New Book: Cognitive Issues in the Long Scotist Tradition

 A book has appeared, edited by Heider and Andersen. Available here.

The blurb:

The late-scholastic school of Scotism (after John Duns Scotus, † 1308) left considerable room for disagreement. This volume innovatively demonstrates just how vividly Scotist philosophers and theologians discussed cognitive matters from the 14th until the 17th century. It further shows how the Scotist ideas were received in Protestant and Reformed milieus.

Lagerlund on Cross

Here is Henrik Lagerlund's review of Richard Cross' book on Scotus' theory of cognition. Lagerlund does not take issue with any of Cross' interpretations of Scotus, at least insofar as they are grounded (or not) in the texts of Scotus.

There still has not been a review from within the Scotus guild. Some criticism of Cross' interpretations can be found in John van den Bercken's recent essay on the powers of the soul. Pini, in his essay on objective being and Scotus seems generally dismissive, and I have some criticisms forthcoming hopefully later this year (I hope... it's been done since 2014). But no review from establishment Scotism.

Scotus on Whether God can be named by a Wayfarer

Rep. I d. 22 q. un. (trans. Wolter/Bychkov II, p. 11 ff., slightly modified)

I reply to the question, then, that it is possible for the pilgrim to assign some name in order to signify distinctly the essence of God in itself, even though he may not know that [essence]. Now whether this is actually the case or not, I do not doubt that he [at least] can use a name given by himself or someone else for the purpose of expressing such an essence distinctly. For we do use many names given by God or the angels, as well as by us, in order to express or signify distinctly something in itself, e.g., God or other things.

...

But if the question is understood in the senes of referring to the person to whom I address a name, I say that just as I intend to express distinctly that essence of God in itself through that name, so he intends to conceive it through that name, although neither I who use it, nor he to whom I address it, could understand distinctly that essence that I intend to express distinctly in this manner, with him [subsequently intending] to use the name thus expressed in this way. Nor is this to be wondered at. For we talk the whole day trying to distinguish the essence as it is in itself from the relations and attribute perfections, [saying] that it is an abyss and a sea of infinite substance. Now whatever, considered in itself, can be distinguished from everything else in this way can, for example, be called a, and afterwards we use this [appellation.]

But is it possible, in the case if God is expressed distinctly through some name, for a pilgrim to have or express some distinct concept about him as he is in himself, by means of which [the pilgrim] could understand or comprehend [God]?

Response: I say that it is not, because nothing moves the intellect of the pilgrim naturally in his present state to [produce] a distinct notion or concept of something, except if the latter's sense image [in the imagination], together with the agent intellect, can become the sufficient causes that move the possible intellect to [produce] such concepts, because such a concept only depends upon these [images] as its causes. But those things of which there cannot be a sense image cannot, in conjunction with the agent intellect, move the possible intellect to a distinct and perfect knowledge of them, but only to common and general concepts that apply indifferently to them and other things. Now God has no [corresponding] sense image, because he is not a body nor is informed by accidents, and therefore he cannot move the intellect of the pilgrim to have some distinct concept of him, but only to [produce] common and general concepts that apply indifferently to him and other things. Therefore, as we know him, we can have no concept distinct from [concepts of] other things to express [God ] as he is in himself.

Also, in our experience, we do not form some irreducibly simple concept of God thorugh which we could distinguish God from 'not God,' because in this way we would know him in his entirety [already] in this life. [...] if God were known bu us in his entirety, he would not be known [to us] in compound common concepts [put together by joining simple concepts] with one another, e.g. under the notion of an infinite being [or] a purest infinite act. Such concepts, which we can have about God in this life, are more specific and more proper, and nevertheless any such concept is resolvable into prior notions that are simple, common, and not proper to God. This is evident in the case of 'infinite being' [or] 'first principle', because the first is resolvable into entity and infinity, the second into primacy and origination, which are prior to the compound ones.

Ockham the Scotist?

Ockham begins his Ordinatio with a three hundred seventy page epistemological Prologue, a precedent established in Henry's Summa. The first, seventy-five page, question, misleadingly titled "Whether it is possible for the intellect of a Wayfarer [i.e. a human being still in the present state of life] to have evident knowledge of the truths of theology," is in fact mostly about establishing the distinction between intuitive and abstractive cognition. This distinction was pioneered by Scotus (I've written about it over here), but quickly became standard and is one of the major indicators of earlier versus later scholasticism.

Ockham's account differs from Scotus' in a number of ways. Probably the most significant is that for Scotus intuitive cognition is by definition characterized by the actual existence and presence of the intuited object to the cognitive power apprehending it: when I consider something in the abstract it might exist or might not exist, so far as my ability to think about it is concerned, but if I'm going to see something it really has to be there in front of me; for Ockham, on the other hand, the existence of the intuited object is not strictly necessary. He has a simple argument for this: the object is one thing; the intuitive act, as a quality of my mind, is another, wholly distinct thing; of two separate and distinct created things either one can exist without the other, at least by the power of God; therefore the mental act can exist without the object. - Never mind the problems this raises!

As I mentioned, Scotus seems to have originated the distinction and when Ockham was writing it was not universally established. Some people must not have liked the use Ockham was putting it to, because he seems to have been accused of introducing dangerous novelties into his theology, and he defends himself by appealing to Scotus. This is rich, since Scotus is a kind of intellectual arch-enemy to Ockham, although he's deeply indebted to him even when he's engineering his antipodes. This is an interplay we've written about before. In any case, in this first question Ockham quotes and alludes to Scotus' writings on intuitive and abstractive cognition pretty extensively. Some Scotists seem to have accused him of misinterpreting the Doctor. In places Scotus talks as though the only thing we have direct intellectual intuition of in this life are our own internal acts, while Ockham says that we also have intuition of external sensible objects. He attempts to show that at least in certain places Scotus thinks the same thing. And then, in a remarkable passage:

And if someone should say that elsewhere he claims the opposite, that moves me but little, for I don't take him as an authority, nor do I hold this opinion because he said it, but because I think it true. And if elsewhere he says the opposite, I don't care. But here he holds it, and therefore his followers ought not to condemn it as a novelty.

Et si dicatur quod alibi ponit oppositorum, illud parum movet me, quia non allego eum tamquam auctoritatem, nec dico praedictam opinionem quia ipse dixit eam, sed quia reputo eam veram. Et ideo si alibi dixit oppositum, non curo. Hic tamen tenuit eam, et ideo sequaces sui non debent eam contemnere tamquam novam.

Am I the only one who senses in this outburst of attitude a big chip on Ockham's shoulder about Scotus and the Scotists? This is how Peter Olivi sounds sometimes about Aristotle. Attitude aside, however, it's a salutary sentiment worthy of a real philosopher.

Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition

This post is meant to belong to the series Fundamenta Scoti, all of which so far have been by Faber, so it seems to be my turn. The subject of intuitive and abstractive cognition didn't appear on Faber's original list, but it's an important and influential part of Scotus' thought, so here it is.

