A. Against the Fundamental Reasons Adduced

219. First. These reasons [nn.211-213] seem to prove the impossibility of natural certain knowledge.

The first because if the object is ceaselessly changing, neither is it possible for any certitude to be had of it under the idea of the changeless, indeed nor could certitude be had of it in any light whatever, because there is no certitude when the object is known in a way other than it is. Therefore, neither is there certitude in knowing the changeable as unchangeable. It is plain too that the antecedent of this reason, namely that sensibles are ceaselessly moving, is false; for this is the option that is imputed to Heraclitus in Metaphysics 4.5.1010a7-11.

220. Likewise if, because of the changeableness of the exemplar, what is in our soul could not be certitude [n.212], then since whatever is put subjectively in the soul is changeable, the very act of understanding as well, it follows that by nothing in the soul is the soul put right so as not to err.a

a.a [Interpolated text] It follows too that the very act of understanding, since it is more changeable than the soul itself in which it is, will never be true, nor contain truth [cf. Scotus, Lectura I d.3 n169].

221. Similarly, according to this opinion, the inhering created species combines with the inflowing species [n.217]. But when something is combined that is repugnant to certitude, certitude cannot be obtained. For just as from a necessary proposition and a contingent proposition only a contingent proposition follows, so from something certain and something uncertain combining together for some knowledge no certain knowledge follows.

222. The same is plain also about the third reason [n.213], because if the very species abstracted from the thing combines with all knowing, and if no judgement can be made as to when the species represents itself as itself and when it represents itself as the object, then, whatever else combines with it, no certitude can be obtained by which the true may be discriminated from the likely true. These reasons, therefore, seem to conclude to the complete lack of certitude and opinion of the Academic [sceptics].

223. And I give proof that this conclusion [n.222] is not Augustine’s intention:

Augustine Soliloquies 1.8 n.15, “Everyone admits without any doubt the proofs of the learned sciences to be most true.” And Boethius On the Hebdomads, “A common conception of the mind is what each approves when he hears it.” And the Philosopher in Metaphysics 2.1.993b4-5, “First principles are known to everyone like a door to a house, because as a door to a house is open to view, though the interior of the house is not, so are the first principles known to everyone.”

224. From these three authorities [n.223] the argument goes as follows. What belongs to everything of some species follows the specific nature. Therefore, when each has infallible certitude of the first principles, and further when the form of a perfect syllogism is naturally evident to each (from the definition of a perfect syllogism in Prior Analytics 1.1.24b22-24), and the science of the conclusions depends only on the evidence of the principle and the evidence of the syllogistic inference for each - any conclusion, therefore, demonstrable from the self-evident principles, can be naturally known to everyone.

225. Second, it is clear that Augustine allows certainty of things known by sense experience; hence he says On the Trinity 15.12 n.21, “Far be it that we should doubt the things to be true that we have learnt through the senses of the body, for indeed through them we have learnt heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.” If we do not doubt of the truth of them, and we are not deceived, as is plain, then we are certain of the things we know through the senses; for certitude is had when doubt and deception are excluded.

226. It is also plain, third, that Augustine allows certitude of our acts, ibid., “Whether one sleeps or awake, one lives, because both to sleep and to see in dreams belong to one who is alive.”

227. But if you say that ‘to live’ is not second act but first act, there follows ibid., “If someone say I know that I know I am alive, he cannot be deceived,” even when reflecting back however often on the first ‘I know’. And ibid., “If someone say ‘I want to be blessed’, how is it not impudent to reply, ‘perhaps you are deceived?’,” and by reflecting there the ‘I know I want’ “endlessly etc.” Ibid., “If anyone say, ‘I do not wish to err’, will it not surely be true that he does not want to err?” “And other things,” he says, “are found that are valid against the academics, who contend that nothing can be known by man.” There follows ibid., about the three books Against the Academics, “he who has understood those books will be moved not at all by their many arguments against the perception of truth.”

228. Again, ibid. ch.15 n.25, “Things that are so known they could never be lost also belong to the nature of the soul itself, of which sort is that we know we live.”a So the first point is plain [n.218].b

a.a [Note by Scotus] One must note that there are four cognitive awarenesses [cf. nn.224-227, 240245], wherein for us is necessary certitude, namely: of things knowable simply [nn.230-234], things knowable through experience [nn.235-237], our own acts [nn.238-239], and things known by us, through the senses, as they now are [nn.240-245]. The first is manifest [n.230]; the third is concluded to be known per se, otherwise there would be no judgment as to what was known per se [cf. n.238]; the second and fourth contain infinite propositions known per se [nn.235, 241], to which they join others from the several senses. Example: a triangle has three [angles equal to two right angles, cf. Ord. I d.2 n.27], the moon is being eclipsed, I am awake, that is white - the first and the third need the senses only as occasion, because, were all the senses to err, there exists certitude simply [cf. nn.234, 238-239]. The second and fourth hold through this principle, namely that what eventuates frequently from something not free has that something as its per se natural cause [cf. nn.235, 240]; from this does the proposed conclusion follow. In the second and the fourth a necessary proposition is sometimes added [as in nn.236, 242, 244]. So you may put off Augustine’s authorities [nn.225-228] to the second article [cf. n.229], which deals with the matter, or which is the solution [sc. about the above four infallible certitudes].

b.b [Interpolated text] as to how his [Henry’s] reasons are not probative, and [the conclusion] false and against Augustine.