Question One. Whether an Angle can Know Himself through his own Essence

255. Concerning the knowledge of angels I aska whether an angel can know himself through essence, such that his own essence is the reason for knowing himself without any representing thing that naturally precedes the act.

a.a [Interpolation] About the second principal point, namely the knowledge of angels, four questions are asked: first, whether an angel can know himself through the essence, as by the reason for knowing, without any representing thing that naturally precedes the act; second, whether an angel has distinct natural knowledge of the divine essence; third whether, in order for an angel to know distinctly created quiddities other than himself, he necessarily needs to have proper and distinct ideas for knowing them; fourth, whether angels can make progress by receiving knowledge from things.

256. That he cannot:

Because this could only be because his essence is intelligible and present to the intellect itself; but our soul is actually intelligible and actually present to itself, according to Augustine in many places [On the Trinity 8.6 n.9, 9.3 n.3, 9.4 nn.4 & 7, 9.5 n.8, 9.6 n.9, 9.12 n.18, 10.3 n.5, 10.4 n.6, 10.7 n.10, 10.8-10 nn.11-16, 10.12 n.19, 14.4 nn.6-7]; therefore our soul would be the reason for understanding itself with respect to itself. But this is contrary to the Philosopher On the Soul [3.4.429b26-29, 429a21-24, 429b5-10], who maintains that ‘the soul understands itself the way it understands other things,’ and that ‘[the intellect] is none of the things that are before it understands’, and that ‘it cannot understand itself when other things are not understood’.

257. Further, the essence of an angel is singular; a singular is not per se intelligible, nor is it the per se reason for understanding;     therefore etc     .

258. Further, every cognitive power must, as to itself, be bare of that which is the reason for knowing; but an angel, insofar as he is cognitive, is not bare of his essence; therefore his essence is not for him his reason for knowing himself.

259. Proof of the minor: first from the Philosopher On the Soul 2 [7.418b26-28,], that every eye must be without all color so that it can see every color; second from On the Soul 3 [4.429a18-20] where he maintains that the soul is unmixed and immaterial, so that it can understand everything.

260. Further, no thing the same is acted on by itself, because then the same thing would be in act and in potency; the essence of an angel is the same as himself; therefore the essence is not the object that immediately makes an impress on the intellect.a

a.a [Interpolation] Or as follows: the active and passive thing are distinct in subject (from Physics 3.1.200b29-31, 3.3.202a25-27, 7.1.241b24, 8.1.251b1-4, 8.4.255b12-17); but the essence of an angel either is not distinguished really from his intellect, if the power does not differ from the essence, or at any rate is not distinct in subject;     therefore the intellect of an angel is not acted on by his essence. But the intellect is acted on by the intelligible object, from Metaphysics 12.7.1072a30; therefore etc     .

261. Further, if an angel could understand himself through his essence, then the intellection would be the same either as the object or as his essence. The consequent is false, because this is proper to God alone, that his intellection is the same as his essence; therefore the antecedent too is false. The proof of the consequence is that the middle between extremes agrees more with both extremes than either extreme agrees with the other; but ‘to understand’ is intermediate between the power and the object; therefore if the power and the object are the same, much more will the act be the same as the object (the confirmation is that intellection only gets distinctness from the object or from the power).

262. On the contrary:

Some material form is the reason for acting according to the material thing’s essence (as heat is in fire, for the act of heating), or at any rate something in common is, else there will be an infinite regress in reasons for acting; therefore, since immaterial things are more active than material ones, an immaterial form will be, by its essence, the reason for performing the act that belongs to it; such is the idea of object to act of knowing.