To begin with, let's briefly recall how thinking works in Aquinas, whose epistemology is probably the scholastic one most familiar to any readers coming here. For Aquinas it goes, roughly speaking, like this: first the senses receive sense impressions. From these sense impressions the mind forms phantasms, reproductions or representations of the sense-data in the imaginative power. Out of the phantasms the intellect abstracts universal intelligible content, forming intelligible species, which are always and necessarily universal. Understanding consists in the apprehension of these intelligible species. When we want to understand something about individuals, what we do is take our understanding of the universal intelligible content and apply it back, in a kind of reflex action, upon the individual phantasms, which always and necessarily represent singulars, understanding that this universal is the intelligible content of this singular. (For Aquinas anything not universal in the singular material object is matter, which is intrinsically unintelligible.)

For Scotus things are different. Besides what is abstracted as a universal there is an irreducible singularity to a form, a haecceitas or thisness which makes the thing not only "such-and-such" a thing but also "this" thing. Since the principle of individuation is formal, not material, it is also intelligible, which means that, contrary to Aquinas, it is not the case that all intellection is of universals.

In addition to this Scotus recognizes a kind of cognition which Aquinas either does not or else doesn't flesh out very fully. In addition to abstractive cognition there is also a kind of cognition he calls intuitive, which is related to abstractive roughly as vision is to imagination, and indeed Scotus calls intuitive cognition a kind of intellectual "vision". Abstractive cognition abstracts from actual existence, and its object can be considered regardless of whether it is real or imaginary or hypothetical or past or distant; intuitive cognition is the kind of knowledge we have of something as existing and present to us in its actual existence. Key texts in which Scotus considers this distinction are found in Ordinatio Book II Dist. 3 P.2 Q.2, and in Questions on the Metaphysics Book VII Q.15. Here's a snippet from the latter:

There is a double intellection; one quidditative which abstracts from existence; the other, which is called “vision,” is of the existent as existent. The first, although it is generally of the universal, can be primarily of the singular . . . For the singular of itself is not determined to existence, because is abstracts from it just as the universal does. The second intellection is of both together, i.e. of the singular insofar as it is existing. And in this way . . . it does not include some accident but only existence, which does not pertain to the individual’s formula, neither insofar as it is a quiddity, nor insofar as the singular participates in this quiddity.

In addition to the familiar kind of cognition in which the intellect abstracts a universal from the phantasm, here Scotus argues that there is another way for our minds to encounter things, a direct and immediate “act of simple awareness in which some object is grasped . . . as present and existing here and now.” (The quote is from Allan Wolter.) The fact that we apprehend our own mental acts and memories has been cited as evidence that our minds grasp singulars not only in their common natures but also qua singulars, even if not in their very singularity. This distinction between these two kinds of cognitions makes this possible, although it may require some elucidation.

I cannot apprehend my thoughts or my memories (or take mental cognizance of any of my experiences) only as thoughts or memories in general, but only as my thought which I am thinking now, or my experience which was given to me then and there. Grasping my thought in this way is different from grasping the absolute nature of thought; knowing my thoughts involves knowing of their actual existence, even if in this particular thought of mine which I consider I can find nothing to distinguish it from every other thought. Thinking about the nature of thought in general (as when I think about logic) and considering the particular train of thought I am engaged in now are examples of “a double intellection; one quidditative which abstracts from existence; the other, which is called ‘vision,’ is of the existent as existent.” An analogy can be drawn between these two cognitions and the two faculties of sense and imagination; both sense and imagination involve the presentation of images to the awareness but imagination can take place without the presence or existence of its object: it is “abstractive”; while sensation only happens when an existent object is present to act upon the sense-faculty to directly produce the sense act: it is “intuitive.” Now just as the imagination presents singular images abstracted from existence, so the intellect in the type of thinking Aristotelians are most familiar with considers concepts whose objects may either exist or not. These abstractive concepts, Scotus points out, are usually but not always universals: I can think about the rage of Achilles as well as the serenity of Socrates, even if the one probably never existed and the other did, for both Achilles and his rage are intelligible as individuals whether they ever actually were or not. And when I think of Achilles and Socrates I don’t primarily think “man” and then add some determining difference to distinguish them, but first I think of the individuals, under whom “Greek” and “man” and “ancient” are included (though only one of whom perhaps also includes “wise”).

On the other hand, just as sensations only occur when the sense-object is existing, present and acting on the sense-organ, so Scotus argues that there must be an analogous intellectual activity which is so moved. One reason to think this is because of an argument Scotus advanced at the beginning of the Question, that the intellect as the superior power must know whatever the inferior sense power does. Superior power or not, however, according to the accepted maxim whatever is in the intellect (at least as regards material objects) was first in the senses, and here the intellect shares some of the defects of the sense. The intellect, like the sense powers, perceives the singular as singular without apprehending the singularity precisely speaking. Socrates and Achilles can both then be understood as individuals having the same quiddity, and as either existing or not existing, “for the singular of itself is not determined to existence, because it abstracts from it just as the universal does.” Only Socrates, however (presuming Achilles to be a non-existing fictional character), can be both seen and understood as “this singular insofar as it is existing.” This intellectual grasp however is only sufficient for the intellect to know the existence of something as a “this”; for the knowledge of quiddities, either of the essential nature or the quiddities of the accidents, pertains to abstraction, and the sense is not moved by the singularity which contains the quiddities per se.

(By the way, . Much of the difficulty for other philosophers on this issue and on the intelligibility of singulars in general came from the traditional Aristotelian axiom that while sense was concerned with particulars, the understanding pertained to universals. Some non-Christian philosophers took this to mean that the intellect was as unconcerned with particulars as the senses were with universals, to the extent that even God does not know individuals, a doctrine which seems to contain traces of the platonic tendency against which Scotus has been fighting from the beginning. While none of Scotus’ Christian opponents could follow the implications of the axiom so interpreted to such extremes, they still had difficulties in grappling with it. In the passage just cited Scotus shows that the axiom can be interpreted to mean that the intellect can do something the senses cannot, without meaning that sense has a domain of its own from which the intellect is excluded, thus eliminating the difficulty. See Sebastian Day, Intuitive Cognition: A Key to the Later Scholastics, 59-60.)

In men, intuitive intellectual cognition, since it never acts without the sense in considering material things, is subject to the limitations of sense in a way that an intellect not hampered by such restrictions would not be. Scotus writes:

The intellect immediately receptive of the action of the object can be moved by singularity; not however that which is receptive through the mediacy of a natural action. Only the first is [true of] the angelic intellect which sees immediately the material singular. The second is [true of] our intellect, on which nature acts only through the mediacy of something begotten in the sense, which can be called a material natural action, with respect to that which is intelligible, operative on the intellect.

God, on the other hand, has no need for universal concepts. This is because God knows everything he knows by an immediate intuitive cognition. Not having to rely on intermediary senses and images to think with, he has no need to abstract anything from them. Our minds, however, are limited in what they can grasp intuitively and must rely on abstraction for the rest, which as it turns out is not wholly adequate.

