, because the action of the intellect is terminated at the concept prior in the order of nature to its knowing the thing represented in it. In which sense St. Thomas seems to have said, De veritate, q. 1, a. 1, that knowledge is an effect of truth. But of the intelligible species he says that truth is in it in so far as it too represents the object and according to that representation has conformity with it, yet in an imperfect mode, in so far as the representation of the species is imperfect, and in so far as habit is compared to act as imperfect to perfect. But of the power of understanding itself and its judicative habit, and that which holds itself on the side of the power, he says nothing; yet consequently he would say that truth is not in them either, because they do not represent the object.

2. But we must suppose that the discussion here is only of the truth of knowledge. But we believe that knowledge comes about formally through the concept or word of the mind as informing the intellect itself; but that the concept or word of the mind is not distinguished in the thing itself from the act of understanding in so far as it is something made by the intellect, or a quality in its made state; but that intellection, in so far as it is an action in becoming, is distinguished modally from the word, as action or dependence is wont to be distinguished from the term. Since, therefore, knowledge simply signifies actual knowledge, the truth of knowledge absolutely and simply is in the concept or word, or the act of understanding in its made state, because all these are the same and signify the form by which the intellect becomes actually knowing, as if we said that the truth of the hot as such is in heat. But in the action of understanding as such there is not indeed the truth of knowledge, because that action is not knowledge simply, but the way to knowledge; yet, in the way in which it is, it has its truth, as heating, although it does not have the truth of heat, nevertheless has the truth of heating, because it is a true tending to heat; for so the action of understanding too is a true tending to the knowledge of the thing. And although it is said not to represent after the manner of a form, it nevertheless represents after the manner of a way, because it is a tending to true representation; the truth of knowledge, therefore, can be said to be in becoming in the act of understanding as it is an action. But in the intelligible species there is not the truth of knowledge except as in its principle and first act; yet there is in it proper entitative truth, by reason of which it is called the true intelligible species of such an object. To which it matters nothing whether the intelligible species represents formally as an image, or only effectively and virtually as a seed of the object, because by whatever reason it represents, according to it it can have its truth through due commensuration to such an object; just as the seed of man does not indeed have in itself the truth of human nature except virtually or instrumentally, yet has the truth of human seed according to the due proportion and relationship to such a nature or action. Whence it also comes about that the power of understanding, or the light of the intellect, or the habit perfecting it, do not formally and properly have per se the truth of knowledge of which we are treating, as is self-evident; yet they have their accommodated truth, which can radically be called the truth of knowledge, in so far as the intellectual light is true in so far as of itself it inclines to the true knowledge of the thing; and the same holds in its own way of the habit.

3. From which it is finally understood that what was said is false, that truth is in the concept of the mind, or in the intellect through the concept, prior in nature to the intellect actually understanding, because the concept of the mind, or word, is not prior in nature to its being in the intellect; for it does not come about except through eduction from its potency, and therefore it does not come about in any sign of nature in which it is not united to the intellect, so that the intellect can concur to its production after the manner of an active and receptive potency; therefore the word does not have truth prior in nature to its formally communicating it to the intellect; therefore neither is truth in it prior in nature to the intellect being actually knowing. The last consequence is evident, because the intellect is not constituted actually knowing otherwise than through the information of the word or concept. The truth of knowledge, therefore, is first and per se in the intellect actually knowing through the word, concept, or act in its made state, as through the form by which it actually knows. Whence what St. Thomas says in the said place, De veritate, q. 1, a. 1, that knowledge is a certain effect of truth, is to be understood either of fundamental truth, which is the very being of the thing, from which as from its object knowledge has it that it is true; or of the truth of conformity, which is through the intelligible species; or certainly of the formal effect which the true concept gives to the mind.

Of apprehensive knowledge

4. Secondly, it can be doubted whether the truth of knowledge is in apprehensive knowledge or only in judicative. And the reason for doubting can be that simple knowledge is only apprehensive, and yet we said that truth is in it. Likewise in the senses there is simple truth, as we said above from Aristotle, and yet in them there is only apprehensive knowledge. Finally, in apprehensive composition, even if the intellect cannot discern and judge whether there is truth or falsity in it, nevertheless one of these is truly in such an apprehension; for, if the vocal proposition is necessarily either true or false, much more the mental, even only apprehensive. On the contrary, however, is the fact that the intellect is not denominated true or false except when it judges. For although I apprehend this proposition, the stars are even in number, if I doubt and suspend judgement, I am neither false nor true; it is therefore a sign that in that apprehension there is neither truth nor falsity, otherwise it would denominate true or false. Whence, where Aristotle says, Metaphysics VI, c. 2, that truth is in the mind, in Greek the word is dianoia, which signifies judgement or understanding.