I. To the Question

A. The Opinion of Others

263. Here the following is saida [Aquinas ST Ia q.56 a.1, SG II ch.98],ST: “In the case of an action that remains in the agent there is need for the object to be united to the agent in order for the action to proceed, just as there is need for the sensible to be united to the sense so that it may actually perceive. And the object united to the power is, for this sort of action [sc. intellection], disposed in the way that the form is that is the principle of action in the case of other agents; for just as heat is the formal principle of heating in fire, so the species of the seen thing is the formal principle of vision in the eye.” SG: “Hence a separated substance, although it is per se intelligible in act, is not however understood according to itself save by the intellect with which it is one. And thus does a separated substance understand itself through its essence.” ⁶⁷ that although the object is separate from the agent in the case of an action that passes over to something extrinsic, yet in the case of an action that is immanent the object must be united to the operator, and, as united, it is the formal idea of such immanent operation, as the species of vision is in the eye; and from this it is further said that, since the essence of an angel is of itself united to his intellect, it can be the principle of the intellection, which is an immanent operation.

a.a [Interpolation, from Appendix A] Here there is the opinion of Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 5 q.14, that an angel does not know himself through his essence but through a scientific habit, in which his essence is presented to his intellect just as are also the essences of other things, “such that if an angel per se, in his bare substance, is posited, per impossibile, to be without any scientific habit, he would be moved to an act of understanding by nothing at all, neither by his own essence nor by any other.”

    Now the reason that is there relied on is the following: “The angelic intellect per se and first understands per se no particular essence, just as neither does ours,” because “essences are not represented to the intellect save as they are abstracted from all particular conditions, because science is only of things that are necessary and possess an unchangeability for their essence (according to Boethius On Arithmetic 1 ch.1), and of this sort are only essences as abstracted from singular conditions;” but the essence in itself, in actual existence, is not present to the intellect save as particular, while in the habit it is present and shines forth under the idea of a universal; therefore an angel first understands his essence as it shines forth in the habit, and the essence “as known universally by the angel is the means for knowing his own singular essence, just as any other species is also for him the reason of knowing any singular under it.”

    I argue against this opinion:

    It is unacceptable that a perfect created intellect, out of the whole order of natural causes, has no power for an act of understanding an intelligible object proportioned to it, because a more imperfect intellect - namely the human - has this power along with the order of natural causes, as with phantasms and the agent intellect; but this consequence follows if an angel can understand nothing save by the habit, because the habit is from God alone [Henry Quodlibet 5 q.14]; and thus all natural causes, active and passive, are unable to cause the habit.

    Further, if an angel cannot understand his essence save as it shines forth in the habit, this is either because the object is not intelligible unless it shines forth in the habit, or because it is not intelligible to this intellect save as thus shining forth, or because it is not proportionally present to the intellect in the idea of being intelligible save as it shines forth in the habit. Not in the first way, because then God could not know the angel’s essence save in the habit, because he cannot know anything unless the thing is intelligible. Nor in the second way, because the angel’s essence is supremely proportioned to his intellect, for everything intelligible in itself is a proportionate intelligible to some intellect, and this object is not more adequate and proportionate to any intellect than to its own. Nor in the third way, because presence through informing is not required for something intelligible to be present to an intellect, because then God would not know his own essence; hence it is sufficient that the essence be present under the idea by which an angel can return to it by a complete return; therefore it is proportionately present to his intellect otherwise than through a habit; therefore it is intelligible to him in some way other than by a habit.

    Further, according to him who thus thinks [Henry], the idea of immateriality is the same as the idea of intelligibility; but the essence of an angel is immaterial in itself, therefore it is intelligible in itself; but each thing has as much of intellectivity as it has of intelligibility; therefore an angel in himself, without such habit, is intellective.

    Further, if an angel cannot understand save through such a habit, the consequence is that he cannot know the existence of a thing. Proof: a knower that knows a thing through an idea indifferent to existence and non-existence cannot precisely know the existence of the thing; but such a habit, if it is posited, is disposed indifferently to representing the existence and the nonexistence of the thing, because it naturally represents whatever it represents;     therefore either it represents that a will be and will not be, and then it represents nothing because these are contradictories; or it represents only that a is, and so the intellect would not know it when a is not, and the same conversely; therefore etc     .

    There is a confirmation, because a thing cannot be representative secondarily of something unless the first object represented determines it to it; but the quiddity, which is first represented by the habit, is not determined to existence;     therefore etc     .

    Further, against the statement [above] that the angel does not per se understand the particular save through the universal: because singularity does not prevent a thing from being understood (otherwise God could not understand himself), nor either does limitation (because thus the angelic quiddity would not be per se intelligible to him), nor is there materiality there or any impeding condition;     therefore etc     .

    Further, the reasons that he makes against the species [Henry, ibid.] work equally against the habit, as is plain to anyone who looks at them.