Scotus' theory of how we think about sensible things seems to go something like this.. The sense faculty apprehends the substance as a “simul totum,” as a unified conglomeration of attributes, colors and noises and shapes and smells, etc., and alongside this activity the intellect has an intuitive grasp of the fact that the sense is perceiving this “simul totum,” this existing acting something. From the phantasm of the attribute-conglomeration the intellect removes accidents one by one until it grasps the nature underlying them: my mind understands that this short white bald Greek-speaking something is a man, to whom the accidents short and white as so forth belong. “And thus,” Scotus continues, “the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem of the reflection is something confused and in the middle it is distinct.” I take it that the terminus a quo is the confused conglomeration in the phantasm. The nature stands in the middle and is understood distinctly because it is the primary principle of assimilable action in the substance. But the mind can penetrate no further before becoming entangled in the accidents. Socrates acts on my mind to the extent that I understand not only the common nature humanity but also the fact that this something acting on me (known by intuitive cognition) is this man (known by abstractive cognition). I can therefore name him not only by species but as an individual. But when I attempt to go on and grasp what makes Socrates himself and no one else, all I have to fall back on are his characteristics of being short, bald, ugly, wise—-none of which are unable to be true of other men, either singly or all together. Even though Socrateity does not form an accidental unity with humanity, I only understand him in a quasi-accidental way, as the (an) individual man with these accidental, non-unique attributes. Thus the terminus ad quem remains confused as well. I know that containing the humanity and supporting all the accidents of Socrates is Socrateity, but I do not ever reach a concept of Socrateity which actually picks him out of all other possible men. “And without such a concept we never conceive the singular distinctly.”

Besides the way we encounter sensible objects, however, Scotus' account of intuitive cognition has widespread implications ranging from how we know our own acts to the nature of the beatific vision.

Noone on Scotus on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition

Here is a lecture by Dr. Timothy Noone on Scotus from the recent Scotus and Newman conference.

Ockham Quodlibet I.6-7

Can one angel speak to another? No of course not, because they can't hear; obviously they don't have ears! [This is actually the first argument in the question.]

But seriously, folks. Angels converse with mental speech and mental hearing, in other words by pure thought. For a concept, a mental word, is nothing but the act itself of cognition. Mentally speaking, then, is nothing other than to think in such a way that oneself or someone else can understand what is being thought about, and mental hearing is nothing other than to apprehend someone else's act of thought.

Ockham gives authorities for his view that concepts are nothing other than thought-acts, but his attempts are not convincing. Before he held this view Ockham had held his so-called fictum theory, according to which concepts are mental entities "feigned" or invented by the mind to signify its objects, but obviously he's abandoned that by the time of his quodlibet.

One interesting point in this question is his claim that in the ordinary course of nature neither an angel nor a man is able to hide his thoughts from other angels. Rather angels do not access our thoughts only because God does not allow it.

The seventh question also seems motivated by Ockham's anti-concept stance. He asks whether an angel can pass on to another knowledge which he has habitually, without actually thinking it in the process. He says that hit can, so long as the object about which the receiving angel is learning is something it already has some actual knowledge about. Ockham appears to be saying something to the effect that one angel can remember something he has actually experienced by means of another angel's memories, which strikes me as odd.

About things of which the passive angel does not have direct experience, however, only the actually-thought thoughts of the teaching angel can give him knowledge, especially about singulars.

Finally, Ockham says that angels can have discursive thought.

Scotus on Intentionality

Intentionality is a Big Deal in contemporary analytic and continental philosophy, and this was also true of medieval. In the following passage Scotus picks out four different senses of the word intention, only one of which is the "directedness" we today associate with the term.

Duns Scotus, Reportatio II d. 13 q. un (ed. Wadding-Vives vol. 23 p.44):

"...tamen hoc nomen intentio aequivocum uno modo dicitur actus voluntatis; secundo, ratio formalis in re, sicut intentio rei, a qua accipitur genus, differt ab intentione, a qua accipitur differentia; terio modo dicitur conceptus; quarto, ratio tendendi in obiectum, sicut similitudo dicitur ratio tendendi in illud cuius est..."

Nevertheless this term 'intention' is equivocal. In one way it is called the act of the will. In the second, the formal ratio in a thing, just as an intention of the thing, from which the genus is taken, differs by intention, from which is taken the difference. In the third way it is called a concept. In the fourth, the means of tending into an object, as a likeness is called a means of tending into that of which it is a likeness.

Duns Scotus on the Universal

The following snippets are from Scotus' QQ. super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis, Bk. VII q. 18 (opera philosophica IV, p. 348-49, 351). They are of interest to me at the moment because they have an obvious bearing on the issues related to intelligible being; indeed, Petrus Thomae paraphrases the first quotation in his QQ. de esse intelligibli q.1.

"...universale restat videre primo an sit in intellectu. Et distinguo quod dupliciter potest aliquid esse in intellectu obiective, sicut modo loquimur de 'esse in'. Uno modo habitualiter, et alio modo actualiter; sive in actu primo et secundo. Primo modo est ibi quando est ibi ut immediate motivum ad intellectionem, secundo modo quando actualiter intelligitur. Ista esse secundum positionem Avicennae, simul sunt tempore, licet primum prius natura.

...

Ergo cum experiamur quod est aliquis intellectus in nobis quo est universale fieri, hoc est, cui insit aliquid per quod obiectum est praesens ut universale, necesse est aliquid esse activum illius. Et non extra, ut argutum est, ergo intra. Intellectus igitur agens, concurrens cum natura aliquo modo indeterminata ex se, est causa integra factiva obiecti in intellectu possibili secundum esse primum, et hoc secundum completam indeterminationem universalis. Nec est alia causa quare intellectus agens cum natura facit obiectum sic esse nisi quia est talis potentia, sicut nec quare calidum calefacit. Est ergo natura in potentia remota ad determinationem singularitatis et ad indeterminationem universalis; et sicut a producente coniungitur singularitati, ita a re agente et simul ab intellectu agente coniungitur universalitati."

Translation:

...it remains to see whether the univesal is first in the intellect. And I distinguish that something can be in the intellect objectively [ie., is an object of thought] in two ways, just as we speak now of 'being in'. In one way habitually, and in the other actually, whether in first act or second. The first way is there when it is there as immediately moving to intellection, the second way when it is actually understood. Those kinds of being, according to Avicenna, are simultaneous in time, although the first is prior in nature.

...

Therefore when we experience that there is some intellect in us by which the universal is made, that is, something present inside through which the object is present and universal, it is necessary that there be something that activates it. And not from outside, as has been argued, therefore from within. Therefore the agent intellect, concurring with a nature in some way indeterminate of itself, is the complete, "making" cause of the object in the possible intellect according to first being, and this according to the complete indetermination of the universal. Nor is there another cause whereby the agent intellect with a nature makes an object to be so unless because there is such a power/potency, as neither is there a reason why heat heats. The nature is therefore in remote potency to the determination of singularity and to the indetermination of the universal; and as by the producer it is joined to singularity, so from the agency of the thing and with the agent intellect it is joined to universality.

Auriol on Scotus on Intuitive Cognition and the Beatific Vision

Here is an interesting summary of some of Scotus' views by Peter Auriol, that seems to me to be fairly accurate. This is from a discussion of the nature of theology, specifically of Scotus and Godfrey's criticisms of Henry of Ghent's special mode of illumination restricted to theologians, the lumen medium.

Petrus Aurioli, Scriptum super primum Sententiarum, Prooemium sect. 2 (ed. Buytaert vol. 1 p. 191):

"Primo quidem, quid est notitia abstractiva et intuitiva. Est enim intuitiva, quae concernit rei praesentialitatem et existentiam, et terminatur ad rem ut in se existentem. Abstractiva vero dicitur quae abstrahit ab esse et non esse, existere et non existere, et a praesentialitate; quemadmodum rosam intueor dum eam praesentem conspicio, abstractive vero cognosco dum eius quidditatem et naturam considero. hae autem duae sunt possibiles in intellectu; certum est enim quod angelus intuetur rosam dum est; cuius tamen essentiam abstractive considerat, etiam dum non existit.

