C. Doubts about Scotus’ Response

19. Against this view there seem to be some doubts.

First, that if many intelligible species be conserved in the intellect, either each of them will move the intellect to consider the object represented by it, or none of them will. The first is unacceptable because understanding many distinct things at once is unacceptable; therefore the second is left, that the intellect will turn out understanding nothing.

20. Besides, understanding without a phantasm is more perfect than understanding with a phantasm (the proof of which is that this agrees more with the understanding of God and angels, which is simply more perfect in the genus of understandings). Therefore, if the separated intellect could understand without a phantasm, it would have an understanding simply more perfect than when conjoined with the body, which is unacceptable.

21. Further, in a conjoined intellect the intelligible species without a phantasm is not sufficient for understanding, because the intellect needs to turn toward phantasms, On the Soul 3.8.432a8-9. But the intelligible species is as equally perfect in a conjoined intellect as in a separated one;     therefore , the species by itself will not be sufficient in a separated intellect for understanding, nor will it be possible then for a phantasm to be had; therefore etc     .

22. Further, an operation proper to the whole cannot be an operation proper to a part, because neither can the total being of the whole belong to a part, but understanding is the operation proper to man, Ethics 1.6.1098a3-4, 7. And there is proof from reason: because the proper operation of this species [man] is not other than this operation, therefore this operation cannot be an operation of the soul, which is only a part of the species.

23. To the first [n.19]: this difficulty (about the understanding of many or no objects first) is a common one, yet in the issue at hand it has a special difficulty, because there is no possibility here of having recourse to particular senses perceiving sensible things, nor to phantasms more or less efficaciously moving the intellect, as is the case with the conjoined intellect.

I say, then, to this briefly here (and consequently about this lack of simultaneousness everywhere), that objects habitually present are either equal in moving the intellect or one of them is a more efficacious mover of it than another. If in the first way, and if there were posited with this an equal inclination of the intellect toward all of them, then the intellect would understand none of them before another - but the hypothesis is impossible. If, however, one of them were a more efficacious mover (after removal of greater inclination in the intellect to one object than to another), then the more efficacious mover will move the intellect first and be first understood. But if one posits an equal inclination toward this object and toward that, then which of them will be understood first appears after one has weighed the moving force and the inclination on each side.

24. To the second [n.20] I say that something can be called more perfect than something else either positively or permissively. An example: animal is more perfect than fly permissively, because the idea of animal permits ‘animal’ to be saved in man; but fly is more perfect positively, because any species posits a perfection over and above the genus.The term ‘animal’ is here being used broadly for any living thing that moves about, and therefore it includes flies and snakes, although we classify flies more properly as insects and snakes as reptiles. ¹¹

To the issue at hand, ‘to understand without a phantasm is more perfect than to understand with a phantasm’ is true permissively but not positively, that is, it does not posit more perfection. The proof is that an agent able to use an instrument does not act positively more perfectly if it not use the instrument; yet it is possible that action without an instrument is more perfect than action with an instrument.Punctuating the Latin as in the translation. The punctuation in the printed text seems misleading. ¹² So it is here with a phantasm, which is a sort of instrument. I concede therefore that intellection without a phantasm has some condition of perfection which intellection with a phantasm does not have, because the former has a likeness with the simply perfect intellection of a separate substance. But it does not follow from this that any intellection of that sort [sc. intellection without a phantasm] is positively more perfect than any intellection of this sort [sc. intellection with a phantasm].Intellection without a phantasm, while simply more perfect, is not more perfect in man’s case than intellection with a phantasm. ¹³

25. To the third [n.21] I say that although the intelligible species in a conjoined intellect is not sufficient without a phantasm, yet not for this reason is a phantasm required there as a principle of the act of understanding; rather it is required there precisely as a principle of the operation of the imaginative power, and this operation is required for intellection because of the connection of the powers in acting (namely the superior and inferior powers), since the superior does not perfectly act about any object unless the inferior powers (those that have power to operate) operate about the same object. And this is the reason that distractions in the powers of the soul about diverse objects impede the operations of those powers.

26. There is however some perfection that a phantasm bestows on intellection, because it regularly intends the intelligible species in any intellection, as was made clear in d.1 nn.44-49 [cf. Ord. I d.3 nn.499-500]. But this perfection can be had without a phantasm, and therefore, to this extent, one must concede that separated intellection would be less perfect than conjoined intellection unless there were something else reforming it that would suffice for restoring an equal perfection.

27. And from this is plain how necessary a conversion to phantasms is, not as to a principle of understanding, but as to that whereby an inferior power has to be used so that a superior power may have its operation; and this because of the order of the powers in acting, which powers must come together in acting about the same object for the acting to be perfect.

28. To the fourth [n.22]: in the case of any whole whose form is not of a nature to exist per se there can be an action proper to the whole that is not able to belong to the form. But contrariwise, in the case of a whole whose form, namely specific form, is of a nature to exist per se, there cannot be a perfect operation that could not belong to the form as the operater; because the most perfect operation cannot be present unless it be present in its most perfect form, and it cannot be present in a form able to exist per se unless it could be in it per se, because the form will be immediately receptive of it; and so, if the form exists per se, it can receive per se.

29. I concede therefore that intellection is the proper operation of the whole man, but according to the most perfect form in him as through the proper principle of operation; nor is this all but, because this form is separable, intellection is so in the form that it can belong to it, and therefore is so proper to the whole that it can belong to the part. I therefore deny the major in the proposed argument [n.22 init.].

30. To the proof about being [n.22 ibid.], although some may say [Aquinas, Sent. IV d.44 q.1 a.1] that the being of the whole is the being of the soul, yet this was disproved above in d.43 [nn.12-25]. Hence I concede that the being of the whole cannot be the being of the soul, nor conversely - speaking of total and precise being. And yet the most perfect operation belongs to this whole because it cannot be in it save according to the soul, and it cannot be in it according to the soul as the soul is proximate receiver unless it could belong to the soul when the soul per se exists. It follows that the operation of the whole can be the operation of the soul; hence I deny the consequence, that ‘the being of this [the whole] cannot be the being of that [the part], therefore neither can the operation of the former be the operation of the latter’.

As to the proof [n.22], that ‘operation presupposes being’: this is true, but not as the precise reason for receiving.A thing cannot operate unless it exists, but the precise reason it has the operation need not be its existence. So the soul, which is not the existence of man but a part of that existence, can yet be the precise reason man has the relevant operation. ¹⁴