    Therefore something else is said:

264. And if it be objected that such a form should be in that in which there is such an operation (it is not in this way in the essence itself of the angel, where however the reason for acting is), the response seems to be [Aquinas ST Ia q.56 a.1] that the form existing in something else and inhering in something else is the principle of operating; and if the form existed per se, it would no less be per se the reason for acting - just as heat, if it were separate, would, as far as concerns itself, be the principle of heating. Therefore so it is with the essence of an angel, that, although it subsists per se, yet it can be the reason for operating with the above immanent operation.a

a.a [Interpolation] The reason for the opinion is formed as follows: that which is for something the per se reason for acting can, if it is separate, be the principle of acting, as is plain of heat; but the object united to a thing active with an intrinsic or immanent action is the reason for acting; therefore, although it is separate, it will be the principle of that action; therefore although the essence of an angel is not united to the intellect of the angel by informing it, but by another reason for the uniting, it will be for the angel the reason for understanding himself.

265. And if it be again objected that the thing acted on should receive something from the agent (but here the intellect receives nothing from the essence itself, because no species preceding the act is posited), the response is [Aquinas ibid.] that some cognitive power is at times potentially knowing and at times actually knowing, but some other cognitive power is not so. Now, the fact that there is need for a cognitive power to receive something is not because it is a cognitive power, but only because it is sometimes in potency to act; in the issue at hand it is not so;     therefore etc     .

266. Against this:

This opinion posits, as it seems, that the intellect is in essential potency to operation and intellection (which it posits to be an immanent operation), and the whole reason for the operation is the object as it is united to the power, the way heat in wood is the whole reason for heating [nn.263-64].

From this I argue: nothing can have the principle of immanent action of any agent unless it is in act through that which is the principle of such action; but the intellect is not in act through its own essence in that which is per se subsistent, because the essence does not inform or impose any activity on the intellect itself; therefore the fact that such per se existing essence is present to an intellect itself cannot make the intellect have an operation where the essence (or its likeness) is, through the intellect, of a nature to be the reason for understanding.

267. His own example [about heat, n.264] confirms this against him; because although heat is what heats or is the reason for heating, yet it would not in the wood -from which it was separated - be the reason for heating, so that, if ‘to heat’ is called an immanent operation, it would be impossible for the wood to heat by the heat separated from the wood;     therefore it is impossible for the wood to have this immanent operation, which is ‘to heat’. So it is in the issue at hand; therefore etc     .a

a.a [Interpolation] Hence that which is the per se reason for operation, if it exists per se, is the principle of the operation - but it is not the principle of the operation for anything susceptive of the reason; thus, if heat were separate, it would not be the principle of heating for fire. So it is impossible for anything to act through that which is separate from it; hence the Philosopher, On the Soul 2.1.412a27-b6, 414a12-13, proves that the soul is ‘first act of the body,     etc .’ because it is

    ‘that by which we live and sense etc .’ Therefore      nothing acts by any reason for acting unless that reason informs it; but the essence of the angel is posited as subsistent; therefore it cannot be for the angelic intellect the reason for understanding.

268. Further, second, against what he says, that ‘the power does not receive anything because it is not sometimes in potency and sometimes in act’ [n.265] - the object in respect of that which is in the intellect about it (namely in respect of intellection) is not only the cause in its coming to be (the way a builder is cause in respect of the house), but is cause both in its coming to be and in its being (otherwise, just as the house remains when the builder is corrupted, so when the object is at all absent or corrupted in idea of object that which is in the intellect about it as object would remain); but a cause of coming to be and of being is always equally causing, as is plain about the sun with respect to rays of sunlight [1 d.3 nn.602-603]; therefore the object that is posited as the principle of the operation of intellection [n.263] is always equally causing, and consequently the intellect is always equally receiving. The intellect then receives from the object not merely because it receives a new act which it is sometimes not receiving, but because the object is cause of being with respect to that which is always from it receiving.a