Secundo vero probant quod divina essentia possit cognosci abstractive, sicut et quelibet quiddiativa natura; Deus enim potest facere sola voluntate, quidquid facere potest mediante sua essentia; sed mediante sessentia movet intellectum beati ad suam notitiam claram et nudam, quae quidem est intuitiva, pro eo quod terminatur ad eam, ut praesentem realiter et existentem, quoniam ut sic movet. Ergo sola voluntate poterit movere intellectum ad notitiam suae essentiae nudae et clarae. Certum est autem quod talis notitia sub illa ratione terminatur ad divinam esentiam, sub qua ratione intellectus movetur ad eam; non movetur autem per praesentialitatem et existentiam essentiae divinae, sed per imperium omnipotentis voluntatis. Ergo nec terminabitur talis notita ad essentiam ut existentem et praesentem, sed ad essentiam mere abstrahendo ab existentia et praesentialitate et per conseuqens non erit intuitiva, sed potius abstractiva."

Translation:

First indeed, what is abstractive and intuitive knowledge. Intuitive knowledge is that which concerns the presence and existence of a thing, and is terminated to the thing as it is existing in itself. Abstractive cognition, however, is that which abstracts from being and non being, existence and non existence, and from presence[or presenciality]. Just as when I cognize a rose, I consider it as present, but when I know it abstractivly I consider its quiddity and nature. These are two possible [modes of cognition?] in the intellect; for it is certain that an angel knows a rose while it is, nevertheless it considers its essence abstractivly, even while it does not exist.

Second they prove that the divine essence can be known abstractivly, just as any other quidditative nature; for God can do by means of his will alone, whatever he can do by means of his essence; but by means of his essence he can move the intellect of the blessed to clear and naked knowledge of himself, which indeed is intuitive, on account of the fact that the intellect of the blessed terminates at the divine essence as really present and existing, since as such it moves. therefore by the will alone he can move the intellect to clear and naked knowledge of his essence. It is certain that such knowledge under that aspect is terminated to the divine essence, under which aspect the intellect is moved to it; it is not moved, however, by the presence and existence of the divine essence, but through the command of the omnipotent will. therefore such knowledge will not be terminated by the essence as existing and present, but to the essence merely by abstracting from the existence and presence and consequently it will not be intuitive but rather abstractive.

Theoremata Scoti, Pars III B 2

Now we proceed with the second part of the section section of part three of Scotus' Theoremata, on conceptual analysis. After the lone conclusion about act we begin the numbered conclusions about concepts.

Conclusion 1: The analysis of concepts has a stopping-point.

This is of course the same as the first conclusion in section A. The explanation is also similar. For otherwise by definition nothing would be perfectly knowable, because none of the more primary things which might belong to it would be perfectly knowable either. Analysis has to stop at something which just is understood. "For neither can we conceive of infinites in one act, nor in infinite [acts], which could not be passed through," and so forth.

Conclusion 2: Every analyzable concept is primarily analyzed into determinable and determining [concepts], since into potential and actual or into material and formal. The determinable concept is called quidditative, the determining qualitative. Therefore essentially [predicative concepts] exceed quidditative ones.

This is quite different from the second conclusion in section A, although related to material presented later on there. But Scotus has decided not to continue with the previous thought and see where this determinable/determining set of concepts leads him--which is somewhere quite different. Read on.

Conclusion 3: Determinable and determining essentially include nothing the same, nor does one include the other, and this they are fundamentally [primo] diverse.

This is of course related to the corollary following the second conclusion in section A, and follows from the same reasons given there.

Conclusion 4: There is some last determining [concept] of every analyzable [from Conclusion 1]; [it must be] unique [from the unnumbered conclusion at the end of the last post]; [it must be] simple, because it is the last [therefore not further analyzable].

"And this one is properly called the determining one, because whatever else in included in that concept is determinable with respect to it, although with respect to [something] prior it might be determining in some way, but not [with respect to] the total concept."

Corollary 1: Therefore there are as many analyzable concepts as there are properly determining ones [which are] primarily diverse from the determinable ones. . . . Corollary 2: Therefore there is no concept which is common to all, [...] but the analysis of anything stops with what is qualitatively unanalyzable.

Again, otherwise there is an infinite progression. And if there were not more than one primary and irreducible concept, then there could be no different concepts at all, since each would contain the same formal content.

Conclusion 5: Not just any concept is analyzed at once into qualitatively unanalyzable ones.

This is the converse of the preceding corollary. Because if it were otherwise, then any two concepts whatsoever would be primarily diverse, rather than (as is the case) many concepts sharing something in common as well as having something different. If every concept were immediately analyzable into primary constituents, everything would be in its own genus.

Conclusion 6: Quidditative concepts are more common than analyzed ones, but in analysis the posterior are more common than the prior.

Conclusion 7: There is a stopping-point in quidditative analysis at one first concept.

"But this concept is the most common [from Conclusion 6], and it is the concept of being."

Wait a minute! Hold on! Section A, especially Conclusions 2 and 5, were looking like a direct rejection of the univocity of the concept of being, which was strange and disconcerting, because this is Scotus after all. But now, after largely similar definitions and conclusions, Scotus is clearly affirming a univocal concept of being! What's going on? Perhaps the explanation which follows here explains the difference in the thinking between the earlier and later versions:

"Now there can be certainty about this and yet doubt remain; this is not true of any other quidditative concept: it would be certitude and doubt about the same concept. {*Interpolated note: One can know quidditatively that potency is a being, yet not know what kind of being or whether subject or accident.}

There is some more stuff on this subject, less clear than the foregoing, in the next few paragraphs. More helpful are the parallel texts from other works the editors give us. The key point here is that we can have the concept of being confusedly in a way that we can't with any other concept. I cannot really be unclear whether white is a quality or a quantity without simply failing to have the concept. I either know it or I don't. But I can be sure that it is something.

More immediately relevant to us is the application this have to Conclusion 5 in section A, which was, as we recall, "No identical concept is per se common to the created and the uncreated." Why does Scotus not repeat this? Because he's now being more clear about the difference between the concept of being and other concepts. Remember that properly-formed concepts about extramental things are not fictions, but have real adequation to the external world. And our concepts if true need to reflect the structure of things outside of ourselves. I can't think that man is a quality or that white is a place. This is not merely false but nonsense.

Now it is also nonsense to think that God and creatures have anything whatsoever in common. God does not exist in the way that man does; he does not belong to the genus of substance as man does, nor does he fall under any other genus. He's not the sort of thing that the rest of things are. And yet! He exists, and because the concept of being is indeterminate in any sense whatsoever, we can think that God is and not be wrong, as we would be wrong to attribute to him any other creaturely determination. So--just as Scotus says above that I can know that potency is a being while unsure whether it's a subject or accident or what kind of being--I can think accurately that God exists, without being sure whether God is temporal or eternal, material or immaterial, willing or bound by necessity, etc.

