Cognitive Issues in the Long Scotist Tradition 3796547664, 9783796547669

Table of contents :
Introduction
Short Introduction to a Long Tradition – And to this Volume | Claus A. Andersen
I. Sensory Cognition
Suárez vs. Mastri and Belluto on Species in the Internal Sense | Daniel Heider
The Estimative Faculty in Scotus and Scotism | David González Ginocchio
II. Intellectual Cognition
In God's Mind | Giorgio Pini
The Species Intelligibilis in the Cognitive Process in Early Scotism | Marina Fedeli
The Non-Beatific Vision of God in the Present Life | Damian Park
Francisco Macedo on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition | Anna Tropia
III. Metaphysical and Theological Implications
Esse intentionale in Some Early Scotists | Richard Cross
Esse cognitum and Divine Ideas in the First Two Centuries of Scotism | Francesco Fiorentino
Alfonso Briceño on Cognition, Distinction, and the Knowledge of God | Roberto Hofmeister Pich
Making Room for the Virtual Distinction | Lukás Novák
Decretum Concomitans | Claus A. Andersen
IV. The Influence of Scotism
The Epistemological Limits of Religious Images | Ueli Zahnd
Melanchthon and the Will | Arthur Huiban
Univocity of Being, the Cogito and Idealism in Johannes Clauberg (1622–1665) | Giovanni Geller:
List of Contributors
Index of Names

Citation preview

Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy 5

Daniel Heider Claus A. Andersen (eds.)

COGNITIVE ISSUES IN THE LONG SCOTIST TRADITION

https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy 5

Julia Jorati / Dominik Perler / Stephan Schmid (eds.)

https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Daniel Heider, Claus A. Andersen (eds.)

Cognitive Issues in the Long Scotist Tradition

Schwabe Verlag https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

This book is a result of the research funded by the Czech Science Foundation as the project GA ČR 20-01710S “Theory of Cognition in Baroque Scotism”.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2023 Schwabe Verlag, Schwabe Verlagsgruppe AG, Basel, Schweiz This work is protected by copyright. No part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or translated, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Cover design: icona basel gmbH, Basel Cover: Kathrin Strohschnieder, STROH Design, Oldenburg Graphic design: icona basel gmbh, Basel Typesetting: 3w+p, Rimpar Print: CPI books GmbH, Leck Printed in Germany ISBN Print 978-3-7965-4766-9 ISBN eBook (PDF) 978-3-7965-4767-6 DOI 10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 The ebook has identical page numbers to the print edition (first printing) and supports full-text search. Furthermore, the table of contents is linked to the headings. [email protected] www.schwabe.ch https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Contents

Introduction Claus A. Andersen: Short Introduction to a Long Tradition – And to this Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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I. Sensory Cognition Daniel Heider: Suárez vs. Mastri and Belluto on Species in the Internal Sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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David González Ginocchio: The Estimative Faculty in Scotus and Scotism

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II. Intellectual Cognition Giorgio Pini: In God’s Mind. Divine Cognition in Duns Scotus and Some Early Scotists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Marina Fedeli: The Species Intelligibilis in the Cognitive Process in Early Scotism. The Case of William of Alnwick . . . .

119

Damian Park, O. F. M.: The Non-Beatific Vision of God in the Present Life. Franciscus de Mayronis’s Relational Theory of Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Anna Tropia: Francisco Macedo on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition . .

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III. Metaphysical and Theological Implications Richard Cross: Esse intentionale in Some Early Scotists. At the Origins of the So-called ‘Supertranscendental’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

205

Francesco Fiorentino: Esse cognitum and Divine Ideas in the First Two Centuries of Scotism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

229

Roberto Hofmeister Pich: Alfonso Briceño on Cognition, Distinction, and the Knowledge of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Lukáš Novák: Making Room for the Virtual Distinction. Bartolomeo Mastri between Scylla and Charybdis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

299

Claus A. Andersen: Decretum Concomitans. Bartolomeo Mastri on Divine Cognition and Human Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Contents

IV. The Influence of Scotism Ueli Zahnd: The Epistemological Limits of Religious Images. On the Scotist Sources of a Reformed Theological Tenet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

367

Arthur Huiban: Melanchthon and the Will. An Early Protestant Reception of Scotist Psychology? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

393

Giovanni Gellera: Univocity of Being, the Cogito and Idealism in Johannes Clauberg (1622-1665) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

447

Index of Names

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Introduction

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Short Introduction to a Long Tradition – And to this Volume Claus A. Andersen

1. The Long Scotist Tradition: Historiographical Observations The Scotist tradition is transepochal in nature. It originates in the early fourteenth century, when the early followers and Franciscan confreres of John Duns Scotus (1265/66–1308) trotted in his proverbial footsteps, studying, interpreting, and in many cases significantly transforming his philosophical and theological doctrines – and it lasted well into the eighteenth century, when the traditional scholastic schools, including the Scotist one, declined and ultimately vanished from the scene. In some places, though, namely in such places where the Franciscan Order maintained its position in the local educational system, Scotist university training continued even subsequently. One example of this phenomenon is the University of Mallorca which had Scotist philosophical and theological chairs until as late as 1824.1 In addition, the Neo-Scholastic movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries displayed a Scotist current independent of the dominant and much more well-known Thomist one. On top of this, of course, comes Duns Scotus’s influence on authors not affiliated with the Scotist tradition proper, but rather adhering to other traditions of thought, be they scholastic or not. Work on this introduction as well as the editorial work on the whole volume has been funded by the Czech Science Foundation (project “Theory of Cognition in Baroque Scotism”, grant no. GAČR 20–01710S). The volume gathers the papers given at the online conference Cognitive Issues in the Long Scotist Tradition, February 11–13, 2021, organized by Daniel Heider and myself and hosted by the University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice (Czech Republic); cf. Andersen, “Report on the Conference” (with short appreciations also of two papers that for various reasons did not enter this volume). I thank Daniel Heider for his comments on draft versions of this introduction and Robert Andrews for proofreading and valuable suggestions. Daniel Heider and I wish to express our gratitude to the editors of the book series Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy for adopting the present volume in their series. 1 As documented in Ramis Barceló, “Las cátedras escotistas,” 317. Here and throughout this section, I draw on the historiographical discussion in Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 3–82. For the history of the shifting (though mostly negative) attitudes toward Scotus outside of the Scotist tradition, up until the time of Gilson, see Pomplun, “John Duns Scotus in the History of Medieval Philosophy.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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The Scotist tradition, however, not only stretches across the accustomed periodization of the history of philosophy, but indeed also challenges our established fields of research that by and large correspond with that periodization. Long intellectual traditions are, as such, bound to escape scholarly notice in an “age of departmentalized minds,” to borrow Arthur O. Lovejoy’s apt expression.2 The continuation of scholastic culture far beyond the Renaissance, the Reformation, the spread of the printing press in Europe, the discovery of the New World etc., is an obvious case in point, and Scotism plays an integral role in that continuation. Scholars working with a focus on post-medieval scholastic thought are increasingly aware that their work is not reflected in the institutional division in university departments focusing either on medieval or early modern philosophy; it is an undeniable fact that the way the history of philosophy is taught and studied in most universities hardly yields any room for a perspective on the scholastic tradition that squares with its real historical – genuinely transepochal – development.3 In the predominant historiographical scheme that continues to enjoy institutional support, scholasticism is something exclusively medieval. From such a perspective, Parisian intellectual life in the second quarter of the fourteenth century may already be seen as representing “the trailing end of the Zenith of Philosophical Theology,” to quote one recent scholar whose merits in the exploration of the early Scotist tradition are beyond dispute.4 The majority of scholars working on the usual suspects of Early Modern Philosophy, be they the empiricists or the rationalists, will hardly protest; certain sections of Early Modern Philosophy are usually studied without much background knowledge of that period’s scholastic thought. But from the perspective of relevance for this present book, a view of the fourteenth century as in any way embodying the final spurt of scholasticism is just chimeric. For anyone familiar with Early Modern (or “Baroque”, or “Second”) scholastic culture and this culture’s vast literary output, it would seem far more plausible to place that zenith of philosophical theology here, somewhere in the (first half of the) seventeenth century.5 It would not even be particLovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, 22. Cf. Forlivesi, “A Man, an Age, a Book,” 103; Knebel, Suarezismus, 253–55; Novotný, Ens rationis from Suárez to Caramuel, 14. 4 Duba, The Forge of Doctrine, 233, referencing a phrase in Schabel, “Reshaping the Genre,” 72–73 (“the first quarter of the fourteenth century was the zenith of scholasticism in terms of numbers of extant works”). In the same category belongs the statement in Courtenay, “Early Scotists at Paris,” 220, that Scotism is “one of the most important currents of scholastic thought in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries.” Given the manifest Scotist tradition of the seventeenth century and later, such a statement comes across as just odd, but of course does not lessen the merits of its author as regards fourteenth-century scholastic thought. 5 Cf. the discussion of nomenclature in Novotný, “In Defense of Baroque Scholasticism,” 212–18. 2

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ularly controversial to claim that it is not the Scotists or any other scholastics of the fourteenth century who are at the long trailing end of the scholastic synthesis of philosophy and theology, but rather Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, and Leibniz, or even Kant.6 A younger contemporary of the latter, Wilhelm Ludwig Gottlob Freiherr von Eberstein (1762–1805), himself an old-guard critic of Kant, correctly saw Scotism as one of the essential ingredients of this late-scholastic tradition: Do not believe […] that they [i. e., the scholastics] went extinct after Gabriel Biel. Whoever thinks this should just take a look at the chairs of the Monks, where the disputes between the Thomists and the Scotists were continued for a long time by the Dominicans and the Franciscans, yes indeed, where many a classroom until this day resounds with scholastic quarreling. We may say that after his time they were not that common any more, but rather primarily dominated the convents.7

This brief report from Eberstein’s two-volume Versuch einer Geschichte der Logik und Metaphysik bey den Deutschen von Leibnitz bis auf gegenwärtige Zeit (1794) is, of course, incomplete. How could he possibly overlook the dominant role of the Jesuit Order within Early Modern scholasticism?8 The passage from Eberstein may nevertheless be read as one reminder not to view the time of Gabriel Biel, one of the main sources for (even) later scholastic Nominalism, as the endpoint of scholastic culture. Despite the title of Heiko Augustinus Oberman’s influential monograph on Biel, The Harvest of Medieval Theology from 1963, the fruits of scholasticism were not all harvested in Biel’s time. To exploit Oberman’s metaphor, scholarship on Late-Medieval thought may rather be seen as uncovering the seeds and growth of what were only to ripen in later times. Or, one may prefer the imagery of waves: in Scotism proper, we have a strong first wave in the first half of the fourteenth century and a second, most likely larger one in the seventeenth century; in between these two main waves, Scotism had never quite disappeared, thriving as it did in Scotist hotspots such as various universities with chairs in theology, and in rare cases also metaOf these authors, Leibniz is the one who most openly displays interest in, and knowledge of, immediately preceding scholastic thought; cf. his instructive enumeration of scholastic novelties since the Council of Trent in Essais de Théodicée, Discours préliminaire, n. 6, 53. For a recent reading of Descartes and Spinoza from a scholastic perspective, see Schmaltz, The Metaphysics of the Material World; for Locke, see Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes, and Specht, Das Allgemeine bei Locke; for Kant, see Honnefelder, Scientia transcendens, 443–63. Note that most of this literature takes Suárez as representative of Early Modern scholasticism and thereby ignores the long Scotist tradition proper. 7 Eberstein, Versuch einer Geschichte der Logik und Metaphysik, vol. I, 2 (my translation). 8 To be fair to Eberstein, note that other works of his, Über die Beschaffenheit der Logik und Metaphysik der reinen Peripatetiker (1800) and Die natürliche Theologie der Scholastiker (1803), do display some knowledge of the Jesuit tradition. 6

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physics, in via Scoti, and in many local Franciscan educational institutions across Europe. The exact contours of the waves would be a matter of statistics (e. g., based on Scotistic literary output), and since such statistics are not available let us leave the issue here – although note that a corresponding graph representing the amount of modern scholarly attention would rather have a huge wave concerning the beginning of the fourteenth century and a disproportionately small one concerning the seventeenth century. The first phase of the Scotist tradition, the one that falls within the scope of traditional medievalist scholarship, has of course attracted most attention, growing as it does out of natural interest for one of the greatest medieval thinkers and the immediate reception of his doctrines. Leaving aside the advanced scholarship on the Subtle Doctor,9 a wealth of recent editions and studies have thrown new light on the first generations of his followers, among them Antonius Andreae, William of Alnwick, Henry of Harclay, John of Reading, Francis of Meyronnes, Petrus Thomae, Francis of Marchia, Nicholas Bonetus, and others. This current state of research is reflected in a number of articles in this present volume.10 In spite of the notoriously incomplete state of all of his major works, and in spite of the equally notoriously demanding style of his thought, Scotus soon emerged as an intellectual authority within the Franciscan Order. Already within one decade after Scotus’s premature death in 1308, there appears to have been talk of “Scotists” (Scotistae).11 Petrus Thomae mentioned a “Scotist school” (schola Scotica) in a work from around 1325 that has only recently been edited.12 Petrus, who elsewhere claims to have access to Scotus’s own manuscripts13 and who himself gave birth to a doctrine of seven kinds of distinctions (the formal distinction being just one of them) that became a household doctrine throughout the Scotist tradition,14 surprisingly distances himself from 9 The current state of research is reflected in the collective volume edited by Pini, Interpreting Duns Scotus; cf. further Hoffmann, Duns Scotus Bibliography from 1950 to the Present (10th edition of 2022). 10 Cf. the contributions by Pini, Fedeli, Park, Cross, and Fiorentino; cf. further the fairly recent survey studies Pini, “Scotus’s Legacy” (introduces a row of early Scotists and explains how they dealt with Scotus’s incomplete works and challenging doctrines), and Courtenay, “Early Scotists at Paris” (with focus on institutional, rather than doctrinal matters) – these two studies, with their different approaches to the earliest Scotist school, may be read as complementing one another. Cf. most recently Goris, Scientia propter quid nobis. 11 Cf. Courtenay, “Early Scotists at Paris,” 183 and 217, referring to the Augustinian Dionysius de Borgo San Sepulchro, who was a Bachelor reader of the Sentences at Paris in 1317. 12 Petrus Thomae, Quaestiones de ente, q. 2, dist. 1, 13. For the date of this work, see Smith, “Introduction,” CLXXI. 13 Petrus Thomae, Quodlibet, q. 3, 52–53. 14 Cf. Andersen, “Introduction,” 177–267, with evidence that Petrus Thomae’s doctrine was still discussed until as late as the 1740s. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Short Introduction to a Long Tradition – And to this Volume

the named school. Add to this the example of Antonius Andreae, who explicitly professed loyalty to Scotus, but nevertheless left his own mark on what would later become recognized as Scotist metaphysics by, among other things, significantly transforming his master’s famous doctrine of the univocal concept of being into a doctrine of various degrees of univocity.15 These examples, out of many, nicely illustrate how uncoordinated the formation of the Scotist school was and how important Scotus’s rather independent-minded followers eventually came to be within that school. One cannot grasp the history of Scotism without taking account of the doctrinal adjustments and innovations of the early Scotists. Whereas the Scotist school of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, what one could call Renaissance Scotism, has – with notable exceptions – received undeservedly scarce attention in recent scholarship,16 the same does not hold true for the later tradition. Much of the attention Baroque Scotism has attracted centers on the Cursus philosophicus jointly authored by the Conventual Franciscans Bartolomeo Mastri and Bonaventura Belluto as well as their clash with the Irish Observant John Punch over the true meaning of a number of Scotus’s doctrines. Other Baroque Scotists, such as (among many others) Filippo Fabri, Hugh McCaghwell, Francisco Macedo, Claude Frassen, and some of those Scotist authors who were active in the New World have received attention as well.

For this example, see Pini, “Scotus’s Legacy,” 510–15; Pini further mentions Antonius Andreae’s explanation of the subject matter of metaphysics in accordance with Scotus’s teaching in the Ordinatio that Scotus himself had not yet developed when writing his own Quaestiones on Aristotle’s Metaphysics; Antonius thus creates a Scotist manual of metaphysics in accordance with Scotus’s mature thought. Antonius’s approach to Scotus’s teaching on univocity had a parallel in Franciscus de Marchia’s similar transformation of the same doctrine. Both Antonius and Franciscus had a lasting influence on Scotist discussions of the concept of being, as documented in Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 362–70; cf. further Smith, “The Analogy of Being in the Scotist Tradition.” For other aspects of Antonius’s lasting influence, see Andersen, “Scotist Metaphysics in Mid-Sixteenth Century Padua,” 72–74 and 87–88. For the current state of the art on Antonius Andreae, see the essays in Cabré Duran and Mensa i Valls, Antoni Andreu y la filosofía escotista. 16 Cf. the survey studies Hoenen, “Formalitates phantasticae” (historiographical essay on the broad reception of Scotism, primarily in the fifteenth century), Forlivesi, “Quae in hac quaestione tradit Doctor […]” (with focus on metaphysical literature), and Zahnd, “EasyGoing Scholars” (with focus on theological literature); the case study Andersen and Ramis Barceló, “Jaume Janer OCist […] and the Tradition of Scoto-Lullist Metaphysics,” explores the understudied influence of Scotism on Renaissance Lullism in the Crown of Aragon. Cf. further the contributions in this present volume by Fiorentino and Zahnd. Critical editions of this period’s Scotist output are rare; for one recent example, see Gomes de Lisboa, Scriptum super Questiones Metaphisice Antonii Andree, a meta-commentary on Antonius Andreae’s commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics. 15

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Again, the current state of research is reflected in several of the articles in this present volume.17 The testimony of the famous polymath Juan Caramuel Lobkowitz that “the school of Scotus is more numerous than all the others taken together” (Scoti Schola numerosior sit omnibus aliis simul sumptis)18 is often cited as evidence of an extraordinary florescence of Scotism in the seventeenth century. It is not entirely clear, however, whether Caramuel is speaking of the long Scotist tradition as a whole or rather only has in mind contemporaneous authors; note too that his testimony is not the result of an objective analysis, but rather serves as a premise in a probabilistic argument: since the Scotists outnumber the members of the two other “classic” schools, the Thomists and the Nominalists, any opinion that is supported by the Scotists must at least be considered probable. At any rate, the Scotist school of the seventeenth century was quite different from the one of which Petrus Thomae spoke. In 1500, the General Chapter of the Franciscan Order at Terni had for the first time officially encouraged the Order’s theologians to follow Scotus when teaching Peter Lombard’s Sentences (though alternatively, and clearly as a second choice, they were allowed to follow Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Francis of Meyronnes, or Richard of Mediavilla). This decision was the beginning of a development that only peaked during the time of Caramuel, especially subsequent to the General Chapter at Toledo in 1633, when Franciscan educators were compelled to follow Scotus not only in their theological, but indeed also in their philosophical teaching.19 Lucas Wadding’s edition of Scotus’s Opera omnia from 1639 and the plan to produce a “modern” Scotist Cursus philosophicus after the model of those used in other religious orders, a text that would eventually replace Pierre Tartaret’s old Scotist textbooks composed in the 1490s and reprinted several times since then, were significant parts of this endeavor.20 This institutionalization of Scotism, however, quite unintentionally did not do away with all diversity, and in this respect, at least, the late Scotist tradition Cf. the contributions by Heider, Ginocchio, Tropia, Pich, Novák, and Andersen; cf. also the overview in Schmutz, “L’héritage des Subtils,” and the extensive discussion of older and recent literature in Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 45–64. 18 Cf. Bą k, “Scoti schola numerosior est omnibus aliis simul sumptis,” 159, extensively quoting Caramuel’s Theologia intentionalis from 1664. For other aspects of Caramuel’s view of, and indeed engagement with, the Scotists, see Schmutz, “Was Duns Scotus a Voluntarist?,” and Andersen and Ramis Barceló, “Jaume Janer OCist […] and the Tradition of Scoto-Lullist Metaphysics.” 19 For this development, see Etzi, “Duns Scoto e lo scotismo nell’antica legislazione dell’Ordine dei Frati Minori,” and Forlivesi, “The Ratio studiorum of the Conventual Franciscans.” Cf. further Schmutz, “Les normes théologiques de l’enseignement philosophique,” especially 140– 42 (with the salient documents in French translation). 20 Cf. Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 10–19. 17

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resembles the situation in the early fourteenth century. The aforementioned clash between Mastri/Belluto and Punch is just one example illustrating this lack of doctrinal homogeneity. Notably, their disagreement to a considerable extent had to do with the degree of influence they accepted from Jesuit scholasticism. One cannot, of course, import methods of education and presentation from other traditions and then expect that all the doctrinal details remain just as they used to be. John Punch openly admitted that, since he had studied with the Jesuits, it was difficult to “unlearn” (dediscere) their principles.21 For their part, Mastri and Belluto clearly also learned a lot from the Jesuits – in their case especially from Francisco Suárez – but nevertheless managed to maintain a more critical distance from this predominant force in contemporaneous Catholic intellectual culture.22 Things become additionally blurred if one considers that Jesuit scholasticism itself draws on the rich heritage from Late-Medieval scholastic philosophy and theology, including that of the Subtle Doctor. Scholarship on Early Modern Scotism accordingly distinguishes between an internal or explicit Scotism and an external or implicit one.23 The former is the kind of Scotism that enjoyed support from the Franciscan Order and that may best be exemplified by Mastri and Belluto, whereas the latter speaks to the broader influence of Duns Scotus’s thought in milieus outside the Scotist tradition proper. This broader influence is not restricted to Catholic scholasticism, but rather extends to Protestant and Reformed milieus. It may be worth mentioning at this place that especially the Reformed tradition was rich in terminological innovations; thus, it did not only provide us with the term ‘ontology,’ but also – of special relevance for the present volume – with that of ‘psychology.’24 Three articles in the present volume explore various aspects of the presence of Scotist philosophical psychology in the Reformed and Protestant intellectual traditions.25

Cf. Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 881–82, with a quote from Punch as reported by Mastri and Belluto. 22 Cf. in this present volume the contributions by Heider and Andersen, both with references to further literature. Suárez’s relative affinity with Scotus and the Scotist tradition has often been stressed; cf., for instance, Honnefelder, Scientia transcendens, 200–94, here especially 205, and Heider, Universals in Second Scholasticism, 11 and 312. 23 Cf. Honnefelder, “Zum Begriff der möglichen Welt,” 280, and Schmutz, “Le petit scotisme du Grand Siècle,” 429; critical discussion in Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 49–55. 24 Lamanna, “On the Early History of Psychology,” 301. 25 Cf. the contributions by Zahnd, Huiban, Gellera; cf. further the groundbreaking monograph Bolliger, Infiniti Contemplatio, on the reception of Scotism in Reformed theology (Zwingli), and Cross, Communicatio Idiomatum, with instructive examples of Scotus’s direct or indirect influence on Reformation authors in the realm of christology.

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2. Cognitive Issues in the Scotist Tradition – And in this Volume In his contribution to the Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus from 2003, Robert Pasnau, somewhat provokingly, downplayed the level of originality in the Subtle Doctor’s thought, and not only in regard to his view of cognitive issues: As in most matters, John Duns Scotus does not distinguish himself in cognitive theory by adopting a radically new perspective. […] Scotus is interesting, then, not because he offers any startlingly new ideas about cognition, but because he gives a careful and penetrating analysis of the field as it stood at the end of the thirteenth century.26

Only in the case of Scotus’s criticism of Henry of Ghent’s doctrine of illumination (with its assumption of direct divine intervention in the human cognitive process), does Pasnau readily admit that Scotus’s approach “marks a turning point in the history of philosophy, the first great victory for naturalism as a research strategy in the philosophy of mind.”27 Peter King only slightly later retorted that Scotus’s cognition theory is indeed quite original, in fact a “revolution […] in the philosophy of mind.”28 The novelty in Scotus’s approach lies, according to King, in his distinction between mental acts and mental content and in his attempt to grasp the ontological status of that content, the problematic consideration being that – as Scotus came to see after having experimented with the term “diminished being” (ens diminutum) – this content as such does not represent any kind of being and thus does not properly speaking possess any positive ontological status of its own.29 Richard Cross, whose Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition from 2014 may, despite some criticism, be regarded as expressing the present status quaestionis on Scotus’s contribution to cognitive theory, by and large supports King’s view of Scotus’s idea of mental content,30 but nevertheless ends his book on a note that much more resembles Pasnau’s general view – Scotus, in cognition theory, is a transitional, by no means a revolutionary figure:

Pasnau, “Cognition,” 285. Pasnau, “Cognition,” 303. 28 King, “Duns Scotus on Mental Content,” 88; King, ibid., 66, refers to Pasnau’s article. Other recent reassessments of the originality of Scotus’s cognitive theory include Ginocchio, “Scotus on Sense, Medium, and Sensible Object,” and Novák, “More Aristotelian than Aristotle. Duns Scotus on Cognizing Singulars.” 29 King, “Duns Scotus on Mental Content,” 77. 30 Cross, Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 189–95 and 198; cf. also Richard Cross’s contribution to this present volume. For criticism of Cross’s book (especially his internalist explanation of intentionality), see Pini, “Duns Scotus on Material Substances and Cognition,” 776– 78; interestingly, Pini adds one more detail to his criticism (again concerning intentionality) in his contribution to this present volume. 26

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[…] Scotus represents something of a transition position, adopting many aspects of thirteenth-century psychology while at the same time inventing, or anticipating, many aspects of fourteenth-century psychology.31

We, Daniel Heider and I, did not choose the topic of this present volume, and of the conference in its background, in order to weigh in on this ongoing debate of how to estimate the originality of Scotus’s contribution to the history of cognitive psychology. Much more important for us was the fact that cognitive issues, though certainly interesting in their own right, are of relevance for many, if not in fact all, aspects of philosophy as well as for a good deal of scholastic theology, owing to Duns Scotus’s interest not only in that kind of cognitive psychology that is relevant for human earthly life, but rather also in human cognition both in the pre-lapsarian state and in the hereafter, as well as in angelic and divine cognition. The common focus on cognitive issues might thus, we thought, yield an interesting framework for discussions of a wide range of subjects. Accordingly, this book is divided into four sections that deal with, respectively, sensory cognition, intellectual cognition, the metaphysical and theological implications of cognitive psychology, and cognitive and psychological issues in the broader reception of Duns Scotus’s thought. This volume’s primary historical focus on the Scotist tradition, rather than on Scotus, is not at all irrelevant for an estimation of Scotus’s own contribution to the history of cognitive theory. Just to elaborate upon Peter King’s argument for Scotus being a revolutionary contributor to cognitive psychology, the distinction he detects in Scotus’s thought between cognitive acts and mental content manifestly squares with a distinction well-known to any scholastic in the Early Modern era, namely the one between a formal and an objective concept (conceptus formalis vs. conceptus obiectivus) – a distinction that according to the Scotist John Punch is indeed accepted by everybody: Note that, according to everybody, the formal concept is an act of the intellect with which we apprehend something, whereas the objective concept is the object of that concept, namely the one we apprehend through it.32

Around 1600, the distinction is not seen as being particularly Scotist. Francisco Suárez rather calls it a “common distinction” (vulgaris distinctio). Only some Scotists, citing a passage in Scotus’s Theoremata, traditionally insist that the disCross, Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 203. Poncius, Integer phil. cursus, Tract. in Met., disp. 69, q. 2, n. 7, 882a: “[A]dvertendum cum omnibus, conceptum formalem hic esse actum intellectus, quo apprehendimus aliquid; conceptum vero obiectivum esse obiectum illius conceptus, quod scilicet per eum apprehendimus.” I follow the 1659 edition’s emendation of ‘quo scilicet’ to ‘quod scilicet,’ as in Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 270. 31

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tinction was in fact an invention of the Subtle Doctor.33 Since the terminology itself clearly arises later, the question is not whether it can be traced back to Scotus, but rather whether he knew of the distinction although describing it in other terms. If we agree with King, Scotus clearly did. The simple point I wish to make, without delving further into this particular issue, is that Scotus’s contribution to cognitive psychology must not only be measured against that competition for originality that took place in his own time and that is first of all relevant for placing Scotus on the map of intellectual history between, say, Henry of Ghent and William of Ockham; it is rather also a matter of who most decisively influenced the later scholastic tradition – and Scotus even had his own long tradition. This point can easily be broadened so as to reply to Pasnau’s dismissal of any startling originality on Scotus’s part “in most matters” (cf. above), for now leaving aside whether that statement does any justice to the Subtle Doctor himself. In most matters, Scotus undisputedly did leave a significant mark on the history of philosophy and theology. Our focus on the later scholastic tradition, and here in particular the Scotist one, is one way, possibly the best, to appreciate this fact. 2.1 Sensory Cognition Duns Scotus’s account of sensation, the starting point of all cognition in this present life (pro statu isto), is closely linked with his fundamental support of the doctrine of sensible species. Two contributions to the present volume discuss the details and limits of this doctrine. The first one addresses the problem of how, by which mechanism, sensible species are processed in sensation. In his contribution, “Suárez vs. Mastri and Belluto on Species in the Internal Sense,” Daniel Heider contrasts two divergent views in the Baroque age about interior sensation. The disagreement concerns how the exterior sensible species are converted into interior species necessary for sensory cognition, and do so even in the case of the perceptual awareness of one’s own sensory acts. Whereas Francisco Suárez assumes that interior species are the products of an agent internal sense conceived as an activity of the soul, Mastri and Belluto on the contrary deny the very existence of such an agent sense. The interior species, they hold, are efficiently caused by the exterior ones. Heider argues that Suárez’s model of percep-

Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae, disp. 2, sect. 1, n. 1 (Opera omnia XXV), 64b. Ample documentation of this discussion in Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 268–75; cf. also Forlivesi, “La distinction entre concept formel et concept objectif,” and Ashworth, “Antonius Rubius on Objective Being and Analogy.” 33

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tion has an Augustinian bent,34 whereas Mastri and Belluto adopt an Aristotelian view – which may be surprising, given that Scotus is often seen as a thinker with Augustinian-Avicennian tendencies. Notably, Suárez’s view was adopted by the Scotist Hugh McCaghwell. Heider further illuminates the background of the disagreement between Suárez and Mastri/Belluto. The Jesuit advocates a real distinction between the soul and its powers and among these powers themselves. Mastri and Belluto rather opt for a merely formal distinction and therefore do not need to assume any particular agent sense responsible for bridging the “ontological gap” between the various powers needed for the perceptual process. Are there any unsensed species (species non sensatae) at work in sensation? In his contribution, “The Estimative Faculty in Scotus and Scotism,” David González Ginocchio shows that, on Scotus’s account, this cannot be the case. Ginocchio reconstructs Scotus’s theory of the estimative power and investigates its influence in seventeenth-century Scotism. Opposing a widespread doctrine of unsensed species (found in Avicenna and Aquinas), Scotus and the Scotists, here Mastri/Belluto and John Punch, agree that such intentions as those of hostility or utility may be explained without assuming any separate kind of species. Animal behavior that rests upon estimation is rather explicable through the mechanisms of memory, learning, and instinct. Estimation as such thus is reduced to a modus loquendi, a way of describing cognitive acts, albeit properly speaking they are not estimative. Ginocchio highlights the non-biologist, in fact rather theological, character of the Scotist approach and argues that this approach lies behind what he identifies as a “modern deflationary presentation of the internal senses.”35 2.2 Intellectual Cognition One of the arguably most fascinating and certainly defining features of scholastic epistemology, and here in particular Scotist, is that it accounts not only for human, but also for angelic and divine forms of knowing. This implies that there Heider, Aristotelian Subjectivism, 270–74, nevertheless maintains that Suárez’s philosophy of perception, globally seen, still belongs under the wide umbrella of Renaissance Aristotelianism. 35 It may be worthwhile to add, in support of Ginocchio’s deflationary reading, that John Punch in this context explicitly appealed to the principle of parsimony, also known as Ockham’s razor, in order to argue against the assumption of any unsensed species: One should not increase the number of real items without necessity – and since there is no need for unsensed species, such items do not exist. Cf. Poncius, Integer phil. cursus, Tract. de anima., disp. 59, q. 10, n. 95, 773a: “[N]on sunt multiplicanda entia sine necessitate; sed nulla prorsus est necessitas specierum insensatarum: ergo non datur.” Notably, Poncius, ibid., disp. 63, q. 3, nn. 22 and 25, 810a–11a, uses the same tool to do away with the intelligible species too; cf. also Spruit, Species Intelligibilis, II, 342. 34

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may likely be more to cognition as such than is applicable to the specific human condition. In his contribution, “In God’s Mind – Divine Cognition in Duns Scotus and Some Early Scotists,” Giorgio Pini focuses on Scotus’s view of divine cognition in order to distinguish between what essentially belongs to cognition as such from what only pertains to human cognition. Pini’s finding is that human cognition is characterized by the relation of being about something, but this is not true in the special case of divine cognition, which is not related to any object; in Pini’s words, “divine cognition is a purely internal affair.” Pini investigates the variations of Scotus’s position. According to Scotus’s first account, there is only a non-mutual relation – one of “measurement” – between divine cognition and its objects (the latter are measured by the former, not vice versa as in the case of human cognition). According to the second and more radical account, no relation at all is involved in divine cognition. In either case, cognition as such does not presuppose any relation from the knower to the known. Pini (elaborating on findings presented in an article by Garrett Smith)36 contends that some of Scotus’s early followers, William of Alnwick and Petrus Thomae, altogether missed this crucial point and rather saw human cognition, where an object is indeed presupposed, as the paradigmatic one. Not all disagreement among Scotus and his early followers, however, is reducible to misunderstanding. There were also cases where real convictions clashed. Marina Fedeli’s contribution, “The Species Intelligibilis in the Cognitive Process in Early Scotism – The Case of William of Alnwick,” uncovers one such instance. Whereas Scotus sought to restore the Aristotelian doctrine of intelligible species out of concern that phantasms cannot represent both singular and universal things, Alnwick, in his early Commentary on the Sentences, rather followed Henry of Ghent and rejected the need for any separate intelligible species. The phantasm sufficiently represents both singular things and the universals that include singulars. Later in his development, after having moved from Paris to Oxford, Alnwick changed his mind and now defended the view that the agent intellect enables intellectual cognition by producing intelligible species. Fedeli suggests that this change of mind resulted from Alnwick’s encounter with the loyal Scotist John of Reading at Oxford.37 Cf. Smith, “The Origin of Intelligibility.” Let me add that Alnwick, in a newly edited text associated with, but presumably not belonging within the prologue of his Commentary on the Sentences, explicitly rebukes Reading for not being loyal to Scotus (Reading’s “own master”) in regard to the distinction between intuitive and abstractive cognition, another contested aspect of Scotus’s cognitive theory (Reading is criticized for diverging from Scotus’s view that intuition necessarily is about existing things); cf. Alnwick, Utrum scientia possit causari in intellectu nostro a Deo immediate sine obiecto praeostenso, art. 4, n. 91, in id., Questions on Science and Theology, 700. It seems that future scholarship will be occupied with Alnwick and Reading and their respective reasons for diverging from Scotus. 36 37

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A somewhat similar case is explored in the contribution by Damian Park, O.F.M., “The Non-Beatific Vision of God in the Present Life – Franciscus de Mayronis’s Relational Theory of Cognition,” only that Meyronnes, in his development, does not move toward Scotus, but rather away from him, partially due to the influence of Ockham. A celebrated aspect of Scotus’s cognitive psychology is the distinction between abstractive and intuitive cognition, just mentioned. Park shows that Meyronnes early on, in his Conflatus (one version of his Commentary on the Sentences, Book I), follows Scotus’s causal explanation of the distinction: abstractive cognition is caused by the representation of a being, whereas intuitive cognition is caused by the being itself in its own existence and presence. Later in his development, in his Quodlibet, Meyronnes rejected this causal explanation in favor of a relational account. His development marks a shift away from viewing cognition as a quality (Scotus’s position), toward viewing it as a relation – and (as is commonly assumed) knowing a relation implies knowing its terminus. This is the background for Meyronnes’s view that God, in this life, may be intuitively known as existent and abstractively known as a quid, God being the terminus of a cognitive relation in both cases. This earthly cognition has nothing beatific about it, being rather just, in Park’s words, “an encounter with God.” The success of Duns Scotus’s distinction between intuitive and abstractive cognition is often illustrated by referring to its presence in later fourteenth-century discussions of cognitive psychology. However, it remained a topic for discussion throughout the Scotist tradition. Anna Tropia’s contribution, “Francisco Macedo on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition,” showcases how the distinction continued to play an important role in seventeenth-century Scotism. Macedo, a Portuguese Scotist who studied under Francisco Suárez at Coimbra and later taught at the University of Padua, authored a three-volume doctrinal comparison of Scotus and Aquinas. Tropia investigates how Macedo in this work gives a somewhat paradoxical – according to Tropia, in fact “confused” – account of angelic intuitive cognition that is modelled after human abstractive cognition. Particularly problematic in Macedo’s account is the concept of species that remains so undetermined that it is even hard to tell whether it plays any role in angelic cognition or not. Tropia hypothesizes that Macedo’s views were formed through his acquaintance with Jesuit discussions of the topic; besides Suárez – for whom the assumption of intelligible species plays an important role – Juan Maldonado and Girolamo Dandini are mentioned as likely sources. Contrarily and somewhat surprisingly, Macedo does not appear to have engaged much with the more orthodox systems of Scotism of his day.38 38 Tropia, La teoria della conoscenza di Francisco Macedo, 169, similarly says that Macedo’s understanding of Scotus has “passed through the filter” of the Jesuit views of Scotus. For a remark on Macedo’s knowledge of Mastri’s works, see the contribution by Andersen to this https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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2.3 Metaphysical and Theological Implications Scotist cognitive psychology is interwoven with both metaphysics and theology. As for metaphysics, this tight relationship becomes particularly palpable if one considers the notion of “intentional being” (esse intentionale). In his contribution, “Esse intentionale in Some Early Scotists – At the Origins of the So-called ‘Supertranscendental’,” Richard Cross lays bare Scotus’s somewhat wavering stance on the ontological status of that kind of being, namely being known, that the eternal objects of divine knowledge owe to this knowledge. As Cross points out, Scotus’s doctrine has a number of “loose ends” that all have to do with the status of intentional being: it is not clear how exactly Scotus conceives of the dependence of the objects of divine knowledge on this very knowledge; unclear too is whether this very broad notion of being is univocal or analogical, a question that Scotus explicitly leaves open. Not only modern scholarship is bewildered – the early Scotists and their “fellow-travelers” were in no better situation. Cross thus shows how Scotus’s loose ends occasioned a variety of positions on the status of intentional being, ranging from the acceptance of intentional being, exclusive of second intention concepts; having a genuine ontological status of its own (James of Ascoli, the early Ockham) as compared to the denial of any kind of being over and above real being (Alnwick, the later Ockham); and finally to the extreme position of allowing the widest notion of being, one that includes second intention concepts, an ontological status of its own (Francis of Marchia). In the terminology of later times, this widest notion of being is a “supertranscendental” concept.39 This same story is continued in Francesco Fiorentino’s contribution, “Esse cognitum and Divine Ideas in the First Two Centuries of Scotism.” Fiorentino starts out with the various conceptions of ideas available to Scotus and shows how the Subtle Doctor chose the Augustinian interpretation of the Platonic ideas as noetic entities in the divine mind. Contrary to Henry of Ghent, Scotus rejected that ideas in any way precede the acts of divine knowledge which, on the contrary, lend intentional or cognized being to the ideas in a cognitive process of four steps (called, by Scotus, “instants of nature”) through which the divine intellect moves from knowing the divine essence itself toward establishing and knowing the ideas. Drawing on a wide range of sources, largely subsequent to present volume. For discussions of intuition and abstraction in other seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Scotists, see further Andersen, “Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition.” 39 Let me add that the earliest presently known use of this term to describe the subject matter of a metaphysical treatise is in Pere Daguí’s Tractatus de differentia, n. 5, 120, from 1500. Daguí is a proponent of the aforementioned Scoto-Lullist tradition; cf. note 16. For supertranscendentality in the later scholastic tradition, see Doyle, “Between Transcendental and Transcendental.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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the ones examined in the previous contribution, Fiorentino investigates how Scotus’s approach and its early interpretations were received within the Franciscan tradition of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It turns out that Alnwick’s dismissal of any being over and above real being was not very successful, whereas James of Ascoli’s was. Francis of Meyronnes, on the contrary, developed an original and nuanced position that inspired John Wyclif’s realist view of created beings’ eternal esse intelligibile. The four-step doctrine was only rarely defended. In the long run, Scotus’s view of the divine essence as the primary object of the divine intellect with the essences of creatures as its secondary objects was a much more popular motif. The Scotist tradition of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as portrayed by Fiorentino, is thus one that has considerable room for individual originality. Another two articles, both with a focus on seventeenth century Scotism, demonstrate the link between cognitive psychology and the Scotist doctrine of distinctions. In his contribution, “Alfonso Briceño on Cognition, Distinction, and the Knowledge of God,” Roberto Hofmeister Pich investigates one particularly relevant aspect of the Latin American Scotist Alfonso Briceño’s discussion of distinctions. In his vast (yet incomplete) commentary on Scotus’s Ordinatio I, published in Madrid during his long stay in Europe, Briceño discusses what kind of distinction may be compatible with intuitive cognition. This kind of cognition is seen as grasping its object such as it is in reality. When the object in question is the divine essence, one might expect that intuition does not detect any distinction there. Contemporaneous Thomists indeed held that any distinction in that object rather is imported by a human intellect incapable of grasping the divine essence such as it is; in other words, only a distinction of reason can apply. Briceño does admit the relevance of the Thomist notion of a distinction of reason with a foundation in reality, though only when it comes to Trinitarian speculation. Regarding the divine essence and its attributes he has another solution ready, one that rests on the insight that intuition must not be comprehension, i. e., intuitive cognition need not always grasp an object in its entirety, but may rather focus on certain aspects of the object while leaving other aspects out of consideration. Intuition, then, does yield room for a certain “precising distinction” (distinctio praecisiva), a distinction that Briceño does not explicitly equate with the Scotist formal distinction, but which clearly must be situated in its vicinity. Pich regards Briceño’s discussion of this precising distinction as an indirect defense of the formal one. Interestingly, we learn that the precising distinction is operative both in perception and in intellectual cognition. Bartolomeo Mastri may be seen, and to some extent saw himself, as a proponent of orthodox Scotism in the seventeenth century. Occasionally, however, even Mastri departs from Scotus’s solutions. In his contribution, “Making Room for the Virtual Distinction – Bartolomeo Mastri between Scylla and Charybdis,” Lukáš Novák shows that his theory of distinctions is one such case. The formal https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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distinction, of course, is Scotus’s key innovation in this area. It is his alternative to Henry of Ghent’s assumption of a merely intentional distinction. From all of Scotus’s arguments against Henry’s view, Novák singles out one as being particularly important. This “Final Blow Argument,” to use Novák’s term, interestingly centers on the notion of objective or cognized being. Scotus critically points out that an intentional distinction based on this notion does not sufficiently distinguish between real items, such as a genus and a differentia that are (formally) different in a thing even before being cognized. Now, Mastri accepts the formal distinction at the level of categorial being, but not at the level of transcendental being: genus and differentia are formally distinct, but not being and the transcendentals – these are only virtually distinct, since this kind of distinction is identical with the intentional distinction. According to Novák, this differentiation is highly flawed, for how can Mastri accept the force of Scotus’s argument in one context, while rejecting it in another?40 Foreknowledge, of course, is one important aspect of divine cognition. My own contribution, “Decretum Concomitans – Bartolomeo Mastri on Divine Cognition and Human Freedom,” investigates Mastri’s Scotist doctrine of concomitant decrees against the backdrop of the prevalent positions in seventeenth-century scholastic theology, i. e., the Thomist doctrine of physical predetermination and the Jesuit doctrine of middle knowledge. This latter doctrine was fairly popular among Baroque Scotists, and Mastri’s project is to show that a more genuinely Scotist approach is possible. Mastri teaches that God through the medium of his own decrees grasps the future events as secondary objects of his intellect, and does so infallibly due to the extrinsic determination which God’s own will bestows on them. According to Mastri, this doctrine does not contradict, but rather is in perfect coherence with free choices of created wills, due to the relation of concomitance that holds between decrees of the divine will and those of free creatures. In debate with proponents of the Thomist and the Jesuit doctrines, Mastri translates this doctrine of foreknowledge into conditional language: not only God’s knowledge of future events, but also of future conditionals, is posterior to free divine decrees. Future conditionals, on Mastri’s account, have their own kind of conditional real being in God’s eternal conditional knowledge. 40 Let me again add a point of my own: Mastri’s fondness for the virtual distinction (also called the distinction of reason with a foundation in reality), analyzed by Novák, clearly testifies to his interest in the metaphysics of Suárez and other authors under his influence; in the realm of transcendental being, Suárez’s metaphysics parsimoniously operates only with a virtual distinction. For Mastri’s interest in the rational distinction with a foundation in reality, see Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 781–839; for the role of this distinction in Suárez’s metaphysics, see Darge, Suárez’ transzendentale Seinsauslegung, 121–23. With their theories of distinction and precision, Mastri and Briceño, each in their own way, respond to developments in contemporaneous scholasticism outside of the Franciscan Order. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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2.4 The influence of Scotism An understudied aspect of the Scotist tradition’s broader impact is its influence in Protestant and Reformed milieus. Three contributions in the present volume seek to fill this lacuna. In his contribution, “The Epistemological Limits of Religious Images – On the Scotist Sources of a Reformed Theological Tenet,” Ueli Zahnd undertakes to show that Scotism, and in particular Scotus’s metaphysics of the infinite, was in the background of Reformed iconoclasm. Though Scotus did not develop a position on the veneration of religious images, his view of divine infinity did have consequences for his position on the veneration of Christ, whose created human nature should not be adored in the same elevated manner as his divine nature. Drawing on a vast range of sources, Zahnd observes that whereas most Franciscans in the immediate wake of Scotus ignored this differentiation, in the fifteenth century a number of Scotist theologians, Orbellis, Vorillon, and Brulefer, returned to Scotus’s position, which especially Brulefer radicalized so as to reject all images of anything divine. Images pertain to the created world and do not yield any true cognition of God. This stance came to be adopted in the Reformed branch of the Reformation, where Brulefer’s works had a rather significant reception (Zwingli is known to have owned and studied them).41 Protestant circles too were familiar with Scotist thought. Arthur Huiban’s contribution, “Melanchthon and the Will – An Early Protestant Reception of Scotist Psychology?,” aims to show how Melanchthon, despite overt criticism of Scotus and the Scotists in the first edition of his Loci communes (1521), nevertheless can be said to pursue, even to radicalize, certain Scotist motifs in his psychology, especially in regard to the freedom of the will. Melanchthon defines the will as an indetermined potency and as the very capacity to will and not to will; he rejects the ability of the intellect to determine the will in its choices; he understands self-love (affectio commodi) as an intrinsic determination of the will, not as a sensitive appetite. What in spite of all that radically separates his thought from that of the Subtle Doctor is his rejection both of any natural affection for loving God and of man’s ability to make himself worthy of grace. Huiban assumes that Melanchthon always has Johannes Eck’s clash with Luther in mind when he talks of Scotus in connection with grace, Eck thus clearly being one of his sources for Scotus. Additionally, Melanchthon – like Eck – was influenced by some Scotist professors at the University of Tübingen. All these observations attest to a “broad and diffuse reception” of Scotus’s thought in early sixteenth-century Germany. Giovanni Gellera’s contribution, “Univocity of Being, the Cogito and Idealism in Johannes Clauberg (1622-1665),” supplies an interesting aspect to the 41

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seventeenth-century continuation of the story of Scotist influence in non-Catholic Europe. The Calvinist Cartesian Clauberg famously authored a manual of metaphysics called, in its last edition (1664), Metaphysica de ente, quae rectius ontosophia. Clauberg’s knowledge of the Subtle Doctor’s thought most likely stemmed from other authors, such as Jacopo Zabarella and Christoph Scheibler. Accordingly, Gellera is not out to enlist him in the long row of Scotists properly speaking. Gellera rather aims to demonstrate how Clauberg employs certain motifs normally associated with Scotism (among them the univocity of being, the objective reality of ideas, common nature and degrees of nature, the primacy of the individual, the concept haecceitas, and internalism) in his metaphysics and that he does so all along in dialogue with Descartes – and that this dialogue resulted in a kind of metaphysics that cannot be reduced to Schulmetaphysik, to Cartesianism, or to Scotism, but rather should be seen as an original contribution to Early Modern idealism, where idealism comes to replace nominalism as the antipode to realism. *** Scotism is a tradition, not a position. Not everyone who happens to agree with Scotus on a particular issue must therefore be a Scotist. The Scotist tradition moreover has considerable room for internal disagreement, even disagreeing with Scotus, over particular issues. In written correspondence subsequent to the conference behind this volume, Giorgio Pini observed that the contributions to the conference had made it even clearer than before that Scotism is “said in many ways” and perhaps should be described in terms of “family resemblance” rather than an adherence to a specific set of doctrines. I see no reason to doubt the accuracy of this characterization. The present volume may thus be seen as a collection of components assembled in order to work toward a comprehensive and differentiated family genealogy of Scotism, here viewed through the prism of cognitive theory taken broadly.

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–. Metaphysik im Barockscotismus. Untersuchungen zum Metaphysikwerk des Bartholomaeus Mastrius. Mit Dokumentation der Metaphysik in der scotistischen Tradition ca. 1620– 1750. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2016. –. “Scotist Metaphysics in Mid-Sixteenth Century Padua: Giacomino Malafossa from Barge’s A Question on the Subject of Metaphysics.” Studia Neoaristotelica 17 (2020), 69–107. –. [Report on the Conference] “Cognitive Issues in the Long Scotist Tradition, February 2021, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice (Czech Republic).” Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 63 (2021), 498–509. – with Rafael Ramis Barceló. “Jaume Janer OCist († after 1506) and the Tradition of ScotoLullist Metaphysics.” Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 64 (2022) [forthcoming]. Ashworth, Elisabeth J. “Antonius Rubius on Objective Being and Analogy: One of the Routes from Early Fourteenth-Century Discussions to Descartes’s Third Meditation.” In Meeting of the Minds. The Relations between Medieval and Classical Modern European Philosophy. Edited by Stephen Brown, 43–62. Turnhout: Brepols, 1998. Bą k, Felix. “Scoti schola numerosior est omnibus aliis simul sumptis.” Franciscan Studies 16 (1956), 144–65. Bolliger, Daniel. Infiniti Contemplatio. Grundzüge der Scotus- und Scotismusrezeption im Werk Huldrych Zwinglis. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003. Cabré Duran, Maria and Jaume Mensa i Valls. Antoni Andreu y la filosofía escotista. Antonius Andreae and Scotist Philosophy. Special issue of Annuario filosófico 55/1 (2022). Courtenay, William. “Early Scotists at Paris: A Reconsideration.” Franciscan Studies 69 (2011), 175–229. Cross, Richard. Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. –. Communicatio Idiomatum. Reformation Christological Debates. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Daguí, Pere. Tractatus formalitatum brevis, Tractatus de differentia. Edited by Claus A. Andersen. Santa Coloma de Queralt: Obrador Edèndum, 2018. Darge, Rolf. Suárez’ transzendentale Seinsauslegung und die Metaphysiktradition. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004. Doyle, John P. “Between Transcendental and Transcendental: The Missing Link?” The Review of Metaphysics 50 (1997), 783–815. Duba, William O. The Forge of Doctrine. The Academic Year 1330–31 and the Rise of Scotism at the University of Paris. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017. Eberstein, Wilhelm Ludwig Gottlob Freiherr von. Versuch einer Geschichte der Logik und Metaphysik bey den Deutschen von Leibnitz bis auf gegenwärtige Zeit. 2 vols. Halle: Johann Gottfried Ruff, 1794–1799. Reprint in one vol. Hildesheim, Zürich, New York: Olms, 1985. –. Über die Beschaffenheit der Logik und Metaphysik der reinen Peripatetiker. Halle: Hemmerde und Schwetschke, 1800. –. Die natürliche Theologie der Scholastiker. Leipzig: Johann Gottlob Feind, 1803. Etzi, Priamo. “Duns Scoto e lo scotismo nell’antica legislazione dell’Ordine dei Frati Minori.” In Giovanni Duns Scoto: Studi e ricerche nel VII Centenario della sua morte in onore di P. César Saco Alarcón. Edited by Martín Carbajo Núñez. Vol. 1, 41–58. Rome: Edizioni Antonianum, 2008. Forlivesi, Marco. “La distinction entre concept formel et concept objectif: Suárez, Pasqualigo, Mastri.” In Duns Scot au XVIIe siécle. Edited by Olivier Boulnois. Special issue of Les études philosophique 57 (2002), 3–30. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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–. “A Man, an Age, a Book.” In Rem in seipsa cernere. Saggi sul pensiero filosofico di Bartolomeo Mastri (1602–1773). Edited by Marco Forlivesi, 23–144. Padova, Il Poligrafo, 2006. –. “Quae in hac quaestione tradit Doctor videntur humanum ingenium superare. Scotus, Andrés, Bonet, Zerbi, and Trombetta Confronting the Nature of Metaphysics.” Quaestio 8 (2008), 219–77. –. “The Ratio studiorum of the Conventual Franciscans in the Baroque Age and the CulturalPolitical Background to the Scotist Philosophy Cursus of Bartolomeo Mastri and Bonaventura Belluto.” Noctua 2 (2015), 253–384. Ginocchio, David González. “Scotus on Sense, Medium, and Sensible Object.” In Perception in Scholastics and Their Interlocutors. Edited by Daniel Heider, Lukáš Lička, and Marek Otisk. Special issue of Filosofický časopis 2 (2017), 61–78. Gomes de Lisboa. Escrito sobre as Questõnes Metafísicas de Antonio André. Scriptum super Questiones Metaphisice Antonii Andree. Edited by Mário João Correia. Porto: Edições Afrontamento, 2018. Goris, Wouter. Scientia propter quid nobis. The Epistemic Independence of Metaphysics and Theology in the Quaestio de cognitione Dei attributed to Duns Scotus. Münster: Aschendorff, 2022. Heider, Daniel. Universals in Second Scholasticism. A Comparative Study with Focus on the Theories of Francisco Suárez S.J. (1548–1617), João Poinsot (1589–1644) and Bartolomeo Mastri da Meldola O.F.M. Conv. (1602–1673) / Bonaventura Belluto O.F.M. Conv. (1600–1676). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2014. –. Aristotelian Subjectivism. Francisco Suárez’s Philosophy of Perception. Cham: Springer, 2021. Hoenen, Maarten J.F.M. “Formalitates phantasticae. Bewertungen des Skotismus im Mittelalter.” In Die Logik des Transzendentalen. Festschrift für Jan A. Aertsen zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by Martin Pickavé, 337–57. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003. Hoffmann, Tobias. Duns Scotus Bibliography from 1950 to the Present. Tenth edition, August 2022. (https://www.academia.edu/84553496/Duns_Scotus_Bibliography; accessed September 10, 2022). Honnefelder, Ludger. Scientia transcendens. Die formale Bestimmung des Seienden und der Realität in der Metaphysik des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (Duns Scotus – Suárez – Wolff – Kant – Peirce). Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1990. –. “Zum Begriff der möglichen Welt in J.A. Comenius’ Consultatio catholica.” Franciscan Studies 54 (1994–1997), 277–88. King, Peter. “Duns Scotus on Mental Content.” In Duns Scotus à Paris 1302–2002. Edited by Oliver Boulnois, Elizabeth Karger, Jean-Luc Solére, Gérard Sondag, 65–88. Turnhout: Brepols, 2004. Knebel, Sven K. Suarezismus. Erkenntnistheoretisches aus dem Nachlass des Jesuitengenerals Tirso González de Santalla (1624–1705). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Grüner, 2011. Lamanna, Marco. “On the Early History of Psychology.” Revista Filosófica de Coimbra 38 (2010), 291–314. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Essais de théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal. In Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Edited by C.J. Gerhardt. Vol. 6. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1885. Lovejoy, Arthur O. The Great Chain of Being. A Study of the History of an Idea. Cambridge (MA) and London: Harvard University Press, 1964 (first edition 1936).

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Short Introduction to a Long Tradition – And to this Volume

Novák, Lukáš. “More Aristotelian than Aristotle. Duns Scotus on Cognizing Singulars.” In Perception in Scholastics and Their Interlocutors. Edited by Daniel Heider, Lukáš Lička, Marek Otisk. Special issue of Filosofický časopis 2 (2017), 79–100. Novotný, Daniel D. “In Defense of Baroque Scholasticism.” Studia Neoaristotelica 6 (2009), 209–33. –. Ens rationis from Suárez to Caramuel. A Study in Scholasticism of the Baroque Era. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013. Oberman, Heiko Augustinus. The Harvest of Medieval Theology. Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1963. Pasnau, Robert. “Cognition.” In The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus. Edited by Thomas Williams, 285–311. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. –. Metaphysical Themes 1274–1671. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2011. Pini, Giorgio. “Scotus’s Legacy.” In 1308 – Eine Topographie historischer Gleichzeitigkeit. Edited by Andreas Speer and David Wirmer, 486–515. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2010. –. “Duns Scotus on Material Substances and Cognition: a Discussion of Two Recent Books.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 24 (2016), 769–79. –. Interpreting Duns Scotus. Critical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Pomplun, R. Trent. “John Duns Scotus in the History of Medieval Philosophy from the Sixteenth Century to Étienne Gilson (†1978).” Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 58 (2016), 355–445. Poncius, Ioannes. Integer philosophiae cursus ad mentem Scoti. Paris: Antoine Bertier, 1649. Ramis Barceló, Rafael. “Las cátedras escotistas de la Universidad Luliana y Literaria de Mallorca (1692–1824).” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 108 (2015), 301–17. Schabel, Chris. “Reshaping the Genre. Literary Trends in Philosophical Theology in the Fourteenth Century.” In Crossing Boundaries at Medieval Universities. Edited by Spencer E. Young, 51–84. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011. Schmaltz, Tad M. The Metaphysics of the Material World. Suárez, Descartes, Spinoza. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Schmutz, Jacob. “L’héritage des Subtils. Cartographie du scotisme de l’âge classique.” In Duns Scot au XVIIe siécle. Edited by Olivier Boulnois. Special issue of Les études philosophiques 57 (2002), 51–79. –. “Le petit scotisme du Grand Siècle. Étude doctrinale et documentaire sur la philosophie au Grand Couvent des Cordeliers de Paris.” Quaestio 8 (2008), 365–472. –. “Les normes théologiques de l’enseignement philosophique dans le catholicisme romain moderne (1500–1650).” In Philosophie et théologie à l’époque moderne. Edited by JeanChristophe Bardout, 129–150. Paris: Cerf, 2010. –. “Was Duns Scotus a Voluntarist? Juan Caramuel Lobkowitz against the Bratislava Franciscans.” Special issue of Filosofický časopis (2016), 147–84. Smith, Garrett R. “The Origin of Intelligibility according to Duns Scotus, William of Alnwick, and Petrus Thomae.” Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 81 (2014), 37–74. –. “Introduction.” In Petrus Thomae, Quaestiones de ente. Edited by Garrett R. Smith, IX–CCXXXI. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2018. –. “The Analogy of Being in the Scotist Tradition.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 93 (2019), 633–73. Specht, Rainer. Das Allgemeine bei Locke. Konstruktion und Umfeld. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2011. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Spruit, Leen. Species Intelligibilis: From Perception to Knowledge. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994– 1995. Suárez, Francisco. Disputationes metaphysicae. Edited by Charles Berton. In Opera omnia, vol. XXV–XXVI. Paris: Ludovicus Vivès, 1866. Reprint Hildesheim: Olms, 1965. Thomae, Petrus. Quodlibet. Edited by M. Rachel Hooper and Eligius M. Buytaert. St. Bonaventure, New York: The Franciscan Institute, 1957. –. Quaestiones de ente. Edited by Garrett R. Smith. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2018. Tropia, Anna. La teoria della conoscenza di Francisco Macedo. Un filosofo a confronto con Tommaso e Scoto. Rome: Carocci editore, 2020. Zahnd, Ueli. “Easy-Going Scholars Lecturing Secundum Alium? Notes on Some French Franciscan Sentences Commentaries of the Fifteenth Century.” In Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, vol. 3. Edited by Philipp W. Rosemann, 267–314. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2015.

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I. Sensory Cognition

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Suárez vs. Mastri and Belluto on Species in the Internal Sense Daniel Heider

Introduction Bartolomeo Mastri’s (1602–1673) interpretation of Scotus’s thought is said by Marco Forlivesi to represent “a synthesis of the views of a minority line of Scotism and the positions of Francisco Suárez.”1 Indeed, a cursory glance at the philosophy of perception of Mastri and his collaborator Bonaventura Belluto (1600–1676), presented in the fourth disputation De potentiis vegetantis et sentientis animae in communi, in the Disputationes in Aristotelis Stagiritae libros de anima from 1643 (later adopted in the third volume of their famous Cursus philosophicus),2 confirms ample similarity with Suárez’s views as laid out in the fifth and the sixth disputations (De potentiis cognitivis in communi and De sensibus in communi) of his Commentary on Aristotle’s De anima (henceforth CDA) written in the early 1570s, but first published in 1621. In this paper, however, I do not aim to deal with these affinities. I instead shall focus on the topic of the agent sense, conceived as a vehicle which produces the species of the internal sense, something I consider to be a fundamental difference between the theories of Suárez and of Mastri and Belluto. To put it briefly, while Suárez endorses that the agent internal sense produces the interior species, Mastri and Belluto reject this claim. Although the Jesuit agrees with the two Scotists in denying the necessity of the agent sense in the ‘elevation’ of the sensible qualities to the level of the exterior species, and they all emphasise the causal activity of the sensory powers I would like to thank David Ginocchio and Claus A. Andersen for their helpful comments on a draft version of this article. This study is a result of the research funded by the Czech Science Foundation (project no. GA ČR 20–01710S, “Theory of Cognition in Baroque Scotism”). 1 Forlivesi, “Mastri, Bartolomeo,” 6; for the affinity between Mastri and Belluto and Suárez regarding their understanding of “formal” and “objective” concepts, see Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 268–75. 2 For a detailed account of the publication history of the work, see Forlivesi, Scotistarum princeps, 361–65. Further consult Forlivesi, ibid., 112–23 and 153–59, for an account of the background and genesis of Mastri and Belluto’s Cursus philosophicus; for a short reappraisal, see also Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 30–38. It is assumed that Belluto was the main author of the Disputationes in De anima (henceforth = In DA). Since this work, however, was published under the names of both authors, I shall, throughout this article, refer to it as their joint publication. Andersen, “Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition,” 188–89, has a brief overview of the content of In DA. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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in the production of perceptual acts, they substantially differ in their answer to the question about the origin of interior species. Our perceptual experience is far from limited to the apprehension of discrete proper sensibles, such as coloured spots, moving sounds and odours, purely gustatory (that is, not olfactory) qualities, etc. It includes several psychological (non-conceptual) mechanisms, which can in a broad sense be regarded as instances of ‘perceiving as.’3 We sense bundles constituted by these sensibles; we recognize them as belonging to this or that individual; we cognize them as agreeable or disagreeable; we understand sensible objects as absent or as having occurred in the past; we imagine sensible objects as compounded of distinct sensibles; we perceive not only external objects but we are sensibly aware also of our episodic sensations when they are present, and of their absence when they are not. In this paper, I do not attempt to do justice to all the post-sensory processes which co-constitute our complex and unified sensory perception. Rather, focusing on the doctrinal differences between Suárez and Mastri and Belluto, I shall discuss only their disagreement concerning four acts and their corresponding principles on the part of objects. These are as follows: (i) The sensed species (species sensata), which is the principle of the perceptual operations of objects first sensed by the five external senses; (ii) the composite species (species composita), the principle of the (imaginary) acts related to impossible objects, such as a golden mountain; and (iii) the unperceived species (species non sensata), that is, the principle of estimative operations such as utility or enmity. (iv) In addition, I shall also consider the acts and their principles relevant to the cognition of one’s own sensory acts, especially those of the external senses. I shall proceed in four steps. First, I shall sketch the basic doctrinal agreements between the theories of Suárez and of Mastri and Belluto concerning the formal, material, and final causes of sensible species. Second, I shall present Suárez’s views of the abovementioned four kinds of species. I shall argue that Suárez’s view of their production can be characterized as a top-down causal model. On this model, the soul (through the internal sense4 ) is conceived as the principal cause of interior species. Third, I shall introduce Mastri and Belluto’s For a list of these processes, see Toivanen, “Perceiving As: Non-conceptual Forms of Perception in Medieval Philosophy;” for post-sensory operations in Aquinas, see also Barker, “Aquinas on Internal Sensory Intentions.” 4 Importantly, both Suárez and Mastri and Belluto agree in their reductionism of the internal senses. They endorse the existence of a single interior sense generating a plurality of functions. See Suárez, CDA, disp. 8, q. 1, vol. 3, 14–46; Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 5 (Cursus Philosophicus III), 124a–26a. For Suárez’s view of the single internal sense and its functions, see also South, “Suárez on Imagination,” and Heider, Aristotelian Subjectivism, 230–54. For the Scotists’ theory of the single interior sense considered against the background of the doctrine of two internal senses of Pedro Fonseca (1528–1599), see Heider, “Fonseca’s Halfway Reductionism of the Internal Senses in Light of Mastri and Belluto’s Critique.” 3

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theory of the efficient cause of interior species, based on what can be called a bottom-up causal model. On this model, interior species are caused by items related to external sensation, foremost by sensible species of the external senses.5 Fourth, as a conclusion, beside an attempt to formulate an account of this doctrinal difference, I shall show that Mastri and Belluto’s theory was not the only theory advocated by early modern Scotists; I shall show that the Irish Observant Hugh McCaghwell (1571–1626) accepted Suárez’s top-down causal model.

1. Shared Assumptions Regarding the Formal, Material and Final Causes of Sensible Species Suárez shares with Mastri and Belluto several nontrivial views related to sensible species. First, they affirm the existence of both external and internal species. Following Aristotle, they say that the external senses must be initially affected by likenesses emitted from external sensibles. They agree that these intentional species must be posited not only in the external senses but also in the internal senses, since without the retention of these species we cannot remember the past.6 Regarding the formal cause of these species, they agree that these species are not substantial entities (corpuscles) but qualities. As ‘forms without matter’ they differ from the sensibles represented by them. This difference, however, does not amount to their literal immateriality but only to their superior material subtlety when compared to the represented sensibles. A colour does not produce a colour in the air and does not inhere as such in the eye. There is no red colour in the medium and in the organ that would thereby colour them. Our pupil does not turn red upon the reception of the species of a red colour. The red colour emits sensible species that differ from it in kind.7 All these thinkers make clear that these likenesses are intentional not because they are not real but only because, being materially ‘diminished,’ they concur in the production of sensory acts, which properly are called intentions.8 With some hesitation, especially in the case of Mastri and Belluto, they say that the species’ ultimate material cause is the sensory power, i. e., a composite of the organ and the soul. Species must be received in the sensory power as their ultimate subject since the sensory power, and not merely the organ, concurs with This model is based on Aristotle, De anima III, c. 3, 429a2–3, 163: “[…] imagination must be a movement produced by sensation actively operating.” 6 Suárez, CDA, disp. 5, q. 1, n. 3 (vol. II), 286; Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 4, nn. 38–39, 69b. 7 Suárez, CDA, disp. 5, q. 2, n. 8, n. 17 (vol. II), 306–8, 316–18; Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 4, nn. 41 and 43, 70a–b. 8 Suárez, CDA, disp. 5, q. 1, n. 3 (vol. II), 286; Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 4, n. 36, 69a. 5

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the species as a co-cause in the production of a perceptual act.9 Contrary to some Thomists,10 they are adamant in their rejection of the distinction between two kinds of being of species, namely between a natural and an intentional mode of being. Sensible species are the accidents that inhere in the sensory power. Accordingly, Mastri and Belluto deny the existence of the species qua an essence that would form a kind of unity with the sensory power, one which would be even more closely united than the substantial unity of form and matter. Thus they reject an identification at the level of the reception of species, and reserve it for the so-called second acts, namely vital acts, which are perceptual operations tending intentionally to their objects.11 Accordingly, for Mastri and Belluto, as well as for Suárez, the cognitive process is composed of three phases: the first is the reception of the species; the second is the production of perceptual acts; the third amounts to the reception of these acts as qualities in the sensory powers through which these operations have been produced.12 Regarding the final cause, the two Scotists and Suárez endorse two main functions of the intentional species (both sensible and intelligible). The first is representational. A species represents an object. In line with their denial of two kinds of being of species, they agree that a species represents its object not formally but only inchoately and virtually; a formal (perfect) likeness occurs only at the level of the perceptual act. At the level of the impressed species the representation is obscure and imperfect. It may be compared to a seed of the object, which needs to ‘germinate’ in the second (vital) act. Moreover, a species cannot be an objective image, such as a painting of Caesar, either. If it were, it would have to be known first, i. e., before the apprehension of the represented items. In consequence, it would have to be known in the same way as a painting of Caesar is known prior to the knowledge of the real Caesar. In such a case, the species would be a ‘quod,’ rather than a ‘quo,’ i. e., something through which the object is known.13 A species’ second role is causal. It causally concurs as a partial cause 9 Suárez, CDA, disp. 5, q. 1, n. 6 (vol. II), 292–94; for Mastri and Belluto’s arguments for both views (arguing that a dead eye, too, can receive species), see Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 5, art. 1, nn. 47–48, 71a–b. 10 One of the Thomists mentioned by Mastri and Belluto is John Poinsot (1589–1644). For the distinction between the species’ entitative and intentional modes of being, see his Naturalis philosophia, pars 4, q. 6, art. 3 (Cursus philosophicus thomisticus III), 185a–86b. 11 Suárez, CDA, disp. 5, q. 2, n. 24 (vol. II), 326; Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 5, art. 1, nn. 50–52, 71b–72a. 12 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 2, n. 14, 65a, and n. 18, 66b; cf. Suárez, CDA, disp. 5, q. 5 (vol. II), 368–414. 13 Although in CDA (disp. 5, q. 2, n. 21, vol. II, 322), the edition based on the early manuscripts written in the first half of the 1570s, it is said that “Istae species intentionales sunt similitudines formales obiectorum;” in his Tractatus de anima, the version edited by Balthasar Álvares after the Jesuit’s death in 1621, Suárez, otherwise entirely in line with the text of CDA, https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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along with the sensory power in the production of perception. All these considerations make it clear that a species generates by efficient (partial) causality. They cannot be mere ‘exciters’ of the sensory power, nor simply the necessary condition of the production of some cognitive act. Cognition is an assimilative process, and as such it must be co-caused by objects through the species.14

2. Suárez on the Production of Interior Species 2.1 Sensed Species In the second question, “Whether for the Production of Sensible Species It Is Necessary to Posit the Agent Sense” of the sixth disputation “On the Senses in General” in his CDA, Suárez begins with an assumption of the existence of sensed species. As regards their origin, he starts by introducing the bottom-up causal account, which holds that interior species are produced by exterior species or, properly speaking, by an external object through this species.15 He has three reasons for denying this account. (1) In line with his emphasis on the hierarchy of the powers and his (Augustinian) view of the impossibility of bottom-up causality,16 he says that exterior species cannot be the cause of interior species, since the latter is more perfect than the former. Unlike exterior species, an interior one does not depend on the presence of sensible objects, since the latter are (also) the principles of abstractive acts. In these acts the sensory power terminates in objects which are absent or even non-existent. Clearly, there is no way for a less perfect entity to bring about a more perfect one, since a cause must be at least as perfect as its effect. (2) The organ of the internal sense is the brain. However, we can have a tactile experience of heat in a foot (for Suárez the tactile organ is primarily the skin that envelops the body17 ). The question is how a species of heat received in the foot (the cause of interior species, according to the states this: “Species intentionales non repraesentant formaliter obiecta, sed effective tantum.” (Tractatus de anima, III, cap. 2, n. 20, 620). For Mastri and Belluto’s view, see In DA, disp. 4, q. 6, n. 101, 79a. 14 Suárez, CDA, disp. 5, q. 4, n. 14 (vol. II), 364; Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 6, n. 93, 78a. 15 Suárez, CDA, disp. 6, q. 2, n. 8 (vol. II), 478: “[…] aiunt quidam illas produci ab speciebus existentibus in sensibus exterioribus, seu ab obiecto [extrinseco], media illa specie, ut Petrus visus producit speciem sui in visu, et illa mediante, producit similem in phantasia.” 16 For this axiom based on the impossibility of ascendant causality and its application to sensory perception, and for the limitation of the causal role of an object in the production of perceptual acts in medieval Augustinianism, see Silva, “Medieval Theories of Active Perception.” For Suárez’s adoption of this Augustinian axiom, see Heider, Aristotelian Subjectivism, for this especially 85–93 and 217–30. 17 Suárez, CDA, disp. 7, q. 14, n. 2 (vol. II), 736–38. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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thesis being criticized) can be delivered to the brain, or how it can cause a similar species there. Suárez offers two possible explanations. One is that an exterior species of heat can cause an interior species at a distance; the other is that nerves connect the foot to the brain. The former is not possible, since action at a distance is impossible.18 The other explanation is not possible either. If it were correct, the heat would have to be felt in all the parts of the bodily medium running from the foot to the brain, which is not the case. We feel the heat only in the foot, and not in the abdomen or the chest. (3) If this bottom-up causal account were correct, then one would have to admit that whenever the external senses receive species, similar ones are ipso facto received in the interior sensory power. Again, this is not true. Those who sleep with eyes wide open, or are in ecstasy or have suffered apoplexy, can receive species in the organs without producing an interior species in the phantasy. Suárez insists that if exterior species are not ‘reduced’ to the second act, i. e., when no vital perceptual act is produced nor is received in the same sensory power, the phantasy will have no species. Moreover, this theory is not plausible, or else we would have to say that the interior sense could receive an interior species and then generate acts which represent objects that have not been consciously cognized by the external senses. Some perceiver could remember past objects she has never consciously apprehended. For Suárez, this is not the case.19 Suárez rejects also a qualified version of this bottom-up causal view. According to this version, interior species are caused by exterior species with apprehension by the external senses required as a necessary condition. Suárez is puzzled by this requirement. Either this external cognition is conceived as a cocause, in which case the exterior species will not be the only cause; or this apprehension, as asserted, will be a necessary condition, in which case it is not clear what this requirement entails. Doubtless this view seems to imply that exterior species can produce an interior species only if the sense pays attention to the exterior species. Certainly this is not the case when a person sleeps with open eyes. But what does this attention contribute to the efficacy of the exterior species? Suárez shows that this attention may be understood either in the abovementioned sense, i. e., in the sense that interior species are caused by external For the impossibility of actio in distans, see Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae (= DM), disp. 18, sect. 8 (Opera omnia XXV), 650–68. For an analysis of Suárez’s view according to which the propinquity of cause and effect is taken as a necessary condition of efficient causation, see Des Chene, “Suárez on Propinquity and the Efficient Cause.” 19 Suárez, CDA, disp. 6, q. 2, n. 9 (vol. II), 478–80: “[…] nam licet sensus exterior immutetur, si per species receptas non cognoscit, interior sensus non immutabitur, ut patet in eo qui patitur [apoplexiam] vel [deliquium] animae vel [extasim], nam licet habeat oculos aptos non videt, et tunc oculus recipit species ab obiecto; interior tamen sensus non recipit illas, nam si reciperet conservaret illas, et posset postea recordari eorum [quae] passus est. Quod non facit, ut experientia [monstrat].” 18

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acts (we get a different theory then, though), or that this attention is posited owing to the sensory power’s material disposition to receive the species. Clearly, the latter must be ruled out, since attention does not constitute a material disposition for the reception of a species; this species can be received by an inattentive or distracted power as well. Attention is not required for the reception of the species of the power, but only for its subsequent utilization.20 Having rejected this version of the bottom-up causal account, Suárez formulates his first conclusion, which he says is only a probable one (tantum probabile), one which is yet another version of the bottom-up causal account: “The internal senses’ species are not produced by an external object through the species, but by the external senses through their cognitive acts.”21 Accordingly, these acts will not constitute merely a necessary condition, but are the efficient cause itself. While the first part of this account is clear from what has been said above, the second part may be justified by reference to his theory of the endpoint of the cognitive act.22 For Suárez, as for Scotus and the Scotists, this endpoint is a not a categorial action, but a quality identical to a cognitive act. Thus it seems justifiable to say that this quality, as the principle of causation of yet another quality,23 produces an interior species which represents the same external object because these two distinct powers are coordinated in the common soul. Suárez additionally introduces three supplemental reasons supporting this view. (1) As has been said, the internal sense receives a species only when the external senses are operative. (2) The more strongly the external sense attends to its object, the more vehemently the species is impressed on the internal sense and the more easily it will be remembered. (3) There is no better (to wit, Aristotelian) candidate for this cause.24 No matter how probable Suárez thinks this view is, he is clear that it is not entirely convincing. Although it may be said that external sensation is more perfect than interior species, since the former is a vital act while the latter is not, in his critique of this “merely probable” conclusion the Jesuit revisits the argument in light of the difference between the perfection of the external senses and the perfection of the internal senses. He repeats that the latter are not bound to apprehend the objects as present here and now to the perceiver. Consequently, the only way for Suárez to avoid this implausible assumption inherent in bottom-up Ibid., n. 9, 480–82. Ibid., n. 10, 482: “Species sensata sensus interioris non fit ab alio obiecto extrinseco media specie, sed a sensu exteriori medio actu cognitionis suae.” 22 For this theory of the expressed species (known in an act of understanding as verbum mentis) called “idolum” in sensory cognition, which is produced not only in the interior but also in the external senses, see Suárez, CDA, disp. 5, q. 5 (vol. II), 368–413. 23 For habits as the qualitative termini of immanent actions conceived as qualities, see Suárez, DM, vol. II, disp. 44, sect. 8, n. 13, 684. 24 Suárez, CDA, disp. 6, q. 2, n. 10 (vol. II), 482.

