Question Two. Whether the Separated Soul can Acquire Knowledge of Something Previously Unknown

34. Second I ask whether the separated soul can acquire knowledge of something previously unknown.

35. That it cannot:

[Because if it could] it would then in vain be united to the body. Proof of the consequence: the soul is not united for the sake of the perfection of the body, because form is not for the sake of matter but conversely, Physics 2.8.199a30-32;     therefore it is united for the sake of acquiring its own perfection, namely so that it may acquire knowledge through the use of the senses in the body; but this would be in vain if, when separated without use of the senses, it could acquire knowledge; therefore etc     .

36. Again, passage from extreme to extreme is only possible through the middle; the thing outside exists altogether materially, in the intellect altogether immaterially; therefore, it must pass through the middle, wherein it exists in some way materially and in some way immaterially. But in the senses it thus exists in some way materially, because according to material conditions, and in some way immaterially, because, according to the Philosopher On the Soul 2.12.424a17-19, “sense is receptive of the species without matter” - without, I say, the sort of matter that a form really existing outside requires.

37. Again, if the soul could acquire knowledge of one unknown thing, then likewise too of any unknown thing, and so an object’s distance in place would not prevent knowledge of it - which seems against Augustine On Care for the Dead ch.15 n.18, where he maintains that separated souls do not know the things done here unless angels and souls coming to them express to them the things they know here.

38. On the contrary:

Nature is not without its proper specific operation - and this point is taken from On the Heavens 2.3.286a8-9 and from Damascene Orthodox Faith ch.59 [cf. Ord. I d.3 n.209]. Now the human soul is the most perfect form, and its proper operation according to the possible intellect is to understand, according to the agent intellect to abstract, according to the will to will. Therefore, no manner of being can belong to the soul according to its nature wherein it does not have power for these operations. But according to its nature the soul is such as to be able to have separate being, and this comes from the perfection of its nature (hence it does not belong to other, imperfect forms). Therefore it has, in that separate being, power for these operations. But it is possible for the soul not to have previously acquired any species of objects, as is plain of the soul of a deceased child; therefore it will be able to acquire them then.

I. To the Question

A. Opinion of Others

1. Exposition of the Opinion

39. Here the negative opinion is held, because of the second reason [n.36], virtually [cf. n.49].

40. For it argues [Aquinas, Sent IV d.50 q.1 a.1] that “there must be some agreement between receiver and received; now the species existent in the senses have agreement with the intellect insofar as they are without matter, and agreement with material things insofar as they exist with material conditions; and so it is agreeable that the senses receive from material things, and that the intellect receives from the senses -but not that the intellect receive immediately from material things,” because there is no such agreement in that case; and so, “in order for the intellect to understand after separation from the body, no forms received from things either then or before are required.”

41. How then will the intellect understand?

They say that it will understand “through influence from higher substances, namely from God or the angels” - and this when speaking of a natural influence and its natural knowledge.

42. The point is shown as follows:

“The intellect seems to be a mean between intellectual substances and corporeal things (hence the saying that ‘the soul is created on the horizon of eternity’ [Book of Causes prop.2 n.22]); and this for the reason that the soul attains intellectual substances through the intellect, but attains corporeal things insofar as it the act of a body; but the more any mean approaches one extreme the more it recedes from the other, and conversely.”

43. “Hence, since our soul comes closest to the body in this life, namely as being the act of the body, it does not have a relation to intellectual things, and therefore does not receive influence from higher substances so has to get knowledge, but it gets knowledge through species received from the senses. And so, even in this life, the more the soul is drawn away from the body so much the more does it receive the influx of knowledge from spiritual substances, and hence it is that it knows certain occult things when sleeping or in excess of mind. Wherefore, when it will be actually separated from the body, it will be most ready to receive the influence of higher substances, namely of God and angels, and thus, in accordance with this sort of influence, it will have a greater or lesser knowledge according to the mode of its own capacity.”

44. “And this is how the Commentator [Averroes] speaks in On the Soul 3 com.5, because he posits that the possible intellect [cf. Ord. I d.3 n.548] is a separate substance; and although he errs in this yet he does speak rightly to this extent, that from the fact the possible intellect is posited as a separate substance it does have a respect to higher intellectual substances, so as to understand them. But according to the respect in which it is compared to our intellect by receiving species from phantasms, it is not conjoined with the higher substances.”