a.a [Interpolation] Further, according to him who thus thinks, ‘an angel is so much the higher the more he understands through a species that is more universal’ [Aquinas ST Ia q.55 a.3], which is not true by universality of commonness but by universality of virtue and perfection. And they [sc. those who think like Aquinas] do not first have to posit that species with respect to accidents, because accidents are known through the species of the substances in which they are virtually included; nor even do they first have to posit it with respect to subalternate species, because all the intermediate things can be known through the species of the most specific species. Therefore they have to posit this sort of intelligible species with respect to the most specific species, so that an angel is so much the higher the more he knows more things (as the inferior species) through the species of a superior species; therefore the highest angel knows inferior species through that by which he knows his own quiddity. So if he knows himself through his own essence, he would know all other created things through his own essence, which the author of this opinion himself denies [Aquinas ST Ia q.55 a.1].

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     .

C. Instances against Scotus’ own Opinion

272. It is objected against this view [n.271] that then a sensible thing could cause intellection immediately, without an intelligible species (which was denied in 1 d.3 nn.334, 382); because a sensible thing present to the senses is of such sort simply as it is in a certain respect in the intelligible species; therefore if in the intelligible species (where it is in a certain respect) it can cause intellection, much more can it do so as it is in itself according to its being simply and absolutely.

273. Further, it seems one can argue against this position [n.269] as was argued against the opinion [of Aquinas, n.266], that nothing is for anything the reason for its operating with an immanent operation unless it informs it; but although the essence of an angel is actually intelligible and present to the intellect, yet it does not inform the intellect; therefore the essence is not for the intellect the reason for its operating with an immanent operation.

274. Further, if these two agents always concur for the same common effect [n.270], then they have an order between them, since they are not of the same idea; therefore one of the two is prior or superior, and the other posterior and inferior, and so one will be a moved mover and the other will, with respect to it, be an unmoved mover. But the object is not a moved mover with respect to the intellect but an unmoved mover;     therefore the intellect is a moved mover with respect to the object [1 d.3 n.554].

275. Further, fourth: what is said about these partial causes concurring for one common effect [sc. that they are one integral cause of intellection, n.270] seems unacceptable, because two things distinct in genus cannot cause an effect of the same idea; but the spiritual and bodily, or the intelligible and sensible, differ in genus; therefore etc     .

276. Proof of the major: because corresponding to these two ideas in the partial causes are two distinct somethings in the effect, and so the same effect would be bodily and spiritual, which is unacceptable. Second, because every agent is more excellent than its patient [1 d.3 n.507]; but the bodily or sensible is in no way more excellent than the spiritual; therefore it cannot be the agent in respect of the spiritual save in virtue of some more excellent agent, and so it will be a moved mover. Next third, because then one of the causes could be so intensified that the whole virtue of both could be in that one of the two, and then it alone could sufficiently cause the effect without the other [1 d.3 n.497], which is unacceptable in the case of two such agents.

277. Response to the first objection [n.272]. In 1 d.3 [nn.349-350, 382] an intelligible species different from the act was posited for this reason, that the object -whether as existing in itself or as existing in any species whatever outside the possible intellect - does not have the idea of an intelligible in act. And then I concede the fact that, wherever there is a thing existing as of some sort in a certain respect and something can make it simply of that sort, there it could, if it were simply such in act, do the same thing simply. But the sensible object is in a certain respect in the intelligible species and is not actually intelligible outside the species; and so, although in the species (where it is in a certain respect such) it could cause a diminished intellection, yet it can never cause intellection outside the species, whether a diminished or a perfect intellection, because outside the species it is not actually (but only potentially) such a sort of being as the actualizer of it is. Now the essence of an angel is such a sort of being diminishedly, that is, a being of such sort in the species (if it has a species); but it is in itself simply a being and such a being is actually intelligible;     therefore etc     .

278. To the second [n.273] I say that on the opinion that does not posit the intellect to have any activity, different from the activity it has formally from the object or through the species of the object (just as neither does the wood have an action in heating different from the action which is that of the heat [1 d.3 nn.456-459]) - that on this opinion it necessarily follows that the intellect (not having anything formally) does not do anything formally; and so was it argued against the first opinion [of Aquinas, nn.266-267], which seems to think this same thing about the intellect. But, as was said in 1 d.3 [nn.486-489, 494, 498, 500], the intellect does have its own proper activity along with an object present to it (present in itself or in its species), but an object concurring with it to cause an effect common to them both, so that the union and coming together of these formal parts suffice; and yet there is no requirement that one of the parts inform the other, because neither gives to the other an act pertaining to its own partial causality.