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causality is to embrace a different theory, one which endorses the top-down causal model. This theory is formulated by Suárez in the following way: “It is probable that the interior species result in the interior sense through its own proper activity and not by means of any efficiency of something external.”25 I deem this theory expressive of the core of Suárez’s cognitive psychology. It is backed up by his fundamental theory of the sympathy of the powers, which is operative not only between the cognitive powers but also between the cognitive and the appetitive powers rooted in the same soul. Suárez explains this conclusion as follows: The interior and the exterior senses are rooted in the same soul. Therefore, it is one and the same soul that sees through sight and imagines through the imagination. Accordingly, there is a natural harmony between these powers in such a manner that, if the soul sees something through sight, it immediately forms the likeness of that thing in the imagination, and not through a power distinct from the imagination but through the power of the very same imagination. If an external sensation is perceived, a species naturally ensues in the internal sense, yet not through the activity of this sensation but from the activity of the soul itself by means of the imagination, although only upon the presence of the sensed thing. Therefore, the imagination does not always produce these species, since the soul requires a preceding cognition of an object in order to produce in itself (intra se) a likeness of this object.26

When the soul, through the power of sight, perceives an external object, an interior species ensues in the interior sense. It is the soul (conceived as ‘an agent sense’), through the same power, which is active in the production and reception of these species. There is no need to distinguish between two really distinct senses, namely between the agent sense and the passive internal sense, since it is the soul that is the principal agent. In analogy to the production of intelligible species, where the active intellect (only conceptually distinct from the potential intellect) produces intelligible species, and where the phantasms are the occasional or exemplary cause, the same description is employed by Suárez here. The active soul in utilizing the sensory power is regarded as ‘an agent sense,’ and the acts of 25 Ibid., n. 13, 486: “Probabile est huiusmodi species interiores resultare in interiori sensu propria vi et activitate illius, et non per efficientiam alicuius extrinseci.” 26 Ibid.: “Sensus interior et exterior in eadem anima radicantur, unde eadem est anima quae videt per visum, et per imaginationem imaginatur; est ergo haec naturalis consensio inter has potentias, quod eo ipso quod anima aliquid visu percipit, statim format similitudinem illius rei in imaginatione sua, non mediante potentia ab imaginatione distincta, sed per virtutem eiusdem imaginationis, ita ut posita sensatione extrinseca, naturaliter resultet species in interiori sensu, non ex activitate sensationis, sed ex activitate ipsius animae per imaginationem, ad praesentiam tamen rei sensatae. Et ideo imaginatio non semper efficit illas species, quia indiget anima praevia aliqua cognitione obiecti, ut possit intra se formare aliquam similitudinem illius.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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the external senses are regarded as occasional or exemplary causes in the production of interior species.27 From Suárez’s point of view, this description has two advantages. First, it does not compromise the immanent status of cognitive acts that are co-produced by a single power. Although in his first conclusion he conceded that one quality, i. e. a cognitive act, can produce another quality, namely the species in a different power, in justifying his second conclusion Suárez is less open to this option: it is not rational to say that one power generating an immanent operation can (transeuntly) cause a species in another, really distinct power. This direct inter-power causation is at odds with the essentially immanent character of the operation of the vital power. Second, this theory is preferable because it avoids the implausible consequence that is part of the issue with upward causality. There is no doubt that the soul is not something less perfect than the interior species that represents absent objects. 2.2 Composite Species In addition to the apprehension of absent objects, the internal sense is able to form acts that apprehend a composite object integrated from two or more distinct sensible objects, one of which does not have a counterpart in external reality. Suárez mentions the famous example of a golden mountain.28 In his formulation of the status quaestionis, he asks whether these acts have, as their principle, only two distinct species representing parts of the given whole as their co-principles, or whether they can be produced also through a single, i. e., composite species representing the whole fictive item. Suárez makes it clear that both options are tenable and even compatible. To demonstrate their compatibility, he distinguishes between the first and the subsequent acts. If the imagination apprehends a golden mountain for the first time, it produces this act representing it on the basis of two distinct species, those of gold and of mountain. At this stage, there is no single species representing this impossible object. We have sensed gold and a mountain; the imagination has stored them in the phantasy and combined them in a creative manner to produce an act intentionally tending to a single object. 27 For Suárez’s view of phantasms seen as occasional and exemplary causes of the agent intellect’s production of intelligible species, which is structurally similar to the production of interior species, see Perler, “Suárez on Intellectual and Occasional Causation.” 28 It is puzzling that a golden mountain is traditionally, including by Suárez, seen as an example of impossible objects. The famous Cistercian polymath Caramuel y Lobkowitz (1606– 1682) would later argue that a golden mountain is not impossible, since God could make one – quite similar to the Spaniards, who could build a mountain with all the silver they have found in the mines of the Mount Potosi (Bolivia); for Caramuel’s view, see Andersen, “The Doctrine of Beings of Reason in Renaissance Lullism.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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However, in line with the abovementioned conclusion based on the soul considered as ‘an agent sense,’ Suárez adds that, since it is the soul which is operative through the phantasy and since the primordial act can be taken as an exemplary or occasional cause of a new composite species of the same representation, the single composed species representing a golden mountain can and will result from the internal sense. It will be stored there and habitually represent a golden mountain, even if never ‘reduced’ to a second act. If not entirely forgotten, it will be available for the phantasy’s future reactivation. Moreover, it seems that there must exist such a species since, as we experience, any subsequent apprehension will be exercised at greater ease than the original act. Importantly, as many other theories in Suárez’s metaphysico-psychological cognitive system show, this distinction has a direct counterpart in Suárez’s theory of the production of an intelligible species, one representing the so-called metaphysical (absolute) universal. At first, we have intelligible species representing material singulars. Comparing them helps the intellect to separate out the individual differences (haecceities) and thus acquire the knowledge of the so-called absolute universal, for which at this stage no intelligible species is available. However, after such a process of separation, the intelligible species which represents this universal will be produced by the intellect and remain in the intellectual memory to be easily reactivated at a later point, e. g., in judgments and syllogisms.29 2.3 Unsensed species Suárez devotes a paragraph of CDA disp. 6, q. 2 also to the issue of the origin of action-oriented intentions of convenience and inconvenience. Therein Suárez starts from the hypothetical assumption of the existence of a distinct unsensed species, as endorsed in the classical theories of Avicenna, Aquinas, and many others.30 These species must exist and be distinct from the sensed species since they represent rationes that are more hidden and more perfect than those sensed by the external senses. They are distinct because the acts of which they are the principles can be separated. While the wolf A has a representation of a wolf B only sub ratione lupi, in a lamb, e. g., it exists also sub ratione inimici. In line with the abovementioned top-down causal model, Suárez is clear that the origin of interior sensed species cannot be explained in the bottom-up model. Interior sensed species cannot be caused by external objects. They can only be produced Suárez, CDA, disp. 6, q. 2, n. 14 (vol. II), 488–90; for the production of the intelligible species of the metaphysical universal (universale metaphysicum) and for the direct analogy of this production with the genesis of the composite species, see CDA, disp. 9. q. 3, n. 14 (vol. III), 128–30. 30 For these species in Avicenna, see Liber de anima, pars 1, cap. 5, 86; see also, among others, Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 25, art. 2 (ed. Leonina 22, 3/1), 733. 29

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by the soul by means of the interior sense, with exterior apprehension taken as either an exemplary or occasional cause. As in other cases, Suárez adopts a more parsimonious ontology than Avicenna or Aquinas. For him, no really distinct species actually need to be posited. The sensed species, or (as we shall see below) the sensed species with a mode, are sufficient principles of estimative judgments and trigger emotional responses and subsequent locomotive actions. Suárez introduces two arguments for this view. (1) Such distinct species are redundant. As soon as a lamb sees a wolf (sub ratione lupi), it judges “This wolf is dangerous,” which leads to the response of fear and the lamb’s escape. The lamb can judge these two aspects through one and the same sensed species. The argument that these two features are separable from the species is not cogent. Through one and the same species the power of a single nature can apprehend and judge different things, due to their apprehension by different instincts, than can the power of another nature. (2) It is not only the case that these species are redundant, but they are also impossible. If really distinct, the intention of hostility could be represented by the species abstractly, i. e., as separated from the subject. In such a case, a sensory power would be able to cause an act which apprehends the intention of danger (danger as such) in the wolf, as distinct from the wolf seen under the characteristics of shape, colour, etc. Clearly, a sensory power is not capable of exercising this formal abstraction of the form from its subject.31 Although the whole thrust of his reasoning looks as though Suárez espouses the view that these action-oriented intentions are apprehended through a sensed species of the wolf (this is also Mastri and Belluto’s reading), in his final word he employs the notion of the (extrinsic) mode, typical of his (and Jesuit) metaphysics and cognitive theory in general, which seems to constitute the main explanans of his position.32 Suárez repeats that the ratio insensata cannot be represented as a feature distinct from the ratio sensata. Nevertheless, he adds that it can be represented as a mode grounded in the ratio sensata (ut modus quidam fundatus in illa). This formulation seems to suggest that Suárez after all posits the existence of unsensed species, which is captured not as a really distinct entity but only as a mode of the interior (sensed) species.33 Again, this modification of the theory of the sensed species as representing these action-oriented intentions can have only a top-down origin. This procedure is a result of the soul that oper-

Suárez, CDA, disp. 6, q. 2, n. 15 (vol. II), 490–92. For Suárez’s metaphysics of the extrinsic modes (modi extrinseci), see Menn, “Suárez, Nominalism, and Modes,” 242–50, and Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes 1274–1671, 253–58. For a broad employment of these modes also in Suárez’s theory of perception, see Heider, Aristotelian Subjectivism, 267–70. 33 Suárez, CDA, disp. 6, q. 2, n. 15 (vol. II), 492. 31

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ates through the internal sense, with the external senses’ apprehension taken as the exemplary cause. Suárez ends his section on the origin of the unsensed species with this unAristotelian conclusion: “As regards the internal senses it is necessary to posit an agent sense [which is productive] of the intentional [interior] sense’s species.”34 As we have seen, this agent sense is not a special sense really distinct from a passive sense. It rather represents an abbreviation of the soul’s activity in mediating and coordinating the activities coming from the really distinct powers. Far from being an incidental feature of the Jesuit’s tenet, the emphasis on this effect of the soul represents the basso ostinato of Suárez’s philosophical psychology. 2.4 The Species of the Acts of the External Senses Besides apprehending unified sensory forms representing absent objects, actionoriented intentions and imaginary compounds, the internal sense is also aware of the acts of the external senses, which for Suárez is also the main reason why the sentient soul can remember objects with which it has become familiar in the past.35 This apprehension is for him grounded, again, in his theory of the soul conceived as an ‘agent sense.’ Before presenting Suárez’s view of the interior sense’s awareness of exterior sensory acts, two preliminary remarks are in place. First, like other scholastics, Suárez distinguishes between two kinds of selfawareness.36 1) An act can be cognized properly, i. e., as the object (quod) of a higher-order act. Accordingly, a first-order act representing an apple can be apprehended through a second-order act that turns reflexively to the lower-order act. If the first-order act is apprehended in this way, it is known expressly and directly, in a so-called designated act (in actu signato). Contemporary authors have called this kind of self-awareness ‘higher-order consciousness’ (HOC). 2) An act that intentionally tends to an apple can be cognized also improperly, implicitly, or indirectly, in an exercised act (in actu exercito). In line with this account, it can be immediately apprehended by the same first-order act, namely as a “quo,” through which an external object is apprehended. When I perceive an apple, I am indirectly and experientially aware also of this act through which I

Ibid., n. 16, 492: “Respectu sensuum interiorum necessario est ponendus aliquis sensus agens intentionales species.” 35 Suárez, CDA, disp. 6, q. 4, n. 8 (vol. II), 510. 36 Suárez, CDA, disp. 6, q. 4, n. 2 (vol. II), 502. For this distinction in late medieval and early modern scholasticism, see Knebel, “Das Cogito und die Krise des Schulbegriffs der Reflexion.” For its use in contemporary philosophy of mind as related to two competing theories of introspective consciousness, see, e. g., Kriegel, “The Same-Order Monitoring Theory of Consciousness. Second Version.” 34

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see the apple. In contemporary philosophy, this self-awareness is called ‘sameorder consciousness’ (SOC). The second preliminary remark concerns the distinction between the apprehension of an act’s existence and of its quiddity. As Suárez notes, sensory self-awareness can only provide us with an answer to the question ‘An sit’ (‘whether it exists’). Suárez opens his exposition of this issue of sensory self-awareness with a flat rejection of the application of HOC to a sensory power.37 This kind of selfawareness is possible only in the intellect: “No sensory power can cognize its own operation through a proper and distinct act.”38 Such reflective self-cognition exceeds the capacity of a merely material power. No material power can perfectly reflect upon itself because its proper object does not include its acts. These operations are not per se sensible entities.39 In the second conclusion, Suárez denies this perfect self-awareness at the inter-power level too: “No sense through its own act can perceive an act of a distinct sense through its own sensible species and as part of its proper object.”40 In other words, the internal sense cannot cognize the acts of the external senses through their proper species. Importantly, with this declaration Suárez explicitly rejects Scotus’s view according to which the internal sense apprehends (and remembers) the acts of the external senses because these acts-qualities imprint their proper and distinct species on the internal sense.41 Suárez makes it clear that an act of vision of white colour does not imprint its special species on the interior sense. If it did, two species would have to be impressed onto it, one representing the white colour, the second the act itself. Consequently, two acts would have to be simultaneously produced by the interior sense. Referring to our ‘phenomenological evidence,’ Suárez states that this characterisation does not accord with our perceptual experience or with the proper functioning of the interior sense. And if such were the case, one would not be able to cognize anything with perfect attention, since one’s attention would be always fragmented. 37 For Suárez’s theory of perceptual self-awareness, see Perler, “Suárez on Consciousness,” 264–73, and Heider, Aristotelian Subjectivism, 114–21. 38 Suárez, CDA, disp. 6, q. 4, n. 4 (vol. II), 504: “Nulla potentia sensitiva cognoscit proprie et actu distincto suam propriam operationem.” 39 This claim is based on Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 18–19: “[…] it is not in the nature of any body to revert upon itself. That which reverts upon anything is conjoined with that upon which it reverts: hence it is evident that every part of a body reverted upon itself must be conjoined with every other part – since self-reversion is precisely the case in which the reverted subject and that upon which it has reverted become identical. But this is impossible for a body, and universally for any divisible substance […].” 40 Suárez, CDA, disp. 6, q. 4, n. 6 (vol. II), 508: “Nullus sensus potest proprio actu percipere actum alterius sensus per propriam illius speciem, et tamquam partem proprii obiecti.” 41 For the loci in Scotus on this position, see Section 4.4. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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At the same time, this view, epistemologically speaking, is too optimistic regarding sensory self-awareness. If a distinct act which tends to the act were to be produced, a proper and distinct concept of this act, explicating its quiddity (see the tension noted in the second preliminary remark), would have to be the result. This is not what we experience.42 Although he denies the application of HOC, in the third conclusion Suárez is eager to endorse the SOC: “Every sensory power somehow perceives its own act, but not through a reflection, but imperfectly and in a quasi-exercised act.”43 Such an implicit reflection is built into all cognitive and appetitive acts, and is the result of the vital operation of the sensory powers. When we exercise firstorder acts we are not only aware of the sensed objects but at the same time also of these acts. This conclusion determines Suárez’s fourth (for our comparison the most relevant) conclusion: The interior sense cognizes the external senses’ operations in a special way, not through the proper species but through the species of the external sensibles which somehow become modified in the external senses.44

Suárez agrees with Scotus that at the sensory level we have a memory of sensory acts. This sensory memory is not only that of the acts of the exterior senses but also those of the interior sense as well as the acts of the sensory appetite. I remember not only Peter sitting yesterday but also that I saw him sitting. I remember having experienced a particular emotion of anger when I saw this or that person. I recollect having imagined this or that kind of object. If we are to explain the behaviour of non-rational animals, the same operations must be attributed to them, too. However, in the exposition of the mechanism of this selfawareness Suárez substantially differs from Scotus. Contrary to the Subtle Doctor, Suárez claims that these acts are not apprehended through a proper species imprinted onto the interior sense. These acts can be apprehended only indirectly and implicitly, that is, by the modifications of the interior species representing sensible objects. Suárez explains this conclusion by referring to CDA disp. 6, sect. 2, in which he introduced the theory of the soul conceived as an ‘agent sense.’ He recapitulates that the acts of the external senses serve as exemplary causes, on the model of which the soul via the internal sense produces its species. But since these ‘exemplary’ acts do not apprehend merely external objects, but are also indirectly aware of the acts themselves, the resulting species will be modified acSuárez, CDA, disp. 6, q. 4, n. 6 (vol. II), 508–10. Ibid., n. 7, 510: “Omnis sensus percipit aliquo modo actum suum, non per reflexionem, sed imperfecto modo et quasi in actu exercito.” 44 Ibid., n. 8, 510: “Sensus interior speciali modo cognoscit operationem sensuum externorum, non per proprias species, sed per species sensibilium externorum, quasi modificatas in ipsis sensibus externis.”

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cording to this self-consciousness as well. Epistemologically speaking, however, cognition by the interior sense of the acts of the exterior senses will not be more perfect than the cognition by the external senses. The interior sense’s self-cognition will not include an additional cognitive perfection above what has been already attained by the external senses. According to Suárez, the next level of perfection, manifested by HOC, is reached only with intellectual cognition.45

3. Mastri and Belluto on the Production of Interior Species 3.1 Sensed Species In the second article (called “Which Things Can Produce the Sensible Species?”) of the fifth question (“On the Material and Efficient Causes of the Sensible Species”), included in the fourth disputation of the In De anima, Mastri and Belluto raise the question of whether sensible species are (at least partly) produced by the agent sense in the same way as intelligible species are co-caused by the agent intellect, or whether they are totally caused by a sensible object. The question can be put tersely also in this form: Is it necessary to postulate an agent sense in the production by the interior senses? In a preliminary note, the Scotists make it clear that they do not have in mind the agent sense as a vehicle producing a perceptual act. For them, as has been said, and in line with Suárez, it is clear that there must be such an agency in the sentient soul. Considering the distinction between the production of the intelligible species and the production of intellection, they regard the agent sense only as a vehicle or power producing the sensible species. Importantly, in the context of the presentation of the various theories, they identify Suárez as a proponent of the competing theory according to which the agent sense must be postulated in the production of interior species.46 That Mastri and Belluto hold an anti-Suarezian position is quite clear: there is no agent sense, whether in the external or the internal senses. This view, they say, is common to all the Peripatetics.47 As they see it, in this regard Suárez clearly does not belong to the Aristotelian camp. Although not stated ex professo by Scotus, the Subtle Doctor’s negative stance about the existence of the agent sense, they say, is not difficult to deduce from a number of passages in which the For Suárez’s general restriction of the internal sense’s functional scope as compared with Aquinas, and in this case also with Scotus, see Heider, Aristotelian Subjectivism, 240–54. 46 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 5, art. 2, n. 54, 72a: “Suarez […] has [i. e., the species of the interior sense] concedit fieri ab internis sensibus, quare admittit sensum agentem internum.” 47 Ibid., n. 55, 72a: “Dicimus non dari sensum agentem; haec conclusio communis est in Peripatho.” 45

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medieval Franciscan argues for the existence of the agent intellect as a co-cause of the intelligible species.48 In these passages, Scotus takes the agent intellect as a vehicle which transfers an object from the order of sensible and material things to the order of intelligible and immaterial things. Since this transference is not necessary at the level of the senses, no agent sense at the level of sensory cognition need be posited. Moreover, considering explicitly the interior species, Mastri and Belluto say that the agent sense can be neither the total cause of these species nor a partial one. It cannot be the total cause, since in the production of intelligible species the agent intellect is not the only efficient cause; the intelligible species is produced also through the concurrent (partial) efficiency of phantasms. But the agent sense cannot be a partial cause either; if a partial efficacy were attributed to the agent sense, this would have to be done to the detriment of the object’s total causality. However, to avoid an unnecessary multiplication of principles, one would have to explain why the exterior species’ representation of the external object is not enough to be the total cause of the interior species. Mastri and Belluto make it clear that there is no such explanation.49 This demonstrates Mastri and Belluto’s scepticism about Suárez’s arguments based on the impossibility of bottom-up causation between the external and the internal senses. The Scotists introduce also an argument founded on the non-existence of a vis cogitativa or aestimativa. Since there is no cogitative power in humans or estimative one in brutes that could extract the latent species from material substances, no agent sense can be assumed. As likewise claimed by Suárez,50 if this interior sense could reveal the species of a substance, we would be able to cognize naturally the mystery of the Eucharist, i. e., the transformed host. Like Suárez, Mastri and Belluto reject the cogitative power as a power that can detect or form latent sensible species (not known by the external senses) representing these individual substances.51 Contrary to Suárez, however, they put forward a theory which fully dispenses with the agent sense. Setting aside Suárez’s second (and more probable) view, one based on an agent sense qua the agent soul, they list four theories explaining the origin of an interior species. (i) Since a species must represent an One of these passages is Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 360 (ed. Vat. III), 218. Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 5, art. 2, n. 56, 72b. 50 For Suárez, see CDA, disp. 9, q. 4, n. 5 (vol. III), 158–60. For Suárez on knowledge of material substances, see Perler, “Can We Know Substances?,” and Heider, Aristotelian Subjectivism, 242–46. 51 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 3, n. 31, 68b: “[…] nullam substantiam esse per se sensibilis, sed sentiri mediis accidentibus; & probari potest inductione, nam non est sensibilis sensu interno […] si substantia esse per se sensibilis, certe possemus ejus absentiam cognoscere, sicut per speciem ejusdem praesentiam perciperemus, & sic possemus naturaliter cognoscere in Sacramento Altaris substantiam panis abesse, quod est falsum.” See also In DA, disp. 4, q. 5, art. 2, n. 57, 72b. 48 49

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external thing, the interior species must be caused immediately by an external object. (ii) Since a sleeping eye, and not the interior sense, can receive a species representing an external object, the object cannot be an immediate cause of an interior species; the cause must be an external sense through an exterior sensation conceived as a necessary condition. (iii) Since an object must concur in the production of such an interior species, an exterior species must be the cause. (iv) Since an exterior species is less perfect than an interior one and an exterior species in the sleeping eye can exist without a species in the interior sense – and granting the claim according to which the more perfect is an act of the external senses, the more perfect is the interior species – the cause of an interior species must be an exterior sensation.52 In their conclusion, Mastri and Belluto show that both the exterior species and sensation (theories (iii) and (iv)) must be involved in the production of interior species. Nevertheless, in the end they incline to the view according to which the only cause is the exterior species (the view (iii)). They agree that sensation must be included in the production of an interior species, but not as a true efficient cause. Exterior sensation can be at most the necessary condition (conditio sine qua non) of this production.53 They introduce three arguments for this view. (1) The first argument comes from the existence of the special interior species’ representation of the acts of the external senses (which, as we know, is a view typically held by Scotists). Mastri and Belluto argue that, if the act of the external senses were the total cause of the interior species, that act would have to produce two species in the internal sense – one representing the act, the other representing the object. However, this seems irrational to say (non videtur rationabiliter dictum). No doubt this statement could easily be made by Suárez who, however, rejects the existence of a proper interior species representing the act. The claim cannot be made by the Scotists, though. (2) Interior species, like exterior ones, are only the virtual representations of sensibles. But sensations or second acts as formal representations cannot be the causes of interior species, since these are only virtual representations. There must be a proportionality between cause and effect. Accordingly, only exterior species can be the cause of interior species. (3) Mastri and Belluto employ a parallel to the production of intelligible species. Contrary to Suárez, for whom the intelligible species are produced only by the agent intellect, with phantasms concurring only as occasional or exemplary causes,54 Mastri and Belluto assert that phantasms must concur efficient-

Ibid., n. 72, 74b. Ibid., n. 73, 75a: “[…] quod actus sensationis concurrat, patet ex modo dictis […] potest sustineri species externas esse totales causas internarum, licet cum advertentia potentiae sensitivae externae tamquam conditione sine qua non.” 54 See Suárez, CDA, disp. 9, q. 2, n. 12 (vol. III), 94–98. 52

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ly.55 From this point of view, it is reasonable to consider exterior species to be the efficient cause of interior species too.56 3.2 Composite Species In the third article, “On the Internal Sense’s Acts: Whether They Are Judgmental and Discursive” of the eighth question, “On the Internal Senses,” in the fifth disputation, “On the Sensory Powers in Particular,” Mastri and Belluto start by enumerating seven possible acts of the internal sense, including the act of imaginari. This act is characterized by apprehending a sensible unum tertium composed of two simple objects perceived by the external senses. In line with Suárez’s status quaestionis, the question they pose is whether this composition occurs only at the level of the second act, and having as a principle always two distinct species that somehow become ‘fused’ in the imaginative act; or whether this composition exists or can exist also at a prior level, namely at the level of first acts. They are clear about their rejection of Suárez’s ‘compatibilist view.’ As has been said, for the Jesuit a composite species of a golden mountain is formed because the soul through the interior sense operates as an agent sense in its production. This imaginative species results from the soul through the internal sense upon the positing of a particular act of sensing taken as a model for the effect of the act. For the Scotists this option is not available. Why? The reason is simple: there is no such agent sense. The production of these imaginative acts must always come from the plurality of simple species stored in the internal sense. Unlike Suárez, for them the production of this act is never followed by the production of a composite species that facilitates its later reactivation.57 3.3 Unsensed Species It has been shown that, despite Suárez’s temptation by the view that action-oriented intentions are apprehended through sensed species which represent exterFor this non-Suarezian claim, see Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 6, q. 5, art. 1, n. 120, 160a: “[…] intellectum esse causam efficientem specierum intelligibilium, sane id non asserimus, quasi sit causa totalis, & integra se solo, nam longe probabilius est, phantasma quoque […] active concurrere, & in genere causae efficientis, saltem minus principalis.” 56 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 5, art. 2, n. 73, 75a. 57 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 3, n. 261, 120b: “[…] solum posset dubitari, num sicut actu isto componuntur simplicia objecta, ita quoque componantur species sensibiles, itaut ex specie montis, & ex specie auri resultet quaedam species composita repraesentans montem aureum, an vero virtute illarum simplicium specierum sensus eliciat actum componentem objecta, & quidem haec pars, quod non detur species composita videtur probabilior; tum quia deberet admitti sensus agens […].” My italics.

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nal sensory forms, the Jesuit finally adopts the position that these attributes are instead represented through the (extrinsic) modes of the species sensed interiorly. Applying his theory of the agent interior sense, the Doctor Eximius states that these modifications result from the soul by means of the interior sense. As they do in the case of composite species, Mastri and Belluto instead deny the necessity of postulating any unsensed species – whether conceived as either really or modally distinct from the sensed species.58 What is more, contrary to Avicenna, Aquinas, and Suárez, they reject the view that the internal sense qua an estimative (cogitative) power in its first acts apprehend such intentions at all.59 Accordingly, they do not aim to explain the emotional reactions of animals as anchored in the special normative qualities conceived as the formal objects of the aestimativa or cogitativa power. The Scotists allude to Scotus’s entertaining example (introduced as a critique of the unsensed species) according to which the lamb runs away from another lamb miraculously disguised as a wolf, despite the absence of the intention of any danger in it. They say, “if there would be a change in a sheep in respect to the external accidents, it would not become because of that disagreeable and unsympathetic to any other sheep.”60 They are certain that Scotus expressly endorsed the claim that there are no action-oriented intentions in first acts.61 The Scotists argue for this parsimonious view by eliminating all the possible ways that such action-oriented attributes might be captured. There are in fact three possible ways how the wolf’s intention of danger can be apprehended by the lamb. It can be known (i) either through the sensed species representing the wolf’s sensible qualities; or (ii) through a different species, namely the unsensed species; or (iii) without a species at all. They flatly reject the final option. Every sensory apprehension of an object requires the object’s causal concurrence through a sensible species, which is the main principle of assimilation. They deny also the first alternative, which they find embraced by Suárez; on this view, the intention of danger is detected by the lamb through the sensed species which represents the sensory qualities of the Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 2, n. 247, 118b, speaking of the lamb’s cognition of the attributes of convenience and inconvenience: “Neque dici potest […] quod cognoscat media alia specie; vel enim est alia species solum modaliter, vel realiter [distinct].” 59 Ibid., n. 244, 118a: “Dicimus primo, sensum internum percipere quidem objecta sensuum externorum, non tamen ipsorum convenientiam, vel disconvenientiam, amicitiam, aut inimicitiam, & hoc primis actibus […].” 60 Ibid., n. 246, 118b: “Si ovis mutaretur quoad accidentia externa in lupum, non idcirco esset alteri ovi disconveniens, & inimica.” 61 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 1, qq. 1–2, n. 62 (ed. Vat. III), 43–44. For Scotus’s critique of the view that there is a special normative property in the object represented by an unsensed species in addition to sensible qualities, see also Perler, “Why is the Sheep Afraid of the Wolf?,” 38–39, and Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, 266–67. 58

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wolf. They are sure that this doctrine is implausible since, if the sensed species of the wolf represented itself as dangerous to the lamb, it would have to do it all the time to any perceiver. Obviously, this is false.62 The wolf is not represented as dangerous to another wolf but to a lamb. As we have seen, Suárez has a prompt reply: cognition does not depend only upon the received species, but also on natural instincts. These instincts amount to the foundation of an estimative power in a given nature. Clearly, the wolf’s nature differs from that of the lamb. This is also why the lamb will judge the wolf’s presence differently than will another wolf, and their emotional reactions and behaviours will differ accordingly.63 The Scotists are far from happy with this reply. They are clear that instinct cannot be a reason why the aestimativa power does not apprehend an object in the manner represented by the species. Once the species of the wolf represents the wolf as dangerous, it has to do it at any time to all potential perceivers.64 In their deflationary account of these instincts, Mastri and Belluto state that the instincts are nothing other than the animals’ natural sympathies or antipathies to an object. Natural sympathy is the reason why the wolf’s nature is not antithetical to another wolf’s nature, and natural antipathy is the reason why it is disconvenient to a lamb’s nature.65 These sympathies and antipathies are a universal phenomenon. Attractions and repulsions can be found also in nonliving beings, such as in magnets or lead. So, while the lamb’s nature is related to the wolf by antipathy without apprehending in the first act an intention of disconvenience, the wolf stands to it in a relation of sympathy without detecting any intention of amity. A terrifying cry awakening us at night results in an emotion of fear without having been preceded by the cognitive detection of an attribute of disconvenience. Mastri and Belluto are sure that brutes are moved by affections to pursue or flee from an object merely based on a cognition of it according to its sensible qualities, their instincts and divine institution. Detecting latent unsensed intentions is a fully dispensable mechanism.66 Besides the experiential argument from the ignorance of these attributes, their argument also considers that even if we conceded the existence of unsensed species, whether as really or as merely modally distinct, it would be difficult to identify their cause. The Scotists are clear in their denial of the ‘Deus ex machina’ solution which posits that these species are infused in brutes by God.67 This opinion is a mere 62 63

118a.

Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 2, n. 244, 118a. For a summary of this reply, see Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 2, n. 245,

Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 2, n. 246, 118a-b. Ibid. 66 Ibid., n. 256, 119b. 67 Regarding this “exotic” view, advocated by Rodrigo de Arriaga (1592–1667), the interior sense of beasts perceives not only action-oriented intentions but also privations (carentiae), such as shadows, holes, and darkness. Considering the problematic nature of all the alternative 64 65

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fabrication.68 They also reject the view which holds that these distinct unsensed species are caused immediately by the object. An external object cannot directly act on the interior sense but must proceed through the external senses. Lastly, they also deny the theory which holds that these unsensed species are produced by the estimative power, whether really or as modally distinct from the sensed species. Why should this view be rejected? It assumes the existence of an agent sense.69 Denying the existence of these attributes in the first estimative acts does not mean that no explanation can be given for these intentions advocated by many venerable authorities. In addition to instinctive behaviour, in the animal kingdom we find also learned behaviour. Items that cause pain or pleasure may become aversive or desirable through learning. A dog runs away from its master who is holding a stick because it remembers that it has been beaten with it. In the opposite manner, it desires to return to the places where it received food or shelter. Why is this so? The reason is not the perception and conservation of hidden intentions, but rather the sensory memory of cognitive and appetitive acts. The dog runs away from the master and returns to favoured places because it remembers not only the objects but also the past sensory acts, more precisely the appetitive acts, which it underwent there. The dog’s emotions and its behaviour are first of all explained by the memory of these cognitive and appetitive acts.70 This is also the reason why we now must turn our attention to Mastri and Belluto’s theory of sensory self-awareness. 3.4 The Species of the Acts of the External Senses If we consider only the previous two subsections, the Scotists’ account would have to be regarded as ontologically more parsimonious than that of Suárez’. Unlike Suárez, Mastri and Belluto reject the existence of both the composite and the unsensed species. However, as noted above, the evaluation must be upended if their theory of sensory self-awareness is considered. Having rejected the agent sense, the Scotists take a different stance, one which Dominik Perler, in the conexplanations of the origin of these species, Arriaga endorses a peculiar theory based on divine infusion. For this view, see Rodrigo de Arriaga, Cursus philosophicus, De anima, disp. 5, sect. 5, 722a–23b; see also his Physica, disp. 8, sect. 6, subsect. 2, 355b–57a. For Arriaga’s view, see also Heider, “Rodrigo de Arriaga (1592–1667) and Bartolomeo Mastri (1602–1673) / Bonaventura Belluto (1600–1676) on Animal Perception of Negations.” 68 For the ex professo critique of Arriaga’s view, see Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 3, nn. 20–21, 66b–67a. 69 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 2, n. 247, 118b: “Contra primum modum est, quod ponit quendam sensum agentem refutatum disp. praec. […].” 70 Ibid., n. 248, 118b. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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nection with Scotus (against the background of Aquinas’ theory), has recently called “eine Subjektivierung der Erinnerung.”71 In fact, Mastri and Belluto’s account of sensory memory closely follows Scotus’s theory of memory, which is developed especially in Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3.72 Three doctrinal points of Scotus’s view of memory are relevant for us here. First, sensory memory has a twofold object – remote and proximate. The remote one is the external object, e. g., Peter sitting yesterday. The proximate object of the memorative act is my act of seeing Peter sitting yesterday. Second, as noted in 3.4, when this act of my seeing Peter was experienced in the past, it imprinted a species representing this state of affairs into the common sense.73 Third, an act of recollection of an external object can occur only through a memory of the proximate object, that is, through the cognition of a past act.74 At a later point, Mastri and Belluto explicitly take up the issue of whether these acts are apprehended through a species distinct from those by which external objects are perceived (as stated explicitly by Scotus), or through one and the same species that represents both the object and the act – this they take to be the common view. They present an argument for this common view, one which reminds the reader of Suárez: The object or the exterior species by itself is not sufficient to cause a species in a sleeping eye. No species can be impressed in the interior sense without a prior act of vision. But if the act is necessary for the production of an interior species, this act together with the object must co-constitute the integral cause of the interior species that will represent both the external object and the act. The Scotists deny this reasoning. As we have seen, the necessary existence of the act for the exterior species’ production of the interior species does not imply that the act is a co-cause. It is only the condition sine qua non. As a condition, however, it does not identify the total cause of the interior species with the external species. The interior species which represents the object thus will not represent the act. Accordingly, the species of the object and that of

Perler, Eine Person sein, 262. Duns Scotus, Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3 (ed. Vat. XIV), 162–74. For an analysis of Scotus’s theory of memory, see Perler, Eine Person sein, 260–68; McCord Adams and Wolter, “Memory and Intuition,” 175–79. 73 Scotus posits the common sense for two main reasons. First, this sensory power differentiates between the proper sensibles of different particular sensory modalities. Second, it sensibly perceives that we perceive. For these two functions of the common sense, see Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super secundum et tertium de anima, q. 9, nn. 8–10 (OPh V), 71–74. 74 For these characteristics, see Duns Scotus, Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3, nn. 94–96 (ed. Vat. XIV), 167–68. 71 72

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the act will be distinct.75 Moreover, following Scotus’s Questions on De anima,76 Mastri and Belluto say that through a distinct sensible species the interior sense apprehends not only the acts of the external senses but also the acts of the sensory appetitive power – and even its own operations: “We say thirdly that the internal sense apprehends the acts of the external senses, of the sensory appetite, and probably also its own acts […].”77 How is this possible? There is no other possibility than that the act of the interior sense produces its own species in the same sensory power.78 The Scotists are well aware of Suárez’s critique of this view. Therefore, it is not surprising that most of the objections to their theory which they introduce are of Suarezian pedigree. I shall present five of them. (1) The acts of the external senses cannot be known by the internal sense because a sensory power can never, properly speaking, be a reflective power. No extended entity can reflect upon itself since no part of an extended whole can touch or be applied to it itself. There can only be one part of an extended whole applied to a distinct part of that whole, similarly to the example of a piece of paper which is folded back on itself. Accordingly, the internal sense cannot have a species of this act either.79 Moreover, there can be no sensible species of the sensory act since no sensory act is a sensible item per se. No sensory act can be counted among first and

Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 2, n. 251, 119a: “[…] ex hoc, quod requiratur externus actus, ut objectum causet speciem sui in sensu interno solum infert, actum esse conditionem requisitam, non tamen concausam speciei cum objecto.” 76 Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super secundum et tertium de anima, q. 9, n. 16 (OPh V), 77: “ […] imaginatio sentit actum proprium; imaginamur enim nos imaginari vel imaginatum fuisse, et memoramur nos memoratum fuisse, et somniamus nos somniare, sicut experimur manifeste.” 77 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 2, n. 250, 119a: “Dicimus 3, sensum internum cognoscere actus sensuum externorum, appetitus sensitivi, & probabiliter proprios actus.” 78 Ibid., n. 252, 119a: “[…] actus sensus interni producat speciem sui ipsius in eadem potentia.” Scotus describes a strange process based on the species’ returning to the external senses from the internal sense and then recurring to the internal senses, this time with the imprint of its own act. See Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super secundum et tertium de anima, q. 9, n. 16 (OPh V), 77; for a brief description of this complicated mechanism, see Cory, “Consciousness,” 253–54. 79 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 5, art. 2, n. 70, 74b; disp. 5, q. 8, art. 2, n. 260, 120b. This objection was introduced also by Scotus to argue for the non-existence of the (sensory) memory in non-rational animals; cf. Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3, n. 99 (ed. Vat. XIV), 168–69: “[…] non potest sensitiva percipere actum sentiendi dum praesens est (saltem non universaliter), quia actus supremae sensitivae non potest percipi ab aliquo sensu, nec ab inferiore nec a superiore (patet), nec a seipsa, quia non est potentia illa super se vel actum suum conversa, et tamen cuiuslibet sensationis in nobis potest esse recordatio (ut experimur); ergo non est ista recordatio generaliter alicuius sensitivae.” 75

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second qualities, which are the only ones that are the per se sensibles.80 (2) The acts of the external senses cannot (transitively) cause a species in a distinct power such as the interior sense. Such causality would be inconsistent with their immanent character. They are categorial qualities and as such they can be called ‘actions’ only grammatically.81 (3) If two species, one of vision and another of the colour white, become imprinted onto the internal sense, it would have to be possible to separate the species of the object from the species of the act. Accordingly, it would be possible to perceive the act without the object, which is false.82 (4) Since the interior sense cannot apprehend the external senses, that is, the sensory powers, it cannot apprehend their acts either. There is a parity between these two.83 (5) A tactile experience (tactio) in a foot cannot transmit its species through the nerves to the brain, which is the organ of the internal sense. If it could, it would have to be felt in the whole body extended between the foot and the brain. However, we do not have such a bodily experience in these parts.84 In their reply to (1), Mastri and Belluto say that even if we admit that no sense reflects perfectly upon its own acts (that is to say, upon its present acts), they hold that exterior acts do imprint their species onto the internal sense in the same way as external objects impress their likenesses onto the external senses. Accordingly, the interior sense can perceive these acts as past.85 It is not true that sensations are per se non-sensible items, nor the second qualities either. Although they are not perceivable by the external senses, and thus there is no HOC in them, they can be and are per se sensible items for the internal sense. How is this possible? The explanation lies in Aristotle’s statement that acts of vision are

80 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 2, n. 259, 120a. This objection can be found also in Duns Scotus, Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3, n. 100 (ed. Vat. XIV), 169: “Sed sensatio illa, cuius est recordatio, non potest aliquo modo poni qualitas sensibilis […].” 81 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 5, art. 2, n. 70, 74b. 82 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 2, n. 251, 119a; n. 259, 120a. 83 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 2, n. 259, 120a. 84 Ibid.; see also In DA, disp. 4, q. 5, art. 2, n. 70, 74b. 85 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 7, art. 3, n. 269, 122a: “[…] reflexio sensus solum cadit supra actum praeteritum, quatenus repraesentat objectum […] imperfecte est reflexivus […]”; disp. 5, q. 8, art. 2, n. 260, 120b: “[…] sensum non esse perfecte reflexivum supra proprios actus, ut est intellectus, sed aliqualiter tantum, ut dicemus art. seq. cui reflexioni non obstat extensio, quantitas enim est ratio, cur una pars non possit propter extensionem reduci in loco alterius, non tamen impedit, quin potentia organica cognitiva per alium actum non possit supra se quasi reflectere, & cognoscere actum praeteritum […] sensus non est perfecte reflexivus, ut advertat ad proprium actum existentem, ut facit intellectus, ideoque quando actus est praesens, solum advertit sensus ad objectum, a quo rapitur, non ad actum propter imperfectionem potentiae […].” Cf. also disp. 4, q. 5, art. 2, n. 71, 74b. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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“coloured” by their objects.86 Regarding (2), they agree that cognition is not a categorial action, but is an action only grammatically or equivocally. However, obviously, they are much less strict about the immanent character of cognitive acts than is Suárez. They affirm that cognitive acts qua qualities can be efficient causes of the interior species that represent them.87 It can be said in their favour that, if cognitive acts produce habits, it is not clear why they could not bring about these species as well. As for (3), Mastri and Belluto espouse a different “phenomenology” from that of Suárez (despite agreeing with him regarding the simultaneous imprinting of two species and the co-existence of two simultaneous acts in the sensory powers). They underline that we often experience remembrance that we heard something without remembering exactly what we heard. We thus often remember only ‘that,’ and not ‘what’, whereas the opposite happens rarely or even never.88 In the reply to (4) they deny the parity between the sensory power and the act. While the sensory power is a substantial entity and is not sensible per se, sensation is a categorial quality and as such it is per se sensible.89 Concerning the last caveat (5), they leave no doubt that this tactio would not be felt throughout the body since its species is of a different kind than the sensible species produced by external objects. Such an act does not produce a tactile sensation in the body. As being of a different kind, it can produce a perception of itself only if united with the superior (internal) sense located in the brain.90

Conclusion and Perspective Much has been written on the topic of the causes of the perceptual act and on the production of the species of the external sense in medieval and post-medieval scholastic philosophy of perception.91 Conversely, the topic of the production Aristotle, De anima III, c. 2, 425b19–20, 147: “Moreover that which sees does in a sense possess colour.” Cf. also Duns Scotus, Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3, art. 1, n. 115 (ed. Vat. XIV), 174: “visio aliquo modo est colorata.” 87 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 4, q. 5, art. 2, n. 71, 74b. 88 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 2, n. 251, 119a; ibid., n. 259, 120a. 89 Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 2, n. 259, 120a. 90 Ibid. 91 The literature is abundant on the topics of the causes of perception and of the agent sense reducing external sensible forms to sensible intentions. For an explicit connection of these two issues in the theory of John of Jandun, later criticised by Suárez, see Pattin, Pour l’histoire du sens agent. For Cajetan’s and Agostino Nifo’s theory of the agent sense, and for Suárez’s critique of their views, see Leijenhorst, “Cajetan and Suarez on Agent Sense”; cf. also Heider, Aristotelian Subjectivism, 78–82. For Nifo’s theory of the agent sense, see Mahoney, “Agostino Nifo’s De Sensu Agente.” For the introduction of the vehicle of the agent sense con86

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of interior species has received much less attention.92 We have seen that for our Second Scholastics this issue represents a topic sui generis distinct from the two mentioned above. In their consideration of the issues of the origin of exterior species and the causes of perception there is a basic agreement among them – they deny that sensible qualities are raised to the level of intentions by ‘metaphysical elevators,’ such as angels or God, and they also reject the view that perception amounts to the mere reception of species –, there is a fundamental difference among them regarding the origin of interior species and the constitution of complex perceptual experience. For Suárez perceptual experience at this level is constituted from within or endogenously and arises in a top-down manner, since it is the soul that through the interior sense produces interior species and their modifications. For the Scotists the interior species of the objects ad extra are caused from outside or exogenously and originate in a bottom-up manner, since their causes are exterior species with exterior sensations included as a necessary condition. From a historiographical point of view, the main difference between the two positions can be regarded as originating in a conflict between Suárez’s Augustinianism (in this instance not applied to the distinction between the spiritual and the bodily) and Mastri and Belluto’s Aristotelianism. While for Suárez in CDA an entity of a lower and less perfect power can never be the efficient cause of an entity in a higher and more perfect power but at most its exemplary or occasional cause, the Augustinian rule does not play a significant role in Mastri and Belluto’s account. Compared to Mastri and Belluto, Suárez places emphasis on the immanent character of the vital acts of the sensory powers, including those of perception, to the degree that one power, sc. the external senses, cannot (transitively) cause a species in a distinct power, namely in the interior sense. In this respect Mastri and Belluto do not follow this principle of the acts’ immanence. They are clear in their endorsement of the Aristotelian bottom-up imprint of the species upon the acts of the external senses within the common sense. Species sensed interiorly cannot be caused by the soul conceived as an ‘agent sense.’ The objects represented through the exterior species cannot be the mere occasions or exempla for the soul’s production of these species from within. In line with their Aristotelian account of cognition based on the notion of assimilation with an object, Mastri and Belluto highlight the efficacy of external sensibles (proceeding through species) in the production of internal sensory representations. If the efficacy of external sensibles was downplayed in favour of the soul’s activity, so Mastri and Belluto seem to implicitly assume, interior speceived as an external mover in Averroes and Latin Averroism, see Brenet, “Agent Sense in Averroes and Latin Averroism.” 92 For an exception, see Heider, Aristotelian Subjectivism, 222–30; id., “Late Scholastic Debates about External and Internal Senses,” 176–78. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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cies rather than external sensibles would come to represent the soul. This attitude would eventually transform the Aristotelian object-oriented position into an implausible subjectivism, which would undermine the epistemological realism so valuable to the Scotists. But what are the reasons that compelled Suárez to embrace the theory of the agent sense and the Scotists to dismiss it as the vehicle for the production of interior species? Beside epistemological reasons, another reason might be found in their distinct ontologies of sensory powers. While Suárez defends the real distinction between the soul and its capacities and the real distinction among the powers themselves (since they are regarded as encapsulated modules within which only efficient causality can run),93 the Scotists reject this stance. For them, these powers considered partially, i. e., as denoting a perfection in the soul concurring with the organ of sensory operation, are not really but only formally distinct from the soul;94 at the same time, they are merely formally distinct from each other also. Accordingly, it may be said that, unlike for Suárez, for the Scotists there is no such ‘ontological gap’ between these powers which needs to be remedied by the postulation of the soul conceived as an ‘agent sense.’ This also seems to be the reason why in their reply to the abovementioned fourth argument, Mastri and Belluto regard the sensory powers to be substantial rather than accidental entities. Needless to say, such claim would be egregious Suárez. Against this background it is noteworthy that Mastri and Belluto’s denial of the agent sense at the level of the interior species is not the only Scotist position advocated within Baroque Scotism. The Scotist tradition in the early modern era is far from being doctrinally uniform; there were propounded many other theories than that of Mastri and Belluto about the production of interior species. Given the undeveloped character of Scotus’s post-sensory psychology and his philosophy of perception in general,95 such doctrinal uniformity would be rather surprising. Mastri and Belluto’s ‘anti-Suarezian’ account of the production of interior species actually represents only one of a plurality of interpretations advocated by seventeenth-century Scotists. Let me here mention the prominent example of Hugh McCaghwell (or in Latin, Cavellus).96 Just four years after the For his defence of the real distinction between the powers themselves, and the powers and the soul, see Suárez, CDA, disp. 3, q. 1, 54–82. See also Perler, “Faculties in Medieval Philosophy,” 124–34; and Heider, Aristotelian Subjectivism, 51–58. 94 For Mastri and Belluto’s theory of the formal distinction between the soul and the powers, see Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 2, q. 1, art. 2, 44b–46b. 95 For this, see Steneck, The Problem of the Internal Senses in the Fourteenth Century, 132; according to Cross, Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 18, “Scotus is not much interested in sensation as such, and he never discusses it systematically.” 96 Another example, not mentioned here, could be John Punch’s (1603–1661) position. For him the cause of interior species is an external sensation. See Poncius, Philosophiae ad mentem Scoti cursus integer, In De anima, disp. 2, q. 8, 769b–71a. 93

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publication of Suárez’s Tractatus de anima in 1621, this Irish Observant published as part of his edition of Scotus’s Questions on De anima his Annotationes and Supplementum ad Scoti Quaestiones in libros De anima. Both the edition itself and McCaghwell’s own contributions were later incorporated into the Wadding edition of Scotus’s Opera omnia from 1639.97 McCaghwell’s position on our subject deserves to be labelled ‘Suarezian.’98 Not only did he study in Salamanca, where he certainly became familiar with the philosophy of Suárez (to whom he refers explicitly in his Annotatio to the ninth question of Scotus’s Questions on De anima, in which he deals with the issue of perceptual self-awareness)99 but even more importantly, most of his theories and arguments related to the issue of the origin of interior species bear a striking resemblance to those of the Jesuit. Indeed, in all of the sub-issues presented above, McCaghwell either directly endorses Suárez’s view or takes his theories to be at least as equally probable as those later endorsed by Mastri and Belluto. After his critique of the position that interior species are produced by sensible objects through exterior species (Mastri and Belluto’s account), the Irish Scotist lays out Suárez’s first view, according to which these interior species are caused by the external senses through sensation. He considers this to be a probable opinion. However, this (merely) probable view is for him clearly trumped by a more probable conclusion, one which is identical to Suárez’s second (and also for the Doctor Eximius more probable) stance: “Fourth, I say that it is more probable that the internal sense itself produces its species.”100 In one of his arguments he rehearses Suárez’s crucial argument: “[…] if these species were produced by sensations they would depend in their being on them, just like the ex97 McCaghwell received the Franciscan habit at the Convent of San Francisco in Salamanca, where he studied under the direction of the famous Spanish Scotist Francisco de Herrera (1551–1609). Later he was sent to Louvain to the newly established Saint Anthony’s College, where he taught theology for many years. In 1623, he was called to Rome to the Convent of Saint Mary in Ara Coeli. In 1626, Pope Urban VIII (pontificate: 1623–1644) appointed him Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland. He is known as a close collaborator of Luke Wadding (1588–1657) on his famous edition of Duns Scotus’s Opera omnia (1639). For a brief note about his life, see Dunne, “Aodh Mac Aingil (Hugh Cavellus, 1571–1626),” 1–2. For a more detailed exposition, see Giblin, “Hugh McCaghwell, O.F.M., Archbishop of Armagh (†1626).” 98 For other examples of McCaghwell’s doctrinal affinities with Suárez, here with respect to the issue of the production of the intelligible species and the cognition of material substances, see Tropia, “McCaghwell’s Reading of Scotus’s De Anima (1639).” For another important aspect of McCaghwell’s Jesuit sympathies, see the article by Claus A. Andersen in this present volume. 99 Cf. Hugo Cavellus, Annotatio to Duns Scotus, Quaestiones in libros De anima, q. 9, concl. 2, n. 14, 520a–b. 100 Hugo Cavellus, Supplementum ad Scoti Quaestiones in libros De anima, disp. 2, sect. 1, n. 6, 690a: “Dico quarto, probabilius forte est ipsum sensum internum producere suam speciem.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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terior species depends on the sensible object.”101 However, this cannot be the case because these interior species are also the principles of abstractive cognition. Furthermore, following Suárez, McCaghwell also affirms the existence of composite species representing imaginary objects, such as a golden mountain, and says that the composite species of a golden mountain arises as soon as an act apprehending this object is produced through the internal sense’s activity.102 Moreover, when compared to Mastri and Belluto, McCaghwell is much more open to accepting the existence of unsensed species as well. In keeping with Suárez, he regards as probable the view that action-oriented intentions are the modi extrinseci of sensed species.103 Finally, although he regards the issues of the sensory awareness of the acts of one’s external senses as “difficilissima,” and he holds as merely probable the view that these operations are apprehended through their proper species (the one endorsed by Mastri and Belluto), he is more than charitable to Suárez’s modal theory: For these reasons, it is quite likely that exterior sensations are perceived by the internal sense through the modified species of the external sensibles themselves, […] and this is not against Scotus […].104

Given the underdeveloped character of Scotus’s philosophy of perception mentioned above, it is not surprising that instances of such Scotistic plurality can be found in other topics in early modern Scotism as well. One such topic in the philosophy of perception is the famous issue of the number of the internal senses. McCaghwell thus references Filippo Fabri (1564–1630) who defends a theory that there are three internal senses (the common sense, the phantasy, and the memory).105 Advocating a Suarezian view of a single internal sense, both McCaghwell as well as Mastri and Belluto submit Fabri’s pluralist account to an extensive critique.106

101 Ibid., n. 6, 690a: “[…] si produceretur a sensatione, dependeret in esse ab ea, sicut species externa ab objecto.” 102 Ibid., n. 6, 690b: “[…] verisimile est cum fingimus montem aureum, speciem etiam fieri, qua repraesentatur, quia alioquin illa duo non repraesentarentur per modum unius, sed tanquam disparata.” 103 Ibid., n. 7, 690b. 104 Cavellus, Annotatio to Duns Scotus, Quaestiones in libros De anima, q. 9, concl. 1, n. 12, 519b: “Propter haec satis probabile videtur sensationes externas percipi a sensu interno per species ipsorum sensibilium modificatas, […] nec hoc est contra Scotum […].” For a comparison between McCaghwell’s and Suárez’s views of perceptual self-awareness, see Heider, “Suárez and Some Baroque Scotists on Perceptual Self-Awareness.” 105 Phillipus Faber, Philosophia naturalis Joannis Duns Scoti, Theorema 100, 702a–6b. 106 For McCaghwell’s theory and his critique of Fabri, see Quaestiones in libros De anima, q. 9, concl. 3, nn. 16–17, 521a–b; cf. Steneck, The Problem of the Internal Senses in the Fourhttps://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Bibliography Sources Aquinas, Thomas. Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, qq. 21–29. In Opera omnia, ed. Leonina. Vol. 22, 3/1. Rome, 1973. Aristotle. On the Soul, Parva Naturalia, On Breath. English translation by W.S. Hett. Cambridge, MA, London, UK: Harvard University Press, 2000. Arriaga, Rodrigo de. Cursus philosophicus. Antwerp: Balthasar Moreti, 1632. Avicenna Latinus. Liber de anima seu Sextus de naturalibus, I–II–III. Edited by Simone van Riet. Louvain: E. Peeters, Leiden: Brill, 1972. Cavellus, Hugo. Annotationes, Supplementum ad Scoti Quaestiones in libros De anima. In Duns Scotus, Ioannes. Opera omnia, vol. III. Paris: Ludovicus Vivès, 1891. Duns Scotus, Ioannes. Quaestiones super secundum et tertium de anima. Opera philosophica V. General editors Girard J. Etzkorn and Timothy B. Noone. St. Bonaventure, New York: The Franciscan Institute, 2006. –. Opera omnia. Vatican edition. Edited by Carl Balić et al. Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950–2013. Faber, Philippus. Philosophia naturalis Ioan. Duns Scoti, ex quatuor libris sententiarum et quodlibetis collecta. Venice: Baptista Berton, 1606. Mastrius, Bartholomaeus and Bonaventura Bellutus. Disputationes ad mentem Scoti in Aristotelis Stagiritae libros de anima, libros de generatione et corruptione, libros de coelo et metheoris. In Philosophiae ad mentem Scoti cursus integer, vol. III. Venice: Nicolaus Pezzana, 1727. Poinsot, Johannes. Cursus philosophicus thomisticus, vol. III. Edited by Beatus Reiser. Hildesheim, Zürich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 2008. Poncius, Ioannis. Philosophiae ad mentem Scoti cursus integer. Lyons: Laurentius Arnaud & Petrus Borde, 1649. Proclus. The Elements of Theology. Translated by Eric Robertson Dodds. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1963. Suárez, Francisco. De opere sex dierum. Tractatus De anima. Edited by Michel André. In Opera omnia, vol. III. Paris: Ludovicus Vivès, 1856. –. Disputationes metaphysicae. Edited by Charles Berton. In Opera omnia, vol. XXV–XXVI. Paris: Ludovicus Vivès, 1866. Reprint Hildesheim: Olms, 1965. –. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis De anima. Edited by Salvador Castellote. 3 volumes. Madrid: Sociedad de estudios y publicaciones, 1978, 1981, 1991.

Studies Andersen, Claus A. “Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition, ‘praecisiones obiectivae’, and the Formal Distinction in Mastri and Belluto and Later Scotist Authors.” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 108 (2015), 183–247.

teenth Century, 128–32. For Mastri and Belluto’s critique and their view, cf. Mastrius / Bellutus, In DA, disp. 5, q. 8, art. 5, nn. 282–94, 124a–26a. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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–. Metaphysik im Barockscotismus. Untersuchungen zum Metaphysikwerk des Bartholomaeus Mastrius. Mit Dokumentation der Metaphysik in der scotistischen Tradition ca. 1620– 1750. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2016. –. “The Doctrine of Beings of Reason in Renaissance Lullism – Its Late-Medieval Background and Early-Modern Repercussions.” Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale (forthcoming.) Barker, Mark J. “Aquinas on Internal Sensory Intentions: Nature and Classification.” International Philosophical Quarterly 52/2 (2012), 199–226. Brenet, Jean-Baptiste. “Agent Sense in Averroes and Latin Averroism.” In Active Perception in the History of Philosophy. From Plato to Modern Philosophy. Edited by José F. Silva and Mikko Yrjönsuuri, 147–66. Dordrecht: Springer, 2014. Cory Scarpelli, Therese. “Consciousness.” In Routledge Companion to Medieval Philosophy. Edited by Richard Cross, J.T. Paasch, 249–62. New York: Routledge, 2021. Cross, Richard. Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Des Chene, Dennis. “Suárez on Propinquity and the Efficient Cause.” In The Philosophy of Francisco Suárez. Edited by Benjamin Hill and Henrik Lagerlund, 89–100. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012. Dunne, Michael. “Aodh Mac Aingil (Hugh Cavellus, 1571–1626) on Doubt, Evidence and Certitude.” In Maynooth Philosophical Papers, Issue 5 (2008). Edited by Simon Nolan, 1– 8. Maynooth: Department of Philosophy, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 2009. Forlivesi, Marco. Scotistarum princeps. Bartolomeo Mastri (1602–1673) e il suo tempo. Padova: Centro studi antoniani, 2002. –. “Mastri, Bartolomeo.” In Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Edited by Marco Sgarbi. Cham: Springer, 2014. Giblin, Cathaldus. “Hugh McCaghwell, O.F.M., Archbishop of Armagh (+ 1626): Aspects of His Life.” Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society 11/2 (1985), 258–90. Heider, Daniel. “Late Scholastic Debates about External and Internal Senses: In the Direction of Francisco Suárez (1548–1617).” In Philosophy of Mind in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Edited by Stephan Schmid. The History of the Philosophy of Mind, Volume 3, 165–84. London: Routledge, 2019. –. Aristotelian Subjectivism: Francisco Suárez’s Philosophy of Perception. Dordrecht: Springer, 2021. –. “Fonseca’s Halfway Reductionism of the Internal Senses in Light of Mastri and Belluto’s Critique.” In Pedro da Fonseca: Humanism and Metaphysics. Edited by Simone Guidi and Mário S. de Carvalho, 87–103. Turnhout: Brepols, 2022. –. “Suárez and Some Baroque Scotists on Perceptual Self-Awareness.” Anales del Seminario de Historia de la Filosofía 39/1 (2022), 193–202. –. “Rodrigo de Arriaga (1592–1667) and Bartolomeo Mastri (1602–1673) / Bonaventura Belluto (1600–1676) on Animal Perception of Negations.” Forthcoming in Proceedings of the 8th International Congress of the Sociedad de Filosofía Medieval: De cognitione. Edited by José Meirinhos and Mário João Correia. Porto: Textos e estudos de Filosofia Medieval, 2022. Knebel, Sven K. “Das Cogito und die Krise des Schulbegriffs der Reflexion.” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 63/1 (2016), 57–88.

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Knuuttila, Simo. Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Kriegel, Uriah. “The Same-Order Monitoring Theory of Consciousness. Second Version.” Synthesis Philosophica 22/2 (2007), 361–84. Leijenhorst, Cees. “Cajetan and Suarez on Agent Sense: Metaphysics and Epistemology in Late Aristotelian Thought.” In Forming the Mind. Essays on the Internal Senses and the Mind/ Body Problem from Avicenna to the Medical Enlightenment. Edited by Henrik Lagerlund, 237–62. Dordrecht: Springer. Mahoney, Edward P. “Agostino Nifo’s De Sensu Agente.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 53 (1971), 119–42. McCord Adams, Marilyn and Allan B. Wolter. “Memory and Intuition: A Focal Debate in Fourteenth Century Cognitive Psychology.” Franciscan Studies 53 (1993), 175–92. Menn, Stephen. “Suárez, Nominalism, and Modes.” In Hispanic Philosophy in the Age of Discovery. Edited by Kevin White, 226–56. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1997. Pasnau, Robert. Metaphysical Themes 1274–1671. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pattin, Adriaan. Pour l’histoire du sens agent. La controverse entre Barthélemy de Bruges et Jean de Jandun. Ses antécédents et son évolution. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1988. Perler, Dominik. “Why Is the Sheep Afraid of the Wolf? Medieval Debates on Animal Passions,” In Emotion and Cognitive Life in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy. Edited by Lisa Shapiro and Martin Pickavé, 32–52. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. –. “Suárez on Consciousness.” Vivarium 52/3–4 (2014), 261–86. –. “Faculties in Medieval Philosophy.” In The Faculties: A History. Edited by Dominik Perler, 97–139. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. –. “Suárez on Intellectual and Occasional Causation.” In Causation and Cognition in Early Modern Philosophy. Edited by Dominik Perler and Sebastian Bender, 18–38. New York: Routledge, 2020. –. “Can We Know Substances? Suárez on a Sceptical Puzzle.” Theoria 88 (2020), 244–269. –. Eine Person sein. Philosophische Debatten im Spätmittelalter, Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann, 2020. Silva, José F. “Medieval Theories of Active Perception: An Overview.” In Active Perception in the History of Philosophy. From Plato to Modern Philosophy. Edited by José F. Silva and Mikko Yrjönsuuri, 117–46. Dordrecht: Springer, 2014. South, James B. “Suárez on Imagination.” Vivarium 39/1 (2001), 119–58. Steneck, Nicholas H. The Problem of the Internal Senses in the Fourteenth Century. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1970. Toivanen, Juhana. “Perceiving As: Non-conceptual Forms of Perception in Medieval Philosophy.” In Medieval Perceptual Puzzles. Theories of Sense Perception in the 13th and 14th Centuries. Edited by Elena Băltuță, 10–37. Leiden: Brill, 2019. Tropia, Anna. “McCaghwell’s Reading of Scotus’s De Anima (1639): A Case of Plagiarism?” The Modern Schoolman 89/1–2 (January/April 2012), 95–115.

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The Estimative Faculty in Scotus and Scotism David González Ginocchio

Introduction This paper examines the Scotistic view of the estimative power. My main argument is not only that Scotus aims to deflate the scope of an estimative faculty, but that such a downgrade is in line with his views on the difference between nature and freedom, and the role of sense knowledge vis a vis the powers of the human will. To distinguish the ‘natural’ circuit of estimation from both intellectual cognition and free actions, Scotus and his disciples will ultimately reduce estimation to a modus loquendi. As Scotus does not treat the estimative faculty directly or extensively, I attempt to reconstruct this broad argument regarding the necessity, or lack thereof, of an estimative power against several features usually ascribed to it, such as animal prudence, learning, and the question of species insensatae. The first half of this paper is dedicated to this overview, while the second one aims to show that Scotus’s disciples were aware of the relevant place of estimation and jointly address all of Scotus’s counterarguments. I divide this paper into four sections. In Section 1, I briefly deal with Scotus’s views on the general role of sense knowledge. In Sections 2 and 3, I present his views on estimation against the Avicennian-Thomistic synthesis, to show how Scotus assigns its functions to imagination (Section 2), memory, and instinct (Section 3). At the same time, I try to show why Scotus discards the idea of species insensatae. In Section 4, I follow the way in which Scotus’s disciples assumed his general framework in a modern deflationary presentation of the internal senses. I do not presume to be exhaustive, merely to signal their argumentative directions, prioritizing the overall Scotistic position on the estimative faculty over the other scholastic traditions available in their time.

1. The Necessity of Sense Cognition Scotus does not deal at great length with sensibility, though he had a lifelong interest in the role played by sense cognition with regards to abstraction and intellectual knowledge. Contemporary scholarship is aware of the paucity of ScoI wish to thank Světla Hanke Jarošová for her help with language matters, and Daniel Heider and Mauricio Lecón for their comments on this paper. A special thanks to Claus A. Andersen, who provided extensive feedback and comments. Any mistakes that may remain are, of course, my own. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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tus’s theory of sense cognition. Richard Cross, in his comprehensive overview of Scotus’s epistemology, aptly notes that Scotus “seems to reject the existence of the vis aestimativa altogether. As he sees it, the vis aestimativa is supposed to convey additional informational content over and above that provided by the external senses, and he does not see how it can do this.”1 Amy F. Whitworth’s dissertation on Scotus’s theory of sensitive knowledge is preoccupied with an account of the sensitive powers as intentional, active faculties, and thus deals with intentio in a general sense, as “a representation or likeness (similitudo) that tends toward its object,”2 not as the object of estimation. Scotus seems to downplay both this latter sense of intentio and the estimative faculty altogether. This does not mean that he pays no attention at all to sense knowledge: he dedicates the first seven questions of his De anima to the external senses, while questions 8–10 deal with the common sense. There are other extensive treatments in his commentaries on the Sentences. The setting is usually theological in nature, but there are useful philosophical analyses. In what follows, I will try to reconstruct his view. I intend to show that the downgrading of estimation correlates to the upsized part of the will: free action, in Scotus’s view, is wholly absent from animal behavior, which he aims in turn to confine to instinctive performance and a limited learning capacity. According to Scotus, intellectual knowledge in statu isto requires a sensible species.3 This is not to ensure that the intellect can acquire the knowledge of something “real”, as it were (i. e., we can apprehend notions of unreal things, like chimeras and unicorns, and we actually have intellectual knowledge of past things),4 but rather every intellectual apprehension has, at its root, a sensible species that provides the likeness for that cognition. Due to the presence of the sensible species, the conjunction of soul and body is not superfluous: it may well be that our intellect can acquire its species in another way, for example through

Cross, Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 140. Whitworth, Attending to Presence, 192. 3 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 368 (ed. Vat. III), 244: “[V]irtus autem phantastica contingenter coniungitur intellectui in quantum potentia est; ergo intellectus in operatione sua dependet ab alia potentia cui contingenter coniungitur”. Scotus suggests this may be a consequence of original sin; cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 1, q. 1, n. 187 (ed. Vat. III), 113–14: “intellectus noster non intelligat pro statu isto, nisi illa quorum species relucent in phantasmate, et hoc sive propter poenam originalis peccati, sive propter naturalem concordiam potentiarum animae in operando.” 4 Duns Scotus, Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 2, n. 65 (ed. Vat. XIV), 157–58: “[Q]uia solum phantasma non sufficit ad cognitionem intuitivam obiecti, quia phantasma repraesentat rem existentem vel non existentem, praesentem vel non praesentem, et per consequens per ipsum non potest haberi cognitio de re ut existente.” 1

2

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supernatural action,5 and yet even then the dependence on the sense would not be in vain, just as a cure by surgery does not make medicine superfluous.6 As our intellect does not provide in statu isto its own cognitive species, intellectual cognition has its starting point in the imagination.7 This form of ‘dependence’ is not due to the necessity of knowing singular beings; it rather plays into what Scotus calls the “concordia potentiarum” of the soul.8 The phantasm in the imagination brings the intellect into a state of accidental potentiality.9 Whatever the intellect may know of the singular, it needs a phantasm to refer itself to this or that object. As the union between rationality and sensibility is essential, all our powers are ordered according to it (Scotus is critical even of Averroes for suggesting some sort of accidental union).10 For the intellect to cognize something that exists only in a singular existent, the singular representation of its similitude, namely the one in the phantasm, is needed.11 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. prol., pars 1, q. un., n. 65 (ed. Vat. I), 40. Duns Scotus, Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 2, n. 68 (ed. Vat. II), 159: “[N]on sequitur quod frustra uniatur, si per aliam viam posset eam acquirere; si enim aliquid ordinatur ad finem, non frustra fit, si alio modo possit finis acquire, sicut si sanitas possit acquire per lotionem et potionem, non frustra fit lotio, etsi per potionem possit sanitas haberi; ita etsi cognition possit acquire per usum sensum, et per alium modum ab anima separata, non frustra fit unio, ex quo ipsa est conveniens uno modo acquirendi cognitionem.” 7 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. prol., pars 1, q. un., n. 29 (ed. Vat. I), 17–18; Perler, “What Am I Thinking About?,” 78. 8 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 348 (ed. Vat. III), 209–10: “[P]onitur a Philosophis, quod intellectus est potentia distincta a potentia sensitiva propter intellectionem universali, et propter compositionem et divisionem, et propte syllogizationem quam propter cognitionem, singularis, si posset intelligi singular.” For the convenience of the reader, I shall generally quote from Peter Simpson’s translation of the Ordinatio (accessible via his webpage: https://aristotelophile.com/current.htm), except for Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3, where the translation is from McCord Adams and Wolter, “A Treatise on Memory and Intuition.” For the “concordia” or “connexio potentiarum,” see Tropia, “Scotus and Suárez on Sympathy”; Tropia, ibid., 279, notes that “probably inspired by the Prologue of the Ordinatio, Mastri and Belluto call this the “philosophical reason” that Scotus provides to explain the intellect’s dependence on phantasms in the present state”; Tropia refers to Mastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 6, q. 1, n. 12, 139. 9 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 374 (ed. Vat. III), 227–28. 10 Duns Scotus, Ord. IV, dist. 43, q. 2, n. 59 (ed. Vat. XIV), 18–19: “Nec, breviter, invenitur aliquis philosophus notabilis qui hoc neget, licet ille maledictus Averroes in fictione sua III De anima, quae tamen non est intelligibus nec sibi nec alii, ponat intellectivam quamdam substantiam separatam, mediantibus phantasmatibus coniunctam, quam coniuctionem nec ipse nec aliquis sequax potuit explicare, nec per illam coniunctionem salvare ‘hominem intelligere.’ Nam secundum ipsum homo formaliter non esset nisi quoddam animal irrationale excellens, per quamdam tamen animam irrationalem et sensitivam excellentiorem aliis animalibus.” 11 Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super secundum et tertium de anima q. 11, n. 13 (OPh V), 94: “[D]icitur quod phantasia proprie non movet intellectum, nec aliquid in ipso imprimit, sed 5 6

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In general, Scotus subscribes to the usual views regarding the interior senses. The common sense allows a common object referring to the different qualities perceived by external sensation, the imagination retains the phantasm ‘produced’ by the common sense. What Scotus more originally revises is the role of the estimative faculty by considerably limiting its scope. He is not against the view of the estimative faculty as a place in which animal movement crucially originates; rather, he aims to markedly distinguish it from the rational features of the human mind. Unfortunately, as I have noted, Scotus only dealt directly with the estimative faculty in a couple of passages. What I propose is to take an indirect approach, namely, by reconstructing the propositions which he negates regarding estimative powers, so that his actual view may become clearer by contrast. The standard features of the estimative faculty that Scotus has in mind imply that (1) it is a certain judgment about particulars that (2) acquires the intentions ‘hidden behind’ or ‘beneath’ what the other senses perceive. Since Avicenna, Aquinas, and Henry of Ghent hold versions of these positions, Scotus mainly sees them as opposing authorities. Scotus rejects both tenets; he holds that (1) there are no hidden intentions behind or beyond the sensory input, no unsensed sensata or connotational attributes,12 and (2) the senses are neither capable of composition of any kind nor is there any complex knowledge in the internal senses. Thus, the role of the estimative faculty is greatly diminished. What exactly is that role? And how does Scotus account for complex animal behavior? The main answer is that estimation will be reduced to mechanisms of memory, learning, and instinctual behavior. Since animals are not capable of complex sensory compositions, a point he carefully makes when dealing with the estimative faculty as an analogous form of ‘prudence,’ the sensory appetite-instinct tandem is sufficient to explain animal behavior. His goal, as I aim to show in this paper, is to distinguish animal actions from genuine free praxis.

tantum repraesentat sibi obiectum. Quo praesente, intellectus ex virtute sua activa elicit actuum suum, sicut praesente sensibili sensus elicit actum sentiendi, et in hoc est convenientia, non quia phantasmata sunt obiectum intellectus, sicut sensibilia sensus (quae imprimunt, secundum aliquos, speciem sensibilem in sensu); tamen requiritur phantasma ad intelligendum obiectum, quia sicut quidditas absoluta vel universale, quod est directum obiectum intellectus, non habet esse extra nisi in singulare, ut homo in Socrate, ita non potest repraesentari intellectui secundum speciem intelligibilem pro statu viae nisi in repraesentatione similitudinis ipsius singularis, quod fuit in phantasmate.” 12 This is how Dag Nikolaus Hasse translates Avicenna’s ma’nā; cf. Hasse, “Avicenna’s De anima in the Latin West”, 132–33. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

The Estimative Faculty in Scotus and Scotism

2. Estimation, Animal Prudence, and Appetite One first part of our issue concerns the question, whether animals are capable of judgments in any form? A central locus to explore this issue is Scotus’s commentary on Metaphysics I, q. 3, where he addresses the issue whether animals possess prudence. Since animals cannot be said, of course, to possess prudence as a moral habit, the estimative power is usually assumed to be the stand-in faculty that elicits prudent actions. There are two main arguments here for the usefulness of estimation: first, animals provide for the future based on a memory of the past, which is possible only by comparing the past with the future; but to compare is the work of reason itself, thus, some sort of comparative or compositive faculty is necessary. Secondly, animals know nothing except through the senses, but the senses are per se only concerned with the proper and common sensibles, and since neither the harmful nor the useful nor any intentions with which prudence is concerned are proper or common sensibles, a special faculty is needed to grasp intentions. It must be sensitive, because animals also possess it, and it must be internal, because intentions seem immediately inaccessible to the exterior ones. Scotus provides a sed contra, however, derived from Aristotle’s Metaphysics I, 1 (980b 3–5): animals with memory become apt at learning. Learning, in turn, could be said to be responsible for prudent behavior, in lieu of a compositive faculty, making it unnecessary for animals to borrow any features from the rational human apparatus. The link between prudence and learning (and future behavior) has a literary sense, as seen in Cicero, whom Scotus quotes: Prudentia est rerum bonarum et malarum, neutrarumque scientia. Partes eius memoria, intelligentia, providentia. Memoria est, per quam animus repetit illa, quae fuerunt. Intelligentia est, per quam ea perspicit, quae sunt. Providentia est, per quam futurum aliquid videtur ante quam factum sit.13

Scotus believes that one can only talk metaphorically of a ‘prudence in brutes,’ which means that actions arising from natural instinct (such as a lamb following its mother and fleeing from a wolf, or a swallow building a nest, or an ant collecting grain for the winter) are not manifestations of prudence.14 As Cicero says, prudence involves memory. Instinct has to do with those actions that are inexplicable even with memory, like the way some animals, born during the summer, gather grain for the winter. Prudent behavior involves situations in which more than one way of acting is possible, while instinct-directed actions Cicero, De inventione II, 53; cf. McCord Adams and Wolter, “A Treatise on Memory and Intuition,” 195. 14 Cf. Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis I, q. 3, n. 5 (OPh III), 87–88. 13

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imply a linear, almost mechanical way of acting. Scotus clarifies that instincts rule the goals of animal actions, and not the contingent way in which animals may bring about those goals, namely, grain that “could be gathered in this place or that, or from this heap or that, and from a memory of the place where it had placed it, or the heap from which it first gathered it.”15 Instinct, furthermore, rules species-wide behavior, while concrete actions respond to individual knowledge, the hallmark of the sensitive soul. Thus, “experience plays a small role and as animals somehow have experiential knowledge, so they can in some way compare things, although theirs is not the sort that is characteristic of reasoning, which moves from the known to the unknown by means of discourse.”16 An easier case for animal prudence concerns exclusively animals with memory, in line with Aristotle’s views on the origins of animal movement in De anima III, where he claims the origins of movement are the noûs and órexis: the latter as directly related towards an end, while the former calculates the means towards it.17 Animals capable of learning are, of course, more intelligent, according to Aristotle.18 Only humans can judge upon art and reasoning, while ‘prudent’ animals act upon memory and imagination, and animals without memory upon órexis and imagination.19 The more complicated explanans concerns animals’ ability to compare past and future. A simple example – like when someone says, “by the shorter way one gets what we want, this is the shorter way, etc.” – can easily be found replicated in animals, with pseudo-arguments like these, like, for example, when a hound pursues game. Scotus answers that while the exterior behavior seems the same, animal and human knowledge are not comparable at all: humans act by deliberation, “and that which he elicits after deliberating could also be arrived at

Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis I, q. 3, n. 6 (OPh III), 88 (transl. by Etzkorn and Wolter in Duns Scotus, Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, 76): “Prudentia autem sicut in nobis est habitus consiliativus, non de fine, sed de his quae sunt ad finem, non circa necessaria, sed contingentia; ita etiam in illis est circa illa quae possunt sic aliter facere, puta quod congregat vel reponat, hoc in loco vel illo, et ex hoc cumulo vel illo, ex memoria loci, ubi primum granum reposuit, et cumuli unde primum sustulit.” 16 Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis I, q. 3, n. 8 (OPh III), 88 (transl. Etzkorn and Wolter, 76): “[E]xperimenti parum participant; et sicut aliquo modo habent experimentum, ita et collationem aliquam, licet non illam quae appropriatur rationi quae est per discusum a noto ad ignotum.” 17 Cf. Aristotle, De anima III, 10, 433a9–12. 18 Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics I, 1, 980a 25–28. 19 For Aristotle’s understanding regarding the origin of actions see Sorabji, Animal Minds and Human Morals, and Rapp, “Tackling Aristotle’s Notion of the Will.” 15

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without deliberation and from the sense appetite alone.”20 For animals, this latter human possibility is the standard. Scotus admits the difference between animals that have memory and can somehow compare it to the past, animals that have only the present knowledge and have no memory or instinct, and animals that know only the present but do have instinct. Common to all is not being ‘masters of their actions’ (nullius actionis sint domini proprie), which means that “they act necessarily and not out of any precognition, nor is there any freedom.”21 If instinct works at the level of the whole species, “it would seem to follow that prudence is less involved with what is not uniform than with what is uniform,”22 which is, of course, wholly different from phronesis, which concerns actions involving deliberation. Imprecise language use is a problem here, as Scotus notes that here [Aristotle] does not distinguish between the phantasy and memory, nor between sense and the estimative ability; and to every apprehensive potency there is a corresponding appetitive one. Consequently, every animal has a twofold appetite: one sensitive and the other estimative.23

This sense of estimation, however, is not the estimative faculty of Aquinas and Avicenna (as Scotus later shows in Ord. IV, dist. 45); it corresponds only to animals who have retentive power.24 According to Scotus, what we call an estimation is in fact some sort of closed circuit between instinct and phantasy, sometimes aided by strong impressions in the retentive faculty. It is due to impressions such as these that the animal is compelled to act, even when the external senses do not face a particularly threatening or appealing object. As Scotus explains, this is due to estimation (a connection between perception and an

Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis I, q. 3, n. 11 (OPh III), 89 (transl. Etzkorn and Wolter, 77): “Nam illud quod elicitur ex deliberatione, posset etiam idem non eligi ex deliberatio, sed ex solo appetito sensitive.” 21 Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis I, q. 3, n. 14 (OPh III), 91 (transl. Etzkorn and Wolter, 78): “Tamen necessario agunt non ex praecognitione, nec libere.” 22 Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis I, q. 3, n. 16 (OPh III), 91 (transl. Etzkorn and Wolter, 79): “[S]ed ex hoc videtur sequi quod minus sit prudentia quoad difforme, quam quod uniforme, quia in apprehension sensitive nullus point prudentiam, quod autem difforme ibi est, pertinent ad sensum praecise.” 23 Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis I, q. 3, n. 18 (OPh III), 92 (transl. Etzkorn and Wolter, 79): “Hic non distinguit inter phantasiam et memoriam, nec inter sensum et aestimativam, quia omne animal sicut habet sensum, ita et aliquam aestimationem; et tamen omnis potentia apprehensive habet propriam appetitivam; ergo omne animal habet duplicem appetitum, unum sensitivae, alium aestimativae.” 24 Cf. ibid. 20

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elicited appetite) acquiring the knowledge of something convenient or inconvenient to one’s nature: a memory that retains the species of an agreeable or desirable situation once present in the estimative power […] [so that] though the imaginative power does not impel action, perhaps, because what is imagined is not delectable to the sense, nevertheless, if it is agreeable to the nature of the animal, it will impel the appetite of the estimative faculty. And thus, from such a memory, evaluation, and desire, it will go after what is absent; not as something delectable to the senses, but as agreeable to its nature.25

Estimation perceives something the exterior senses do not, and is referred to as having an appetite, either through a strong impression formed by experience and retained in memory, or through the connection of the internal species to animal instincts. In other words, the estimative faculty as Scotus here refers to is rather a sort of modus loquendi to link the species in the phantasy with the appetite. Animal behavior may change depending on how strongly an impression came onto the animal’s imagination; when external perception ceases, whichever phantasm impressed itself more forcibly will be the first one recalled. Avicenna claimed that the convenience or inconvenience of the perceived object to the animal’s nature is the result of perceiving intentions (ma‘anî) that are inaccessible to the external senses (thus, species insensata, or connotational attributes). Even if “what exactly counts as an intention is never fully spelled out,”26 we can form a somewhat accurate picture of what the estimative faculty entails, namely a distinct judgment of the relation between the phantasm and the intention dug up by the estimative faculty. Whenever an animal undergoes pain or pleasure, either sensible utility or harm joined to a sensible form reaches it, and the form of this thing and the form of what is joined to it is imprinted in the formative power [i. e., imagination], and the intention of the relation which exists between them has been imprinted in the memory, along with the judgment regarding [that relation].27

Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis I, q. 3, n. 20 (OPh III), 92 (transl. Etzkorn and Wolter, 80): “Quod autem habet phantasiam retentivam speciei sensibilis, et memoriam retentivam speciei convenientis aestimati, si in absentia actu phantasietur de sensibili, actu etiam aestimabit de convenienti. Et licet appetitus phantasiae non impellat, quia forte phantasiatum non est sensui delectabile, tamen si est conveniens naturae appetitus aestimativae impellet. Et tunc ex tali memoria et aestimatione, et appetite, prosequendo absens, non delectabile sensui, sed conveniens naturae, est actus bruti simillimus actui prudentiae in nobis.” 26 Black, “Imagination and Estimation”, 60. 27 Avicenna, Liber de anima seu Sextus de naturalibus IV, chp. 3 (vol. 2, 39): “Animal etenim cum habuerit dolorem aut delicias, aut pervenit ad illum utilitas sensibilis aut nocumentum sensibile adiunctum cum forma sensibili, et descripta fuerit in formali forma huius rei et 25

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While the term ma‘na denotes in Arabic philosophy the general directedness of any cognitive content of any faculty to its object, Avicenna also employs it for the specific object of the estimative faculty (al-wahm).28 This involves actual cognitive content, a form of judgment or opinion (zinn) correlated to ‘states of hope and desire.’ We know this through observation of animal actions, where estimation seems to judge a future state or plan of action concerning the object considered.29 Avicenna consistently describes the activity of estimation as judging (hakama, hukm). This allows him to explain, e. g., errors in perceptive judgment: we see something yellow and may assume it is, for example, honey, or bile. We know what the yellow substance tastes like, because our earlier experience of a yellow object affected our taste, or smell. The act of judgment, then, consists of three things, of which two are sensible forms (the yellow substance and the sweetness), one actually perceived, the other aroused in the very act of judgment. But the pivot of the judgment is the third feature, which relates the two sensible features without itself being sensible, namely ‘honey.’30

A dog, when confronted with an object perceived as a stick, will, through memory, naturally recover the intention of disagreeableness and pain, even if, for example, the stick is just an umbrella: the dog perceives ‘stick’ and, through an estimative judgment, tries to avoid it. There is no underlying psychological process here but a sort of simultaneous apprehension: estimation is said to be a compositive faculty precisely because it immediately apprehends the proper intention when presented with the relevant species. The judgment or composition here corresponds to perceiving or connecting the impression of pain while perceiving the stick or perceiving the sweetness of honey while perceiving the yellow liquid. Behind a seemingly simple perception, the estimative power impels the imagination to connect the retained form of sweetness or bitterness with the yellow substance (rendering the estimative a collative power).31 According to Deborah Black, “most of [Avicenna’s] examples involve properties related to appetition and motion, such as pleasure and pain.”32 Scotus, following Aristotle, claims that such phenomena are perfectly explainable by the forma eius quod adiunctum est illi, et descripta fuerit in memoria intentio comparationis quae est inter illas et iudicium de illa.” 28 Cf. Hasse, “Avicenna’s De anima in the Latin West”, 127–30; 141–43. 29 Cf. Kaukua, “The Problem of Intentionality in Avicenna,” 232. 30 Kaukua, “The Problem of Intentionality in Avicenna,” 234. 31 Ibid. Avicenna even studies the case of madness: some individuals have disproportionately strong imaginative powers capable of activating the estimative power and setting their peculiar disposition even when confronted with hallucinations (cf. Black, “Imagination and Estimation,” 71). 32 Black, “Imagination and Estimation,” 60. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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generation of appetites through the connection between apprehension and orexis, that is, through an instinctual process that needs no unsensed perception. This connection corresponds, physiologically, to the one between brain and heart; for his part, Avicenna is in a way constrained by his method of matching brain cavities with perceptive faculties. (Scotus prioritizes a functional, not physiological, approach, just like Averroes).33 Even with deceivingly simple examples like this, Avicenna will have a hard time explaining how non-material properties are objects of perception attached to material forms.34 Aquinas ‘complicates’ matters further by associating the estimative faculty to rational mental activity. In his view, the estimative faculty becomes a necessary link between perception and intellection. In the Summa I, q. 78, a. 4, Aquinas is clear about the necessity of an estimative faculty to explain animal actions: as is plain, the external senses are not sufficient to perceive all that is agreeable and disagreeable, so that the animal necessarily seeks what is advantageous and flees what is disadvantageous; as the external senses will not do, a distinct principle (aliquod aliud principium), the estimation, is necessary.35 Aquinas makes a further assertion: while animals perceive intentions through a natural instinct, humans do so “per quandam collationem”; he goes on to claim that this implies some sort of collation between the intellect and the internal sense,36 which allows him to also claim that the cogitative power is capable of apprehending individual beings as existing under a common nature, “sub natura communi.”37 Scotus, in Cf. Tellkamp, “Vis aestimativa and vis cogitativa,” 636. Cf. Black, “Imagination and Estimation,” 60. 35 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, S. Th. I, q. 78, a. 4, corpus (ed. Marietti I, 381): “Rursus considerandum est quod, si animal moveretur solum propter delectabile et contristabile secundum sensum, non esset necessarium ponere in animali nisi apprehensionem formarum quas percipit sensus, in quibus delectatur aut horret. Sed necessarium est animali ut quaerat aliqua vel fugiat, non solum quia sunt convenientia vel non convenientia ad sentiendum, sed etiam propter aliquas alias commoditates et utilitates, sive nocumenta, sicut ovis videns lupum venientem fugit, non propter indecentiam coloris vel figurae, sed quasi inimicum naturae; et similiter avis colligit paleam, non quia delectet sensum, sed quia est utilis ad nidificandum. Necessarium est ergo animali quod percipiat huiusmodi intentiones, quas non percipit sensus exterior. Et huius perceptionis oportet esse aliquod aliud principium, cum perceptio formarum sensibilium sit ex immutatione sensibilis, non autem perceptio intentionum praedictarum.” 36 Ibid.: “Considerandum est autem quod, quantum ad formas sensibiles, non est differentia inter hominem et alia animalia, similiter enim immutantur a sensibilibus exterioribus. Sed quantum ad intentiones praedictas, differentia est, nam alia animalia percipiunt huiusmodi intentiones solum naturali quodam instinctu, homo autem etiam per quandam collationem. Et ideo quae in aliis animalibus dicitur aestimativa naturalis, in homine dicitur cogitativa, quae per collationem quandam huiusmodi intentiones adinvenit.” 37 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, In Aristotelis De anima commentarium II, lect. 13, n. 122 (ed. Marietti, 394): “Differenter tamen circa hoc se habet cogitativa, et aestimativa. Nam cogitativa apprehendit individuum, ut existens sub natura communi; quod contingit ei, inquantum uni33

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turn, believes Aquinas has confused the roles of the estimative faculty and the intellect. In the end, the cogitative faculty has both a cognitive and an appetitive function, generating both intentions of singulars (sensibiles per accidens) and action-oriented intentions.38 This is problematic, as it turns the cogitative faculty into one with seemingly two objects. A radically different account can be found in Peter of John Olivi, in whom we find the notion that the functions of internal perception can be satisfied by a numerically one internal sense. He acknowledges the pluralistic view of the internal senses and their relation to bodily differences,39 but still holds that one internal sense accommodates all these functions through the different physiological structures, as the “powers of the sensitive soul are extended throughout their organs and do not exist in one simple point.”40 Olivi distinguishes between the apprehension of pain and pleasurable experiences and the estimative function, which he deems a certain habit of the common sense capable of perceiving the agreeableness of harmfulness of external objects. For example, when a child gets burnt, it generates a habit in the common sense, through which it now associates pain to fire: such remaining habits, dispositions and associations are what we call estimation.41 From here, Scotus disentangles two strands: on the one hand, the apprehension of pleasure and pain, and on the other, the role of estimation as related to certain strong impressions that lead to learning (and memory). The first one will ultimately suggest that there is no apprehension of unsensed species beyond what is given by the external senses; the second one, that such a perception would be unnecessary, as the phantasm is by itself capable of triggering either an instinctual or a learned response. This suggests a way to reconstruct the circuit of animal action without positing an estimative faculty: the external senses along with the common sense are sufficiently capable of perceiving pain and pleasure, while sensitive memory makes it unnecessary to posit a special habitus of the common sense. The question of pain arises because an internal discomfort, different from external harm and only accessible to an internal power, would provide a suitable object for an estimative faculty. As in statu isto the powers of the soul are ordered among themselves, the soul’s pain can be ‘shared’ by the body, the question being how so. While dealing with the possibility of pain in Christ’s soul, tur intellectivae in eodem subiecto; unde cognoscit hunc hominem prout est hic homo, et hoc lignum prout est hoc lignum.” 38 Cf. Barker, “Aquinas on Internal Sensory Intentions.” Scotus ascribes this function to the intellect; cf. Tropia, “Scotus and Suárez on Sympathy,” 280–81. 39 Cf. Toivanen, Perception and the Internal Senses, 249. 40 Ibid., 250. 41 Cf. Toivanen, “Peter Olivi on the Internal Senses,” 443. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Scotus shows that what is at work here is not the apprehension of an intention in a cognitive sense, but rather a bodily response to the phantasm.42 Notably, he explains Christ’s suffering by describing an “estimation” without an estimative faculty, by just highlighting the concordia potentiarum of the powers of the soul: as he explains it, Christ suffered because his intellect showed his future suffering (ostendit passionem futuram), his imagination pictured this suffering as sad and painful (terribile vel tristabile), and this portrayal arose from the sensitive appetite (appetitus illius potentiae [imaginativa] apprehensivae).43 The key is, as I take it, to disassociate pain from cognition. Hence, he agrees with Henry of Ghent, against Olivi, that perception is different from the associated intention of agreeable and disagreeable, but he disagrees with Henry’s doctrine that a sense perceives its object while simultaneously apprehending its convenience or inconvenience. According to Henry, pain (dolor) is the perception of a corruptive alteration of a natural disposition. His definition, in Scotus’s view, relies on a distinction between the apprehension of an object (that has it as its proper terminus) and its perception (the object’s condition of agreeableness or harmfulness). If this were the case, every sense would seem to be capable of two simultaneous operations;44 Scotus rejects this on the grounds of the perfection of the sense, which can perceive its proper object,45 not relations.46 Discussing the correct interpretation of Aristotle’s De motu animalium with Henry, Scotus opts for an economic solution: it is the simple perception of an object that elicits movement, just like a change in the ship’s wheel steers the

42 In general, ‘dolor’ refers to pain in the body and ‘tristitia’ to pain of the soul, a distinction taken usually from Augustine’s De civitate Dei XIV, 15, whom Scotus quotes in Ord. III dist. 15, q. un., n. 25 (ed. Vat. IX), 485. He acknowledges that the soul can feel pain (tristitia) when facing an object that disagrees with its nature or the appetite (nn. 51–57, ed. Vat. IX, 501–3), but this kind of sadness is predicated on a disagreeableness to the will. For the Franciscan context of pain in the body and soul, see Rosaro, “The Passions of the Will and the Passion of Christ in Franciscan Theology.” 43 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. III, dist. 15, q. un., n. 71 (ed. Vat. IX), 510. 44 Duns Scotus, Ord. III, dist. 15, q. un., n. 36 (ed. Vat. IX), 491: “[S]i ponantur ista esse obiecta alterius actus ab apprehensio, videtur quod oportet ponere duos sensus visus et duos sensus auditus (et sic de singulis), quorum alter apprehendat colorem vel sonum, alter percipiat intentiones illas circumstantes, quia secundum prima obiecta distincta distinguuntur potentiae.” 45 Duns Scotus, Ord. III, dist. 15, q. un., n. 34 (ed. Vat. IX), 490: “[U]nius potentiae non sit nisi unus actus perfectus simul; igitur sensus circa obiectum suum non sunt simul ponendi duo actus, licet idem ut ‘perfectus’ posset dici perception et ut ‘imperfectus’ posset dici apprehensio.” 46 Duns Scotus, Ord. III, dist. 15, q. un., n. 35 (ed. Vat. IX), 491: “[N]ullus sensus potest illas relationes percipere, sed tantum aliqua absoluta quae sunt principia movendi sensum; relationes autem non sunt principia movendi sensum aliquem ad quemcumquem actum.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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whole ship.47 On the Aristotelian account, external perception apprehends the object as agreeable or harmful through accompanying changes in the body, moving from the brain to the heart, which we experience as pleasure or pain. Aristotle regarded this complex relation between perception and action as mediated through the desiderative powers of the soul, which account for the internal changes in the body that produce movement.48 To avoid the need of a sense apprehending relational attributes, Scotus highlights the object’s agreeableness or disagreeableness as referring just to the coming together of absolute natures, namely an active and a passive power, so that the relation that is the term of the relation of the disposing to the disposed is called ‘agreement’ and the contrary is called ‘disagreement’ […] insofar as the ‘agreeable’ is said to be that to which it is dispositionally inclined (that is, to something extrinsic which is perfective of it), and the ‘disagreeable’ that from which it is dispositionally disinclined as from something extrinsic that is corruptive and offensive to it.49

In other words, the relation of the active and the passive power is founded on the powers themselves, so that it is just their coming together in terms of absolute natures: agreeable and disagreeable refer to the natural disposition of the faculty and its object. In the case of perception, Scotus calls this agreeableness pleasure,50 not as a follow-up to perception or a secondary apprehension, but rather as the name of the absolute form of the object, causing the absolute relation ‘pleasure,’ in the appropriate power inclined to this form (and likewise with pain).51 Duns Scotus, Ord. III, dist. 15, q. un., n. 37 (ed. Vat. IX), 491–92: “[Q]uod addicitur De motu animalium, non est ad hoc quod istae intentionis convenientis et nocivi causent primas passions corporals cordis, quas concomitantur animals, neque etiam quod causent ipsas passions animales, –sed magis est ad hoc quod ipsa obiecta sensibilia, quae relucent phantasmatibus […] sive ipsa phantasmata virtute obiectorum causent tales passions; et ideo illa littera facit ad hoc quod oportet ponere alias rationes obiectivas – causantes dolorem – quam quae sunt relationes.” Cf. Aristotle, De Motu Animalium 7.701b16–32. 48 Cf. Rapp, “Tackling Aristotle’s Notion of the Will”, 73–74. 49 Duns Scotus, Ord. III, dist. 15, q. un., n. 38 (ed. Vat. IX), 493 (transl. Simpson, cf. note 8): “[E]t tunc relatio terminans relationem inclinantis ad inclinatum dicitur ‘convenientia,’ et alia vocatur ‘disconvenientia’ […] prout ‘conveniens’ dicitur quod inclinatur (puta ad aliquod perfectivum extrinsecum), et ‘disconveniens’ a quo declinatur ut a corruptivo vel offensivo extrinseco.” 50 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. III, dist. 15, q. un., n. 39 (ed. Vat. IX), 493–94. 51 Duns Scotus, Ord. III, dist. 15, q. un., nn. 40–41 (ed. Vat. IX), 494: “Non igitur ratio causandi istam delectationem est convenientia quae fuit relatio, neque etiam praesentia per perceptionem, quae est alia relatio (quasi approximatio agentis ad passum), sed sola forma absoluta – super quam fundatur relatio activi obiecti – est ratio causandi et istud absolutum quod est delectatio in illo absoluto quod inclinatur ad istum absolutum ut ad perfectivum ex47

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Scotus reminds us that the relation is not causal, in the sense that something agreeable causes pleasure, and something disagreeable causes pain, because he is referring to the natural disposition of these absolute powers in themselves. It is from these absolute things, i. e., from the correspondence of certain objects which cause pleasure and pain, that we abstract general rationes of the agreeable and disagreeable, which we modo loquendi take as efficient causes of pleasure and pain, just like when we speak of active or passive things, which are just general ways of speaking about relations that refer to the things themselves.52 Instead of pointing towards an unsensed species that would need to be a subjective apprehension objectively related to the thing perceived, Scotus suggests that the phantasm itself, as agreeable or disagreeable to the sense, elicits a sensitive appetite: because we can distinguish the power by which the soul can apprehend something from the power by which the soul is inclined to some extrinsic thing that is perfective of it, and the inclination naturally has the preceding apprehension as term. And so, just as we attribute apprehension per se to sense, so it seems that the inclination (the inclination namely whose term follows on the apprehension) belongs to the sensitive appetite; for we posit a sensitive appetite only because of such a term and the pleasure that follows apprehension; and so, since the form that terminates the inclination belongs to the same thing that the being inclined belongs to, pleasure will be in the appetite that was inclined.53

trinsecum. Ita etiam per oppositum dolore, quia absolutum contra-inclinatum ab obiecto corruptivo quod dicitur ‘disconveniens,’ ut refertur ad potentiam, sequitur approximatio, et ex hoc tertio sequitur impression huius passionis quae est ‘dolor,’ quae est contra inclinationem ipsius recipientis ut forma intrinseca, sicut passivum est contra eius inclinationem ut extrinsecum.” 52 Duns Scotus, Ord. III, dist. 15, q. un., n. 42 (ed. Vat. IX), 495: “Quod ergo dicimus communiter quod ‘conveniens delectate et disconveniens tristat,’ hoc non debet intelligi causaliter, quasi convenientia et disconvenientia sint rationes causandi delectationem et dolorem in potentia; sed abstrahimus quasdam rationes generales ab absolutis distinctis, quibus convenit istos effectus causare, et ab illis quibus convenit effective causare delectationem et dolorem abstrahimus rationes convenientiae et diconvenientiae, ut ab illo quod effective causat dolorem abstrahimus vel accipimus rationem disconvenientiae et ab illo quod effective causat delectationem accipimus rationem convenientiae – sicut si diceremus quod omne activum approximatum agit in passivum: activum et passivum non sunt rationes agenda et patiendi, loquendo de istis relationibus, sed ut circumloquuntur absoluta.” 53 Duns Scotus, Ord. III, dist. 15, q. un., n. 43 (ed. Vat. IX), 495–96 (transl. Simpson, cf. note 8): “[Q]uia possumus distinguere potentiam qua anima potest hoc apprehendere et qua inclinatur in hoc ut perfectivum extrinsecum, quae inclinatio nata est terminari apprehensione tantum praecedente; et ita sicut sensui per se attribuimus apprehendere, ita videtur quod sic inclinari, ita scilicet quod terminatio illius inclinationis sequatur ad apprehensionem, conveniat appetitui sensitivo: propter nihil enim aliud ponimus appetitum sensitivum nisi propter talem terminationem et propter delectationem consequentem apprehensionem; et ita, cum eiusdem https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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This natural agreement (or disagreement) is of such a nature “that when nothing else is posited with respect to them save only that they are apprehended, then an act of being delighted or sad, of fleeing or pursuing, is of a nature, as far as concerns itself, to follow on necessarily,” that is, without the intervention of any collative power.54 In sum, two arguments are crucial here for Scotus. First, a cognitive power cannot have two objects, namely a proper one and an accompanying intention; thus, an estimation or apprehension cannot be adjoined to the same act as perception. Secondly, cognizing something cannot be the same thing as appetizing something; only the latter is a direct principle of action.55 An estimation, therefore, cannot provide an action-oriented, specific, principle of movement. The question whether animal action can be reduced to natural instincts is then, perhaps, not so surprising, though one may ask whether the phantasmata can provide an appetite that is concrete enough for a specific action. Scotus, however, seems to believe that i) cognizing something as agreeable to us just means cognizing a particular that elicits a particular appetite (and not the thing ‘in itself,’ as the sensitive powers cannot apprehend the nature of things),56 and ii) cognizing the ratio of the agreeableness of some particular thing for us is a matter for the intellect. We should be careful to posit a faculty that can apprehend some individual thing as agreeable to us, so as to avoid an a parte post projection of human reason into animal minds.

sit forma terminans inclinationem cuius erat inclinari, delectatio erit in appetitu qui inclinabatur.” 54 For its part, the object of the irascible appetite is what impedes something agreeable: Duns Scotus, Ord. III, dist. 34, q. un., nn. 35–36 (ed. Vat. X), 193–94: “[N]otandum est quod ‘concupiscibile’ respicit illud quod natum est ex se esse conveniens vel disconveniens, ita quod nullo alio posito circa ipsum nisi solum apprehensione, necessario natus est sequi actus delectandi vel tristandi, vel fugiendi vel prosequendi, quantum est ex parte eius. […] istud ‘offendens’ non dicitur quod statim est disconveniens concupiscibili, sed quod impedit illud quod est primo conveniens (puta, si cibus est primo conveniens appetitui gustativo avis et ideo concupiscitur, prohibens hunc cibum vel removens offendit animal concupiscens). Hoc ‘offendens’ est obiectum irascibilis – circa quod irascibile habet quoddam ‘nolle,’ non quidem proprie refugientis (sicut concupiscibile nolens refugit), sed magis respuentis sive repellentis, quia irascibile volens repellit: non tantum cupit impediens illus amoveri, sed amovere, et ultra punire.” 55 Cf. Drummond, “Duns Scotus on the Passions of the Will,” 63. 56 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. III, dist. 34, q. un., n. 34 (ed. Vat. X), 193. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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3. Animal Learning and the Unsensed Species Scotus has obviated any kind of ‘digging down’ to find secret intentions linked to either external perception or the phantasmata. He famously renders the species insensata irrelevant through a controversial thought experiment that aims to show that there is no perception of the nature of the species that moves the estimative faculty, but rather only actual cognizable accidental features: If a sheep remains in the same nature and with the same natural affection for the lamb and yet it were changed, by a miracle, to be like a wolf in all sensible accidents, as color, shape, and sound and the rest, the lamb would flee a sheep thus altered as it would flee a wolf. And yet in the sheep thus altered there would be no conceptual idea of the harmful but of the agreeable. Therefore, the estimative power of the lamb would not dig down to discover under the sensible species the conceptual content of the agreeable but would be precisely moved by its sense appetite in the way the sensible accidents would move it.57

The sheep can only flee a wolf because it senses either (i) the wolf-like accidents, or (ii) the wolf’s nature. In the former case, it will flee anything that resembles a wolf; the latter, on the other hand, is impossible, because a sheep cannot conceptualize the nature of anything. A sheep ‘in wolf clothing’ can only be perceived as a wolf. The hypothetical change of a sheep dressed up as a wolf may look like a misleading premise; the point is that it is through the accidents that we know a nature is agreeable to us. This can only mean, Scotus claims, that ‘perceiving something as agreeable’ is nothing else but the perception of a certain set of accidents that trigger an instinctual response. If a lamb appears to be a wolf, the other lamb will perceive it as disagreeable and flee, even as its proper nature remains agreeable. That this is the case just proves that the internal senses are not capable of perceiving the nature that gives way to its perception in any case: animal actions are just reactions to what they are actually capable of perceiving. Perception is of course limited, as the senses do not know substance because their cognitive power is insufficient (not because there is something lacking in the representative power of the species). This does not mean that animals cannot adequately cognize things, just that perception cannot cognize unsensed species that somehow relate perceivable qualities to their substantive nature. The

57 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, qq. 1–2, n. 62 (ed. Vat. III), 248 (transl. Simpson, cf. note 8): “Et quod adducitur simile de aestimativa, dico quod videtur adduci falsum ad confirmationem alterius falsi, quia si maneret ovis in propria natura, et in eodem affectu naturali ad agnum, mutaretur tamen ovis ut esset similis lupo per miraculum, in omnibus accidentibus sensibilibus, puta colore, figura, sono, moto, et huiusmodi, agnus fugeret lupum, et tamen in ove sic mutata non esset intentio nocivi, sed proficui et convenientis, et ita aestimativa agni non suffoderet ad inveniendum intentionem convenientis sub speciebus sensibilibus, sed praecise ita moveretur secundum appetitum sensitivum, sicut accidentia sensibilia moveret.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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animal appetite is elicited through perception without need for a collative power; or better yet, a real collative power can only be a rational power. In order to properly sort the powers at work in an estimation, we must go back to the same background principle: every faculty has its own proper object. Still, the act of one faculty can be an object of some superior faculty, e. g., the common sense can discriminate external perceptions. In this case, the intellect can intuitively apprehend the act of the imagination and memory. This hitherto missing element in Scotus’s account of estimation may be gathered from Ord. IV, dist. 45, where Scotus explains that I can only remember a past action because I have experienced it. That is, I have an intuitive cognition of a previous act or perception. I cannot remember when I was born or when the world was created: “I only remember that you sat there because I recall I have seen or have known you to be sitting there.”58 When taken as a whole, Scotus continues, remembering can be seen as a complex set of acts belonging to different faculties: the act of remembering must involve a lapse of time, an act that perceives the flow of time, a remembered object not present in itself but in a likeness or species, “and then the memory will be conserving the species – speaking here of the remembering potency as a whole. I don’t care whether there is one potency or two – where one conserves the species and the other remembers it. At least the conservation of the likeness of the memorable object is required for remembrance.”59 Thus, taken as a whole, remembering involves two objects: a remote one, namely, something that is remembered, and a proximate one, which is the act that cognized the remote object. Scotus accepts that we can perceive an object P, retain that object through the act of the phantasy (FP ), and remember that action through memory (MFP ). But Scotus is also clear that knowing the past qua past is a feature of human cognition: the intellect knows both FP and MFP, and knowing this difference is what provides us with the distinct human experience of the past qua past (a real collative operation, we should add), and a certain indirect recollection of the original object of perception P. I can for example conjure the image of someone and recall their name: this would be an act of the phantasy (FP ). I can also remember having heard their name, even if I do not remember what their actual Duns Scotus, Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3, n. 87 (ed. Vat. XIV), 165–66 (transl. McCord Adams and Wolter, 214; note that their own edition of the Latin text that forms the basis for the translation differs slightly from the following text): “[N]on enim recordor eius quod est ‘te sedisse’ nisi quia recordor me vidisse vel nosse te sedisse.” 59 Ibid. (transl. McCord Adams and Wolter, 214; note that their own edition of the Latin text that forms the basis for the translation differs slightly from the following text): “[E]t tunc potentia recordativa erit conservativa specie, et hoc loquendo de totali potentia requisitiva ad recordationem. Sive enim sive sint duae, quarum unam conservat speciem et alia recordetur, sive ut una, habens utrumque actum, non curo – saltem ad recordationem requiritur conservatio speciei obiecti recordabilis.” 58

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name P was, and this would be an act of the sensitive memory (MFP ). I can also sit down and, in a completely intellectual exercise of recollection, for example when I write down the events of the day, reminisce people I have met (FP ), remember when I heard their names (MFP ) and then remember knowing their names as soon as their image appears in my mind. In this case, I am working on my intellect’s intuitive cognition of FP and MFP, even if I had forgotten about P in the first place.60 In the case of sensitive memory, Scotus claims we cannot attribute anything to it that we cannot find in brutes.61 Just as he did in the questions on the Metaphysics, when dealing with kinds of animal actions that seem to imply a form of remembrance, namely 1) acts of provision, like collecting grain for the winter, 2) acts of vindication or quasi-retributive justice (“actus vindicandi vel quasi iustitiae retributivae”), 3) acts aimed at the conservation of the species, e. g., feeding the young, and 4) acts acquired through learning disciplinabilia,62 he explains how all can be explained solely with recourse to phantasy and the apprehension of what is delectable. In every case, an applied stimulus elicits a response. Indeed, strong impressions held by the phantasy continually compel animals to behave in a certain way: The sense image or phantasm of what was pleasant or offensive is impressed and continues to pressure the sensitive appetite to move in an appropriate manner towards that object, namely to act vindictively or beneficently, at least when no other more pressing delightful or distressing situation prevails. Therefore, if such an action is suspended for a certain time by the presence of something else, when the interlude is over, this sense image moves immediately and a movement follows in the sense appetite appropriate to that object, a movement which did not occur before because it was impeded by another more forceful object. Here then, there is no apprehension of the past as past, but only one

60 Scotus also suggests people can have different memories regarding the same remote object, since they do not remember P as such, but rather their own acts of remembering P (each subject would actually be MFP-ing). 61 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3, n. 132 (ed. Vat. XIV), 179. 62 Duns Scotus, Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3, nn. 102–5 (ed. Vat. XIV), 170: “Videmus omnes actus istos brutorum, ex quibus posset magis concludi, utpote qui videntur esse actus prudentiae vel providentiae, ut patet de formica recolligente grana ad eundem locum et tempore determinato (ut in aestate). Similiter, actus vindicandi vel quasi iustitiae retributivae, puta obsequendi benefacientibus et puniendi offendentes, videntur in brutis competere eis in quantum cognoscunt praeteritum ut praeteritum. Similiter, tertio, de actibus pertinentibus ad conservationem speciei (ut de nidificatione avium et nutritione pullorum et huiusmodi), quae non videntur eis competere regulariter absque cognitione praeteriti ut praeteriti. Quartum, quia aliqua sunt disciplinabilia, ut vult Philosophus in libello De memoria et reminiscentia et De sensu et sensato; disciplina autem non est sine memoria praeteriti ut praeteritum.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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of something past, whose residual species moves the animal to retaliate or show favor, once the stronger incentive is removed.63

It is true that Scotus offers a contrary reading in favor of sense memory cognizing the past as past, but while this new set of arguments is presented as ‘probabilior’ by the Vatican editors, they seem weaker than the long, detailed arguments against it.64 Thus, while he claims sense memory would more easily explain the four mentioned cases, he relies on examples and barely touches on the mechanisms of such explanations. According to Scotus, the difference between sense and intellectual memory is that sense memory can only sense the “past” if both the act of the phantasy and its object are perceived as “past” (a sensible object can only be perceived according to its state during sensation); the intellect, on its part, only requires its proximate object, the act of the sense, to be in the past, because it can recognize the ratio of pastness.65 So in the end sense memory can only recall the past object of a past act, not the ratio of pastness. The proper object of memory is the past act, while its remote object is the act of the phantasy. Animals perceive an imperfect sense of the past, as something that was present insofar as it is now retained by the phantasy. How can we explain that a bird hatched this very year provides what is needed as if it were any number of years old, if it has no past knowledge? With no past impressions, we must appeal to instinct. In fact, in many cases, what seems to be animal memories directing their actions is just a present delight (or disagreeableness) experienced through the act of the phantasy as a stimulus that elicits an associated response.66 If this stimulus is repeated, it leaves a lasting impression recalled by sense memory, and the impression can be remembered and compel the animal to act; here, we say the animal learns. Thus, animal knowledge involves memory and yet no actual knowledge of the past qua past: just the capacity to recall a repeated or sufficiently strong impression in the phantasy that elicits an appropriate response by the appetite. For example, when the animal is given 63 Duns Scotus, Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3, n. 108 (ed. Vat. XIV), 171–72 (transl. McCord Adams and Wolter, 217–18; note that their own edition of the Latin text that forms the basis for the translation differs slightly from the following text): “[B]reviter enim phantasma delectabilis placentis, vel tristabilis offendentis, formaliter imprimitur et semper pulsat appetitum sensitivum ad motum conformem illi obiecto, puta vindicandi vel benefaciendi, saltem quando cessat aliud delectabile vel tristabile praesens, fortius movens. Ideo si tempore intermedio suspendatur ista actio per aliquod praesens, in fine temporis statim istud phantasma movet, et sequitur in appetitu sensitivo motio proportionata isti obiecto, quae prius non sequebatur, quia erat impeditum ab aliquo obiecto fortis movente. Non est igitur hic apprehensio praeteriti ut praeteriti, sed tantum eius cuius praeteritum, cuius species manens movet ad vindictam vel gratiam cessante alio fortius movente.” 64 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3, nn. 111–16 (ed. Vat. XIV), 172–75. 65 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3, nn. 129–30 (ed. Vat. XIV), 179. 66 Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3, n. 110 (ed. Vat. XIV), 172. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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food and, recalling the past impression of the stick, recoils, taking the food as something unpleasant.67 There is no estimative judgment at work here. Stronger or repeated impressions have a longer and deeper effect. Animal cognition is a natural process; properly speaking, then, animals do not learn anything, except in the perhaps narrower sense of ‘being conditioned’ by past impressions. They are just capable of either referring to their instinct as a sort of first object, or they acquire behavioral patterns due to a strong sensible impression in the phantasy. Scotus is a theologian, not a biologist. He agrees with the science of his time in rejecting a cardio-centric paradigm; the internal senses reside in the brain, as shown by the connection with the nerves.68 But Scotus’s arguments are less centered on neurophysiology than on securing these two points: 1) animals cannot operate by their own volition, and 2) empirical cognitive content is objective and belongs to the senses. We can now construct a theory of estimation that ironically needs no estimative faculty: estimation cannot perceive unsensed species (because properties relating to the object are perceived by the external senses), nor is it needed for cognizing the singular. Animal movement, then, can be wholly explained by natural responses, either due to a naturally perceived affinity or aversion, instinct, or the recollection of strong past impressions: in all these cases, the proper sensitive appetite elicits a ‘natural’ response following the phantasm, not a hypothetical collative sensitive judgment. The difference between natural and rational faculties plays a defining role throughout.

4. Mastri, Belluto, and Punch Let us now turn to Scotus’s disciples in the seventeenth century. My main aim here is to show how these authors brought together the different strands of Scotus’s unorganized doctrine of estimation. I will focus on two of the great Scotistic Cursus: the De anima (1643) within the five-volume Cursus philosophicus of Bartolomeo Mastri and Bonaventura Belluto,69 and the corresponding section

Ibid.: “Ergo quando cibus praesens movet appetitum ad summendum, statim phantasma virgae percutientis simul movet, et per consequens, ut tristabile ad fugiendum; et si ex magna frequentatione imprimatur phantasma huius valde tristabile, magis retrahit a delectabili quam delectabile alliciat ad se ipsum.” 68 Cf. Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super secundum et tertium de anima q. 2, nn. 6–10 (OPh V), 14–16. 69 Within the tradition of the Cursus as organized philosophical textbooks, Mastri and Belluto aimed to set a Scotistic standard. The publication of their monumental work started in 1637; the part on the De anima was published in Venice in 1643 (according to the present state of research, this part of the work was mainly authored by Belluto). I use the 1727 Venice edition; cf. Forlivesi, Scotistarum princeps, 114–23, 174–75, 361–65. 67

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within John Punch’s Integer philosophiae cursus ad mentem Scoti (1642–1643).70 Both feature detailed analyses that mostly address other philosophers and theologians (notably Suárez, Arriaga, Hurtado, and Raffaele Aversa), not physicians. My aim here is to summarize some of their main arguments to show how the two texts reconstruct Scotus’s views of the estimative power as I have tried to do above.71 The similarities in the way both works do away with unsensed species is notable, especially considering their authors’ stark differences regarding so many other issues.72 Mastri and Belluto deal with the question of the estimative power in De anima disp. 5 (De potentiis sensitivis in particulari), questions 8 (De sensibus internis) and 9 (De appetitu sensitivo). They first note that the internal powers are distinct from external perception, referring to Scotus’s proofs in Ord. IV, dist. 45, q. 3, and In De an. q. 9.73 The arguments are conventional: brutes remember past things, and they distinguish color from flavor, etc., and these distinct objects and acts can only be distinguished by a superior sensitive power, which sets up the question for the subject, organ, number, and acts of the internal sense. They first claim that the internal sense (there is just one, as we shall see) is not in the heart but in the brain, and not in the meninges (subservient structures protecting the brain) but in the medulla (which is made of the same substance as the brain and allows it to obtain its object from the particular senses).74 Following Scotus, against Avicenna, they distinguish the senses from the ventricles, because otherwise the number of cavities would needlessly multiply the senses (rather the spiritus animales move constantly through them).75

70 First published in 1642–1643; I use the second edition with corrections and additions of 1649. Cf. Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 881. 71 For a systematic exposition of the species of all internal senses in Mastri and Belluto’s De anima, vis a vis Suárez, see Daniel Heider’s contribution in this same volume (especially section 4.3, which deals with the unsensed species). 72 Forlivesi “John Punch on the Nature and Object of Metaphysics”, 122, aptly describes the relationship between Mastri and Punch as “a two decade-long clash, of no mere doctrinal nature”; cf. further Forlivesi, Scotistarum princeps, 208–18. 73 Cf. Mastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 5, q. 8, n. 236, 117a. 74 Mastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 5, q. 8, n. 238, 117a: “[…] quae, cum sit materiae aliquantulum fluxilis, nec nimis dirae, nec nimis mollis, commode poterit recipere species sensibilies.” 75 Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super secundum et tertium de anima q. 10, n. 10 (OPh V), 83, quotes Avicenna’s dictum (Liber de anima seu Sextus de naturalibus vol. I, chp. 5, 87) that the phantasy is “in prima concavitate cerebri”; Mastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 5, q. 8, n. 241, 117b), acknowledge this is not his own opinion: “Ad Scotum dicimus ibi non loqui ex propria sententia, sed ad mentem Avicennae, ut ibi se declarat.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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According to the authors, as all powers of the soul are cognitive or appetitive, and the internal sense is a cognitive power, the question is whether it knows (only) res sensatae or (also) insensatae. They define the unsensed species as “those [features] that are not attained by the external, but only by the internal senses, such as external or internal sensations, affections of sensible things, and privations.”76 These are sensed in the sense that they are objects of the internal sense, but unsensed in that they are immediately and first known by the internal sense, and not by any of the external senses. Mastri and Belluto hold that the internal sense perceives some objects of the external senses, namely, the acts of the external senses and thus the differences between external sensibles, “but not their convenience or inconvenience.”77 This is necessary for the operation of the intellect, which does not operate on the external senses, but on the object of the internal sense.78 As for the fact that there is no knowledge of res insensatas, they refer to the familiar loci in Scotus: Ord. I, dist. 3, q. 2, and IV, dist. 45, q. 3, art. 1.79 They prove this point by examining the three possibilities of knowing an unsensed species in the case of the wolf and the sheep. The sheep cannot know that the wolf is an enemy “absque ulla specie,” nor can it do so through a species belonging to the wolf itself (a view they ascribe to Suárez and Aversa), since then another wolf would also perceive it inimically. The only workable answer is that knowing the wolf as an enemy “requires a natural instinct,” and since the wolf and the sheep have distinct instincts, their perceptions are different.80 There is no need for a species insensata, since such a hypothetical item would beg the same principle: a natural capacity in the perceiving power to divine the inimical aspect of the wolf. This capacity, however, is already present in the nature of the sheep so as to perceive the wolf as inimical, just as another wolf would, by its nature, perceive it as agreeable: it is “like a natural sympathy or antipathy of the

76 Mastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 5, q. 8, n. 242, 118a: “[R]es insensatae sunt, quae ab externis non attinguntur, sed a solis internis, sub hoc genere continentur sensationes tum externae, tum internae, affectiones rerum sensibilium, et privationes.” 77 Cf. Mastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 5, q. 8, n. 244, 118a: “[S] ensum internum percipere quidem obiecta sensuum externorum, non tamen ipsorum convenientiam, vel disconvenientiam.” 78 Ibid.: “Tum quia intellectus non movetur immediate a sensu externo, sed interno, seu ab obiecto ut cognito a sensu interno.” 79 They acknowledge Scotus’s position as “expresse docetur” and “nec obscure colligetur”; Hurtado de Mendoza is mentioned embracing his views, while Cavellus (“non Scotice loquitur”) takes the opposite view (the interior senses acquire unsensed species) as more probable. For Suárez’s views, also mentioned, cf. Daniel Heider’s contribution to this present volume. 80 Cf. Mastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 5, q. 8, n. 245, 118a. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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object with its nature.”81 If the estimative faculty were capable of apprehending this sympathy, then we would be able to experience the convenience or inconvenience of any object. Mastri and Belluto find this false, since we are incapable of experiencing, e. g., whether some herbs are medicinal or poisonous. If an herb was medicinal for us and brutes, and we are not able to perceive it as such, why should the estimation of animals be any different? Correspondingly, animals can avoid natural poisons that we cannot recognize, even if we share similar external sensations. It follows then, according to Mastri and Belluto, that external accidents are not inconvenient for the sheep, but rather the nature itself of the wolf is, even while the sensible species only represent the accidents of the wolf and not its nature; therefore, they also do not represent its inconvenience. The major is clear, since, as the Doctor says, if the sheep changed its external appearance to resemble a wolf, it would not then be inconvenient and inimical to another sheep.82

They do not accept the possibility of another perceived species or modus because they believe there is no sufficient explanation for its generation, and we do not seem to experience such species or modus ourselves. They acknowledge but discharge Arriaga and Rubio’s hypothesis that God could provide such a species. Just like Scotus, they admit an animal may acquire knowledge of the convenience or inconvenience of an object through experience. Based on past experiences, a dog may indeed flee from a man with a stick or search for nourishment, etc. Animals may also, “not formally but materially, and in a confused way”,83 know of privations through memory and the object of the common sense; an animal may thus know, e. g., if its offspring lacks something. The internal sense thus knows the acts of the external senses (which is necessary to have a memory of the past and explains how we can remember hearing something, but not specifically what), the sensitive appetite (something we easily experience) and probably its own act (a thesis they ascribe probabiliter to Scotus). They argue that the species of the internal sense is different from those of the external senses, and thus that the pursuance of a convenient good, as well as the flight from an inconvenient one, together constitute the formal object of the sensitive appetite. Mastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 5, q. 8, n. 246, 118a: “[…] quam naturalis sympathia vel anthypathia obiecti cum natura.” 82 Ibid., 118b: “Accedit, quod colores, figura, magnitudo, vox et accidentia externa lupi non sunt disconvenientia ovi, sed potius natura ipsius lupi est disconveniens, sed species sensibilis solum repraesentat accidentia lupi, non naturam, ergo nequit repraesentare disconvenientiam, maior patet, quia ut ait Doctor citat. si ovis mutaretur quoad accidentia externa in lupum, non idcirco esset alteri ovi disconveniens et inimica.” 83 Mastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 5, q. 8, n. 249, 119a: “[…] non est intelligendum formaliter, ut vere advertat rationem futuri, praesentis, aut praeteriti, sed materialiter, et confuso quodammodo.” 81

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They consider the following argument for the existence of the estimative power: since appetites are blind, a cognitive power is needed to provide the formal ratio of its object as agreeable or disagreeable (an external apprehension of the object would be insufficient).84 Mastri and Belluto respond that this is all due to natural antipathy or sympathy, which is found not only in brutes but also in inert beings, such as magnets, so “when you say that the formal object of the appetite must be formally known as a convenient good, we answer that it is enough that it is materially known as a convenient thing, and not formally, and either way the sensitive appetite is naturally elicited to operate.”85 Mastri and Belluto explicitly distinguish this operation from the will, because the will is a far more perfect power that wills itself formally to attain what is convenient, that is, it moves by the formally known good.86 Acting on instinct is not against nature, since all living beings are directed by instinct (i. e., by God ut authore naturae), as we see when mammals seek nourishment after being born, or when they seek unknown herbs to heal themselves, etc. This does not presuppose that God induces unsensed species, but rather “they operate just by natural instinct, when an object is provided for convenient apprehension even if not formally apprehended as convenient.”87 This is the reason why Mastri and Belluto claim that animals operate materially for their own ends, and not formally, and why they link means to certain ends, even if they have no formal knowledge of the order among them. If Mastri and Belluto deny any sort of discursive reasoning in animal actions, it is not just because their actions are not as perfect (free) as human actions informed by virtues, but because it suffices to assume that a direct apprehension elicits an appetite moved towards an instinctive end, with the added cases of experience and memory.88

Cf. Mastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 5, q. 8, n. 255, 119b. Mastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 5, q. 8, n. 256, 119b: “[…] cum dicitur obiectum formale appetitus esse bonum conveniens, quod debet cognosci, respondemus sufficere quod cognoscatur materialiter, idest res conveniens, non formaliter, ut conveniens, et utroque modo appetitus sensitivus natus est operari.” 86 Ibid.: “An autem idem sit dicendum de voluntate, est dubium, videtur enim quod sicut cognitiva potentia illam dirigens, qualis est intellectus, est perfectior sensitiva, volens ex se attingere convenientiam formaliter, pariformiter voluntas videtur operativa ex motivo bonitatis formaliter cognitae.” 87 Mastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 5, q. 8, n. 257, 119b: “[…] quare remanet, ut ex solo naturae instinctu operentur, posita obiecti convenientis apprehensione licet non ut convenientis formaliter apprehensi.” 88 They of course asume a natural physical connection between appetites and cognitive powers; cf. Mastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 5, q. 9, n. 307, 128a: “[D]icimus appetitus particulares residere in organis sensum particularium, appetitum commune residere in cerebro, ubi etiam collocatur sensus internus, a quo talis appetitus movetur.” 84 85

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This leads them to posit a single internal faculty, which they acknowledge Scotus does not explicitly endorse, even while he holds that faculties are not really distinct from the soul, and so they conclude there is no need to posit an estimative or cogitative faculty.89 In conclusion: There is only one sensitive internal faculty in a single organ, namely the brain, which [the faculty] can exert various functions, for which we have different names […]. For when this faculty perceives objects known by the external senses, and external actions, and receives its species, it is called common sense; when it cognizes objects that are not present, it is called fantasy or imagination; when these varied objects are connected with each other, it is called imagination or, by some, phantasy; and when it perceives objects as convenient or inconvenient so that the sensitive appetite is moved, it is called estimation; and when it often apprehends the same previously known objects as past, and the sensibles of other acts, it is called memory, and reminiscence when it looks for a previous knowledge with the help of the intellect.90

In contrast to Mastri and Belluto’s copious arguments, John Punch reads as a much more succinct and analytic voice. I will focus here on the question “Whether there are species insensata” (Tractatus de anima, disp. 59, q. 10). His definition of these, like in Mastri and Belluto, refers to species that represent an object through a ratio only available to the internal sense and not perceived by any external sense.91 He adds some further clarification: we know that the (numerically one) internal sense perceives many objects that are not perceived by the external senses, namely their acts, as well as pleasure and pain, through different species than those available to the external senses themselves.92 These speMastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 5, q. 8, n. 283, 124a. Mastrius / Bellutus, Cursus philosophicus III, De an., disp. 5, q. 8, n. 294, 126a: “Concludendum est igitur, unicam esse potentiam sensitivam internam in unico organo, scilicet cerebro residentem, quae varias functiones potest exercere, iuxta quarum varietatem varia fortitur nomina […]; nam haec potentia ut percipit obiecta exterius sensata, actiones externas, et recipit species, dicitur sensus communis; ut eadem obiecta cognoscit, quando non sunt praesentia, dicitur phantasia, ab aliis imaginativa; ut illa obiecta varie inter se connectit, dicitur imaginativa, ab aliis phantasia; ut eadem sensibilia percipit, ut convenientia, vel disconvenientia, movetque appetitum sensitivum, dicitur aestimativa; ut eadem obiecta saepius cognoscit ut praeterita, et sensata aliis actibus, dicitur memoria, quae si sit cum auxilio rationis quasi inquirendo prius cognitum […] dicitur reminiscentia.” Further names listed are ‘prudentia sensitiva’ and ‘disciplinibilitas.’ 91 Poncius, Integer philosophiae cursus, Tract. de anima, disp. 59, q. 10, n. 93, 772a–b: “Per species insensatas intelliguntur illae, quae repraesentant obiectum potentiae internae secundum aliquam rationem, secundum quam non percipitur sensu viso externo, sive illa species, quae sic repraesentat obiectum, etiam repraesentet ipsum secundum rationes perceptibiles a sensu interno, sive non.” 92 Ibid., 772b: “[S]ed dubium praecise est, ut dixi, an percipiat obiecta sensuum externorum sub aliqua ratione, sub qua ab ipsis sensibus externis non percipiuntur.” 89

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cies may be called insensatae, but the question here is whether the internal sense perceives something proper to the object of the external senses through a species they are not able to perceive. Punch joins Scotus and Hurtado in denying their existence (opting against the position of Aquinas, Rubius, the Complutenses, Aversa and Arriaga). Punch offers several reasons for denying the existence of unsensed species. One of them is deflationary: he states that the species of the internal sense must somehow be a determination or attribute of the thing known; yet it is not an ‘objective’ species at all, as it is not a species of the external sense, nor an attribute of the thing itself; it cannot be an object of the internal sense either (as the internal sense cannot cognize by itself), nor a sum of all these. The internal sense can only be determined by an external species; claiming it determines itself by an unsensed species would just beg the question.93 Another reason for rejecting the existence of unsensed species is that the only way to perceive a wolf as an inimical object would be through perceiving it as dangerous or potentially (aptitudinalis) dangerous, something for which the external senses should be sufficient, as the sense would perceive aliqua molestia. The only other possibility would be for it to be shown to the internal sense as inimical through some ratio in the external sense, which was denied by the very definition of the species insensata. Calling it a ‘potentially offensive object’ is just deferring the problem, since this can only be known through a previous experience of an object as offensive.94 One could object that the sheep does not run away from the wolf due to a perceptible quality, but rather out of the wolf being “inimicus naturae suae.” But this inimicitia is not something externally perceived; rather it must be said that nature “non deficit in necessariis”, and it would fail if animals were incapable of somehow acquiring this inimicitia.95 If the sheep flees because it perceives aliqua molestia caused by the external accidents of the wolf, either immediately or mediately, where there is no previous experience, then this is just an action owing to the natural instinct, as can be seen in the wolf causing a molestia in animals of a certain species and not in others. Nature thus sufficiently endows animals with instincts.96 Any other way of speaking of the estimative faculty, says Punch, assumes some sort of discursive power in brutes, for example the ability to relate means to ends. But this is just a way of speaking, based on our own way of relating ends

Poncius, Integer philosophiae cursus, Tract. de anima, disp. 59, q. 10, n. 94, 772b. Poncius, Integer philosophiae cursus, Tract. de anima, disp. 59, q. 10, n. 95, 773a. 95 Poncius, Integer philosophiae cursus, Tract. de anima, disp. 59, q. 10, n. 96, 773a. 96 Poncius, Integer philosophiae cursus, Tract. de anima, disp. 59, q. 10, n. 97, 773a: “[…] naturam sufficienter animalibus tribuendo ipsis illum instinctum.” 93

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and means.97 Moreover, as he explains in his disputatio 61, on the internal senses, there is only one internal sense, and it takes different names according to the acts it elicits. This internal sense is capable of being inclined through a natural appetite; not only through innate appetites (not brought about by cognitive states), but also by the elicitive appetite, through which we follow the sensible good and flee sensible evils.98 We know this because it is evident from animal conduct – as Scotus’s examples showed –, and the same should be said about us humans. We can see it in children, who follow some things and avoid others even before being fully capable of reasoning, and we can internally experience in ourselves an appetite for desirable goods even against our own will.99 The key here is to acknowledge that it is the same appetite in animals and humans: just as the will is capable of eliciting diverse acts, so is the sensitive appetite (which for Punch is numerically one, containing both the concupiscible and irascible appetites).100

Conclusion There is no denying, according to Scotus, that internal senses are necessary for intellectual cognition. Not because the senses can access the nature (or essence) of an object in any way, but rather because they provide the adequate similitude for abstraction. While Scotus did systematically deal with animal cognition as such, he adapted as much natural philosophy as possible to provide a distinctive view of human actions and freedom, even if he appears more resolute on setting negative boundaries between sensitivity and rationality than in exploring the whole range of issues concerning perception. In his questions on the De anima, he seems more concerned about distinguishing the possible influence of external, corporeal bodies in the internal senses and how they might influence our rational mind than in mapping internal sensibility. This is my proposal here: Scotus aims to separate estimative, and in 97 Poncius, Integer philosophiae cursus, Tract. de anima, disp. 59, q. 10, n. 98, 773b: “Obiicies tertio, ex eodem. Bruta agunt propter finem applicanda media ad eius acquisitionem: ergo cognoscunt utilitatem medii respectu finis: sed hanc non percipit sensus internus, ergo. Respondeo distinguendo antecedens: formaliter loquendo, omnino deberet discurrere, et ex effectu procedere ad causam, neque enim ipsemet homo potest alia via cognoscere media apta ad finem. Quod si concedatur semel brutis vis discurrendi, non est dubium, quin possint sibi acquirere species insensatas; unde conclusio nostra, et tota controversia haec supponit bruta non discurrere: quare haec obiectio non est ad propositum, quia est contra hypothesim conclusionis et controversiae.” 98 Poncius, Integer philosophiae cursus, Tract. de anima, disp. 61, q. 1, n. 3, 788b. 99 Poncius, Integer philosophiae cursus, Tract. de anima, disp. 61, q. 2, n. 8, 789b. 100 Poncius, Integer philosophiae cursus, Tract. de anima, disp. 61, q. 2, n. 9, 790a. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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general, biological natural functions as much as possible from rational ones, and he does so in accordance with his views on nature and freedom. The estimative and cogitative powers are an obvious target, as previous philosophers assimilated them to a quasi-rational judging or collative faculty. To this end, Scotus aims to prove: (i) that there are no unsensed sensibles that can be ‘dug up’ from the external senses or from the phantasy; and (ii) that they are not necessary at all, since the path from perception to the sensitive appetite suffices to account for animal movement. Scotus can further simplify the biological to a functional account (to some extent following Aquinas’s lead) while keeping his metaphysical aims in mind. He then tries to recognize estimation as an action of the internal sense, even while unfolding the very meaning of ‘estimation,’ or in other words, to show that our human estimations are mostly just a modus loquendi (confusedly) combining different acts of our internal senses, and sometimes even of the intellect. Mastri, Belluto, and Punch propose extensive analytical arguments to show the unfeasibility of positing the existence of species insensata. Their arguments follow Scotus’s lead: every faculty has a proper object, one act cannot have two simultaneous objects, and sense knowledge cannot apprehend the substantive nature of its objects, as it is limited to sensible qualities. The appetite is the power that can respond to these perceived qualities and elicit the appropriate response. By showing how these otherwise differing authors follow Scotus’s general strategy, I hope to have shown how integral this treatment is to the whole of Scotus’s and indeed to any Scotist psychology.

Bibliography Sources Aquinas, Thomas. Summa theologiae. Edited by Pietro Caramello, with Text from the Leonine edition. Torino: Marietti, 1956–1963. –. In Aristotelis librum de Anima commentarium. Edited by P. F. Angeli Pirotta. Torino: Marietti, 1959. Avicenna. Liber de anima seu Sextus de naturalibus. Edited by S. van Riet. Leiden: Brill, 1972. Cicero. On Invention. The Best Kind of Orator. Topics. Loeb Classical Library. Edited by H. M. Hubbell. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1949. Duns Scotus, Ioannes. Opera omnia. Vatican edition. Edited by Carl Balić et al. Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950–2013. –. Opera philosophica. General editors Girard J. Etzkorn and Timothy B. Noone. St. Bonaventure, New York: The Franciscan Institute, 1997–2006. –. Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle. Translated by Girard J. Etzkorn and Allan B. Wolter. Two volumes. St. Bonaventure: The Franciscan Institute, 1997–1998. –. “A Treatise on Memory and Intuition from Codex A of Ordinatio IV, Distinctio 45, Question 3”. Trans. Allan B. Wolter. Franciscan Studies 53 (1993), 193–211. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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–. Ordinatio. English translation by Peter L.P. Simpson, available at https://aristotelophile.com/ current.htm [last checked December 3, 2021]. Mastrius, Bartolomaeus and Bonaventura Bellutus. Cursus philosophicus. Vol. 3 (contains their Disputationes ad mentem Scoti in Aristotelis Stagiritae libros De anima). Venice: Nicolai Pezzana, 1727. Olivi, Petri Ioannis. Quaestiones in secundum librum Sententiarum. Edited by Bernhard Jansen. Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1922–1926. Poncius, Johannes. Integer cursus philosophiae ad mentem Scoti. Paris: Antoine Bertier, 1649.

Studies Andersen, Claus A. Metaphysik im Barockscotismus. Untersuchungen zum Metaphysikwerk des Bartholomaeus Mastrius. Mit Dokumentation der Metaphysik in der scotistischen Tradition ca. 1620–1750. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2016. Barker, Mark J. “Aquinas on Internal Sensory Intentions: Nature and Classification.” International Philosophical Quarterly 52 (2012), 199–226. Black, Deborah. “Imagination and Estimation: Arabic Paradigms and Western Transformations”. Topoi 19 (2000), 59–75. Cross, Richard. Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Drummond, Ian. “Duns Scotus on the Passions of the Will.” In Emotion and Cognitive Life in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy. Edited by Martin Pickavé and Lisa Shapiro, 53– 74. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Forlivesi, M. Scotistarum princeps. Bartolomeo Mastri (1602–1673) e il suo tempo. Padova: Centro Studi Antoniani, 2002. –. “Ut ex etymologia nominis patet? The Nature and the Object of Metaphysics according to John Punch” In Hircocervi and Other Metaphysical Wonders. Essays in Honor of John P. Doyle. Edited by Victor M. Salas, 121–55. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2013. Kaukua, Jari. “The Problem of Intentionality in Avicenna.” Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 25 (2014), 215–42. McCord Adams, Marilyn and Allan B. Wolter. “Memory and Intuition: A Focal Debate in Fourteenth Century Cognitive Psychology.” Franciscan Studies 53 (1993), 175–92. Perler, Dominik. “What Am I Thinking About? John Duns Scotus and Peter Aureol on Intentional Objects.” Vivarium 32 (1994), 72–89. Rapp, Christof. “Tackling Aristotle’s Notion of the Will.” International Philosophical Inquiry 41 (2017), 67–79. Sorabji, Richard. Animal Minds and Human Morals. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995. Tellkamp, Jörg A. “Vis aestimativa and vis cogitativa in Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences.” The Thomist 76 (2012), 611–40. Toivanen, Juhana. “Peter Olivi on the Internal Senses.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 15 (2007), 427–54. –. Perception and the Internal Senses. Peter John Olivi on the Cognitive Functions of the Sensitive Soul. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Tropia, Anna. “Scotus and Suárez on Sympathy: The Necessity of the ‘connectio potentiarum’ in the Present State.” In Suárez’s Metaphysics. Disputationes metaphysicae in their systematic and historical context. Edited by Lukas Novák. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014.

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Whitworth, Amy. F. Attending to Presence: A Study of John Duns Scotus’ Account of Sense Cognition. PhD Dissertation. Milwaukee: Marquette University, 2010.

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II. Intellectual Cognition

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In God’s Mind Divine Cognition in Duns Scotus and Some Early Scotists Giorgio Pini

Introduction Can God know what is different from himself, such as donkeys and human beings? This question poses a formidable challenge to anyone maintaining the philosophical viability of theism in one of its standard forms. To see where the problem lies, let us consider these four theses: (1) Divine omniscience: God knows everything; (2) Divine aseity: God is prior to (and so independent of) anything different from himself; (3) Existence of the created world: God creates things different from himself; (4) Priority of the object: the object of a cognitive state has some sort of priority over that cognitive state. The priority established in (4) should be taken in a generic way. Specifically, the object of a cognitive state does not need to be one of its causes. Rather, the point is that, just because a certain state is directed at a certain object (say, your thought about donkeys is directed at donkeys), there is an asymmetry between that state and its object. Your thought about donkeys cannot be the thought it is if it is not about donkeys. By contrast, donkeys are what they are no matter whether you think about them or not. A standard theist is committed to the truth of (1), (2), and (3). On the face of it, (4) looks plausible. In particular, scholastic thinkers were committed to its truth. These four theses, however, cannot all be true at the same time. Specifically, if God is omniscient – as per (1) – and he creates things different from himself – as per (3) –, he knows those things. But if the object of a piece of knowledge (which is a cognitive state) is prior to that piece of knowledge – as per (4) –, then something is prior to divine knowledge, which is incompatible with divine aseity as described in (2). The scholastics’ standard way out of this conundrum was to reject (4). They claimed that in the divine case, it is not true that cognizing an object en-

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tails any dependence on the object of cognition; rather, the dependence goes the other way: it is the cognized object that depends on the divine intellect.1 Apart from the intrinsic interest of this solution, there is also another reason why an historian of philosophy finds this question worthy of attention. For divine knowledge is an instance of cognition (albeit a very special one) – actually, it is the perfect instance of cognition. Accordingly, all the necessary features characterizing cognition must be found (and found at their highest degree) in divine knowledge. Conversely, if a certain characteristic is not found in divine knowledge, that characteristic might well pertain to another kind of cognition (for example, human cognition) but not to cognition in general. Thus, considering divine knowledge can tell us something interesting about cognition in general. It can also provide helpful information about human cognition because it can help us distinguish what is essential to cognition from what characterizes human cognition not as cognition but as a specifically human phenomenon. It is from this perspective that I intend to consider Duns Scotus’s treatment of divine cognition in this paper, namely not so much to find out more about the divine case per se as to discover something about Duns Scotus’s theory of cognition in general. More specifically, I will focus on the relationship between cognitive states and their objects. If any cognitive state is about something, we might initially think that such a relation between a cognitive state and its object is essential to cognition. Duns Scotus, however, argues that the divine case shows us that this is not the case: divine cognition is definitely an instance of cognition but is not related to the object it is about. By contrast, human cognition is not only related to its object, it is also necessarily related to its object, but Duns Scotus argues that this is not because it is cognition, but because it is human. So entrenched is our habit to consider human cognition as the main instance of cognition that this important aspect can be easily missed, according to Duns Scotus. We unwittingly project some of our limitations on the divine case and on cognition in general. In what follows, I will first consider three views on divine cognition that take human cognition as the paradigmatic case of cognition and I will present what I take to be the main reason why Duns Scotus rejected them. Second, I will turn to Duns Scotus’s own views on divine cognition – and I stress the plural: views. For over the course of his career, Duns Scotus held not one, but two different views on divine cognition, which he took to be equally plausible. Third, I will consider some consequences that Duns Scotus’s position on divine cognition has on his interpretation of human cognition. Fourth and finally, I will This is a consequence of the more general claim that the relation from creatures to God is real while the relation from God to creatures is conceptual. For this general claim, see for example Thomas Aquinas, STh I, q. 6, a. 2, ad 2. Specifically on creatures’ dependence on God’s knowledge, see STh I, q. 14, a. 8. 1

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briefly consider what I think is a misunderstanding of Duns Scotus’s position to be found in some of his followers.

1. Divine Ideas and Divine Cognition: Three Views So how does God know things different from himself? Before giving his own answer to this question, Duns Scotus presents – and rejects – three alternative treatments.2 Although these three treatments are quite different from each other, they all have something in common: they all assign a key role to divine ideas. Their common (and unquestioned) assumption is that God knows other things through some mental likenesses of those things – his own ideas, which are relative items connecting the divine intellect to its objects. According to the first view (which the Vatican editors attribute to Bonaventure),3 divine ideas are in the divine essence. Thus, by the very act of knowing the divine essence, the divine intellect also knows the things divine ideas represent. As Duns Scotus presents it, the key aspect of this view is that the divine essence is that through which other things are known (their ratio cognoscendi).4 This view can be illustrated by the diagram in fig. 1.

Idea 1

Divine intellect

cognizes

object 1

Divine essence Idea 2

Fig. 1:

represents

represents

object 2

First view.

According to the second view (which, as the Vatican editors note, was held by Henry of Ghent),5 divine knowledge includes two conceptually distinct stages. Compared to the Lectura and the Reportatio, the Ordinatio leaves out the third view. The Lectura refers to three views but only presents their refutations. 3 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, apparatus fontium (ed. Vat. VI), 247; Lect. I, dist. 35, q. unica, apparatus fontium (Ed. Vat. XVII), 447. See Bonaventura, Liber I Sententiarum, dist. 35, art. unicus, qq. 1, 3, and 5 (ed. Quaracchi I), 601, 609–10. 4 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, nn. 9–11 (ed. Vat. VI), 247–48; Rep. I-A, dist. 36, pars 1, qq. 1–2, nn. 35–36 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov II), 390–91. 5 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, apparatus fontium (ed. Vat. VI), 248–49; Lect. I, dist. 35, q. unica, apparatus fontium (Ed. Vat. XVII), 447. See Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet VIII,

2

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First, God knows his essence as unrelated to anything else. Second, God considers his essence as the model of all the things that can imitate it. The divine essence considered as imitable by other things is nothing else than the set of divine ideas.6 This view can be illustrated by the diagram in fig. 2. Divine intellect cognizes

imitability (divine idea 1)

Divine essence

Divine imitability (divine idea 2)

Fig. 2:

object 1

object 2

Second view.

According to the third view (which the Vatican editors attribute to Peter of John Olivi),7 divine ideas are relations connecting the divine intellect to its objects. So unlike in the first and in the second view, the divine essence does not play any intermediary role between the divine intellect and its objects; rather, divine ideas are directly attached to the divine intellect.8 This view can be illustrated by the diagram in fig. 3. cognizes (divine idea 1)

object 1

Divine intellect cognizes (divine idea 2)

Fig. 3:

object 2

Third view.

q. 1 (ed. Badius), f. 300B; q. 8 (ed. Badius), f. 313F; Quodlibet IX, q. 2 (Opera omnia IX), 26– 29. 6 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, nn. 12–13 (ed. Vat. VI), 248–49; Rep. I-A, dist. 36, pars 1, qq. 1–2, nn. 35, 37, 38 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov II), 390–91. 7 Duns Scotus, Lect. I, dist. 35, q. unica, apparatus fontium (ed. Vat. XVI), 447. See Peter of John Olivi, Quaestiones in secundum librum Sententiarum, q. 3 (ed. Jansen I), 57–58. 8 Duns Scotus, Rep. I-A, dist. 36, qq. 1–2, nn. 35–39 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov II), 390–91. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Although Duns Scotus considers the second view preferable to the other two, he ends up rejecting them all.9 What I am interested in here is what these three views have in common. As I have mentioned, they all attribute a central role to divine ideas, and for a simple reason: they take either the divine essence (the first and the second view) or the divine intellect (the third view) as something indeterminate, which must be determined to a specific object by a divine idea. Divine ideas connect the divine essence or the divine intellect specifically to a certain object rather than to another one. Accordingly, all the three views considered by Duns Scotus posit divine ideas to solve what has been called the “specific question” of intentionality.10 God can think specifically about a certain object rather than another one because his essence or his intellect is directed at that specific object (say, a donkey rather than a horse) by a relation. Such a relation is a divine idea. This is precisely where the problem lies, according to Duns Scotus. Apart from the criticisms targeted at specific points pertaining to each of the three views he considers, he raises what I believe is a more general point. The reason why those three views assume that there is a need for divine ideas linking the divine intellect or the divine essence to specific objects (say, to a donkey rather than a horse) is that they model the divine case on the human case. For the human intellect (which in itself is able to think about anything whatsoever) can think about a specific object only if it has in itself something that relates it to that object. When that relation to the object is present, the human intellect passes from a state of potentiality (in which it can think about anything but doesn’t think about anything in particular) to a state of actuality (in which it thinks about something in particular). Although each of these three views gives a different account of what divine ideas are, they all posit divine ideas as a necessary link between divine cognition and specific objects. So they all assume that in this crucial respect the divine intellect is like the human intellect. But Scotus holds that this is a mistake – in this aspect, the way divine cognition occurs is radically different from the way human cognition occurs: […] there are only two possible reasons why something might not be able to perfectly represent many things without being determined to them. First, this is due to its potentiality in itself, as the Philosopher says in the last chapter of Bk. IX of the Metaphysics. Second, this is on account of its being confused, because it contains those things confusedly. But neither of these reasons obtains in the case of the divine essence, because the divine essence is by itself most actual and most distinct, and so it contains everything. 9 Duns Scotus’s rejection of the first two opinions is found in Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, nn. 14–26 (ed. Vat. VI), 249–255. All three positions are compared to each other and ultimately rejected in Rep. I-A, dist. 36, pars 1, qq. 1–2, nn. 40–58 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov II), 391–99. See also Lect. I, dist. 35, q. unica, nn. 8–13 (ed. Vat. XVII), 447–49. 10 Brower and Brower-Toland, “Aquinas on Mental Representation,” 194. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Therefore, it is able to represent everything to its intellect as the first object of that intellect without any relation, whether real or conceptual.11 (Trans. Wolter-Bychkov modified).

The human intellect, says Duns Scotus, is both potential and confused. Let us consider first its potentiality. The human intellect is potential because by itself it is not specified (even though it is able to be specified) to any object. As it happens, the human intellect reveals its potentiality in two distinct situations. First, before learning about a specific thing, the human intellect has the ability to acquire the necessary information to become able to think about that thing (it is in a state of first potentiality) but is not yet able to think about it. Only after having acquired an intelligible species conveying the necessary information about a specific thing can the human intellect think about that thing. Second, even after having acquired that information, the human intellect does not need to make use of that information to form an actual thought about that thing. To use the Aristotelian jargon, it is in first actuality (or equivalently, second potentiality), not in second actuality. This is a very common condition: we do not think about all the things we know. Rather, we can think only about one thing at a time. For example, we have knowledge of mathematics even when we do not do mathematics. Consequently, we need some device to make us think about a specific thing among the many we already know and about which we can (but do not) think. That device can play such a role because it relates our intellect to a specific object.12 Incidentally, note that, according to Duns Scotus, what makes the intellect pass from potentiality to actuality – in both the cases I have mentioned – is a quality, not a relation (it is an intelligible species in the first case, an intellectual act or thought in the second case). But in both cases that quality is necessarily Duns Scotus, Rep. I-A, dist. 36, pars 1, qq. 1–2, n. 55 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov), 397: “[…] quod aliquid non possit perfecte repraesentare plura sine determinatione ad illa, hoc non est nisi vel propter potentialitatem eius in se, secundum Philosophum IX Metaphysicae, ultimo [cap.], aut propter confusionem eius, quia confuse illa continent. Sed neutrum istorum est in essentia divina, quia de se est actualissima et distinctissima, et ita omnia continent. Ergo sine omni respectu rei vel rationis potest distincte ut primum obiectum intellectus sui omnia suo intellectui repraesentare […].” 12 The human intellect passes from a state of first potentiality to a state of first actuality (or equivalently, second potentiality) by an act of abstraction, which produces an intelligible species. See Duns Scotus, Lect. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, nn. 249–305 (ed. Vat. XVI), 325–48; Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, nn. 333–400 (ed. Vat. III), 201–44; Rep. I-A, dist. 3, qq. 4 and 5, nn. 84– 160 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov I), 207–32. The human intellect passes from a state of first actuality (or equivalently, second potentiality) to a state of second actuality by the production of an act of thinking (intellectio). See Lect. I, dist. 3, pars 3, qq. 2–3, nn. 308–426 (ed. Vat. XVI), 349–95; Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 2, nn. 401–553 (ed. Vat. III), 245–330; Quodl., q. 15, nn. 7–9 (ed. Vivès XXV), 137–41. See Pini, “Two Models,” 94–96. 11

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accompanied by a certain relation. So once our intellect acquires that quality, it becomes related to a certain object. In this respect, the way a thought (or rather, a human thought) and its object are related is just like the way two similar things (say, two objects of the same color) are related. What makes a wall similar in color to another wall is a quality (say, its color yellow), thanks to which the two walls are related to each other.13 Also, note that Duns Scotus’s assumption here is quite general. He does not say what relates the human intellect (or for that matter, any human cognitive power) to its objects. Rather, he only assumes the human intellect must receive or have something (for Duns Scotus, a quality accompanied by a relation) by which it might become related to its object and so pass from a state of potentiality to a state of actuality (namely, from being able to think about a certain thing to actually thinking about that thing). That this is the case depends on an essential feature of the human intellect: by its very essence, the human intellect is potential. Sometimes, however, the human intellect needs to be related to a specific object not because of its potentiality but for another reason. Although this situation does not characterize every instance of thought, it is nevertheless quite common. Sometimes the object of our thought is present to our intellect (so we can actually think about it), but our thoughts about it are confused. Suppose for example that you do not know what platypuses are. You can still think about platypuses as beings. And if you know that they are animals but not what kind of animals, you can think about platypuses as animals. So you can think about platypuses, but only in a confused way: your thoughts are definitely about them, not about something else, but they are generic. In order to start thinking about platypuses in a distinct way (in a way different from the way you think about other beings or other animals), you need to acquire more information. Once your intellect is in possession of that information (something that for Duns Scotus comes again in the forms of qualities in the intellect, namely intelligible species), you can have thoughts about platypuses that are different from your thoughts about other beings and other animals. Only then do you have a distinct (as opposed to a confused) thought about platypuses. What you need is something (according to Duns Scotus, a mental quality) that links your intellect specifically to platypuses (as opposed to other things).14

13 On intelligible species as qualities, see Duns Scotus, Quodl., q. 13, n. 32 (ed. Vivès XXV), 582; cf. Cross, Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 100. On acts of thinking as qualities, see Duns Scotus, Quodl., q. 13, nn. 3–4 (ed. Vivès XXV), 508–9; Rep. I-A, dist. 3, q. 6, n. 169 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov I), 234–35; cf. Pini, “Two Models,” 96–100. 14 On cognizing something confused (confusum), see Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 1, qq. 1–2, n. 72 (ed. Vat. III), 49–50. On being as the most common concept, quidditatively https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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So Duns Scotus holds that the reason why the human intellect needs mental devices such as intelligible species and intellectual acts is that it is potential and its thoughts are often confused. The divine intellect, however, is not potential and its thoughts are never confused. It is not potential because God always thinks about all the things he can think about (which is anything whatsoever, whether actual or merely possible), and he thinks about them through his own essence, not through some device distinct from his essence (such as an intelligible species or a cognitive act). And God always thinks about all the things he thinks about in a distinct way. He always knows platypuses as platypuses and donkeys as donkeys, not merely as beings or animals. As a matter of fact, God knows this particular platypus as this particular platypus, not just as a platypus. And he knows you as you, not just as a person with certain features that happen to be different from my features. So, unlike human beings, God does not need anything special to allow him to actually think about what he thinks or to make him think specifically and distinctly about a certain thing; rather, he does so by his very essence.