St Bonaventure makes this exact same point in his Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity. And it simply must be accepted as true, or else what philosophers and theologians have been doing for the last three thousand years is simply nonsense. Homer thought that divinity was plural and finite and was wrong, but he really was talking about the providential order of the universe. Aristotle thought God knew only himself and made the world by necessity, and was wrong, but he was talking about God. Tertullian and Manes thought God was a finely diffused material substance, and they were wrong, but they were talking about God. Therefore we allude to God using the same concept of "something that is" that we do to everything else, even though in point of metaphysical fact there is nothing whatsoever really in common between God and any creature.

Conclusion 8: There is only one most common quidditative concept.

Everything else will fall into some category. "Because if there were two, both would be included in any other quidditative [concept]. Therefore either one would be in the other and then one would be most common, or else neither in either and then one is determinable and the other determining, and so only one is quidditative." See Conclusions 1 and 6.

Conclusion 9: Some quidditative concepts are immediately contained under the first quidditative [concept].

These are "famously posited to be only ten," the categories which cannot be reduced to each other or to anything more common, except being, and are the ten primary genera. Being itself does not fall under any genus.

Conclusion 10: There is some qualitative concept denominating any quidditative one [...]

"This is proved, because the first denominating [concept] per se denominates whatever is below. These first ones denominate being as one, true, good. Thus they will denominate per se any quidditative [concept]. These are called the most common denominatives."

Conclusion 11: No most common denominative concept includes per se the first quidditative concept, nor therefore any inferior one, and so [they are] in no genus . . . Thus they are qualitative transcendentals.

Otherwise it would be nonsense to say "one being", since "one" and "being" would have an identical meaning, which they obviously don't.

So here we conclude with Scotus coming upon four transcendentals, one quidditative, three qualitative, which neither fall into any categories, describe any genera, nor follow the general rules applying to nearly every concept. None of this was included in the version of Theoremata part III labeled section A. Is it perhaps the case that we can't simply speak in the realm of concepts without examining the metaphysics behind them, since not every concept has the same kind of reference to the extramental world? Could it be the case that a denial of conceptual univocity comes from an insufficient examination of the uniqueness of the transcendentals? And--interesting as this conclusion may be--what does the difference between the two sections here tell us about the nature of the work we are examining? What exactly is Scotus doing in the Theoremata?

Further reflection will have to wait for later posts.

Theoremata Scoti, Pars III B 1

In Theoremata Part III, section B, Scotus starts in the same place as in section A, with the definition of the concept. Here, however, the treatment is fuller and soon veers off down an alternative path. This sort of thing is not unprecedented elsewhere in Scotus' works. It appears that more than once he will begin a treatment of a topic, change his mind about how he wants to approach it, and start over. But because of the unfinished state in which he left so many of his works, both versions end up in posthumous editions of the book as though they were distinct parts. For another example, see the QQ. In Metaphysical VII, questions 14 and 15.

All right, beginning again with the definition of a concept:

I call a concept an object understood in act, namely as it is in the intellect, not as the form [exists in itself], but as it is in the act of thought [in esse cognitum].

"Here 'to be in' is nothing except having an actual relation to the intellect, or the intellect [having an actual relation] to it, or either to either."

It's clear that Scotus is trying to be more clear here than in the parallel definition in section A. The follow-up explanation in part A was about terminology, but here instead Scotus goes on to define subsets of concepts, perhaps a more useful task. He divides concepts into several varieties and explains their differences:

"Every concept [which is] per se one is either altogether simple--that is, of which either nothing is conceived, or else the whole is--or it is not altogether simple, but rather incomplex." *{Interpolated note: That is, it is not composed of potency and act, as [for instance in the concept] of an infinite being.} "Infinite being" is not simple, because I can conceive "Infinite" and "Being" separately, but it's not a complex concept either, since "Infinite" is not exactly a determining characteristic of "Being"--since the latter, after all, is neither a genus nor in a genus.

"A concept is called analyzable, when it essentially includes several concepts, of which one can be conceived without the whole." For instance, "Triangle" can be analyzed into "Three" and "Plane Figure", etc., which can be conceived apart from "Triangle".

"Of concepts which are not per se one, [there are some] which are called aggregate, such as 'white man'; and about a fourth kind, called complex, and a fifth, called discursive, see below."

Now Scotus adds some remarks about how these varieties of concepts are related to one another.

"Every concept [can be] compared to any [which is] not altogether the same as itself: either it is primarily diverse from itk, if it agrees with it in no concept; or different, if it agrees in something and differs in something; or ordered, for instance if one whole [concept] includes another, but not conversely, the one is called including and the other included. Only an analyzable concept can be different [in the just-defined sense] and can include primarily diverse [concepts]; and an included one can itself be either simple or analyzable."

See? That's much more thorough! But the second definition is identical to its counterpart in section A:

Definition 2: That is said to be conceived first which is adequated to the intellect.

The third definition is going in the same direction as its counterpart, but is less clear and making a slightly different point:

Definition 3: Whatever is included in the primary [object] understood is per se not primary.

The fourth definition is similar to its counterpart but formulated differently:

Definition 4: [Something is] perfectly known on the part of the object when nothing pertaining to the object lies concealed.

And two corollaries:

Corollary: Therefore a simple [object], if it is conceived, is conceived perfectly. [Second corollary:] An analyzable [concept] may happen to be conceived imperfectly.

At this point Scotus starts doing something different than in section A. There are no new versions of definitions 5 and 6, but rather than moving directly to his conclusions, there's some additional business. After explicitly making the assumption that there are in fact some analyzable concepts, he looks in some more detail at how the different varieties of concepts are related to each other.

"Some concepts are not included [in others], such as the concepts of all singulars and lone [objects]. All others are included in these and are abstracted by analyzing from these." There follows an interpolated note, to the effect that things are conceived by us confusedly before being conceived distinctly. The main text goes on to say that something is conceived distinctly when conceived according to the way it is distinguished from other things; but is conceived confusedly when indistinctly. Therefore not everything which is not a first or primary object is conceived confusedly, because (for instance) a genus is conceived as distinctly in the concept of a definition as it is per se, yet then it is not conceived primarily, but the definition is primary.

Here Scotus reminds of the principle that "everything per se one and not simple is [contituted] from act and potency or from matter and form." He indicates that this is Aristotelian boilerplate, before going on to draw the following conclusion:

There is some unique and simple act of any composite.

"From that [act] is the unity of the composite in itself and [its] distinction from something else. For the act distinguishes, therefore it is proper. But it is unique, because anything belonging to the composite is potential with respect to it and so is not the act of this composite, although with respect to anything else in the composite it can be called an act. For the some [reason it is] simple; otherwise something belonging to it would be a further act."

Now Scotus seems to be wandering away from conceptual analysis and just doing straightforward metaphysics; for this reason the editors don't number this conclusion with the ones he draws from the definitions. But since this seems like enough for one post already, I will save the conclusions proper for the next sequel.

Theoremata Scoti, Pars III A

Part three of the Theoremata is divided into subsections, labeled by the editors "A" and "B". These appear to be two versions or two drafts of the same train of thought: Scotus gives some definitions, draws some corollaries, and makes some conclusions, all about conceptual analysis. Then he starts over with the same material, but takes it in another direction. This post looks at the first subsection.

Definition 1: I call that which terminates the act of understanding a concept.