2. Rejection of the Opinion

a. Against the Opinion in Itself

45. There is reason against this position, even if no other reason save from the following principles: the first of which is that “a plurality is not to be posited without necessity” (Physics 1.4.188a17-18), the second of which is that one should not posit of any nature what derogates from its dignity, unless this be evident from something that agrees with such nature (this principle can be got from the Philosopher, On Generation 2.10.336b27-29, “we always say that nature desires what is better, and as in the whole universe, so also in each part, one must rather posit for it what is better, and provided it not evidently appear that it does not belong to it”). But now a plurality is being posited, because such species are infused by God or angels, and without necessity - because this nature has sufficiently in itself the resources to be able to reach its own perfection without such givens infused by God or angels. Hence it seems here that only because the perfection of this nature is not understood in itself is recourse being had to God or angels.

46. This opinion also cheapens the nature of the intellective soul. For just as a nature is cheaper simply that has power for no operation or only for a cheaper one, so proportionally is a nature that has no power for an operation that belongs to it cheaper than one that does have such power. Now the separated soul has for you [Aquinas] no power from its intrinsic resources (even when extrinsic factors are concurrent with it) for any operation that belongs to it unless God or an angel give it the sort of species in question - but a stone does have power from its intrinsic resources, without such a begged-for infusion, for an operation proportioned to it, because it can descend toward the center and remain there. Therefore, the soul is more cheapened by this position, in proportion to its nobility, than the nature of a stone is.

47. Again, he who has this opinion holds elsewhere [Aquinas, On Metaphysics 5 lect.12] that two accidents of the same species cannot exist together; but the infused species of a stone as object is of the same species as the intelligible species acquired by the soul here in the body; therefore either the infused species will not remain, or the one acquired here must not remain. But the second is false, because since the proper subject of this species is incorruptible, and since the species itself can of itself incorruptibly remain, it follows that it will in fact remain. Therefore, another species of the stone will not be given to it by God or an angel and, consequently, either it will never understand a stone, or it will be able to understand it through the species it previously received from things - which they [Aquinas and his followers] deny.

48. If you say that the species is not given to what possesses it already - this does not seem reasonable, that this soul [sc. the one that possesses it already] should lack the sort of perfect species given to another soul not possessed of it;The translation given here rejects the punctuation and grammatical markings in the printed text, which are hard to decipher. The sense of the argument seems to be that if an infused species is only given to a separated soul that does not have the species already, then first: the separated soul that does not receive the infused species (because it already has the species acquired from things) will lack this perfect infused species, though other souls will have it, which seems unreasonable; and second: this separated soul, which does not receive the infused species (because it has the acquired one), will understand, if it understands, through the acquired species, and this is opposed to the opinion being defended here, that separated souls understand only through infused species. ¹⁵ and this response is at least maintained against the opinion [in question here], because there will then be an intellection through a species previously received from the thing.

49. If you say the infused and acquired species differ in kind the way acquired and infused virtue (which exist simultaneously) differ - this is assumed as axiomatic, and was dealt with in Ord. III d.26 n.11, 22, 24-26, 102-111. But suppose the axiom is conceded to them as to the virtues; the proposed conclusion does not follow here, because infused virtue will have its own different rule from the one that acquired virtue has, and from difference of rule a virtue different in species will be able to be posited, because a virtue (by the essential idea of a virtue) depends on the rule it is conformed to. But it will not be possible to imagine here a specific difference between an infused species and an acquired species, because there is no difference here save only that of effective principle or of mode of effecting, and such difference does not distinguish effects into species, Augustine, On the Trinity 3.9 n.20“What is understood from each of two sources is perhaps single, but the things it is understood from are different, as that if the name of ‘the Lord’ be written in gold and in black ink, the first is more precious the second more cheap, but what is signified by each is the very same.” ¹⁶ [cf. Ord. III d.27 n.11].

b. Against the Reasons for the Opinion

50. The reasons for the opinion do not prove it.

[To the first reason] - The first [n.40], for the negative side [n.39], will either have four terms, or will not prove the conclusion intended, or one proposition will be false.