279. To the third [n.274] I say that ‘moved mover’ can be understood in two ways: either because it receives from the unmoved mover some form as first act (whereby it may move), or because the form, possessed as first act, receives from the unmoved mover some (further) form as second act, by which it may act.

280. Now the first way exists in certain ordered causes where a first gives virtue to a second; but this way is not in the issue at hand, because neither does the intellect, as acting by its own partial causality, give this act, whereby it operates for intellection, to the species of the object; and much less does the reverse happen, because the species of the object does not give to the intellect any activity pertaining to the causality of it.

281. The second way is seen in certain things moving locally, the way the hand moves the stick and the stick moves the ball; for the hand does not give to the stick the hardness by which it impels the body toward some place; rather it gives to the stick precisely a local motion whereby, namely, it is applied to this impelling because of the incompossibility that one hard body against another hard body not yield to it.Tr. A possible reference to an early form of golf? ⁶⁸ This is the way it seems to be in things acting for some effect produced by generation or alteration, because although the ordered causes there have some reason for causing and the inferior does not cause save in virtue of the superior, yet this virtue or assistance or influence -whatever name one gives it - is not the impression of some form or of something or other inhering in the inferior or superior cause, but is only an order and actual conjunction of such active causes, from which, as thus conjoined and with their proper activities presupposed to the conjoining, an effect follows common to both causes [1 d.3 nn.495-496].

282. Therefore to the issue at hand [nn.274, 279] I say that not only are the causes in question not mover and moved in the first way but they are not even properly so in the second way (the way that the sun and a father are disposed in generation); rather they are only two causes disposed as it were equally, in respect of the fact that neither per se totally moves and yet one of them has, in respect of the effect, a causality prior to the other.

283. For perhaps the inferior cause never acts in virtue of the superior cause (properly speaking), unless in its form, whereby it acts, it depends in some way on the superior cause, although it does not then - when it acts - receive that form from the superior cause but has it prior in duration or in nature. For neither does the object depend on the soul (at any rate as the soul is the possible intellect) with respect to the form by which it actually operates for the intellection, nor much less so the reverse dependence; and therefore the object is in no way an unmoved mover with respect to the soul as it operates for intellection.

284. However it can be a mover with respect to the soul insofar as the soul receives the intelligible species, but then it does not move the soul as to the causality that the soul has per se, but moves it per accidens to the form in respect of the partial cause, insofar as the soul operates on that form. And this is the way it was said in 1 d.3 [n.563] that ‘the agent intellect and the phantasm are one total cause of the [intelligible] species’, and further that ‘the intelligible species and something in the soul (whether the agent intellect or the possible intellect) are one total cause of intellection’ [nn.563-564]; so that in the first case there is an object (or a phantasm) moving the soul to intellection, and not to the first act that is the soul’s as it is soul but to the act that is from the rest of the partial cause previous it; but in the second case the object does not move the soul at all, neither to the first act of the soul nor as to any other concurrent cause, but it acts precisely for the common effect - and then the soul, by the act that it had [sc. through its first act], displays in its own order its perfect acting [or: displays.. .its acting through the effect], so that there is no motion of the soul there for acting naturally prior to the effect produced. However the soul is not moved to the effect insofar as it is active but insofar as it receptive of the effect, and so, although it is moved, yet it is not a moved mover, because it is not moved to actively moving but to receiving.

285. To the fourth [n.275] I say that the first proposition [sc. ‘two things distinct in genus cannot cause an effect of the same idea’] is false of partial causes ordered in some way or other to the same effect - that is, that there is an essential order to them and they are not altogether of the same idea. For such partial causes, which are of a different idea, are not only distinct in species (because causes of the same species do not go together in common as causes ordered to the same effect), nor are they only distinct in number (because then they are not of such idea [sc. ordered partial causes]) - therefore they are distinct in genus; and if you take it that they are not distinct ‘in this sort of genus’, a consequence drawn from the idea of distinction in genus cannot hold more of this genus than of that.