2. God’s Knowledge of Other Things Now that we have identified the main reason why Duns Scotus rejects the three views of divine cognition that he takes as representative of his contemporaries, we may ask: what about his own view? The key feature of Duns Scotus’s account of divine cognition – which comes in two variants – is that the divine intellect is not related to any of its objects, either directly or by way of the divine essence. Accordingly, divine ideas play no role in divine cognition, at least if they are conceived as what relates the divine intellect or the divine essence to things different from God himself. Rather, divine cognition is a purely internal affair. To see how this happens, we should distinguish between God’s cognition of possible essences (namely, uninstantiated essences), which are necessary beings, and God’s cognition of things that exist, existed or will exist (namely, instantiated essences), which are contingent beings. Perhaps surprisingly, Duns Scotus’s account of God’s cognition of contingent beings is easier to describe. All contingent beings exist because God creates them through a contingent decision. According to Duns Scotus, God knows those things not because his intellect is related to them, either directly or by way of representations. Rather, God’s thoughts are directed at his own decision to create certain things rather than others. For example, God knows this particular donkey because he knows that he decides to create this particular donkey. contained in any other concept, see Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 1, q. 3, nn. 137–46 (ed. Vat. III), 85– 91. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Whether this explanation works or not is controversial, but this point does not need to detain us here. Rather, the key aspect to note is that God knows contingent things because his intellect is related not to them but to some decisions internal to God himself.15 The way God cognizes possible essences is less easy to grasp. It occurs through two conceptually distinct stages. In the first stage, God knows his own essence. In the second stage, God “produces in intelligible being” an object of thought different from himself. This “production in intelligible being” is not a genuine production at all – rather, it is a production only metaphorically speaking. The point is that, by turning towards the divine essence (which is of course infinite), the divine intellect conceives the thoughts of all realizable possibilities (the essence of a donkey, the essence of a horse, the essence of a human beings, and so on). Those thoughts are not related to anything external to God. As it happens, they are related to nothing at all.16 So is it really the case that relations play no role at all in divine cognition? Here we should distinguish between two accounts present in Duns Scotus’s works. According to the first account, there is indeed a relation: not between the divine intellect and its object, but between the intellect’s objects and the intellect itself. According to the second account, there is no relation in any direction, either from the intellect to its object or from the intellect’s objects to the intellect itself. Let us consider each one of these accounts in turns. 2.1 The First Account Duns Scotus’s first account is the only one found in his Lectura and in the main text of his Ordinatio and it is the first of the two accounts presented in the Re-

Duns Scotus, Lect. I, dist. 39, qq. 1–5, nn. 53–68 (ed. Vat. XVII), 496–502; Ord. I, dist. 39, qq. 1–5, nn. 21–25 (ed. Vat. VI), Appendix A, 425–31; Rep. I-A, dist. 39–40, qq. 1–3, nn. 38–66 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov II), 475–84. It is interesting to note that Duns Scotus reframes the standard problem of God’s knowledge of future contingents as a general question concerning God’s knowledge of any contingent entity. For a discussion of some controversies surrounding Duns Scotus’s position on divine knowledge, see Frost, “John Duns Scotus on God’s Knowledge of Sins.” 16 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, n. 32 (ed. Vat. VI), 258: “Hoc potest ponit sic: Deus in primo instanti intelligit essentiam suam sub ratione mere absoluta; in secundo instanti producit lapidem in esse intelligibili et intelligit lapidem, ita quod ibi est relatio in lapide intellecto ad intellectionem divinam, sed nulla adhuc in intellectione divina ad lapidem, sed intellectio divina terminat relationem ‘lapidis ut intellecti’ ad ipsam […].” See Pini, “Duns Scotus on What is in the Mind,” 339–42. That the production of intelligible being is to be interpreted in a metaphorical way, at least in Duns Scotus’s most mature works, is argued in King, “Duns Scotus on Mental Content,” 83–85, and Cross, Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 182–99. 15

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portatio.17 According to this account, relations play some role when it comes to explaining the way God knows things different from himself, but, as Duns Scotus stresses, this is true not of any kind of relations but only of third-kind relations. These are so-called ‘non-mutual’ relations. Consider two things, A and B. The relation between A and B is non-mutual if and only if A is related to B but B is not related to A. Admittedly, even when talking about non-mutual relations, we might sometime suggest that there is indeed a relation from B to A corresponding to the relation from A to B. But this only depends on a language quirk, not on the way things actually are. Take for example the act of seeing: when I say that I see something, I can also say that something is seen by me. As a matter of fact, however, nothing happens to the thing that is seen by me just by virtue of its being seen by me. When I see a donkey, I have a quality – an act of seeing – that isn’t there when I don’t see that donkey. But whether I see it or not, the donkey is exactly the same – it doesn’t acquire or lose any property just because I do or do not see it.18 Following Aristotle, Duns Scotus and his contemporaries described any relation of this kind by appealing to what was taken to be the standard case of a non-mutual relation: measuring. When we measure something, we use a certain thing we know (for example, a certain length or a certain weight) to find out another thing we don’t know (for example, an unknown length or an unknown weight). As Duns Scotus analyzes it, measuring involves three elements: someone who measures, something that is measured, and something by which the measuring is done. Suppose you ask me what the distance between New York and Prague is. To find that out, I use a known length (say, a mile) and I figure out how many times that known length is contained in the distance between New York and Prague. The answer is: 4036 times. So I say that the distance between New York and Prague is 4036 miles. In this example, I am the one who measures, the distance between New York and Prague is what is measured, and a mile is that by which the measuring is done. Now focus on that by which the measuring is done, on the one hand (which is usually called ‘what measures’ and I, for brevity’s sake, will call ‘a unit of measurement’) and what is measured, on the other hand. The key point here is that I use a unit of measurement (for example, a mile) to find out what is measured (for example, the distance be17 Duns Scotus, Lect. I, dist. 35, q. unica, nn. 7, 22 (ed. Vat. XVII), 446, 452; Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, nn. 27–28 (ed. Vat. VI), 256–57; Rep. I-A, dist. 36, pars 1, qq. 1–2, n. 60 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov II), 399–400. 18 Aristotle, Met. V, c. 15, 1020b30–32. See Duns Scotus, Lect. I, dist. 30, qq. 1–2, nn. 36– 44 (ed. Vat. XVII), 407–11; Ord. I, dist. 30, qq. 1–2, n. 31 (ed. Vat. VI), 181–82; Quodl. q. 13, nn. 22–23 (ed. Vivès XXV), 550–51. See also Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis, V, q. 11, n. 60 (OPh III), 586; qq. 12–14, nn. 94–99 (OPh III), 637–38. On the threefold distinction of relations, see Henninger, Relations, 6–8. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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tween New York and Prague), but I do not use what is measured (the distance between New York and Prague) to find out the unit of measurement (a mile). So what is measured depends on the unit of measurement, but not the other way around.19 At first sight, this sounds implausible. The distance between New York and Prague remains the same whether I measure it or not, so why could it possibly depend on the unit of measurement I use to measure it? As Duns Scotus clarifies, however, the idea here is that the distance between New York and Prague depends on the unit of measurement not in its being but in its being known. Without using some unit of measurement such as a mile, I would never know how distant New York is from Prague. Accordingly, it is true that the unit of measurement does not determine the nature of what is measured; it does, however, determine its being known. A confirmation of this is that, if you change the unit of measurement, what is measured is known in a different way. For example, if instead of miles you use kilometers, the distance between New York and Prague is known not as 4036 but as 6495 times the unit of measurement.20 Like his contemporaries, Duns Scotus takes the relation of measuring (or, as he prefers to say, measurability) as an illustration of all non-mutual relations. In any non-mutual relation, there is something that plays the role of a unit of measurement and something else that plays the role of what is measured by way of that unit of measurement. What plays the role of what is measured depends in some way on what plays the role of the unit of measurement, but not the other way around. So there is a real relation between what is measured and the unit of measurement, but not between the unity of measurement and what is measured. Specifically, this applies to cognition. But Duns Scotus (again, in agreement with his contemporaries) maintains that there is a difference between the human (and angelic) case and the divine case. In human (and angelic) cognition, the object is what measures and the cognitive power or act is what is measured. By contrast, in the divine case, the opposite is true: the object is what is measured, the intellect is what measures. So while human and angelic cognition depends on their objects, divine cognition does not depend on its object – rather, its objects depend on it.21 Let me illustrate this with an example. Consider your cognition of a work of art – say, your act of seeing Rodin’s sculpture, The Age of Bronze, or your act of thinking about it or the image you have in your memory when you remember it. Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, n. 12 (ed. Vivès XXV), 525–26. Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, n. 12 (ed. Vivès XXV), 525: “[…] ista habitudo dependentiae, non quidem ipsius cognitionis ad causam cognitionis (quae bene est realis), sed dependentiae obiecti ut cogniti ad obiectum ut per quod cognoscitur, est inter extrema, non ut habentia esse reale, sed tantum ut habentia esse cognitum […].” 21 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, n. 27 (ed. Vat. VI), 256. 19 20

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Your act of seeing The Age of Bronze, your act of thinking about it, and the image of it you keep in your memory can all be judged according to how faithfully they represent the sculpture, The Age of Bronze. Admittedly, it might be tricky to establish exactly what counts as a representation and what counts as a faithful representation, but this is not relevant for my point here. What matters is the direction of the relation between your cognitive states and their object: the object is the standard according to which your cognitive states are judged. This is what the claim “the object measures my cognitive states” means. By contrast, consider Rodin’s own way of thinking about The Age of Bronze before creating it and the way he considered that sculpture once he created it. Presumably, before creating that sculpture, Rodin had some conception of it, and that conception guided him in its realization. Rodin’s idea of his sculpture did not depend on its realization (indeed, it preceded it). Rather, it is the sculpture Rodin created that depended on his idea of it. And we can imagine that, once Rodin created The Age of Bronze, he must have judged whether it was a good sculpture or not according to the extent it conformed to the idea he had of it before creating it. So, while The Age of Bronze is the standard against which your idea of that sculpture is judged, Rodin’s idea of The Age of Bronze is the standard against which The Age of Bronze is judged. Human (and angelic) cognition is analogous to your cognition of Rodin’s The Age of Bronze. By contrast, divine cognition is analogous to Rodin’s thinking about The Age of Bronze, both before creating it and after, when he judged how close it was to his original intentions.22 This difference between human and angelic cognition, on the one hand, and divine cognition, on the other hand, was commonly admitted by Duns Scotus’s contemporaries. But Duns Scotus seems to take it more seriously than his contemporaries did, for he took it not merely as an illustration but as an explanation (or at least the hint at an explanation) of the contrast between the way creatures and God cognize things: unlike his creatures, God does not need to (as a matter of fact, cannot) be related to the objects of his cognition in order to cognize them. Just as the donkey I see is not related to me and nothing happens to that donkey when I see it, so the divine intellect is not related to its objects and nothing happens to the divine intellect when it thinks about those objects. The parallelism between divine ideas and the forms of artificial things in their maker’s intellect, on which I have based my illustration, was extremely common. See for example Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super libros Sententiarum I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 2 (ed. Mandonnet), 814; dist. 36, q. 1, art. 1 (ed. Mandonnet), 832; dist. 36, art. 3, ad 3 (ed. Mandonnet), 837. I take these references from Boland, Ideas in God, 201, note 35. As I indicate below, I believe that Duns Scotus’s originality lies in holding that, once this traditional way of understanding divine cognition is taken seriously, it becomes clear that divine ideas conceived as relations between God and the objects of his thought cannot play any role in explaining how God knows things different from himself. 22

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Rather (at least according to Duns Scotus’s first account of divine cognition), those objects are related to (namely, measured by) the divine intellect.23 One might doubt whether this explains much. Duns Scotus rejects his contemporaries’ view that divine ideas play a genuine role in divine cognition, but what he offers instead looks more like rehearsing a general point – on which, incidentally, his contemporaries agreed – than an explanation. But I think that Duns Scotus’s point is precisely that once we take seriously the uncontroversial claim that divine cognition is not modeled on its objects (rather, its object are modeled on it), we must draw the conclusion that most attempts to explain divine cognition are flawed, because they take human cognition as the standard case of cognition and project some of its features on the divine case. This might happen inadvertently, as when we explain divine cognition in terms of divine ideas that determine the divine intellect or the divine essence to specific objects. But whether inadvertently or not, it does happen. What we should conclude is that there is not much more to say about the way God cognizes things different from himself in addition to the claim that divine cognition is the standard on which those things depend and against which they have to be judged. 2.2 The Second Account Side by side with this account of divine cognition based on non-mutual relations, in an addition to his Ordinatio and again and more elaborately in the Reportatio Duns Scotus puts forward a second view, which can be taken as a further step in the direction he had already taken with his first view.24 Now Duns Scotus suggests the possibility that not only there is no relation from the divine intellect to its objects, but there isn’t even a relation from those objects to the divine intellect. Duns Scotus’s argument in support of this position can be reconstructed as follows. Suppose (contrary to what Duns Scotus holds) that there is indeed a relation from the divine intellect to its objects or from those objects to the divine intellect. Any relation is either real or conceptual. Now a relation is conceptual if and only if some intellect establishes that relation by comparing two extremes that have been previously cognized. For example, only after I have learned what a donkey is and what an animal is can I relate the two as genus and species in the sentences ‘The genus of donkeys is animal’ and ‘Donkeys are a species of animal’ (genus and species, like all so-called “second intentions,” being typical examples of conceptual relations.) So any conceptual relation presupposes two Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, n. 27 (ed. Vat. VI), 256. Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, n. 51 (ed. Vat. VI), 266–67; Rep. I-A, dist. 36, nn. 61–65 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov II), 400–3.

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non-comparative acts of the intellect turned towards two distinct objects. And since a conceptual relation presupposes a non-comparative act of the intellect, it can neither be prior nor simultaneous to that act. But the act of divine cognition we are considering is non-comparative. So conceptual relations do not accompany or precede divine cognition – at best, they can follow it. So there is no conceptual relation either from the divine intellect to its objects or from those objects to the divine intellect. But there cannot be a real relation either. Clearly, there is no real relation from the divine intellect to its objects, because the divine intellect does not depend on its object (rather, the other way around). But neither can there be a real relation from the objects of the divine intellect to the divine intellect, because those objects do not exist outside God before God creates them. God, however, knows them eternally, so he knows them even when they are merely thoughts in his mind. But what is not extramental cannot be the foundation of a real relation.25 Accordingly, God’s knowledge of things different from himself is reduced to his knowledge of himself. This might sound not so extraordinary: after all, it was a common view that God knows things different from himself by knowing his essence. By taking this claim to its extreme consequences, however, Duns Scotus ends up making a radical point, which was not made by his contemporaries: we can give a coherent account of how divine cognition occurs without positing any real or conceptual relation either in the divine intellect or in the objects of divine cognition. Those objects are indeed contained (eminently) in the divine essence, but they cannot serve as the foundation of a relation, whether real or conceptual. In the fourth section below, I will say more about what we should make of this talk of eminent containment.

3. Cognition without Relations Let us take a step back and consider what Duns Scotus’s treatment of divine cognition tells us about cognition in general. Since divine cognition is an admittedly exceptional kind of cognition, but still a kind of cognition, it follows that a relation between a cognitive power or act and its objects is not an essential feature of cognition. And in light of Duns Scotus’s second account, we might even say that cognizing, by itself, might not entail a relation of any sort, either from the cognitive power or act to the object or from the object to the cognitive power or act. Cognition is a non-relative phenomenon. Still, one might contend that I am moving too fast here. Isn’t the divine case too mysterious to be taken as a model for the human case? A well-experi25

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mented Aristotelian practice suggests taking the better known – which in this case is clearly human cognition – to investigate the less known, divine cognition. Doing the opposite seems a risky and questionable strategy. After all, when Duns Scotus considers human cognition, he says that cognitive acts are necessarily accompanied by a relation – actually, two relations. And it seems quite natural to take one of those two relations as explaining intentionality, namely why a certain cognitive act is about a certain object.26 That this is not the case in divine cognition would then indicate not that cognition can be explained without relations but that the divine case is so special that it cannot be taken as a guide to identify the necessary features of cognition. I believe, however, that there is a very strong reason to take a different approach. For Duns Scotus explicitly claims that the presence of a relation is something that characterizes cognition only when it is dependent on its objects and only because it is dependent on its objects: Therefore, the act of intellectually cognizing something, strictly conceived, does not require a relation, either in one extreme or in the other one. There must therefore be another reason why there is a relation in one of the two extremes. And there does not seem to be any other reason apart from either the extremes’ mutual need, if the relation is mutual, or the dependence of one extreme on the other one, if the relation is not mutual. But in this case, when God cognizes something different from himself, a mutual need cannot be posited in both extremes, as it seems. Therefore, it is sufficient to posit a relation only in the extreme where there is dependence, and that is the object as cognized. (Trans. mine.)27

26 Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, nn. 11–12 (ed. Vivès XXV), 525–26. Cross takes the so-called ‘tending relation’ (relatio attingentiae), as opposed to the measurability relation, to be the intentionality relation between a cognitive act and its object. See Cross, Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 154 (the same view is suggested in King, “Duns Scotus on Mental Content,” 87). By contrast, I think that, if one were to choose between the two relations, measurability might be closer to intentionality (and I would translate relatio attingentiae not as ‘tending relation’ but rather as something like ‘relation of contact,’ which characterizes intuitive cognition as opposed to abstractive cognition). But I ultimately think that neither of the two relations distinguished by Duns Scotus in Quodl. q. 13 can be identified with intentionality, as should be clear from my argument in this section. Duns Scotus, however, sometimes does consider intentionality as a clearly identifiable relation, at least in human cognition. See Pini, “Can God Create My Thoughts?” 27 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, n. 28 (ed. Vat. VI), 256–57: “Non oportet ergo propter intellectionem alicuius obiecti praecise, quaerere relationem, nec in utroque extremo nec in altero, – ergo oportet aliquid aliud addere, propter quod sit relatio in utroque vel in altero; illud autem non videtur esse nisi vel mutua coexigentia, si est relatio mutua, – vel dependentia in altero extremo, si non est mutua; hic autem quando Deus intelligit aliud a se, non potest poni mutua coexigentia in utroque extremo, ut videtur, – ergo praecise sufficit ponere relationem in altero extremo, ubi est dependentia: illud est obiectum ut cognitum.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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In this passage, Duns Scotus assumes his first account of divine cognition, according to which the objects of divine cognition are referred to the divine intellect but not the other way around. As he explains, cognition qua cognition does not require a relation to its object. In the human case, there is indeed a relation between the cognitive state and its object. In the divine case, however, there is no such relation. Rather, there is a relation between the object and the divine intellect. Accordingly, one might be tempted to conclude that Duns Scotus’s account of intentionality is disjunctive: intentionality is explained either by a relation from a cognitive state to its object (as in the in human case) or by a relation from an object to the intellect cognizing that object (as in the divine case). This, however, would not fit with Duns Scotus’s second account of divine cognition, according to which there can be cognition without any relation, either from a cognitive state to its object or from an object to the cognitive state that is about it. Does that mean that Duns Scotus’s second view is just hopeless? Rather, I think that this should be taken as an indication that when Duns Scotus talks of relations between cognitive states and their objects he does not intend to give an explanation of intentionality. Even in the human case, he only means to single out a feature that necessarily accompanies cognitive states as a consequence, not as an explanation of their being about something. In order to see that this is the case, we should turn our attention to what I take to be a defining aspect of Duns Scotus’s view on relations. For Duns Scotus, it is impossible for a relation to be a constituent of its foundation or of its term. Consequently, we might say that relations are posterior to the extremes they link. This posteriority does not have to be temporal: a certain thing might always be accompanied by a certain relation to another thing. It might even be the case that a certain thing is necessarily accompanied by a relation to a certain thing. Nevertheless, such a relation is explanatorily posterior to its foundation and its term – those extremes are what they are not because of the relation.28 When it comes to cognition, the implications of this fundamental fact in Duns Scotus’s metaphysics of relations are momentous. Consider for example the view he expresses in q. 13 of his Quodlibet, namely that all cognitive states are necessarily accompanied by a relation to their objects (the so-called “relation of measurability”).29 As I have already mentioned, this claim must be qualified, I base these claims on Duns Scotus’s account of relations as distinct (either really or, minimally, formally) from their foundations. See Lect. II, dist. 1, qq. 45, nn. 155–271 (ed. Vat. XVIII), 51–93; Ord. II, dist. 1, qq. 4–5, nn. 179–295 (ed. Vat. VII), 91–146. The posteriority of relations on their foundations is assumed in Quodl. q. 13, n. 18 (ed. Vivès XXV), 545. On Duns Scotus’s theory of relations, see Henninger, Relations, 68–97. 29 Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, nn. 13–14, 16 (ed. Vivès XXV), 539–40, 544–45. As I have mentioned above in note 26, Duns Scotus posits also another relation from a cognitive state to 28

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because it pertains only to human (and angelic) cognitive states, not to divine cognition and so not to cognition qua cognition. But what is more, my suggestion is that even in human (and angelic) cognition, the relation between a cognitive state and its object (say, between my thinking about donkeys and donkeys) does not play any role in explaining why a certain cognitive state (my thinking about donkeys) is about a certain object (donkeys). For that relation is posterior to the two extremes it links, namely the cognitive state and its object: from a conceptual point of view, first the extremes must be posited, then the relation necessarily follows. It is the cognitive state (which according to Duns Scotus is a non-relative item, and more specifically a quality) that explains why there is a relation and why there is that kind of relation between that cognitive state and that object. So my suggestion is that in Quodl., q 13 Duns Scotus is not answering the question: why is a certain cognitive state about a certain object? Rather, we should read Duns Scotus’s treatment as a descriptive analysis of human cognition: given a cognitive state, it is necessarily accompanied by a relation to its object. Moreover, just as that relation does not explain why a certain cognitive state is about a certain object (the so-called “specific question” concerning intentionality), it does not explain why that state is cognitive (the so-called “general question” concerning intentionality).30 Rather, it is because that state is cognitive that it bears such a relation to its object. This fits well with Duns Scotus’s claim that our way of identifying a cognitive state by referring to its object is the result of our limitations and does not depend on the nature of the cognitive state itself. If we had a deeper access to the nature of cognitive states (both our own and those of other cognizers), we could speak and think about them without any reference to the relations between them and their objects.31 But then, what explains intentionality, if it is not a relation between a cognitive state and its object? I believe that Duns Scotus’s answer would be: only the special nature of a certain act or of a certain power. That a certain state is about something and in particular a certain object is due to what that state is in itself, not to any relation that it might have to that object. In human cognition, cognitive states are qualities. In divine cognition, everything is explained by the nature of the divine intellect, which is really identical with the divine essence. So in both cases what explains intentionality is a non-relative item. its object, the relatio attingentiae, but he thinks that such a relation characterizes only intuitive cognition (at least, as a real relation; it is only as a conceptual relation that a relatio attingentiae can pertain to abstractive cognition). 30 For the two questions concerning intentionality, see Brower and Brower-Toland, “Aquinas on Mental Content,” 194. 31 Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, nn. 30–31 (ed. Vivès XXV), 577–78. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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4. The Cause of Intelligible Being among the First Scotists Duns Scotus’s account of cognition as a sui generis phenomenon, which in itself is not necessarily related to its object even though it is by its very nature about an object, might be easy to misunderstand. The cause of this misunderstanding is a widespread tendency of taking human cognition as the archetypical case of cognition – a strategy that seems to fit more Thomas Aquinas’s approach to cognition than Duns Scotus’s one. In a connected way, it is easy to fail to distinguish what pertains to cognition in itself and what specifically characterizes human cognition not because it is an instance of cognition but because it is human. This misunderstanding began very early in the history of the reception of Duns Scotus’s thought. Let me conclude with an example of this phenomenon among some of his first followers. In a recent article, Garrett Smith has called attention to a tension in Duns Scotus’s position on divine cognition that was identified by two of his fourteenth-century followers, William of Alnwick and Peter Thomae.32 The question that those two thinkers raised was: What is the cause of the intelligibility of things different from God? Or in other terms: what is the cause of esse intelligibile? Smith argues that Duns Scotus sometimes holds that the origin of intelligibility is the divine intellect while other times he suggests that it is the divine essence. And as Smith sees the situation, there seems to be no way to reconcile these two views, and “we are left with a basic contradiction in Scotus’s thought concerning the origin of intelligible essences.”33 By contrast, I intend to suggest that Duns Scotus is consistent in upholding only one view about the origin of intelligibility throughout all his writings. The key to see that this is the case is to realize that the objects of divine cognition are not present in the divine essence prior to the divine intellect’s cogSmith, “The Origin of Intelligibility.” Smith, “The Origin of Intelligibility,” 39–50, in particular 49. As Smith indicates, the passages where Duns Scotus refers to the divine intellect as the origin of intelligibility include Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 1, q. 4, nn. 262–68 (ed. Vat. III), 160–64; Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, n. 47 (ed. Vat. VI), 264–65; Ord. I, dist. 36, q. unica, nn. 28–29 (ed. Vat. VI), 282–83; Ord. I, dist. 43, q. unica, n. 14 (ed. Vat. VI), 358–59; Rep. I-A, dist. 10, q. 1, n. 22 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov I), 392; Rep. I-A, dist. 41, q. unica, n. 55 (Ed. Wolter and Byckhov II), 502; Rep. I-A, dist. 43, q. 1, n. 22 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov II), 526. See Smith, “The Origin of Intelligibility,” 42–43, note 16. Smith finds Duns Scotus holding that the divine essence is the origin of intelligibility in several other passages, including among others Lect., prol., pars 2, qq. 1–3, n. 103 (ed. Vat. XVI), 36–37; Lect. I, dist. 2, pars 1, qq. 1–2, n. 80 (ed. Vat. XVI), 140; Lect. I, dist. 39, qq. 1–5, n. 65 (ed. Vat. XVII), 501; Ord. I, dist. 2, pars 1, qq. 1–2 (ed. Vat. II), 174; Rep. I-A, dist. 35, q. 2, n. 90 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov II), 379; Rep. I-A, dist. 36, pars 1, qq. 1–2, nn. 41, 54, 70 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov II), 392, 397, 404. See Smith, “The Origin of Intelligibility,” 46, note 23. 32 33

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nizing them. Rather, the divine intellect, by turning to the divine essence, produces those objects in intelligible being. To say that those objects are eminently contained in the divine essence only means that the divine essence can represent those objects once the intellect takes the divine essence as a representation of those objects. In the human case, however, things are different. The objects of human intellectual acts are prior to the cognitive states directed at them (this is the fourth thesis that I have mentioned at the beginning of this paper). We do not produce the objects of our thoughts in intelligible being by thinking about them. Rather, those objects must be present in an intelligible species presented to the intellect prior to its act of thinking. This is the reason why human thinking occurs in two stages: first, a passage from first to second potentiality (or first actuality), then a passage from second potentiality (or first actuality) to second actuality, as I have indicated above. And this is why we need intelligible species before being able to produce acts of thought.34 My suggestion is that William of Alnwick and Peter Thomae saw a tension between two accounts of the origin of intelligibility in Duns Scotus because they took the human case as the paradigmatic case of cognition according to which the divine case should be interpreted. Since in human cognition the object precedes the act of the intellect, they assumed that something similar should be posited in the divine case as well. But as I have argued above, Duns Scotus denies this.35 I take this as an example of how important (and difficult) it is to follow Duns Scotus’s strategy with attention. Duns Scotus doesn’t start from human cognition and then extends its requirements to explain divine cognition. Rather, he takes divine cognition as a test case to distinguish what pertains to cognition as such from what pertains to it as a specific kind of cognition.

Duns Scotus, Lect. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 267 (ed. Vat. XVI), 332; Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 349–350 (ed. Vat. III), 210–11; Rep. I-A, dist. 3, q. 4, nn. 95–96 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov I), 210. According to Duns Scotus, intelligible being characterizes only abstractive cognition, namely cognition through representation, and for human beings cognition through representation is cognition through species, as I argued in Pini, “Duns Scotus on What Is in the Mind,” 321–30 (intelligible being in the human case), 339–42 (intelligible being in the divine case). 35 William of Alnwick, Quaestiones disputatae de esse intelligibili, q. 6, 161; Peter Thomae, Quaestiones de esse intelligibili, q. 2, concl. 2 and concl. 4, 33, 36–37. See Smith, “The Origin of Intelligibility,” 50–72.

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Conclusion In this paper, I have argued that Duns Scotus’s treatment of God’s cognition of things different from himself can provide some helpful information to understand his approach to cognition in general. One of the most surprising consequences of taking this approach is that for Duns Scotus the relation to the object turns out not to pertain to cognition as such. In the human case, a relation to an object necessarily pertains to cognition, because the object of human cognition is prior to it. Specifically, the human intellect, when it carries out cognitive acts, finds its objects as given to itself, present in objective being in the intelligible species prior to those acts (except when God miraculously creates a cognitive act in the human intellect).36 By contrast, when it produces an intelligible species, the human intellect finds its objects outside itself, as presented to it through sensory images, which are ultimately caused by mind-independent things. Failing to realize that this characterizes only human cognition and not cognition as such induced William Alnwick and Peter Thomae to see a tension between Duns Scotus’s claim that esse intelligibile is caused by the divine intellect and his claim that esse intelligibile is caused by the divine essence. In Duns Scotus, however, there is no contradiction, because the claim that the divine essence is the cause of esse intelligibile does not entail that esse intelligibile is prior to the divine intellect’s turning towards the divine essence – that would indeed be the case if the divine intellect worked like the human intellect, whose objects have their identity independently of and prior to the cognitive act directed at them. But this is not the case with God. Once we grasp this point, we realize that the divine intellect and the divine essence are co-causes of esse intelligibile and so can be both described as a cause of intelligibility.

Bibliography Sources Alnwick, Guillelmus de. Quaestiones disputatae de esse intelligibili et de Quodlibet. Edited by Athanasius Ledoux. Firenze – Quaracchi: Ex typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1937. Aquinas, Thomas. Scriptum super librum Sententiarum. Tomus I. Edited by Pierre Mandonnet. Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1929. –. Summa theologiae. Edizioni san Paolo: Cinisello Balsamo (MI), 19993. Aristotle. Metaphysica. Edited by Werner Jaeger. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957. Bonaventura. Commentarium in primum librum Sententiarum Petri Lombardi (Doctoris Seraphici S. Bonaventurae Opera omnia I). Quaracchi (Florence): Ex Typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1883.

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Duns Scotus, Ioannes. Opera omnia. Vivès edition. Iuxta editione Waddingi XII tomos continentem a Patribus Franciscanis de Observantia accurate recognita. Paris: apud Ludovicum Vivès, 1891–1895. –. Opera omnia. Vatican edition. Edited by Carl Balić et al. Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950–2013. –. The Examined Report of the Paris Lecture. Reportatio I-A. Latin Text and English Translation. 2 vols. Edited by Allan B. Wolter and Oleg V. Bychkov. St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 2004 and 2008. –. Opera philosophica. General editors Girard J. Etzkorn and Timothy B. Noone. St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1997–2006. Gandavo, Henricus de. Quodlibeta. Paris: In chalcographia Iodicii Badii Ascensii, 1518. Photostatic Reprint Louvain: Bibliohèque S.J, 1961. –. Quodlibet IX. Edited by R. Macken (Henrici de Gandavo Opera omnia IX). Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1983. Olivi, Petrus Ioannis. Quaestiones in secundum librum Sententiarum. Edited by Bernard Jansen. 3 vols. Quaracchi: Ex Typigraphia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1922–26. Thomae, Petrus. Quaestiones de esse intelligibili. Edited by Garrett R. Smith. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2015.

Studies Boland, Vivian. Ideas in God according to Saint Thomas Aquinas: Sources and Synthesis. Leiden/New York/Köln: E.J. Brill, 1996. Brower, Jeffrey E. and Susan Brower-Toland. “Aquinas on Mental Representation: Concepts and Intentionality.” The Philosophical Review 117 (2008), 193–243. Cross, Richard. Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Frost, Gloria. “John Duns Scotus on God’s Knowledge of Sins: A Test-Case for God’s Knowledge of Contingents.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 41 (2010), 15–34. Henninger, Mark G. Relations: Medieval Theories 1250–1325. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. King, Peter. “Duns Scotus on Mental Content.” In Duns Scotus à Paris 1302–2002. Edited by Oliver Boulnois et al., 65–88. Turnhout: Brepols, 2004. Pini, Giorgio. “Can God Create My Thoughts? Scotus’s Case against the Causal Account of Intentionality.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 49 (2011), 39–63. –. “Two Models of Thinking: Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus on Occurrent Thoughts.” In Intetionality, Cognition, and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy. Edited by Gyula Klima, 81–103. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2015. –. “Duns Scotus on What is in the Mind: A Roadmap.” Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 87 (2020), 319–47. Smith, Garrett R. “The Origin of Intelligibility according to Duns Scotus, William of Alnwick, and Petrus Thomae.” Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 81 (2014), 37–74.

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The Species Intelligibilis in the Cognitive Process in Early Scotism The Case of William of Alnwick Marina Fedeli

Introduction William of Alnwick († 1333) is known to have been Scotus’s secretary (socius); he belongs to the very first generation of Scotists.1 An analysis of his thought is important for two particular reasons: first, this endeavor allows us to know the early reception of Scotus’s doctrine; second, it helps us to understand the philosophical developments of theories of knowledge at the beginning of the 14th century. This article focuses on the role of the intelligible species in the cognitive process, highlighting the development of William of Alnwick’s thought within the Scotist paradigm. As a result of the reception of Aristotle’s thought, a philosophical debate arose concerning human knowledge. How is it possible that an immaterial and inorganic mind is able to understand material realities? In the Aristotelian tradition the intellect is a tabula rasa, and cognition needs and starts out from the senses. An external object makes imprints on the external senses, which in turn produce a sensible image (the so-called phantasm) in the faculty of imagination. When the intellect actually thinks of a concept of an extramental object, the cognitive process comes to an end. However, the main point here concerns the passage from the sensible to the intelligible level. In fact, a phantasm is still an image representing a concrete and singular object and it includes material conditions. Concepts, on the other hand, are abstract, universal, and immaterial. Here, the intelligible species comes into play: it is the cognitive principle used to bridge the gap between the sensible and the intelligible level. According to this theory, the agent intellect abstracts the intelligible species from the sensible ones, eliminating all the material and accidental features. This species is then im-

Research for this paper was part of the project PRIN 2017 Averroism. History, Developments and Implications of a Cross-cultural Tradition (2017H8MWHR). I thank the editors of this volume for their suggestions. 1 For Alnwick’s biography and works, see Alliney, “È necessario amare Dio?,” 87‒89; Alliney, “Time and Soul in Fourteenth-Century Theology,” XI‒XIII; Dumont, “William of Alnwick”; Ledoux, Praefatio, X–XLVI; Fiorentino, “Introduction.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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pressed upon the possible intellect, and this last faculty precisely thinks in act the essences of material things, namely the universal. To return to the debate, at the end of 13th century, as Peter King remarks, John Duns Scotus deals with the crisis of the Aristotelian psychological tradition. Thinkers such as Henry of Ghent, Godfrey of Fontaines, and Peter John Olivi deny the need for the intelligible species in the process of cognition. A further point of discussion concerns the role of the agent intellect: is it a total or only a partial cause of intellectual cognition? Scotus defends the mediation in the abstractive knowledge with new arguments, leading to a transformation of the traditional account.2 According to Scotus, the human intellect can have cognition of the universal, for this to occur a material and singular object of the extramental world must be represented adequately to the human mind, namely it must be represented in a form accessible to the intellect. Therefore, the intellect must naturally have an object that is a universal in act, prior to the act of cognizing. This present object is the intelligible species that is in the possible intellect and derives from the external object as represented in the phantasm and by the act of the agent intellect.3 According to Scotus, the intelligible species is a mental representation of an exterior object impressed upon the intellect.4 This species is the intelligible similitude different from the thing in the extramental world but representing it. In support of the necessity of the intelligible species, Scotus provides three arguments. The first concerns the required universality of objects in order to have an abstractive cognition of them; the second results from the role of the agent intellect; and the third focuses on more or less universal habitual cognitions. Scotus thus first argues that the species has a particular and unique way of representing reality. However, to think of an object under the aspect of the universal and under the aspect of the singular requires two different ways of being representative; thus, a unique species cannot represent both the singular and the universal aspects.5 Scotus secondly argues that the agent intellect is able to carry King, “Duns Scotus on Mental Content,” 66‒70. On Scotus’s doctrine on intelligible species see Cross, Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition; Dumont, “The Role of the Phantasm in the Psychology of Duns Scotus”; Perler, “Things in the Mind”; Spruit, Species intelligibilis, 257–66; Tachau, Vision and Certitude, 55–83. 3 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 349 (ed. Vat. III), 210: “Ex hoc ergo manifesto, scilicet quod intellectus potest intelligere universale, accipio hanc propositionem: ‘intellectus potest habere obiectum actu universale, per se sibi praesens in ratione obiecti, prius naturaliter quam intelligat.’ Ex hoc sequitur propositum, quod in illo priore habet obiectum praesens in specie intelligibili, et ita habet speciem intelligibilem priorem actu.” 4 Duns Scotus, Quaestiones in primum librum Perihermenias, q. 2, n. 1 (OPh II), 47: “Dico autem speciem intelligibilem vel similitudinem quae est in intellectu ut in subiecto”; cf. similarly Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 388 (ed. Vat. III), 236. 5 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 352 (ed. Vat. III), 211‒12: “Primo arguo sic: species ex hoc quod est talis species, habet talem rationem repraesentandi, et hoc respectu 2

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out a real action. Every real action has a real end term, but this end term is necessarily a universal object, that is an intelligible species, resulting from the action of the agent intellect.6 By way of the third argument, Scotus asserts that we can use a more universal habit without implying the use of some less universal habit, but we do not have an act of thinking about something more universal, unless it is presented to the intellect with the same degree of universality. Thus, if an object were thought exclusively on the basis of a phantasm, its more universal aspect would never become present in separation from the imaginable singular. Thus, a distinct and universal representation is necessary.7 On Scotus’s view, the agent intellect abstracts a universal form from the phantasm; this form is the intelligible species, which the possible intellect then receives.8 The production of the intelligible species and its reception are identiobiecti sub tali ratione repraesentati; ergo eadem species manens, non habet duas rationes repraesentativas, nec est repraesentativa respectu duarum rationum in repraesentabili. Sed intelligere obiectum sub ratione universalis et singularis requirit duplicem rationem repraesentativam vel repraesentandi, et est respectu duplicis rationis ‘repraesentabilis’ formaliter; ergo idem manens idem, non repraesentat sic et sic: ergo phantasma, quod de se repraesentat obiectum sub ratione singularis, non potest repraesentare ipsum sub ratione universalis.” For an explanation of this argument, see Perler, “Things in the Mind,” 236‒38. 6 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 359 (ed. Vat. III), 216‒17: “[…] intellectus agens est mere potentia activa […]; ergo potest habere actionem realem. Omnis actio realis habet aliquem terminum realem. Ille terminus realis non recipitur in phantasmate, […] ergo tantum recipitur in intellectu possibili, quia intellectus agens nullius est receptivus. Illud primum causatum non potest poni actus intelligendi, quia primus terminus actionis intellectus agentis est universale in actu, quia ‘transfert de ordine in ordinem’; universale autem in actu praecedit actum intelligendi […], quia obiectum sub ratione obiecti praecedit actum.” For an explanation of this argument see Cross, Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 88‒89. 7 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 364 (ed. Vat. III), 220‒21: “[…] habitus minus universalis et magis universalis sunt distincti habitus proprii, alioquin metaphysica ut metaphysica non esset habitus intellectus, quia esset de obiecto universalissimo ad omnia alia obiecta. Habitu autem universaliore contingit uti non utendo aliquo alio habitu minus universali, sicut contingit habere actum intelligendi circa universalius – eodem modo quo respicitur ab habitu illo ‒ non habendo actum circa minus universale; sed non habetur actus intelligendi circa universalius, ipsum sub tali ratione sit praesens intellectui; ergo universalius potest esse praesens intellectui per aliud quam per quod est apud intellectum praesentia alicuius minus universalis: sed si praecise intelligeretur obiectum in phantasmate, numquam esset magis universale praesens nisi in minus universali, quia numquam nisi in singulari phantasiabili, ‒ ergo etc.” 8 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 360 (ed. Vat. III), 218: “[…] realis actio intellectus agentis terminatur ad formam aliquam realem, in exsistentia, quae formaliter repraesentat universale ut universale, quia aliter non posset terminari actio eius ad universale sub ratione universalis”; n. 363, 220: “[…] primus terminus actionis intellectus agentis recipitur in possibili, et ita cum prima actio intellectus agentis sit ad universale in actu, istud universale ‒ vel illud quo ipsum habet ‘esse’ tale – recipitur in intellectu possibili.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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cal. As Giorgio Pini says, they “are just two descriptions of one and the same process.”9 It is important to note that the intelligible species is a real form impressed upon the possible intellect, that is, an accident inhering in the intellect, in which the universal object ‘shines up.’10 Once the intelligible species is in the intellect as object, another action takes place: actual intellection itself. This second action has in fact two partial causes: the intelligible species and the intellect.11 Scotus’s theory of cognition is at the heart of the debate at the beginning of the 14th century and, indeed, of its later development. Subsequent to Scotus’s death, the intelligible species remained a central issue in the philosophical debate, as Leen Spruit has clearly shown. On the one hand there are those who variously support the intelligible species as a mediating principle ‒ among these supporters there are some Scotists (such as Francis of Meyronnes, Peter of Aquila and in particular John of Reading) and some Dominicans (such as Hervaeus Natalis and Thomas Sutton). On the other hand, there are those who deny it, like Durand of St. Pourçain, John Baconthorpe and, above all, William of Ockham.12 Within this debate, it is interesting to underline that not all Scotists faithfully followed their master. This is the case with William of Alnwick. As Guido Alliney has pointed out, he contributed to the dissemination of Scotism, although his thought had numerous original features.13 Though Alnwick was certainly well acquainted with Scotus’s texts, he has frequently been described as ‘an independent Scotist,’ due to some disagreements with Scotus’s theories.14 In Pini, “Two Models of Thinking,” 95. Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 386 (ed. Vat. III), 235: “[…] dico quod intellectus non tantum patitur realiter ab obiecto reali, imprimente talem speciem realem, sed etiam ab illo obiecto ut relucet in specie patitur passione intentionali: et illa secunda passio est ‘receptio intellectionis’ – quae est ab intelligibili in quantum intelligibile, relucens in specie intelligibili – et illud ‘pati’ est ‘intelligere’.” 11 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 3, n. 563 (ed. Vat. III), 335: “[…] dico quod duplex est actus intellectus respectu obiectorum quae non sunt praesentia in se, qualia sunt illa quae modo naturaliter intelligimus: primus actus est species, qua obiectum est praesens ut obiectum actu intelligibile, secundus actus est ipsa intellectio actualis […]. Ad primum autem actum agit intellectus agens cum phantasmate, et ibi intellectus agens est principalior causa quam phantasma, et ambo integrant unam totalem causam respectu speciei intelligibilis. Ad secundum actum agit pars intellectiva (sive intellectus agens sive possibilis, non curo modo) et species intelligibilis sicut duae partiales causae.” On this point, see also the long discussion in Duns Scotus, Quodl., q. 15, 539‒79. 12 Spruit, Species intelligibilis, 257–351. 13 Alliney, “È necessario amare Dio?,” 88. 14 Brown, “Sources for Ockham’s Prologue to the Sentences – II,” 61‒62; Ledoux, Praefatio, IX. There are even those who have argued that Alnwick is not a Scotist at all, cf. Veliath, “The 9

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the context of cognition, Alnwick shows a controversial attitude toward the intelligible species. In his Commentary on the Sentences, he claims that for intellectual cognition the species in the phantasm is sufficient to represent the external object to the intellect. By contrast, in his Disputed Questions on Intelligible Being and in his Determinations, he argues for the need of the species in the intellect.

1. The Cognitive Process in Alnwick’s Commentary on the Sentences According to Stephen Dumont and other scholars, Alnwick’s Commentary on the Sentences dates from 1314, when he was in Paris.15 In this work the issue of the intelligible species is discussed in Book I, dist. 3, question 1, entitled Utrum sit necesse ponere species intelligibiles impressas in memoria praeter speciem que est in phantasia. Here, Alnwick immediately clarifies that his opinion contrasts with that of Scotus. He claims right away that the species in the faculty of imagination is sufficient for an act of thinking.16 The question is transmitted in a single manuscript, namely Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale, Ms. 172. It is the only question entirely devoted to this issue; it still remains unedited. The structure of the question is as follows: – Three arguments against Scotus’s doctrine of the necessity of the species, partly drawing on Henry of Ghent’s arguments (“contra hoc quere etiam alias rationes Henrici”);17 – The solution to the question that coincides with the exposition of Alnwick’s doctrine; – Five objections to Scotus’s arguments in support of the intelligible species; – Seven adverse arguments against Alnwick’s own opinion and the respective answers. In the solutio, Alnwick immediately states that in order to explain intellectual cognition it is not necessary to involve the presence of the intelligible species,

Scotism of William of Alnwick in His Determinationes De Anima,” 133: “William can by no means be styled a ‘Scotist,’ if the appellative is to have any significance.” 15 Dumont, “William of Alnwick,” 676. See also Fiorentino, “Introduction,” 1. 16 Guillelmus de Alnwick, Quaestiones in quatuor libros Sententiarum (henceforth Sent.) I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 48r: “Hic quere opinio Scoti contra quam arguitur; et probo quod sufficiat species, que est in fantasmate.” 17 Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 48r. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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because the species in the phantasm is sufficient.18 In support of this statement, he says: What is more universal is distinctly represented in what represents the less universal or even singular. For what distinctly represents an individual and a singular can also distinctly represent everything superior to it. But the species in the phantasm distinctly represents the singular; therefore, the species is sufficient for a representation of every superior universal.19

In other words, if the phantasmic species is able to represent ‘this man,’ it can represent ‘man as such’ or also ‘animal,’ which is more universal. He says that knowing distinctly something means knowing its essence; animal is a part of the essence of human; therefore, something that represents the singular, also represents what is more universal.20 Alnwick proves to have grasped the reason that pushes Scotus to argue for the need of the intelligible species. William’s answer, in fact, identifies one of Scotus’s main arguments: in order to think of a universal essence it is necessary to pass from one order to another, namely from the particularity of the phantasm to the universality of the intellect.21 According to Scotus, “[the concept] is not conceived precisely as the more common in the lesser common or as the universal in the singular and so not precisely as the universal in the phantasm.”22 An additional species, besides the one contained in the phantasm, is therefore required in order to represent the universal. In contrast, Alnwick argues that the same phantasmic species can represent both the particular and the universal. This is an important difference between the two authors. Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 48r: “Dico igitur quod non videtur mihi necesse ponere aliquam speciem impressam in memoria, sed sufficit illa, que est in virtute fantastica, ad representandum intellectui quodcumque intelligibile universale.” 19 Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 48r: “Quod sic patet: magis universale representatur distincte in representativo minus universalis, vel etiam singularis; quod enim representat disticte individuum et singulare potest distincte representare quodlibet eius superius; sed species in fantasmate representat distincte singulare. Igitur ipsa sufficit ad representandum quodlibet superius universale.” 20 Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 48r‒v: “Assumptum probatur, quia distincte cognoscentem aliquid oportet distincte cognoscere quicquid est de essentia eius: huiusmodi autem sunt superiora respectu inferiorum, sicut animal est de per se intellectu hominis et de essentia eius; sed magis universale non cognoscitur distincte nisi per distinctum representativum. Igitur oportet quod distincte representans singulare etiam distincte representet omnia eius superiora.” 21 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 359 (ed. Vat. III), 216‒17. 22 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 365 (ed. Vat. III), 222: “[…] non concipitur praecise communius in minus communi vel universale in singulari, – et ita non praecise universale in phantasmate.” English translation by J. van den Bercken in Duns Scotus, On Being and Cognition, 180.

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In support of this statement, William resorts to an argument of his adversaries. Those who claim the necessity of the species argue that, in order to understand essentially ordered universals, the intellect does not need all species, but rather only the first species, i. e., the species specialissima, which includes the higher species.23 Just like these specific species are representative of all the others, so too the impressed species is not necessary, since the sensible species alone is sufficient for a representation of what is more or less universal. Alnwick continues claiming that the same phantasmic species is sufficient to represent both the singular of a major universal and the singular of a minor universal. He gives an example: at sunset we may see something that at first it looks like a body to us, then at sunrise it seems like an animal, and finally we see a man. In this case, the same species represents a body, an animal, and a man. Therefore, the same species contained in the phantasm is able to represent the object both as particular and as universal.24 The uselessness of intelligible species is also closely linked to what, according to Alnwick, a universal is. Alnwick makes use of the triple division of the meaning of the universal term, offered by Scotus in his Questions on the Metaphysics, book VII, quaestio 18. The universal can be taken for a second intention, namely the predicability de multis that is the rational relation resulting from the operation of the intellect, when it compares the predicable to that of which it is predicated. In a second way, the universal can be taken for something denominated by this intention, which is a thing of first intention. The latter may be understood in two ways: in one way, it refers to the remote subject of a second intention; in the other way, it designates the proximate subject of this. As remote subject, the quidditas, or nature absolutely taken, is said to be a universal. This 23 Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 48v: “Confirmatur. Nam dicentes oppositum dicunt quod, adhoc quod intellectus intelligat universalia essentialiter ordinata, non oportet quod habeat tot species quot sunt illa, quia prima species, que imprimitur, est species speciei specialissime, ut ipsi probant: species autem specialissima includit omnia superiora essentialiter ordinata. Igitur eius representativum est sufficiens representativum obiectum illorum.” Probably, Alnwick quotes an argument from Scotus; cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 2, n. 553 (ed. Vat. III), 329‒30: “[…] respondeo quod una species specialissima, potest includere multas species alias virtualiter (sive passiones earum, sive per modum causae, sive secundum alium ordinem essentialem), et tunc habitus ille qui est formaliter illius primi includentis alia, est virtualiter aliorum obiectorum, licet non formaliter et primo.” 24 Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 48v: “Preterea, sicut species sensibilis se habet ad sensum imprimendo, ita species intelligibilis ad intelligendum; sed eadem species sensibilis sufficit ad representandum singulare magis universalis et singulare minus universalis […]. Nam primo videtur aliquid, inquantum est singulare magis universalis, puta inquantum est substantia, postea inquantum corpus etc. Et hoc non per diversas species sed per eadem, sicut videndo aliquid in crepuscolo primo iudico illud esse corpus, secundo crescente die animal, et ultimo hominem et non per aliam et aliam speciem, sed per eadem, que primo movet sensum […].” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Guillelmus de Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 48v

Duns Scotus, Met., VII, q. 18, nn. 38–41 (OPh IV), 347

[…] universale potest sumi tripliciter: uno modo pro intentione secunda, et sic non dicit nisi respectum rationis consequentem operationem intellectus comparantis predicabile eidem quo predicatur […]. Alio modo accipitur universale pro eo quod […] denominatur ab ea, cuiusmodi est res prime intentionis et hoc convenit dupliciter, quia vel sicut subiectum propinquum vel sicut remotum. Subiectum remotum est ipsa quidditas, que est tota in omnibus et de se non est ‘hec,’ sed plurificabilis et est apta nata denominari ab illa secunda intentione, non actualiter sed in potentia. Subiectum propinquum est ipsa eadem notitia, considerata ab intellectu secundum suam indifferentiam ad multa in quibus plurificatur, et sic attribuitur ibi intentio non solum in potentia sed actu.

[Universale] sumitur enim vel sumi potest tripliciter. Quandoque pro intentione secunda, quae scilicet est quaedam relatio rationis in praedicabili ad illud de quo est praedicabile […]. Alio modo accipitur universale pro illo quod denominatur ab ista intentione, quod est aliqua res primae intentionis […]. Et sic accipi potest dupliciter: uno modo pro illo quod quasi subiectum remotum denominatur ab ista intentione; alio modo pro subiecto propinquo. Primo modo dicitur natura absolute sumpta universale, quia non est ex se haec, et ita non repugnat sibi ex se dici de multis. Secundo modo non est universale nisi sit actu indeterminatum, ita quod unum intelligibile numero sit dicibile de omni supposito, et illud est complete universale.

Fig. 1.

nature is universal, because it is not particularized, specifically it is not just the ‘haec’ of itself and hence may be affirmed of a multitude; it is only potentially denominated by second intentions, and not as it actually exists. As proximate subject, the universal is the actual knowledge (notitia) which the intellect considers according to its indifference to the many by which it is multiplied. In this third way, the universal is actually indeterminate, i. e., despite being one it is predicable of many.25 This universal is, as Giorgio Pini puts it, “ready for predication.”26 Alnwick’s exposition follows Scotus’s conception of universals as second intentions or as their remote or proximate subjects. A comparison between the texts shows just how similar Alnwick’s and Scotus’s accounts are (cf. fig. 1). Alnwick goes on arguing that there is some order among these ways of considering universals: first, there is the universal as quiddity and absolute nature, which precedes any act of the intellect; this is an imperfect universal. Second, there is the universal as absolute nature according to its indifference to every supposit; this is a perfect universal. Finally, there is the logical universal that is Regarding the three ways to consider the universal in Duns Scotus, see De Libera, La querelle des universaux, 344‒45. 26 Pini, “Scotus on Objective Being,” 342. These three ways to consider universals – traditionally called physical, metaphysical, and logical – had a significant influence in the following centuries; cf. Heider, Universals in Second Scholasticism (with focus on the 16th and 17th centuries). 25

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produced by the possible intellect, which predicates this nature of various individual subjects, causing the intellection through the comparison of this subjects.27 The problem is that the two authors use these three ways to consider the universal to reach two different conclusions: Scotus wants to affirm the need of the intelligible species, whereas Alnwick wants to deny it. So, it is necessary to analyze both Scotus’s and Alnwick’s expositions. According to Scotus,28 the common nature as it is in itself, considered as a remote subject, is neither particular nor universal; it is thus neither in the intellect nor in the individuals.29 Thus, this nature can indeed exist in individuals in extramental reality, but this is not relevant for the present problem.30 What is important here is that the common nature can be universal, when it is an object of thought, and as such it is considered as a proximate subject. In other words, the complete universal is an object of thought and hence is in the intellect objectively. Now, Scotus distinguishes two ways for it to be objectively in the intellect: habitually or actually. Something is objectively in the intellect in an habitual way, when it is there as an immediate motive to an act of thinking. Something is objectively in the intellect in an actual way, when it is actually being thought about. Being objectively in the intellect habitually requires an intelligible species that is the motive reason (motivum) for the act of thinking. Scotus thus uses this triple way to consider universals in order to argue that the complete universal must be 27 Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 48v: “Unde, hoc se habet per ordinem: primo enim est universale quod est ipsa natura et quidditas in se et absolute, quod eadem precedit omnem actum intellectus, et est subiectum in scientia et obiectum intellectus et dicitur universale imperfectum. Secundo modo est universale quod est ipsa natura et quidditas, inquantum considerata […] secundum eius indifferentia ad omnia supposita, et est universale perfectum, quod est unum in multis et dicitur de multis. Tertio est universale quod est secunda intentio, causata ab intellectu […] possibili, que realiter intelligit naturam secundum se et attribuendo ipsa individuis multis; et comparando ipsa adinvicem et ad diversam causat illam intellectionem.” 28 Regarding Scotus’s theory of universals and the common nature, see Boulnois, “Réelles intentions: nature commune et universaux selon Duns Scot”; King, “Scotus on the Common Nature and the Individual Differentia”; Noone, “Universals and Individuation.” 29 Duns Scotus, Ord. II, dist. 3, pars 1, q. 1, n. 33 (ed. Vat. VII), 403: “Non solum autem ipsa natura de se est indifferens ad esse in intellectu et in particulari, ac per hoc et ad esse universale et particulare (sive singulare), ‒ sed etiam ipsa, habens esse in intellectu, non habet primo ex se universalitatem.” On this point, see Pini, “Scotus on Objective Being,” 342. 30 Duns Scotus, Ord. II, dist. 3, pars 1, q. 1, n. 34 (ed. Vat. VII), 404: “Et sicut secundum illud esse non est natura de se universalis, sed universalitas accidit illi naturae secundum primam rationem eius, secundum quam est obiectum, – ita etiam in re extra, ubi natura est cum singularitate, non est illa natura de se determinata ad singularitatem, sed est prior naturaliter ipsa ratione contrahente ipsam ad singularitatem illam, et in quantum est prior naturaliter illo contrahente, non repugnat sibi esse sine illo contrahente.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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in the intellect habitually, “so that unless the object has this concomitant presence in the intellect, universality is not in it.”31 Scotus reaffirms the need for the intelligible species, considered as an accidental form impressed upon the intellect. This form contains the universal as an object that naturally precedes the intellection.32 As Giorgio Pini explains, “Scotus also thinks that when I think about what a horse is (so when a universal such as horse is in my intellect objectively or, equivalently, an essence such as horseness is in my intellect as an object of thought), it is also the case that some items are in my intellect as accidents are in their subjects.”33 The intelligible species and an act of thinking are subjectively in the intellect inasmuch as they are representations of the object.34 In other words, the species is the vehicle of whatever is in the intellect objectively; this objective content ‘shines up’ in the species.35 According to the Doctor Subtilis, in order to have a common nature that is in proximate potency of being predicable de multis, it needs to be objectively in the possible intellect.36 Alnwick, by contrast, does not explain the reason of these three ways to consider the universal. I believe that Alnwick thinks there is no need of any impressed species in which the universal object is contained. The object that precedes the intellect is the absolute nature present in the phantasm. I find support of this interpretation in Alnwick’s own words: “The universal, considered in the first way is not caused by the agent intellect; it rather precedes any act of the

31 Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis VII, q. 18, n. 46 (OPh IV), 350: “[…] universale tertio modo dictum non est in intellectu secundo modo ex necessitate […], sed necessario est in intellectu primo modo, ita quod sine illo concomitante obiectum non inest ei universalitas.” English translation by Wolter and Etzkorn in Duns Scotus, Questions on the Metaphysics, 301. 32 Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis VII, q. 18, n. 29 (OPh IV), 345. 33 Pini, “Scotus on Objective Being,” 346. 34 On this point, the definition of species, provided by Scotus, is clearer: “Dico autem speciem intelligibilem vel simitudinem quae est in intellectu ut in subiecto”; Duns Scotus, Quaestiones in primum librum Perihermenias, q. 2, n. 1 (OPh II), 47; cf. Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 388 (ed. Vat. III), 236. 35 Duns Scotus, Rep. I-A, dist. 3, q. 4, n. 119: “Prima ergo passio est in intellectu per speciem praesentem receptam in intellectu, secunda est ab obiecto ut in specie relucente.” Regarding Scotus’s theory of objective being, see Cross, “Duns Scotus on the Semantic Content of Cognitive Acts and Species”; King, “Duns Scotus on Mental Content”; Pini, “Scotus on Objective Being,” 79‒85. 36 Duns Scotus, Ord. II, dist. 3, pars 1, q. 1, n. 38 (ed. Vat. VII), 407: “[…] nam ubicumque est antequam in intellectu possibili habeat esse obiective, sive in re sive in phantasmate, sive habeat esse certum sive deductum per rationem […], non tamen est tale cui potentia proxima conveniat dici de quolibet, sed tantum est potentia proxima in intellectu possibili.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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intellect as its object.”37 In other words, the universal as an absolute nature, i. e., the remote subject, is the only necessary object to the intellect, and it is representatively in the phantasm. In fact, the imperfect universal is the object that anticipates any act of an intellect, whereas the perfect universal, as proximate subject, is situated objectively in the possible intellect.38 According to Alnwick, only when the possible intellect considers the common nature, as a remote subject, it obtains the perfect universal, as a proximate subject.39 Alnwick does not go deeper into this question, which makes it difficult for us to reach a conclusion. Alnwick certainly denies that the species is in a subject in the way accidents are, but he does accept that it is sort of something in a certain place. Indeed, in the final arguments, he asserts that the species is “expressive” in the intellect: the species is an object that expresses itself to the intellect, without impressing itself.40 This statement immediately recalls Henry of Ghent’s theory.41 Henry denies the need of intelligible species because, as he sees it, the species in the phantasm is sufficient.42 He does admit the expressive species, which exists in the intellect as an object in a knower.43 Thus, Henry does not accept the intelligible 37 Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 49r: “[…] universale primo modo non causatur per intellectum agentem, sed precedit omnem actum intellectus sicut eius obiectum.” 38 Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 49r: “[…] sed universale secundo modo, scilicet secundum ideam consideratum, non est nisi intellectu possibili obiective, et in nullomodo subiective, nec in aliquo representativo quia sic est ubique et semper.” 39 Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 48v‒49r: “Dicendum quod licet intellectus possibilis sit passivus in recipiendo actum suum, tamen in eliciendo ipsum est activus; et sic ipse idem intellectus ‒ et non alius ‒, inquantum activus, facit de non universali universale, id est de universali imperfecto universale perfectum; inquantum scilicet intelligens naturam, que dicitur universale primo modo, considerat ipsam secundum eius indifferentiam ad multa in quibus plurificatur et de quibus dicitur; et eius representatum non ponitur aliud quam illud quod est in fantasmate secundum aliam rationem consideratam.” 40 Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 49v: “[…] in aliis potentiis imprimitur aliquid ut forma in materia et accidens in subiecto, sed in intellectu sicut locatum in loco: nunc autem locatum est aliquid expressum loco, non impressum. […] species est in intellectu expressive, non impressive.” Alnwick does not explain the meaning of ‘species expressa.’ ‘Expressive’ indicates that this species expresses itself in the intellect as an object and so is objectively in the intellect, and not as a form in a subject. 41 I am aware that there is no consensus about Henry of Ghent’s theory of cognition. I refer to the important study by Rombeiro, “Intelligible species in the Mature Thought of Henry of Ghent”, and the literature quoted there. Rombeiro explains that the notion of expressive species is related to the Augustinian notions of notitia and verbum. 42 Henricus de Gandavo, Quodl. V, q. 14, 176vO: “Post hoc sequitur operatio intellectus agentis in nobis circa phantasmata, hoc est non circa species impressas in memorativa vel imaginativa: sed circa obiectum particulare imaginatum intra, quod prius sentiebatur extra.” 43 Henricus de Gandavo, Quodl. IV, q. 21, 136vH‒37vI: “[…] sensus ab obiecto habet speciem receptam impressivam qua deducitur per transmutationem naturalem sensus de potentia https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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species as a form impressed upon the subject; he rather considers the expressive species as an object in the intellect. As Rombeiro specifies, an expressive species is the same phantasm that both presents the intelligible object to the possible intellect and moves it to an act of understanding. In this way, the object exists in the intellect and informs the act of understanding.44 Alnwick’s position on intelligible species is thus very similar to that of Henry of Ghent, which, moreover, is explicitly mentioned at the beginning of the question. Indeed, the object is necessary, because in the current state – that is, the state of the viator – the object of cognition derives from the phantasm, but the immaterial nature of the intellect prevents the impression of a species upon it.45 Now, returning to the difference between the Doctor Subtilis and his socius, the same ways of understanding the universal are employed to assert different theories: in the one case, we have a theory of an intelligible species impressed in the intellect in which the universal ‘shines up,’ whereas in the other case, we rather have theory of a species that is expressed, that is as something appears in a place. It would be interesting to compare Alnwick’s theory of esse obiective and that of Scotus. Although in fact there are some studies on this subject,46 these focus only on Alnwick’s Disputed Questions on Intelligible Being and disregard his Sentences. But, as we shall see, Alnwick’s opinion on intelligible species changes in that later work, wherefore studies on works subsequent to the Sentences lose their relevance. Before we move on to another work, let me briefly draw attention to another aspect of the question, namely Alnwick’s answers to Scotus’s objections – we here find a rather curious fact: Alnwick replies to five arguments that are not reported in his question. However, it is easy to recognize the source of these arguments, since they are those employed by Scotus in his various Commentaries on the Sentences in response to Henry of Ghent’s and Godfrey of Fontaines’s in actum non solum ut in potentia formatum actu informetur receptione speciei impressivae in subiecto: ut ibi sit status: sed ut ulterius potentia sentiens fiat actu sentiens receptione speciei expressivae: non ut in subiecto sed in cognoscente. […] abstractio tamen non sit neque a specie impressa: quia intellectus speciei materialis impressionem non recipit, quia esset vere alterabilis et transmutabilis sicut sensus […]: obiectum vero intellectus est idem sub ratione universalis quod conspicit in phantasmare absque omni specie impressiva.” 44 Rombeiro, “Intelligible species in the Mature Thought of Henry of Ghent,” 218. 45 Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 49r: “Dicendum quod intellectus noster pro statu isto non potest habere obiectum presens nisi per fantasmata quia nihil intelligeremus nisi in fantasmatibus secundum Philosophum. […] intellectus autem est potentia immaterialis et non organica et ideo perfectiori modo immutatur a suo obiecto quia secundum esse immateriale.” 46 de Rijk, “A Study on the Medieval Intentionality Debate up to ca. 1350,” 86‒95; Perler, “What Are Intentional Objects?”; Riserbato, “Ut induit rationem ideae”; Tweedale, “Representation in Scholastic Epistemology,” 75‒78. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 48v

Scotus, Lect. I, dist. 3, q. 1, n. 267 (ed. Vat. XVI), 332

Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, q. 1, n. 349 (ed. Vat. III), 210

Scotus, Rep. I-A, dist. 3, q. 4, n. 95 (ed. Wolter and Bychkow), 210

Ad primam cum arguitur quod “oportet intellectum habere speciem representatem obiectum universale sub ratione universalis, prius naturaliter quam intelligat ipsum,” concedo de universali […].

[…] intellectus prius naturaliter antequam intelligat potest habere obiectum actu universale praesens sibi sufficienter in ratione obiecti, quia prius naturaliter obiectum est praesens intellectui quam actus eliciatur; ergo intellectus habet obiectum universale sibi praesens in ratione speciei intelligibilis prioris naturaliter actu intelligendi.

[…] intellectus potest intelligere universale, accipio hanc propositionem: ‘intellectus potest habere obiectum actu universale, per se sibi praesens in ratione obiecti, prius naturaliter quam intelligat.’ Ex hoc sequitur propositum, quod in illo priore habet obiectum praesens in specie intelligibili, et ita habet speciem intelligibilem priorem actu.

[…] intellectus potest habere obiectum actu universale perfecte sibi praesens antequam vel prius naturaliter quam intelligat: ergo habet speciem obiecti in intellectu et non solum in phantasmate priusquam intelligat.

Fig. 2.

denial of the intelligible species. In these objections, all of which are partially quoted by Alnwick, Scotus makes the point that if the intellect can know any object under the aspect of a universal (such as ‘triangle’), then the intellect must have the universal as a present object before any act of the intellect. Scotus holds that this universal object is identical with the intelligible species. This conclusion is proved by way of various arguments that all concern the universality of the object and its presence.47 The schematic comparison in fig. 2 shows, how easy it is to recognize Scotus’s argument in Alnwick’s text. As the comparison shows, it is difficult to recognize which text Alnwick refers to. The idea that Alnwick wants to convey in his discussion of these objections is this: it is true what Scotus says, namely that the intellect can naturally have a universal object present to it before it may think, but this universal object must be regarded as the remote subject of the first intention. The imperfect universal, the first one in that order which Alnwick had previously established, is present to the intellect as an object. But for this to happen, no further species is required, because the singular and the universal are not opposite, but rather subordinated aspects. According to Alnwick, the ratio of the singular is included in the ratio of the universal, taken as an absolute nature. In other words, ‘hu-

47

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manity’ as a quiddity includes ‘this humanity’ that is contained in the phantasm, being the result of the perception of a human being in front of me.48 To sum up Alnwick’s position in his Commentary on the Sentences, he clearly asserts that there is no need for the intelligible species impressed upon the possible intellect and numerically distinct from that of the phantasm. He believes that the phantasmatic species is sufficient in order to represent both the universal and the singular. Alnwick explains that these two are subordinated, that is, the universal, meant as a quiddity, includes the particular. This diverges remarkably from Scotus’s thought on the matter because, as Dominik Perler has been shown, according to Scotus the two aspects ‘universal’ and ‘singular’ are formally distinct and so one of them cannot exist apart from the other. But in order to represent the same thing both as singular and universal we need two different categories of devices.49 On Scotus’s account, the phantasm always represents the thing as something singular and it cannot represent something universal. No species can have two different ways of representing. According to Alnwick this is possible: the phantasm has the double function of representing both the singular and the universal nature. In light of my analysis, it seems to me that at this early stage of his career Alnwick’s position is quite close to the one endorsed by Henry of Ghent. Secondly, Alnwick denies that the intelligible species is impressed upon the possible intellect, that is, he does not accept that the species is in the intellect as an accident in a subject. Rather, he proposes to consider it as an expressive species, namely as an object in the knower. Apart from this, I believe that there is an additional difference between Alnwick’s and Scotus’s theories of cognition, here especially in regard to the role 48 Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 48v: “Per hoc ad rationes pro opinione Scoti. Ad primam cum arguitur quod ‘oportet intellectum habere speciem representantem obiectum universale, sub ratione universalis, prius naturaliter quam intelligat ipsum,’ concedo de universali quod est natura in se absoluta. Et cum dicitur ‘ergo non nisi impressa,’ nego quia non oportet quod habet aliam speciem quam speciem singularis. Et ad probationem consequentie etiam dico quod impossibile est eandem speciem et eiusdem rationis representare obiectum idem sub oppositis rationibus, puta sub ratione singularis et universalis. Dicendum quod iste rationes non sunt opposite sed subordinate: nam ratio singularis includitur in universali primo modo et subordinatur ei.” 49 Perler, “Things in the Mind,” 237‒38: “The two aspects ‘universal’ and ‘singular,’ however, are not such qualities. They are rather the two most basic aspects which a thing has in virtue of its two metaphysical constituents […]. These aspects are always formally distinct; in extramental reality, one of them cannot exist apart from the other. […] As we need one device for representing the tree qua something green (e. g. a drawing) and another device for representing it qua something having such and such a structure (e. g. a chemical formula), we also need two different categories of devices for representing a tree qua something singular and qua something universal.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

The Species Intelligibilis in the Cognitive Process in Early Scotism

played by the possible and the agent intellects. According to Scotus, the first operation of the agent intellect consists in the abstraction and production of intelligible species in the possible intellect, and the perfect universal is contained in the species. The second action, less important in our context, is the joint production of an act of thinking by the intellect and the intelligible species.50 Alnwick, on the contrary, holds that it is the possible intellect that makes the perfect universal. He says that the possible intellect, when it understands the common nature as an imperfect universal,51 considers it according to its indifference in regard to the multiplicity in which it plurifies itself; in this way, it causes the perfect universal. Obviously, the agent intellect abstracts from the phantasm, but it does not produce any real inhering form. The perfect universal is in the intellect only as an object in the possible intellect. Regarding the role of the intellect, a deeper analysis would be desirable, but at this time we have no edited texts available on this topic. A quick look at the following question can help us to understand Alnwick’s view. The second question of distinction 3 of his commentary on the Sentences I is entitled “Whether the agent intellect is something of that image or some part of it” (Utrum intellectus agens sit aliquid ipsius imaginis vel alicuius partis eius).52 Here, he argues that the agent intellect is not required in the abstraction process, because the species in the phantasm is sufficient to move the possible intellect. The agent intellect is necessary for the act of understanding, because the actus intelligendi requires an active principle from which it is produced. Therefore, the agent intellect causes intellection, and it must be involved in the cognition process.53

On this topic, see Duns Scotus, Ord. II, dist. 3, pars 1, q. 2 (ed. Vat. VII), 245–330, and in particular Duns Scotus, Quodl., q. 15, 410‒45. 51 It would be interesting to compare Alnwick’s early theory on common nature and that of Scotus. On Alnwick’s view see Stella, “Illi qui student in Scoto,” and Petagine, “Natura comune e individuazione per materiam.” 52 This question deals with the theological problem, deriving from Augustine, whether the human mind (and its faculties) is an image of the Trinity. 53 Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 2 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 49v: “Ponitur ergo intellectus agens propter aliam necessitatem, que est a parte actus intelligendi, quia, ut dictum est in questione precedenti, sicut individuum continet in se omnia superiora, ita eius representatum potest representare omnia superiora. Et ita, propter obiectum, non est necessarius intellectus agens; sed est necessarius propter actum quia, quando aliquis effectus, non per se existens, est aliquando in actu et aliquando in potentia – qualis est actus intelligendi – requirit principium activum a quo producatur et passum in quo recipiatur […]. Igitur et principium activum erit intellectus, qui dicetur intellectus agens, eo quod est causans actus.”

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2. The Intelligible Species in Alnwick’s Later Works The question from the Commentary on the Sentences is certainly Alnwick’s broadest and most interesting exposition on the issue of the intelligible species. But Alnwick seems to have changed his mind in his later works. Both in his Disputed Questions on Intelligible Being and in his Determinations, Scotus’s former secretary affirms the need for the intelligible species. Recently, Francesco Fiorentino has suggested that Alnwick’s work can be dated to some time just after 1316, the year he left Paris due to his new appointment as Master of Theology in Oxford.54 In question 1 of his Disputed Questions on Intelligible Being, Alnwick argues that: the agent intellect makes nothing but an intelligible species (or an act of intellectual cognition), because whatever it might be supposed to make in the faculty of imagination or phantasia would be material and extended the length of the material or corporeal faculty’s organ.55

Thus, Alnwick reconsiders both the role of phantasms, which can represent an object with all material conditions, and that of the agent intellect which makes the intelligible species. In this text Alnwick uses the argument of material extension of phantasia because it is a material faculty and so its intelligible content would be material. This argumentation is similar to that used by Scotus in the Ordinatio and in the Reportatio, according to which the end term of a real action of an agent intellect cannot be received by the phantasm, because the thing received would be extended. However, then the agent intellect would not bring about a transfer from one order (that of the particularity of the phantasm) to another (that of the universality of the intellect).56 Nevertheless, in support of the hypothesis that he changed his mind there are also the Determinations. This work dates from 1321–1322, when Alnwick was in Bologna.57 In question 1, edited by Tommaso Stella, Alnwick deals with the topic of the intelligible species in response to Prosper of Reggio Emilia, Fiorentino, “Introduction,” 1. Alnwick, Quaestiones disputatae de esse intelligibili, q. 1, 10: “Sed intellectus agens non facit nisi speciem intelligibilem sive actum intelligendi, quia quidquid poneretur facere in virtute imaginativa sive phantastica esset materiale et extensum ad extensionem organi virtutis materialis.” English translation from Pasnau, “William Alnwick. Intelligible Being,” 160. 56 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 1, n. 359 (ed. Vat. III), 216‒17: “[…] intellectus agens est mere potentia activa, […]; ergo potest habere actionem realem. Omnis actio realis habet aliquem terminum realem. Ille terminus realis non recipitur in phantasmate, quia illud receptum esset extensum, et ita intellectus agens non transferret ab ordine in ordinem, – nec illud esset magis proportionatum intellectui possibili quam phantasma.” Cf. further Rep. I-A, dist. 3, q. 4, n. 103, 212. 57 Dumont, “William of Alnwick,” 676. See also Fiorentino, “Introduction,” 1. 54

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whose name is indicated in the margin of the manuscript Palatinus Latinus 1805 of the Vatican Library. Prosper claims that the intelligible species is not formally in the intellect, but only in the senses. In the replies, Alnwick informs his reader that in another place there are many arguments against the intelligible species as forms in the senses. Alnwick says: “Contra secundam conclusionem suam, in qua dicit quod species intelligibilis non est formaliter in intellectu sed in sensu, habes alibi plura argumenta. Quaere contrarium ibi.”58 Stella suggests that Alnwick is referring to the question about second intentions found in Vaticanus Latinus 6768, but Roberto Lambertini proved that this question is not attributable to Alnwick.59 It is possible that he is referring to distinction 3, question 1, of his Sentences I, but the Determinatio speaks about ‘plura argumenta’ that in the question of the Sentences would be Scotus’s argumentations. If this is the case, then ‘quaere contrarium ibi’ indicates that in the Determinations Alnwick explicitly points to his change of mind regarding the role of the intelligible species. In reality, here Alnwick claims that the human intellect, in its present state, understands through the mediation of phantasms, which means that in our present state the connection between the powers of the imagination and of the intellect is such that we can know nothing about the universal unless we imagine a singular instantiation of it.60 Alnwick argues that intellectual cognition requires the presence of the object as the intelligible species, which represents it. The intelligible species precedes the act of the intellect, and it is generated by both the object and the intellect.61 The object is formally present in the intellect, since the species, which represents it, is as a form in the intellect.62 Now, Alnwick considers the intelligible species as a form in the intellect that is necessary for the cognition, because it represents the object. Furthermore, Alnwick, Determinationes, q. 1, in Stella, “La sindrome della scienza,” 780. Lambertini, “Intentions in Fourteenth-Century Bologna,” 447: “A comparison with some of Alnwick’s positions revealed that this Franciscan theologian active in Bologna supported a theory of intentions which was different from the one championed by the Bolognese masters.” 60 Alnwick, Determinationes, q. 1, in Stella, “La sindrome della scienza,” 784: “[…] intellectus noster pro statu isto capit praesentiam obiecti sui a sensu, ut speciem intelligibilem, et ideo nihil intelligit nisi per conversionem ad phantasmata, propter quod intellectus noster prius intelligit alia quam se.” 61 Alnwick, Determinationes, q. 1, in Stella, “La sindrome della scienza,” 781: “Sed actus intelligendi praesupponit praesentiam obiecti; nihil enim potest intelligi nisi sit praesens intellectui in ratione obiecti; est autem obiectum intelligibile praesens intellectui per speciem intelligibilem rappresentantem obiectum. […] sed species generatur ab obiecto et intellectu et non ab actu intelligendi […]. Sed obiectum et intellectus agens sunt agentia naturalia, et intellectus possibilis est dispositus ad recipiendum. Ergo ipsis ad invicem approximatis et non impeditis causabitur perfecta species intelligibilis.” 62 Alnwick, Determinationes, q. 1, in Stella, “La sindrome della scienza,” 784: “Obiectum dicitur esse formaliter praesens in potentia aliqua quia eius species repraesentans ipsum est formaliter in illa potentia.” 58

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the agent intellect has an indispensable function not only for the act of understanding, but in particular insofar as it is a concurrent cause of the intelligible species. Although it is impossible to compare two questions about the same issue, it seems quite evident that Alnwick changes his mind about how the cognitive process happens from the Commentary on the Sentences to his later works. At first, Alnwick states that the intelligible species is unnecessary since the species in the phantasm is sufficient for intellectual cognition: it can represent both the singular and the universal aspects. Therefore, a species impressed upon the intellect is not necessary. A few years later, in his Disputed Questions on Intelligible Being, and in particular in his Determinations, Alnwick claims that the intelligible species as a form is necessary in order to present the object to the intellect. This species is produced by the object and the agent intellect before the act of understanding. What remains constant is the link between the two faculties: in our present state, in fact, the intellect and the imagination cooperate. Thus, knowing the universal is possible only if the representation of a singular is present in the imagination. What is the reason for this change in Alnwick’s thought? The encounter with other Scotists could have influenced Alnwick’s ideas. In fact, once Alnwick was in Oxford, he almost certainly met John of Reading,63 often described as the most loyal among Scotus’s followers.64 I think that Alnwick’s change of mind may have derived from the confrontation with a faithful Scotist like Reading. In fact, in the Determinatio 16, Alnwick says that he was able to reconsider some of his positions thanks to “those who study Scotus” (illi qui in Scoto student).65 In Reading’s Commentary on the Sentences I, dist. 3, question 3, which has been edited by Gedeon Gàl, he now presents himself precisely as a defender of Scotus’s position about intelligible species. In this question, first he reports the opinions of those who deny the species. Second, in the main response to the question, he defends Scotus’s arguments in support of the necessity of the species (namely the three arguments about universality) from the attacks of opponents such as Richard of Drayton and William of Ockham.66 Now, in the first part of

63 Alnwick became the forty-second regent Franciscan Master in Theology in Oxford probably in 1316. In the same year John of Reading was probably in Oxford as Bachelor and read his Sentences; cf. Ledoux, “Praefatio,” X, and Alliney, “Fra Scoto e Ockham,” 275‒76. See also Fiorentino, “Introduction,” 1. 64 Alliney, “Fra Scoto e Ockham,” 274. 65 Alnwick, Determinationes, q. 16, (Civitas Vaticana, BAV, Ms. Palatinus Latinus 1805), 128r: “Et hanc opinio ad presens tenui gratia illorum qui in Scoto student”; cfr. Ledoux, “Praefatio,” XXXVIII. 66 For the division of Reading’s question, see Gál, “Quaestio Ioannis de Reading De Necessitate Specierum Intelligibilium Defensio Doctrinae Scoti,” 69‒74. For Reading’s view of cognihttps://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 48r‒v

Reading, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 3, n. 27, in Gàl, “Quaestio Ioannis de Reading,” 82

Dico igitur quod non videtur mihi necesse ponere aliquam speciem impressam in memoria, sed sufficit illa, que est in virtute fantastica, ad representandum intellectui quodcumque intelligibile universale. Quod sic patet: magis universale representatur distincte in representativo minus universalis, vel etiam singularis; quod enim representat distincte individuum et singulare potest distincte representare quodlibet eius superius; sed species in phantasmate representat distincte singulare. Igitur ipsa sufficit ad representandum quodlibet superius universale. Assumptum probatur, quia distincte cognoscentem aliquid oportet distincte cognoscere quicquid est de essentia eius: huiusmodi autem sunt superiora respectu inferiorum, sicut animal est de per se intellectu hominis et de essentia eius.

Dicitur tunc quod non requiritur species in intellectu ante actum intelligendi ad hoc quod obiectum sit praesens, quia obiectum sufficienter repraesentatur in phantasmate. Hoc probatur, quia ideo ponitur species in intellectu ante actum intelligendi ut repraesentet universale, quia phantasma non potest repraesentare nisi singulariter, secundum eos; sed propter hoc non oportet ponere; igitur etc. Probatio minoris: eadem species in intellectu minus universalis ‒ si ponatur ‒ repraesentat magis universale. Similiter, minus commune includit magis commune, et ideo cognoscens hominem cognoscit animal.