For if you take for the major ‘there must be an agreement between receiver and received’ and for the minor ‘an external material thing does not have an agreement with the intellect’, what follows? That therefore ‘the intellect does not receive the external material thing’, nor conversely [sc. ‘the external thing does not receive the intellect’]. But if you conclude that ‘the intellect does not receive from an external material thing’, there will be four terms, because the predicate [sc. ‘does not receive from an external material thing’] was not in the major. Now if you take the following major (which however you do not put down in what was written but rather the first one), namely ‘there must be an agreement between receiver and what it receives from’, I say that it would be more proper to say ‘proportion’ than ‘agreement’, because the receiver has the idea of passive thing and that from which it receives has the idea of agent. Now agent and passive thing are proportional but not properly in agreement, save by extending ‘agreement’ to mean ‘proportion’; nay rather, proportion between them requires disagreement, because proportion requires that one be actually such and the other potentially such.

51. So this new major, then, will either be false, if it is understood of agreement properly speaking; or if it extends agreement to mean proportion, let it be conceded. And then the minor ‘the external thing does not have agreement in this way [sc. by proportion] with the intellect’ is false; for it is at least virtually in act such as the intellect is formally in potency.

52. A first confirmation of this is that you concede a phantasm has such an agreement with the intellect, and yet a phantasm is of a condition opposite to what is received in the intellect, because it only represents the object as it is here and now, which object in its universal idea is understood abstracted from these conditions [of here and now]. Nor does the other agreement, namely that the phantasm is without extrinsic matter, make the phantasm to be something active. For the phantasm is truly in matter, that is, in an extended organ, and this would as much prevent action on the immaterial intellect from existing in this extended matter [sc. the extended organ] as from existing in that extended matter [sc. the external thing]. But a phantasm acts on the intellect only in this way, that it is representative of the object; so the thing itself can in itself equally be this, because it is equally representative of itself. And this I believe to be true, that although the intellect can abstract from a phantasm, which persists apart from the thing, yet it can take knowledge immediately from the external thing, as is contained in a comment [by Averroes] On the Soul 3 com.20.“For one must suppose that when this intellect, which is in potency, is declared to be eternal and of a nature to be perfected by material forms, it is of greater dignity than to be naturally perfected by non-material forms that in themselves are understood.” ¹⁷

53. A second confirmation is that it follows that an angel could not receive knowledge from an external thing, which was something rejected in Ord. II d.3 n.383.

54. [To the second reason] - The second reason [n.42], which is for the affirmative conclusion about that influence, either fails by equivocation over the middle term, or one of its premises is false. For when you take in the major “the more any mean approaches one extreme the more it recedes from the other” - if you understand the mean to approach and recede as to the same form, I concede it; if as to different forms, it is false. So, for instance, if it is a medium in being and it recedes from this extreme in being, it approaches the other extreme in being; likewise, if it is a mean in operating and it recedes from this extreme in operating, it approaches that one in operating. But if it is a mean in operating or being, and it recedes from one extreme in being, it will not for this reason approach the other in operating.

55. Now the minor can be understood, first, of a middle in being - and this is true, because the soul (even when conjoined to the body) in some way holds the mean between separate substance and bodily existence. And conclude then: ‘therefore when the separated soul recedes from body in being, the more it approaches separate substance in mode of being’ (I concede this). But from this nothing follows as to the proposition “it approaches closer to receiving from separate substance an influx pertaining to operation.” And if the argument were adduced for this purpose, it manifestly does not prove it; for then the soul when separated would be more capable of such influx than when conjoined to a glorious body, because when conjoined to a glorious body it approaches closer to body in being than it does when separated, indeed it approaches closer, that is, approaches more perfectly, than when conjoined to a corruptible body.

56. But if, second, you take in the minor that the separated soul recedes more from the body in operating than when it is conjoined, this is false as meaning that it recedes from the object about which it operates. For the soul can know body when separated just as it can when conjoined; and so the result does not follow that it approaches more to separate substance as to its knowable object, or as to that from which it receives its knowable object.

57. What they adduce for confirmation of this position (the one about dreams and ecstasy, the other about the statement of the Commentator On the Soul 3 [nn.43-44]) seem to be figments.

58. For it is not because the soul in its operating recedes from the body as from its object that certain truths are seen in dreams; for then the deeper the dream the more such things would be seen; but this is false, because dreams do not happen in very deep sleep but in light sleep; also epileptics would then regularly see truths coming from those spirits [God and angels].

59. Hence, this basis of argument seems to be taken from the fictions of Mahomet, who is said to have been an epileptic and, so as to give a deceitful covering to his wretchedness, he said he had to fall down when the angel was speaking to him. And, according to this fiction of Mahomet’s, Avicenna, when speaking with reverence of Mahomet’s law, imagines (in Metaphysics 9.7) there are such abstractions from sense so that there may be revelation from angels.