II. To the Principal Arguments

286. To the principal arguments [nn.256-261]:

To the first [n.256] I concede that the soul is of itself actually intelligible and present to itself, and from this follows that it could understand itself if it were not impeded; for nothing is lacking to first act, neither on the part of one cause or both, nor on the part of their union; and thus the whole of first act is perfect of itself, and on this first act should follow the second act that is intellection. For this reason, perhaps, Augustine frequently says that the soul ‘always knows itself’, because of this proximity to the act of knowing when there is no imperfection in first act.

287. Now the soul does not in this way always know a stone, because although it always has the perfect act of knowing a stone with respect to its own proper partial causality, yet it does not always have the other partial cause in act and present to it in act; and therefore the soul can be said to be ‘sometimes in essential potency’ to understanding a stone, namely when it lacks the form that is of a nature to be the other partial cause in act and of a nature to be united to it in act. And in this way does Augustine posit a trinity [On the Trinity 14.6 n.9, 7 n.10] and yet posits that it pertains to the memory alone, because the whole thing exists under the idea of being intelligible only in the presence of the object (and this pertains to the memory [1 d.2 nn.221, 291, 310, d.3 n.580]), but in it is the virtual intellection of the object, which intellection pertains to the intelligence; and in this way, when the will is present as first act, the first act is in some way, in the sufficient cause as in the will and in the sine qua non condition as in the intellection, perfected for having a second act with respect to itself as effect. But because nothing of this whole save what pertains to the memory is in act, therefore this whole trinity (namely, that which is of a nature to be a trinity) is in the memory alone as to its real actuality.

288. But why does this total first act not proceed to second act [n.286], since it is per se a sufficient principle for eliciting the second act? I reply: because there is an impediment which this cause cannot overcome, in just the way that a natural cause, however much it be posited to be perfect, could yet never act because of some impediment overcoming it.

289. But what is this impediment? I reply: our intellect, for this present state, is not of a nature immediately to move or be moved unless it is first moved by something imaginable or sensible from outside.

290. And why is this? Perhaps because of sin, as Augustine seems to say On the Trinity 15.27 [cf. 1 d.13 n.78], “Infirmity does this to you, and what is cause of infirmity but sin?” (The same is said by the commentator on Ethics 6 and by Lincoln on the same place and on Posterior Analytics likewise.)Eustratius Nicomachean Ethics 6.4 f.106rb-va, as translated and annotated by Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, ibid., and on Posterior Analytics 1.14 f.14ra. ⁶⁹ Or perhaps this cause is natural, in that in this way was nature set up (as not absolutely natural), namely, if the order of powers (which was discussed largely in 1 d.3 nm.187, 392) necessarily required this, that a phantasm must, as regard whatever universal the intellect may understand, make actually appear a singular of the same universal; but this does not come from nature (nor is this cause absolutely natural), but from sin - and not only from sin but from the nature of the powers in this present state, whatever Augustine may be saying.

291. To the form, then, of the argument [n.256] I say that the cause that is on the part of the angel [sc. ‘because his essence is intelligible and present to the intellect itself’, n.256] is sufficient for the essence of the angel to be the sufficient reason for understanding itself; the essence is also such on the part of the soul, but in the soul it is impeded, and in the angel not impeded; for the intellect of an angel does not have the sort of order to imaginables that our intellect has in this present state.