Fig. 3.

this question, Reading reports the opinions of those who deny the species, including Henry of Ghent and those who support his doctrine in other ways. Of these opinions, as Gàl notes, five out of 20 arguments are present in the question of Alnwick’s Commentary, previously analyzed. Even though the two texts are not verbatim identical, it is a fair bet that Reading refers precisely to Alnwick’s text; cf. the comparison in fig. 3. There is one more argument where the similarity is quite manifest: here, both Alnwick’s argument and Reading’s text speak about the species as something expressed in a place; cf. the comparison in fig. 4. These examples prove that John of Reading knows the position of Alnwick’s Sentences on intelligible species. In his question, Reading reports both Scotus’s arguments and the objections that circulated in his own milieu. He carefully replies to them, including Alnwick’s argument. There is therefore a chance that Alnwick’s encounter with Reading led the former to change his mind regarding intelligible species. It could be argued that Alnwick did not need Reading to understand Scotus’s opinion because he knew very well Scotus’s texts. I believe that, if Reading played a part in the development of Alnwick’s tion, see also Fiorentino, “Species nei secoli XIII–XIV,” and Tachau, Vision and Certitude, 166‒ 79. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Alnwick, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 1 (Assisi, Bibl. Com., Ms. 172), 49v

Reading, Sent. I, dist. 3, q. 3, n. 13, in Gàl, “Quaestio Ioannis de Reading,” 79‒80

[…] in aliis potentiis imprimitur aliquid ut forma in materia et accidens in subiecto, sed in intellectu sicut locatum in loco: nunc autem locatum est aliquid expressum loco, non impressum.

[…] locatum non est in loco formaliter sicut accidens in subiecto vel sicut forma in materia. Sed III De anima, “anima est locus specierum, non tota sed intellectiva”; et ita species est in intellectu sicut quasi in loco; igitur formaliter species ponenda in intellectu.

Fig. 4.

theory of cognition, his role is to have shown the inconsistency of some part of Alnwick’s doctrine (but I don’t know which one!). In other words, I think that if Alnwick changed his mind about intelligible species, this is a consequence of a reorganization of his general thought. My comparative analysis is admittedly reductive, since it is conducted on the basis of a few texts. If there were any presently known direct quotes from Reading concerning species in Alnwick’s Determinations or in his other later works, then we would have been able to say with more certainty that the origin of Alnwick’s change of mind lies in the debate between the two Scotists. In the absence of such evidence, this reconstruction is at least quite probable.

Conclusion At different stages of his career, William of Alnwick has proposed two different approaches to the cognitive process. Certainly, there are still many points that deserve further clarification, a difficult task, however, given the lack of published texts. Currently, we can say that in an early work ‒ his Commentary on the Sentences ‒ Alnwick argues against Scotus’s theory of the intelligible species. He claims that they are unnecessary, because the species in the phantasm can provide both the singular representation and the universal. What can represent an individual distinctly, can also represent something more universal. The same species can thus represent two distinct ways due to subordination, namely inasmuch as the universal, understood as absolute nature, includes the singular. In this early phase, Alnwick’s thought is closer to that of Henry of Ghent than to that of Scotus. Indeed, he denies the impressed species in the memory (he is here speaking of the expressive species). As other scholars on Alnwick have already noted, he seems to have been influenced by Henry’s view in different areas of his thought. As Maarten Hoenen states, “most Scotists associated themselves with the position of Henry of Ghent without taking too much notice of the rehttps://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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statements of Scotus.”67 However, Henry’s and William’s theories are not completely convergent, since the former identifies a virtual separation,68 whereas the latter speaks of subordination between the singular and the universal aspect. At a later moment, as a result of his stay in Oxford, William of Alnwick changes his view of the intelligible species, now considering them as necessary for any act of thought. The intellect must have the object present in the form of the species that represents it. In the Determinations, the agent intellect has an active role in the production of the universal since it produces the universal in the species by involving the phantasm. Finally, we have seen how this change in Alnwick’s mind is probably due to the confrontation in Oxford with John of Reading, who was a loyal Scotist.

Bibliography Manuscript sources Alnwick, Guillelmus de. Determinationes. Civitas Vaticana, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ms. Palatinus Latinus 1805. –. Quaestiones in Quatuor Libros Sententiarum. Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale, Ms. 172.

Printed sources Alnwick, Guillelmus de. Quaestiones disputatae de esse intelligibili et de quodlibet. Edited by Athanasius Ledoux. Firenze: Quaracchi 1937. –. “Utrum habitus scientiae sit subiective in intellectu.” Edited by P. Tommaso Stella. In id., “La sindrome della scienza nella questione ‘Utrum habitus scientiae sit subiective in intellectu’ di Guglielmo di Alnwick (1317?).” Orientamenti pedagogici XV, 4 (1968), 767‒803. –. “Intelligible Being.” Translated by Robert Pasnau. In The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts, Volume Three: Mind and Knowledge. Edited by Robert Pasnau, 152‒77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duns Scotus, Ioannes. Quaestiones quodlibetales. In: Obras del Doctor Sutil Juan Duns Escoto. Cuestiones cuodlibetales. Edited by Felix Alluntis. Madrid: La Editorial catolica, 1968. –. Opera omnia. Vatican edition. Edited by Carl Balić et al. Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950–2013. –. Opera philosophica. General editors Girard J. Etzkorn and Timothy B. Noone. St. Bonaventure, New York: The Franciscan Institute, 1997–2006. Hoenen, “Scotus and the Scotist school,” 204. Henricus de Gandavo, Summa (Quaestiones ordinariae), art. 58, q. 2, II, 130rG: “[…] nec ipsa species quae est phantasma universale, abstrahitur a phantasmate particulari per modum separationis realis aut generationis aut multiplicationis in intellectu […] sed solum per quandam separationem virtualem conditionum materialium et particularium […]: qua scilicet habet virtutem immutandi intellectum.” 67

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–. On Being and Cognition: Ordinatio 1.3. Edited and translated by John van den Bercken. New York: Fordham University Press, 2016. –. Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle. Translated by Girard J. Etzkorn, Allan B. Wolter. Vol. II. St. Bonaventure, New York: The Franciscan Institute, 1998. Gandavo, Henricus de. Summa quaestionum ordinarium, II. Paris: Iodocus Badius Ascensius, 1520. Reprint St. Bonaventure (NY): The Franciscan Institute, 1953. –. Quodlibeta. Paris: Iodocus Badius Ascensius, 1518. Reprint Louvain: Bibliothèque S. J., 1961. Reading, Ioannes de. “Quaestio de Necessitate Specierum Intelligibilium Defensio Doctrinae Scoti.” Edited by Gedeon Gál. In id., “Quaestio Ioannis de Reading De Necessitate Specierum Intelligibilium Defensio Doctrinae Scoti,” Franciscan Studies 29 (1969), 66‒156.

Studies Alliney, Guido. “È necessario amare Dio? Una questione inedita di Guglielmo di Alnwick sulla fruizione beatifica.” In Parva Mediaevalia. Studi per Maria Elena Reina. Edited by Guido Alliney and Luciano Cova, 87‒128. Trento: Università degli Studi di Trieste, 1993. –. Time and Soul in Fourteenth-Century Theology. Three Questions of William of Alnwick on the Existence, the Ontological Status and the Unity of Time. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 2002. –. “Fra Scoto e Ockham: Giovanni di Reading e il dibattito sulla libertà a Oxford (1310– 1320).” Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale 7 (1996), 243‒368. Boulnois, Olivier. “Réelles intentions: nature commune et universaux selon Duns Scot.” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 97, 1 (1992), 3‒33. Brown, Stephen F. “Sources for Ockham’s Prologue to the Sentences – II.” Franciscan Studies 27 (1967), 39‒107. Cross, Richard. “Duns Scotus on the Semantic Content of Cognitive Acts and Species.” Quaestio 10 (2010), 135–54. –. Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. De Libera, Alain. La querelle des universaux. De Platon à la fin du Moyen Age. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1996. de Rijk, Lambertus M. “A Study on the Medieval Intentionality Debate up to ca. 1350.” in Giraldus Odonis. Opera philosophica. II, De intentionibus, 19‒352. Leiden and Boston: Brill 2005. Dumont, Richard. “The Role of the Phantasm in the Psycology of Duns Scotus.” The Monist 49/4, (1965) 617‒33. Dumont, Stephen D. “William of Alnwick.” In A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages. Edited by Jorge J. E. Gracia and Timothy B. Noone, 676‒77. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. Fiorentino, Francesco. “Introduction. William Alnwick and the Editing Criteria.” In William of Alnwick. Questions on Science and Theology. Edited by Francesco Fiorentino, 1‒37. Münster: Aschendorff, 2020. –. “Species nei secoli XIII–XIV.” Mediaevalia. Textos e Estudos 26 (2007), 81‒135. Heider, Daniel. Universals in Second Scholasticism. A comparative study with focus on the theories of Francisco Suárez S.J. (1548–1617), João Poinsot O.P. (1589–1644) and Bartolomeo Mastri da Meldola O.F.M. Conv. (1602–1673), Bonaventura Belluto O.F.M. Conv. (1600– 1676), Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2014.

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Hoenen, Maarten J.F. “Scotus and the Scotist School. The Tradition of Scotist Thought in the Medieval and Early Modern Period.” In John Duns Scotus. Renewal of Philosophy. Edited by Egbert P. Bos, 197‒210. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988. King, Peter. “Duns Scotus on Mental Content.” In Duns Scot à Paris, 1302–2002. Actes du colloque de Paris, 2–4 septembre 2002. Edited by Olivier Boulnois, Elisabeth Karger, JeanLuc Solère, Gérard Sondag, 65‒88. Turnhout: Brepols, 2004. –. “Scotus on the Common Nature and the Individual Differentia.” Philosophical Topics 20/2 (1992), 51‒76. Lambertini, Roberto. “Intentions in Fourteenth-Century Bologna. Jandun, Alnwick, and the Mysterious ‘G’.” In Medieval Analyses in Language and Cognition. Acts of the Symposium The Copenhagen School of Medieval Philosophy January 10‒13, 1996. Edited by Sten Ebbesen and Russel L. Friedman, 431‒51, Copenhagen: The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 1999. Ledoux, Athanasius. “Praefatio.” In Guillelmus de Alnwick, Quaestiones disputatae de esse intelligibili et de quodlibet. Edited by Athanasius Ledoux, XXIII‒XLVI. Firenze: Quaracchi 1937. Noone, Timothy. “Universals and Individuation.” In The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus. Edited by Thomas Williams, 100‒28. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Perler, Dominik. “Things in the Mind. Fourteenth-Century Controversies over ‘Intelligible Species’.” Vivarium, 34, 2 (1996) 231‒53. Petagine, Antonio. “Natura comune e individuazione per materiam. La prospettiva di Giovanni Duns Scoto.” Forum. Supplement to Acta Philosophica 2, 2016, 125‒47. Pini, Giorgio. “Scotus on Objective Being.” Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 26 (2015), 337‒68. –. “Two Models of Thinking: Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus on Occurrent Thoughts.” In Intentionality, Cognition, and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy. Edited by Gyula Klima, 81‒103. New York: Fordham University Press, 2015. Riserbato, Davide. “Ut induit rationem ideae. L’essenza divina e l’essere intelligibile: identità (e differenza) secondo Guglielmo di Alnwick”, in Divine Ideas in Franciscan Thought (XIII th -XIVth Century). Edited by Jacopo Francesco Falà and Irene Zavattero, 177‒201. Rome: Aracne, 2018. Spruit, Leen. Species Intelligibilis. From Perception to Knowledge. I: Classical Roots and Medieval Discussions. Leiden‒New York‒Köln: Brill, 1994. Stella, Prospero T. Illi qui student in Scoto: Guglielmo di Alnwick e la ‘haecceitas’ scotista. Torino: Società editrice internazionale, 1969. Tachau, Katherine H. Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham: Optics, Epistemology, and the Foundations of Semantics, 1250–1345, Leiden: Brill, 1988. Tweedale, Martin M. “Representation in Scholastic Epistemology.” In Representation and Objects of Thought in Medieval Philosophy. Edited by Henrik Lagerlund, 65‒80. Ashgate: Aldershot, 2005. Veliath, Dominic. “The Scotism of William of Alnwick in His Determinationes De Anima.” Salesianum 32 (1970), 93–134.

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The Non-Beatific Vision of God in the Present Life Franciscus de Mayronis’s Relational Theory of Cognition Damian Park, O. F. M.

Introduction Franciscus de Mayronis was a Franciscan friar and one of John Duns Scotus’s primary students; he became a master of theology in 1323. His Commentary on the Sentences is preserved in more than 100 medieval manuscripts, a striking number given that the printing press only became widespread in Europe after the middle of the fifteenth century.1 There were even some scholars of the fifteenth century referred to as mayronistae, another mark of the influence his writings had in those times. Even well into the seventeenth century, some prominent Scotists, such as Bartolomeo Mastri and Bonaventura Belluto, used Mayronis’s works as important Scotist sources.2 In recent literature, although not as much as it deserves, Mayronis’s work has received considerable attention, and not only his cognitive theory but also his metaphysics and theology.3 However, Mayronis especially occupies a significant place in the early fourteenth century’s Franciscan intellectual tradition, particularly in the onset of the Scotist tradition. For Mayronis not only creatively explicated and developed Scotus’s thoughts in his writings, but also actively engaged in conversation with Peter Auriol and William Ockham as the “first” Scotist.4 For Mayronis, cognition (notitia) is a relation between an act of cognition on the part of the subject and an object that terminates the act. Cognition is neither just some information that an object simply causes in us, nor an indeI wish to express my gratitude to Stephen Brown, Mary Beth Ingham, and Eileen Sweeney for their comments and advice on a draft of this paper. I am also grateful to the editors of this volume, Daniel Heider and Claus A. Andersen for their corrections and suggestions. 1 Cf. Möhle and Pich, “Einführung,” 12–14. 2 Cf. Andersen, “Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition,” 194–211. 3 Concerning Mayronis’s cognitive theory, to list some closely related to this paper among many, see Maurer, “Francis of Meyronnes’ Defense of Epistemological Realism” and “The Role of Infinity in the Thought of Francis of Meyronnes;” Tachau, Vision and Certitude, 327–32; Etzkorn, “Franciscus De Mayronis: A Newly Discovered Treatise on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition,” 15–20; Cesalli, “Objects and Relations in Correlational Theories of Intentionality;” Möhle, Formalitas und modus intrinsecus, 220–57; Pickavé, “Francis of Meyronnes on Beings of Reason.” 4 For the epithet “Scotistarum princeps”, see Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, 94. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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pendent cognitive act of our own. Hence, the cognition or vision of God is also a relation between our act of cognition and its object, i. e., God. Through his relational account of cognitive theory, Franciscus de Mayronis argues that whether it be in the present or in the afterlife, wherever God exists, we can have a vision of God. To argue this point, Mayronis, under William Ockham’s influence, creatively modifies Scotus’s much celebrated doctrine of intuitive and abstractive cognition. Duns Scotus’s distinction between intuitive and abstractive cognition first appears in Book II of his early Oxford Commentary on the Sentences known as the Lectura.5 Although the distinction appears throughout his entire corpus, the core definition of the distinction, i. e., how each of them happens, remains the same over time. In the Lectura, he first distinguishes them by considering their cause. The res in se, existent and present, causes intuitive cognition and not abstractive cognition. The res repraesentativa causes abstractive cognition and not intuitive cognition.6 Secondly, he distinguishes them by considering their context. Abstractive cognition only happens in via, and intuitive cognition only happens in patria.7 These two points are closely connected to each other because Scotus’s prime example of intuitive cognition is the beatific vision, which is not possible in the present life.8 In contrast, Mayronis was more interested in what each cognition is terminated in, rather than how each cognition occurs. In his early writings he defended Scotus’s causal account against Ockham’s nominalist criticism, because Ockham rejected the decisive causal role of an existing object as existing in Scotus’s characterization of intuitive cognition. Ockham also claimed that the existence of an object is only a condition of cognition, just as an absence of an object is. Mayronis could never accept this claim because of his understanding of cognition as a relation to its object. In later years, Mayronis rejected Scotus’s causal

5 Duns Scotus, Lect. II, dist. 3, pars 2, q. 2, n. 288 (ed. Vat. XVIII), 322: “[…] prout distinguitur contra abstractivam qua per speciem, cognoscitur res in se”; Ord. II, dist. 3, pars 2, q. 2, n. 321 (ed. Vat. VII), 553: “[…] eo modo quo dicimur intuieri rem sicut est in se.” 6 Concerning Scotus’s causal account of the distinction, see Pini, “Scotus on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition,” 348–54. 7 Duns Scotus, Lect. II, dist. 3, pars 2, q. 2, n. 289 (ed. Vat. XVIII), 322: “Primam autem cognitionem non exspectamus in patria, quae est abstractiva, quia illa possumus Deum cognoscere posito – per impossibile – quod non esset (sicut modo cognoscimus rem cognitione abstractiva, quae abstrahit ab exsistentia, etsi res non sit); sed aliam cognitionem, qua videtur Deus intuitive, exspectamus in patria.” 8 Dumont, “Theology as a Science and Duns Scotus’s Distinction between Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition,” 581–82, shows that Scotus uses the term “intuitive” only in the context of the beatific vision in the Lectura. Scotus expands his usage of intuitive cognition in his later writings. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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account for two reasons. First, he was influenced by Ockham’s critique. Second, he sought to secure more firmly a relational account of cognition to its object. This essay will proceed in two main steps: first, with Mayronis’s position that cognition is a relation; second, with Mayronis’s modification of Scotus’s doctrine of intuitive and abstractive cognition.

1. Cognition as a Relation This section has two subsections. First, I will present how Duns Scotus deals with relation in his cognitive theory, while taking cognition as an absolute quality based on his Quodlibet 13. Then, I will turn to Mayronis’s relational account of cognitive theory in terms of how he developed on what his master left off from. Finally, I will focus on Mayronis’s ontology of relation. 1.1 Duns Scotus: Cognition as a Quality For Scotus, the act of cognition is essentially a standalone quality, rather than a relation. This will become clearer as we consider the textual arguments. In his metaphysics of act and potency, Scotus defines the intellect, with the will, as an “active potency” that self-changes as well as brings about a change in another.9 The intellect first receives a form of an object, which we call the agent intellect’s abstraction of the intelligible species or the possible intellect’s reception.10 Then, the intellect internally produces the act of cognition proper.11 In reflecting on the knowledge that we have already gained through the reception of the species, the intellect perfects what is already there. Scotus is more interested in the second, the self-reflected act, and takes it as more truly active than the first because the cognitive potency, i. e., the intellect, actualizes itself in the second act, whereas something else, the extra-mental object, causes the intellect to act in the first act.12 This second cognitive act has again two distinct components: the produc9 Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super lib. Met. Arist. IX, qq. 3–4, n. 11 (OPh IV), 538, and ibid., n. 48 (OPh IV), 556–57; Aristotle, Met. IX, c. 1, 1046a 9–12. 10 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 2 (ed. Vat. III), 245–330; Cf. Giorgio Pini, “Two models of Thinking,” 94–96. 11 Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, n. 2 (ed. Vivès XXV), 507: “Quaestio ista non quaerit de actu terminato ad cognitionem tanquam ad terminum, quo scilicet actu producitur vel educitur, vel inducitur ipsa cognitio, sed quaerit de actu cognoscendi, qui, scilicet est ipsa cognitio actualis, ita quod iste actus, si dicatur actio, non intelligitur quod sit de Genere Actionis, quia ipsa est semper ad terminum aliquem accipientem aliquo modo esse per ipsam actionem, sed intelligitur quod sit actio, hoc est, operatio, qua agens tanquam actu ultimo perficitur.” 12 Scotus develops the notion of self-change based on this second act in Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super Lib. Met. Arist. IX, q. 14 (OPh IV), 625–73. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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tion of knowledge and the produced knowledge itself. Scotus rejects the former, the productive, as the cognitive act proper and focuses on the latter, the produced knowledge, which is an immanent act, and sees it as the cognition.13 In Quodlibet 13, Scotus considers the cognitive act in terms of three out of the ten Aristotelian categories: action, quality, and relation.14 He quickly categorizes the act that produces knowledge as an action, which brings about something. For those who regard this production of knowledge as the cognitive act proper, cognition is an action, but Scotus points out that only a certain aspect of the cognitive act can be seen as an action.15 He spends the entire quodlibet question examining the characteristics of the latter act, the produced knowledge, which he calls an ‘operation’ as opposed to an ‘action.’ This Quodlibet question is designed to defend his position that the cognitive operation is essentially an absolute entity, i. e., a quality, against a position that it is essentially a relation. Absolute entities do not need anything other than themselves to be defined as individual entities, whereas relations exist only in regard to something else. Consider relations like ‘father’ or my ‘being taller.’ A man is a father only in relation to his son and I am only taller than someone who is shorter than me. Scotus’s anonymous opponent in this Quodlibet question sees cognition as a relation because one cannot understand cognitive acts apart from their terms.16 However, Scotus does not think that an act of cognition always requires an object, and even when it does, he thinks it is not the object but the cognitive operation itself as an absolute entity that is more essential in cognition. Scotus first shows that an absolute entity is necessarily involved in every operation, including cognitive operation in art. 1. He then shows how this absolute entity is related to the object to create a relation in art. 2, and that this Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 27, qq. 1–3, n. 55 (Vat. VI), 86. Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13 (ed. Vivès XXV), 507–86. 15 Pini, “Two Models of Thinking,” and Cross, Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 107–10, present the common interpretation of Aquinas’s cognitive theory that Aquinas understands cognition as an action. However, it does not seem to be the case with some Thomist commentators. They say that cognition is a quality for Aquinas too, since it is not “kinesis” (the act of the imperfect, i. e., transient act) but “energeia” (the act of the perfect). For instance, PseudoAquinas, Summa totius Logicae Aristotelis, Treatise 5, Chapter 7 quoted in George, “On the Meaning of Immanent Activity according to Aquinas,” 538, says, “Similiter intelligere et sentire sunt actiones immanentes, quia dicunt actum intelligendi vel sentiendi esse actu in intelligente vel sentiente. Haec autem actio immanens non est directe in praedicamento actionis […].” Similar positions can be found in John Poinsot, Ferrariensis and other Thomists, including Bernard Lonergan, who says in Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas, 148: “[…] it was Scotus who affirmed immanent action to lie in the first species of the predicament quality. I have not noticed such a statement in Aquinas, but I suggest that it would be Thomistic to affirm that, as esse is substantial, so immanent act is qualitative.” I thank Daniel Heider for these references. 16 Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, n. 1 (ed. Vivès XXV), 507: “Arguitur quod relativi, quia talis actus non potest intelligi, nisi cointelligendo terminum.” 13 14

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relation to the object is not essential to the act of cognition, unlike how the absolute entity is essential in art. 3. Thus, Scotus’s conclusion is: a cognitive operation is essentially an absolute entity, which falls into the category of quality, and involves usually – but not necessarily – a relation to the object, which falls into the category of relation.17 In article 2, Scotus shows how the act of cognition, understood as a quality, can have two different kinds of intentional relations to the object.18 One is a ‘relation of the measurable to the measure’ (relatio mensurabilis ad mensuram), and the other is called a ‘relation of contact’ (relatio attingentiae) or a ‘relation of tending’ (relatio tendentiae).19 The former is always quasi-real. In its actual form, it concerns intuitive cognition, and in its potential form, abstractive cognition. The latter is always actual. In its real form, it concerns intuitive cognition, and in its conceptual form, abstractive cognition. With the former, i. e., the relation of measurability, Scotus refers to the third type of the Aristotelian notion of relation that explains our cognition in general, be it sensitive or intellectual.20 Relations in this third category, including cognition, are relative not in a mutual way as we might naturally assume about rela17 Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, n. 16 (ed. Vivès XXV), 544: “[C]oncedo quod operatio, quae est ultima perfectio naturae operantis, necessario habet annexam relationem […]. Sed cum dicitur, quod ipsa est ultima perfectio praecise inquantum connectit cum objecto, dico quod ultima perfectio potest intelligi, vel aliqua summa perfectio per se una, vel perfectio integrata ex illa, et omnibus necessario concomitantibus. Primo modo dico, quod operatio est ultima perfectio, et est simpliciter perfectior quocumque concomitante ipsam, etiam illa relatione, quam formaliter importat connexio, quia si possem habere operationem beati, sine illa relatione essem beatus, non autem essem beatus, si haberem relationem sine operatione.” Also, concerning that one thing cannot be both absolute and relative at the same time, and thus, a relation is distinct from its foundation (e. g., an absolute quality), see Duns Scotus, Ord. II, dist. 1, q. 4–5, n. 219, 222 (Vat. VII), 110 and ibid., n. 244, textus interpolatus (Vat. VII), 122; cf. Henninger, Some Late Medieval Theories of the Category of Relation, 150–54. 18 We will see in section 1.2 how Mayronis adapts these in his theory of cognition. 19 Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, n. 11 (ed. Vivès XXV), 525: “Ista distinctione actus cognoscendi supposita potest dici quod primus, scilicet, qui est rei existentis, in se necessario habet annexam relationem realem et actualem ad ipsum objectum…In speciali autem videtur esse duplex relatio actualis in isto actu ad objectum. Una potest dici relatio mensurati, vel verius mensurabilis ad mensuram. Alia potest dici relatio unientis formaliter in ratione medii ad terminum, ad quem unit, et ista relatio medii unientis specialiori nomine potest dici relatio attingentiae alterius, ut termini, vel tendentiae in alterum, ut in terminum.” Ibid., n. 13 (ed. Vivès XXV), 539–40: “Secundus actus cognoscendi qui scilicet non est necessario existentis, ut existentis […] potest poni habere ad objectum relationem realem potentialem, et hoc primam, de qua in praecendenti membro dictum est, scilicet mensurabilis vel dependentiae; non autem secundam, scilicet unionis vel attingentiae. Potest etiam ista cognitio habere ad objectum relationem rationis actualem, sed illam necessario requirit ad hoc, quod sit ipsius objecti.” 20 Aristotle, Met. V, c. 15, 1020b26–32. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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tion – just like Aristotle himself who did not deal with this type in the section about relation in the Categories – but in a non-mutual way, unlike the first type of Aristotelian relations, i. e., numbers (all numbers are relative to ‘one’ and to one another), and the second type of relations holding between actions and passions (e. g., a father and his son are in mutual relation); the act of cognition, the third type, is relative to the object, but not vice versa. In Ordinatio I, Scotus mentions the relation of measurability only in a passing way to categorize the other relation, i. e., the relation of tending, in the third type of Aristotelian relations. Scotus stresses that these two relations are not identical but merely similar to each other, as they are under the same type of relation.21 In this Quodlibet, which is most likely a later work than the passage in the Ordinatio, Scotus now elaborates on this well-known Aristotelian relation. Even though we commonly speak of both the knowledge of the knower and of the knowledge of the object, in the context of the relation of measurability, Aristotle, and St. Thomas in his Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, both make it clear that knowledge is relative to the object, not to the knower.22 Scotus partially accepts this position, where he clarifies that knowledge indeed has relations to both the object and the intellect. However, he accepts that it is the relation to the object that provides the certainty of knowledge, and that the truth of knowledge thus is measured by its object. In this way, to deal with the passive character of intellection with respect to its object, Scotus develops his own version of the relation of measurability.23 He says: Here it should be noted that for “something to be measured” means that it is made certain of the specific quantity by the other [i. e., the measure], so that it implies a relationship both to the intellect that gets the certitude and to the measure which imparts it. The first of these is not real, just as the relationship of the knowable to the knowledge is not real. The second relationship is of the caused, not in being, but being known, to the cause of its being known, and this relationship is real insofar as the dependence of the caused upon the cause is concerned, which dependence arises from the character of the relata and not just because of an act of the mind referring one to the other.24

Our cognition is causally dependent on its extra-mental object and this relation between cognition and its object is real. However, this causal relation is distinct from the relation of measurability. This distinction is not quite intuitive because, in both relations, intellection is coming from the object in a passive way, and Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, p. 2, q. 2, nn. 478–79 (Vat. III), 286–87. Aristotle, Met. V, c. 15, 1020b26–32; Aquinas, In Metaphysicam V, lect. 17, n. 1026 (ed. Marietti), 320–21. 23 For the passive and active character of cognitive acts in Scotus, see Pasnau, “Cognition,” 290–93. 24 Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, n. 12, translated by Wolter and Alluntis in God and Creatures, 293.

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Scotus’s rather hasty presentation does not make it clearer either. Nevertheless, the rationale of the distinction is rather simple: one is a real relation and the other is not. The causal relation is a real relation, the object is the cause and the act is the caused. When it comes to the intentionality of the act, the relation of the measurable to its object is not entirely real because cognized being (esse cognitum) is involved. Scotus says: Nevertheless, because this relationship of dependence (not indeed of the knowledge itself upon the cause of that knowledge, which is quite real, but of the object as known to the object as that by which it is known) is between the relata insofar as they have this characteristic of “being known” [esse cognitum], it follows that this relationship is not, simply speaking, real.25

When Peter is looking at a solar eclipse, for example, Peter has an intuitive cognition of the eclipse. The eclipse is the cause and the act of cognition is the caused, not vice versa, and they have a real causal relation – a relation of dependency, as Scotus calls it. However, there is another relation of dependency in Peter’s mind between the eclipse cognized and the eclipse itself, and this is not quite real, and thus conceptual. Nevertheless, this latter relation is not entirely conceptual like the relation of the universal to the particular, because the act of cognition participates in or imitates the reality of the extra-mental object. Scotus explains this quasi-real dependency of the act of cognition on the extra-mental object, not as a similarity between two similar things, but as a similarity between God’s idea and a created object that corresponds to it.26 Although the likeness of a mental idea and the object makes our cognition possible, in the perspective of intentionality, as the likeness is not quite the sameness, it retains a barrier between the reality and our cognition that even a direct vision of a singular present object cannot ignore. In this dependency of the measurability under this Aristotelian understanding of relation, the object is the truth-bearer that ‘measures’ the act of cognition and centers on this relationship.27 Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, n. 12, translated by Wolter and Alluntis in God and Creatures, 293. This passage follows the quoted passage above. “The second relationship” refers to the relation of the measurable to its object rather than to the intellect. 26 Cross, Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 155; Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, n. 12 (ed. Vivès XXV), 526: “Non dico similitudo per communicationem ejusdem formae, sicut est albi ad album, sed similitudo per imitationem, sicut est ideati ad ideam.” 27 Cross, Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 153–67, here especially 158–61, sees that, in a relation of the measurability in which Scotus deals with counterfactual cognitions as well, cognition is intentional, not because it is in a relation to external things, but because it contains information about its object and its intentionality is intrinsic. The relation of contact is a real relation to its object simpliciter, and its intentionality is relational. Cross argues that because the former concerns both cognition and the latter only intuitive cognition, intentionality of a cognitive act is not essentially relational in Scotus. Then, he reads Scotus’s account of mental

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To this top-down approach – I call it ‘top-down’ because cognition is passively given truth by the object – Scotus adds his own cognitive story with the relation of tending, one in which cognition actively tends toward its object. In the example above of Peter’s cognition of the eclipse, we see a relation that actively tends toward its object without any dependency on the object. In the Ordinatio, the relation of tending is distinguished from the causal relation for two reasons. First, they are distinct because the relation of causality is a mutual relation (the second type Aristotelian relation) and the relation of measurability is a non-mutual relation (the third type). Secondly, they are distinct because the relation of causality is about the cause of cognition and the relation of tending is about the content of cognition, and one relation does not entail the other. That is, cognition can be caused by something, but the content of the cognition does not have to be about its cause.28 These two reasons also distinguish the relation of measurability from the relation of causality. Scotus distinguishes between the two intentional relations, i. e., relations of measurability and of tending, with ‘dependence.’ Dependency includes causality, but not vice versa. The causal relation and the relation of measurability can each be called a relation of dependency, but the relation of tending cannot. The act of cognition, i. e., operation, does not tend toward its term through the relation of tending in a dependent way. Three relations are involved in this discussion: the causal relation, the relation of measurability, and the relation of tending. The real causal relation between the act of cognition and its object explains the production of cognition. Intuitive cognition as an operation is not involved in the causal relation but is involved in the other two intentional relations. The relation of measurability describes the passive or dependent character of intuitive cognition and the quasireal relationship between the object cognized and the extra-mental object. It is an actual relation, since the existing object actually measures the intuitive cognicontent as internalist. Pini, throughout his writings on Scotus’s cognitive theory, reads Scotus’s cognitive theory as externalist, which essentially concerns items in the world. Pini, “Can God Create My Thoughts?,” 56–61, understands the intentionality expressed in the relation of measurability as essentially relational. In my reading of the Quodl., because the relation of measurability is Scotus’s adaptation of the third Aristotelian notion of relation centered on the object, it is awkward to read Scotus’s account of the relation of measurability as internalist. 28 For a comprehensive discussion on the causal relation and intentionality, see Pini, “Can God Create My Thoughts?” Pini shows that the causal relation between an act of cognition and its term does not necessarily account for the intentionality of cognition in Scotus. For Scotus, the causal relation belongs to the second type of Aristotelian relations, whereas the intentional relation belongs to the third type of Aristotelian relations between the measurable and the measure. Scotus argues that, because, in an improbable situation, God can put into us some knowledge about an object by means of intelligible species, the cause of knowledge (in this case God) is not equal to what the knowledge signifies. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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tion. Yet, because a cognitive act is never a mere passive operation for Scotus, its relation as tending toward its object is as essential as its relation as being measured by the object. According to the relation of tending, we can picture our cognitive act as it actively tends toward its object. So, the relation describes intuitive cognition’s actual attaining of a real object. Consequently, intuitive cognition has the real and actual relation to its object (“anexam relationem realem et actualem ad ipsum obiectum”).29 Say, the eclipse is over now, and Peter learns about it in his classroom with an abstractive cognition of the eclipse. On the one hand, the relation of measurability between the eclipse and Peter’s act of cognition is now only potentially real (“ad obiectum realem potentialem”).30 It is potential but not actual, because the object does not exist anymore. It is real in a qualified way, in the same sense that the relation of the measurable in intuitive cognition is real, as we have seen above. On the other hand, the relation of tending is actual, since the act of cognition can always tend toward anything whether or not it really exists. Yet, it is an actuality of a conceptual, not real, relation to its term not existing.31 The beatific vision is a standard example of intuitive cognition that requires a relation to its object. Unlike God’s uncreated beatitude, which is an intuitive cognition and an operation that does not require any relation to the object – or anything, the created beatitude is an operation that necessarily requires an actually real relation to the object for its ultimate perfection. On the other hand, our knowledge of God as an abstractive cognition does not require an actual real relation to the object. Although not required, when it has a relation, it is one of a potentially real relation of the measurable, or one of an actually conceptual relation of tending, to the object, i. e., God.32 Note that, for Scotus, a relation – even in the case where it is necessarily required – does not in any essential way constitute the operation that is the beatific vision. Because Scotus defines the cognitive operation as a quality that stands alone and can never be a relation, the operation is one thing, and its relation to the extra-mental object is another. The cognitive act as an operation is a quality that holds the relation to the extra-mental object. Scotus makes sure that the perfection in created beatitude is ultimate not because it is formally a relation but because the cognitive act itself, which is a quality, is connected to its object.33 However, while trying to find the principle of cognition in the cognitive operation itself rather than in the extra-mental object, Scotus, to ensure the obDuns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, n. 11 (ed. Vivès XXV), 525. Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, n. 13 (ed. Vivès XXV), 539. 31 Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, n. 33 (ed. Vivès XXV), 583. 32 Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, n. 13 (ed. Vivès XXV), 539–40. 33 Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, nn. 16–17 (ed. Vivès XXV), 544–45; Ord. IV, dist. 49, p.1, qq. 1–2, nn. 27–32 (ed. Vat. XIV), 294–96. 29 30

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jectivity of the cognitive operation, has no other way than relying on some form of causal relation between the object and the operation, which he calls a dependency to minimize the impression that it is indeed a causal relation (although he completely changes his tone later in Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, IX, q. 15 where he treats the intellect as a potency determined by another and develops the self-change motive only in the will).34 Mayronis, the first Scotist, moves Scotus’s project forward by legitimating the relation between the cognitive operation and the object as necessary to attain a firm objective foundation. Scotus argued against a position that the act of cognition is a relation. Instead, the act of cognition is relational as a quality: the cognitive act is the ground of the relation to the object. Mayronis concedes this conclusion. Now, Mayronis’s critical move is this: cognition is the relation per se whose ground is the act of cognition. 1.2 Franciscus de Mayronis: Cognition as a Relation Mayronis defines relation, according to Aristotle, as that which is ‘to something’ (ad aliquid).35 Then, by definition, a relation is not a ‘something’ or an ‘absolute thing,’ but it is ‘to something.’ Therefore, a relation always consists in more than one element; in fact, in three elements: a ground (fundamentum), a term, and the relation itself between these two.36 In considering cognition as a relation, the ground is the subject’s act of cognition (‘that one knows’), its term is the object of the act of cognition (‘what is known’), and the relation is the cognition itself (‘what one knows as known’).37 Mayronis develops his master’s point that the cognitive operation, i. e., the produced knowledge, is essentially separated from its relation to the object. First, there is an action that produces a cognition. Secondly, there is the operation, which is an absolute entity. This absolute entity also functions as the ground of its relation to the object. Finally, there is a relation. In this way, the cognitive act as a whole includes aspects of all three categories: action, quality, and relation. It is with this overall ontological system of cognitive act that Mayronis starts the engine of Scotism. There are two questions in his Commentary on the Sentences that explain the direction he is headed towards. In the prologue to the final version of his Cf. Cross, Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 163–64, note 27. Franciscus de Mayronis, Conflatus (henceforth Confl.), dist. 8, q. 1, 43rbH: “illud quod secundum suam rationem formalem est ad aliquid est relatio.” 36 Bos, “Francis of Meyronnes on Relation and Transcendentals,” 329. 37 Cesalli, “Objects and Relations in Correlational Theories of Intentionality,” 271–80, provides an excellent summary of the relational aspect of cognition relevant to this paper. Some of the passages in the Conflatus in this section are quoted and commented on by Cesalli. 34

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Commentary, also known as the Conflatus, we see two entire questions Mayronis reserved to address in response to the challenges from two of his Franciscan confreres, Peter Auriol and William Ockham.38 In those questions, Mayronis wrote against the tendency of moving toward phenomenalism and skepticism of his time and provided a powerful argument for epistemological realism based on his theory of relation.39 It is, indeed, the link between our cognition and the reality that Mayronis tried to preserve against the challenge. Mayronis did not hesitate to modify the details of his master’s presentation to make the Scotistic system stronger. Mayronis boldly defines the relation between the cognitive operation and its term as cognition simpliciter.40 If the operation is intentional, it is because of the relation. By elevating the relation as the ultimate perfection in the cognitive process, he secures both a firm objectivity of cognition and the agency of our intellectual power. In Book I, distinction 29, of the Conflatus, where he lays out his theory of relation, Mayronis makes clear that his point of emphasis on relation is its contribution to the certitude of knowledge. He lists as the first property of relation, the concomitant intellection of relation and its term, i. e., that when a relation is known its term is necessarily known as well. He writes: The first [property] is that it is proper to relation that it is known concomitantly with its term. Indeed, everything that is to itself, or taken generally, what is not to the other, can

The topic of skepticism around the writings of Ockham and Auriol have attracted much attention. Cf., among others, Boehner, “Notitia Intuitiva of Non-Existents according to Peter Aureoli, OFM. (1322)” and “The Notitia Intuitiva of Non-Existents according to William Ockham;” Adams, “Intuitive Cognition, Certainty, and Scepticism in William Ockham;” Tachau, Vision and Certitude, 85–156; Perler, “Does God Deceive Us?;” Heider, “The Notitia Intuitiva and Notitia Abstractiva of External Senses in Second Scholasticism,” 175–80; Pini, “Scotus on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition.” 39 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 18, 10vaM–11raD: “Utrum per potentiam divinam de nonexistente possit esse notitia intuitiva?”; q. 19, 11raD–11vbP: “Utrum potentia sive sensitiva sive intellectiva possit cognoscere naturaliter non-existens?”; Maurer, “Francis of Meyronnes’ Defense of Epistemological Realism,” 311–31, eloquently presents Mayronis’s responses to the two Franciscans in the prologue questions as an effort to bridge the gap between experience and the reality of the world. 40 Mayronis, Quodl. q. 5, 234vaM: “Si deus faceret actum intuitive notitiae, supposita possibilitate sine obiecto, si tunc esset intuitiva. Dicitur quod non esset intuitiva, nec abstractiva, nec omnino notitia, sed quaedam qualitas absens: quod de ratione notitiae est respectus ad obiectum.” Confl., prol., q. 18, n. 222, ad b (ed. Möhle & Pich), 294: “[…] quia actus intelligendi et notitia sunt duo; actus autem intelligendi est qualitas et non dicit perfectionem simpliciter, notitia autem dicit respectum ad obiectum et est perfectio simpliciter. Si ergo manet illa qualitas, non diceretur notitia, quae est perfectio simpliciter, nec aliquid ipsa intelligeretur.” 38

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be known without knowing another thing concomitantly. However, relation, if it has to be known, necessarily requires that its own term should be known concomitantly.41

Against this point, he presents an opinion of an anonymous critic: Whoever understands the act of seeing, necessarily understands the object concomitantly. But it is certain that the act of seeing is not a relation, but an absolute [entity]. Therefore, this [position] is not proper to relation that it cannot be understood without the other understood concomitantly.42

This critic contends that the concomitant understanding happens even when we understand knowledge as an absolute entity, not a relation. His argument is based on the position that the act of cognition is a quality. It sounds sympathetic to Scotus’s position and the critic could be claiming to be more faithful to Scotus than Mayronis is. Then, Mayronis responds: To the first, I say that, without the object, one can neither see nor understand the act of knowing or [the act] of seeing that has its relation to the object. This is not [in this way] by the aspect of an absolute [entity] that is in the act, but is by the aspect of relation grounded in that absolute [entity], which cannot be understood without the object being concomitantly understood. However, as one cuts off that quality, which is an absolute [entity] in the act [of knowing and of seeing], from the relation, which is an act to the object, certainly, this [quality] can be known similarly without any other thing being known concomitantly and just as other absolute [entities].43

Recall that Scotus explains a similar dynamic of quality and relation in a quite different way by saying that, even when a relation is necessary for a cognitive act, it is the absolute entity connected to its object that makes cognition possible, not the relation. On this point, Mayronis clearly distances himself from Scotus. He makes it clear, in his definition of both sensitive and intellectual cognition, that cognition is formally a relation, not a quality. It is not that Mayronis rejects the role of the operation, an absolute quality, in a cognitive process. He admits that Mayronis, Confl., dist. 29, q. 1, 88rbH: “Prima est quod proprium est relationi quod cointelligatur cum suo termino. Omne enim quod est ad se: vel generaliter sumendo: quod non est ad aliud: potest intelligi nullo alio cointellecto. Relatio autem si debeat intelligi necessario requirit suum terminum cointelligi.” 42 Ibid.: “Quicumque intelligit actum videndi necessario cointelligit obiectum. Sed constat quod actus videndi non est relatio: sed absolutum: ergo hoc non est proprium relationi quod non possit intelligi sine alio cointellecto.” 43 Mayronis, Confl., dist. 29, q. 1, 88vaI: “Ad primum dico quod actum intelligendi vel videndi cum respectum ad obiectum nullus potest videre nec intelligere sine obiecto: sed hoc non est ratione absoluti quod est in actu: sed ratione respectus fundati in illo absoluto quod non potest intelligi sine obiecto cointellecto. Qualitatem autem illam quae est absoluta in actu ut praescindit a relatione quae est actus ad obiectum: certe ista potest intelligi sine quocumque alio similiter cointellecto sicut et alia absoluta.” 41

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there is indeed an aspect of quality in cognition as well, but because one can know the quality independently from the object by the definition of quality as an absolute being, it would not qualify as a cognition, which must essentially provide an intentionality to the object. A relation connects a ground with its term. For Mayronis, the property of concomitant intellection of a relation specifically concerns its term rather than its ground.44 That a relation is necessarily known with its object, however, does not mean that cognition is essentially defined in terms of its term. It is the intentionality of relation to its term that defines relation, not the term per se. The term is distinguished from the cognition. It is true that when cognition is known, its term is also necessarily known and that cognition aims to attain the same formal content with the term. However, it is not that the term or object that defines the cognition, but the intentionality of the cognition to the term that defines it.45 When we take a look at a cognitive act in relational terms, cognition is a relation, the cognitive operation is its ground, and the object is its term. When we can say that the Thomistic Aristotelian cognition theory places the object, i. e., the term, at the center as the truth bearer, we can also see that Scotus tried to shift the paradigm and focus on the self-causing cognitive operation. However, in Mayronis, we see these two divided streams of discourse become merged to form one unified account around the notion of relation, with a much-enhanced explanatory power. Mayronis also presents the property of the concomitant intellection in terms of intuitive and abstractive cognition. As we have seen above in Scotus, on the one hand, the relation of measurability can be actually real or potentially real, and on the other hand, the relation of tending can be actually real or actually conceptual. We saw that the former of each, i. e., the actual real relations of measurability and of tending account for intuitive cognition, whereas the latter of each, i. e., the potential real relation of measurability and the actual conceptual relation of tending account for abstractive cognition. Mayronis simplifies these two accounts and understands a relation as either actual (actualis) or foundational (fundamentalis).46 Although it is not explicitly stated in the text, its referMayronis, Confl., dist. 29, q. 5, 91rbH: “dico quod relatio diffinitur per duo additamenta, scilicet, per fundamentum. Et in hoc aliis accidentibus equiparatur: et sine isto potest intelligi: et per terminum. Et sine illo non potest intelligi. Inter additamenta enim potest esse gradus: ita quod terminus sit intimior.” 45 Mayronis, Confl., dist. 29, q. 5, 91vaI: “dico quod habitudo relationis ad fundamentum est de secundo modo: et est eius passio fundata in eius quidditate. Habitudo autem relationis ad terminum est eius quidditas non tamen terminus eius et de eius quidditate.” Cf. Cesalli, “Objects and Relations in Correlational Theories of Intentionality,” 276 and 279. 46 Mayronis, Confl., dist. 29, q. 1, 88raC–D: “Ad primum videtur dicendum quod relatio potest esse sine termino. Dico ergo quod duplex est relatio in universali, scilicet, actualis et fundamentalis […]. Dico quod ex sua quidditate est ad terminum, tamen quia fundamentalis 44

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ence to Scotus’s two notions of relation, i. e., the relation of measurability and the relation of tending seems logical.47 We should note, however, that the character of the relation of tending is not very obvious in Mayronis’s notion of actual and foundational relations, especially in its relevance to abstractive cognition. As a firm realist, Mayronis seems to focus more on the positive aspect of abstractive cognition – that it is founded on quiddity – rather than its negative aspect – that it is lacking the real contact to the extra-mental object. The meaning of ‘foundational’ relation is twofold. It first means that a relation is potential, not actual. Second, the fact that it is ‘foundational’ also means that it does retain reality though it is real only in a qualified way, and its reality is founded on something else. The distinction between actual and foundational relation provides a basis for Mayronis’s relational account of intuitive and abstractive cognition. The term of an actual relation is an actually and accidentally existing thing, such as a yellow butterfly flying in front of my eyes.48 As this relation is accidental, it does not pertain to the permanent quiddity of the extra-mental object, and it ceases to exist when its term does not exist anymore. When an actual relation between a cognitive act and its actually existing term is known, the term is necessarily known concomitantly, and this explains intuitive cognition.49 My vision non requirit terminum nisi in potentia, vel potest dici quod abstrahit ab esse ad se, et ab esse ad aliud.” Here, the adjective ‘foundational’ (fundamentalis) expresses the distance in meaning between ‘actual’ and ‘foundational’ to articulate the difference between intuitive and abstractive cognition. Intuitive cognition, which is an actual relation, requires the existence of the term, whereas abstractive cognition, which is a foundational relation, does not require it. We will also see later in Mayronis’s ontology that he also uses ‘foundational’ to express the distance between ‘real’ and ‘conceptual.’ In this latter usage, both actual relation and foundational relation here are ‘formal beings,’ i. e., not simply real, that gain reality foundationally. For the relatio fundamentalis, see Bos, “Francis of Meyronnes on Relation and Transcendentals,” 329– 30. 47 Mayronis’s relatio fundamentalis clearly refers to abstractive cognition. Cf., e. g., Franciscus de Mayronis, Confl., dist. 29, q. 1, 89raD. Yet, I did not find any direct reference in Mayronis that connects the relatio actualis to intuitive cognition. However, the connection seems substantial because of the striking resemblance of Mayronis’s distinction with Scotus’s distinction between cognitive relations. 48 Mayronis, Confl., dist. 30, q. 3, 94vaK: “illum voco respectum fundamentalem qui est in suo fundamento non per accidens sed per se. Formalis vel actualis est ille qui inest suo fundamento per accidens.” 49 One might ask if one apprehends relation concomitantly by knowing the object first. However, one should keep in mind that, in Mayronis, when we are aware of an object, that awareness itself is a relation, through which we come to know the object. Therefore, logically, relation comes first and then the knowledge. It is clearer when he talks about how we come to know the Divine Essence. We come to know the Divine Essence through an extrinsic relation, i. e., cognition, added between God and us. Cf. Mayronis, Confl., dist. 1, q. 4, art. 1, 13vbO. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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of the butterfly, for example, is necessarily about the butterfly. Mayronis treats accidentality as an important characteristic of intuitive cognition, which we did not see to be the case in Scotus. It might be due to the fact that Mayronis extensively considers intuitions in the context of the present life more than Scotus did. An accidental cognition, such as that of a flying yellow butterfly, would vanish when I turn my attention away from it. This point about intuition’s accidentality will be important when we consider Mayronis’s notion of the vision of God in section 2.2 below. A foundational relation does not require its term to actually exist. Even if I had never seen a butterfly before and it did not exist anymore, I can still learn and gain some knowledge about it in a similar way to how I learned about dinosaurs. A foundational relation concerns its term’s quiddity, not its existence. In other words, there can be a foundational relation of an act of cognition to the quiddity of the butterfly, even when it does not exist. It is crucial to understand that for Mayronis, existence is a mode of the essence of a substance, and thus, it is not a part of the essence or quiddity of a substance.50 The fact that a foundational relation’s term does not exist does not hinder the quiddity of its term to be communicated to an act of cognition. It is foundational because its term is in potentiality, which does not mean that the relation is entirely made up by reason. A foundational relation is indifferent to the existence of its term, as it is about the quiddity of the term. We will examine the ontological meaning of this point in the next section. This foundational relation corresponds to the potentially real relation in Scotus and thus explains abstractive cognition. Again, when the relation is known, then the term, i. e., the quiddity of the object, is known concomitantly. If not, it is not a relation, and thus is not cognition at all. Abstractive cognition is about knowledge of the essential features of an object. Because the essence of a substance does not change, the relation of an act of cognition to the essence of the object does not depend on its mode of existence. Mayronis’s preference of ‘fundamentalis’ to ‘potentialis’ in the context of abstractive cognition can be read as his stronger commitment to relational characteristics of cognition. The cognized beings are ‘well founded’ in their terms rather than ‘potentially connected.’51 Abstractive cognition is apt to describe scientific knowledge that is about things in themselves rather than their accidental properties. Mayronis consider two more types of cognition that are discursive other than intuitive and abstractive cognition and reserves scientific knowledge only to abstractive cognition.52 For Mayronis, even the divine existence is not in the divine essence; cf. section 2.2 below. For Mayronis’s two different kinds of non-actual relations, i. e., ‘respectus potentialis’ and ‘respectus aptitudinalis,’ see Cesalli, “Objects and Relations in Correlational Theories of Intentionality,” 278–79. 52 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 20, n. 247 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 320.

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So far, we have seen that relation is ‘to something’ or it is essentially about its term. Then, in what way is relation ‘to something’? To understand the metaphysical significance of ad aliquid, it will benefit us to see how Mayronis describes the relation to its object on an ontological level in terms of his notion of real being (ens reale) and conceptual being (ens rationis). I will first briefly summarize Mayronis’s ontology and identify the ontological statuses of the elements of cognitive acts. Then, I will present how he argues for the univocity of being predicated of real being and conceptual being.53 1.3 Mayronis’s Ontology of Relation Mayronis’s ontology first divides ‘being’ into mental being (ens in anima) and extra-mental being (ens extra animam).54 Then, he divides both categories in terms of their reality, i. e., whether they are real or conceptual. Extra-mental being is divided into real extra-mental being, such as substances and accidents, and conceptual extra-mental being, such as quiddity.55 53

77.

Cf. also Cesalli, “Objects and Relations in Correlational Theories of Intentionality,” 273–

Mayronis, Confl., dist. 8, q. 5, n. 36 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 382–84: “[…] ens in prima sui divisione dividitur in ens in anima et extra animam. Et quando dicitur quod omne quod est extra animam est reale dico quod falsum est, nam quidditates in potentia obiectiva sunt extra animam et non sunt fabricatae ab anima, alioquin, cum sint eiusdem rationis in potentia et in actu, quidditates in actu essent entia rationis, quod est falsum. Constat autem quod tales quidditates non sunt reales.” 55 Mayronis calls ens rationis ‘non-reale.’ Non-real is here not nothing. It is not real in the trichotomy of real, formal, and conceptual, each of which is not necessarily mutually exclusive to one another. What is not real means formal or conceptual, which still shares the meaning of ‘real’ in a certain sense. Möhle, Formalitas und modus intrinsicus, 218–33, shows how Mayronis, in Quodl. q. 6, first defines ens rationis negatively as least real but embraces a more real notion eventually. According to Mayronis’s initial definition, ens rationis is a being neither ‘causatum,’ i. e., caused by reason in the intellect, nor ‘regnante,’ i. e., determined by reason in the will, nor ‘derelictum,’ i. e., produced and left behind from the object by reason in the act of cognition, but ens rationis is a being ‘confictum,’ i. e., fabricated by reason with a reference to the object. However, Möhle sees that Mayronis eventually moves away from this narrow definition of ‘ens confictum’ as the only kind of ens rationis and includes ‘ens derelictum’ and treats the latter the more important meaning of ‘ens rationis.’ Being can be univocally predicated of ens reale and this sense of ens rationis. Cf. Mayronis, Quodl. q. 6, 235rbE. Pickavé, “Francis of Meyronnes on Beings of Reason,” presents the same quodlibetal question quite differently from Möhle and highlights Mayronis’s critique of the general notion of ens rationis and his preference for taking items that are commonly considered to be entia rationis as entia realis, such as universals, privations, and impossible things. Regardless of Mayronis’s position on the general notion of ens rationis, it is clear to me that the notion of ens rationis includes the notion of ens derelictum in an important sense, through which he describes the ontological state of the third 54

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Quiddity (or ‘whatness’) is a being in the extra-mental object and not of the soul. If quiddity is in a thing actually, it is the thing itself, which is real and cannot merely be conceptual. If quiddity is in a thing only potentially without the actual mode of existence, i. e., without the thing existing, then can it be still considered as real or is it only conceptual? In fact, Mayronis warns the readers before he discusses these divisions that some descriptions would be denominative rather than quidditative.56 While keeping his heads-up in mind, we can understand that, speaking in a denominative way, quiddity can fall into both categories, i. e., real (realis) or conceptual (rationis). For example, we think of the quiddity of a donkey in a loose way as both real and conceptual. It is real because it is not simply something our mind made up, but it is also conceptual because our mind can completely hold it in its own capacity. In this way, some aspects of ‘quiddity’ can be predicated of ‘real’ and some other aspects of quiddity can be predicated of ‘conceptual’ in a denominative way. Now, speaking more precisely, however, i. e., in a quidditative way, quiddity is neither real, nor conceptual, but formal. Quiddity in potentiality is neither a thing nor nothing, but is precisely a formality. Although it is not a real being, it is not a conceptual being either, because it is not made by the soul and is still outside the soul. The quiddities, each of the formalities in actuality, of a donkey and a man, will remain the same long after its substrate dies, decomposes, and is completely disfigured, i. e., in potentiality. The entities will not be distinguished really, but its quiddities will still be distinguished formally, i. e., by a formal distinction.57 Afterwards, Mayronis divides mental beings into real mental beings and conceptual mental beings. Just as we saw that quiddities are non-real or formal extra-mental beings, there are also real mental beings, such as acts, habitus, dispositions, and intelligible species. These real mental beings are standalone entities that need not depend on other real objects for their own reality.58 A conceptype of Aristotelian relations, such as cognition and volition, and thus, there is a critical role that the notion of ens rationis plays in Mayronis’s cognitive theory. 56 Concerning quidditative vs. denominative, see Franciscus de Mayronis, Confl., dist. 8, q. 5, n. 35, 3 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 382. Qudditative predication predicates an essential aspect of a subject, such as “man is a rational being.” Denominative predication predicates an accidental aspect of a subject, such as ‘man breathes,’ or ‘man has two legs,’ which is not necessarily true. 57 Mayronis, Confl., dist. 8, q. 5, n. 36 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 384: “Hoc patet ex hoc, quia quae formaliter et cum hoc realiter distinguuntur, ut homo et asinus, si amittant modum suum realitatis per adnihilationem vel corruptionem, non distinguuntur ultra realiter. Tamen bene distinguuntur formaliter sicut prius, quia easdem diffinitiones habent in potentia et in actu, in potentia dico obiectiva.” Concerning how quiddity is related to formalitas, see Mayronis, Confl., dist. 8, q. 5, 50raB–D. 58 Mayronis, Quodl. q. 6, 235vaI–K: “Dicitur autem communiter quod ens rationis est illud quod est ab anima nostra fabricatum […]. Sed contra […] habitus intellectuales originantur a ratione et tamen non ponuntur entia rationis; […] actus intelligendi fabricantur a ratione et https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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tual mental being is again divided into a being that is purely conceptual, i. e., a fictional being (ens rationis fabricatum), and a being neither purely real nor purely conceptual, i. e., an intentional being (ens rationis derelictum).59 The ontology of a fictional being is simple. It is not real at all, but completely made up by the mind. A ‘unicorn,’ for example, is a fictional being entirely produced by reason, and it only refers to itself and does not refer to anything real. On the other hand, an intentional being, ens derelictum, is somewhat complicated. It retains its quasi reality in relation to another simple reality. ‘Derelictum’ describes how the reality “leaves behind” its vestige or phantasm in the intellect, and thus, the intentional being is how Mayronis’s ontology understands the third type of Aristotelian relation. Intentional beings are “the relations (respectus) of intellection, of volition, of love, etc.” Mayronis says that cognition and its relation to the object cannot be separated, and therefore, they are really identical, but somehow different.60 This statement touches upon the real identity of a being and a relation. How can a being be a relation as well? For medieval thinkers, this question might have more immediate significance in theology than in philosophy. In theology, it is asked, how can the notion of Divine Essence include the notion of the relation of the Trinity? One cannot simply say that the Divine Essence includes the relations because God is a simple being that does not have parts. Mayronis answers this question by appealing to the fact that being is a genus and relation is its property.61 That is, being and relation are two different aspects of one identical thing. In this way, relation is not ‘to another’ as a whole as its being, but it is

tamen ponuntur entia realia; […] dispositiones ad virtutes intellectuales sunt realia: et tamen sunt ab ipsa ratione originata; […] species intelligibiles in nostro intellectu possibili fabricantur ab intellectu agente et tamen non sunt entia rationis.” 59 Cesalli, “Objects and Relations in Correlational Theories of Intentionality,” 274; Mayronis, Confl., dist. 17, q. 1, 68vbQ: “Dico quod ens rationis quantum ad praesens spectat est in duplici differentia. Quoddam enim est fabricatum a ratione sicut respectus ad seipsum. Et per tale ens rationis nunquam salvatur aliquid reale. Aliud est ens rationis non a ratione fabricatum sed a ratione derelictum et huiusmodi sunt respectus intellecti, voliti, dilecti et huiusmodi.” For Scotus’s use of ‘derelictum,’ see Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 3, q. 2, n. 448 (ed. Vat. III), 270. 60 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 18, n. 228 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 300: “[…] quandocumque sunt aliqua duo quae separari non possunt, ista sunt idem realiter. Et tunc concedo quod notitia et sui relatio ad obiectum sunt idem realiter, licet aliquo modo distinguuntur.” 61 Mayronis, Confl., dist. 29, q. 1, 88raD: “Dico quod ens non habet conceptum absolutum nec respectivum: sed abstrahit ab utroque sicut divisum a suis dividentibus: sicut substantia a corporeo et incorporeo.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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indeed ‘to another’ according to its specific aspect.62 The Divine Essence is thus the common nature and the Divine Relations in the Trinity are properties of God. An intentional being is a being and a relation in the way that being is the common nature and relation is its property. Now, we can identify four elements of cognitive acts as a whole in terms of Mayronis’s various divisions of beings: an object (real extra-mental being), quiddity (formal extra-mental being), cognitive operation (real mental being), and cognition (intentional being/relation). Given this ontological overview of the elements in the cognitive act, let us have a closer look at the ontology of an intentional being as a relation, and its relation to its term, i. e., a real extra-mental being. Mayronis, in order to provide an ontological basis for the intentional being (ens derelictum) in its “vestige” (derelictum) of the object, argues for the univocity of being in extra-mental being and mental being. As a faithful interpreter of his master, he holds Scotus’s doctrine of univocity of the concept of being where ‘being’ is said univocally of both the infinite being, i. e., God, and finite beings, i. e., creatures. Mayronis expands this common denominator, ‘being,’ to this specific kind of conceptual beings, i. e., intentional beings or cognitive relations. However, ‘being’ cannot be univocally predicated of the other type of conceptual beings, i. e., fictional beings, and other real beings.63 There are two ways of looking at the ontological status of conceptual beings (ens rationis).64 On the one hand, one can see ens rationis as caused by the soul according to its whole being (se totum) without any real reference to an extramental object. In this case, a conceptual being is at best a “diminished” being compared to an extra-mental being. For mental beings are called ‘beings’ only in a certain respect (secundum quid), whereas extra-mental beings are called ‘beings’ simply (simpliciter).65 As an analogy, think of a painted man and an actual

Ibid.: “Uno quod ens non dicitur quidditative de relatione: sed solum eo modo quo superius fuit dictum: sicut genus de differentia: quia dato quod sic: tunc relatio non esset ad aliud secundum se totam: sed secundum rationem specificam tantum.” 63 For a fuller discussion of Mayronis’s argument of how being can be said of both ens reale and ens rationis according to Franciscus de Mayronis, Confl., prol. q. 10, nn. 107–19 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 186–99, see Möhle, Formalitas und modus intrinsecus, 241–57. 64 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 10, n. 107 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 186–88: “Circa primum est intelligendum quod ens in anima dupliciter accipitur. Uno modo pro illo quod secundum se totum est causatum ab anima. Alio modo pro illo quod secundum esse cognitum est productum ab anima.” In this text, Mayronis deals with ‘ens in anima’ in a denominative way, and what he is actually dealing with is not ‘ens in anima’ but ‘ens rationis.’ 65 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 10, n. 109 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 188: “[…] quia ens in anima dicitur ens secundum quid et ens extra animam dicitur ens simpliciter.” 62

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man.66 Even though one could compare these with one another as two ‘men,’ say, one has darker hair than the other, these are two completely different ways of understanding of ‘man.’ The man painted is only a “diminished” being compared to the actual man.67 In the same way, when we understand ens rationis as entirely caused by the soul, ‘being’ cannot be univocally said of the extra-mental being and mental being because they are simply not the same kind and cannot be defined on the same level. On the other hand, we can see the ontological status of conceptual beings foundationally (fundamentaliter), i. e., depending for their reality on their terms. In this way, we regard, in a narrow way, a conceptual being as a cognized being (esse cognitum) and it is seen as grounded on the real objects.68 Now, this description of conceptual being corresponds to intentional being (ens derelictum). An intentional being is generated by the mind, and its being known does not make it an existing being. Nevertheless, its formal content is produced by a cognitive act according to the quiddity of its object foundationally, and the quiddity is not destroyed or diminished by the act. For example, I have knowledge of a table in my room. Although my knowledge of the table is a mental being and the actual table is an extra-mental being, as my knowledge of the table is from the actual table and the quiddity of the table in the table is preserved in my cognition of the table, I have the knowledge of the table not in a diminished (diminuit) way, but in an abstractive (dimittit) way.69 In this narrow sense, the concept of being can be univocally said of the intentional being and the real object, and the intentional being includes the same formal content as the quiddity in the object.70 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 10, n. 112 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 192: “Ad secundum dico quod proprie non numerantur nisi quia sunt diversae acceptationes entis, sicut homo non numeratur in homine vero et picto et tamen dicuntur duo homines hoc est duae acceptationes hominis.” 67 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 10, n. 114 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 192. 68 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 10, n. 119 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 198: “Aliter potest dici quod esse cognitum potest accipi dupliciter: vel formaliter et sic dico quod forte non est nisi ens rationis et diminutum. Alio modo fundamentaliter, scilicet pro substrato vel obiecto. Et isto modo est eadem quidditas quae est in re.” 69 Ibid.: “Non enim diminuit de ratione eius cuius est, licet non ponat esse quantum ad esse existentiae, quia non sequitur ‘est cognitum, ergo est’; tamen rationem formalem non diminuit, sed dimittit.” I understand ‘dimittit’ in the same way as ‘derelictum,’ namely, the formal ratio remains or it leaves its reality in the soul. Cf. also Cesalli, “Objects and Relations in Correlational Theories of Intentionality,” 275. 70 Unlike Mayronis, Scotus rejects this univocal predication of being in ens reale and ens rationis. Möhle, Formalitas und modus intrinsecus, 206–9, 256–57, interprets Mayronis’s expansion of Scotus’s univocity thesis as not a rejection of Scotus, but Mayronis’s emphasis on the realistic element of our cognition, which he might have developed against William Ockham and other nominalists of his time. 66

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Mayronis argues for the same univocal concept of being more specifically in intuitive and abstractive cognition. Against an opinion, that what is produced in abstractive cognition is different from its object, he says: I say that, in abstractive cognition, although nothing is produced as to being simpliciter except act or species, nevertheless as to the cognized being itself, the species is not produced but quiddity [is produced]. However, the first produced [i. e., act or species] is not a thing cognized, but only that the second [produced, i. e., quiddity, is a thing cognized].71

In abstractive cognition, an act of cognition, the species of the object, and the quiddity of the object are produced. However, neither the act nor the species produced belongs to the cognized being, but only the quiddity does.72 As the quiddity produced in an abstractive way, it is not the same as the object, but is a foundational being essentially grounded in the reality of the object through a foundational relation. Therefore, ‘being’ can be said of univocally both in the extra mental object and the abstractive cognition. In intuitive cognition, the relational character of cognition becomes simpler because one cognizes what is in the object itself, and “what is in the thing and what is cognized are of the same formal aspects.”73 Against the idea that what is produced in intuitive cognition is entirely different from the object because, in intuitive cognition, only an act of cognition is produced and this is the only thing cognized, Mayronis says: I say that in intuitive cognition something is produced by the act because a cognized being – and this is formally in the object – is produced through the act, and consequently, is not the act that is produced according to the real being.74

71 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 10, 7vaK: “[…] dico quod in cognitione abstractiva licet nihil producatur quantum ad esse simpliciter nisi actus vel species tamen quantum ad ipsum esse cognitum ipsa species non producitur sed quidditas. Primum autem produci non est rem cognosci: sed secundum solum.” In (ed. Möhle & Pich), 198, the last sentence says: “Principium autem producendi non est rem cognosci sed secundum principium tantum,” which seems to be from a different manuscrtipt. 72 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 15, n. 185, ad 2 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 252: “Ad secundum dico quod in visione oculi species et ipsa visio sunt duo effectus essentialiter ordinati, sic illuminare et calefacere, et ista sunt ab eadem causa quia unus non causat alium. Unde tam species in oculo quam visio causatur ab obiecto et visio non causatur a specie.” 73 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 10, n. 116 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 194: “quaecumque sunt idem numero videntur esse idem specie et videntur habere eandem rationem formalem; sed idem numero quod est in re est cognitum; igitur illud quod est in re et quod est cognitum sunt eiusdem rationis formalis.” 74 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 10, n. 118 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 196: “Ad tertium dico quod in cognitione intuitiva aliquid producitur ab actu quia esse cognitum – et istud formaliter est in https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Here we see all three categories involved in cognition: action, quality (operation), and relation. What initially produces according to the real object is an action, the first act. Then, what is produced by the action is a cognitive operation, the second act. Finally, this operation produces a cognized being (esse cognitum), which is a relation that is formally in the object. What Mayronis has in mind seems to be an actual relation (relatio actualis) that is accidental and thus exists only when the object exists for an intuition. Therefore, ‘being’ is univocally predicated of intuition and its object. In sum, cognition is not an act, i. e., real mental being, but an intentional being, i. e., conceptual mental being. Cognition is a relation. Hence, it is not real in its own right but participates in the reality of its object, i. e., an extra-mental being, foundationally (fundamentaliter). Cognition as an intentional being is different from a fictional being, which is entirely conceptual. As an intentional being is essentially an ad aliquid, where it is related to a real extra-mental being, the concept of being is univocally predicated of an intentional being and a real extra-mental being. In this way, the term of abstractive cognition is the quiddity of its object, either existent or non-existent, although it is obtained not actually but foundationally; intuitive cognition is an actual relation to an object that is accidentally formed according to the object’s actual existence. Now we are ready to move on to the second section of this essay to examine how Mayronis develops Scotus’s doctrine of intuitive and abstractive cognition and on what ground he argues for the non-beatific vision of God in the present life.

2. Mayronis’s Modification of Scotus’s Doctrine of Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition This section has two subsections. First, Mayronis’s defense of Scotus’s causal account against Ockham in the prologue of the Conflatus is presented. Second, his final position on the distinction between intuitive and abstractive cognition in his Quodlibet is presented and his notion of non-beatific vision is considered. 2.1 Mayronis’s Defense of Scotus against Ockham in the Conflatus Mayronis deals with the question of the non-beatific intuition of God twice in his teaching career at Paris, once in the prologue’s q. 17 of the Conflatus and again in his Quodlibet q. 5. These are around three years apart from one another. obiecto – producitur autem per actum, et per consequens non est actus qui producitur secundum esse reale.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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In the former, Mayronis, while holding a relational account, defends Scotus’s causal account against their common opponent, Ockham. However, in the latter, Mayronis, under Ockham’s influence, completely rejects Scotus’s causal account and develops a stronger relational account. In both texts, Mayronis’s relational account of cognition plays a critical role. In the following two sections, I present Mayronis’s revision of the distinction as a gradual progression. In q. 17 of the prologue of the Conflatus, Mayronis defends Scotus’s causal account that intuitive cognition is caused by a particular thing and abstractive cognition by a representation. He deals with four criticisms directed to Scotus’s causal account.75 Two of them, the first and the fourth, point out that there seem to be some cases of causal mismatch. On the one hand, the first criticism says that some abstractive cognition is caused by a real object, and not by a representation. For example, the soul seems to cognize itself abstractly without any representation. On the other hand, the fourth criticism says that some intuitive cognition is caused by species. For example, God and the blessed see creatures intuitively through the divine essence, which is a representation. Mayronis answers the first by saying that the soul cognizes itself neither intuitively nor abstractly, but discursively. For Mayronis, discursive cognition occupies another third category. It is neither intuitive nor abstractive cognition, but a cognition discursively derived from either intuitive or abstractive cognition.76 For the fourth criticism, he gives Scotus’s clarification that, while the divine essence is a representation of every creature in the world, it is a supreme kind that “represents a [created] thing more truly than it is in itself.”77 Therefore, the cognition of God and the blessed of the representation through the divine essence is properly intuitive. The other two criticisms, the second and the third, are specifically against the object’s causal role in intuitive cognition. The second criticism points to the examples like relations and prime matter that do not cause intuitive cognition. Mayronis answers that only the things that have the power to cause would cause it. So, the fact that relations and prime matter do not cause an intuition proves that intuitive cognition needs an existing object that can cause it directly. The 75 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 17, n. 210 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 280: “Dicitur ad hoc quod licet in hoc convenient scilicet in terminando, quia utraque terminatur ad rem in se, tamen differunt quia sic abstractiva terminatur quod res non causat eam nec movet sed repraesentativum. Intuitiva autem terminatur ad rem in se et causatur a re in se ipsa.” 76 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 17, n. 211–12 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 280–82, and q. 20, n. 249 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 322. 77 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 15, n. 186 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 254: “Doctor autem noster dicit quod illa est abstractiva quae est in aliquo deficiente repraesentativo et non supereminente; divina autem essentia est repraesentans quae verius repraesentat rem quam sit in se ipsa, ideo intuitive contingentia cognoscuntur.” Cf. also Duns Scotus, Ord. II, dist. 9, qq. 1–2, n. 65 (ed. Vat. VIII), 164–65; Mayronis, Quodl. q. 4, 233rbF, and Quodl. q. 5, 234rbG. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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third criticism is from one of the criticisms of William Ockham against Scotus’s causal account in his Commentary on the Sentences. Mayronis takes this challenge seriously and deals with it several times in the prologue and also later in his Quodlibet.78 This third criticism appeals to a dictum generally accepted in his time: everything that God can do by means of a secondary cause, God can do immediately. So, Ockham claims that because God can cause an intuitive cognition by means of an object, which is a secondary cause, God, as the primary cause, can cause it directly without any mediation of an object. Therefore, Ockham argues, an existing object is necessary neither for intuitive cognition nor abstractive cognition. His criticism is twofold. It is first a rejection of the necessity of the two different causes for the two modes of cognition, and secondly a rejection of the necessity of an existing object as the cause for an intuition. Mayronis is sympathetic to the former criticism but rejects the latter. He will fully embrace the former, that the distinction is not about two different causes, later in his Quodlibet. He will now defend Scotus’s causal account to reject the idea of an intuition of a non-existing object. However, his main argument against the criticism shifts from the object’s role as the cause to its role as the term of cognition. For Mayronis, what is important is not the object’s causality, namely, how the act of cognition happens, but is the cognition’s intentionality to the object, namely, what the cognition is about. The dictum is valid for him as well: everything that God can do by means of a secondary cause, God can do immediately. Although it would not be our usual experience, it should be possible for God to cause an intuitive cognition if God wanted to. However, it is never a possibility for God to be the term of intuitive cognition unless God is the object Himself. Mayronis says: I concede that God can take the place (supplere vicem) of the causing one (causantis); nevertheless, not the place of a terminating one (terminantis) because this act [of cognition] requires the existence of the terminating one.79

Yet, Ockham has a ready response to Mayronis. Ockham pulls out his razor and says that if anyone wants to say that an object is required for intuition as terminus, one has to show that it has an aspect of the essential cause. Otherwise, even

Guillelmus de Ockham, Ord. I, prol., q. 1, 35 (l. 3–21). Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 17, n. 212, ad 3 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 282: “concedo quod deus posset supplere vicem causantis, non autem terminantis quia iste actus requirit existentiam terminantis.” Cf. also ibid., prol., q. 18, n. 226 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 300. Scotus also uses this expression, ‘vicem supplere,’ when he explains God’s revelation; cf. Duns Scotus, Ord., prol., q. 1, art. 3, n. 63 (ed. Vat. I), 38. 78 79

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without the object that terminates, intuition can occur.80 Mayronis concedes that in a rare case God can take the causal role of the object. However, he does not accept Ockham’s claim that intuitive cognition, therefore, does not require any existing object. The existence of an object is still essential for an intuitive cognition because the intuition itself is an actual relation that requires an existing term. The object’s existence is a necessary prerequisite of the act of intuitive cognition, which is a relation, but this intentional relation is distinct from the causal relation. The ‘dependence’ of the act on the object requires the existence of the object but it is not necessarily reduced to the genus of ‘cause.’81 In his prologue questions, Mayronis continues to defend Scotus’s causal account because the two different causes, i. e., res in se and res representativa, are still the key to the distinction between intuitive and abstractive cognition. Additionally, except in a miraculous situation, intuitive cognition is indeed caused by the existing object, in which the cognition is terminated.82 Cognition is a ‘pure perfection,’ while both the production of cognition, which is an action, and the cognitive operation, which is a quality, need to be perfected.83 Both cognitive action and operation may happen without an intentional relation to the object, but neither action and operation is a cognition without the relation. Say, Paul is good at math and Peter is desperate. Paul takes a calculus exam on behalf of Peter. Paul does well in the exam, and as a result, Peter receives an A. As an analogy, all Paul did for Peter to receive an A is an action, Peter’s receiving an A is an operation, and Peter’s grade A is supposed to be a relation of the operation to his grade. Even though Paul did take the exam and Peter received an A, the A is not Peter’s grade and Peter and Paul know that it is not. As his grade is distinct from these previous steps, an action and an operation are distinct from their relation to the object.

Guillelmus de Ockham, Ord. I, prol., q. 1, 35 (l. 22)–36 (l. 14), especially, 36 (l. 4–8): “Igitur si obiectum in quantum terminans non habet rationem causae essentialis respectu notitiae intuitivae, si obiectum in quantum terminans simpliciter destruatur secundum omnem exsistentiam sui realem, potest poni ipsa notitia intuitiva; igitur ipsa re destructa potest poni ipsa notitia intuitiva.” 81 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 18, n. 228, ad 2 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 300: “dico quod dependentia, si dicat necessario praeexigere, sic non reducitur ad aliquod genus causae necessario. Nam actio praesupponit approximationem agentis ad passivum et tamen illa approximatio non est causa. Similiter secundum aliquos actus voluntatis praesupponit actum intellectus, ita in proposito de actu et obiecto.” 82 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 17, n. 213 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 282: “Tertium est causatio nam de communi lege [notitia intuitiva] causatur a re ad quam terminatur;” prol., q. 15, n. 183 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 250: “Dico igitur quod illa notitia est de re per aliquid repraesentativum, sed terminatur ad quidditatem obiecti in se et ad illa quae insunt obiecto per se.” 83 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 18, n. 222, ad b (ed. Möhle & Pich), 294.