60. But we Christians do not say that anyone sees anything in sleep or ecstasy, unless there be some positive cause there, as that God acts then on the person’s intellect. But the person then is disposed more fittingly by the removal of an impediment, namely because he is not distracted by other objects; and vehement occupation with another object impedes operating intensely about this one. Indeed, it seems more a miracle that truth is revealed in sleep than in being awake and in an intellect not too intent on sensible things, for it is natural for man to have use of reason when awake and not when asleep.

61. The second example, from Averroes [n.44], is plainly all made up for the purpose, that that separate substance receives from higher beings, and yet as conjoined with us it does not so receive. For it is a contradiction that a separate nature could be conjoined with us save by reason of efficient or moving cause. But something active, if in its being it receive something from a superior, receives it therefrom insofar as it is active [sc. insofar as it is active in moving the conjoined body].

B. Scotus’ own Opinion

62. To the question, then, I say that the separated soul can acquire knowledge of an object previously unknown, and knowledge both abstractive and intuitive. The meanings of these terms were stated elsewhere [Rep. IVA d.45 q.2].

1. About Abstractive Knowledge

63. The proof of the first is that when a sufficient active and passive factor are sufficiently close, the effect can follow, and if the agent acts naturally, the effect does follow. But now, when the separated soul has present to it a stone or any object proportioned to it, there come together in the soul an active and a passive factor both sufficient for abstractive knowledge - or for the intelligible species of such object by which abstractive knowledge is had;     therefore etc     .

64. The proof of the minor is that the agent intellect together with an object is a sufficient active cause of an intelligible species, and no less so when with an external object than with a phantasm (which point they concede); because, as was said in arguing against the opinion [n.52], there is nothing in a phantasm to make it sufficient to cause an intelligible species that does not more eminently belong in the thing of which the phantasm is the phantasm; and the possible intellect is a power sufficiently receptive [of intelligible species].

2. About Intuitive Knowledge

65. This argument proves the second point, namely about intuitive knowledge. For the sufficient causes of this knowledge are the object present in actual existence and the agent and possible intellects; all these can come to be together. And so is it proved, as it seems, that the thing must itself immediately suffice for intellectual knowledge to be had of itself, because the phantasm alone does not suffice for intuitive knowledge of an object, since a phantasm represents a thing existent or not existent, present or not present, and consequently through it knowledge of the thing as it exists in its proper present existence cannot be had. Now such knowledge, which is called intuitive, can be intellective knowledge, otherwise the intellect would not be certain of any existence of any object. But this intuitive knowledge too cannot be had through the presence of the species, because the species represents the thing indifferently as existent and not existent, present and not present.

66. And from this follows that through species infused by God or angels neither intellection is possible for a separated intellect, because the second is not.The second kind is intuitive intellection and the first kind is abstractive, and the first depends on the second. ¹⁸ If then the second is possible, because it is also possible now, it follows that it will be about the thing in itself and not by such infusing.

67. Now the excessive distance of the object impedes this intuitive intellection of the object, because according to Augustine On Care for the Dead 15 n.18, “those souls do not know what is done here unless they learn it from angels or from other newly arriving souls who can tell them what they knew here,” in the way that John the Baptist predicted to the holy souls in limbo that Christ would come down to them, according to Gregory’s exposition [Ten Homilies on the Gospels, 1.6 n.1]“John says therefore, ‘Are you he who is to come or do we wait for another?’, as if he were to say openly, ‘As you deigned to be born for men, indicate whether you deign also to die for men, so that I who have arisen as precursor of your birth am also to be precursor of your death, and am to announce that you are to come in hell whom I have announced are already come in the world’.” ¹⁹ of John’s question in Matthew 11.31, “Are you he who is to come etc.?” But now, if they knew through infused species these conditions of the existence of things, such would not need to be announced to them by the saints, whether angels or souls, who know these matters.a

a.a [Interpolated text]. I specifically believe that it is impossible for any intelligible species to be equivalently in the soul through an influx from angels, because I do not believe that an angel can cause in these lower things any real form that I understand distinct in location, nor consequently cause in the soul an intelligible species (which is a form and a perfect one, though in respect of the object it be said to be intrinsic). Because for the same reason that an angel could impress this form it could impress an intellection on the intellect, since an intellection too is a certain form of intention with respect to a real object; yet an intellection could in itself impress a volition - which [sc. an angel impressing a volition on the soul] no one concedes.

