C. Against the Fundamental Reasons insofar as they are Less Probative

246. As to the third article [n.218], a response must be made from the preceding [nn.230-245] to the three reasons [of Henry, nn.211-213].a

To the first argument [n.211], as to the point about the change of the object, the antecedent is false;b nor is it the opinion of Augustine but the error of Heraclitus and of his disciple Cratylus, who did not want to speak but to move his finger, as is said in Metaphysics 4.5.1010a7-15. And the consequence, given the antecedent were true, is not valid, because, according to Aristotle, certain knowledge could still be had of this fact, that all things would be continually moving. Also, it does not follow that, if the object is changeable, then what is produced by it is not representative of anything under the idea of the unchangeable [n.211]; for the changeability in the object is not the reason for generating [knowledge], but the nature of the object itself that is changeable. The thing generated by it, therefore, represents the nature per se. If, therefore, the nature, whereby it is nature, have some unchangeable relationship to something else, that something else through its exemplar, and the nature itself through its exemplar, are represented as unchangeably united; and thus, through two exemplars, generated by two changeable things - not insofar as they changeable but insofar as they are natures - knowledge of the unchangeability of their union can be had.

a.a [Note by Scotus] Note that knowledge of a principle cannot be changed from truth to falsity [n.250], nor the other way around, because it is simply incorruptible. The intelligible species, not the phantasm, can in this way be destroyed, but it cannot be changed from a true representation to a false one [n.251]. But the object, although corruptible, yet cannot be changed from a true entity to a false one [n.246]; and so it conforms knowledge to itself or causes knowledge of itself by its truth in existing, because a true entity, unchangeable into a false one, virtually contains true knowledge, that is, knowledge in conformity with a true entity.
     Note, according to Augustine that a necessary or unchangeable truth is “above the mind” [n.206], meaning ‘in idea of evident truth’, because it causes evident truth about itself in the mind [n.230]. But it is not, according to the evidence of it, subject to the mind so that it could appear true or false, in the way a probable truth is subject to the mind so that the mind, by seeking reasons here or there through which it may be proved or disproved [n.202], could make it appear true or false [n.250]. Thus must it be understood that the mind does not judge about the immutable truth [n.203], but of other things; because a declaration that ‘this is true’, which is an act of judging, is in the power of the mind with respect to what is probable, but not with respect to what is necessary; nor yet does it less perfectly assert of the necessary that it is ‘true’ - and this assertion in Aristotle can be said to be a judgment [sc. ‘the same thing cannot both be and not be’, n.231], but Augustine maintains [n.203] that judgment is in the power of the judger, not something that at once may be necessarily determined by something else.
     In this way is it plain how the mind judges of a necessary conclusion [n.233]. Since the conclusion is not of itself at once evident,     therefore does it not of itself give determination to the mind itself as to the evidence for itself; also the mind can bring forward sophistical arguments against it, by which the mind may dissent from it - not so against what is a first known, Metaphysics 4.3.1005a29-6a18 (“comes into the mind etc     .” [n.255]).

b.b [Interpolated text] for sensibles are not in continuous motion, rather they remain the same for some time [cf. Scotus, Lectura I d.3 n.182].

247. Although it not generate insofar as it is changeable, yet, if it is changeable, how is its relation to something else unchangeable?

I reply: the relation is unchangeable in this way, that there cannot be an opposite relation between the extremes, neither can this relation not exist, given the extremes, but it is destroyed by the destruction of the extreme or the extremes.

248. On the contrary: how is a necessary proposition affirmed if the identity of the extremes can be destroyed?

I reply: when the thing does not exist, there is no real identity of it. But then, if it is in the intellect, there is identity as it is an understood object, and it is in a certain respect necessary, because in such existence the extremes cannot be without such identity. However, it is able not to be, just as the extreme is able to be non-understood. Therefore, a proposition is necessary in a certain respect in our intellect, because it cannot be changed to the false; but it is not simply necessary save in the divine intellect, just as neither do the extremes have an identity simply necessarily in any being save in understood being.

249. It is plain too that something representative that is changeable in itself can represent something under the idea of the unchangeable, because the essence of God will, under the idea of the unchangeable, be represented to the intellect through something altogether changeable, whether it be a species or an act; this is plain through a likeness, because through the finite can something under the idea of the infinite be represented.

