Henry of Ghent’s Answer

6. The question here is about the knowledge of truth, which is known by the intellect as it combines and divides; the question is not about the first truth or being, but about the idea, etc     .

7. The opinion of Henry [of Ghent] about this question is in the negative. Here one must note that, just as there is a twofold exemplar, namely created and uncreated (the uncreated the idea, and the created the impressed intelligible species), so there is a twofold conformity corresponding to them. But Henry says that through the created exemplar, or the acquired one within us, there cannot be had an altogether sound and certain truth; in fact it is fallible, which he proves as follows:

8. The object from which the created exemplar (that is the true species posited above) is abstracted is changeable;     therefore it cannot be the cause of anything unchangeable, but the sound and certain knowledge of any truth about anything is had about it under the idea of changeability; therefore it is not had from such an eternal exemplar. Hence Augustine in 83 Questions q.9 says that sound truth is not to be expected from sensible things, because they are changeable, etc     .

9. Further, the soul is not ruled or perfected by anything more changeable than itself; but the sort of created exemplar posited above is more changeable than the soul;     therefore etc     . The major is from Augustine On True Religion,     etc .

10. Further, he who has such eternal truth should have wherewith to discern the true from the untrue or from the seeming true, which the wayfarer does not have (for the created exemplar or species cannot do it). And the proof is that this species either represents itself as it is, and then it is a true understanding, or represents itself as the object, and then it is a false understanding; therefore      it can err, as is plain in dreams. From these premises the conclusion is drawn that sure knowledge cannot be had by looking at the created exemplar.

11. His way of putting this is as follows: for he says that God does not have the idea of exemplar as a known thing by which, when looked at, sound truth is known; so God is known in some general attribute. But he is the reason for knowing as naked exemplar and as proper idea of uncreated essence. Hence Henry says that the uncreated light illumines the intellect of an angel by direct vision, as it were, and this light, as seen, is the reason for an angel’s seeing in himself other things. But the uncreated light illumines our intellect as by reflected vision in this present state, and therefore it is the reason of seeing for our intellect and is not seen.

12. I argue against this opinion, and first by turning Henry’s reasons in the opposite direction. For if the object too in the containing mind changes [n.8], no certitude can be had about it under an unchangeable idea; indeed in no light at all can certitude about it be had, because there is no certitude when the object can be known in a way other than how the subject is. There is no certitude then in knowing the changeable as unchangeable. It is plain too that the antecedent of this reasoning is false, for it imposes the view of Heraclitus, that sensibles are continually changing, Metaphysics 4 text 23. It also follows that if, because of the changeability of the exemplar in our soul, there can be no certitude (since anything posited subjectively in the soul is changeable, including the act of understanding itself), then it follows that by nothing in the soul will the soul be set right so as not to err.

13. Likewise, according to this opinion [n.9], the created species is inherent with this species alonea apart from the being;The text prints ‘absente’ but, to make sense, it should be ‘abs ente’. ¹²³ but when something is known that is repugnant to certitude, no certitude can be had; for, just as from one contingent premise joined to another contingent premise a contingent conclusion follows [Prior Analytics ch.21], so from an uncertain thing and a certain thing (when they come together for some piece of knowledge) no certain conclusion follows, etc.

14. Again, the same is plain about the third reason [n.10], for if the species abstracted from the thing is concurrent with all knowledge and if it is not possible to judge when the species represents itself as itself and when it represents itself as the object, then, however much something else is concurrent with it, no certitude can be had whereby to discriminate the true from the seeming true etc.

15. Now, that this opinion is not, as some mean to say, the opinion of Augustine, is plain from Augustine when he says [Soliloquies 2] that for no reason does anyone concede that the speculations of the sciences to be the truest. And Boethius says [De Hebdomadibus] that the common conceptions of the soul are those that, when heard, everyone approves. The Philosopher too in Metaphysics 2 com.1 says that the first principles are certain and known to everyone, like the doors in a house.

16. From these three authorities the argument goes as follows: Whatever agrees with everything of some species is consequent to the specific nature;     therefore since everyone has sure knowledge of the first principles, and since knowledge of the conclusions depends on knowledge of the principles, it follows that sure knowledge of the conclusion can be known by anyone. And elsewhere Augustine says On the Trinity 15.13, “Far be it that we should doubt to be true and certain the things we have learnt through the senses of the body.”

17. I now solve Henry’s arguments etc     . As to the first [n.8], about the changeability of the object, I say that the antecedent is false. Nor is it the opinion of Augustine but of Heraclitus [rather Cratylus], who did not want to speak but to move his finger, as is said in Metaphysics 4. And given that the antecedent were true, sure knowledge could still, according to Aristotle, be had about the fact that everything is moved contingently; and from the fact that everything is moveable contingently, sure and sound and unchangeable knowledge is had that everything changeable was changeable. For the following consequence does not hold: the object is changeable; therefore whatever is generated by it does not represent anything under the idea of being unchangeable. For the changeability of the object is not the reason for knowledge, but rather the nature of the changeable object is; what is generated by it, then, represents the nature per se; therefore if the nature has some unchangeable relation to something else, this something else is represented by its exemplar as being unchangeably united to it and thus through two exemplars.

18. To the second [n.9] I say that a double changeability can be understood in the soul: one is from affirmation to negation and conversely, namely from non-intellection to intellection and conversely; the other is as it were from contraries to contrary, namely from correctness to error and conversely. The soul is changeable in the first way as to any object whatever, and such changeableness is not removed from it by anything existing formally in the soul. But the soul is not changeable in the second way until it reaches propositions that are not evident from the terms. But about propositions that are evident from the terms the soul cannot change in this second way of being changeable, because the apprehended terms are a necessary cause of the conformity of the composition with the terms. Therefore if the soul is capable of absolute changeability from rightness to error, then there is nothing by which it can set itself right; at least it cannot set itself right as to the objects that the intellect, once the terms are grasped, cannot be in error about.

19. To the third [n.10] I say that, when the intelligible species or the exemplar is said not to represent itself as the object in dreams, then it is a phantasm and not an intelligible species; therefore if the intellect is using only a phantasm in which the object is present to it and is not using another intelligible species, then it does not seem able to discern the true from the seeming true by anything that the object is manifest in; but positing an impressed species in the intellect is not valid reasoning, because the intellect cannot use that species itself for the object, because in fact it does not use it in sleep.

20. And if answer be made that because a phantasm can represent an object the intellect can at least err and can even be impeded from operating correctly, as is plain of the mad and people asleep - I say that the intellect does not then err because it does not then act.

21. And so the response to Henry’s arguments is plain, etc.

22. What remains now is to argue against the conclusion of Henry’s opinion. Hence I ask what he means by sound truth. For either he means certain and infallible truth, without any doubt or deception, and this can be had by purely natural power. Or he means by truth a property of being; but since being can be naturally known, so too can its property, namely the true; consequently, by abstraction, truth can be known, for any form that can be understood in something can also be understood in itself by abstraction. Or he means by sound truth conformity with the exemplar, and then I ask whether the conformity is with the created exemplar (and then the proposed conclusion is gained) or with the uncreated exemplar; and if with the uncreated exemplar then, since conformity cannot be known unless what the conformity is with is known, it follows that the uncreated exemplar is known in the created exemplar, which is contrary to how he posits things.

23. Further, when the intellect understands something confusedly it can grasp it definitively by investigating its definition through a process of division. This knowledge is the most perfect kind and belongs to simple understanding, and from this most perfect kind of knowledge of terms the intellect can understand principles, and from principles conclusions, and in this way its knowledge becomes complete, etc.