II. To the Initial Arguments

68. To the first initial argument [n.35] I say that it does not follow the soul is in vain united to the body. For let it be that this union come about for the perfection of the soul, namely so that the soul acquire its perfection from such union; it does not follow that, if it could acquire it in another way, it is united in vain. For if something is ordered to an end, it does not come to be in vain if the end could be acquired in another way; just as if health could be acquired by surgery and medicine, surgery does not become vain though health could be acquired by medicine. So, if knowledge could be acquired by the use of the senses and in another way by the soul when separated, the union does not become vain from the fact that it agrees with one of these ways of acquiring knowledge.

69. An answer in another way, and more to the point, is that the union of soul and body is not ultimately either for the perfection of the body or for the perfection alone of the soul, but for the perfection of the whole that consists of these parts. And therefore, though no perfection could accrue to this part or to that which could not be had without such a union, yet the union does not come to be in vain because the perfection of the whole, which is principally intended by nature, could only be had in this way.

70. To the second [n.36] I say that something is a necessary medium for one virtue that is not a medium for another virtue, speaking of necessary medium, as in transferring a body from place to place, where some medium is necessary for the natural moving power, so that the natural power cannot transfer it from a distant ‘where’ to another ‘where’ saveThe word ‘save’ seems necessary for the sense though the printed text omits it, probably through a typographical error. ²⁰ through a ‘where’ in the middle; and yet it is not a medium necessary for divine power, which can at once transfer it from any ‘where’ to any other ‘where’. So, in the issue at hand, a perfect abstractive virtue needs a medium, namely imaginative being, between the sensible object outside and the pure intelligible thing; but a more perfect abstractive virtue does not need this medium. Hence the argument [n.36] can be turned toward the opposite, that if the virtue of the separated intellect were more perfect than that of the conjoined intellect, it could transfer the object from extreme to extreme without such a medium.

71. Or it could in another way be said that under one of the two extremes falls imaginable being, because this is simply sensible being. But this extreme has under it diverse things and in diverse degrees, because the sensible thing outside is in some way in a more remote sensible degree from intelligible being than the sensible thing is as it is in imaginable being. But as it is, some virtue in some degree in the extreme is able to act and some lesser virtue is not able to act, but it can act from some degree closer. So here, although the abstractive power of our conjoined intellect cannot act by abstracting the intelligible thing from the sensible thing save from this lowest sensible degree, namely the imaginable, yet the higher or more efficacious virtue can abstract from a more distant degree, namely from the degree of the sensible thing outside.

72. To the third [n.37]: conceded that knowledge can be acquired of anything ceteris paribus.

73. And when you say about distance in place that it is not a hindrance, I reply that this does not follow, because a determinate presence of the object to the power is required; but a disproportionate distance prevents this determinate presence. And no wonder, because at least an object that is in some way here active cannot act on a passive object however much in the distance it is; and consequently I concede that knowledge of an object however much in the distance it is cannot be caused in a separated intellect, as not in a conjoined one either.

74. If it is objected against this that, according to Boethius Hebdom. PL 64, 1311, “it is self-evident that incorporeal things are not in place” [cf, Aquinas, ST Ia q.2 a.1], therefore they do not require distance in place in their operation - I reply: the Philosopher seems to posit that a determinate distance is required for the operation even of separated substance; hence in Physics 8.1.267b6-9 he seems to posit that the intelligence moving a sphere is in some part of the sphere, from which part the motion begins, as if at least a definitive presence to place of the mover were doing something for the action of moving. Likewise in Physics 7.1.242b24-27, 2.243a3-6 [On Generation 1.6.323a22-31] he maintains of express intention that agent and patient are present together - which is understood either of presence together by contact, where it cannot be greater, as in bodies, according to him [sc. of two bodies in contact, one body is not more in contact with the other than the other is with it], or where presence can be greater, but the greater one, namely mutual presence, is the one meant [sc. one thing can be more present to another than the other is to it, as in affection, but the greater presence is mutual presence, when the affection is on both sides]. But a spirit can have a greater presence to body than by contact; therefore, by Aristotle’s express intention, presence together by contact will [for a spirit] be by mutual presence, and consequently too great a distance does impede action.