"A concept is called either "object" or "intelligible" or "intellected" [intellectum] or "intention". The first is most common, because [it pertains] to all [intelligible] potencies. The second is common, because [it pertains] to the object understood either in potency or in act. The third is proper [i.e. is properly a concept]. The fourth is how the Arabs Avicenna and Averroes understand it. But just as "intention" is said equivocally of the object and of the act, so also is "concept". But here I take it to be the object."

Definition 2: That is said to be conceived first which is adequated to the intellect.

Scotus explains that by adequation he means that in the "first" concept what is understood is the whole object, not some part of the object.

Definition 3: Whatever is essentially included in the first concept is conceived per se.

For instance, whenever a species is conceived its genus is automatically conceived per se, and so for similar cases. When I conceived of "triangle" I also ipso facto conceive of "figure".

Definition 4: That and only that is perfectly conceived, of which nothing is concealed which is essentially included in it.

"'Perfect' is here understood [to mean] the act, not insofar as it is elicited from its potency, but insofar as it is compared to its object, namely so that nothing intrinsic to the object is unknown, in whatever mode it is being known."

Definition 5: A concept which cannot be analyzed into [simpler] concepts is simply simple.

Definition 6: A concept which is per se one, yet is analyzable into [simpler] concepts, is not simply simple.

For example: "triangle" can be analyzed into simpler concepts, namely "figure", "side", "three", etc. It is a simple concept--it can be grasped as a per se whole--but it isn't simple simpliciter.

Corollary: Therefore "essentially" belongs to more than is said "in quid".

Scotus next offers two premises establishing or assuming that his definitions have actual counterparts. There is something which can be conceived first and perfectly, and there are some concepts which are distinct.

From all the foregoing Scotus now draws several conclusions and corollaries:

Conclusion 1: The analysis of concepts has a stopping-point [status].

Here Scotus inserts a brief discussion of the inability of a finite power, such as the human mind, either to grasp infinites all at once or to be able to run through an infinite series. This is relevant to the following conclusions.

Conclusion 2: No concept [which is] one "in quid" can be predicated of all others.

There is no concept--call it a--which designates "what" something is as a whole which can be predicated of every other such concept. There is no common "what" under which every such concept can be subsumed. This is because, if there were, no other concept other than this hypothetical one a would be simply simple as defined above, since every other concept would include a as a factor or constituent. Therefore one and the same concept--every concept except for a--would include a concept of an infinite in itself, or rather would include actual infinities. For any concept other than a would include both a and something else, and that something else would include a and something else, and so on to infinity.

In addition to this argument Scotus offers two more for the same point.

Corollary: There is nothing in common between the concept of a genus and a difference, nor does one include the other; similarly with matter and form.

"Figure" does not include "Three Sides", when the difference "Three Sides" is added to "Figure" to produce "Triangle". We can't define "Triangle" as "Three-sided Figure with three sides". And so forth.

Another Corollary: Nor is a superior difference, which is included in a genus, included in an inferior difference. Otherwise definition would be pointless [nugatio] and there would be a progression to infinity with difference, because they would differ by their own differences.

This point is similar to the last one. "Animal" cannot include "Rational" and "Rational" cannot include "Animal", since the one is determinable by the other and vice versa.

Conclusion 3: The analysis of concepts will come to a stop at some first [concepts].

Definitions, etc., must be in terms of things which are themselves not reducible to something.

Corollary: a determining and a determinable never include one concept, nor does one of them include the concept of the other per se.

As though it follows from the foregoing, Scotus finishes this subsection, without further explanation or argument, with a conclusion which seems to contradict the theory of conceptual univocity which he holds elsewhere:

Conclusion 5: No identical concept is per se common to the created and the uncreated.

What to make of all this? Stay tuned for more!

Theoremata Scoti, Pars I

The first part of Scotus' infamous Theoremata is concerned with the universal, and its relation to the singular existent on the one hand and the intellect on the other hand. There are six main propositions, with explanations and--as always with Scotus--some rabbit trails. This preliminary study will be English-only, since I don't feel like typing in the Latin (hey, if you want real scholarship, read a print journal!), but for the record I'm using as my text Vol. II of Scotus' Opera Philosophica.

I. The intelligible precedes intellection by nature.

"Which is because reception [passio] presupposes an agent and every action is about something." If we are to understand something there must be something to understand. The intellect does not create all of its own intelligible content, any more than the sense power creates the objects of the senses: sight presupposes the visible object as well as light and a working eye. Unlike sight, of course, the intellect can create some of its intelligible content.

II. It is impossible for the first intelligible to be caused by intellection.

"Which is from comparing intellection and the intelligible to the same intellect." Even if the intellect received no information from outside itself it would still have to understand something other than its own concepts: no intellect could know nothing but logic. The intellect itself is an intelligible object before it understands or is understood.

III. We understand the universal first.

Scotus spends a lot of time arguing this point. Unlike, say, Thomas, Scotus admits that the singular is intelligible per se, since for him singularity is a formal property, not some material detritus. Why then is the singular not the first intelligible object? After all, it is the singular thing which acts, not its abstracted universal nature, and so the singular should be the first thing to act on the intellect. Scotus reminds us, however, that there is for us no science of the singular, that the intellect forms a universal by separating the intelligible nature from the leftover singularity. "It is true [that it is the singular which acts], but not insofar as it is singular. For the nature is the ratio of acting." Just as in natural generation the species is multiplied, but not the individual, so in cognition the singular gives rise to an intelligible universal, not a proper concept of the singular.

Our lack of knowledge about the singular per se is neither because we fail to actualize our capacity for it, nor because the singular is unintelligible per se, but because our intellect is too imperfect to achieve it. Just as an intrinsically visible object might not be seen by feeble eyes in weak candlelight, the light of our intellect is strong enough to illumine the nature but not the singularity. Our knowledge then is always imperfect. "For although in a precise comparison the nature is a more perfect knowable than the singularity, nevertheless the cognition of a singular nature is more perfect than that of the nature alone, because it is more distinct."

Scotus goes on to discuss possible reasons for this weakness of the intellect at some length, with more comparisons to the sense powers.

IV. To any universal there corresponds in reality [in re] some grade of entity, in which the things contained under the universal itself coincide.

Scotus says this should be clear from I. and II. For if the universal is not created by the intellect then it must have something corresponding to it in reality. This correspondence is not fictional, but real, or else there could be no true quidditative predication and metaphysics would not differ from logic.

V. In essential predication it is impossible to go to infinity.

Otherwise nothing would be knowable, since we can't pass through an infinite series, nor can our finite intellect apprehend an infinite series all at once. Definition has a limit, and we can really know what something is, even if only confusedly.

VI. It is simply impossible for the first and most universal to be plural.

There cannot be a plurality of first and most universal concepts or grades of entity. In analyzing we always proceed to the simpler concept, and therefore eventually to the first and simplest. And as in any order it is impossible to find two firsts, it is even more so in the highest order, to which multitude is more repugnant.

To conclude:

I. The universal, although produced by the agent intellect, is strictly speaking not caused by it, because something in reality corresponds to it. II. That universal, insofar as it has being in something or with something singular, we first understand as a kind of primary whole object, although the intellect from its imperfection can per se understand the nature as a quasi-part of the primary whole object, and can distinguish this from that [i.e., can distinguish the nature as such from the whole object], while not conceiving the other part, namely the singularity.--For which intellection the action of the agent intellect is required. Whence any part of the first whole object can be first for the intellect, and afterwards the intellect can per se distinguish it from another. Whence a child first distinguishes his father from non-man, then from non-father.