250. To the second argument [of Henry, n.212] I say that in the soul a twofold changeability can be understood, one from affirmation to negation and conversely (as from ignorance to knowledge or from non-intellection to intellection), another from, as it were, contrary to contrary, as from rectitude to deception or conversely.

Now the soul is changeable as to all objects in the first way, and by nothing formally existing in it is such changeability taken away from it. But it is not changeable with the second changeableness save as to the complexes [propositions] that are not evident from the terms. But about those that are evident from the terms the soul cannot be changed with the second changeableness, because, once the terms themselves are understood, they are a necessary and evident cause of the conformity with the terms themselves of the composition that has been made [n.230]. Therefore, if the soul is changeable from rightness to error, absolutely, it does not follow that by nothing can it be set right other than itself; at least as regard the objects about which the intellect cannot err it can be set right by the terms once they have been apprehended.

251. To the third argument [of Henry, n.213] I say that if it had any appearance [of truth], it would conclude more against [Henry’s] opinion that denies intelligible species,a because a species that can represent something sensible as an object in dreams would be a phantasm, not an intelligible species. Therefore, if the intellect use only a phantasm by which the object is present to it and not any intelligible species, it does not seem it could discriminate the true from the likely true through anything in which the object shines out for it. But if one posits a species in the intellect, [Henry’s] reasoning is not valid, for the intellect cannot use the species [sc. as opposed to a phantasm] as object for itself, because it cannot use it when sleeping.

a.a [Note by Scotus] which is the opinion of him who posits this opinion here [nn.211-213].

252. If you object that, if the phantasm can represent itself as the object, then the intellect, through that error of the imaginative power, can err, or at any rate it can be so bound that it cannot operate, as is plain in dreams and the mad - it can be said [in reply] that, though the intellect be bound when there is such error in the imaginative power, yet it does not err, because it does not then have an act.

253. But how will the intellect know, or how then will it be certain, when the imaginative power is erring, but its not being in error is required for the intellect not to be in error?

I reply. This truth rests in the intellect, that a power does not err about an object proportioned to it unless it is indisposed. And it is known to the intellect that the power of imagination is not, when awake, indisposed with any such indisposition as makes a phantasm represent itself as an object; for it is per se known to the intellect that, when thinking, it is awake, such that the power of imagination is not, as it is in dreams, bound during wakefulness.

254. But an objection against the stated certitude about acts is still made in this way: ‘it seems to me that I am seeing or hearing, when however I am not seeing or hearing; so there is no certitude about this’.

255. I reply.

It is one thing to show against someone who denies a proposition that the proposition is true; it is another thing to show to someone who accepts it how it is true. An example from Metaphysics 4.3.1005a29-6a18: the Philosopher does not introduce, against someone who denies the first principle [sc. the principle of non-contradiction], the unacceptable result that contrary opinions would simultaneously exist in the soul [n.231] (the deniers would concede this themselves as presupposed); rather he brings in other unacceptable results, more manifest to them, though not in themselves. But to those who accept the first principle he shows how it is known, that it is such that its opposite could not come into the mind; which he proves by the fact that then contrary opinions could stand simultaneously. Such conclusion is more unacceptable in that case than the hypothesis [sc. that ‘its opposite could not come into the mind’].

256. So here. If you allow that no proposition is known per se, I refuse to dispute with you, because it is clear that you are impudent, and are not persuaded [sc. that what you allow is true], as is plain in your actions, as the Philosopher objects, Metaphysics 4.3.100535-6a18: for, when dreaming about getting something that is sort of close by and waking up afterwards, you do not pursue it as you would pursue it if, being awake, you were close to obtaining it. But if you allow that some proposition is known per se, and that about anything an indisposed power can err (as is plain in dreams), then, so that some proposition may be known to be known per se, there must be a possibility of knowing when the power is disposed and when not, and consequently it is possible for knowledge about our acts to be had that the power is thus disposed, because that is known per se which appears known per se to it.

257. I say then to the form of this caviling [n.254] that, just as it appears to a dreamer that he sees, so could the opposite appear to him of a principle of speculation that is known per se; and yet it does not follow that that principle is not per se known. And so it does not follow that it is not per se known to a hearer that he is hearing, for an indisposed power can err about anything, but not a disposed power. And when it is disposed and when it is not disposed is per se known - otherwise it could not be known that anything else was per se known, because it could not be known what will be per se known, whether what the intellect assents to when disposed in this way, or what it assents to when disposed in that way.