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The object is necessary for a cognition, not as a cause, but as a term. For Scotus, the object is not essential for a cognitive operation, which is an absolute entity. Yet, Scotus had to posit some exceptions, such as our beatific vision of God, which can never be an independent act without its object. As we have seen in the previous sections, an operation is a real mental being and a quality that is absolute as opposed to relational. It stands alone and does not depend on anything for its act. Therefore, we cannot rule out the possibility that God can create a cognitive operation without any object (like Peter’s receiving an A without taking the exam thanks to Paul’s taking it). In Mayronis, the object is necessary for every cognition as its term. Cognition is an intentional being and a relation. By definition, relation cannot exist without its term. Therefore, in Mayronis, cognition cannot exist without its term. Even God cannot create a cognition without an object (just as Paul cannot do anything for Peter to receive a genuine A). Thus, even if God can create an act of intuitive cognition without any object, although it would persist as a quality, neither would it be called a cognition that is pure perfection, nor would anything be cognized through it. Mayronis says that it would be just like the sunray not produced by the sun, were it created by God without the sun.84 There are two types of intellective intuition, as opposed to the sensitive ones, that Mayronis describes in the prologue. One is the intellect’s meta-cognition of its own act. The other is the intellect’s cognition of other potencies’ acts, such as the senses. He argues that cognition of these acts is empirical and selfevident knowledge of accidental and contingent truth in an actually existing object as existing.85 Then, what do we know when we know an act intuitively? The Mayronian version of intuitive cognition is not at all ambitious. Intuitive cognition is not complete knowledge of a thing. Even if one has an intuition of something, one does not necessarily see it in every mode of its cognition. When one has a vision of the divine essence, one has a vision of the divine essence as existing. However, one does not necessarily have a vision of the divine essence in the other mode such as infinity or haecceity.86 Nor does the vision necessarily include a vision of Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 18, n. 223, ad 1 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 294–96; Scotus, Quodl. q. 13, n. 25 (Vivès XXV), 570. In Mayronis’s example, it might be true that one would not be able to distinguish between the sunray with a relation to the sun and that without any relation. Yet, our epistemological capacity is not the concern here. Rather, this example is about the truth of the intentionality of cognition. That is, because the sunray would have nothing to do with the sun if God creates it without any relation to the sun, the sunray would not be “about” the sun. 85 Scotus sees the intellect’s meta-cognition as necessary for the sensory and the intellectual memory. Cf. Adams and Wolter, “Memory and Intuition.” 86 Concerning infinity, haecceity, necessity, and existence, as intrinsic modes, see Maurer, “The Role of Infinity in the Thought of Francis of Meyronnes,” 339–47.

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the Three Persons, the divine attributes or all the creatures in the divine ideas.87 Concerning the existence of an act, we do not intuitively cognize the existence under its proper aspect like abstractive cognition. It is not that we have a piece of complete knowledge about a thing or its existence, but that we only cognize that it exists.88 Thus, in the prologue, Mayronis holds and defends Scotus’s causal account of the distinction. In the prologue, Mayronis deems as necessary all four conditions of the object of intuitive cognition: actual existence, presence, causality, and motion; abstractive cognition abstracts from all of these and does not concern any of these qualities of the object.89 2.2 Mayronis’s Rejection of Scotus in the Quodlibet Three years later in his Quodlibet, Mayronis treats the question of the earthly vision of God once again, and there he abandons Scotus’s causal account of the distinction between intuitive and abstractive cognition as a whole. He still treats the similar examples of causal mismatch but rearranges them and divides them into two groups. The first group involves intuition through the divine essence, which can be defended as intuitive by arguing that the divine essence is the supreme representation of all the creatures, through which one sees a substance more truly than the thing in itself. Yet he gives an extensive list of another group that cannot be defended in such a way. They are 1) sense cognition in general, all of which happens through a phantasm, 2) empirical recollection of the past, 3) foresight of a future revelation, and 4) every cognition that is terminated in a thing in itself as existing but caused by a species.90 In spite of the causal mismatch, Mayronis regards all of these as intuitive cognitions because they are about an existing thing as existing. Scotus’s definition of intuitive cognition as not through representation is now abandoned: Therefore, I say that abstractive cognition is that which abstracts its own object from the actual existence, just as intuitive cognition that is of existence as existing. [Abstractive cognition] happens either through representation, just like when a triangle is cognized as a triangle through an image, or without any representation, just like when God immediately fills it with supplying a causality of representation.91

Mayronis, Confl., dist. 1, q. 4, 13vaK–14raD. Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 20, n. 253 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 324. 89 Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 17 n. 213 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 282–84. 90 Mayronis, Quodl. q. 4, 233rbG; Quodl. q. 5, 234rbG. 91 Mayronis, Quodl. q. 4, 233rbG: “Ideo dico quod notitia abstractiva est illa quae abstrahit suum obiectum ab actuali existentia: sicut intuitiva quae est de existente ut existens: sive fiat 87

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Therefore, I say that this definition [of the Subtle Doctor] does not seem fitting because it is not determined but disunited as it should not be a definition since such is entirely ambiguous. Then it is said that intuitive cognition is that which is of an existing thing as it is existing. It would either immediately occur through an object just as an angel intuits his own essence or occur through representation in the way God intuits creatures through His own exemplars.92

By shifting the focus from causality to intentionality, Mayronis seamlessly unites the two cognitive modes into one comprehensive cognition. While Scotus’s causal account divides our attention between two distinct causes, as Ockham criticized, Mayronis’s relational account brings it to the object that terminates both modes of cognition. Here, Mayronis agrees with Ockham’s worry about the ambiguity of cognition created by the causal account and provides his relational account as a solution. However, Scotus’s main purpose of the distinction is still intact in Mayronis’s account: intuitive cognition is about an existing object as it is existing and abstractive cognition is about the unchanging science of an object. Ockham regarded all the raw material for an abstractive cognition as coming from an intuitive cognition prior to that, and in this way, saw that these two kinds of cognitions are essentially connected. Ockham did not consider any substantial distinction between the two as Scotus did. In Mayronis, the unity of the two cognitive modes does not destroy the distinction between them. Rather, with his focus on the object and cognition as a relation to the object, he saw the unity as making the distinction more succinct and clearer. A cognition is intuitive when its term is the actual existence93 of an object, and abstractive when its term is the quiddity of an object with its existence being abstracted.94 No other factor categorically determines the distinction. Not even its presence is included in the focus because that intuitive cognition can happen through a representation means that it can happen without the object’s presence.95 The four extremes of intuitive per representativum: ut cum per speciem trianguli cognoscitur triangulus. sive sine representativo: ut cum deus eam infundit immediate supplendo causalitatem representativi.” 92 Mayronis, Quodl. q. 5, 234rbG: “Ideo dico quod ista diffinitio non videtur conveniens: quia non est determinata: sed disiuncta qualis non debet esse diffinitio: cum talis omnino sit ambigua: et tunc dicitur quod notitia intuitiva est que est existentis ut existens est: sive fiat immediate per obiectum: sicut cum angelus intuetur suam essentiam: sive fiat per representativum: quemadmodum deum intuetur creaturas per sua exemplaria.” 93 It is about the actual existence of an object as opposed to the quiddity of existence. 94 One initiates a cognition either intuitively or abstractly. No cognition is initiated discursively. 95 Mayronis, Quodl. q. 5, 234vaK–L: “Si de absente potest fieri intuitiva notitia: esto quod non de non existente. Dicitur quod non secundum naturam: quia obiectum absens ipsam causare non potest: nec speciem eius repraesentantem existentiam: tamen bene per divinam virtutem: quia licet respectus causantis requirat approximationem: non tamen ratio terminantis: https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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cognition, i. e., the object’s existence, presence, causality, and productive power, are still what intuitive cognition concerns, and abstractive cognition abstracts from. However, only the existence is considered necessary for intuitive cognition and the rest are no longer considered to be so. Mayronis now holds that in an improbable situation, God could cause an intuition of an absent thing (but not a “non-existent thing”), and God himself can take the place of whatever it is that is causing and moving.96 Mayronis pushes this mutually exclusive borderline of intuitive and abstractive cognition, i. e., the existence of the term, all the way to the point where the object is God Himself. Our intuitive cognition of God, i. e., our vision of God, is about the actual existence of God, and our abstractive cognition is not about the existence of God but the quiddity of God, i. e., the divine essence.97 In other words, the divine essence does not include existence, to which Scotus does not subscribe.98 As paradoxical or even as outrageous as it may sound, Mayronis is notorious for being the first Scotist who sees existence as one of the intrinsic modes of God, not as the essence. Therefore, even if our abstractive knowledge can grasp the divine essence, another kind of knowledge that could inform us of God’s existence and presence would still be wanted. Through intuitive and abstractive cognition combined, our direct knowledge of God becomes a possibility. et ideo licet intuitiva concernat necessario existentiam: non tamen necessario praesentiam.” Here, God’s absolute power is considered. Even in an intuition that generally requires the presence of an object, such as a sensitive cognition, if God wills, one can have an intuition of something absent through a miracle. However, even in this case, this object has to exist. It is an obvious example of Ockham’s strong influence on Mayronis. 96 Mayronis, Quodl. q. 4, art., 1, 233vaK: “Primum [intuitivae obiecti actualiem existentiam] autem concernit necessario: quia illud ponitur in eius diffinitione. Secundum [presentiam] autem non videtur inconveniens quod deus faceret de absente intuitionem ut quod oculus videret posteriora. Tertium [causationem] autem et quartum [motionem] consimiliter: quia deus potest vicem supplere cuiuslibet efficientis et moventis.” 97 Mayronis, Confl., dist. 2, q. 1, art. 2, 16raC: “Si esse includeretur quidditative in divinitate, maxime propter istas rationes quae adducte sunt de abstractione de necesse esse, de puro actu, aeque sapientia intellectus et omnia attributa includerent esse. Hoc autem est falsum.” Ibid., 16raC–D: “Dico ergo quod actualis existentia vel esse est modus intrinsecus, quod probo sic. Qundocumque aliquid adveniens alicui non variat eius rationem formalem: illud est modus intrinsecus. Sed existentia adveniens alicui non variat eius rationem formalem. Nam homo in potencia, et idem postea in actu est idem homo formaliter. Nec variat eius ratio formalis. Ergo existentia, vel esse, est modus intrinsecus.” 98 Cf. Duns Scotus, Quodl. q. 1, n. 4, additio (ed. Vivès XXV), 9–10: “In divinis autem existentia est de conceptu essentiae, et praedicatur in primo modo dicendi per se […].” Cf. Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, 92–95, and Maurer, “The Role of Infinity in the Thought of Francis of Meyronnes,” 333–48. Gilson mentions another Scotist in the sixteenth century, Antonio Trombetta, who thought existence is an intrinsic mode and does not belong to the quiddity of God. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Otherwise, one has to be content with an indirect kind of knowledge about God. As Mayronis presents Pseudo-Dionysius’s four ways as a consecutive series, one can derive a discursive cognition of God first through the way of efficient causality by noticing some moving things, secondly through the way of final causality by recognizing ends of the moving things, thirdly through the way of eminence by seeking higher ends, and finally through the way of negation by removing anything imperfect to come to know God.99 Our intuitive cognition is an empirical knowledge of accidental and contingent truth in an actually existing object as existing, just like Moses’ seeing God face-to-face as a person speaks to a friend.100 Mayronis is not particularly interested in articulating the kind of experience of our vision of God, whether it is a sensitive or intellective intuition. The vision can happen in either way. What is important for Mayronis is what or whom one intuits, not how. Whether the vision is caused by the divine essence per se or its species is not an issue either. The vision can legitimately happen through the species as long as its primary object is God. We understand how abstractive cognition of God happens for Mayronis. It is logically or ‘scientifically’ known through the univocal concept of being, which ens infinitum, ens finitum, and ens rationis share. However, we cannot generally understand how the intuition of God happens through either God himself or God’s species, because intuition is accidental. When it happens, it happens. What do we know when we have the non-beatific vision of God? Do we know ‘that God is’? Mayronis’s answer seems to be positive. In dist. 2 of the Conflatus, where he asks whether ‘that God exists’ is self-evidently known, he does say that it is the case for the intellect that sees God intuitively.101 Although 99 Mayronis, Confl., dist. 2, q. 8, 19vaK; ibid., dist. 3, q. 1, 23vbN–O; Maurer, “Infinity in the Thought of Francis of Meyronnes,” 349–57; ibid., 348: Notice that Maurer writes while commenting on Confl., dist. 2, q. 1, “If we had intuitive knowledge of his essence, we would see his existence and no proof of it would be needed; but in the present life we are denied intuitive knowledge of God.” It is true that in this question, Mayronis says that our intellect (de intellectu nostro) does not have a self-evident knowledge of God’s existence, whereas the intellect that sees God intuitively has it. It is clear enough that Mayronis does not regard the non-beatific intuition as a usual experience for us because he never talks about what it is like even in the questions he argues for the intuition of God in the present life. And, Maurer seems to speak about Mayronis’s understanding of our daily experiences. However, Mayronis never says here that we are denied or it is impossible for us to have intuitive knowledge of God in the present life. On the contrary, in prol., q. 17, and Quodl. q. 5, he clearly affirms the non-beatific vision of God in the present life as possible. 100 Exo 33:11; Mayronis, Quodl. q. 5, 234rbE: “Sed contra, quia scribitur in eodem capitulo quod loquebatur dominus ad Moysen facie ad faciem: sicut solet homo loqui ad amicum suum: sed facialis notitia est intuitiva: igitur viator Moyses vidit deum facie ad faciem que est notitia intuitiva.” Cf. also Mayronis, Confl., prol., q. 17, n. 208 (ed. Möhle & Pich), 278. 101 Mayronis, Confl., dist. 2, q. 1, art. 2, 15vbQ–16raA. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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he says this only in the context of the beatific vision of God, I do not find any reason as to why we should not also apply it to his understanding of the nonbeatific vision of God. We should remember, however, that this intuitive knowledge, ‘that God is,’ is an accidental and contingent knowledge, which is not about God’s eternal quiddity. Our intellectual vision of God is accidental just as my sensitive vision of a table is accidental, which disappears when I close my eyes. We will not have the knowledge when we do not have the vision or intuition anymore, simply because the vision is the knowledge itself. If one asks about the knowledge about God’s existence that is rather permanent in the present life, it would be either what an elevated soul can abstractively cognize through an infused species like in St. Paul’s mystical experience or what we derive discursively.102 Then, when our intuition happens – Mayronis does not say when or in what way it might happen at all – it is self-evident that we are having an intuition of God and that God exists, and God is necessarily the term of the intuition. Without the term, whatever we see, it is not a cognition. Theologically speaking, it is an encounter with God. The knowledge one attains through the encounter does not have to be the complete knowledge about God. At least in Mayronis’s theory of cognition, there is no reason as to why the vision of God should only be reserved for the blessed.

Conclusion Thus, in looking at Mayronis’s two different writings across time, we see an interesting Franciscan distillation of Scotist thoughts. Mayronis’s main concern in his cognitive theory is to preserve cognition’s intentionality to the object. He inherits Scotus’s overall structure of cognitive theory and understands cognition in terms of three Aristotelian categories: action, quality, and relation. However, unlike his master, Mayronis begins to regard the relation of the cognitive operation to the object, not the cognitive operation, i. e., a quality, as the central act of cognition. When one knows a relation, one knows its term necessarily. Based on this strong sense of concomitant intellection in the notion of relation, Mayronis attains a well-founded intentionality in his theory of cognition. In the Conflatus, the early Mayronis defends Scotus’s causal account of the distinction between intuitive and abstractive cognition against Ockham. Scotus defines intuitive cognition as caused by an object in itself existent and present and abstractive cognition as caused by a species. Ockham claims that, because God can be the immediate efficient cause of every cognition, a cause other than God is not essential for an intuition and cognition of non-existing things to be 102

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possible. In this text, Mayronis argues with Scotus for the object’s causal roles for cognition as well as its intentional role as the term of cognition. However, in his Quodlibet, the mature Mayronis rejects Scotus under the influence of Ockham’s criticism of Scotus and argues that a cognition, whether intuitive or abstractive, has to be terminated in the same thing. Mayronis shifts the focus of the distinction of intuitive and abstractive cognition from the causality of the object to the intentionality of cognition and shows that intuitive cognition is terminated in the object as it is existing, and abstractive cognition is terminated in the object in the aspect of its quiddity. Mayronis focuses on what one knows, i. e., the term of cognition, rather than on how one comes to know, i. e., the efficient causality of cognition. In his relational account of intuitive and abstractive cognition, one comes to know God intuitively in terms of God’s existence, and abstractively in terms of God’s quiddity. For Mayronis, one discursively derives a discursive cognition of God either from an intuitive cognition or an abstractive cognition. Mayronis’s relational account of cognition theory further develops on his master’s position and is ultimately able to provide a creative way to encompass two major medieval academic traditions into one unifying cognition theory. One tradition is the approach of the Thomistic Aristotelian intellectualism that focuses on the object as the truth-bearer, and the other is the approach of the Franciscan voluntarism that emphasizes the agency of the rational capacity as the truthseeker. Mayronis, as a true Scotist, skillfully balances the two approaches through the notion of relation, which treats one as a ground and the other as a term. His theory of relation also functions in his understanding of volition in a similar way. In this study of the dynamic development of the relational account of Mayronis’s theory of cognition, we catch a glimpse of a more empowered synthesis of intellectualism and voluntarism.

Bibliography Sources Aquinas, Thomas. In Metaphysicam Aristotelis Commentaria. Edited by M.-R. Cathala. Turin: Marietti, 1935. Duns Scotus, Ioannes. Opera omnia. Ed. Luke Wadding. Paris: Apud Ludovicum Vivès. 1891– 1895. –. Opera omnia. Edited by Carl Balić et al. Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950– 2013. –. God and Creatures. The Quodlibetal Questions. Translated by Felix Alluntis and Allan B. Wolter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975. –. Opera philosophica. General editors Girard J. Etzkorn and Timothy B. Noone. St. Bonaventure, New York: Franciscan Institute, 1997–2006.

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Mayronis, Franciscus de. In libros Sententiarum, Quodlibeta, Tractatus formalitatum, De primo principio, Terminorum theologicalium declarationes, De univocatione. Venice: Heirs of Octavianus Scotus, 1520. Reprint Frankfurt a. M.: Minerva, 1966. –. Conflatus. Kommentar Zum Ersten Buch Der Sentenzen. Edited and translated by Hannes Möhle and Roberto Hofmeister Pich. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2013. Ockham, Guillelmus de. Opera theologica. Edited by Gedeon Gál and Stephen F. Brown. St. Bonaventure, New York: The Franciscan Institute, 1967–1986.

Studies Adams, Marilyn McCord. “Intuitive Cognition, Certainty, and Scepticism in William Ockham.” Traditio 26 (1970), 389–98. – and Allan Bernard Wolter. “Memory and Intuition: A Focal Debate in Fourteenth Century Cognitive Psychology.” Franciscan studies 53 (1993), 175–92. Andersen, Claus A. “Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition, ‘Praecisiones Obiectivae,’ and the Formal Distinction in Mastri and Belluto and Later Scotist Authors.” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 108 (2015), 183–247. Boehner, Philotheus. “Notitia Intuitiva of Non Existents According to Peter Aureoli, O.F.M. (1322).” Franciscan Studies 8 (1948), 388–416. –. “The Notitia Intuitiva of Non-Existents according to William Ockham: With a Critical Study of the Text of Ockham’s “Reportatio” and a Revised Edition of Rep. ii, q. 14–15.” Traditio 1 (1943), 223–75. Bos, Egbert P. “Francis of Meyronnes on Relation and Transcendentals.” In Die Logik des Transzendentalen: Festschrift für Jan A. Aertsen zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by Martin Pickavé, 320–36. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003. Cesalli, Laurent. “Objects and Relations in Correlational Theories of Intentionality. The Case of Franciscus De Mayronis.” Quaestio 10 (2010), 267–83. Cross, Richard. Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Dumont, Stephen D. “Theology as a Science and Duns Scotus’s Distinction between Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition.” Speculum 64 (1989), 579–99. Etzkorn, Girard J. “Franciscus De Mayronis: A Newly Discovered Treatise on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition.” Franciscan Studies 54 (1994–1997), 15–20. George, Marie I. “On the Meaning of Immanent Activity according to Aquinas.” The Thomist 78 (2014), 537–55. Gilson, Etienne. Being and some Philosophers. 2d ed. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1952. Heider, Daniel. “The Notitia Intuitiva and Notitia Abstractiva of External Senses in Second Scholasticism: Suárez, Poinsot and Francisco de Oviedo.” Vivarium 54 (2016), 173–203. Henninger, Mark G. Some Late Medieval Theories of the Category of Relation. PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1984. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. Lonergan, Bernard. Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas, Volume 2. Edited by Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Maurer, Armand. “Francis of Meyronnes’ Defense of Epistemological Realism.” In Being and Knowing: Studies in Thomas Aquinas and Later Medieval Philosophers, 311–31. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990.

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–. “The Role of Infinity in the Thought of Francis of Meyronnes.” In Being and Knowing: Studies in Thomas Aquinas and Later Medieval Philosophers, 333–59. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990. Möhle, Hannes. Formalitas und modus intrinsecus. Die Entwicklung der scotischen Metaphysik bei Franciscus de Mayronis. Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2007. – and Roberto Hofmeister Pich. “Einführung.” In Franciscus de Mayronis. Conflatus – Kommentar Zum Ersten Buch Der Sentenzen. Edited by Hannes Möhle and Roberto Hofmeister Pich, 9–50. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2013. Pasnau, Robert. “Cognition.” In The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus. Edited by Thomas Williams, 285–311. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Perler, Dominik. “Does God Deceive Us? Skeptical Hypotheses in Late Medieval Epistemology.” In Rethinking the History of Skepticism: The Missing Medieval Background. Edited by Henrik Lagerlund, 171–92. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Pickavé, Martin. “Francis of Meyronnes on Beings of Reason: A First Approach,” Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 87 (2020), 393–415. Pini, Giorgio. “Can God Create My Thoughts? Scotus’s Case Against the Causal Account of Intentionality.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 49 (2011), 39–63. –. “Scotus on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition.” In Debates in Medieval Philosophy: Essential Readings and Contemporary Responses. Edited by Jeffrey Hause, 348–66. New York: Routledge, 2014. –. “Two Models of Thinking: Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus on Occurrent Thoughts.” In Intentionality, Cognition, and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy. Edited by Gyula Klima, 81–103. New York: Fordham University Press, 2015. Tachau, Katherine H. Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham: Optics, Epistemology and the Foundations of Semantics 1250–1345. Leiden: Brill, 1988.

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Francisco Macedo on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition Anna Tropia

Introduction The distinction elaborated by John Duns Scotus between intuitive and abstractive cognition aims to define two diverse kinds of cognitive acts: the first actualizes the cognition of a thing insofar as it is present and existent (e. g., my act of seeing the cup of coffee that my friend just brought to my table); the second actualizes the cognition of something that is not present and that is, so to say, ‘presentified’ by a medium (e. g., my act of seeing a type of coffee in the menu of a coffee-shop counter).1 The second kind of cognitive act is characterized by the presence of this medium (in my example, the entry in the menu), which Scotus, along with a strong and well-represented medieval tradition, calls ‘species.’2 In the case of intuitive cognition, the entire path of knowledge, meant as a long refining process that goes from the external material world to the inner immaterial domain of the mind, is shortened, and the cognitive capacities of the mind are drastically augmented: there is no need for any mediation between the mind and its cognitive objects, since the former is capable of grasping them directly. The success of this distinction after Scotus is well-known: it permeates the philosophical lexicon and ‘intuitive cognition’ remains, up to Descartes and even later, the synonym of a direct, non-mediated and perfect kind of cognition. InThis work was supported by the Czech Sciences Foundation, financing the project “Intentionality and Person in Medieval Philosophy and Phenomenology” (GAČR 21–08256S), as well as by the European Regional Development Fund-Project “Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions of the Success of Europe in an Interrelated World” (No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/ 0000734). 1 Regarding intuitive cognition, see the classical works by Day, Intuitive Cognition; Dumont, “The Scientific Character of Theology;” and Wolter, “Duns Scotus on Intuition, Memory, and Our Knowledge of Individuals” (contains an overview of the passages in which Scotus makes use of this distinction); Tachau, Vision and Certitude, 78–84. See further Pasnau, “Cognition,” 296–300, and Pini, “Scotus on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition” and “Duns Scotus on What is in the Mind,” 330–39. 2 The literature on species theory is extensive. I limit myself to refer to the classical works by Tachau, Vision and Certitude, 3–75; Spruit, Species Intelligibilis, as well as to some more recent publications: Pini, “Il dibattito sulle specie intelligibili;” Perler, “Things in the Mind” and Theorien der Intentionalität im Mittelalter; Spruit, “Species, Sensible and Intelligible,” 1211–12. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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terestingly, it is the abstractive kind of cognition that seems to become ‘old’ in early modern times. In the wake of Ockham, many are those who claim that the intellect is able to grasp its cognitive objects directly, bypassing the mediation of the species. The same ‘modern’ tendency is embraced by a Scotist philosopher and theologian, a couple of generations after Descartes. In his three-volume work Collationes doctrinae Sancti Thomae et Scoti, cum differentiis inter utrumque (Padua, 1671, 1673, 1680), the Augustinian Francisco Macedo (Coimbra 1596–Padua 1681) offers a confused account of angelic abstractive and intuitive cognition of material objects. Confused, insofar as, in following his project, it is hard to tell if the angelic mind knows the worldly objects through or without species. Macedo models the angelic acts of intuitive cognition upon human abstractive acts of cognition. The use of the term ‘species,’ as it will be shown, is at the origin of this confusion. But the result is clear: Macedo aims to model the angelic model of cognition on the human one, thereby eliminating almost all the differences between the angelic and the human mind.3 This early modern Scotist account of cognition is indeed sui generis. It is not in line with the debates of more famous Scotists, like Mastri and Belluto, and seems to rely upon other theories of cognition, especially one that was endorsed by some Jesuits. In this paper, (1) Macedo himself will shortly be presented; I shall then examine his accounts of human (2) and angelic (3) cognition; finally (4), some sources that possibly constitute Macedo’s background will be presented in order to shed some light on the tradition he follows.

1. Francisco Macedo and His Collationes Francisco Macedo is indeed an eclectic figure.4 He lived his life in the manner of some intellectual ‘knight-errant,’ as Pierre Bayle put it.5 Born in Coimbra, he attended the courses given there by the famous Jesuit Francisco Suárez (1548– 1617). In the Collationes, Macedo says that it was from him that he learned freedom of thought and independence from the Thomist party: I remember that Suárez (who, when I was a student, gave public lectures at the famous university of Coimbra and had the task of reading Aquinas), when the Thomists told him that he had either to stick firmly to Aquinas’s word or to stop commenting on him,

I present this thesis in Tropia, La teoria della conoscenza di Francesco Macedo. For biographical information on Macedo, see Troilo, “Franciscus a S. Augustino Macedo,” and Sousa Ribeiro, Francisco Macedo. On his teaching activity in Padua, see Baù, “P. Francesco Macedone e P. Antonio Maria Bianchi.” See also Ventosa, “Der Scotismus,” 376–83. 5 Cf. Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique, 1951B–C: “C’étoit un ésprit ardent, et assez universel, et qui a eu beaucoup des querelles […]. La république des lettres a ses breteurs; Macedo en étoit un.” 3 4

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said: “I will stop commenting on him.” That he did: from then on, he stopped commenting on Aquinas. Mindful of this event, I found shelter among the supporters of Scotus; I fight for Scotus.6

Independence and unsettledness mark his path. Having been a member of the Society of Jesus, Macedo changes his religious order by joining the Franciscans. After a period of traveling in Italy and France, as ambassador of the King of Portugal, he finally enters the order of the Discalced Augustinians. The Collationes doctrinae Sancti Thomae et Scoti is a formidable comparison of the whole Thomist system with Scotus’s. The work follows the order of the first three books of Peter Lombard’s Sentences, and point by point compares Aquinas and Scotus on selected questions and problems. In the note to the reader, quoted above, in which he attributes to Suárez the merit of having taught him independency of thought, Macedo also claims to belong to Scotus’s party and to fight to defend the Subtle Doctor’s thought (pro Scoto pugno). His adherence to Scotism, however, is quite peculiar, as we shall see. His defense of Scotus is more of an attack on Aquinas’s positions presented in an Augustinian-flavored sauce than a faithful commentary on Scotus’s texts.

2. Human Cognition Following the order of the Sentences, Macedo reserves the treatment of human cognition to the first part of his work. The occasion is provided by the question concerning the intellect’s first object. In this context, Macedo formulates very clearly his criticism of Aquinas – less clearly his defense of Scotus. After reporting the texts by Aquinas concerned with the human intellect’s first object (STh I, q. 12, art. 4 and q. 84, art. 7) and Scotus’s texts from Ordinatio (passages from I, dist. 3, q. 3), Macedo makes two moves. The first is that of equalizing Aquinas’s position on the cognitive priority of the essences of material things (quidditates rerum materialium) with Scotus’s position on the cognitive priority of being qua being: despite their use of different terms, both philosophers aimed to define what is the first object understood by the human intellect.7 The second is to use Macedo, Collationes I, Preface (Lectori curioso), unpaginated: “Accidit mihi quid Suario; quem memini me puero cum ille Conimbrice in illustri illa Academia palam doceret, et S. Thomam ex instituto commentaretur, audire interdum a Thomistis ut vel a S. Thoma non recederet, aut eum commentari desineret: eumque respondere. Desinam deinceps commentari. Quod praestitit. Exinde quippe abstinuit a commentariis. Memor huius eventus ad Scoti me castra recepi. Pro Scoto pugno.” Collationes I refers to the first volume of the work, Collationes II to the second; each volume is divided into several collationes. 7 Cf. Macedo, Collationes I, coll. 4, diff. 1, sec. 1, 76a–b: “Sic refert Scotus sententiam S. Thomae, ac eam incipit oppugnare. Quoad primum bene, ac fideliter egit, nec eum Thomista, quod sciam, quispiam in eo reprehendit. Nam licet S. Thomas quaestionem propriis, ac diversis 6

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Aquinas’s principle of proportion (each mind cognizes something according to the state it has: e. g., the human soul is the form of a material body, therefore, it is proportionate to cognizing the essences or forms of the material things) to make the following point: as the intellect is immaterial, its nature cannot be proportioned to cognizing material bodies (nor their essences). The principle of proportion is used against Thomas in order to expand and augment the capacities of the intellect: According to Aquinas the first and adequate object of the human intellect is the quiddity of material being. First object: because the intellect, which is immersed in matter, receives its species from the senses, and knows first the material objects; adequate: for, although the intellect knows what is deprived of matter, such cognition is grasped only by making abstraction from the matter in which the intellect is immersed. And, according to Aquinas, the intellect is imprisoned in the prison of matter.8

According to Macedo, the principle of proportion functions only if the focus is completely on the immaterial nature of the intellect, regardless of its state: By its nature, the intellect is spiritual and immaterial; by its nature, it requires a proportionate cognition: that of the spiritual and immaterial substances. These are the substances the intellect desires to know by its nature and, by its nature, it knows them. Both philosophers [Aquinas and Scotus] agree on the first claim, for, Aquinas always believed the proportion between the essence of a substance and its cognitive capacity – between the faculty and the object – to be necessary. Secondly, the cognition of the immaterial and spiritual substances corresponds by nature to the spiritual and immaterial nature of the intellect. This follows from the first claim. One can object that the state in which the intellect is, makes it dependent on the senses as well as on the phantasms […] this is claimed by the Angelic Doctor and Cajetan along with other Thomists.9

Scoti verbis posuerit. Tamen sensus est idem. [….] Et quanquam [Thomas] non dicat adaequatum, sed solum proprium, recte ex hoc sequitur, cum id sit proprium quarto modo, ut apparet ex adductis exemplis naturae lapidis, et equi.” 8 Macedo, Collationes I, coll. 4, diff. 1, sec. 1, 76b: “Liquet ergo ex his sensisse D. Thomam obiectum primum, et adaequatum esse quidditatem rei materialis. Primum, quia intellectus immersus in materiam accipit species a sensibus, et immediate cognoscit materialia; adaequatum, quia etsi cognoscat immaterialia, ea non abstrahendo a materia in qua versatur, agnoscit; unde stringitur, et clauditur in materiae carceribus.” 9 Macedo, Collationes I, coll. 4, diff.1, sec. 1, 77a–b: “Natura intellectus est omnino spiritualis, et immaterialis, et natura sua exigit cognitionem sibi proportionatam, haec est rerum spiritualium, et immaterialium; ergo eas naturaliter cupit agnoscere, et cognoscit. Maior est certa quoad utramque partem, ac conformis S. Thomae, qui requirit semper proportionem essentiae, et intelligentiae, potentiae, et obiecti. Minor patet, et quia natura spiritualis, et immaterialis respondet obiectis spiritualibus, et immaterialibus; consequentia est in forma. Sed. Obijcitur status in quo est intellectus dependens a sensibus, et addictus phantasmatibus, […] uti argumentatur Doctor Angelicus et Caietanus cum Reliquis Thomistis.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Francisco Macedo on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition

The term ‘state’ recalls indeed Scotus’s distinction between the present state (the status praesentis vitae), in which the intellect is joined to the body, and the afterlife (the status ille), in which the union between soul and body will be broken – and, as Scotus suggests in diverse cases, the human cognitive capacities will be restored.10 Yet, interestingly, the distinction among the states of the human intellect is ignored by Macedo throughout his work.11 Differently from Scotus, who distinguished the capacity of the intellect as a power (natura potentiae) in general from its current state, Macedo seems to proceed only with regard to the first and to be oblivious of the second state. In the above-mentioned passage, he refers to Aquinas and the principle of proportion as a limitation of the human cognitive extension. Macedo there claims that not only the human intellectual capacity includes the cognition of the immaterial substances, but also that it is unfettered by any state. Macedo plainly holds that the human intellect does not depend on the senses for the acquisition of knowledge. This last point constitutes a leitmotiv, since Macedo repeats it on every possible occasion: the intellect does not depend on the phantasms. To sum up briefly, according to Macedo: 1) The human intellect knows first the immaterial substances. 2) The proportion between knower and known is not necessary (or: ‘proportionate’ is not understood in the same way as Aquinas conceived it). 3) The intellect does not depend on the senses to acquire cognition (no conversio ad phantasmata). 4) The agent intellect is the main instrument through which human beings acquire every kind of cognition. What clearly emerges from this picture, is Macedo’s intention to highlight the autonomy of the intellect in the process of knowledge acquisition:

Famously, Scotus does not decide whether the limitations of the human mind in the present state follow from original sin – which would have frustrated the intellective capacities by making them less operative – or from the natural connection of the soul’s powers, namely from the connection of the intellective soul with the body. Cf. in particular Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 1, q. 3, n. 187 (ed. Vat. I), 113–14; Duns Scotus, Ord. III, dist. 14, q. 3, n. 123 (ed. Vat. IX), 473–74; Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super secundum et tertium de anima, q. 19, n. 18 (OPh V), 190–91, and ibid., q. 21, n. 38 (OPh V), 224–25. The distinction between the two states has consequences in Scotus’s thought, and is evoked each time he wants to underline the imperfection of the human nature. See Dumont, “Scotus’ Intuition Viewed in the Light of the Intellect’s Present State,” and “The Role of Phantasm in the Psychology of Duns Scotus;” Pasnau, “Cognition,” 293–96; Pini, “Scotus on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition,” 352–54. 11 Macedo was not alone in this; according to Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 159–203, Scotus’s distinction was either ignored or completely transformed by the Scotists of the seventeenth century. 10

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The intellect rejects, does not receive the sensible and material species. It abstracts and forms immaterial intelligible species from them, leaving them and preserving the latter; it thinks through them. […] this is not a turn (conversio) [to] but a departure (aversio) from matter, a rejection of the material thing and a turn towards immaterial ones, that it immediately grasps and cognizes.12

This autonomy is entirely justified by the presence of the agent intellect, which is capable of actively engaging itself in the acquisition of knowledge and enables the mind to cognize. Macedo has two arguments to prove that the agent intellect is independent from matter, both of which stem from a comparison of the human agent intellect with that of the separate soul and of the angel’s soul. The fact that both of these latter are deprived of bodies, but are attributed an agent intellect, shows that the intellect as such can exert its dynamic power and gather cognition independently from the senses and sensible material species. The soul has an agent intellect, so that it can separate what is immaterial from what is material and make the cognitive object proportionate to the patient intellect […]. If the separate soul too has an agent intellect, as it is commonly stated by common opinion, it is clear that, by its nature, the intellect cognizes without making any use of phantasms and that it does not depend on them; nor does the union with matter fetter its perfection or its natural way of cognizing. The proper object of the intellect thus is not the quiddity of material beings, but the quiddity of what is universal and immaterial. Nothing material can serve as medium or as ratio cognoscendi of an immaterial thing; but the immaterial thing itself is the medium and the ratio cognoscendi of material things, like in the case of the angel (sicut in angelo), who understands the material objects by means of immaterial species.13

Two things are worth noting. First of all, Macedo’s insistence in underlining the human intellect’s behavioral resemblance with the separate soul’s and the angel’s. He basically equates them. Macedo seems to portray some unique mind, regardless of what could be its subject. If one then asks, what this agent intellect 12 Macedo, Collationes I, coll. 4, diff. 1, sec. 2, 77b: “[…] intellectus reijcit, non recipit illas species sensibiles, et materiales, et ex illas abstrahit, et format species intelligibiles immateriales, illas relinquens, has retinens, et per has immediate intelligens. […] nec illa est conversio, sed aversio a materia, et reiectio rei materialis, et conversio ad res immateriales, quas immediate attingit, et cognoscit.” 13 Macedo, Collationes I, coll. 4, diff. 1, sec. 2, 77b–78a: “[D]atur intellectus agens in anima, ut secernat materiale ab immateriali, et faciat obiectum proportionatum intellectui patienti […]. [S]i intellectus agens datur in anima separata, uti communis opinio fert, manifeste patet ex natura sua intellectum cognoscere sine ulla dependentia, et recursu ad phantasmata, et illum statum societatis cum materia nihil detrahere eis perfectioni, nec modo naturali cognoscendi. Igitur non est eis obiectum quidditas rei materialis, sed quidditas rei universalis, et immaterialis, nec res materialis est medium, et ratio cognoscendi materiales, sicut in angelo, qui virtute, et opera specierum immaterialium intelligit res materiales.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Francisco Macedo on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition

is, or has, or does, the answer is provided by its very activity: the agent intellect is a force belonging to the human soul (but also to the angelic intellect and the separate soul), which has the capacity to separate material and immaterial features in cognitive objects, and to make cognition actual. Such activity was traditionally attributed by Scotus – and the Scotists – also to separate souls and angels.14 The second remarkable element is the confusion that Macedo’s text transmits: he seems to describe a sort of mirror-game between the human and the angelic and separate mind, although this is not clearly explained at all. How does the human intellect acquire knowledge of the world independently from the senses and sensible species? What are the immaterial substances acquired by the human intellect? We will see that Macedo’s comparison of the human intellect with the angelic one – or the separate soul’s – describes, in a sort of back-andforth movement, how the human intellect cognizes (without depending on sensible species, like the angel does) but also how the angel cognizes the material world by means of an immaterial medium. Does this mean that the angel and the human intellect cognize the world in the same way, namely through intelligible species? In one passage, Macedo claims that the only difference between the angel and the human soul is that “the angelic species are infused by God, whereas the human species are acquired.”15 If we consider the problem of the intellect’s first object, and the principle of proportion revised by Macedo, what is this object that is acquired, immaterial (as the intellect’s nature commands), and known without dependency on the species? These questions remain open until the treatment of the angelic intellect in the second volume of the Collationes; they are, for the most part, permeated by his anti-Thomist polemical and rhetorical tones. What is possible to say so far is the following. 1) According to Macedo, the human intellect’s first object includes/are the immaterial objects. 2) His main reasons are: a) that the intellect’s immateriality requires it (revised proportion principle); that b) the active nature of the intellect supports this view; c) that the nature of the intellect(s) is basically the same: equation of conjoined, separate, and angelic intellect. Cf. Macedo, Collationes I, coll. 4, diff. 1, sec. 2, 78a: “Nam in probabili sententia intellectus agens datur in Angelo, sive distinctus, sive non a possibili, sicut in anima humana. Igitur sicut ille naturaliter intelligit spiritualia, et immaterialia immediate, et ex illis materialia, ita et homo cognoscit per suum intellectum res immateriales, ac per eas res materiales, et sensibiles […]. Equidem censeo nihil aliud interesse inter cognitionem angelicam (omitto nobilitatem essendi) et humanam, nisi quod species angelicae sunt a Deo infusae, hominis vero acquisitae.” For a list of all the Scotists attributing to Scotus the claim that the angels have an agent intellect, see Macedo’s doxography in Collationes II, coll. 3, diff. 3, sec. 1, 155b. 15 See note 14. 14

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3. Angelic Cognition Macedo deals with angelic cognition in the second part of his commentary to the Sentences. Concerning the cognition the angel has of the world, Macedo’s account can be summarized as follows: 1) The angelic mind has a similar structure to the human one. 2) The angel has both an agent and a patient intellect; it acquires knowledge directly from the objects. 3) In this regard, there is no difference between angels and human beings. Once again, the target of criticism is Aquinas. Macedo reproaches him for having construed an account of cognition that literally revolves around a “machine of proportions” (machina proportionum):16 what a cognitive subject knows and how she knows it depends on her nature. This state-of-things determines the differences between diverse cognitive subjects, like human beings, separate souls, angels, blessed souls: the minds that populate Aquinas’s world. Each, according to Macedo, has a precise cognitive modality: acquired species in the case of the human intellect, infused species in the case of the separate soul, innate species in the case of the angel, and a direct vision of the divine mind in the case of the blessed soul.17 Macedo firmly rejects this system of proportions. According to him, the state of a subject does not determine her cognitive modalities nor her cognitive objects and, mostly, there is no proportion among the cognitive modalities of each subject. That is, how the human intellect knows is independent on how the angel or other subjects know. It does not follow from the union of the soul with the body that angels have infused species, because there is no connection between the two things; the connection is rather Macedo uses this expression in one of his arguments against Aquinas, after presenting the argument according to which angels too, can acquire species from the things (and have not only innate ideas): cf. Macedo, Collationes II, coll. 3, diff. 4, sec. 3, 166b: “[…] quia in Deo sunt creaturae in ideis representatae in singulis singulae, quemadmodum toties ostendimus; igitur et in speciebus angelicis debent omnia singillatim, et per singulas species repraesentari, sicut in nobis repraesentantur universalia universalibus, singularia singularibus: unde corruit tota machina proportionum, et accommodationum ordinate ad inducendam diversitatem Angeli ab homine per species innatas et acquisitas; cum ex ratione ultima genuine S. Thomae, deducatur similitudo, et aequalitas cognoscendi omnia per species singillatim sumptas, et singulas res repraesentantas, sicut cognoscuntur a nobis. Utcunque sit certe illud exemplum non concludit: angelos cognoscere per species innatas et concreatas.” 17 Regarding the different modalities of cognition proper to each mind, see Scribano, Angeli e beati, 9–67. There is extensive literature on the blessed souls’ vision in God; beside the referential work by Trottmann, La vision béatifique, see also Pini, “Il dibattito sulle specie intellegibili,” 281–91, and Krause, Thomas Aquinas on Seeing God. 16

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between the way one is in the body and how the species are received through the body, for what concerns the soul; this is the only proportion. But there is no connection between subjects of different order, like angels and souls, so that it is possible to say that, as the soul receives its species from the objects, the angel must receive them from God. It is correct to claim that, as it has no body, the angel does not receive the species from bodies, unlike souls; but it is not correct to deduce from this that it receives them directly from God, for, there are also other ways to receive them.18

Once again, Macedo defends not only the independence of each subject’s cognitive modality from the others, but also from the state in which a cognitive subject is. Our scholastic is indeed married to the Scotist idea according to which angels have an agent intellect: this is the real difference in comparison with Thomas and his school. The attribution of an agent intellect and the agent intellect’s specific nature in itself – namely, that of a dynamic force able to make potential cognition actual –not only enables the angels to acquire cognition but is also the main element upon which the entire analogy with the human intellect is based. Differently from Thomas, in fact, Scotus holds that the angel has a less actual nature, and therefore needs to acquire cognition. It is the case of contingent objects, as Macedo points out.19 Moreover – and this is an argument that Macedo strongly emphasizes –, having an agent intellect is in no way a punishment, or something that negatively marks the nature of a subject: on the contrary, the agent intellect is a perfection, and is to be found in each created subject. The agent intellect is a perfection that does not depend on the subject that has it but a perfection in general and overall […]; it is thus worthy of the angel and can be attributed to it. […] By its nature, it is not something added to the compound of matter and form – the human being –, it is there only by accident, like when it is in the soul of our Lord Jesus and in the separate soul. Thus, it is free from that boundary and is to be found in each intellective subject, of any species, like in all the species of the angels. According to the perfection of their nature, angels are able to free the agent intellect from every material aggregate: they unite themselves to them only by accident.20 Macedo, Collationes II, coll. 3, diff. 4, sec. 3, 165a: “Non ergo sequitur ex illa unione animae ad corpus illa infusio specierum in angelo, cum nulla sit connexio inter utrumque: connexio quidem est inter modum essendi in corpore, et recipiendi speciem per corpus respectu eiusdem animae, in qua est proportio: sed non est connexio inter duo diversi ordinis subiecta, angelum, et anima, dicendo: anima accipis species ab obiectis, ergo angelus accipit a Deo per infusionem. Bene sequitur angelus carens corpore non eas accipit a corpore, cui unitur sicuti anima, sed non sequitur: accipit immediate a Deo cum alii modi supersint accipiendi.” 19 Macedo, Collationes II, coll. 3, diff. 3, sec. 2, 158a: “[…] non omnes species sunt congenitae angelo, cum multas ille de novo acquirat, quales sunt futurorum contingentium praesertim liberorum: secretorum cordis humani; et illae quae ad angelicam locutionem pertinent, quae magna pars specierum est, ad quas necessarius omnino est intellectus agens […].” 20 Macedo, Collationes II, coll. 3, diff. 3, sec. 3, 160a: “Intellectus agens est perfectio non respectiva ad subiectum, sed absoluta ab omni subiecto, ac per se, ac in se consideratus perfec-

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Macedo gives a long and rhetorically rich peroration on the agent intellect’s perfection, which goes hand in hand with the exaltation of human dignity. The main point is that it is not a sign of imperfection to acquire cognition. The cognitive model of the innate species, the one that Thomas attributes to the angels, is reserved only to the knowledge of things that are immutable, eternal and do not change. Scotus’s text that Macedo here comments upon (Ordinatio II, dist. 3, q. 11) is clear on this point: the angel has innate species of the objects considered as universals but not as singulars. The nature of the singular and individual impedes this: if the angel had innate species of things considered as universals (e. g., the essence of cat, or cat-ness, namely what it is to be a cat) and as individuals (e. g., all the individual cats existing in the world: my cat Camilla, my friend Michela’s cat etc.), then the angel would actually need an infinite number of innate species. But there is more: Scotus combines the absurdity of having an infinite number of species with the peculiar and fleeting nature of the individual.21 He clearly claims that the individuals must be understood by the angels as present, namely through an act of intuitive cognition.22 This is exactly what it is

tio; ergo dignus angelo, et ponendus in angelo. […] natura sua non est addictus composito ex materia et forma, qualis est homo, nam id per accidens est illi, dum sit in anima Christi Domini et in anima separata. Igitur de se est liber ab illo vinculo et reperitur in omni subiecto intellectivo, cuiuscunque id specie fit, uti in omnibus speciebus angelorum, qui iuxta suae perfectionem naturae intellectum agentem sortiuntur ab omni concretione materiali liberum: quae illi per accidens accedit.” 21 Besides the already quoted works on the Scotist distinction and usage of intuitive and abstractive cognition, concerning his position on the singulars, see the classical work by Bérubé, La connaissance de l’individuel au moyen âge, and the recent monograph by Lazella, The singular voice of being. 22 Macedo, Collationes II, coll. 3, diff. 4, sec. 3, 162a, quotes some passages from Scotus’s question “An angeli possint proficere accipiendo cognitionem a rebus?,” where Scotus distinguishes between angelic abstractive cognition of the universals and angelic intuitive cognition of the singulars. Macedo does not quote but summarizes the following passage from Duns Scotus, In Sent. II, dist. 3, q. 11, n. 12 (ed. Wadding VI.1), 493: “Tertio dico, quod quantumcumque [Angelus] haberet concreatam sibi notitiam singularis, et notitiam existentiae contingentis, tamen cognitionem intuitivam singularium necessario recipit a rebus. Non enim omnis cognoscens existentiam alicuius, cognoscit ipsam intuitive, quia potest ipsam cognoscere abstractive, nam cognitionem intuitivam singularium, non potest habere in Verbo, ubi tamen cognitionem existentiae habet, et ideo ad cognitionem intuitivam rei necessario concurrit objectum reale, vel ipsa res ut praesens.” This whole quaestio is not included in the Vatican edition; according to Bazán, “Conceptions on the Agent Intellect and the Limits of Metaphysics,” 196, it is considered “an interpolated text coming from Rep. Paris. II B, dist. 11, q. 2.” In the same column, Macedo also quotes a text from the Reportata Parisiensia (II, dist. 3, q. 3, Wadding XI.1, 277) that allows him to formulate the discrepancy between Aquinas and Scotus as follows: “Itaque convenit Scotus cum D. Thoma in eo, quod Angelus habet species concreatas, https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Francisco Macedo on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition

meant, when we learn that the angel acquires cognition of certain objects that have certain characteristics – such as being contingent, mutable, individual, and, I would add, material. It knows them as actually present, and it knows them such as they are. Now, Macedo takes on Scotus’s page; but what is striking is that in his own pages, the discourse on the cognition of certain objects (contingent, mutable etc.) is not linked to the angel’s capacity of cognizing them through an act of intuitive cognition. Moreover, the term “intuitive” is not to be found at all within his commentary. Secondly, human cognition is the laboratory for explaining how the angels acquire cognition. Before clarifying how this happens, in fact, the Portuguese scholastic indulges in the description of the human process of acquiring cognition. Via acquired species, of course, and through the agent intellect’s illumination: I think that the illuminative action of the intellect does not concern the phantasm but rather something that is produced after the phantasm. As the latter is at the base of the cognitive process, illumination concerns the intelligible species […] and the possible intellect: it is the possible intellect that receives the species thereby originating the cognitive process. […] The phantasm put aside (secluso phantasmate), [the agent intellect] illuminates the intelligible species by exciting them and making them ready in a first act to make the possible intellect think […]. It is therefore evident that, even without phantasm, there still is this illuminative activity of the agent intellect.23

Macedo highlights how one of the activities traditionally attributed to the agent intellect – its “illuminative” act – does not concern the phantasm, the material image impressed by the object on the senses, but rather is directed towards the possible intellect, namely that part of the intellective faculty which “receives” intellectual contents and hence cognizes them. His aim is to underline the separation of the intellectual activity, which is characterized by its immateriality, from the domain of all that is material. Again, the phantasm is not deemed necessary in the production of an act of intellection, which instead seems to be something “happening” within the intellective faculty, and only there. The goal is to reveal the common ground between the embodied mind and the angelic one that is naturally deprived of a body: the more the human intellect is described as indesive ut dicit D. Thomas, connaturales rerum universalium: discrepant in eo, quod habet species concreatas etiam singularium, quod admittit D. Thomas, et negat Scotus.” 23 Macedo, Collationes II, coll. 3, diff. 3, sec. 3, 159b: “Ego existimo illam illuminationem non esse praecise respectu phantasmatis, sed etiam respective ad illud dici, verum eo quoque sublato locum esse illuminationi respectu specie intelligibilis […] et intellectus possibilis, quatenus ei species ad intelligendum applicatur. […] secluso phantasmate illuminat species intelligibiles excitando eas, et proponendo illas expeditas in actu primo ad intelligendum intellectui possibili […]. Unde colligitur, licet non esset phantasma adhuc manere illam illustrationem factam ab intellectu agente.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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pendent from its body, the more the comparison with the angel becomes relevant. In the next section, which constitutes the very core of Macedo’s account of both intellects, we finally find some clear statements regarding the species and the dependency of the human intellect on the body. Macedo explains what he deems to be the “whole knot of the difficulty” (totus nodus difficultatis)24 in the debate between the Scotists and the Thomists. According to Macedo, the Thomists claimed that angels possess innate species only, because they could not explain how an immaterial substance acquires cognition from material substances.25 But certain objects do require such an interaction: What does not have any movement is innate and inborn [in the angelic mind]; but what is subject to movement is or can be adventitious. In the constitution of the heaven nothing is mutable, because it is eternal […]. [B]ut the intelligible species augment and grow, like in the case of angelic language. Thus, the nature of the species is adventitious.26

This text shows how Macedo thinks about the species: the nature of these instruments, whose task is to transmit information on the objects, is “adventitious”, and always entails a sort of exchange and interaction between the cognizer and the cognized object. What is here meant by ‘species’ might be an object of discussion and require some adjustment; however, note, again, that there is no reference to an intuitive modality of cognition. To explain how the angelic intellect “abstracts” cognition from material objects, Macedo develops his comparison with the human intellect. In this occasion, he finally provides more information about the human process of knowledge acquisition: In order to become spiritual, the fantastic species is not subordinated to the agent intellect but to fantasy; but it receives immateriality from the spiritual agent intellect. From this, I deduce that, in order for the material species to become spiritual, it must not be received within the spiritual power – which is impossible. The sole necessary thing is that this species unites itself with the intellective power and becomes ready to receive a Cf. Macedo, Collationes II, coll. 2, diff. 4, sec. 5, 170a: “Hic est totius nodus difficultatis: quem quia Scoti adversarij solvere non audent, nec solutionem eius audire volunt: haerent, et adhaerent suae de speciebus concreatis sententiae, negant igitur inveniri posse modum probabilem, quo species ab extra praesertim materiales advenire angelo possint, qui omnino spiritualis cum sit, eas recipere nullo modo potest.” 25 Macedo, Collationes II, coll. 3, diff. 4, sec. 2, 163b: “Hanc partem […], quem ponit contraria Scoti, qui non videtur intelligibilis, nedum probabilis, cum intelligi nequeat, quomodo res materiales possint immittere species in intellectum rei spiritualis […].” 26 Macedo, Collationes II, coll. 3, diff. 4, sec. 3, 164a–b: “Ea in quibus non est mutatio sunt innata, et coniuncta: quae vero mutationem subeunt, ea sunt, et possunt esse adventitia. Tunc: in coeli constitutione nihil est mutabile, cum sit aeternum […]. At vero species intelligibiles, et augentur, et crescunt, ut apparet in locutione angelica; itaque earum specierum natura est adventitia.” 24

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sort of weakening (attenuatio) and refinement (subtilizatio). We see it in the case of the fantastic species, that is not received in the agent intellect but, remaining in phantasy, becomes immaterial after the agent intellect’s adapted treatment and appropriation (accommodatio).27

One more time, Macedo defends the view according to which the interaction between the material domain – represented by the fantastic species or the material phantasm – and the immaterial one – represented by the intellect – is impossible. In the passage quoted above, he claims that the phantasm “remains” within the fantasy and that the intellect does not in any way alter it. Nevertheless, there is room for a sort of interaction between the phantasm and the intellect: as a result of their encounter, the former is made “subtler.” How this happens is clarified in the following passage: I don’t see what should prevent the angel from uniting itself to species and adapt to be abstracted; nor why the angel should not be able to produce immaterial species of material objects; for, angels move and are moved, act and are acted upon by heavy material bodies, to which they are intimately and directly united. Therefore, it is clear that also angels can be associated to those very subtle species that are more intentional than real and that through them, they acquire the species of material objects. If this required an internal and local union, it would not be different than saying that the angelic mind unites itself to those species through a sort of sympathy or internal proximity with those material species, so that they can serve to the task of that production.28

Macedo’s argument runs as follows: let us start by the presupposition that angels interact with bodies. They interact with them by maintaining their fully spiritual nature but, just like human beings, they are able to produce (thanks to their agent intellect) species that are “more intentional than real.” Through them, 27 Macedo, Collationes II, coll. 3, diff. 4, sec. 5, 171a–b: “[Species phantastica] ad hoc ut spiritualizetur non subiectatur in intellectu agente, sed in phantasia, et tamen recipit ab intellectu agente spirituali immaterialitatem. Unde deduco non esse necessariam receptionem speciei materialis in potentia spirituali, quam puto impossibilem, ut evadat spiritualis, sed tantum, ut apte coniungatur, et accommodetur ad recipiendam illam attenuationem, et subtilizationem; quemadmodum vidimus in exemplo specie phantasticae, quaecunque illa fit, quae non recepta intra intellectum agentem, sed manens intra phantasiam recipit immaterialitatem ab illo propter debitam applicationem, et accommodationem.” 28 Macedo, Collationes II, coll. 3, diff. 4, sec. 5, 172a: “Quomodo autem angelus uniri possit illis speciebus apte ad eas elevandas, et cum ijs elevates speciem in se immaterialem producendam exponere, non video qua possit ratione negari, cum constet Angelos movere, et moveri, et agere, et agi cum corporibus maxime crassis, et materialibus, et immediate, et intime ijs coniungi. Unde liquet posse eos cum subtilissimis ijs formis, quae potius sunt intentionales, quam reales uniri, et simul cum ijsdem productiones specierum materialium efficere. An autem ad id necesse sit localis et intima coniuncio nihil interest utrum dicas: dummodo obtineas posse per intimam quondam, vel propinquitatem, vel sympathiam cum ijs materialibus speciebus coniungi ad officium illud productionis praestandum.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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they acquire knowledge (the species) of material objects. Eventually, Macedo says that we can conceive of such union, or interaction, as a local one, “a sort of sympathy” or “an internal proximity.” There are of course many points left unclear. What does Macedo refer to, when he talks about ‘species’? If he were following Scotus faithfully (thereby embracing the doctrine of intuitive cognition, so, no species at all), ‘species’ would be a synonym of cognition or knowledge. In this case, the angel would be able to acquire cognition of material objects owing to its agent intellect, without medium, and through its sole capacity. Yet, Macedo talks of species that are “more intentional than real.” They belong more to a cognitive domain than to the external and material world. The human acquisition of species is a process that goes from the objects to the mind via a medium (the species) that is appropriate and adequate to the nature of the latter. But, in the case of Macedo, no full explanation of how this acquisition happens is provided. We only learn that the phantasms are deemed incapable of exerting a direct influence upon the mind. The reference to ‘sympathy’ is helpful to solve the question. Although it is brief and not fully delineated, Macedo’s way of sketching human (and angelic) cognition could be seen as moving toward a theory of cognition with a full-fledged account of sympathy. Famously, Macedo’s former professor, Francisco Suárez, exposed in his De anima the doctrine according to which each soul’s faculty acts separately from the others, but is “informed” of the activities of the others through their common root, i. e., the soul.29 Suárez explains the production of the intelligible species through this mechanism: when the sensitive faculty is engaged in the cognition of a material object through the production of a material species, at the same time the intellect is stimulated to produce an intelligible species entirely on its own, and without contact with the world.30 The whole process is possible because the two faculties are rooted in the same soul. If we go back to the case of the angels, which Macedo deals with, sympathy does not refer to diverse faculties of the soul – like in the case of human beings, who are provided with imagination and intellect –, but to the intellect and the external world. Angels react to the presence of the material objects by producing an intentional species of them – by grasping their ideas – without engaging with them. This explanation might fill in the blanks left by Macedo in his own account of human and angelic cognition. Human beings acquire intellectual cognition Cf. Francisco Suárez, De anima, disp. 9, q. 2, n. 8, 90. Regarding the production of the intelligible species and sympathy in Suárez, cf. Spruit, Species Intelligibilis, 301–3; South, “Suárez on imagination” and “Singular and Universal in Suárez”; Perler, “Suárez on intellectual cognition and occasional causation”; Tropia, “Scotus and Suárez on Sympathy.” As for the production of the sensible species, see Daniel Heider’s contribution to this present volume. 29

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through the sympathy among intellect and imagination (or fantasy); similarly, angels have a sort of sympathy with material and singular objects that enables them to produce a species of them. Macedo’s account is, eventually, rather peculiar. Intuition might still seem to be lurking in the background as a possibility, somehow tied to the necessary interaction of the angelic mind with objects that are present and existent in the moment they are cognized. However, Macedo talks about species. If he uses the term as synonym for ‘cognition’ or for ‘ideas,’ then he subscribes to a tendency common to those scholastics, who deny the existence of the species but keep using the term as a synonym for ‘cognition’ (see chapter 4). If he talks about species as something capable of actualizing the angelic mind, then he presses the comparison with the human mind; cognition may then, in both cases, be described in occasionalist terms. To summarize: 1) Macedo claims that the angels acquire cognition of material objects like human beings do. 2) They do so by ‘species.’ 3) By ‘species,’ he either refers to the immaterial species of the material objects or to objects themselves, insofar as they are cognized. 4) The interaction between the material domain and the immaterial mind of the angel is quickly explained through sympathy, a form of occasionalism that Suárez and others employed in order to account for the human acquisition of the species.

4. A Jesuit Background? In the Collationes, Macedo has Scotus’s text in mind. Sometimes, he reappraises it literally, like in the defense of human dignity against the Thomistic account of different minds. Sometimes, he follows it more loosely, like it happens in his account of human and angelic cognition. Explaining cognition through a unique model of mind is not something alien to Scotus, according to whom there is no specific difference between the angelic and the human mind.31 Nevertheless, in Macedo’s account of angelic cognition, which is modeled on human cognition, and, first of all, in his confusion regarding intuitive and abstractive kinds of cognitive acts, one hears echoes from other traditions.32 Macedo writes the Colla-

Cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. II dist. 1 q. 6, d. I (ed. Vat. VII), 156–57. Cf. Macedo’s commentary in Collationes II, coll. 1, diff. 2, Iudicium, 17a: “Equidem iudico non esse improbabilem sententiam affirmantem Animam rationalem equalem esse Angelo in essentiali perfectione.” 32 I have argued in favor of a partial reappraisal of Scotus by the Jesuits, specifically in the case of Suárez; cf. Tropia, “Scotus and Suárez on Sympathy” and “McCaghwell’s Reading of Scotus’s De anima.” That Jesuits mixed up traditions and interpretations is generally accepted 31

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tiones thirty years after Descartes published the Meditations. As Maritain has aptly put it, the French philosopher described the human mind by attributing to it most of the features Thomas Aquinas attributed to the angelic one.33 But Macedo’s confusion between the two minds or, better, between the two models of mind, does not originate in the Meditations. The two aspects that most significantly characterize his account of cognition – namely, the independence of the intellect from the senses and the similarity between angelic and human mind – rather seem to echo some elements that are traceable in the early Jesuit discussions. As already mentioned, one may reasonably assume that texts like Suárez’s De anima may have cast a long shadow on the Collationes. The separation between the intellect’s activities from the sensible faculty’s is a recurring element in Jesuit texts since the very beginning of the Society’s philosophical and pedagogical production. Suárez introduced the mechanism of the connection of the soul’s faculties to explain the independency of the intellect from the senses: Fantasy and intellect are rooted in the same (human) soul, and for this reason there is a natural order and consonance in their activities. For example, the object that is known by the intellect, is also known by fantasy. If on the one hand the possible intellect has no species, on the other the soul has the spiritual capacity of producing the species of the things that are cognized by the senses in the possible intellect. In this process, the sensible imagination exerts no efficient causal role but is almost like matter (quasi materia), namely that which stimulates the soul, or an exemplar. So, in the very moment the soul knows an object via fantasy, its spiritual capacity paints that very object in the possible intellect. […] The agent intellect, as such, has no other action than producing the intelligible species, despite the fact that this process has been called in many ways. Notice that a triple activity is usually attributed to the agent intellect: (1) the illumination of the phantasm; (2) making things actually intelligible and (3) abstracting from the phantasms. […] Actually, the illumination of the phantasm doesn’t directly concern the phantasm […], it is rather directed toward the potential intellect. But the agent intellect has no other operation, regarding the potential intellect, than that of producing the intelligible species.34 in scholarship; for an overview of their internal regulations and pedagogical plans, see Casalini, “The Jesuits.” 33 See Maritain, “Descartes ou l’incarnation de l’ange”, 75–126. Maritain’s intuition has been reappraised and developed by Scribano, Angeli e beati, 119–93. Scribano’s important book has been recently translated into French; cf. Scribano, Anges et bienheureux: la connaissance de l’infini de Descartes à Spinoza. 34 Francisco Suárez, De anima, disp. 9, q. 2, n. 12, 96, and nn. 14–15, 98: “[P]hantasiam et intellectum hominis radicari in una anima; et hinc est quod in suis operibus habent ordinem et consonantiam; unde patebit, infra, quod eo ipso quod intellectus operatur, etiam imaginatio operatur. Ad hunc ergo modum arbitror intellectum possibilem de se esse nudum speciebus, habere tamen animam virtutem spiritualem ad efficiendas species earum rerum, quas sensus cognoscit, in intellectu possibili, ipsa imaginatione sensibili non concurrente effective ad eam https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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In these quotes, Suárez has the same concerns as those that will occupy Macedo. Just like the latter shall do, Suárez denies the possibility of any direct contact or exchange between the domain of sensibility and that of the intellect; the intellective act is described as something that affects the very intellect. The two parts of the soul participating in the act of cognition are thus separate, and communicate only through their common root, the soul. The passage of abstraction is thus redefined, and the role of the intellect amplified, in a certain sense, with respect to that of the sensitive faculty.35 Moreover, in Suárez’s De anima, the attention given to this epistemological problem – the interaction between sensitive and intellective faculty – is extensive, and the discussion of problems and sources seem to precede, somehow, the long defense of the human intellect’s independence that we know from Macedo’s text. Both scholastics describe the act of intellection as an activity developing – starting, happening, and ending – exclusively within the intellective power. There are of course significant differences between Suárez’s and Macedo’s texts. The first rejects the Scotist claim, according to which there is no specific difference between the angel and the human soul.36 So, at least on the surface, Suárez is not favorable toward the similarity between the angelic and the human mind. Nevertheless, when, in the same text, the Jesuit elaborates on the possibility of grasping knowledge of the singulars, not only does he side with Scotus, from whom he borrows both examples and arguments;37 but he also describes the process of grasping knowledge of the material singulars in similar terms to

actionem, sed habente se quasi materia, aut per modum excitantis animam, aut sane per modum exemplaris. Et ita fit quod statim ac anima per phantasiam cognoscit aliquid, per virtutem suam spiritualem quasi depingit rem illam in intellectu possibili. […] Intellectus agens ut sic nullam aliam actionem habet nisi productionem specie intelligibilis, quamvis haec actio diversis nominibus explicetur. Nota quod intellectui agenti triplex solet tribuit operatio: prima, illuminatio phantasmatis; secunda, facere res actu intelligibiles; tertia, abstrahere a phantasmatibus. Quarta etiam solet tribui, quae est illustrare prima principia. […] Nam, illuminatio phantasmatis non est actio circa phantasma […] illa est circa intellectum possibilem; at vero circa intellectum possibilem nullam aliam actionem habet intellectus agens praeter specie productionem.” 35 Of the same advise Spruit, Species Intelligibilis, 303. 36 Cf. Francisco Suárez, De anima, disp. 9, q. 1, n. 8, 74–76. 37 The examples made by Suárez are numerous and echo some of those present in Scotus’s De anima. For instance: the human intellect can tell the difference between two individuals (e. g., Peter and Paul); as human beings, we know individuals; if the angels can know the material individuals, the human intellect must be able to know them as well (this argument itself is not from Scotus’s De anima but from the text Macedo commented on: In II d. 3 q. 11). Cf. Francisco Suárez, De anima, disp. 9, q. 3, nn. 7–10; cf. Scotus, De anima, q. 22 (OPh V), 230– 33. It is worth observing that the only argument Macedo refers to is the one of the similarity between angelic and human intellect. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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those Macedo will use in his account of angelic cognition.38 Distancing himself from the Aristotelian (then Thomist) claim, according to which the intellect knows beings qua universals, whereas the senses know beings qua singulars,39 Suárez, employing a list of arguments, proves that the human intellect is indeed able to cognize singulars. One of these arguments asserts that if the angelic intellect, which is further away from matter than the human one, knows material singular things, then the human intellect must be able to know them as well.40 This argument, based on the similar structure of the two intellects, is offered by Suárez as evidence of the material singular’s knowability. The similarity between the angelic and the human mind is, therefore, not rejected in toto by Suárez, who takes on this argument from Scotus and does not even spend time discussing it; that the human intellect can know the material singulars, “as is clearly the case with the angels” (ut in angelis patet), is presented as evidence.41 Without entering into the details of Suárez’s text, it is worth noticing that according to the Jesuit the cognition of the material singular is acquired by the intellect through the already mentioned mechanism of sympathy, namely through the concomitant activity of the intellect and the sensitive faculty, which results in the production of an intelligible species of the cognitive object. The intellect has the power to dematerialize the material individual outside the mind, if such cognition is supported by the concomitant acquisition of knowledge of that individual by the sensitive faculty. This is the measure of the intellect’s dependence on the phantasms, according to Suárez.42 The human acquisition of the material singulars cannot be compared to the intuitive cognition that Duns Scotus talks about, because such acquisition of knowledge is acquired from the external objects through abstraction and is, almost by definition, discursive, Cf. Francisco Suárez, De anima, disp. 9, q. 3, n. 3, 110. Regarding Suárez’s cognition of the singular, cf. the clear work by South, “Universal and Singular in Suárez.” Most of the scholarship has focused on the proximity between Suárez and Ockham concerning the cognition of the singulars; see for instance Alejandro, La gnoseología del Doctor Esimio y la acusación nominalista; De Vries, “Die Erkenntnislehre des Franz Suárez und der Nominalismus;” Peccorini, “Knowledge of the Singular;” Noreña, “Ockham and Suárez on the Ontological Status of Universal Concepts.” I have claimed that more attention should be paid to Suárez’s Scotist roots; cf. Tropia, “McCaghwell’s Reading of Scotus’s De anima,”, and Tropia, La teoria della conoscenza di Francisco Macedo, 142–48. Of the same similar advise, see Aho, “Suárez on cognitive intentions.” 39 Aristotle, Phys., I, 5, 189a5–10 and Met., V, 11, 1018b31–34. 40 Cf. Francisco Suárez, De anima, disp. 9, q. 3, n. 11, 122: “[I]ntellectum esse potentiam spiritualem abstrahentem a conditionibus materiae, non tollit quin possit cognoscere res materiales cum omnibus conditionibus individualibus, ut in angelis patet. Solum ergo potest inferri quod species, per quam intellectus cognoscit singulare, debet esse spiritualis, cum quo stat quod sit repraesentativa rei singularis, ut ostensum est.” 41 See previous note. 42 Cf. Francisco Suárez, De anima, disp. 9, q. 7, n. 6, 202–4. 38

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since it is and is not immediately at the disposal of the mind.43 Nevertheless, Suárez, as many of his predecessors and contemporaries, is against the idea that material singulars are not directly intelligible by the human intellect. In a more sustained way than Macedo, the Jesuit reappraises Scotus’s overall discourse on the state of the intellect and its temporary – though diminished – dependence on the phantasms.44 One important outcome of Macedo’s comparison with Suárez is that at least in one case – the cognition of the material singulars – the functioning of the human intellect can be clarified by the example of the angelic one. There are points in common between the two kinds of mind, owing to their immateriality. Furthermore, the insistence on the necessary separation between the intellect and the senses is a central motive in both authors’ account of human cognition. The superiority of the intellect and its prior role in the acquisition of cognition was also highlighted by other Jesuits, who are less well-known today than Suárez. This is the case with the Spaniard Juan Maldonado, who inaugurated the chair of philosophy in Paris from the very beginning of the College de Clermont in 1564. Maldonado precedes in time both Suárez and Macedo, but equally argues against any interaction between the intellect and the senses. In contrast to Suárez and Macedo, though, the incompatibility of intellect and senses is what moves Maldonado to reject in toto the species theory. According to Maldonado, the acts of intellectual cognition are direct. According to philosophy, a spiritual thing can never be generated by a bodily one. Also, if [material species] are made spiritual, they are still made of the same matter from Moreover, Suárez has a complex account of cognition of the material substances. He claims the intellect first grasps the singular accidents belonging to the substance, and only after “reconstructs” the concept of the underlying substance. See, e. g., Francisco Suárez, De anima, disp. 9, q. 4, n. 2, 154: “Species quae primo fit ab intellectu agente fit omnino similis in repraesentatione phantasmatis; sed per phantasma tantum repraesentatur res secundum accidentia sensibilia per se; ergo eandem rem et eodem modo repraesentat species intelligibilis facta ab intellectu agente. Maior patet, quia cognitio sensitiva est principium cognitionis intellectivae, nam determinat intellectum agentem ad productionem talis specie; ergo talis est res repraesentata ab intellectu agente per speciem intelligibilem productam ab illo, qualis est cognitio per sensum et repraesentata in phantasmate.” I have argued that Suárez’s account is close to Scotus’s in Tropia, “McCaghwell’s Reading of Scotus’s De anima,” 103–9. 44 Although not explicitly: Suárez claims not to agree with Scotus concerning this precise point, although he reappraises many elements from his texts. I studied this in Tropia, “Scotus and Suárez on Sympathy.” See also Francisco Suárez, De anima, disp. 9, q. 7, n. 8, 206–8: “[H]aec dependentia provenit ex imperfectione status, nam intellectus nunc non recipit species, nisi dum actu operatur phantasia; phantasia autem et intellectus radicantur in eadem anima et ideo sibi invicem deserviunt et sese impediunt; et ideo dum phantasia laeditur et insanit secum trahit attentionem animae, atque adeo intellectum; et ideo laesio redundant in intellectum.” 43

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which they come. This can happen only in two ways: either [such matter] is transformed into nothing, or it remains without form. Both options are absurd. Accordingly, from the something would be generated. But that every time we think about something, a natural being is generated in our imagination is just ridiculous; what would be generated in this way, a stone perhaps? Furthermore, the agent intellect cannot make the material forms spiritual, even if they could [be made spiritual]: for, either it can transform them, or it cannot. If it cannot, how does it make them spiritual?45

The Jesuit’s text does not contain any explicit reference to Scotus. However, its anti-Thomistic orientation is evident also in other cases, like in the cognition of the singulars (something he shares with all the Jesuits and scholastics of his day) and the entire account of the soul and its unity. Maldonado actually holds that singulars are what the intellect first knows and ascribes a certain actuality also to the material body – thereby taking on the famous “form of the bodyliness” (forma corporeitatis) from medieval anti-Thomist philosophers.46 Maldonado’s short tract has a special focus on the immortality of the soul, that he aims to defend philosophically from the danger represented by the various forms of Averroisms that were spreading in his day. His worry regarding the intellect’s independence from the senses – something he shares with Macedo and Suárez – is therefore mainly concerned with its separability from the body. Maldonado thus gives maximal attention to all the arguments that support the intellect’s independence of the intellect from the body. This, of course, is reflected in his theory of cognition. The Jesuit in fact underlines that the intellect is free (libere) to direct itself towards one or the other object, therefore cognizing it directly and by its own means, namely independently from the senses as well as from any species acquisition.47 Juan Maldonado, De origine, natura et immortalitate animae, 252: “Res enim spiritalis secundum philosophiam numquam fit ex corporea. Praeterea si fiant res spiritales, de materia illa fiunt quam exuunt, quod fit dupliciter: aut enim convertitur in nihil, aut manet sine forma. Utrumque est absurdum. Ergo ex illa aliquid gignitur. Quod autem quoties intelligamus gignatur in imaginatione aliquod ens naturale, ridiculum est; quid enim gignitur, lapisne? Praeterea intellectus agens non posset illas facere spiritales etiam si illae possent; aut enim aliquid ageret in illas aut nihil. Si nihil, quomodo facit spiritales?” 46 For the cognition of the singulars and the reappraisal of the forma corporeitatis, see respectively Juan Maldonado, De origine, natura et immortalitate animae, 257–58 and 239–40; extensive comment on the last passage in Tropia, “The unity of the soul.” 47 This is how Maldonado reconfigures abstraction; cf. Juan Maldonado, De origine, natura et immortalitate animae, 254–55: “Multis autem rebus differt sensus ab intellectu. Primo, quia nunquam abstrahit a proprio obiecto sed ab alieno, ut aspectus non abstrahit a colore, sed ab odore; intellectus, qui habet obiectum proprie infinitum, non potest abstrahere ab alieno, sed a proprio. Secundo, sensus necessitate quadam abstrahit, quia nulla potentia percipit alienum obiectum; intellectus non necessitate, ut quando non potest multa simul comprehendere, separat, aliquando libere, quia vult unum et non alterum contemplari.” 45

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The same issues are present in the texts by other Jesuits of the same period, such as the Italian Girolamo Dandini (1554–1634), who held the chair of Maldonado in Paris in the last two decades of the sixteenth century.48 In his massive and understudied commentary to Aristotle’s De anima (to my knowledge, the first printed work issued at the Parisian Jesuit College), Dandini too brings to the table the superiority of the intellect over the senses. In the footsteps of Maldonado, this worry leads him to eliminate the species – both sensible and intelligible species; the intellect can be the storage space of its thoughts (its acts) only.49 Like Suárez, Dandini refers to the mechanism of the connection among the soul’s powers to explain their interaction (coordinatio facultatum). The principle according to which nothing material (like the material impression stored within the sensitive faculty) can be ever made material (by the agent intellect) is central and determines the Jesuit’s entire account of human cognition.50 In the three Jesuit accounts that have been rapidly presented, the problem of the impossibility of any interaction or reception of anything material in the intellect is central and determines the authors’ choices in their theories of cognition. Certainly, the mechanism of sympathy – which can also be attributed to Maldonado to make sense of his own account of human cognition – does not make the human mind the alter ego of the angelic mind. Nevertheless, the perception these Jesuits had that the introduction of such a mechanism is necessary, owing to the immateriality of the intellect, paves the way for a new conception of the human intellect with a strong emphasis on the intellect’s autonomy and independence from the senses and their activities; the intellect is gradually seen as more and more distinct (separable, different, insofar as it functions in different ways) from the body. Regarding Dandini and his possible influence on other Jesuits, see Edwards, “Digressing with Aristotle: Hieronymus Dandinus’ De corpore animato (1610).” 49 Cf. Girolamo Dandini, De corpore animato, lib. III, comment. 81, 1892B–C: “A quibus [Thomas et alii] ego multis modis dissentio. Primum, intellectilem speciem nil aliud esse arbitror, quam ipsam intellectionem, quam actu promit intellectus, phantasmatibus inspectis […].” Cf. also ibid., comment. 95, digressio 29, n. 13, 1982B: “[…] specierum inanitatem ostendamus. In phantasmate namque satis est intellectui praesens obiectum, satis cum eo coniunctum, satisque ab illo intelligendum, tum provocatur intellectus, tum determinatur. Neque cogitandum est obiectum vera e propria in intellectum actionem agere (quae enim sit vel etiam intellectilis speciei actio?) sed intelligendum, intellectum potius velut cognoscentem facultatem in illud vel circa illud operari, dum illud comprehendit et iudicat. […] Nulla igitur ante intellectionem esse in intellectu potest intellectilis species, aut post eam superesse: immo nil aliud est, intellectio ipsa quae est communis forma, quarum intellectus sit actu intelligens, tum res actu intellecta; haecque vere in intelligentem transit.” 50 Cf. Girolamo Dandini, De corpore animato, comment. 95, digressio 29, n. 13,1982B–C: “Quare ut intellectus est naturaliter coordinatus phantasiae, sit phantasma illius optime comparatum ad movendum intellectum; quique hoc neget, coordinationem facultatum harum negabit.” 48

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Conclusion Let us now return to Macedo’s treatment of intuition. As it has been shown, our scholastic follows Scotus’s text (Ordinatio II, dist. 3, q. 11) but allows himself to take some liberties (cf., e. g., his ignoring of Scotus’s distinction between the states of the intellect). Macedo’s main move is that of equating the angelic and the human mind: both reciprocally clarify and illuminate features and functions of the other. Take for example the case of the angelic cognition of the material singulars: instead of referring to Scotus’s discourse on the intuitive capacity of the angel, Macedo explains how an immaterial mind – the angel’s – can acquire cognition of a material individual object by basing himself upon the human intellect, i. e., an immaterial mind bound to a material body. The latter provides him with a solution through the mechanism of sympathy. Here, let us observe that Macedo does not talk about an act of intuitive cognition but refers to the species acquired by the angel, just like the human intellect does. But then what are we to understand by ‘species’? What is the species acquired by the angel? One hypothesis is that Macedo employs the term ‘species’ as synonymous with cognition. In that case, the angel would understand the external and contingent objects just like human beings, through sympathy, are able to understand the external and material objects, namely without any direct contact with them (nothing material can affect something immaterial), through a sort of occasionalism. As for Macedo’s sources, I have presented the hypothesis that Macedo derives his views from some Jesuits of the preceding generations. It is worth noticing that instead of focusing on the specificity of the act of intuitive cognition, Macedo completely turns his attention toward the possibility of such an act in itself. In his view, such an act can be clarified only by the comparison with the human mind.