Univocity of Being and the Knowledge of Substance

This one's for our esteemed co-blogger, who was so scandalized by Pini's paper at the St. Bonaventure Scotus congress. I don't remember if the following passage came up, so here it is again. Scotus is claiming that we don't have direct access to substance, only accidents. If we are to have any knowledge at all, the being of substance and accidents must in some sense be univocal. This is from the Quaestiones de anima, which, having read the introduction and the entire work, I think actually post-dates the Ordinatio, the editors to the contrary. This is because Scotus is clearly abbreviating people like Gonsalvus (dated to 1302-4), as well as himself. But I do think that the editors sufficiently established that the manuscript tradition derives from Oxford, and that Scotus might have taught the de anima course during his year-long exile from Paris in 1303. However, he could also have taught it in Paris in the franciscan studium. After Scotus' death, the main impetus among his students was to get a copy of the Ordinatio out and circulating. Other works were ignored and then taken back to Oxford. I suspect this was the case with the Logica Scoti/Quaestio de formalitatibus as well as the De anima questions. Owing to these considerations, I don't think it necessary to posit a Parisian period for Scotus in the 1290's to account for his knowledge of Parisian sources as I think he taught after 1302. 

Here's the argument:

Quaestiones super secundum et tertium de anima, q.21 n.25 (OPh V 218):

"I prove that the concept of being is common univocally to substance and accident: because if not, we would have no concept of substance. For either we would have of substance a concept proper and quidditative and intuitive, or abstractible; not the first, as was proved; therefore a concept abstractible from substance and accident and common to each; but no concept is common to each unless the concept of being; therefore, etc. That however we are not able to know substance in the wayfaring state by a simple and first concept, is clear from this that all our cognition arises from sense; substance however is not per se sensible; and therefore we are not able to know it intuitively or by a simple concept, but by that mode: because from accidents sensible to us we abstract the concept of being, by saying that they are of being, and by inquiring further we find that it is such being which is inhering to another; it is necessary however for that being to be subsistent, and to such a subsisting one we give the name of substance. And therefore so confusedly do we know substance, by joining its subsistence to being, by saying that it is being per se subsisting; we do not however have an intuitive concept of it in the wayfaring state, by which we know it to be this being, except in the aforesaid way, as experience teaches."

Proof that we do not have a proper, quidditative and intuitive concept of substance from n.12:

"But that substance cannot be the first object [of the intellect], I prove: for it is not first according to predication, because it is not predicated essentially of all intelligibiles, because it is not predicated of accidents. Nor [is it the first object] according to power, because it does not sufficiently move the intellect to knowledge of itself and of others. Which is proved so: because this would only be according to a simple and quidditative and intuitive concept; for this to be first is impossible, because whatever our intellect is able to know intuitively through its presence, it is able to know its absence by nature; but our intellect is not able to know by nature the absence of the substance of the bread in the sacrament of the altar, but only by faith--for equally the substance of the bread is known when it is not there, just as when it is there, therefore etc. The major premise is clear by the example and authority of the Philosopher saying that sight is perceptive of light and darkness, which is the absence of light. Minor is declared. Therefore, etc. Since therefore neither God nor the true nor substance is the first object of the intellect, it follows that being is that first object."

Four Ways of Knowing

From Duns Scotus, Quaestiones de anima, q. 19 (OPh V, 193-94):

"It should be said that something can be known in four ways: 

In one way by the comparison to another, as man is known to be the most perfect of the animals; another absolute necessarily precedes such cognition.

In the second way something can be known through its accidents, as man by 'risibile'; and this cannot be first, because it is of necessity that if I know a disposition, that I know the subject acting as a substratum to it, although confusedly.

In the third way something can be known through a concept common to itself and others, as I know man through animal. And so to know God is to know imperfectly, namely through a concept common to himself and others; for this is more imperfect than to know a stone distinctly, because through that common concept God is not more known than another, and therefore such a cognition is not allotted nobility from God.

In the fourth mode something is known by a quidditative concept, but this is double:

One is primarily first, which namely is not resolvable into other concepts, by which a thing is known intuitively in itself as it is of such a nature, and such a concept we cannot have of God in the wayfaring state, indeed neither of our soul nor of some spiritual substance. The reason is because we have no cognition of God naturally except through creatures. No creature, however, nor all taken together, are able to sufficiently represent the divine essence quidditatively, that is as this nature or essence.

The other quidditative concept of a thing neither is entirely simple nor first, but is resolvable into others, as is the defintion of a thing composed from diverse concepts. We are able to have naturally  such a concept of our soul, namely by considering that there are certain beings in potency, certain ones in act; and that being in act has two integral parts of which one is act; and so we apprehend what act is. We proceed further, by dividing, that certain acts are first, certain ones second, and so we apprehend afterwards what is first act. Afterwards we divide those which are actualized, and so, by comparing them to each other, finally we arrive to this which is an organic physical body which is acualized by the soul. And so, by comparing to each other, we have a quidditative concept of our soul. This concept of the soul, however, is proper so that it does not befall another spiritual substance, but by this concept I do not know my soul either in itself intuitively and specially as it is this soul, just as not that which I never saw (sicut nec illud quod numquam vidi).

[...]

Likewise from many beings we are able to abstract this which is being absolutely; and from many goods, the good itself. And because beings and goods are ordered, finally we are able to arrive at this which I understand to be the highest good, because there is no process into infinity. So therefore I can compare them to each other by the intellect and say some being is the highest good, which composed concept befalls God alone. And therefore we are able to have naturally a quidditative concept of God, nevertheless one that is composed. But by such a concept we do not know him in himself, as he is of a determinate nature, but so to know him is simply more perfect than to know something other than God.  So therefore it is clear that the adequate object of our intellect is not the material quiddity, because we are able to know in some manner both God and the spiritual substances."

Aquinas and Intuitive Cognition

The other day I criticized Taylor Marshall's post on Aquinas and the Beatific Vision. It turns out I may well be wrong, as Aquinas does use the term "intuitus" as is clear from the quote below. Aquinas is here glossing Augustine, but the point still stands. Aquinas, at least in this early work, does have a notion of intuition that is cognition of a present intelligible. This is not so different than the Scotistic view, although of course Thomas never formulates a theory of intuitive cognition as distinguished from abstractive cognition (the locus of the debate in the 14th century that led to the decree "Benedictus Deus" on the Beatific Vision). "Simplicem intuitum" may and probably does mean here the first act of the intellect also known as "simplex intelligentia" or simple apprehension which of course is very different from the Scotistic view. But my (incorrect) point to Taylor Marshall was that Aquinas never uses the term at all.

[380] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 3 q. 4 a. 5 co.