292. And because of this impotency for immediately understanding intelligibles in act (which impotency does not come from an intrinsic but an extrinsic impossibility, which impossibility, and not just any impossibility, the Philosopher also experienced), the Philosopher himself said that ‘the intellect is not any of the intelligibles before it understands’ [n.256], that is, ‘it is not able to be understood by itself before the understanding of other things’; and this last proposition is multiple, according to composition and division (like the proposition in Topics 6.6.145b21-30, ‘this now is first immortal or incorruptible’), from the fact that the preposition ‘before’ along with its clause ‘the understanding of other things’ (which is equivalent to an adverbial determination) can be composed with the infinitive ‘to be understood’ signifying the term of the power (and the sense is that of composition) or with the composition itself signified by the indicative term of verb ‘is’ (and the sense is that of division); so that the first sense [sc. of composition] is this: ‘it is not possible for the intellect to be understood by itself before the understanding of other things’, and this sense is true according to the Philosopher; but the other sense [sc. of division] is that ‘before the understanding of other intelligibles it is not possible for the intellect to understand’, and it is false (just as the proposition ‘this is now first immortal’ is false about man in the state of innocence, Topics 6 above). And in this way does the Philosopher understand that ‘the soul understands itself as it does other things’ [n.256].In the Topics passage Aristotle discusses the sentence ‘this animal is incorruptible now’ and says it can be understood to mean ‘this animal is not corrupted now’ or ‘it is not possible for it to be corrupted now’, or ‘it is of the sort now as never to be corrupted’. He further remarks that when we say an animal is incorruptible now we do not mean that now the animal is such (sc. such as never to be corrupted) but that now it is as never corrupted (sc. though it can or will be corrupted sometime later, as was also true of man in the state of innocence before the fall, that he was immortal then but not such that, through sin, he could not die later). Hence the ‘now’ is either taken in divided sense where it is outside and governs ‘this animal is incorruptible’, so that the sense is that the animal is such as never to die, and this sense is false; or in composed sense where the ‘now’ is part of ‘this animal is incorruptible’, so that the sense is that the animal is at this time now incorruptible (though nothing is implied about whether it can or cannot be corrupted later), and this sense is true. So the sentence discussed here by Scotus, ‘the intellect is not able to be understood by itself before the understanding of other things’, can be taken either in divided sense where the ‘not possible before it understands other things’ is outside and governs ‘the intellect understands itself’, so that the sense is that the combination of ‘the intellect understands itself’ and ‘before it understands other things’ is impossible, or that the intellect is such as never to understand itself before understanding other things. This sense is false. Or the sentence can be taken in composed sense where the ‘not possible before it understands other things’ is part of ‘the intellect understands itself’, so that the combination of ‘the intellect understands itself’ and ‘before it understands other things’ is not impossible simply but only given the intellect’s current ability. This sense is true because it allows that the intellect might, in other conditions, be able to understand itself before it understands other things. So, finally, when the Philosopher says ‘the soul understands itself as it understands other things’, he should not be taken as meaning that it is impossible simply for the soul to understand itself in any other way, but that this way is how it does in fact understand itself - without implication about what it may or may not be able to do in other circumstances. ⁷⁰

293. And, according to this mode of exposition, the intellect is moved by imaginable objects and, when these are known, it can know from them ideas common to immaterial and to material things and thus, by reflection, know itself under an idea common to itself and to imaginable things. But it cannot understand itself immediately without understanding something else [n.256], for it cannot be moved immediately by itself because of its necessary ordering, in this present state, to imaginable things [1 d.3 nn.541-542].

294. As to the second principal argument [n.257], one doctor says [Aquinas ST Ia q.56 a.1 ad2] that a singular can be per se understood although not a material singular, because it is not the singularity but the materiality that gets in the way (otherwise God would not be intelligible since he is singular, which is false); and then the response is plain, that the assumed proposition about the non-understood singular [‘a singular is not per se intelligible’, n.257] is only true of a material singular. Another doctor says [Henry of Ghent Quodlibet 5 q.15] that the intellect is not able to understand either itself or other things under the idea of a singular (material or immaterial) but under the idea of a universal, which is per se the object of the intellect and also shines forth in the intelligible habit; and according to this opinion too the response to the argument is plain. However I believe neither is true save when speaking of the material intellect, which is not able perhaps, because of its imperfection, to understand every intelligible that an angelic intellect can understand.

295. To the third [n.258] I say that the reason for the major proposition [sc. ‘every cognitive power must, as to itself, be bare of that which is the reason for knowing’] is this - first in the case of the sensitive powers - ‘that every sensitive power requires a determinate organ’; hence from the possible determinate number of organs the Philosopher concludes, On the Soul 2.6.418a7-17, 3.1.424b22-27, 3.2.426b8-12, to a determinate number of actions or objects. But the organ has to be so disposed that it can receive the sensible thing without matter, and, in the case of bodily things, whatever is receptive of the form without the matter is not commonly receptive of every form (I said ‘commonly’ for this reason, that the discussion is not now of the organ of sense, about which there is a special difficulty [Reportatio ad loc.]). So the organ of sense must be not such, that is, it must lack the object in the object’s material and sensible being (not only actually but even potentially), because it is not receptive of the object in its material being (according to which being it is the object of sense). The point is very clear about color, where the thing that receives it in material being is the surface of a determinate body, but where the thing that receives it without matter is a transparent or indeterminate body [sc. the water or air etc. through which a colored object is seen]. And thus opposed dispositions are required in the organ of sense, because it must be receptive of the sensible without matter and in something which must receive the object in material being [sc. the eye, qua seeing, is transparent but qua determinate body has a colored surface]; so for this reason the organ, and consequently the sense that is in the organ, has to be bare of the form that it receives.

