B. Scotus’ own Opinion

269. To the question therefore I say that an angel can understand himself through his essence according to the sense expounded at the beginning of the question [sc. ‘an angel’s own essence is the reason for knowing himself without any representing thing that naturally precedes the act’, n.255].

270. In proof I say:

First, because an object has some partial causality with respect to intellection (and this the object insofar as it is actually intelligible), and the intellect has its own partial causality with respect to the same act, according to which it concurs with the object for perfectly producing such act - so that these two, when they are in themselves perfect and united, are one integral cause with respect to intellection [1 d.3 nn.486-494].

From this I argue as follows: every partial cause that is in the perfect act proper to itself as it is such a cause can cause the effect with the causality corresponding to itself; and, when it is united to the second partial cause in its act, it can, along with it, cause perfectly; but the essence of an angel is of itself in first act corresponding to the object, because it is of itself actually intelligible, and it is of itself united to the intellect with a conjunction of both partial causes; therefore it can, along with the other partial cause united to it, perfectly have a perfect act of intellection with respect to the essence.

271. Further, in the case of intelligible things possessed of intelligible species, the species, along with the intellect, cause an intellection by virtue of the objects; but the objects in the intelligible things have a diminished being;     therefore , if they had in themselves an absolute such being and being simply (namely actually intelligible being), then they could more truly cause the same effect, because whatever can be caused by something diminishedly such in some being, can be simply caused by virtue of, and by, something simply such. But the essence of an angel as it is in itself is present to the angel’s intellect, and this essence indeed is simply such (namely, actually intelligible in itself, and intelligible in a certain respect in the intelligible species); therefore etc     .a

a.a [Interpolation] Or let the argument be formed thus: if something having some sort of diminished being has power for some operation, then something that has a perfect such being has power for that operation; but the intelligible object, possessing diminished being in the species, is the reason for understanding it - for the object has being in the species in the intellect (as was said in 1 d.3 n.249); and it has there a diminished intelligible being because, where it is a being diminishedly, there it is diminishedly intelligible;     therefore when the object has simply intelligible being in the intellect, it will be simply the reason for understanding it. But the essence of angel has such being with respect to its intellect; therefore etc     .

Further, that thing can be the reason for understanding some object in which the object, ‘as actually intelligible’, is sufficiently present to the intellect, because it constitutes, along with the intellect, perfect memory, and this memory is sufficiently a generator; but the essence of an angel is actually intelligible, and is sufficiently present to the intellect in idea of object, because there is no requirement for it to be present in the intellect by informing it (for then God would not understand his essence);     therefore an angel can understand himself in and through the essence.

Further, an angel can have intuitive cognition of his essence, for our soul can also do this if it did not have an ordering toward phantasms; but this knowledge can only be done through the essence of the thing (or it cannot be perfectly done by some other thing), because whatever other reason is posited, this other reason can remain when the intuitive cognition does not remain, and it would be indifferent to representing the thing whether the thing exists or not; therefore etc     .