Respondeo dicendum, quod, secundum Augustinum differunt cogitare, discernere et intelligere. Discernere est cognoscere rem per differentiam sui ab aliis. Cogitare autem est considerare rem secundum partes et proprietates suas: unde cogitare dicitur quasi coagitare. Intelligere autem dicit nihil aliud quam simplicem intuitum intellectus in id quod sibi est praesens intelligibile. Dico ergo, quod anima non semper cogitat et discernit de Deo, nec de se, quia sic quilibet sciret naturaliter totam naturam animae suae, ad quod vix magno studio pervenitur: ad talem enim cognitionem non sufficit praesentia rei quolibet modo; sed oportet ut sit ibi in ratione objecti, et exigitur intentio cognoscentis. Sed secundum quod intelligere nihil aliud dicit quam intuitum, qui nihil aliud est quam praesentia intelligibilis ad intellectum quocumque modo, sic anima semper intelligit se et Deum indeterminate, et consequitur quidam amor indeterminatus. Alio tamen modo, secundum philosophos, intelligitur quod anima semper se intelligit, eo quod omne quod intelligitur, non intelligitur nisi illustratum lumine intellectus agentis, et receptum in intellectu possibili. Unde sicut in omni colore videtur lumen corporale, ita in omni intelligibili videtur lumen intellectus agentis; non tamen in ratione objecti sed in ratione medii cognoscendi.

Scotus on Knowing Individual differences

Back to our regularly scheduled programming. Here is an interesting bit I came across today, regarding the possibility of cognizing our own individual difference. Not entirely clear, and the example about God annihilating one's body and uniting it to another while the soul remains in its original act of intellection is just plain weird and worthy of an analytic philosophical experiment.

Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis VII q.13

Differentia individualis a nullo nota est in hac vita communiter. Cuius probatio est: quia tunc nota esset differentia eius ad quodcumque aliud, et ita non posset errare de quocumque alio sibi intellectualiter ostenso quin iudicaret illud esse aliud. Sed hoc est falsum de alio omnino simili nisi tantum de intelligendo se animam et suum actum forte, a quibus differre diceret quantumcumque similia sibi ostensa. De intelligendo tamen se compositum forte erraret quis, si subito Deus suum corpus annihilaret, et aliud suae animae uniret, manente anima in eadem intellectione non interrupta, sic quod anima quantum ad differentiam individualem se ipsam certissime novit 'hoc ens'. Quantum ad naturam specificam, alia, ut sensibilia, certius novit; et hanc notitiam de se inquirit. ... Ergo non possumus individuum definire, non ex parte eius, sed ex impotentia nostra, sicut nec substantias separatas"


translation:
The individual difference is commonly known by none in this life, the proof of which is because then its difference to any other would be known, and so it would not be able to err about anything intellectually shown to it that it not judge it to be other. But this is entirely false about any other similar thing unless of understanding itself to be a soul and perhaps its own act, by which it would be said to differ from whatever similar shown to it. Someone would perhaps err in understanding himself to be composite, if God suddenly annihilateed his body and united it to another while at the same time not interrupting the intellection, so that the soul as far as its individual difference most certainly knew itself to be 'this being'. As far as specific nature, it more certainly knows other things, such as sensibiles; at it seeks this knowledge of itself. Therefore we are not able to define the individual, not because of something on the side of the individual, but from our own weakness, just as we cannot define the separated substances.

Hobbes on Knowing Substance

Well, maybe its Hobbes. I've been reading more of Descartes objections and replies lately, and the third set of objections are from a "celebrated English Philosopher". He makes a few incidental remarks that lead me to think that the problem of knowing substance is not just some crazy thing Duns Scotus dreamed up, but possibily a recurring problem in the Aristotelian tradition. In any case, it would be interesting to compare Scotus' arguments against knowing substance with those of various early modern philosophers who also reject the very concept of substance itself and look for a connnection. Here is Hobbes:

Obj. iv: "The ancient peripatetics also have taught clearly enough that substance is not perceived by the senses, but is known as a result of reasoning."

obj. ix: "I have frequently remarked above that there is no idea either of God or of the soul; I now add that there is no idea of substance. For substance (the substance that is a material, subject of accidents and changes) is perceived and demonstrated by the reason alone, without yet being conceived by us, or furnishing us with any idea. If that is true, how can it be maintained that the ideas which reveal substance to me are anything greater or possess more objective reality than those revealing accidents to us ?"


***Update!

Hobbes isn't the only one...Descartes as well holds this view, as can be seen in the beginning of his reply to the fourth set of objections (in my Great Books ed., p. 153b):

"For we do not have immediate cognition of substances, as has been elsewhere noted; rather from the mere fact that we perceive certain forms or attributes which must inhere in something in order to have existence, we name the thing in which they exist a substance.

But if, afterwards, we desired to strip that substance of those attributes by which we apprehend it, we should utterly destroy our knowledge of it; and thus, while we might indeed apply words to it, they would not be words of the meaning of which wehad a clear and distinct perception."

I also randomly picked up Peter Geach's Mental Acts today, and came across the same problem in his chapter on abstractionism, where he said it was characteristic of "decadent scholasticism", and though the terms and maxims (all from Aristotle) he quotes can all be found in Aquinas (and he likes Aquinas), he probably means Scotus or late medieval philosophy which has unfortunately been tarnished by the notion of "decline" both by Thomists as well as by early modern historiography, which sees it as the time of plague, schism and unrest; and of course, bad times for women. Though Gerson, the nominalist chancellor of of the university of Paris also wanted to get back to the 13th century style of thinking, at least for theology. Anyway, Geach also pointed to Locke, so it seems this problem is found in early modern philosophy as well, though it may only be part of their rejection of scholastic notions. I hope to blog on this more in the future.

Scotus on Knowing Principles and Subalternation

I'm still busy at my other, realtime, life and haven't had time to post much lately, but here's a first stab at fulfilling "e"'s request of some time ago that I post on Scotus' criticism of Thomas' views on the nature of theology and subalternation. This quote comes from the end of this section where he attacks Thomas. One should bear in mind that Scotus in the prologue to the Reportatio maintains a notion of theology which he labels "theologia in se", which denies traditional distinctions between divine science, the knowledge of the blessed, and our theology. On Scotus' view ther is only one theology, which is the quidditative knowledge of the divine essence. Other things, such as the divine attributes, ideas, notions, etc. are virtually contained in the knowledge of the essence, and are "quasi-derivative" from it. Scotus comes up with the idea that one can consider things that are distinct in reason as if they were really distinct, an idea which he gets from an "ancient" argument about the Anselmian pure perfections, that for something in which something is distinct in reason there corresponds something really distinct in something else. This is a bit scattered, but you get the idea. If you really care, I could email you my Kalamazoo paper on the subject after I get done writing it. The following quote is about they way we know principles, and ends with the nifty claim that by knowing metaphysics we are better prepared for knowing other sciences.

Reportatio IA, prologus, q. 2 n. 157: "To the authority of the Philosopher I say that principles can be known in two ways. In one way by a confused knowledge, as if the terms are apprehended confusedly by sense and experience, and this suffices for scientific knowledge of terms in any special science, as that a line is length while being ignorant of whether the quiddity of it is substance, quantity or quality, etc. In another mode distinct knowledge can be known, by knowing to which genus their quiddity pertains, when the definitions of terms are known distinctly from the evidence of the terms, and this happens in metaphysical science by dividing and composing. And so all sciences can be said to be subalternated to it, namely metaphysics. And therefore with the science of metaphysics possessed, the principles of any other science are known in it by their own proper principles. Consequently, another science is known more perfectly if metaphysics is known.