296. From this too follows what is put forward by the Philosopher in On the Soul 3.4.429a24-27, namely that the intellect is not the power of an organ and so is separated from the whole of matter, just as from any organ by which it operates. For if it required some organ, that organ would be of a determinate disposition (as is every bodily organ), and so from the fact it is receptive of things according to determinate material being (because of the determinate disposition of the body) it would not be receptive of all bodily forms according to immaterial being; and so the intellect could not receive the forms of all material things, as of its objects, if it were a material and organic power. However, when one has that it is a non-organic power, there is no need for it to be really not of the sort as that is of which it has to be intellectually receptive; for there is no need that there be an opposite disposition in what is receptive really and intellectually of something - on the supposition that the intellect is not an organic power, although this would be required if it were an organic power; for the same intellect can be itself really and be habitually in act really, and yet receptive intellectually both of itself and of its habit and of anything that really informs it; and the whole reason is that such things, when intellectually received, do not require in the receiver a determinate disposition opposite to intelligible real being [1 d.3 nn.383-390].

297. The proposition, then, which says that the knower must be not such, or bare of that which it knows or receives and of the reason for knowing [n.258], entails, if it is taken generally, that every intellect is nothing, because every intellect in itself belongs to the totality of beings, and so it will be none of the beings; and this understanding is false. But it is however not material or organic, so that it can be capable of all beings; because if it were material or organic it would be receptive only of some things without matter, things the reception of which would not be repugnant to its material entity; but to its intellectual entity the intellectual reception of anything whatever is not repugnant.

298. To the fourth principal argument [n.260] the reply has been made frequently [1 d.3 nn.430, 513-520] that the same thing can move itself (not only with bodily but also with spiritual motion), and universally any virtual univocal action can stand with a power for a second formal act; and, next, it has been frequently said [2 d.2 nn.472-473, 1 d.2 n.231, 1 d.7 n.72] how the same thing is not in power and in act as these are opposite differences of being, whether per se or denominatively, and yet the same thing is in potency (that is, is a passive principle) and in act (that is, is an active principle of the same).

299. As to the final argument [n.261], although some [Averroes, Metaphysics 12 com.51] concede the conclusion there drawn [sc. ‘the intellection would be the same either as the object or as his essence’] - which seems impossible, because then it would follow that the intellection would be actually infinite (for any intellect can be of infinite intelligibles, and if it then had an intellection the same as itself, the intellection of anything whatever would, by parity of reason, be the same as itself, and thus it would have an intellection the same as itself which was or could be of infinite intelligibles) -however I deny the consequence [sc. ‘if an angel could.. .then.. .the object or as his essence’].

300. And as to the proof of the consequence [n.261] I say that the intellection, according to truth, is an extreme both with respect to the power and with respect to the object, because it is the effect of both; for just as when knowledge is produced by diverse things (knower and known) there is an effect common to them both (Augustine On the

Trinity IX.12 n.18), so too when an effect is produced by something the same that has the nature of both the power and the object, it is the effect of that one thing (which thing really has the double causality) and is not in between the same thing and itself in natural reality, the way that a middle is in between contraries; and about such a middle, as far as concerns the nature of the thing, the proposition is true that ‘the middle agrees more with the extremes than the extremes agree with themselves’ [n.261].

301. To the confirmation [n.261] I say that an intellection is distinguished from another intellection by the object, but it is distinguished from the object and the power by itself formally; but the fact it is distinguished from them causally it gets from the extrinsic causes (as from the power and the object), as the ray has causally from the sun that it is distinguished from it.