Bibliography Sources Aquinas, Thomas. Opera omnia, iussu impensatque Leonis XIII edita, 50 vols. Rome: Ex Typographia Polyglotta, 1888–1992. Bayle, Pierre. Dictionnaire historique et critique. Rotterdam: Reinier Leers, 1702. Dandini, Girolamo. De corpore animato libri VII. Luculentus in Aristotelis tres de anima libros, Commentarius Peripateticus. Paris: Claude Chappelet, 1610. Duns Scotus, Ioannes. Opera omnia. Wadding edition. 12 vols. Lyons: Laurentius Durand, 1639. Reprint Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1968–1969. –. Opera omnia. Vatican edition. Edited by Carl Balić et al. Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950–2013. –. Opera philosophica. General editors Girard J. Etzkorn and Timothy B. Noone. St. Bonaventure, New York: The Franciscan Institute, 1997–2006. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Macedo, Francisco. Collationes doctrinae Sancti Thomae et Scoti, cum differentiis inter utrumque. 3 vols. Padua: Pietro Maria Frambotti, 1671–1680. Maldonado, Juan. De origine, natura et immortalitate animae. In Tropia, Anna. “Pédagogie et philosophie à l’âge de la Contre-Réforme. Le De origine, natura et immortalitate animae (Paris, 1564) de Juan Maldonado S.J.” Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 88/1 (2021), 209–82, here 235–82. Suárez, Francisco. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis De anima. Edited by Salvador Castellote. 3 vols. Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones Labor, 1978–1991.

Studies Aho, Tuomo. “Suárez on cognitive intentions.” In Mind, Cognition and Representation. The Tradition of Commentaries on Aristotle’s De anima. Edited by Paul J.J.M. Bakker and Johannes M.M.H. Thijssen, 179–203. Aldershot: Routledge, 2007. Alejandro, José Maria. La gnoseología del Doctor Esimio y la acusación nominalista. Santander: Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 1948. Andersen, Claus A. Metaphysik im Barockscotismus. Untersuchungen zum Metaphysikwerk des Bartholomaeus Mastrius. Mit Dokumentation der Metaphysik in der scotistischen Tradition ca. 1620–1750. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2016. Baù, Antonio. “P. Francesco Macedone e P. Antonio Maria Bianchi docenti in filosofia all’Università di Padova.” In Regnum hominis et Regnum Dei. Acta Quarti Congressus Scotistici Internationalis, Patavii, 24–29 septembris 1976. Edited by Camille Bérubé, II: 337–43, 2 vols. Rome: Societas Internationalis Scotistica, 1978. Bazán, Carlos B. “Conceptions on the Agent Intellect and the Limits of Metaphysics.” In Miscellanea Medievalia. Nach der Verurteilung von 1277. Ed. By Jan A. Aertsen, 178–210. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 2001. Bérubé, Camille. La connaissance de l’individuel au Moyen Age. Paris-Montréal: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964. Casalini, Cristiano. “The Jesuits.” In Routledge Companion to Sixteenth-Century Philosophy. Edited by Benjamin Hill and Henrik Lagerlund, 159–88. London and New York: Routledge, 2017. Day, Sebastian J. Intuitive Cognition: A Key to the Later Scholastics. St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: The Franciscan Institute, 1947. De Vries, Joseph. “Die Erkenntnislehre des Franz Suárez und der Nominalismus.” Scholastik, 32 (1949), 321–44. Dumont, Robert E. “The Role of Phantasm in the Psychology of Duns Scotus.” The Monist 49 (1965), 617–33. –. “Scotus’ Intuition Viewed in the Light of the Intellect’s Present State.” In De doctrina Ioannis Duns Scoti. Acta Congressus Scotistici Internationalis, Oxonii et Edinburgi 11–17 Sep. 1996. Edited by Commissio Scotistica, 47–76, Rome: Commissio Scotistica. Dumont, Stephen. “The Scientific Character of Theology and the Origin of Duns Scotus’ Distinction between Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition.” Speculum 64 (1989), 579–99. Edwards, Michael. “Digressing with Aristotle: Hieronymus Dandinus’ De corpore animato (1610) and the Expansion of Late Aristotelian Philosophy.” Early Science and Medicine 13/2, (2008), 127–70. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Krause, Katja. Thomas Aquinas on Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in his Commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences IV.49.2. Marquette: Marquette University Press, 2020. Lazella, Andrew. The Singular Voice of Being. John Duns Scotus and the Ultimate Difference. New York: Fordham University Press, 2019. Maritain, Jacques. “Descartes ou l’incarnation de l’ange.” In Jacques Maritain, Trois réformateurs. Luther, Descartes, Rousseau, 75–126, Paris: Plon, 1925. Noreña, Carlos P. “Ockham and Suárez on the Ontological Status of Universal Concepts.” New Scholasticism 55 (1981), 159–74. Pasnau, Robert. “Cognition.” In The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus. Edited by Thomas Williams, 285–311. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Perler, Dominik. Theorien der Intentionalität im Mittelalter. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2002. –. “Things in the Mind. Fourteenth-Century Controversies over Intelligible Species.” Vivarium 34 (1996), 231–53. –. “Suárez on Intellectual Cognition and Occasional Causation.” In Causation and Cognition in Early Modern Philosophy. Edited by Dominik Perler and Sebastian Bender, 18–38. New York: Routledge, 2020. Pini, Giorgio. “Il dibattito sulle specie intellegibili alla fine del tredicesimo secolo.” Medioevo 29 (2004), 267–306. –. “Scotus on Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition.” In Debates in Medieval Philosophy: Essential Readings and Contemporary Responses. Edited by Jeffrey Hause, 348–65. London, Routledge, 2014. –. “Duns Scotus on What is in the Mind. A Roadmap.” Recherches de théologie et philosophie 87/2 (2020), 319–47. Scribano, Emanuela. Angeli e beati. Modelli di conoscenza da Tommaso a Spinoza. Rome and Bari: Laterza, 2006. –. Anges et bienheureux: la connaissance de l’infini de Descartes à Spinoza. Paris: Vrin, 2021. Sousa Ribeiro, Ilídio de. Francisco Macedo. Um filósofo escotista português e um paladino de la Restauraçao. Lisbon: Ordem da Universidade, 1951. South, James B. “Suárez on Imagination.” Vivarium 39 (2001), 119–58. –. “Singular and Universal in Suárez.” Review of Metaphysics 55/4, (2002), 785–823. Spruit, Leen. Species Intelligibilis: From Perception to Knowledge. Two volumes. Leiden: Brill, 1994–1995. –. “Species, Sensible and Intelligible.” In Encyclopedia of medieval philosophy. Edited by Henrik Lagerlund, 1211–12. Dordrecht: Springer, 2011. Tachau, Katharine. Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham: Optics, Epistemology and the Foundations of Semantics 1250–1345. Leiden: Brill, 1988. Troilo, Erminio. “Franciscus a S. Augustino Macedo.” In Relazioni storiche fra l’Italia e il Portogallo. Edited by G. Bardi, 239–60. Rome: Reale Accademia d’Italia, 1940. Tropia, Anna. “Scotus and Suárez on Sympathy: the Necessity of the connexio potentiarum in the Present State.” In Suárez’s metaphysics. Disputationes Metaphysicae in their systematic and historical context. Edited by Lukáš Novák, 275–92, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014. –. “McCaghwell’s Reading of Scotus’s De anima: a Case of Plagiarism?” The Modern Schoolman 89 (2012), 95–116. –. La teoria della conoscenza di Francisco Macedo. Un filosofo a confronto con Tommaso e Scoto. Rome: Carocci editore, 2020.

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III. Metaphysical and Theological Implications

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Esse intentionale in Some Early Scotists At the Origins of the So-called ‘Supertranscendental’ Richard Cross

Introduction Duns Scotus’s untimely death bequeathed to his followers some very complex intellectual problems. I shall consider two interrelated ones here: the ontological status of intentional being – the being had by the contents of concepts – and the possibility that intentional being might be included, along with real being, under the scope of the transcendental concept being. On both issues, Scotus says things that push in favour of both positive and negative answers, and his various students, accordingly, defended different answers to the two questions. In what follows I begin by presenting some of the ambiguities as found in Scotus, and then consider the overlapping debates between some of his early followers. At its centre is the so-called ‘supertranscendental’: the concept of being that includes both real and intentional being. This view is paradigmatically associated with Nicholas Bonetus, writing in the early 1330s.1 Here I propose to consider the development of the notion in the first two decades of the fourteenth century.2

1. Duns Scotus Scotus’s principal discussion of the ontological status of intentional being is found in the context of his treatment of the divine ideas. For the most part, he treats the intentional being of the eternal objects of God’s knowledge as something that in some sense ‘depends’ on God’s act of knowledge, or as something that is in some minimal sense ‘produced’ by God: [Something created] can [terminate the act of the divine intellect as a secondary object terminating that act], because such an object is not necessarily a prerequisite for the act, but, rather, follows and depends on the act. For it does not comport itself as an object for the divine intellect as a measure to what is measured by it, but rather the other way round.3 See Mandrella, “Metaphysik als Supertranszendentalwissenschaft ?” On the supertranscendental, see too Folger-Fonfara, Das ‘Super’-Transzendentale und die Spaltung der Metaphysik, and the useful additions in Duba, “Neither First, nor Second.” 3 Duns Scotus, Rep. I-A, dist. 36, p. 1, qq. 1–2, n. 16 (ed. Wolter / Bychkov II), 385: “Potest [aliquid creatum terminare actum divini intellectus tamquam obiectum secundario ter-

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So the idea is that an object with intentional being is not presupposed to God’s act of cognition, but is rather produced by it, or dependent on it, as a kind of necessary consequence of the act. And what explains this dependence relation is the fact that the divine intellect ‘measures’ the object, which is a technical Aristotelian way of saying that the object in some sense ‘represents’ the divine intellect: the divine intellect in some sense explains the content of the representational object. There is no thought here that the produced object is itself something created, despite the way the position is phrased. The created thing is the real, extramental, object; for such an object to be cognized is for a representation internal to God to be produced in the sense outlined. Scotus puts the point a bit more clearly elsewhere: “God […] produces a stone in intelligible being, and thus cognizes the stone.”4 As he sees it, Scotus’s opponents here suppose that God’s cognition consists in a relation between the divine intellect and the object of cognition. Aquinas, for instance, had maintained, earlier, that the divine ideas consist in comparisons God makes between his essence and “other things” (alia),5 and that these ideas are the divine essence, “in so far as it is a likeness or an idea of this or that thing.”6 For Aquinas, then, there is the one utterly simple divine essence; this essence is a likeness of all possible creatures; and these creatures are known in virtue of God’s cognizing his essence in its likeness to such creatures. He observes the likeness, so to speak, and to observe a likeness-relation it is necessary to mentally compare the two relata. The account leaves a number of loose ends which Scotus attempts to tie up. For example, what is the ontological status of the cognized object? And the comparison is a kind of asymmetrical one: the divine essence is what is imitated or represented, and the object is what imitates or represents. So what is the direction, so to speak, of the comparison? And tying up these loose ends results in a much more complex picture. As Scotus sees it, Aquinas and others have overlooked the thought that the object, in order to be compared, must on the face of it have some kind of ontological status; and that ontological status must be the

minans illum actum], quia tale obiectum non necessario coexigitur ad actum, sed magis sequitur et dependet ab actu. Non enim se habet huiusmodi obiectum ad actum intellectus divini ut mensura ad mensuratum eius, sed e converso.” All translations are my own unless otherwise stated. The dependence-language is characteristic of Scotus’s Parisian lectures; for the language of production, characteristic of his earlier, Oxford, lectures, see e. g. the next passage quoted. For a related observation, see Smith, “The Origin of Intelligibility,” 44. 4 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, n. 32 (ed. Vat. VI), 258: “Deus […] producit lapidem in esse intelligibili et intelligit lapidem.” 5 Aquinas, STh I, q. 15, a. 1 ad 2. 6 Aquinas, STh I, q. 15, a. 2 ad 1: “Inquantum est similitudo vel ratio huius vel illius rei.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Esse intentionale in Some Early Scotists

result of divine cognitive activity, such that, as we have just seen, the divine intellect in some sense produces the relevant object. Once produced, the object can be compared to the divine essence, as Aquinas and others suppose. But, in order to be known, does it have to be so compared? Scotus answers negatively, and in so doing in effect undermines the thought that the divine essence’s imitability is sufficient to ground God’s knowledge of things other than the divine essence: “No such relation is necessarily required in order to have distinct and determinate cognition.”7 So for God to know creatures all that is required is the divine cognitive act and (on the face of it) the consequent object produced by that act. How that object may or may not be an imitation or representation of the divine essence is a further thing for God to know, and is not required for God’s knowledge of the creature. Scotus offers two possible ways of understanding the position thus far sketched out. On the first, what is required for God’s cognition of the creature is merely that God’s act of cognition measures the object – is represented by the object, or is such that the divine intellect is in some sense responsible for the object’s intelligible content, as in the basic account spelled out above: In one way thus: […] the divine cognition is the measure of all intelligibles […] and for this reason each other thing is referred to the divine intellect as measured to measure, and it terminates the relation of any intelligible thing as merely absolute, and not by any relation in God, corresponding to the relation of the measured to [God].8

So this cognition requires a relation between the object and the divine essence, but no corresponding relation between the divine essence and the object – the very relation, in other words, posited by Aquinas and others. It does not, in short, require God to compare his essence to the object in a kind of reflex act. The second approach is more reductionist, though admittedly not entirely clear. The basic thought is that God’s cognition does not even require a relation between the object of cognition and the divine intellect: “In another way it can be said that no relation in God is required for his cognizing things other than himself (neither, on the other hand, is there required a relation of the intelligible object to him).”9 The reasoning is a bit obscure. Basically, Scotus considers in 7 Duns Scotus, Rep. I-A, dist. 36, p. 1, qq. 1–2, n. 59 (ed. Wolter / Bychkov II), 399: “Nulla relatio talis requiritur necessario ad cognitionem habendam distinctam et determinatam.” 8 Duns Scotus, Rep. I-A, dist. 36, p. 1, qq. 1–2, n. 60 (ed. Wolter / Bychkov II), 399‒400: “Uno modo sic: […] ipsum divinum intelligere est mensura omnium intelligibilium […] et ideo quaelibet res alia refertur ad intellectum divinum ut mensuratum ad mensuram, et ipsum terminat relationem cuiuscumque intelligibilis per rationem mere absolutam, et non per relationem aliquam in Deo correspondentem relationi mensurati ad ipsum.” 9 Duns Scotus, Rep. I-A, dist. 36, p. 1, qq. 1–2, n. 61 (ed. Wolter / Bychkov II), 400: “Alio modo potest dici quod nulla relatio requiritur in Deo ad hoc quod intelligat alia a se (nec e converso requiritur relatio obiecti intelligibilis ad ipsum).” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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turn two possible relations: the object’s being measured, or representing the divine intellect; and the object’s relation of dependence. In relation to the first, Scotus wonders whether the relation between the object and the divine intellect is a real relation or a relation of reason. On the one hand, it cannot be a real relation, because real relations require really distinct relata, and this clearly does not exist in the case at hand: Wherever really distinct things are really related, in the same way, in the case in which they are not really but merely eminently distinct, they are not really related. […] In God […] the intellect or the object, and the cognition, […] are not distinguished, because they are really the same.10

But on the other hand it cannot be a relation of reason either, because such a relation requires contingent intellectual operation over and above the termini of the relation, and in the case at hand the object and its representational capacity is a necessary consequence of the cognitive act: “Nevertheless, the divine cognition is not referred to its cognized object by a relation of reason, because they are really, naturally there, and pertaining to eminence (though they are not really distinguished).”11 That is to say, the reality and presence of the objects mean that there is no necessary relation of reason – a ‘comparison’ – between them. The argument just quoted attempts to show that the notion of relation is inapplicable. It does so by an analysis of the nature of relations. The argument against dependence is altogether more radical, starting from an analysis of the nature of intentional being: Neither do I see that it is necessary to posit a relation in one extreme on account of its dependence on the other: not in the divine cognition with respect to the stone (because a measure never depends on what is measured); nor the other way round, in the measured and cognized stone to the divine intellect, because a stone in cognized being is nothing in reality, and therefore has no dependence (because what is nothing does not depend), and if it is something, it is not merely a relation, but something absolute.12

Duns Scotus, Rep. I-A, dist. 36, p. 1, qq. 1–2, n. 62 (ed. Wolter / Bychkov II), 401: “Ubicumque aliqua distincta realiter referuntur realiter, eodem modo ubi non sunt distincta realiter sed eminenter non referuntur realiter. […] In Deo […] non distinguuntur […] intellectum sive obiectum et intelligere quia sunt idem realiter.” 11 Duns Scotus, Rep. I-A, dist. 36, p. 1, qq. 1–2, n. 62 (ed. Wolter / Bychkov II), 401: “Et tamen non refertur intelligere divinum ad obiectum suum intellectum relatione rationis, quia sunt ibi ex natura rei eminentis (licet non distinguantur realiter).” 12 Duns Scotus, Rep. I-A, dist. 36, p. 1, qq. 1–2, n. 65 (ed. Wolter / Bychkov II), 402‒3: “Nec video quod sit necessarium ponere relationem in aliquo extremo propter dependentiam eius ad aliud: non in intelligere divino per respectum ad lapidem, quia numquam mensura dependet ad mensuratum; nec etiam e converso, in lapide mensurato intellecto ad intelligere divinum, quia lapis in esse cognito tantum nihil est secundum rem, et ideo nullam habet de10

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Clearly, God does not depend on the object. But neither does the object depend on God, since the object “is nothing in reality” (nihil secundum rem), and “what is nothing does not depend.” Now, ‘nothing’ is something of a weasel word. It might mean that the ‘stone in cognized being’ is excluded from the domain of being since that domain is restricted to real being; or it might mean that the stone is excluded from the domain of real being, but not from the domain of being as such. In the former case, the non-dependence of the stone is explained by the fact that there is absolutely nothing that is the stone; in the latter, the non-dependence of the stone is explained by the fact that only real beings depend. The decision that one makes here affects both the possibility of a supertranscendental and the nature of intentional being. If the former is correct, there is no supertranscendental and no intentional being; if the latter, there is both a supertranscendental (at least in principle), and intentional being is an instance of it, along with real being. It strikes me that the former reading is more plausible, since Scotus’s claims lack any kind of restriction or qualification. But Scotus elsewhere, in a well-known passage, provides a helpful disambiguation of the term ‘nothing’ that probably pushes in the other direction: This noun ‘thing’ […] is equivocal. For this reason, we should first make a distinction about the noun ‘thing.’ […] This noun ‘thing’ can be taken most generally, generally, and most strictly. Most generally, as its extension includes whatever is not nothing. And this can be understood in two ways. For most truly that is nothing which includes a contradiction, and only that, because it excludes any being outside and within the intellect. […] In another way ‘nothing’ means what neither is nor can be something outside the soul. Therefore ‘being’ and ‘thing’ in this first way is taken utterly generally, and its extension includes whatever does not include a contradiction, whether it be a being of reason or a real being having some entity outside the intellect’s consideration. […] And of these two options […] the first seems to extend the term ‘thing’ excessively, but nevertheless it is sufficiently shown from the general way of speaking. For we generally say that logical intentions are things of reason, and relations of reason are things of reason, and yet these cannot be outside the intellect. […] Therefore, in this most general sense, as anything conceivable that does not include a contradiction is said to be a ‘thing’ or a ‘being’ (whether this commonality is one of analogy or univocation, about which I do not at the moment care), being can be posited to be the first object of the intellect.13

pendentiam (quia quod nihil est non dependet), et si sit aliquid, non est solus respectus sed absolutum.” 13 Duns Scotus, Quodl., q. 3, n. 2 (ed. Wadding XII), 67: “Hoc nomen ‘res’ […] est aequivocum. Ideo primo distinguendum est de hoc nomine ‘res.’ […] Hoc nomen ‘res’ potest sumi communissime, communiter, et strictissime. Communissime, prout se extendit ad quodcumque quod non est nihil, et hoc potest intelligi dupliciter. Verissime enim illud est nihil quod includit contradictionem, et solum illud, quia illud excludit omne esse extra intellectum et in intellectu. […] Alio modo dicitur nihil quod nec est nec esse potest aliquod ens extra https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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So here we have two relevant senses of ‘nihil,’ and correspondingly two senses of ‘ens.’ The first sense of ‘nihil’ is simply the contradictory; the second, wider sense includes too that which cannot be extramental – Scotus’s examples being beings of reason and logical concepts. Accordingly, then, one sense of ‘ens’ includes whatever is non-contradictory, including for example logical concepts and relations of reason (all second intention concepts, concepts of concepts, not concepts of things); and the second sense of ‘ens,’ narrower than the first, includes merely whatever can be extramental. But note an ambiguity in the narrower sense here: “real being having some entity outside the consideration of the intellect” seems to suggest merely extramental existents; but the relevant contrast cannot be merely between second intention concepts and extramental existents, because the contrast is supposed to be exhaustive and as thus set out it fails to include first intention concepts, concepts of things. I assume that the intended contrast is between extramental being, on the one hand, and intentional being on the other, including both first and second intentions. Be this as it may, of interest here is Scotus’s account of the first sense of ‘ens.’ He notes, first, that common usage refers to ‘beings’ of reason, which suggests that there is indeed such a sense, covering ‘anything that can be conceived.’ Secondly, he suggests too that being in this sense is the first object of the intellect, since, presumably, logical intentions and the like can be understood: logic and mathematics fall under the scope of the intellect’s power. Finally, however, he notes that he “does not care” for the purposes of his discussion whether this common concept should be univocal or analogous. This final point makes all the difference when appraising whether or not Scotus would accept that being in this sense – the being that covers both real and intentional items – is a transcendental, because according to Scotus transcendental concepts are necessarily univocal. If it is a transcendental, then it is also in some sense a supertranscendental, since the standard sense of ‘transcendental’ covers merely real being. Elsewhere, Scotus seems to suggest both that real and intentional being count as categorial beings – they both belong to the categories – and that they both straightforwardly fall under the scope of the concept of being: animam. Ens ergo vel res isto primo modo, accipitur omnino communissime et extendit se ad quodcumque quod non includit contradictionem, sive sit ens rationis […], sive sit ens reale habens aliquam entitatem extra considerationem intellectus. […] Et istorum duorum membrorum […] primum videtur valde extendere nomen rei, et tamen ex communi modo loquendi, satis probatur. Communiter enim dicimus intentiones logicas esse res rationis, et relationes rationis esse res rationis, et tamen ista non possunt esse extra intellectum. […] Et isto intellectu communissimo, prout res vel ens dicitur quodlibet conceptibile quod non includit contradictionem, sive illa communitas sit analogiae sive univocationis, de qua non curo modo, posset poni ens primum obiectum intellectus.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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That a relation of reason is unqualifiedly in a category is evident, if that final opinion about number posited in distinction 24 is correct, namely, that number according to its formal definition is from the soul. […] And nevertheless it is evident that number is a true species of quantity, such that the category of quantity is divided into magnitude, as into a real species and real being, and into multitude as into a species and being of reason. And it is similar for real relation and relation of reason, just as being in its primary division is divided into real being and being of reason. Neither is it repugnant to a being of reason that it is in a category. But I leave this as something uncertain.14

The argument is that the category of quantity includes both real and intentional items, since magnitude is real, whereas multitude is merely intentional, the result of counting. And if this is correct, then Scotus concludes that it is possible for the category of relation to include both real and intentional items: in this case, real relations and merely rational relations. Thus, as he concludes, ‘it is not impossible for a being of reason to be in a category.’ But Scotus’s final sentence is non-committal: “I leave this as something uncertain.”

2. James of Ascoli Scotus’s discussion in fact leaves more than just this uncertain. We do not know whether the most general sense of being would make being univocal or analogous, whether it would make it a transcendental or a supertranscendental (or neither); or whether beings of reason are categorial or not, and thus whether or not the most general sense of being would include non-categorial things as well as categorial things. Scotus’s followers confronted these various issues and came up with quite different conclusions, both on the substantive philosophical issues and on the correct interpretation of Scotus. I begin with James of Ascoli, who holds that intentional being has some kind of ontological status; that there is a general sense of ‘being’ that includes real and intentional being; and that this sense is univocal. Again, the context is a discussion of the divine ideas, usually dated to around 1310.15

Duns Scotus, Rep. I-A, dist. 29, q. unica, n. 12 (ed. Wolter / Bychkov II), 240: “Quod autem relatio rationis sit simpliciter in genere patet, si illa opinio de numero ultimo posita distinctione 24 sit vera, quod scilicet numerus secundum rationem eius formalem sit ab anima. […] Et tamen constat quod numerus est species vera quantitatis, ut sic genus quantitatis descendat in magnitudinem ut in speciem realem et ens reale, et in multitudinem ut in speciem et ens rationis. Et similiter de relatione in relationem realem et rationis, sicut ens primaria sui divisione descendit in ens reale et in ens rationis. Non ergo repugnat enti rationis quod sit in genere. Sed hoc tamquam dubium dimitto.” 15 For a discussion of James’s views on the nature of esse intelligibile, see Perler, “What are Intentional Objects?”; for the date, see in particular 211. 14

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The basic argument for the ontological status of intentional being relies on an assumption that an intentional being and a real being are the subject of a univocal predicate: for example, that a stone with intentional being and a stone with real being are univocally stones: From eternity, a creature had some entity actually distinct from God, which I prove firstly thus: nothing said of being and what is totally non-being is said univocally by a univocation that is greater than the univocation of genus or species. This is evident of itself, because there is no one notion of substance between being and what is totally non-being. But univocals are those of which the notion of substance is one (see the Categories). But ‘stone’ said of a stone produced in time and of a stone cognized from eternity is said univocally by a greater univocation than the univocation of genus or species is. Therefore, if a stone produced in time was a being, and a stone cognized from eternity was a being, consequently [the latter] was not utterly nothing. But a stone cognized from eternity was not God. Therefore it was a being other than God. Therefore a stone cognized by God had some entity distinct from God.16

Since the univocation that obtains in the stone case thus described is greater than the univocation that obtains between two distinct real stones, it follows that the stone with intentional being cannot be “utterly nothing” – it cannot be nihil in, I take it, Scotus’s narrow sense. Clearly, the assumption about univocity is crucial here, and James defends it by simply noting that what has intentional existence is supposed to explain the fact that God can have knowledge of a real stone (even in the absence of that stone’s current real existence), and that it can only do this if the stone with intentional existence is identical with the stone with real existence. And if the two are numerically identical, then ‘stone’ is predicated of them with a greater degree of univocity than it is predicated of two things that are merely specifically identical: Proof of the minor: that which is said of some things according to a numerical unity is said univocally by a greater univocation than the univocation of genus or species is, Metaphysics 5. But ‘stone’ said of a stone produced in time and of a stone cognized by 16 James of Ascoli [Jacobus de Aesculo], Quaestiones ordinariae, q. 5, a. 1, ll. 4‒15, in Yokoyama, “Zwei Quaestionen des Jacobus de Aesculo über das Esse Obiectivum,” 38: “Creatura ab aeterno habuit aliquam entitatem distinctam actu a Deo. Quod probo sic: primo, nihil dictum de ente et totaliter non ente dicitur univoce maiori univocatione quam sit univocatio generis vel speciei. Hoc patet de se, quia entis et totaliter non entis non est aliqua ratio substantiae una. Univoca autem sunt quorum ratio substantiae est una, in Praedicamentis. Sed lapis dictus de lapide producto ex tempore et de lapide cognito ab aeterno dicitur univoce maiori univocatione quam sit univocatio generis vel speciei, ut probabo. Igitur si lapis productus ex tempore fuit ens, et lapis cognitus ab aeterno fuit ens et per consequens non fuit omnino nihil. Sed lapis ab aeterno cognitus non fuit Deus. Ergo fuit ens aliud a Deo. Ergo lapis cognitus a Deo habuit aliquam entitatem distinctam a Deo.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Esse intentionale in Some Early Scotists

God from eternity is said of them according to numerical unity. Proof: a stone produced in time is either numerically the same stone that was cognized from eternity, or a different one. If it is numerically the same, then ‘stone’ is said of each one according to numerical unity, which is what is proposed. If you say that it is a different one, then the stone that is produced in time was never foreknown by God, which is absurd. […] Therefore ‘stone’ said of a stone produced in time and of a stone cognized from eternity is said univocally with a greater univocation than is the univocation of genus or species, and this is the minor premise of the whole argument.17

James does not make the point explicitly, but this line of argument presupposes in turn that ‘ens’ is univocal—thus deciding something that Scotus set aside for later discussion. After all, according to the first passage just quoted, each of the stone with real being and the stone with intentional being is a being; if one of them were not, then there would be no ‘notion of substance’ in common between them. But James expressly rejects, as a point of philosophy, Scotus’s apparent claim that the domain of being might include second intention concepts: logical intentions and the like. Among intentional items, he restricts the domain of being to those items that can be realized extramentally: first intention concepts, in short. Thus he claims that “the first18 division of being” is “between a being in the soul and a being outside the soul,”19 and the former is defined as ‘being in the soul objectively.’20 This kind of being extends both to items that are possibly extramental, and to items that are not possibly extramental, be they ‘beings of reason’ or ‘fictitious’ beings (impossibilia, I assume): To be in the soul objectively […] is either such that it is not repugnant [for the thing in the soul objectively] to be formally outside the soul (as is the form of a house, which, although it has being only objectively in the mind of the artificer before it is made, nevertheless it is not repugnant to it to be produced outside the soul); or is such that it is 17 James of Ascoli, Quaestiones ordinariae, q. 5, a. 1, ll. 25‒35, 39: “Probatio minoris, quia illud quod dicitur de aliquibus secundum unitatem numeralem dicitur univoce maiori univocatione quam sit univocatio generis vel speciei, 5 Metaphysicae. Sed lapis dictus de lapide producto ex tempore et de lapide cognito ab aeterno dicitur de eis secundum unitatem numeralem. Probatio, quia lapis productus ex tempore aut est idem lapis numero qui fuit cognitus ab aeterno aut alius. Si est idem numero, tunc de utroque dicitur lapis secundum unitatem numeralem, quod est propositum. Si dicis quod est alius, iste lapis qui est productus ex tempore numquam fuit praecognitus a Deo, quod est absurdum. […] Ergo lapis dictus de lapide producto ex tempore et de lapide cognito ab aeterno dicitur univoce maiori univocatione quam sit univocatio generis vel speciei, et ista fuit minor totius rationis.” 18 The edition has ‘plena’ (James of Ascoli, Quaestiones ordinariae, q. 5, a. 2, l. 5, 43), but I assume the expected ‘prima’ is the correct reading of ‘pa’ in the manuscript. 19 James of Ascoli, Quaestiones ordinariae, q. 5, a. 2, l. 5, 43: “In ens in anima et ens extra animam.” 20 James of Ascoli, Quaestiones ordinariae, q. 5, a. 2, ll. 9–10, 43: “Esse obiective in anima.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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utterly repugnant to it to be outside the soul, or even in the soul subjectively (such as fictitious things, and beings of reason, which are very close to each other).21

James claims that the second of these – any item that is not possibly extramental – has nothing in common with the being that is shared by things that are actually or possibly extramental, such that the division between these two types of being is ‘essential’; whereas the division between extramental being and possible being is ‘accidental,’ a division of what is univocal into two sub-kinds: If in the first way, then the division of being into a being in the soul and [a being] outside [the soul] is an accidental division, not an essential one. Proof: the same (in genus, species, or number) can be in the soul objectively in any of these three ways, and can be outside the soul really, and for this reason each is accidental to it. If however in the second way, then the division of being into a being in the soul and outside the soul is an essential division, because the dividing members are primarily diverse beings, with nothing the same.22

This, of course, requires that, while there is a sense of ‘being (ens)’ which is univocal to real beings and merely possible beings, nevertheless this univocal ens is divided into real and merely possible beings such that two kinds of ens result: real being, I take it, and merely possible being. One might suppose that those two complex concepts, real being and merely possible being are analogous to each other, though James does not say this. Be that as it may, James points out that, despite the difference between the two complex concepts of being, it is nevertheless the case that ‘stone’ is straightforwardly univocal: there is no special concept of real stone as opposed to merely possible stone: Although real being and intentional being are of a different kind, nevertheless that which exists really and intentionally can be of the same kind. For example, numerically the same colour, which is formally or really in the wall, is intentionally in the medium.23

James of Ascoli, Quaestiones ordinariae, q. 5, a. 2, ll. 21‒27, 43: “Esse autem obiective in anima […] vel est tale quod sibi non repugnat esse extra animam formaliter, sicut est forma domus, quae, licet ante sui factionem habeat esse solum obiective in mente artificis, tamen sibi non repugnat posse produci extra animam; vel est tale cui omnino repugnat esse extra animam vel etiam in anima subiective, cuiusmodi sunt ficitia et entia rationis quae sunt valde propinqua ad invicem.” 22 James of Ascoli, Quaestiones ordinariae, q. 5, a. 2, ll. 27‒33, 43–44: “Si primo modo, tunc divisio entis per ens in anima et extra est divisio accidentalis et non essentialis. Probatio, quia idem genere speciei numero potest esse in anima obiective quocumque istorum trium modorum, et potest esse realiter extra animam, et ideo utrumque accidit sibi. Si autem secundo modo, tunc divisio entis in ens in anima et extra animam est divisio essentialis et non accidentalis, quia membra dividentia sunt primo divisa nihil idem entia.” 23 James of Ascoli, Quaestiones ordinariae, q. 5, a. 2, ll. 125–28, 47: “Licet esse reale et esse intentionale sint alterius rationis, tamen illud quod existit realiter et intentionaliter potest esse 21

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Given his commitment to the reality of the divine ideas as items distinct from the divine essence, it is no surprise to find James giving an account of their production by the divine intellect. He contrasts the case with that of the real production of extramental objects, the result of the real explanatory exercise of causal powers. Items with esse intentionale are produced ‘metaphorically’: Something is said metaphorically to be caused by another when the thing caused is not produced by the other efficiently, with the mediation of some production, but merely depends on it by following [it] (consecutive), such that if we posit the prior thing it follows it by a natural order. […] To the issue at hand, I say that a creature, both with respect to the intelligible being that it has objectively in the divine intellect, and with respect to the being of reason that it has objectively in a comparing intellect, has being metaphorically caused from eternity by God.24

Metaphorical production is a bit like Hume’s constant conjunction, it seems: the one thing always follows from the other, but this ‘consecutive’ dependence is just a kind of natural ordering, without any kind of efficiently causal production. And of course what depends in this way is not a real thing, but a merely intentional being.25

3. William of Alnwick James takes a rather expansive view of the ontological status of esse intentionale, and of the consequent commitment to a supertranscendental that this might seem to involve. Another of Scotus’s students – William of Alnwick – writing five or six years later, adopts a far more reductionist account, and expressly targets James’s position in making his case.26 eiusdem rationis. Verbi gratia, item color numero, qui est formaliter sive realiter in pariete, est intentionaliter in medio.” See too ibid., a. 4, ll. 33–45, 57. 24 James of Ascoli, Quaestiones ordinariae, q. 5, a. 3, ll.11–23, 52: “Metaphorice vero dicitur aliquid esse causatum ab alio, quando ipsum causatum non est productum ab alio effective mediante aliqua productione, sed solum dependet ab illo consecutive, ita quod posito illo priori istud naturali ordine sequitur. […] Ad propositum dico quod creatura et quantum ad esse intelligibile quod habet in essentia divina obiective, et quantum ad esse cognitum in actu quod habet obiective in intellectu divino, et quantum ad esse rationis quod habet obiective in intellectu comparativo, quantum ad quodlibet istorum dico quod creatura habet esse caustaum ab aeterno a deo metaphorice.” 25 For the treatment of metaphorical production in Petrus Thomae, slightly later than James’s work, see Smith, “The Origin of Intelligibility,” 57–59. 26 For discussion of William’s views on esse intelligibile, see Perler, “What are Intentional Objects?,” 217–25; Smith, “The Origin of Intelligibility,” 50–56 (for the date, see in particular 50). I defend this sort of reductionist view, as a reading of Scotus, in Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 189–99. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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William’s basic insight is that there is no distinction between the (real) vehicle of representation and the (intentional) contents of the representation – thus, in the case of the divine ideas, no distinction of any kind between the divine essence and its representational capacity: just the opposite, in short, of James’s view, owing more to Scotus’s “nihil […] secundum rem” than to his notion that representations need to be ‘produced.’ Thus, for an object of cognition to be represented is just for something real to represent it, and being represented is simply an extrinsic denomination of the represented object: The represented being of an object is not a thing distinct from the representing form. The represented being of Caesar, for instance, represented by a statue, does not differ from the representing statue except in the mode of signifying. For when I say that a stone is represented by a species (or by the divine essence) and cognized, this description is based on either an intrinsic or an extrinsic form. But not on an intrinsic form inhering in the stone, because then represented being would have real subjective being in the stone. This cannot be the case because [represented being] belongs to the stone even if the stone does not exist. […] Therefore, when I say that a stone is represented or cognized, this description is based solely on an extrinsically describing form, which is nothing other than the form that represents it or the form of the intellection. […] When a stone is said to be represented or intellectively cognized through a species, its represented being is no other entity than that of the species signified in a kind of coalescence with the stone, and the intellectively cognized being of the stone is nothing other than the intellection of the stone signified in a kind of coalescence extrinsic to the stone.27

William attempts to show this by appeal to Aristotle’s primary division of being into real being and being in the soul. Real being is categorial being; being in the soul is pure mind-dependence. The argument is that the existence of mental representations – be they intelligible species or the divine essence – is antecedent to any “operation of the intellect or soul,” and is hence something real (a categorial accident or the divine essence), since “a species would represent even if the intellect did not cognize”: 27 William of Alnwick, De esse intelligibili, q. 1 (in William of Alnwick, Quaestiones disputatae de esse intelligibili), 15‒16 (translation in Pasnau (ed.), Mind and Knowledge, 164–65): “Esse repraesentatum alicuius obiecti non est res distincta a forma repraesentante, sicut esse repraesentatum Caesaris per statuam repraesentantem non differt a statua repraesentante nisi in modo significandi, cum enim dico quod lapis est repraesentatus per speciem aut per essentiam divinam et cognitus, aut fit denominatio a forma intrinseca aut extrinseca; non a forma intrinseca inhaerente lapidi, quid tunc esse repraesentatum haberet esse reale subiectivum in lapide, quod non contingit cum conveniat ei etiam si lapis non sit. […] Igitur cum dico lapis est repraesentatus aut cognitus, solum fit denominatio a forma extrinsecus denominante quae non est nisi forma repreaesentativa aut forma intellectionis. […] Cum dicitur lapis est repraesentatus aut intellectus per speciem, esse repraesentatum non est alia entitas quam entitas speciei in quadam concretione significata respectu lapidis, et esse intellectum lapidem non est aliud quam intellectio lapidis significata in quadam concretione extrinseca ad lapidem.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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I show that represented being is the same in reality as the representing form, and cognized being the same in reality as the cognition. Every positive entity not dependent on the soul is a real entity, because such an entity would have being even if the soul were not to exist. Thus the Philosopher and the Commentator, in Metaphysics VI, make a first division of being into being in the soul and being outside the soul. They say that being outside the soul is real being, because they divide it into the ten categories, each of which is a real being or real entity. For it is clear that [if] no thing exists [then] nothing exists. Therefore it is clear that being that is not dependent on the soul is real being. But represented being is a positive being and a kind of positive entity, as they too grant, and it is not dependent on the operation of intellect or soul, as they also grant, because the species would represent even if the intellect were not cognizing. Therefore, if that which is represented is a real being or a real entity, it is nothing other than the entity of what represents it. For if it were a different real entity outside the soul, it would have subjective being distinct in reality from what represents it. Therefore, represented being is the same in reality as the representing form.28

The same, obviously, will go for the divine essence. So for his argument to go through universally William will be constrained to reverse Scotus’s ordering between divine cognition and the object of cognition: the divine essence must be the object of cognition antecedently to the act of cognition, a point that William makes expressly elsewhere.29 William gives James’s argument from univocity very short shrift. If something is said of two things with a greater univocation than the one that obtains between items in the same genus or species, those two things must be real. A non-existent possible – such as James’s stone, or, in Alnwick’s example, the soul of the Antichrist – “lacks a quiddity,” and hence cannot be univocally the same as something real: I take this as his major premise: ‘If something is said of two things through a greater univocation than the univocation of genus or species, then each of those things is a real

William of Alnwick, De esse intelligibili, q. 1, 8–9 (Pasnau, 159): “Ostendo quod esse repraesentatum est idem realiter cum forma repraesentante et esse cognitum idem realiter cum cognitione, nam omnis entitas positiva non dependens ab anima est entitas realis, quia talis entitas haberet esse etsi anima non esset. Unde Philosophus et Commentator, VI Metaph., dividunt ens prima divisione in ens in anima et ens extra animam, et ens extra animam dicunt esse ens reale quia illud dividunt in decem praedicamenta quorum quodlibet est ens reale sive entitas realis. Quod enim nulla res est nihil est, patet; igitur patet quod esse non dependens ab anima est reale; sed esse repraesentatum est esse positivum et entitas quaedam positiva, ut etiam concedunt, et non dependens ab operatione intellectus vel animae, ut etiam concedunt, quia species repraesentaret etsi intellectus non intelligeret; ergo si repraesentatum est esse reale sive entitas realis, non alia quam entitas ipsius repraesentantis, quia si esset entitas alia extra animam realis, haberet esse subiectivum distinctum realiter a repraesentante; igitur esse repraesentatum est idem realiter cum forma repraesentante.” 29 On this, see Smith, “The Origin of Intelligibility,” 53. 28

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being. I prove this major premise in the same way as he proves his own: for things are univocal that have the same substantial nature. But that which is a real being and that which is not a real being but purely nothing (such as something that could be created) do not have the same substantial nature. For example, the soul of Peter and the not-yetexistent soul of the Antichrist do not have the same substantial nature, because the soul of the Antichrist has no quiddity, as I suppose with him.30

Conversely, supposing with James that univocity obtains, the following predication will be true, using ‘stoner’ here as a proper name for a stone with intentional being: ‘stoner is a stone.’ But this is clearly absurd: If something is said univocally of two things through a greater univocation than that of genus or species, then each of those things truly is the thing said univocally of them in this way. But, according to you, ‘stone’ is said in this way of both a stone in cognized being and a stone in external reality. Therefore the stone in cognized being is truly a stone.31

How, then, does William get around James’s view that the denial of univocity will entail the denial of numerical identity, and thus that God’s knowledge of a possible stone will not be knowledge of the self-same actual stone? He maintains that ‘being represented’ is a ‘diminishing’ determination: since being represented is an extrinsic denomination of the stone, the stone represented – that is to say, the representation – does not count as a stone: I reply to the argument by granting the major and denying the minor. For ‘stone’ is not said univocally, through the univocation of species, because being-in-cognition, like being-in-opinion, is a diminishing modifier. Thus a stone in cognized being is a stone in a qualified way. […] Therefore I grant that the stone is numerically the same in external reality and in cognized being. The same stone that in reality and without qualification exists externally is in cognition as well, because relative to a third [term] the stone is diminished though being-in-cognition. So it does not follow that ‘stone’ is said univocally

30 William of Alnwick, De esse intelligibili, q. 1, ad 1, 18 (Pasnau, 167): “Accipio pro maiori: si aliquid dicitur de duobus maiori univocatione quam sit univocatio generis et speciei, utrumque illorum est ens reale. Hanc maiorem probo eodem modo sicut ipse probat suam, quia univoca sunt quorum ratio substantialis est eadem. Et autem quod est ens reale et ei quod non est ens reale sed purum nihil sicut creabile, non est ratio substantialis eadem, sicut animae Petri et anima antichristi quae nondum est non est ratio substantialis eadem, quia anima antichristi non habet quidditatem, ut suppono cum ipso.” 31 William of Alnwick, De esse intelligibili, q. 1, ad 1, 19 (Pasnau, 168): “Si aliquid dicitur univoce de duobus maiori univocatione quam sit univocatio generis aut speciei, utrumque illorum est vere illud quod sic dicitur univoce de illis; sed per te lapis sic dicitur de lapide in esse cognito et de lapide in effectu; igitur lapis in esse cognito vere est lapis.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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or is a result of numerical unity of both a stone in cognized being and a stone in external reality.32

This does not commit William to holding that there is a kind of diminished being, attaching to cognitive objects; merely that the representation, albeit that it is a representation of a stone, does not itself count as a stone. For a stone to be known, it is not necessary that its representation is a stone. The representation is merely the vehicle by which the stone is known. James’s analysis entails a three-fold division of being, albeit that mere beings of reason – as opposed to real and possible being – are beings only equivocally. William resists the three-fold analysis. He restricts the division of being into things ‘of first intention’ and things ‘of second intention.’ Real being is what is represented by first intentions, and rational being what is represented by second intentions. But in both cases the representational concepts or intentions are real. The difference is only in what is represented: To the second argument, when it is argued that represented being is a state of existence intermediary between real being and the being of reason, I say that absolutely speaking there is no such real intermediary state, because every state of existence is either of first or of second intention. For there is no intention intermediary between first and second intention. But if this existence is of second intention, then it is the existence of reason, whereas if it is of first intention, then it is real, because then it is put into being by a first intention of nature and not one of reason. To the proof, when it is argued that the represented being of a stone is not the existence of reason because it precedes the act of intellect, I grant this. And when it is further argued that it is not real existence, because it is diminished being, I reply that although represented being is the diminished being of the represented stone, nevertheless it is real being, the same in reality as the being of the representing form.33 William of Alnwick, De esse intelligibili, q. 1, 19–20 (Pasnau, 168–69, slightly altered): “Respondeo igitur ad rationem, concedendo maiorem et negando minorem, non enim lapis dicitur univoce univocatione speciei de lapide in esse cognito et de lapide in effectu nec per consequens dicitur de eis maiori univocatione quam sit univocatio speciei, quia esse in cognitione sicut esse in opinione est determinatio diminuens; unde lapis ut in esse cognito est lapis secundum quid. […] Concedo igitur quod idem est lapis numero in effectu et in esse cognito, idem lapis qui est realiter et simpliciter in effectu est in cognitione; quia tamen respectu tertii lapis diminuitur per esse in cognitione, ideo non sequitur quod lapis dicitur univoce nec unitate numerali de lapide in esse cognito et de lapide in effectu.” 33 William of Alnwick, De esse intelligibili, q. 1, ad 2, 20–21 (Pasnau, 169–70): “Ad argumentum secundum, cum arguitur quod esse repraesentatum est entitas media inter esse reale et esse rationis, dico quod absolute loquendo nulla est realis talis entitas media, quia omnis entitas aut est primae intentionis aut secundae: non enim est intentio media inter primam intentionem et secundam; si autem sit entitas secundae intentionis, tunc est entitas rationis, si primae, tunc est realis, quia tunc prima intentione naturae et non rationis instituitur in esse. Ad probationem, cum arguitur quod esse repraesentatum lapidis non est entitas rationis, quia 32

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To the extent that there are kinds of being, these are determined simply by the object of cognition (something extramental or something mental, respectively). There is thus no supertranscendental. Rather, the representation is real; and as a representation it is in no sense an instance of the kind it represents (hence ‘being represented is a diminished being of the represented stone’).

4. William of Ockham Ockham plays a somewhat unexpected but significant part in this little story, and that part can remind us just how closely in the circle of early Scotists Ockham should be located. As is well known, Ockham changed his view on the nature of universals, from the view (held in 1318 and before) that the universal is some kind of mental representation present as the object of a cognitive act, to the view (held sometime after 1318) that the universal is just the act itself, a natural sign of a collection of extra-mental objects. The earlier of these two views – the so-called ‘fictum’ theory – shows very evident traces of the problematic just discussed. And the later view shows the razor eliminating such ficta altogether, more in the manner of Alnwick’s view. The fictum, according to Ockham, is not a categorial item. It has no ‘subjective’ being – it is not an inherent accident. But it has a certain sort of being: ‘objective’ being, the being attaching to purely mental items.34 To establish the possibility of such an item, Ockham adduces no fewer than six arguments to “prove that there is something in the soul having objective being only, not subjective being.”35 The first is Aristotle’s division of being into “being in the soul” and being “divided into the ten categories.”36 It is not possible that it have subjective being, else Aristotle’s division would not be exclusive. And if the former, then Ockham’s point is established: objective being is a kind of being. The remaining arguments appeal to particular kinds of mental item that could not be real beings: figments such as a goat-stag or a chimera – logically impossible beings, I take it;37 the objects of logic such as “propositions, syllogisms, and the like”;38 “artificial things in the mind of the artisan” prior to their

praecedit actum intellectus, concedo; et quando arguitur ulterius quod non est entitas realis quia est esse diminutum, respondeo quod licet esse repraesentatum sit diminutum esse lapidis repraesentati, est tamen esse reale idem realiter cum esse formae repraesentantis.” 34 Ockham, Ord. I, dist. 2, q. 8, n. 22 (Opera theologica II) 271.16; translation in Paul Vincent Spade, Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problem of Universals, 218. 35 Ockham, Ord. I, dist. 2, q. 8, n. 25 (Opera theologica II), 273.1–3; Spade, 219. 36 Ockham, Ord. I, dist. 8, q. 8, n. 26 (Opera theologica II), 273.3–5; Spade, 219. 37 See Ockham, Ord. I, dist. 2, q. 8, n. 27 (Opera theologica II), 273.15–18; Spade, 219. 38 Ockham, Ord. I, dist. 2, q. 8, n. 28 (Opera theologica II), 271.19; Spade, 219. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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construction;39 relations of reason;40 transcendental concepts;41 and “second intentions.”42 So here objective being is distinguished from categorial being. But it is apparently no less a kind of being. Ockham in this text denies that “being indicates a univocal concept.”43 I take it that, a fortiori, he would deny that the concept of being common to subjective and objective being is univocal. So the division of being is non-univocal, and there is thus no supertranscendental. Ockham’s later view is reminiscent of Alnwick’s, and still less compatible with the possibility of a supertranscendental: One who does not like this theory of ficta in objective being can hold that a concept, and any universal, is a quality existing subjectively in the mind. It is a sign of an external thing just as much from its nature as a spoken word is the sign of a thing according to the will of the one who institutes it. […] There seems to be no greater problem in being able to call forth in the intellect qualities that are natural signs of things than there is for brute animals and human beings naturally to emit sounds to which signifying other things naturally pertains. Yet there is a difference, in that brutes and human beings do no emit such sounds except for the sake of signifying passions or accidents existing in them. But the intellect, because it is a greater power in this respect, can call forth qualities for the sake of naturally signifying any things whatever.44

The similarity with Alnwick’s view is very evident. Ockham has replaced the ontologically laden notion of representation with the perhaps less-controversial notion of natural signification, using the example of the instinctive but nevertheless significative sounds produced by humans and non-human animals.

Ockham, Ord. I, dist. 2, q. 8, n. 29 (Opera theologica II), 274.1–2; Spade, 219. See Ockham, Ord. I, dist. 2, q. 8, n. 30 (Opera theologica II), 274.3; Spade, 219. 41 See Ockham, Ord. I, dist. 2, q. 8, n. 31 (Opera theologica II), 274.7–8; Spade, 219. 42 See Ockham, Ord. I, dist. 2, q. 8, n. 32 (Opera theologica II), 274.9–10; Spade, 219. 43 See Ockham, Ord. I, dist. 2, q. 8, n. 31 (Opera theologica II), 274.6–7; Spade, 219. 44 Ockham, Ord. I, dist. 2, q. 8, nn. 86–87 (Opera theologica II), 289.12–15, 290.3–11; Spade, 229: “Cui non placet ista opinio de talibus fictis in esse obiectivo potest tenere quod conceptus et quodlibet universale est aliqua qualitas exsistens subiective in mente, quae ex natura sua ita est signum rei extra sicut vox est signum rei ad placitum instituentis. […] Nec videtur hoc magis inconveniens in intellectu posse elicere aliquas qualitates quae sunt naturaliter signa rerum, quam quod bruta animalia et homines aliquos sonos non emittunt quibus naturaliter competit aliqua alia significare. Est tamen in hoc differentia quod bruta et homines tales sonos non emittunt nisi ad significandum aliquas passiones vel aliqua accidentia in ipsis exsistentia, intellectus autem, quia est maioris virtutis quantum ad hoc, potest elicere qualitates ad quaecumque naturaliter significandum.” 39

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5. Francis of Marchia (Ascoli) Writing shortly before 1319,45 Francis holds, in standard Scotist fashion, that “the intention of being (intentio entis) is univocal according to the notion of the ten categories,”46 but makes it clear that he understands the categories properly to include both real being and first and second intention concepts. Francis, reflecting one standard early fourteenth-century practice,47 uses the term ‘first intention’ to pick out both extramental natures and the concepts that represent them, and restricts the term ‘second intention’ to concepts of concepts. He introduces the various distinctions like this: Of positive intentions, some are first intentions, namely, man or animal; some are second, such as species and genus; some are real beings, and some beings of reason. For this reason, there is a difficulty, whether beings of reason are formally and of themselves in a category; and in particular [whether] second intentions are [in a category] of themselves or merely by reduction.48

Here we have several overlapping categories: first intentions, some of which are ‘real,’ and some of which are concepts of such real beings. Note that there appears to be some slippage in Francis’s use of the term ‘being of reason.’ Here first intention concepts seem to be a subclass of beings of reason; in a passage below, Francis identifies beings of reason as merely second intention concepts. So the treatment requires a bit of care, but I think the difficulty is primarily terminological. Francis’s aim is to show that all of these – real objects, concepts of such objects, and second intentions – are categorial items: “For this reason it should be said otherwise, that first and second intentions are of themselves in a category, and not just by reduction.”49 Here, again, ‘first intentions’ refers to both real Duba argues that the discussion I consider here, despite apparently being a quodlibetal disputation, must be dated earlier than Francis’s Sentences commentary, which latter, dating from 1319–20, contains a discussion that deals with certain difficulties left over from the account discussed here; cf. Duba, “Neither First, nor Second.” 46 Francis of Marchia, Quodlibet, q. 5, a. 4, ll. 3–4, 207: “Intencio entis est univoca secundum rationem x. praedicamentis.” 47 This is characteristic of early fourteenth-century accounts of first intentions; see for instance Hervaeus Natalis, De secundis intentionibus, d. 1, q. 1, nn. 15–17 (ed. Judith Dijs), 116– 17. 48 Francis of Marchia, Quodlibet, q. 5, a. 3, ll. 11–15, 192: “Intencionum autem positiuarum quedam sunt intenciones prime, scilicet homo uel animal; quedam secunde, sicud species et genus; quedam sunt encia realia, quedam encia rationis; et ideo est dubium utrum encia racionis sint formaliter per se in predicamento, et specialiter intenciones secunde per se uel sint solum per reduccionem.” 49 Francis of Marchia, Quodlibet, q. 5, a. 3, ll. 124–25, 197: “Ideo dicendum est aliter, quod intenciones prime et secunde sunt per se in genere et non tantum per reduccionem.” 45

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things and concepts of real things, and Francis claims that each of these is in the same category: concepts of substance in the category of substance, concepts of quality in the category of quality, and so on. In response to an objection that real items have more in common with each other than a real item and its representation do, Francis reasons as follows: And when it is argued that real things have more in common with each other than [they have] with a being of reason, it should be said that this is true with respect to their real mode of being, but it is not true with respect to their formal quidditative notion. For things are posited in their proper category by their proper formal notion, not by their mode of being.50

Now, this might make it look as though we would want to say (as James of Ascoli does) that a representation of a stone is a stone. But this is not quite what Francis thinks. The claim is merely that the concept is in the category of substance, since the thing it represents is in the category of substance: To the last, that a real human being and a human being depicted are not univocally a human being, it should be said that the case is not alike, because a depicted human being is not formally a human being in the way that a real human being [is]. But a being of reason is formally a being, like a real being [is].51

So much, then, for first intentions. Real items and representational items are in the same category. The situation with second intentions is a bit more complex: But here there is a certain difficulty: whether second intentions are in different categories like first intentions are in different categories, for not all first intentions are in the same category, but some are only in one, and others in another. Whether this is the case for second intentions is a puzzle.52

The reply is that second intentions are rational relations:

Francis of Marchia, Quodlibet, q. 5, a. 3, ll. 261–65, 203: “Et quando arguitur quod magis conueniunt encia realia ad inuicem quam cum ente racionis, dicendum quod uerum est quantum ad modum essendi realem, non autem uerum est quantum ad racionem quiditatiuam formalem; unumquodque autem ponitur in proprio genere per propriam racionem formalem, non autem per modum essendi.” 51 Francis of Marchia, Quodlibet, q. 5, a. 3, ll. 317–20, 205: “Ad ultimum, quod homo uerus et homo pictus non est homo uniuoce, dicendum quod non est simile, quia homo pictus non est formaliter homo sicud est homo uerus; ens autem racionis est formaliter ens sicud ens reale.” 52 Ibid., ll. 139–43, 198: “Set hic est quoddam dubium. Vtrum intenciones secunde sint in diuersis generibus sicud et prime sunt in diueris generibus; non enim omnes intenciones prime sunt in eodem genere, set alique tantum in uno genere et alique in alio. Vtrum ita sit de intencionibus secundis dubium est.”

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It can arguably be claimed that, since second intentions are all constituted by an act of reason, for this reason all second intentions and all beings of reason are in the same category. It is not like this for first intentions, since they are made not by a created intellect but by God, who is of greater power than a created intellect is. But which genus they are in is a puzzle, and it seems to some that they are in the category of relation, because the intellect does not constitute anything in being other than relations of reason.53

Here the terminological difficulty shows up: second intentions “and all beings of reason” are in the same category. But this is contrary to the apparent claim that concepts of real beings are in the same category as the real beings they represent. Again, however, it strikes me that the difficulty is terminological. First intention concepts are in the same category, but not always of the same kind, as the first intention natures they represent. The case of second intentions is clear enough. Francis argues, like Scotus, that both real and rational relations have the formal character of relations: Each thing is in its proper category through its proper formal notion, by which it is what it is. But real relations and rational relations have the same formal notion. Proof: the formal notion of a real relation is to be to another; this is its formal notion; so too a relation of reason is formally being to another.54

Here, then we have an example of a real item and a second intention sharing the same formal character. Since formal character is the basis of category-membership, second intentions are categorial items in the category of relation. I assume, too, that all these items fall under the general extension of the concept of being. But in this case, the position is open to an objection that we have already encountered:

Francis of Marchia, Quodlibet, q. 5, a. 3, ll. 143–50, 198–99: “Potest dici probabiliter quod, quia intenciones secunde sunt omnes constitute per actum racionis, et ideo omnes intenciones secunde et omnia encia racionis sunt in eodem genere; non sic de intencionibus primi, qua ille non sunt facte ab intellectu creato, set a Deo, qui est maioris uirtutis quam sit intellectus creatus; in quo autem genere sint, dubium est, et uidetur aliquibus quod sint in genere relacionis, quia intellectus in actu suo non constituit aliquid in esse nisi relaciones racionis.” 54 Francis of Marchia, Quodlibet, q. 5, a. 3, ll. 91–95, 196: “Vnumquodque est in proprio genere per propriam racionem formalem qua formaliter est illud quod est; set eadem est racio formalis relacionis realis et racio formalis relacionis racionis. Probacio: quia formalis racio realis est esse ad aliud: hec est formalis racio sua; ita eciam relacio racionis est esse ad aliud formaliter.”

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Against this, the Philosopher in Metaphysics VI first divides being into real being and [being] of reason, and then [divides] real being into the ten categories. Therefore a being of reason, according to him, is not of itself in a category.55

The gist of this is that, on Aristotelian principles, ens rationis is not included under the extension of categorial being. Francis offers a way of reading the text that circumvents this: Reply. To this, it should be said that the Philosopher did not divide being into real being and being of reason, before [division] into the ten categories. This is not true, and [those who argue this] do not understand the Philosopher well. Rather, he first divided being into true being and the being that signifies the essences of the ten categories. But being of reason is different from true being. Thus in Metaphysics V [he says that] the relations of knowable to knowledge, and of measure to measured, are in the category of relation, and nevertheless they are things of reason.56

The basic division of being is between “true being” and categorial being. (I assume that the former attaches to complexes such as propositions, and thus not to particular items that could be in a category.) And as evidence that Aristotle holds beings of reason to belong to a category, Francis gives examples of cases in which Aristotle holds rational relations to count as belonging to the category of relation. And, finally, the famous passage in which Francis offers his account of what the supertranscendental concept of being is: To the first, [I reply] that the intention quidditatively included in a real being and in a being of reason is a formally neutral intention; it is neither an intention of reason, nor real, but neutral. To the proof – that every intention is either made by the intellect (and is a being of reason) or is not made by the intellect (and is real) –, I reply that we can talk about that neutral intention in two ways: either in itself and absolutely, or accidentally, in relation to what is below it: that is to say, [in relation] to real intention and intention of reason. If [we talk] in the second way, accidentally, by reason of what is below it, then I say that it is made by the intellect, by reason of the real intention in which it is included. If however we talk about it in the first way, by reason of itself, and absolutely, then I say that it is not made by the intellect. […] This neutral intention is

Francis of Marchia, Quodlibet, q. 5, a. 3, ll. 174–77, 200: “Contra. Philosophus, 6o Methaphisice, prius diuidit ens in ens reale et racionis, ens reale in x. predicamenta; ergo ens racionis, secundum ipsum, non est per se in predicamento.” 56 Francis of Marchia, Quodlibet, q. 5, a. 3, ll. 178–85, 200: “Responsio. Ad hoc dicendum quod Philosophus non prius diuidit ens in ens reale et ens racionis quam in x. genera: non est uerum, non bene accipiunt Philosophum; set prius diuidit ens in ens uiridicum et in ens quod significat essencias x. predicamentorum; ens autem racionis est aliud ab ente uiridico; unde in 5o Methaphisice: quod respectus scibilis ad scienciam et mensure ad mensuratum sunt in predicamento relacionis, et tamen sunt res racionis.” 55

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not of itself made by the intellect, but it is nevertheless not of itself not made by the intellect.57

The basic worry is that the division between an intention “made by the intellect” and an intention “not made by the intellect” is exhaustive, thus precluding the presence of an intention made by neither. Francis makes a rather obscure distinction between the neutral intention taken “absolutely” and the same intention taken “accidentally, by reason of what is below it.” It seems to me the that first of these is a way of talking about the content of the neutral intention: not of itself real being nor rational being, albeit necessarily one or the other, disjunctively. The second, then, the neutral intention taken accidentally is the ontological status of the neutral intention: necessarily made by the intellect. The story of Francis’s developing thought on the supertranscendental is continued in a brilliant article by William Duba.58 I have one possible corrective to add, and it has to do with the coherence of the position as presented in the Quodlibet. Duba argues that the notion of the neutral intention is incoherent: According to Francis in the Quodlibet, a first intention is a concept of an extra-mentally existing being, and a second intention is a concept of a purely mental being, but a neutral intention refers to what is common to both. As such, it cannot be a concept. For if a first intention is a real being as present to the intellect, and this intention is itself real, and a second intention is a mental being as present to the intellect and this intention is itself created by the mind, a neutral intention […] cannot be neither made by the intellect nor made by nature.59

As Duba sees the matter, this apparent contradiction caused Francis to modify his views in the Sentences and in his commentary on the Metaphysics. But recall that a neutral intention is certainly a concept; the point of the logical gymnastics in the last passage quoted from Francis is just that the content of such intentions does not have to be a concept: such intentions can have, variously, real things and mental things as their objects. The neutral intention is not something really Francis of Marchia, Quodlibet, q. 5, a. 3, ll. 187–208, 200–1: “Ad primam, quod illa intencio inclusa quiditatiue in ente reali et in ente racionis est intencio formaliter neutra: nec est intencio racionis nec realis, set neutra. Ad probacionem, quod omnis intencio uel facta est ab intellectu et est ens racionis, uel non est facta ab intellectu et est realis, respondeo quod de illa intencione neutra possumus loqui dupliciter: uel secundum se et absolute, racione sui, uel per accidens, racione sui inferioris, scilicet intencionis realis et intencionis racionis; si secundo modo, per accidens, racione sui inferioris, sic dico quod est facta per intellectum racione intencionis realis in qua est inclusa. autem loquamur de ipsa primo modo, scilicet racione sui, secundum se et absolute, sic dico quod non est facta per intellectum. […] Illa intencio neutra ‘secundum se non est facta per intellectum,’ non tamen est ‘secundum se non facta per intellectum’.” 58 See his “Neither First, nor Second.” 59 Duba, “Neither First, nor Second,” 310.

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common to both first and second intentions. It is simply a concept (of, let us say, being) under the extension of which both real and mental beings fall.

Conclusion I noted at the beginning of section 2 that Scotus’s discussion leaves a number of things unclear: we do not know whether the most general sense of being would make being univocal or analogous, whether it would make it a transcendental or a supertranscendental (or neither); or whether beings of reason are categorial or not, and thus whether or not the most general sense of being would include noncategorial things as well as categorial things. The Scotists (and fellow-travellers) I consider here take up all of the options. James of Ascoli grants to intentional being an ontological status (I assume categorial, since he holds that intentional beings are the same in kind as the real beings that they represent); and allows a supertranscendental including real beings and first-intention concepts, but not second-intentions and impossibilia (I assume since such things are apparently non-categorial). William of Alnwick denies that there is any intentional being over and above real being, and thus denies any supertranscendental. The early Ockham allows that intentional being is a kind of being, but denies that being is univocal to real and intentional being, and thus denies a supertranscendental. The later Ockham denies that there is any intentional being over and above real being, thus coming close to Alnwick’s position. Francis of Marchia grants to intentional being, including second intention concepts, a categorial ontological status. But whereas James of Ascoli holds that intentional beings and real beings are the same in kind, Francis denies this, and thus can allow second intentions belonging to the category of relation. And so the story continues.

Bibliography Sources Aesculo, Jacobus de. Quaestiones ordinariae, q. 1. Edited by Tetsuo Yokoyama, in id., “Zwei Quaestionen des Jacobus de Aesculo über das Esse Obiectivum.” In Wahrheit und Verkündigung. Edited by Leo Scheffczyk, Werner Dettloff, and Richard Heinzmann, two volumes, vol. 1, 31‒74. Munich, Paderborn, Vienna: Schöning, 1967. Alnwick, Guillelmus de. Quaestiones disputatae de esse intelligibili et de quolibet. Edited by Athanasius Ledoux. Florence: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1937. Aquinas, Thomas. Summa theologiae. Edited by Pietro Caramello. Three volumes. Turin and Rome: Marietti, 1952–1956. Duns Scotus, Ioannes. Opera omnia. Wadding edition. 12 vols. Lyons: Laurentius Durand, 1639.

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–. Opera omnia. Vatican edition. Edited by Carl Balić et al. Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950–2013. –. Reportatio I-A. The Examined Report of the Paris Lecture. Edited by Allan B. Wolter and Oleg V. Bychkov. Two volumes. New York: The Franciscan Institute, 2004 and 2008. Marchia, Franciscus de. Quodibet. Edited by Nazareno Mariani. Rome: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1997. Natalis, Hervaeus. De secundis intentionibus. Edited by Judith Dijs, Ph.D. dissertation, Leiden University, 2012 (http://hdl.handle.net/1887/18607; last checked December 15, 2021). Ockham, Guillelmus de. Opera theologica. Edited by Iuvenalis Lalor et al. Ten volumes. St. Bonaventure, NY: St Bonaventure University Press, 1967–1986.

Studies Cross, Richard. Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Duba, William. “Neither First, nor Second, nor… in his Commentary on the Sentences. Francis of Marchia’s intentiones neutrae.” Quaestio 10 (2010), 285–313. Folger-Fonfara, Sabine. Das ‘Super’-Transzendentale und die Spaltung der Metaphysik: Der Entwurf des Franziskus von Marchia. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008. Mandrella, Isabelle. “Metaphysik als Supertranszendentalwissenschaft? Zum scotistischen Metaphysikentwurf des Nicolaus Bonetus.” Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 75 (2008), 161–93. Pasnau, Robert (ed.). Mind and Knowledge: The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts: Volume 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Perler, Dominik. “What are Intentional Objects? A Controversy Among Early Scotists.” In Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality. Edited by Dominik Perler, 203–26. Leiden, Boston, Cologne: Brill, 2001. Smith, Garrett R. “The Origin of Intelligibility According to John Duns Scotus, William of Alnwick, and Petrus Thomae.” Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales 81 (2014), 37–74. Spade, Paul Vincent. Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problem of Universals: Porphyry, Boethius, Abelard, Scotus, Ockham. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1994.

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Esse cognitum and Divine Ideas in the First Two Centuries of Scotism Francesco Fiorentino

Introduction Esse cognitum, or esse obiectivum, is a relative kind of being in the sense that it depends on an extramental reality as subjected to an intellectual act. Hence, cognitive being has some intermediate status between the real being of material things and the rational being of universal concepts. In order to understand the remarkable theoretical innovation of John Duns Scotus, especially in comparison with Henry of Ghent, as well as the reception of Scotus’s theory, this notion of ‘cognitive being’ must be held up against the doctrine of divine ideas. For Scotus, this kind of being has that kind of intelligibility that is produced by the divine intellect and that leads to the formation of ideas. As we shall see, this is properly speaking the fundamental core of Scotus’s theory – and of the difference between his theory and that of Henry of Ghent. While for Henry, the ideas derive from the comparison that the divine intellect carries out between the divine essence that includes the essences of all creatable things, and the essences of things as different from the divine essence which they imitate, for Scotus, before the ideas with their relations of imitability are known, the inclusion of the essences of things in the divine essence is not sufficient. Scotus admits the virtual inclusion of the essences of things in the divine essence, i. e., the potentiality or the predisposition of the essences of things to exist as representative contents in the divine essence; but, for Scotus, the divine intellect must think the essences of things before knowing them; this absolute act of thought creates the purely possible and thinkable essence of the thing; this essence, before being known by the divine intellect, does not depend on this intellect, because it only relates to this intellect by way of a relation of the third class in the Aristotelian classification of relations, i. e., a rational relation between the intellect as measured and the object as its measure.1 This relationship is not mutual, unlike those of the first two classes, and does not tolerate any modification of the intellect on grounds of the appearance or disappearance of the object. I thank Claus A. Andersen and Daniel Heider for their many suggestions. I also thank Babette Pragnell and Claus A. Andersen again for improving the English text. 1 Cf. Aristotle, Phys. VII, 3, 246a30 (Aristot. Lat. VII 1.2, 266, ll. 1–11); ibid., 247a25– 248b30 (Aristot. Lat. VII.1.2, 267–68, ll. 8–5); Met. V, 15, 1021a30–b3 (Aristot. Lat. XXV3.2, 113–14, ll. 614–21); cf. also Henninger, “Thomas Wylton’s Theory of Relations,” 459–61. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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What, for Henry, is an intentional being following from a relationship of imitability, for Scotus, becomes an esse cognitum, a genuinely intelligible being; the essence of the thing thus exists as a pure noetic entity, because it is thought of by the divine intellect. Only after this operation, the same essence can enter into a relationship with the divine essence and be known as an idea by the divine intellect. This present study aims to examine the relationship between cognitive being and the divine ideas. I start out from Henry of Ghent and John Duns Scotus, drawing on some of my own previous research; I then follow the doctrinal development in the two first centuries (the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries) of the long tradition of Scotism. I shall consider various authors who are representative of both the legacy of Scotus and the original and innovative evolution of Scotism beyond Scotus: Peter Auriol,2 Landulph Caracciolo of Naples,3 Francis of Ascoli (also known as Francis of Marchia),4 Peter Thomae,5 Francis of Mey-

Peter Auriol taught in the Franciscan convent in Toulouse before going to Paris, where he lectured on the Sentences from 1317–1318 and served as the Franciscan regent master in theology until 1320 or 1321. Cf. Tachau, Vision and Certitude, 85–89. 3 Landulph Caracciolo lectured on the Sentences in Paris around 1320. Subsequently, Landulph held the first chair in theology at the Franciscan Studium of Naples, where he introduced the Scotist tradition; he later was provincial minister of Terra di Lavoro and carried out several diplomatic missions on behalf of Queen Johanna I of Naples. In 1327 he was designated bishop of Castellamare di Stabia by Pope John XXII and four years later archbishop of Amalfi, actively engaging in the persecution of the Fraticelli. Cf. Fiorentino, “Conoscenza e scienza in Landolfo Caracciolo.” 4 Francis of Ascoli read the Sententiae in Paris in 1319–1320; his commentary has come down to us in at least two different versions, one of which corresponds with the reportatio made by William of Rubione, whereas the other consists of a Scriptum. Cf. Friedman, “Francis of Marchia and John Duns Scotus.” 5 Peter Thomae spent most of his career in Barcelona; in 1303 he was listed as an advisor to the bishop of Barcelona, and in 1316 he was present at the investigation of Arnau of Villanova. Cf. Smith, “Bibliotheca manuscripta Petri Thomae,” and Schabel and Smith, “The Franciscan studium in Barcelona in the Early Fourteenth Century.” 2

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ronnes,6 Peter of Navarre,7 Peter of Aquila,8 John of Ripa,9 Peter of Candia,10 and Nicholas of Orbellis.11 These authors do not merely repeat what Scotus said. To understand this, we must specify the definition of Scotism, a definition that is by no means obvious due to the understanding that a present-day scholar may have of the relationship between a teacher and a disciple in general. As Ludger Honnefelder has explained, this relationship, in the case of the Scotist tradition, does not consist in uncritical and monotonous following of Scotus’s thought, but rather is open, free and flexible; the disciples consider the thought of their master as a starting point, a useful stimulus to develop their own innovative and original theories.12 The disciples go so far as to transform the teacher’s texts according to their own convictions and needs. Thus Scotus, although dead at a young age, comes to life under the quills of his disciples, who in their turn become his compilers and editors. This prevents precise lines of progression and identity traits of the Scotist tradition from appearing. This results in what Guido Alliney has described as a wide range of positions among Scotus’s disciples; all of these positions are Sco6 Francis of Meyronnes became regent master in Paris in 1323, at the request of Robert of Anjou, king of Naples, after lecturing on the Sentences first in French and Italian convents, and finally in Paris in 1320–1321. Cf. Fiorentino, Francesco di Meyronnes, 22–30. 7 Peter of Navarre read the Sententiae in Barcelona in the early 1320s; cf. Sagües Azcona, “Un escotista desconocido. El Maestro Pedro de Navarra OFM (d. 1347),” and his monograph El maestro Pedro de Navarre O.F.M. (d. 1347). 8 Peter of Aquila taught theology at the University of Paris sometime between 1330 and 1340. He became Provincial Minister in 1334, chaplain of Queen Giovanna of Sicily in 1344, bishop of Angelo dei Lombardi in Calabria (1347) and of Trivento (1348). Cf. Amerini, “La dottrina dell’univocità dell’essere nel Commento alle Sentenze di Pietro d’Aquila;” Chiappini, “Fra Pietro d’Aquila ‘Scotello’ O. Min.” 9 John of Ripa read the Sentences at the University of Paris around 1352. He was associated with the censorship that affected the theses of Ludovico del Fiume. He presided over Francis of Perugia’s lecture on the Sentences in 1368. Cf. Fiorentino, “Libertà e contingenza in Giovanni di Ripa,” and Ghisalberti, “Giovanni Duns Scoto e la scuola scotista,” 366–70. 10 Peter of Candia joined the Franciscan Order at the age of seventeen; he studied in the Franciscan Studium at Norwich before studying theology at Oxford. His Order sent him to Paris, where he began lecturing on the Sentences in September of 1378 and was Bachelor of the Sentences until 1380. In 1381, the University of Paris made Peter Master of Theology. In 1384, and again in 1385, we find Peter lecturing in the Convent of Saint Francis in Pavia, where he moved in the humanistic circles of the Visconti. Cf. Schabel, “Peter of Candia and the Prelude to the Quarrel at Louvain.” 11 Nicholas of Orbellis was master of theology and philosophy at the University of Angers; he composed commentaries on both Aristotle and the Sentences. Cf. Zahnd, “Easy-Going Scholars,” 290–99; Sousedík, “Nicolai de Orbellis Tractatus de distinctionibus.” A transcription by Claus A. Andersen of his discussion of distinctions in his commentary on the Physics is appended to Petrus Thomae, Tractatus brevis de modis distinctionum, 383. 12 Honnefelder, “Scotus und der Scotismus,” 252. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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tist, and yet they are all different and indeed lay the foundations of various currents.13 This range of positions is initially facilitated by various factors, among which we may mention 1) the coexistence of different versions of Scotus’s commentaries on the Sentences, 2) the inclusion of spurious texts into the corpus of Scotus’s works, 3) the suspicion of problematic innovation that weighs upon some of Scotus’s theological doctrines, and 4) Scotus’s own change of mind regarding a number theories, something that is reported already by the earliest Scotists.14 Anyone who imagines the ‘Scotist’ as a disciple who follows in the footsteps of Scotus in a faithful and conservative way is bound to be disappointed. Both in early Scotism and in that of the seventeenth century there is no lack of critical issues and internal disagreements. This may be seen as a positive aspect of the Scotist tradition; as Camille Berubè reminds us, “le meilleur professeur n’est pas celui qui sait seulement instruire ses élèves, mais celui qui les rend capables d’être maîtres à leur tour!”15 It is therefore also not so surprising that elements foreign to Scotus entered the initial body of Scotist doctrines. These elements accumulate with the progress of the Scotist tradition. The second and third generations of Scotists thus did not only have Scotus as a point of reference, but in fact Scotus with all the mediations of the previous Scotists. These mediations make the entire scene of early Scotism both rich and varied.