5. The answer is that the truth of knowledge is properly in judgement, and that any act of the intellect participates as much of this truth as it participates of judgement. For, if the matter is attentively regarded, the intellect knows nothing truly until it judges; therefore neither can it be true or false in knowing until it judges; therefore the truth of knowledge cannot be except in judgement. The antecedent is manifest in compositive knowledge; for when the intellect apprehends a composition and suspends assent, it is because it is ignorant whether in truth those extremes are so conjoined in the thing as they are apprehended through the composition. As in the said example of the apprehension of this composition, the stars are even in number, although the intellect knows in some way what the stars are and what an even number is, it is nevertheless altogether ignorant whether those two are conjoined in the thing, and therefore, although it apprehends the composition, it does not judge; but conversely it cannot happen that the intellect composes the predicate with the subject, actually knowing their conjunction which they have, or are thought to have, in the thing, without judging it to be so or not to be. Because, if it knows all this, there is nothing which judgement could add. The judgement of composition, therefore, consists in that knowledge by which the predicate is known to belong to the subject; by reason of which we said above with St. Thomas that truth is in the intellect composing as the known in the knower. In this way, then, the truth of composition is properly only in judicative knowledge.

6. But simple knowledge, which is wont to be called simple apprehension, is capable of some truth in so far as it is knowledge and participates some notion of judgement. For although the conception through simple acts is wont to be called simple apprehension in so far as the knowing power forms in itself a likeness of the thing and in a certain way draws it to itself, and in order that it may be distinguished from proper judgement, which is given by us when we compose one thing with another or divide them, nevertheless, in so far as that very apprehension is some knowledge of the thing, it is also some kind of judgement, by which it is implicitly judged that the thing is that which we know of it. And in this way in such apprehension or simple knowledge of the thing judgement is in some way included, because, since that apprehension is an act of a cognitive power, something must necessarily be known through it; but what is known is by that reason judged; for what cannot be judged is unknown.

7. Wherefore to the former reasons for doubting the answer is that in the simple apprehension of the intellect there is some kind of judgement, although imperfect, and according to it there is in that act the truth of knowledge. And the same must be said, proportion being kept, of the knowledge of sense; for when the sheep conceives the wolf and flees, although it has only a simple act, it nevertheless truly knows it as an enemy and so judges, although in an imperfect mode; and sight, while it knows this white thing, also in some way judges this to be white. But if sometimes the intellect or the imagination seems to apprehend something simply, judging nothing at all, as when a golden mountain or a chimera or something similar is feigned, then something is not apprehended as a true thing, but either as possible, at least as regards that figure under which it is apprehended, or as imaginable, or signifiable by a word; in which way some say that then the signification of the word is apprehended rather than some thing. Whence then only that is known which would arise if these or those parts were conjoined, and so this very thing is in some way judged, and in the same way there is some simple truth in an apprehension of this kind, because in truth that object is apprehended or known to be such as would arise if those parts were joined in the thing.

8. Whence to the other part, about apprehensive composition, the answer is, first of all, that mental compositions of this kind, which are without judgement, regularly come about through concepts of words rather than of things, because, since in the thing itself the conjunction of predicate with subject is not known, neither is it apprehended according to the thing, but according to the word or copula signifying such a union. But if this is so, then that apprehensive composition is in the mind, as they call it, not ultimate, and in it there is truth or falsity not as in knowledge, but only as in a conventional sign, as it is in a word or in writing. Next it is said that, if this non-judicative apprehension is said to be in some way in the compositive concept of the things themselves, either this is only in so far as through it something is conceived and something else is unknown, or it is only apprehended in order to the signification of the word. The former mode will be if I conceive the stars as even in number and know this to be possible and am ignorant whether it is so. And then, as regards that which is known, the knowledge is not only apprehensive but also judicative, and consequently either true or false; but as regards the other, as it is not judicative knowledge, so it is neither true nor false. Indeed neither is it apprehensive after the manner of the composition of the intellect affirming or denying, but after the manner of a certain simple apprehension of that possible enunciation, of which it is doubted whether it is so or not. For if this is not known through such a concept, namely that this is possible, I do not see what can be apprehended there through a true composition which would include the copula de inesse; therefore it can only be apprehended after the manner of a question whether this is so or is not, and then it is not necessary that there be there any truth or falsity. The latter mode will be if the extremes of that composition, or the composition itself, are apprehended only in so far as it is something signified by this word, for example the stars are even in number; and then too the intellect does not apprehend something by affirming or denying, but as it were by simply apprehending this as the significate of that word, whether it is so in the thing or not; and as regards that first some knowledge is involved there, and consequently something of simple truth. In this way, then, every truth of knowledge, in the way in which it is, exists in judgement.