1. Henry of Ghent and John Duns Scotus Timothy B. Noone and Carl A. Vater, tracing the sources of Scotus’s theory of divine ideas in Peter John Olivi and Peter de Trabibus, have recently drawn attention to the second question in the first part of distinction 36 in Scotus’s Reportatio I-A as a text of particular importance in regard to Scotus’s theory of ideas.16 This question envisages the divine intellect as active. The divine intellect compares its secondary object, which represents the possible creatures, with its primary object, i. e., the divine essence as imitable; through its intellective acts, it conceives the ideal creatures with their esse cognitum.17 The discussion whether ideas are complete entities or rather relations of reason intermittently, however,

Alliney, “Utrum necesse sit voluntatem frui,” 138. Cf. Fiorentino, “Introduzione. Conoscenza e attività in Giovanni Duns Scoto,” 15–26, 133–52; cf. also my introduction to the volume Lo scotismo nel Mezzogiorno d’Italia. 15 Bérubé, “La première école scotiste,” 15. 16 Noone and Vater, “The Sources of Scotus’s Theory of Divine Ideas.” 17 Duns Scotus, Rep. I-A, dist. 36, pars 1, q. 2, nn. 45–48 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov II), 393–95. 13

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is found also in Book I, dist. 35, of both the Lectura and the Ordinatio as well as in the Collationes 8 and 9 of the Oxford lectures.18 As Marina Fedeli has recently emphasized, Henry of Ghent – in his Quodlibet IX q. 2 and Quodlibet III q. 3 – envisaged the divine ideas as respectus imitabilitatis, i. e., as relations of imitability present in the divine essence; God’s necessary and true knowledge has as its primary object the essence of God, and as the secondary object everything that is other than God. On this model, God comes to know His secondary objects through two separate moments. The first moment marks the consideration of the essence of the creature as identical with the divine essence; the latter essence here only verifies a relationship of reference to whatever is different from itself. In the second moment, the essence of the creature is known as a being in itself and as other than God; what is other than God has no real existence and persists within the divine knowledge until the divine intellect establishes a relation between that object and the divine essence. This relation is the formal cause of the essences of creatures. Fedeli notes that James of Ascoli, in the fifth of his Quaestiones ordinariae, attributes both intentional being and being of reason to the creature: the former inasmuch as the creature is represented in the divine essence, and the latter in regard to the divine intellect that compares the essence of the creature with the divine essence.19 By contrast, Scotus’s own opinion is that ideas are produced by the acts of the divine intellect. Scotus is grappling with two different historical mediations of the Platonic doctrine of ideas:20 (1) the Augustinian mediation and (2) the Aristotelian mediation.21 In question 46 of his De diversis quaestionibus 83, Augustine of Hippo presented the divine ideas as stable, immutable, eternal, ungenerated, and incorruptible forms or rationes. He included them in the divine intelligence, seeing them as not pre-existing to it or to the demiurge. On the basis of Plato’s Timaeus, Augustine thus converted the eternal ideas into the exemplars according to which all changing creatures are formed in their nature Cf. Falà, “Divine Ideas in the Collationes Oxonienses.” Cf. Fedeli, “Le idee divine e la relazione di imitabilità dell’essenza in Giacomo d’Ascoli.” 20 Cf. Plato, Timaeus, 39e–40b, ll. 15–14, 32–33. 21 Cf. Aristotle, Met. VII, 15, 1040a27 (Aristot. Lat. XXV3.2, 163, ll. 844–45), and Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus 83, q. 46, 70–73. I have discussed these two divergent approaches in Fiorentino, “Giovanni Duns Scoto di fronte a Platone sulle idee divine.” For the Augustinian reception of Plato’s Timaeus, see in particular Fiorentino, Francesco di Meyronnes, 126– 32; Pépin, Idea dans la Patristique grèque et latin, 23–36. Sometimes Augustine is found in association with Seneca who, in letter 58 of his Epistolae Morales, proposed an equivalence of the Platonic idea with the eternal exemplar; cf. Seneca, Ad Lucilium epistulae morales, 58, ll. 13–16, 157. For an exposition of Seneca’s complex interpretation (which describes the hierarchical descent from the more universal idea, through a subsequent articulation of genera and species, to the production of multiple individuals that are subjected to accidentality and change), see d’Onofrio, Storia del pensiero medievale, 22–23.

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and in their order. Scotus finally subscribes to this Augustinian mediation: the ideas are, for him, pure noetic entities and therefore created, dependent, and related to the divine intellect which produces them with its necessary acts. In this way, the divine intellect confers a kind of existence upon them; this existence is weaker than the real or extra-mental being of material entities, but stronger than the being of reason of universal concepts.22 Now, Aristotle, in the seventh book of the Metaphysics, rather considered the Platonic ideas as universals and as spatially separated from empirical reality. These uncreated essences, in Henry of Ghent’s view, precede the divine intellect, are certified in their truth thanks to the comparison with the divine exemplar, and come into real existence, with the addition of the being of existence (esse exsistentiae); this addition is due to the contingent acts of the divine will. One finds traces of these two mediations throughout the history of Scotism. They fuel incessant disputes – like the one between James of Ascoli and William of Alnwick in early Scotism, or the one between John Punch and Bartolomeo Mastri in what may be called the triumphant Scotist period of the seventeenth century.23 James of Ascoli opts for a tripartite system, in which the intelligible or intentional being is located midway between the real and the rational being. The intelligible being is coeternal with the eternal and self-sustained divine essence that lets flow ad extra, not so much the creatures themselves, as rather that correlative and intelligible status of the possible essences of creatures. In other words, what emerges from the divine essence is not the creature as such, but the creature as possible and intelligible, the pure possibility and intelligibility of the creature. Moreover, the intelligible being is un-caused, precedent, independent from the operations of the divine intellect and founded on real potential being, in other words on that non contradictory possibility which places only the possible entity, in contrast to some impossible or purely rational entity, in such a condition as to be effectively produced into real existence by an efficient cause in time, regardless of any previous operation by the divine intellect. This latter identifies the real potential and intelligible being, to which it adds the rational relation of knowledge, passing from habitual knowledge, which is independent from real existence, to actual knowledge; actual knowledge arises from the actualization of the possible entity in time. At the other end of the spectrum we find Duns Scotus, Rep. I-A, dist. 36, pars 1, q. 2, vol. II, nn. 74–75 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov II), 405, and Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, n. 40 (ed. Vat. VI), 262. 23 I have discussed this in previous publications: Fiorentino, “L’autonomia ontologica delle idee platoniche;” Fiorentino, “La disputa tra Giovanni Punch e Bartolomeo Mastri;” Fiorentino, “Lo scotismo trionfante nella prima epoca moderna.” For the debate between Alnwick and Ascoli, see also Richard Cross’s contribution to this present volume; cf. further Perler, “What are intentional objects?” For the debate between Mastri and Punch, see the survey of literature in Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 259.

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Alnwick, who rather prefers a bipartite system which reduces the intelligible being to the real being of the essence of the creature, which has a life of its own, apart from the divine intellect; to this real being is then added extrinsic denominations or absolute accidental properties, such as being represented in the divine essence, being known by the divine intellect, or being known to be known (by way of reflexion). The ontological consistency of this essence is composed of the weakened, or ‘diminished,’ denomination (denominatio deminuens) which corresponds to ‘represented being,’ which is eternal, necessary, simple, and immutable, as well as that intrinsic and logical non-repugnance that enables the intelligibility in the divine intellect.24 Now, it was not Scotus’s intention to renounce the creation from nothing by God as the absolute agent in favour of some sort of neo-Platonic doctrine of emanation; therefore, he elaborated the theory of the esse cognitum as a purely intelligible and diminished kind of being that only exists in relation to a thinking intellect. Scotus’s theory of ideas, as expressed in the only question of Book I, dist. 35, of the Lectura and of the Ordinatio and in the second question of the first part of dist. 35 in the Reportatio I-A, includes four metaphysical instants (instantia naturae). In the first instant, the divine intellect thinks up the divine essence as an absolute or autonomous and independent entity. In the second instant, the divine intellect, by means of an absolute act, constitutes a creature that is virtually included in the divine essence according to its esse intelligibile, or mere intelligibility. The divine intellect thinks of the creature by the means of a rational relation (i. e., a third-class relation in the Aristotelian classification): at this stage, the divine intellect is the terminus of the relation in which the creature, as intelligible, determines its knowledge. This relation is not reciprocal, and so does not proceed from the intellect to the creature as intelligible. This could seem to make the esse cognitum dependent on the thinking intellect. Scotus, therefore, specifies that in this instant, the creature is thought of or constituted in its intelligibility, but it is not yet known by the divine intellect; this knowledge itself is delayed until the fourth instant. The third instant is characterized by the movement beyond the rational relation; here, the divine intellect compares the divine essence (according to the Lectura) or its act of intellection (according to the Ordinatio) with the intelligibility of the creature as extrinsic to the intellect, and it does so by instituting an ideal relation or mental idea which was not yet For all of this, see Fiorentino, “L’autonomia ontologica delle idee platoniche.” Notably, the Scotist Alanus Gonteri shares with James of Ascoli the doctrine of the eternal causation of the essences that are represented in the divine essence owing to their intelligible being; cf. Alanus Gonteri, Quodlibet, I, q. 2 (Vatican City, BAV, Ms. Vat. Lat. 1086), 238v; Iacobus de Aesculo, Quaestiones ordinariae, q. 1, in Yokoyama, “Zwei Quaestionen des Iacobus de Aesculo über das Esse obiectivum,” 51–55; Iacobus de Aesculo, Quaestiones ordinariae, q. 3 (Vatican City, BAV, Ms. Vat. Lat. 1012), 64rb, and ibid., q. 5, 66ra–b.

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necessary for thinking the creature in the second instant. Finally, in the fourth instant, the divine intellect, reflecting on its act of comparison, knows the idea and its relation through which the esse cognitum is acquired.25 It is therefore important to distinguish the intellectual production into intelligible being, from the knowledge of creatures as ideas. The rational relation of the second instant proceeds from the thought creature to the thinking intellect, while the rational relation of the third instant proceeds from the intellect to the creature. The intellectually produced creature as thought in the second instant must become extrinsic to the divine essence in which this creature is already potentially included, or to the very act with which this creature has just been thought, in order to enter into a relationship of comparison with the divine intellect or the divine essence; at this point, this intellect knows this creature as distinct from the divine essence or the intellectual act and compares the creature with the divine essence or this act; but, in order for the divine intellect to know the creature conceived as an idea, a last step is necessary: the divine intellect must realize that it has completed the act of comparison in a reflexive way, that is, turning towards itself. In the words of Michio Kobayashi, “[C]e qui est à remarquer dans la conception de l’idée divine chez Duns Scot, c’est qu’en s’écartant de la tradition platonicienne qui règle la création sur le modèle d’idées éternelles, il n’accorde plus à l’idée divine le rôle exemplaire et déterminant dans la création.”26 Scotus does not consider an idea as an exemplar, but rather as the content of a thought – much in the way we understand ideas today.27 Insofar as it is an intelligible object, in Scotus’s theory, it is not eternal, ungenerated, immutable, or incorruptible; it is rather conceived and produced by the divine intellect that carries out two operations. The first operation is an absolute operation in which it noetically forges the possible essence that is, with its status as pure intelligibility, virtually included in the divine essence.28 The second operation occurs when the intelligibility of the possible essence, that has just been constituted, is reached by the intellect. This intelligibility gives rise to a reCf. Duns Scotus, Lect. I, dist. 35, q. unica, n. 22 (ed. Vat. XVII), 452–53; Rep. I-A, dist. 36, pars 1, q. 2, nn. 77–78 (ed. Wolter and Bychkov II), 406; Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, n. 32 (ed. Vat. VI), 258; cf. also Fiorentino, “Giovanni Duns Scoto di fronte a Platone sulle idee divine,” and “The Idea in John Duns Scotus’ Turn-about between Plato and Descartes.” 26 Kobayashi, “Création et contingence selon Descartes et Duns Scot,” 80. 27 Cf. again Fiorentino, “The Idea in John Duns Scotus’ Turn-about between Plato and Descartes.” 28 ‘Virtual’ in Scotus means the potential state of an entity in itself; this state can be changed by the intervention of an external agent that produces the transition from potentiality to act; but this potential state remains intrinsic in any case, since it does not depend upon this agent, but rather upon an intrinsic property that predisposes this entity to allow the passage from the potentiality to the act. Cf. Martínez Rius, “De distinctione virtuali intrinseca et distinctione formali a parte rei.”

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lation, in which it is the possible essence that determines the divine intellect’s act of thinking. However, at this stage the idea itself has not yet appeared, but rather is only an esse deminutum or something relative that links the possible essence to the divine intellect. For the idea to appear, the divine intellect must compare the divine essence, as the representative container of every possible essence, with the intelligibility of this last essence. The latter is no longer the result of the thinking act; it is now rather a noetical entity, extrinsic to the divine intellect. The act of comparison replaces all traces of Platonic-Augustinian exemplarism and generates an ideal relation in the direction from the divine intellect toward the intelligibility of the possible essence, not vice versa. Finally, the intelligibility is known by the divine intellect.

2. The Immediately Following Debate The theory of an esse obiectivum as distinct from real being found supporters in Henry of Harclay, Hervaeus of Nedellec, Peter Auriol (in the form of esse apparens), and then most notably in the early William of Ockham (in the form of ens fictum). It came under attack, however, from two different directions.29 One line of criticism was promoted by Chatton and Ockham himself in a later stage of his thinking. In their view, being known is surely not a property of the thing, but rather only a quality of the mind, a mere change of the intellectual state, or a pure mental content that refers to multiple material realities. Another line of criticism is found in various guises in the works of William of Alnwick, Landulph Caracciolo, Francis of Meyronnes, Walter Chatton, and Adam of Wodeham. They do operate with a notion of esse obiectivum, in the form of known or intentional being, but it is reduced to real being, which prevents a distinction between what is represented and that which represents (the basic idea is that two entities, A and B, cannot be distinguished at all, if A is really identical to B; if B is represented by A, i. e., is the representative content of A, then it is impossible to distinguish between A as a container and B as a content). This being is perfectly equivalent to the thing itself – it is its mode of meaning (modus significandi) and refers to the thing itself in the first place and to the knowing intellect in the second place. The intellect has a subjective act, which is a quality of the mind. For Alnwick, Chatton, and Wodeham, it is an absolute property; for Meyronnes, it is a relative property. This property is accidentally inherent in the thing and represents its possibility and intelligibility, first of all ad intra and then in regard Let me again refer to my previous publications (with references to further literature): Fiorentino, “L’autonomia ontologica delle idee platoniche”; id., “Lo scotismo trionfante nella prima epoca moderna;” id., “La disputa tra Giovanni Punch e Bartolomeo Mastri.” For the development of Ockham’s position on this issue (including the proximity of his later view to that of Alnwick), see Richard Cross’s contribution to this present volume. 29

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to the divine intellect. When the latter conceives of a thing as possible and intelligible, it incorporates into the divine essence the formation of another absolute property; this property is accidentally predicated of the divine essence and is, in other words, the very capacity to think that particular thing as a possible entity. In this way, some particular thing is always known in itself, though according to various kinds of being, namely intelligible being, known being and being (reflexively) known to be known; the risk of an indefinite multiplication of absolute entities, and hence the Aristotelian third-man argument, is thus circumvented. Yet another reaction is found in Peter Auriol, who distances himself from Scotus in the second and the third questions of dist. 35 of his Scriptum; he assumes that the divine essence is a unique indivisible principle of resemblance between all real and possible things. The divine intellect firstly refers to the divine essence and then to the essence of the creatures represented in this essence.30 In the third question of dist. 35 of his commentary on the Sentences I, Landulph Caracciolo interestingly denied Auriol’s theory in favour of Scotus’s, holding that it is the idea that is an eternal principle in the divine mind. God produces all things into intelligible being, compares this intellectual production with the intelligible being itself, and then reflects upon this relation of reason. The objects that now exist in intelligible being are secondary objects, virtually and eminently included in the divine essence; these secondary objects are ideas.31 In the subsequent distinction, Landulph follows up with a rejection of Auriol’s theory of relations; he insists that ideas are infinite due to their status as objects or known beings.32

3. Francis of Ascoli In the second article of distinction 39 in his commentary on the Sentences I, Francis of Ascoli, following Auriol, aims to demonstrate that God has immediate knowledge only through the means of His essence taken in the absolute sense, i. e., without any relation to knowledge or production.33 Ascoli explains that the 30 Cf. Schabel, “Francis of Marchia on Divine Ideas,” 1598–99, and Paladini, “Exemplar Causality as similitudo aequivoca in Peter Auriol.” 31 Landulphus Caracciolus, In Sent. I, dist. 35, q. 3 (ed. Duba and Schabel), in Duba, “From Scotus to the Platonici,” 317–20; cf. Duba’s discussion in the same article. 32 Landulphus Caracciolus, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 2 (ed. Duba and Schabel), 328–36; cf. also Schabel, “Francis of Marchia on Divine Ideas,” 1598–99, and Duba, “From Scotus to the Platonici.” 33 Franciscus de Esculo, In Sent. I, dist. 39, art. 2. In the following, I quote from Christoper D. Schabel’s unpaginated online edition in the supplement to Schabel, “Francis of Marchia”; I additionally refer to Nazareno Mariani’s edition (here, n. 31, 467). See further Fiorentino, “Idee divine secondo Francesco di Appignano.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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divine essence, being the only principle of knowledge, in a supereminent manner includes an infinity of objects that are potentially knowable.34 Taking the absolute character of the divine essence for granted, Ascoli clarifies the role of the human intellect: Secundo declaro hoc idem ex parte potentie. Ubi advertendum quod nos per eandem numero potentiam sine distinctione aliqua ex parte potentie possumus successive intelligere infinita cum sola distinctione et successione actuum. Licet enim eadem potentia omnia intelligamus, tamen non eodem actu, nec eadem ratione intelligendi, sed alio et alio, et hoc est ex limitatione nostri actus intelligendi, sicut ex illimitatione potentie, quod eadem indistincta possit in infinita obiecta. Unde si nos haberemus unum actum intelligendi eque illimitatum in genere actus sicut est potentia in genere potentie, et semper stantem ut ipsa sicut erit in patria […], tunc quidquid intelligimus, intelligeremus per illum actum potentie adequatum, sicut per eandem potentiam. Nunc autem non, quia potentia est illimitatior ipso actu.35

Thus, the plurality of secondary objects does not depend on any intrinsic ratio – the divine essence, which remains the only ratio intelligendi, or principle of knowledge –, but rather on the gnoseological features of the finite intellect of man in statu viae. In fact, this finite intellect knows, through distinct sequential acts, that which exists in a unitary and simultaneous manner in the divine essence. This unity is known by the human intellect in the beatific state, in which the human intellect succeeds in attaining a unique act of cognition of the divine essence. Ad cuius evidentiam sciendum est quod agens per intellectum habens duas vel plures operationes subordinatas, vel unam continentem duas sic subordinatas sicut habens operationem immanentem et transeuntem, vel unam utramque continentem, propter ordinem istarum, sicut operatio immanens est prior, ita prius agens habet terminum operationis immanentis quam terminum operationis transeuntis. Vel si sit idem terminus utriusque, primo habet ipsum ut est terminus operationis immanentis quam ut est terminus transeuntis. Tunc ad propositum, Deus habet circa creaturam duplicem operationem, videlicet immanentem, ut velle et intelligere, et transeuntem, sicut actum creandi, qui est quasi transiens secundum rationem, non tamen realiter magis quam operatio immanens, quia nec iste due operationes sunt, ut puto, distincte in Deo. Deus ergo propter ordinem istorum actuum predictorum prius habet terminum intellectionis quam terminum creationis. Idee autem non sunt nisi ipsa obiecta secundaria actus intelligendi ut actum ipsum terminantia, ita quod lapis ut cognitus est idea lapidis ut lapis est terminus actionis sive operationis transeuntis, puta creationis. Et ita de aliis secundariis obiectis omnibus divini intellectus, ita quod sicut operatio immanens est quasi via ad operationem transeuntem, ita terminus operationis immanentis ad terminum operationis Franciscus de Esculo, In Sent. I, dist. 39, art. 2, q. 1 (ed. Schabel); nn. 34–35 (ed. Mariani), 469–70. 35 Franciscus de Esculo, In Sent. I, dist. 39, art. 2, q. 1 (ed. Schabel); n. 36 (ed. Mariani), 471– 72.

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transeuntis. Et ita idee non sunt rationes proxime intelligendi, nec rationes etiam producendi ex parte producentis, ut imaginatur quidam. Deus enim eadem volitione qua ab eterno voluit res contingenter, illa semper stante eadem ponit res in esse pro tempore pro quo ponit.36

In other words, in regard to the creature, God operates two acts that are actually identical, but formally distinct, namely that of knowing and that of creating. The first act is immanent, or ad intra, while the second is transeunt, or ad extra, in relation to God, in which essence and intellect coincide in each case. The idea is generated by the first act, when the creature becomes known by the divine intellect. For example, a stone is known through an immanent act of knowing and is then created through the transeunt act of creating. The stone that is known in the first act is the idea of the stone. Inherent in the uniqueness of the divine essence and intellect, God accomplishes a unique and infinite act of cognition; it is the divine essence itself that is the unique ratio of divine cognition.37 Ascoli thus confers to the idea, as a known quiddity, an esse deminutum or secundum quid that is dependent on the immanent act of intellection or volition. This act differs from the unqualified being of the creature as created into actual reality by the act of intellection.38 Secundum hoc ergo, tenendo hoc posset dici quod esse cognitum vel volitum dicit duo. Dicit enim concretum denominativum intellectionis, et quantum ad hoc esse cognitum non differt ab actu cognitionis nisi secundum rationem, sicut nec album ab albedine vel quodcumque aliud concretum a suo abstracto. Secundo dicit substratum, quod quidem denominatur ab ipso cognitionis actu, quod quidem est esse diminutum factum vel formatum per ipsum actum cognitionis, qui fuit ab eterno, sicut et huiusmodi esse diminutum.39

In Ascoli’s opinion, then, the esse cognitum has a dual meaning, a concrete and an abstract one. This dual meaning corresponds with two elements: (1) a denominatio, which is a quality of the mental act; (2) the dimished being which derives from the known being that corresponds with the mental act.

Franciscus de Esculo, In Sent. I, dist. 39, art. 2, q. 2 (ed. Schabel); nn. 41–42 (ed. Mariani), 474–75. 37 Franciscus de Esculo, In Sent. I, dist. 39, art. 2, q. 3 (ed. Schabel); nn. 37–38 (ed. Mariani), 472. 38 Franciscus de Esculo, In Sent. I, dist. 39, art. 2, q. 3 (ed. Schabel); nn. 53–55 (ed. Mariani), 480–81. 39 Franciscus de Esculo, In Sent. I, dist. 39, art. 2, q. 3 (ed. Schabel); n. 56 (ed. Mariani), 481.

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4. Peter Thomae As Garrett Smith has pointed out, Peter Thomae was indebted to James of Ascoli, from whom he takes the intelligible being as a correlate object of the divine essence.40 In the second quaestio of his Quaestiones disputatae de esse intelligibili, Peter Thomae claims that the divine essence, as the primary and most adequate representative content of the divine intellect, is capable of assigning intelligible being to the essence of a creature that by way of perfection is included in this essence.41 In this intelligible being lies the esse obiectivum of the creature, i. e., its primitive representative content.42 In the seventh question, Peter Thomae adds that this representative being is intentional being and is found midway between real being and being of reason.43 In the third quaestio, Peter assimilates this intentional being to that kind of real self-sufficient being that precedes not only the act of comparison that Henry of Ghent confers to the divine intellect, but also the absolute act that Scotus assigns to the divine intellect that, in the second istant, produces intelligible being.44 In the eighth quaestio, Peter shows awareness that he is drawing on elements from Scotus’s model, though without supporting the whole theory: Secundum est quod tamen dico sine assertione quod creatura ab aeterno habuit esse aliquod verum reale. Hoc ostendo ex dictis Scoti, licet ipse sentiat oppositum huius, et hoc sic: esse praecedens omnem actum intelligendi comparativum est esse reale; sed creatura ab aeterno habuit aliquod esse praecedens omnem actum huiusmodi; ergo habuit ab aeterno aliquod esse reale. Maior patet. Minorem ostendo per ipsum: secundum enim quod ipse ponit distinctione 35, in primo signo intellectus divinus intelligit essentiam suam. In secundo intelligit essentiam creaturae et intelligendo eam producit ipsam in esse intelligibili, ita quod adhuc – secundum ipsum in isto secundo signo – nulla est comparatio, nec per consequens pro tali signo ponitur intellectus aliquis actus comparativus. Sed secundum ipsum in tertio signo ponitur huiusmodi comparatio, seu actus comparativus, quo ipsa creatura in secundo signo concepta comparatur per divinum intellectum vel ad divinam intellectionem vel ad omne aliud ad quod comparatur. Relinquitur ergo secundum ipsum quod creatura habuit esse repraesentatum et intellectum ante omnem actum conparativum divini intellectus, ergo per consequens habuit aliquod esse reale. Nec valet fugere dicendo quod omnia illa tria signa sunt in eodem instanti aeternitatis, nec enim de hoc est aliquod dubium, nec dicendo quod illa praedicta tria signa, licet secundum modum nostrum intelligendi distinguantur, tamen in re simul ponuntur, simul enim est huiusmodi conversio seu comparatio creaturae ad divinam intellectionem et eius intellectio. Hoc siquidem non valet, quia ipse vult quod pro illo secundo instanti Cf. Smith, “The Origin of Intelligibility,” 60–69. Petrus Thomae, Quaestiones de esse intelligibili, q. 2, art. 2, ll. 193–242, 36–39. For the following, see also Smith, “Petrus Thomae on Divine Ideas and Intelligible Being.” 42 Petrus Thomae, Quaestiones de esse intelligibili, q. 7, art. 3, ll. 187–97, 144. 43 Petrus Thomae, Quaestiones de esse intelligibili, q. 7, ll. 367–89, 152–53. 44 Petrus Thomae, Quaestiones de esse intelligibili, q. 3, art. 1, ll. 35–148, 46–52.

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essentia divina sub ratione mere absoluta terminat intellectionem divinam et quod creatura non producitur in actu intelligendi per actum intellectus comparativum, ergo secundum ipsum huiusmodi esse creaturae intellectum et repraesentatum praecedit omnem actum comparativum.45

Although Peter Thomae carefully avoids any assertion, he clearly misapprehends Scotus’s opinion. Peter recognizes the eternity and the order of the instants of nature, as well as the relative act with which the divine intellect compares the intelligibility of the essence of the creature to the divine essence or to the absolute act of the intellect in the third instant. He manages to admit the eternity of the intelligible being as the real being of the creature, because he omits the intellectual production of the thought creature in the second instant, replacing the divine intellect with the divine essence as the terminus of the rational relation that proceeds from the thought creature of this intellect, rather than vice versa. In the second quaestio, Peter Thomae makes no attempt to hide his speculative distance from Scotus’s theory of the esse cognitum, even though he says he generally follows this theory (“cuius doctrinam sequor ut plurimum”):46 […] si Scotus velit dicere quod divinus intellectus ut ab essentia distinctus producat quidditates in esse intelligibili, loquendo proprie de productione, non teneo cum eo. Si tamen dicatur quod ista productio est mere aequivoca et metaphorica, ut ipse videtur dicere, detur sibi, licet improprie dicatur.47

Peter Thomae’s adherence to Scotus is thus conditioned on a hermeneutic criterion: he is willing to follow Scotus on condition that the fundamental core of Scotus’s theory, i. e., the intellectual production of the intelligibility of the essence of the creature, be understood in a merely metaphorical and improper sense.

5. Francis of Meyronnes In the first two questions of distinction 47 of the Conflatus, Francis of Meyronnes articulates his theory of the divine ideas within his theory of the fundamental relation. Ideas are not active cognitive principles of assimilation. They rather constitute the foundation of a relation that stems from God without leading to any real or possible entity other than God. They subsist in themselves and in the deity or divine essence with which they are co-essential, though without any degree of effective existence. Egbert P. Bos has compared Meyronnes’s world of ideas with Gregory of Rimini’s complexe significabilia, i. e., such enunci45 46 47

Petrus Thomae, Quaestiones de esse intelligibili, q. 8, art. 1, ll. 71–95, 158–59. Petrus Thomae, Quaestiones de esse intelligibili, q. 2, art. 3, l. 252, 40. Petrus Thomae, Quaestiones de esse intelligibili, q. 2, art. 3, ll. 283–86, 41. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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ations that, if taken in their entirety, are true in themselves and need not be formulated in the mind in order to be and to be true, and with Karl R. Popper’s Third Reich of objective contents of thought or of works of art.48 Properly speaking, in Meyronnes’s understanding divine ideas do not either exist or not exist, since they are rather beyond existence and non-existence in every way. They have this status, because they are beings not existing in a quidditive sense, but only in a qualitative sense. They are qualities, not res. This world of mere essences, unlike in Scotus, is neither produced nor caused, but rather is eternal, ungenerated, incorruptible, indestructible, and certainly not separate from God. It is co-essential with God, despite being formally distinct from Him. The essences are intelligible in themselves, regardless of the intellect that conceives them. This complex theory advanced by Meyronnes has a theological interpretation of the Platonic ideas in common with Henry of Ghent, Scotus, and Peter Thomae, one that is based on the conception of ideas as stable, immutable, eternal, ungenerated and incorruptible forms that (in accordance with Augustine) are contained in the divine mind. This theory can be seen as the last stage in Meyronnes’s evolution of thought concerning the divine ideas. We find it in many places throughout the Conflatus, for example, in the first question of distinction 42, where Meyronnes founds all relative beings, like those thought of by the divine intellect or those desired by the divine will, on being of essence; he there describes being of essence as indifferent to contingent existence or nonexistence, real or mental being, singularity or universality, act or potency, necessity or contingency, causation or non-causation, time or eternity.49 Other properties of this being are its logical possibility and producibility before its creation as well as its indestructibility. In the second quaestio, Meyronnes concedes eternity to pure essences, albeit only in a privative sense, namely due to the absence of any form of duration. Similarly, these essences are necessary in a privative sense, namely due to not being impossible.50 In the third quaestio, Meyronnes reiterates that God, as an exemplar or efficient cause, did not produce these essences; it is rather with the act of creation that the divine will adds existent actual being to these essences.51 Cf. Bos, “The Theory of Ideas according to Francis of Meyronnes,” 215 and 226–27; Fiorentino, Gregorio da Rimini, 11–52; Popper, Objective Knowledge, 106–52. I have discussed Meyronnes’s doctrine of ideas in Fiorentino, “Le idee divine nelle prime due questioni della distinzione 47 del Conflatus.” Cf. also Damian Park’s contribution to this present volume. 49 Franciscus de Mayronis, Conflatus, dist. 42, q. 1, 117vab. We already find this indifference in distinction 35 of Meyronnes’s first version of his commentary on the Sentences, the socalled Ab Oriente redaction; cf. Franciscus de Mayronis, Ab Oriente I, dist. 35, q. 1, especially the articles 8–12 and 27–28 (ed. Möhle), 761–64 and 772. 50 Franciscus de Mayronis, Conflatus, dist. 42, q. 2, 118va–b. 51 Franciscus de Mayronis, Conflatus, dist. 42, q. 3, 119vb–120va. 48

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In the first three quaestiones of distinction 46, Meyronnes clarifies that being thought of (esse intellectum) and being willed (esse volitum), since they are relative, presuppose the absolute being of essence.52 In the third quaestio, Meyronnes establishes that the being thought of, which is relative and diminished, is produced, in contrast to the intelligible being that descends from a formal ratio of the essence and not from an act of the intellect or will. This last kind of being is not relative and diminished, because it coincides with the esse essentiae itself.53 In the third quaestio of distinction 47, we furthermore learn that the pure essence possesses the intrinsic property of abstractability that makes it indifferent to both real and mental being; Meyronnes quotes Avicenna’s famous dictum “equinitas est equinitas tantum.”54 This diverges from Aristotle, who imposed both singularity and spatial separation from reality on the divine ideas; Meyronnes, the “magister abstractionum”, rather prefers abstraction. Perhaps not so surprisingly, Meyronnes in fact saw Aristotle as an “optimus physicus”, but a “pessimus metaphysicus”!55 Let me finally turn to Meyronnes’s eighth quodlibetal quaestio, also called Vinculum de esse essentiae et existentiae. Here, we again find the motif of the pure, uncreated, uncaused and indifferent essences that exist prior to their creation; these essences are formally and, as we here learn, essentially distinct from the divine essence.56 Meyronnes inveighs both against Scotus’s notion of intellectual production and against Alnwick’s solution with the extrinsic denomination. According to Meyronnes, this denomination only has an arbitrary or ad placitum semantic value and cannot be an intrinsic property of the essence.57 Meyronnes arrived at a highly original and innovative theory that attempted to develop the Platonic conception of ideas in the light of Avicenna’s metaphysics as mediated by Henry of Ghent. This led to a shift in Meyronnes’s thought, largely on a subsurface level, toward the concept of ‘praecisio’ as a definining feature of pure essence as prior and indifferent to all ontological bipartitions, as self-sufficient at the qualitative level, and as intelligible in itself. Franciscus de Mayronis, Conflatus, dist. 46, q. 1, 132ra; cf. also ibid., q. 2, 132va. Franciscus de Mayronis, Conflatus, dist. 46, q. 3, 132vb. Interestingly, Ioannes Anglicus Foxholes (or John Foxal), Tractatus de productione creaturae (Vatican City, Vatican Apostolic Library, ms. Vat. lat. 9402), 227vb, remarks there is “dissonantia non parva” between Scotus and Meyronnes regarding the production of intelligible being (endorsed by Scotus and denied by Meyronnes). 54 Franciscus de Mayronis, Conflatus, dist. 47, q. 3, 134ra. 55 Franciscus de Mayronis, Conflatus, dist. 47, q. 3, 134rb; cf. Bianchi, “Aristotele fu un uomo e potè errare,” and Möhle, “Aristoteles, Pessimus metaphysicus,” 748. 56 Franciscus de Mayronis, Tractatus de esse essentiae et existentiae, especially the articles 1–4, 9, 10, 13, 15, 17–18 (ed. Lánský et al.), 283–91, 301–3, 306–8, 310–11, 313–15. 57 Franciscus de Mayronis, Tractatus de esse essentiae et existentiae, art. 6 (ed. Lánský et al.), 295–96. 52 53

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This indifference does not seem to correspond with anything in Avicenna’s authentic thought in itself, i. e., without Henry of Ghent’s mediation. According to Avicenna, the indifference of the essence, unlike the Aristotelian principle of the excluded middle, may not imply neutrality or some third option; it rather implies positivity or a composition in which the extremes are concordant rather than mutually exclusive.58 To this conception of indifference, Meyronnes adds the formal inclusion of the ideas in the divine mind, combining motifs from Augustine and Scotus. Meyronnes’ theory achieved some success in the later Franciscan tradition, as seen, e. g., in John of Ripa in the fourteenth century and John Punch in the 17th century, as well as outside of the Franciscan family, as seen, e. g., in Nicholas of Autrecourt. It was criticized, however, by Jean Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris, along with Plato, the formalizantes, and the ultra-realism of John Wyclif, who in De ideis attributed the truly real being of the creatures to their being known by God. John Kenningham and Thomas Netter accused Wyclif of heresy, recognizing in these creatures Scotus’s diminished and only relative beings, and deprecating the Augustinian interpretation of Plato. By contrast, toward the end of the fourteenth century, Plato was defended by Peter of Ailly, who had read Calcidius’s translation of Timaeus. According to Ailly, and in stark contrast to Meyronnes, Plato is the one philosopher who has best understood God’s secrets, one example of this being his doctrine of ideas.59

6. Peter of Navarre In the second quaestio of distinction 36 in his Scriptum in primum librum Sententiarum, Peter of Navarre, also called de Atarrabia, rejects the preexistence of the intelligible being of the creatures as an actuality in the divine essence prior to the act of the divine intellect: Ideo aliter dico quod, formaliter loquendo, secundum quod aliquid dicitur formaliter intelligibile, creatura non prius habet esse intelligibile quam esse intellectum, nec praesupponitur intellectioni, sed ipsam praesupponit, et per ipsam habet primum esse et expressum et intellectum; immo per hoc quod habet esse intellectum, habet formaliter esse expressum. Loquendo autem virtualiter, bene praesupponitur in ipsa essentia, ut virtualiter intelligibile et expressibile. Ad hoc me movet quod multa inconvenientia sequuntur oppositum […].60

Cf. Porro, “Universaux et esse essentiae,” 21–23 and 44. For these developments, see Fiorentino, “La disputa tra Giovanni Punch e Bartolomeo Mastri;” Hoenen, “A Oxford: dibattiti teologici nel tardo Medioevo;” Hoenen, “Modus loquendi Platonicorum.” 60 Petrus de Atarrabia sive de Navarra, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 1, n. 23, 814. 58

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This passage discriminates between two different planes: the formal or actual one and the virtual or potential one. While on the formal or actual plane the creature is not preexistent in the divine essence simply due to its intelligibility, it is this latter quality that marks the virtual or potential status of the creature in the divine essence. In other words, the creature exists in the divine essence in potency but not in act, being intelligible prior to being actually thought of by the divine intellect. In the third quaestio, Navarre first criticizes three opinions, stating that the divine essence considered as an idea that is imitable by the creatures, by means of various relations of reason, cannot be multiplied in accordance with these relations.61 He further refutes the first alternative to the second opinion, which assumes that the idea is a principle of production of the creature owing to the imitability relation of the real creature toward the divine essence. According to Navarre, this relation follows rather than precedes the production of the creature.62 The third opinion holds that the idea is coincident with the act with which God thinks of the creature; this act is linked to God’s real relation to the creature; Navarre objects that the creature is intelligible regardless of this relation.63 The fourth quaestio introduces Augustine’s definition of ‘idea’: Quantum ad primum, secundum Augustinum, 83 Quaestionum, quaestione 46, nomen ideae fuit inventum a Platone, sed non res ipsa, et – ut dicit – idea vocatur forma, vel species, vel similitudo, vel ratio (non curo de nomine). Sed quid est idea secundum rem? Dico quod, secundum Augustinum, ubi supra, quod ideae ‘sunt formae vel rationes propriae rerum incommutabiles, quae ipsae formatae non sunt (ac per hoc aeternae ac semper eodem modo se habentes), quae in divina intelligentia continentur; et cum ipsae non oriantur nec intereant, secundum eas tamen formari dicitur omne quod oriri et interiri potest, et omne quod interit et oritur.’ Dicuntur ‘formae,’ quia secundum ipsas formatur quidquid formatur.64

This passage is important because it makes clear that the ideas are considered as forms present in the divine mind and related to that immutable essence which has no origin nor end, in accordance with Augustine’s interpretation of Plato’s theory. The insertion of the ideas as forms into the divine mind bestows esse cognitum on the ideas that are now conceived as objects of knowledge. However, this conflicts with Aristotle’s interpretation that assigned a separate nature to Plato’s ideas. Indeed, this conflict is promptly pointed out by Navarre: Praeterea, Plato posuit ideas esse quiditates rerum; sed Augustinus non deviat ab eo nisi in hoc quia Plato, sicut imponit ei Aristoteles, posuit illas quiditates separatas per se ex61 62 63 64

Petrus de Navarra, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 3, nn. 66–67, 826. Petrus de Navarra, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 3, nn. 68–71, 826–27. Petrus de Navarra, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 3, nn. 75–78, 829–30. Petrus de Navarra, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 4, nn. 103–4, 835. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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sistere; Augustinus vero posuit eas exsistere in mente divina; sed ibi non posuit esse nisi sicut obiectum cognitum. Relinquitur ergo quod ideae sunt quiditates rerum secundum esse cognitum.65

Defined in this way, the divine ideas, on account of their plurality, are not equivalent to the divine essence, but rather to the essences of the single creatures according to their esse cognitum, even if they are included objectively (obiective) in the divine mind, owing to their relative existence as objects of knowledge.66 This status of the essences of the creatures is the foundation of the exemplar character of the ideas included in the divine mind; Navarre explains: “per consequens creatura, secundum esse cognitum, est idea.”67 Therefore, prior to acquiring the being of the essence in effectu, the creature, as a mere exemplar, is seen as having only a diminished kind of being, namely esse cognitum.68 This being is coincident with the divine cognition itself; as contained in the divine mind it is nothing but an entity of reason (ens rationis).69 In reply to the last main argument, Navarre now adds Boethius’s interpretation of the Platonic ideas that bends the theory of ideas in a creationist direction: Augustinus intelligit ibi per illas ‘invisibiles et incommutabiles rationes’ quiditates creaturarum secundum esse cognitum, secundum quem modum dicit Boethius quod in Deo est mundus archetypus, quod non est nisi creatura secundum esse cognitum. Unde dicit, secundo De consolatione philosophiae, loquens ad Deum sic: “Pulchrum, pulcherrimus ipse, – mundum mente gerens similique imagine formans.” Quomodo ergo potest salvare quod ideae sunt creatrices? Respondeo: sicut domus in mente dicitur factrix, quia est exemplar secundum quod artifex operatur domum extra, sic ideae possunt dici creatrices quia sunt exemplaria secundum quae, sicut obiecta cognita, Deus creando res producit in effectum.70

The Boethian interpretation remarkably allows Navarre to connect the esse cognitum of the creatures with their essences; together they provoke the effective production of the corresponding things. The following quaestio, finally, reaffirms that the ideas are cognized creatures (“per ideam intelligo creaturam ut cognitam obiective secundario ab intellectu divino”).71

Petrus de Navarra, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 4, n. 110, 837. Petrus de Navarra, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 4, nn. 105–7, 836. 67 Petrus de Navarra, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 4, n. 108, 837. 68 Petrus de Navarra, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 4, n. 118, 838–39. 69 Petrus de Navarra, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 4, n. 120, 839. 70 Petrus de Navarra, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 4, nn. 123–24, 839–40. The quote is from Boethius, De consol. phil., III, 9, 7–8, 80. 71 Petrus de Navarra, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 5, n. 165, 850. 65 66

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7. Peter of Aquila In the first quaestio of dist. 36 in his commentary on the Sentences I, Peter of Aquila succinctly contrasts the Aristotelian and Augustinian interpretations of Plato’s theory of ideas as forma intellectualis exemplaris:72 Dico quod aut ideae ponuntur separatae sicut imposuit Aristoteles Platoni 7. Metaph., aut ponuntur ideae in intellectu sicut Augustinus exposuit Platonem […]. Primo modo ideae non sunt ponendae; secundo modo sic, quia nobilissimus modus producendi non deficit in universo; sed nobilissimus modus producendi est per intellectum et voluntatem per rationes ideales; ergo ideae sunt ponendae.73

Aquila supports the Augustinian interpretation of the idea as an exemplar in the divine mind, thus opting against Aristotle’s attribution of a separate status to the ideas. In Aquila’s conception, the inclusion of the ideas in the divine mind automatically implies their productive character. To explore the relation of ideas as exemplars of the creatures to God as their author, Peter mentions two opinions. The first is Scotus’s opinion of which Aquila accepts only the notion of esse obiectivum: Una [opinio est] Scoti, quod ideae nihil aliud sunt in Deo nisi res objective cognitae. Quod probatur sic: Illud est idea in Deo ad cuius similitudinem producitur res extra; sed res extra producitur ad similitudinem rei cognitae; ergo res objective cognitae sunt ideae.74

The second opinion denies the ideas as entities of reason or cognized objects; they are rather the divine essence itself as “continens in se perfectiones omnium.”75 Whereas this quaestio ends without a definite determination,76 the following quaestio provides one: […] omnia habent ideam in Deo, omnia dico positiva sive entia naturalia, sive artificialia, genera, species et individua, relationes, materia, compositum et partes. Cujus ratio est quia idea est res objective cognita; sed omnia praedicta sunt res objective cognitae; ergo omnia praedicta habent ideam in Deo.77

Every positive entity, being known as an object, is thus connected with an idea in God. In the third quaestio, Peter of Aquila eventually excludes any possibility

72 73 74 75 76 77

Petrus de Aquila, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 1, 362–63. Petrus de Aquila, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 1, 363. Petrus de Aquila, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 1, 365. Petrus de Aquila, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 1, 366. Petrus de Aquila, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 1, 366. Petrus de Aquila, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 2, 369. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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that creatures have real being in the divine essence before having been produced.78

8. John of Ripa Camille Bérubé counted John of Ripa among the Scotists due to his contribution to the circulation of Scotus’s doctrines in the Minorite Studia.79 Ludger Honnefelder reached the same conclusion by emphasizing the free relationship between teacher and disciple.80 In the only quaestio of his Lectura I, dist. 35, as witnessed in Paul of Venice’s Abbreviatio, as well as in his Conclusiones, John of Ripa divides the perfectiones, i. e., self-sustained and complete features, inherent in the divine essence into three classes: 1) the rationes essentiales, such as the being of entity, life, and intellect; 2) the modes of these essential perfections, such as simplicity, necessity, eternity; 3) the causal and effective rationes that are the properties or features of the essential rationes. The essential rationes are in the divine essence owing to essential denominations. These are extrinsic and secondary properties of the divine essence ad extra and inherent in the divine essence; upon these qualities depend the essential denominations of the creatures, i. e., those extrinsic and secondary properties that are inherent in the essences of the creatures. The essential rationes of the creatures have the status of vestigia. There is symmetry between the divine and the creaturely denominations; the relationship between these perfections is one of participation and variously intense grades.81 The divine essence does not directly include the species itself of some essential ratio of a creature as an intrinsic perfection, but rather only the variously intense grades of these creaturely rationes on an imaginary level (imaginaria latitudo) and according to the symmetry of the denominations.82

Petrus de Aquila, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 3, 372. Bérubé, “La première école scotiste,” 15–16. 80 Honnefelder, “Scotus und der Scotismus,” 252. 81 John of Ripa composed a commentary on the Sentences, which has only in part been critically edited. Distinction 35 that interests us here has not yet been edited. I therefore resort to two other sources for the first book of Ripa’s commentary, namely Paul of Venice’s abbreviation and Ripa’s own Conclusiones extractae; cf. Paulus Venetus, Super primum Sententiarum Johannis de Ripa Lecturae abbreviatio I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 1, 519–20; Ioannes de Ripa, Conclusiones I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 14–29, 210–11. 82 Paulus Venetus, In Sent. abbreviatio I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 1, 521–22; Ioannes de Ripa, Conclusiones I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 1, 30–31, 211. John of Ripa’s source for the notion of imaginary latitudo is the theory of the socalled Calculators of gradable forms and more or less intense degrees of qualities in the theories; cf. Coleman, “Jean de Ripa and the Oxford Calculators.”

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Generaliter divina essentia secundum plures rationes essentiales est causa speciei superioris in latitudine entis perfectionaliter contentiva quam inferioris.83

The divine essence is infinite and therefore includes all the essential rationes; these are essentially ordered and, in their turn, include the species of the creatures as perfections.84 The essential rationes of the divine essence are the exemplar causes of the denominations of the creatures.85 These rationes, to which the essences of the creatures connect by way of participation, are the exemplar ideas: Ratio divina participata a creatura est proprissime ipsius creature idea. Probatur. Nam omnes conditiones quas attribuit beatus Augustinus ideis in libro 83 Questiones, questio 46 competunt vere et proprie huiusmodi rationibus. Sunt enim huiusmodi rationes principales forme et rationes rerum substantiales et incommutabiles, secundum quas omnia formantur et quarum participatione sit quidquid est. Ista conclusio patet per beatum Augustinum, XV de Trinitate, c. 13–16, ubi dicit quod Verbum Dei est Verbum perfectum cui non desit aliquid et ars omnipotentis et sapientia Dei plena omnium rationum viventium. Hec sunt, ut ait idem Augustinus in alio loco, que a Philosophis secularibus et a Platone primo appellate sunt idee et Seneca ad Lucillum […].86

For the view of ideas as forms of immutable things, Ripa relies on Augustine’s interpretation combined with a quotation from Seneca; he does not take the Aristotelian mediation into account. Of importance in our context is that he later connects Augustine’s interpretation with Scotus’s theory of esse cognitum that turns the ideas into secondary objects of the divine intellect, whereas the divine essence remains its primary object: Aliter ymaginatur Doctor Subtilis, videlicet quod idee sunt ipsemet creature secundum quod obiective relucent in mente divina ut obiecta secundaria et ipsis creaturis ut sic – habent esse cognitivum in mente divina – attribuit omnes conditiones quas Augustinus, ubi prius, dixit ideis competere. Dicit enim quod sine ipsis Deus sapiens esse non potest et sine cognitione ipsarum; et huiusmodi rationes sunt incommutabiles et eterne, quoniam eternaliter cognite.87

John of Ripa, however, does not understand the point concerning the passage from the esse cognitum as the relative ontological status of the creatures to the Paulus Venetus, In Sent. abbreviatio I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 1, 523; Ioannes de Ripa, Conclusiones I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 1, ll. 33–35, 211. 84 Paulus Venetus, In Sent. abbreviatio I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 2, 523–24; Ioannes de Ripa, Conclusiones I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 2, ll. 5–17, 211. 85 Paulus Venetus, In Sent. abbreviatio I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 3–4, 524–27; Ioannes de Ripa, Conclusiones I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 3–4, ll. 5–8, 211–12. 86 Paulus Venetus, In Sent. abbreviatio I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 4, 527; Ioannes de Ripa, Conclusiones I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 4, ll. 9–10, 212. 87 Paulus Venetus, In Sent. abbreviatio I dist. 35, q. 1, art. 4, 528; Ioannes de Ripa, Conclusiones I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 4, ll. 19–29, 212. 83

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extrinsic causation of the creatures that stems from the divine essence. Also, in Scotus’s writings, one does not find that symmetry between the attributes of the divine essence and those of the creatures, as secondary objects of knowledge, that on Ripa’s model would allow the causation of the creatures according to their exemplars.88

9. Peter of Candia In the first article of the sixth quaestio in the Book I of his commentary on the Sentences, Peter of Candia gives an outline of the positions at stake: Advertendum est quod circa istam materiam est duplex modus dicendi: unus ponit idearum pluralitatem, et alius simpliciter negat. Sed primus modus habet tres modos: quidam ponunt rationes ideales ex parte divinae essentiae, quidam ex parte quidditatum, et quidam ex parte ipsarum creaturarum in esse actuali. Primus modus est Magistri Iohannis de Ripa, secundus videtur Platonicus, et tertius est ipsius Ockham.89

Peter identifies two main opinions concerning the plurality of ideas: the first is affirmative, the second negative. The affirmative position comes in three distinct versions. The first, ascribed to John of Ripa, posits this plurality within the divine essence. Importantly, the second, which at first is considered Platonic and then subsequently attributed to Scotus, connects this plurality with the essences of the creatures. The third, attributed to William of Ockham, assumes the plurality of ideas within the sphere of actually existing creatures.90 Peter quotes Ockham’s definition of ‘idea’ as “aliquid cognitum a principio effectivo intellectuali ad quod tale principium aspiciens potest aliquid in esse reali producere,” i. e., as an entity known by the active divine intellect that, like a supernatural artificer and with this content in view, may produce something into reality.91 This production implies that ideas have the character of exemplars that ensure a correspondence between the idea and the essence of a thing.92 We learn that, “idea Sortis est Sortes quem importat in recto et in obliquo et similiter con-

Paulus Venetus, In Sent. abbreviatio I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 4, 528–29; Ioannes de Ripa, Conclusiones I, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 4, ll. 30–34, 212. 89 Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, n. 6. I refer to Christoper D. Schabel’s unpaginated online edition. 90 Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, n. 33. 91 Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, n. 8; cf. Ockham, Scriptum I, dist. 35, q. 5, ll. 1–4, 486: “Et propter hoc habet tantum quid nominis et potest sic describi: idea est aliquid cognitum a principio effectivo intellectuali ad quod ipsum activum aspiciens potest aliquid in esse reali producere.” 92 Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, nn. 17–19. 88

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notat Deum qui praecognoscit Sortem antequam existat in rerum natura.”93 The idea refers to Socrates both in a direct and an oblique manner, and it also refers to God who knows Socrates before his effective and actual existence. A plurality of ideas is present to the divine intellect in the form of objects of knowledge; the ideas are objectively only, not subjectively, in the divine intellect.94 By contrast, the Scotist position understands the ideas in the Platonic fashion; ‘idea’ here means a “ratio aeterna in mente divina secundum quam aliquid est formabile ut secundum propriam rationem eius.”95 This view of the idea as the form of an immutable thing is combined with the Scotist theory of esse cognitum: the idea is an “obiectum cognitum per intellectum divinum in esse intelligibili derivatum.”96 The divine essence is metaphysically antecedent, since it is the primary object of the divine intellect. This intellect produces the intelligibility of the essences of creatures. Ripa here introduces a new motif: this intelligibility presupposes the emanation of the divine persons; the divine essence has its intelligible being in common with the Word which is the explicit image of the Father’s mind ad extra. In comparison with real being, this intelligible being of the essences has a diminished ontological status; it is only esse obiectivum.97 John of Ripa’s opinion is reported in detail. It is founded on the inclusion of the essential rationes in the divine essence; these rationes include the species of the creatures as essentially ordered perfections. These “ideal” rationes constitute the creatures in a causal and exemplar manner; they are modulated according to various degrees of participation and correspond with the denominations of the creatures (“huiusmodi rationes essentiales a creatura participatae sunt rationes omnium rerum creabilium ideales).”98 Candia closely summarizes Ripa’s definition of ‘idea’: Ex quibus potest idea taliter describi: idea est divina essentialis ratio, forma principalis, a nullo formata, incommutabilis et aeterna, rei creabilis denominationis consimilis formativa, ipsius repraesentativa perfectissime, et eiusdem limpide cognitiva. Ista descriptio sequitur formaliter ex dictis Magistri Johannis.99

Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, n. 9. Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, n. 20. 95 Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, n. 34; cf. Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 35, q. unica, nn. 38–39 (ed. Vat. VI), 260. 96 Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, n. 39. 97 Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, n. 49. 98 Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, nn. 89–103. Peter of Candia appears to be well acquainted with John of Ripa; for John of Ripa’s influence on Peter of Candia regarding the divine prescience of future contingent events, see Schabel, “Peter of Candia and the Prelude to the Quarrel at Louvain.” 99 Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, n. 104. 93 94

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Contained in this definition is the Platonic view of the idea as the form of immutable things. This element is absorbed into Ripa’s notion of a correspondence between the denominations and the essential rationes. The idea is, on the one hand, an essential ratio of the divine essence; on the other hand, it is the principle of the knowledge of the denominations of creatures. The divine essence is not the ratio essentialis of creatures; the exemplar idea as denomination in the divine essence rather corresponds with creatures owing to a certain essential being of the creature itself.100 Verbi gratia, pro intellectu conclusionis, signata una ratione essentiali, ut pote vitae, licet Deo correspondeant infinitae sine quacumque formali distinctione in tali denominatione, tamen creaturae multae non aequaliter participant vitam, et tamen talibus participationibus correspondent diversae causalitates, et ita cum unitate essentialis denominationis stat pluralitas causalium rationum.101

For example, the essential ratio of life, although it coincides with a unique denomination of the divine essence, stimulates various degrees of participation that actually correspond with as many causal rationes of the creatures. Peter of Candia gives a summary which both demonstrates his philological acumen and illuminates Ripa’s opinion: Imaginatio ergo totius positionis per modum epilogi recollecta in hoc consistit: intellectus inamque corpori alligatus a visibilibus ad Dei invisibilia procedit, iuxta dictum Apostoli: “Invisibilia Dei a creatura mundi per ea quae facta sunt intellecta conspiciuntur.” Unde, quia in creaturis reperit distinctionem multiplicem et non primariam, ideo ipsam ad invisibilia Dei reducit, quae, quia non potest bono modo realis intelligi, ab elevatis theologis fuit ‘formalis distinctio’ merito appellata. Et idcirco, infinitarum essentialium rationum in Deo fuit locata pluralitas, quae sunt denominationum consimilium in creaturis perfectionaliter contentivae. Et quia ipsas reperit intellectus infinitas simpliciter, ideo ipsis attribuit condiciones perfectionis, ut pote formare, repraesentare, et esse rationem cognoscendi. Ex quibus illative ‘ideales formas’ voluit appellare. Et quia rerum incommunicabiles rationes non poterant per modum idealem intelligi in supersimplici substantia Conditoris, quia sic esset quodam modo ut bos vel asinus effigiata, ideo advertit alias rationes divinas a primis per modum proprietatis intrinsecae naturaliter pullulantes, quas ‘causales’ censuit nominare, per quas rerum incommunicabiles existentiae sunt derivabiles et certis limitibus circumclusae. Et quia hoc videt intellectus infinitis modis posse fieri, animadvertit ipsas sub certo finito numero minime contineri. Cumque conspiciat tripliciter effectum fieri – videlicet exemplative quo ad rationes essentiales, executive quo ad gradus varios in rationibus essentialibus participabiles, et determinative quo ad talium continuam conservationem – ideo causales rationes tripliciter nominavit: formativas videlicet, executivas, et determinativas. Nunc autem, quia omnes istae rationes sunt in arte Omnipotentis Artificis, ideo clarissime conspicit omnem rei circumstantiam

100 101

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essentialem vel incommunicabilem, et si non tales singulas per ideas proprias, cum non habeant, tamen per rationes determinativas cuncta alia circumspicit limpide vel per rationes causaliter executivas. Et ista credo fuisse imaginationem huius doctoris, cuius speculatio sufficiat pro praesenti.102

Peter of Candia’s summary reveals that Ripa’s argument works in two directions: it both proceeds quia, i. e., from the creatures to the divine essence, or from the visible to the invisible things, and propter quid, i. e., from the divine essence toward the creatures. This dual argument seems to justify the employment of two orders of rationes that at first sight appear to be in conflict with one another, though they are in fact rather complementary, namely the orders of the ideal and the causal rationes. The plurality of visible creatures explains the formal distinction among the essential rationes that include, in the divine essence, the denominations of the creatures as perfections. These behave in the same way as the ideal forms. They constitute, represent and enable knowledge of creatures. At the other end, the simplicity of the divine essence is the foundation of the causal rationes; these rationes cause the effective existence of the creatures, acting as exemplars of the essential rationes. The causal rationes, being the exemplars of the essential rationes, are operative in the various degrees of the essential rationes in creatures; they continue to sustain these rationes after creation and throughout the course of created reality. The causal rationes thus concern the effective work of the Creator. Peter himself does not follow John of Ripa, but rather supports the opposite opinion, vouching for the uniqueness of God as the exemplar idea of all creatures. The divine essence, being infinite, behaves as a likeness that represents everything, including itself, without drawing any, not even a formal, distinction.103 Candia succinctly places his own solution in the landscape of positions; he explicitly mentions those of Ockham, Henry of Ghent, Scotus, and Ripa: Unde ex ista positione sequitur manifeste quod idea non est creatura, ut docet Ockham; nec relationes reales importantes respectum ad creaturas, ut dicit Gandavus; nec obiecta cognita, ut dicit Scotus; nec tales denominationes essentiales, ut dicit Magister Johannes. Sed est ipsa deitatis ratio omnimode indistincta. Sed ista opinio inter omnes rationabilior mihi videtur.104

Candia’s solution occupies the intermediate position between that of Ockham, who denies that ideas are principles of knowledge, and that of Scotus and Ripa, Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, n. 135. Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, n. 150: “[…] aliqua similitudo quae sic est repraesentativa istius quod non alterius, et est alia quae repraesentat tantum res consimilis speciei et alia generalis. […] Et isto modo, sine quacumque reali vel formali distinctione, Deus intelligatur perfectissima similitudo cuiuslibet rei.“ 104 Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, n. 151. 102 103

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who multiply the ideas or formal rationes. For his view, Peter interestingly draws on a remote source: Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The latter assigned to God an immense, super-simple and super-indivisible knowledge rather than a knowledge that would include, in a separate manner, both his own essence and all the creaturely essences: Et sic apparet qualiter est ad istum articulum respondendum, nam secundum viam Ockham Deus per nullam ideam formaliter intelligit, et sic intelligendo rationem essentialem consimiliter diceret. Secundum vero Doctorem Subtilem et Johannem de Ripa, per plures rationes ideales creaturas intelligit. Sed secundum istam opinionem ultimam, quae multum rationabilis videtur, per unicam et simplicissimam rationem se ipsum et cuncta alia intelligit sine qualicumque distinctione ex parte sua. Et ista videtur fuisse opinio beati Dionysii in De divinis nominibus, dicentis: “Divina sapientia se ipsam cognoscens cognoscit immaterialiter omnia materialia, indivisibiliter divisibilia, et multa unione in ipso uno, etenim sicut Deus secundum unam causam omnibus existentibus esse tradidit, ita secundum eandem causam scit omnia sicut in ipso existentia. Non igitur Deus habet propriam sui ipsius cognitionem et aliam communem existentia omnia comprehendentem, sed unicam supersimplicem, superindivisibilem, et immensam.” Haec ille.105

10. Nicholas of Orbellis In the only quaestio of distinction 35 in Book I of his commentary on the Sentences, Nicholas starts from the Scotist distinction between the primary and the secondary objects of the divine intellect, i. e., respectively the divine essence and the creatures in their esse cognitum. This distinction leads up to an explanation of Scotus’s own authentic theory: Unde Deus in primo instanti naturae intelligit essentiam sub ratione mere absoluta quae est ei ratio cognoscendi omne cognoscibile. In secundo intelligit lapidem et sic ipsum producit in esse intelligibili et producendo eum in tali esse intentionali producit ut habens dependentiam ad ipsum ita quod ibi est relatio rationis in lapide intellecto ad intellectionem divinam; sed nulla adhuc in intellectione divina ad lapidem. In tertio tamen instanti potest intellectus divinus comparare suam intellectionem ad quodcumque intelligibile et sic causare in se relationem rationis.106

This passage reports the sequence of instants of nature as described by Scotus in the Lectura and in the Ordinatio, proceeding from the divine essence as the primary object of the divine intellect over the production of the intelligibility of the essences of creatures by the divine intellect in an absolute act, to the comparison by the divine intellect of that act with the intelligibility of the creatures. This 105 Petrus de Candia, In Sent. I, q. 6, art. 1, n. 158; cf. Pseudo-Dionysius, De divinis nominibus, 398–40. 106 Nicholaus de Orbellis, In Sent. I, dist. 35, q. unica, sine numeratione. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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comparison establishes a rational relation. On Scotus’s theory, with its adherence to Augustine, the idea corresponds with the stone as objectively known by the divine mind; Nicholas emphasizes that this is in line with Plato’s doctrine.107 Scotus’s opinion allows Nicholas to harmonize the plurality of the ideas with the unity of the divine essence. On the one hand, the divine essence represents, in an eminent and unitary manner, every producible creature. On the other hand, all the creatures are known by the divine intellect, being objects of knowledge owing to their own esse cognitum.108 Both in the only quaestio of distinction 36 of the Book I and in the first quaestio of the first distinction of Book II, this cognized being is conceived as a diminished kind of being that owes itself to a rational relation and to the simple possibility of the creaturely essences.109

Conclusion We have seen abundant evidence of the sheer complexity of the Scotist tradition as it unfolded during its first two centuries. This tradition clearly does not operate with any common criterion of Scotist thought, but rather remains essentially fragmented. Various contributions tend to converge, but never become mutually coherent. Two places in Scotus’s corpus – namely distinction 36 of the Reportatio I-A and distinction 35 of Book I of the Lectura and the Ordinatio as well as, again, of the Reportatio I-A – gave rise to quite divergent views of esse cognitum and divine ideas. Let me briefly summarize what we can now say about the reception of these two places. 1) In distinction 36 of the Reportatio I-A, Scotus, in partial agreement with Henry of Ghent, compares the divine essence as the primary object of the divine intellect and the essences of the creatures as its secondary objects. The latter are endowed with a particular kind of diminished being, namely esse cognitum. The status of this diminished being stimulated an intense debate, both in early Scotism and in the later tradition. Within the first generation of Scotists, James of Ascoli supported the status of the esse cognitum as intermediate between real and rational being, while William of Alnwick rather reduced the esse cognitum to the real being to which, then, are added the extrinsic denomination of being represented as well as the intrinsic ratio of logical non-repugnance that enables an intelligible idea to arise in the divine intellect. In the subsequent tradition, Alnwick’s theory is partially accepted by Francis of Ascoli; he adds Ockham’s quality of mind to the extrinsic denomination. Nicholaus de Orbellis, In Sent. I, dist. 35, q. unica, sine numeratione: “Hoc […] consonat dicto Platonis ponentis ideas esse rerum quidditates.” 108 Nicholaus de Orbellis, In Sent. I, dist. 35, q. unica, sine numeratione. 109 Nicholaus de Orbellis, In Sent. I, dist. 36, q. 1, sine numeratione; In Sent. II, dist. 1 q. 1, sine numeratione. 107

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Diminished being

Real being

James of Ascoli Landulph Caracciolo Francis of Ascoli + extrinsic denomination or quality of mind Francis of Meyronnes + intelligible being Peter of Navarre Peter of Aquila John of Ripa Peter of Candia Nicholas of Orbellis + intrinsic ratio

William of Alnwick + extrinsic denomination Peter Thomae + intentional being

Fig. 1:

Overview of positions regarding the status of esse cognitum.

James of Ascoli’s position is much more successful: Landulph Caracciolo, Peter Thomae, Peter of Navarre, Peter of Aquila, John of Ripa and Peter of Candia all basically follow his doctrine, albeit with some variations. Peter Thomae recognizes three kinds of being, but eventually sees intentional being as one kind of real being. Nicholas of Orbellis bases the diminished being on an intrinsic ratio. Francis of Meyronnes distinguishes the esse cognitum as thought by the divine intellect from the intelligible being that depends upon the divine essence; the latter being precedes the esse cognitum. Peter Auriol and William Ockham go beyond the theory of esse cognitum, with their respective theories of esse apparens and ens fictum or quality of mind. Fig. 1 schematically summarizes the various positions. 2) In distinction 35 of Book I of his various commentaries on the Sentences, Scotus shows awareness of the importance of the Augustinian interpretation of Plato’s ideas as noetic entities that are produced by the intellect into their diminished being and then endowed with existence by the divine will, a view that contrasts with Aristotle’s interpretation of Plato’s ideas as separate essences to which being in existence is added. With his theory of the four instants of nature, Scotus overcomes the Platonic-Augustinian exemplarism, entrusting the production of the intelligibility of the essences of creatures to an absolute act by the divine intellect, which conceives of the creature by means of a rational relation. Later, the divine essence (according to the Lectura) or this act itself (according to the Ordinatio) are linked with the intelligibility through a rational relation which the divine intellect comes to know in the last instant. Scotus thus no longer conceives of the idea as an exemplar, but rather as the content of an act of thought. For Ockham, this content becomes a quality of the mind, one that connotes both the material thing and the intellect that knows it.

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Among the authors considered above, Landulph Caracciolo and Nicholas of Orbellis explicitly defend Scotus’s theory of the instants of nature. While Landulph associates a summary of this theory with the consideration of the divine ideas as secondary objects potentially included in the divine essence owing to their esse cognitum, Orbellis quite precisely reiterates Scotus’s doctrine of the four instants of nature. The diminished kind of being is accompanied by the intrinsic ratio of possibility of the creaturely essences; the Platonic-Augustinian conception of ideas is particularly important for the authors who support this approach. Other authors hold divergent views on this issue. Peter Thomae thus admits the intellectual production of thought creatures only in a metaphorical and improper sense. Peter of Candia criticizes both Ockham’s conception of ideas as objects of knowledge and Scotus’s conception, although Peter too maintained the intellectual production of the secondary objects into esse cognitum, i. e., that diminished kind of being that is neither real being nor rational being.110 All of this clearly shows that, even in the case of esse cognitum and divine ideas, the Scotist tradition must be understood in the sense I explained in the introduction of this contribution. The reception of Scotus’s thought in Landulph Caracciolo and Nicholas of Orbellis is not representative of the general tendency of this tradition; in the overall picture, what actually prevailed of Scotus’s theory of divine ideas does not correspond with the core of his original doctrine, i. e., the theory of the four instants of nature and the production by the divine intellect of the intelligibility of the essences of the creatures. What prevailed is rather the comparison between the divine essence and the creaturely essences as secondary objects of knowledge that possess esse cognitum. The focus on this comparison does not imply that the Platonic-Augustinian exemplarism was superseded, but rather only that the secondary objects were gradually adapted into the exemplar view. This adaptation was achieved in accordance with one of the features of Scotus’s theory, as present in distinction 36 of Reportatio I-A, namely his distinction between the eminent and the potential inclusion of these objects in the divine essence. However, this distinction is not the proper textual place for a discussion of divine ideas. One can say that the current that flowed from distinction 36 of the Reportatio I-A eventually merged with the one that came from distinction 35 of the Lectura I, the Ordinatio I, and the Reportatio I-A. This mergence already began in Landulph Caracciolo and then spread among later Scotists. It accentuated the role of the divine essence over and above the divine intellect. Peter Auriol and Francis of Ascoli thus underlined the function of the divine essence that they saw as the only principle of all real or possible things. Francis of Ascoli, providing equipment that will be useful to Peter of Let me here mention that the theory of esse cognitum also appears in metaphysical treaties, e. g., in Antonius Trombetta, In Tractatum formalitatum scoticarum sententia, pars 2, art. 1, 6va–7rb; cf. Mahoney, “Duns Scotus and the School of Padua around 1500.” 110

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Candia, preferred a super-eminent kind of inclusion of infinite secondary, potentially knowable objects within the divine essence. Francis, however, contrasted the finite nature of the subsequent acts of the human intellect to the infinite, unique, intrinsic act whereby God knows all the creatures as ideas in their esse cognitum. According to Francis, this kind of being is composed of two elements: (1) what Francis considers to be an extrinsic denomination (to speak with Alnwick) or a quality of the mind (to speak with Ockham); (2) the diminished being that depends upon the known object itself. Peter Thomae, rejecting Scotus’s intellectual production of the intelligibility of creatures in the proper sense and the Aristotelian interpretation of Plato’s ideas as separate essences, continued to uphold the view that the divine essence, like the divine intellect, eminently includes the intelligibility of the essences of the creatures owing to their esse obiectivum. Peter of Navarre, in favor rather of potential inclusion of the creaturely essences in the divine essence, combined the Platonic-Augustinian view with that of Boethius and emphasized the productive aspect of the archetypal ideas. Peter of Aquila, who subscribed to the Augustinian interpretation of the Platonic ideas as exemplars in the divine mind, also emphasized the productive character of the ideas. In accordance with Scotus, he furthermore held a view of the esse obiectivum as preceding real being; the latter only follows upon the effective production of the creatures. The theory of inclusion is thus progressively reworked. In this process, innovative elements are added to Scotus’s original theory, which is thus being gradually transformed. Obvious examples are Francis of Meyronnes and John of Ripa. Francis openly criticized both Scotus’s theory of intellectual production of the ideas and Alnwick’s semantic and arbitrary denomination; he supported the formal inclusion of the ideas in the divine mind, following Augustine’s approach. Francis linked the exemplarist approach to Avicenna (as interpreted by Henry of Ghent) and developed a theory of simple, eternal, and necessary essences that are formally distinct from the divine essence. These essences are indifferent to all ontological bipartitions; they are equivalent to the ideas and endowed with simple, real being. This inspired Wyclif’s ultra-realism. John of Ripa, in his turn, considered the ideas as forms of immutable things, following Augustine and Seneca. Like Scotus, he held that the ideas were secondary objects of the divine intellect endowed with esse cognitum. To solve the problem of their causation, Ripa combined the causal with the essential rationes. While the latter include, in the divine essence, the denominations of the creatures as perfections in the same way as the ideal forms constitute, represent and allow knowledge of creatures, the former rather give rise to the effective existence of the creatures. The causal rationes act as exemplars of the essential ones and as principles that enable the real application of the degrees of the essential rationes as well as the preservation of the activity of these rationes beyond the creation and throughout created reality. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Four instants

Eminent or potential inclusion

Negative theology

Landulph Caracciolo Nicholas of Orbellis

Landulph Caracciolo Peter Auriol Francis of Ascoli + act of divine and human intellects Francis of Meyronnes + pure essences Peter Thomae Peter of Navarre + archetypal ideas Peter of Aquila John of Ripa + causal and essential rationes

Peter of Candia

Fig. 2:

Overview of the main motifs in the debate over the origin of ideas.

Peter of Candia, finally, explicitly assimilates the Platonic position to Scotus’s theory of the production of the secondary objects by the divine intellect into a kind of diminished being that is intermediate between real and rational being. He supports the theory of the divine essence as the principle of resemblance, but for this he does not refer to Peter of Auriol or Francis of Ascoli, but rather to Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Peter of Candia intends to elevate God’s knowledge to supersimplicity and superindivisibility, following a negative-theology approach, by which, in the end, he dissolves the whole theory of eminent or potential inclusion, since God’s knowledge, owing to its immensity, does not separately include any creatures. Fig. 2 summarizes the main motifs in this long debate over the origin of the divine ideas.

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–. Francesco di Meyronnes. Libertà e contingenza nel pensiero tardo-medievale. Rome: Antonianum, 2006. –. “Introduzione.” In Lo scotismo nel Mezzogiorno d’Italia. Atti del Congresso Internazionale (Bitonto 25–28 marzo 2008), in occasione del VII Centenario della Morte del beato Giovanni Duns Scoto. Edited by Francesco Fiorentino, 7–36. Porto: FIDEM, 2010. –. “Libertà e contingenza in Giovanni di Ripa.” In Contingenza e libertà. Teorie francescane del primo Trecento. Atti del Convegno Internazionale Macerata 12–13 dicembre 2008. Edited by Guido Alliney, Marina Fedeli and Alessandro Pertosa, 269–93. Macerata: Edizioni Università di Macerata, 2012. –. “Conoscenza e scienza in Landolfo Caracciolo.” Franciscan Studies 71 (2013), 375–409. –. “L’autonomia ontologica delle idee platoniche. Il dibattito ottocentesco e le radici scolastiche.” In Platone nel pensiero moderno e contemporaneo, vol. 4. Edited by Andrea Muni, 21–64. Villasanta (MB): Limina Mentis, 2014. –. “La disputa tra Giovanni Punch e Bartolomeo Mastri riguardo allo statuto ontologico delle essenze in quanto enti possibili sulle orme dello scotismo delle origini.” In Filosofi e modernità. Antichi e nuovi sentieri, vol. 2. Edited by Alessandro Pizzo and Ivan Pozzoni, 87–120. Villasanta (MB): Limina mentis, 2015. –. “Lo scotismo trionfante nella prima epoca moderna. Profilo storico-dottrinale.” In Filosofi e modernità. Antichi e nuovi sentieri. Edited by Alessandro Pizzo and Ivan Pozzoni, 69–83. Villasanta (MB): Limina mentis, 2015. –. “Introduzione. Conoscenza e attività in Giovanni Duns Scoto.” In Il Prologo dell’Ordinatio di Giovanni Duns Scoto. Edited by Francesco Fiorentino, 1–153. Rome: Città Nuova, 2016. –. “Giovanni Duns Scoto di fronte a Platone sulle idee divine.” In Platone nel pensiero moderno e contemporaneo, vol. 12. Edited by Andrea Muni, 11–33. Villasanta (MB): Limina mentis, 2017. –. “The Idea in John Duns Scotus’ Turn-about between Plato and Descartes.” Dialogo Journal 4/1 (2017), 190–202. –. “Idee divine secondo Francesco di Appignano.” Picenum Seraphicum, nuova serie 34 (2020) 35–52. –. “Le idee divine nelle prime due questioni della distinzione 47 del Conflatus di Francesco di Meyronnes.” Forthcoming. Friedman, Russell L. “Francis of Marchia and John Duns Scotus. The Psychological Model of the Trinity.” Picenum Seraphicum 18 (1999), 11–56. Ghisalberti, Alessandro. “Giovanni Duns Scoto e la scuola scotista.” In Storia della teologia nel Medioevo, vol. 3. Edited by Giulio d’Onofrio, 366–70. Casale Monferrato: Piemme, 1996. Henninger, Mark G. “Thomas Wylton’s Theory of Relations.” Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 1 (1990), 457–90. Hoenen, Maarten J.F.M. “A Oxford: dibattiti teologici nel tardo Medioevo.” In Figure del pensiero medievale. Storia della teologia e filosofia dalla tarda antichità alle soglie dell’umanesimo, vi: La via moderrna. xiv e inizi del xv secolo. Edited by Inos Biffi and Costante Marabelli, 61–134. Milano: Jaca Book, 2010. –. “Modus loquendi Platonicorum.” In The platonic tradition in the middle ages. a doxographic approach. Edited by Stephen Gersh and Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen, 325–42. Berlin and New york: de Gruyter, 2002. Honnefelder, Ludger. “Scotus und der Scotismus. Ein Beitrag zur Bedeutung der Schulbildung in der mittelalterlichen Philosophie.” In Philosophy and Learning. Universities in the

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Middle Ages. Edited by Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen, Jakob Hans Josef Schneider, and Georg Wieland, 238–57. Leiden: Brill, 1995. Kobayashi, Michio. “Création et contingence selon Descartes et Duns Scot.” In Descartes et le Moyen Âge. Edited by Joël Biard and Roshdi Rashed, 75–89. Paris: Vrin 1997. Mahoney, Edward P. “Duns Scotus and the School of Padua around 1500.” In Regnum hominis et regnum Dei. Acta quarti congressus Scotistici Internationalis (Patavii, 24–29 septembris 1976), vol. 2. Edited by Camille Berubè, 215–27. Rome: Antonianum, 1978. Martínez Rius, Antonio. “De distinctione virtuali intrinseca et distinctione formali a parte rei (doctrina Scheeben cum doctrina Scoti collata).” In De doctrina Ioannis Duns Scoti. Acta Congressus Scotistici Internationalis Oxonii et Edimburgi 11–17 sept. 1966 celebrati, vol. 4. Edited by the Commissio Scotistica, 589–616. Rome: Antonianum, 1968. Möhle, Hannes. “Aristoteles, Pessimus metaphysicus: Zu einem Aspekt der Aristotelesrezeption im 14. Jahrhundert.” In Albertus Magnus und die Anfänge der Aristoteles-Rezeption im lateinischen Mittelalter: Von Richardus Rufus bis zu Franciscus de Mayronis. Edited by Ludger Honnefelder et al., 727–55. Münster (Westf.): Aschendorff, 2005. Noone, Timothy B. and Vater Carl A. “The Sources of Scotus’s Theory of Divine Ideas.” In Divine Ideas in Franciscan Thought (XIIIth-XIVth century). Edited by Jacopo Francesco Falà and Irene Zavattero, 75–99. Rome: Aracne, 2018. Paladini, Chiara. “Exemplar Causality as similitudo aequivoca in Peter Auriol.” In Divine Ideas in Franciscan Thought (XIIIth-XIVth century). Edited by Jacopo Francesco Falà and Irene Zavattero, 203–38. Rome: Aracne, 2018. Pépin, Jean. “Idea dans la patristique grecque et latine.” In Idea. Atti del VI Colloquio Internazionale del Lessico Intellettuale Europeo (Roma, 5–7 gennaio 1989). Edited by Marta Fattori and Massimo Luigi Bianchi, 23–36. Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1990. Perler, Dominik. “What are intentional objects? A controversy among early Scotists.“ In Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality. Edited by Dominik Perler, 203–26. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Popper, Karl R. Objective Knowledge. An Evolutionary Approach, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. Porro, Pasquale. “Universaux et esse essentiae: Avicenne, Henri de Gand et le Troisième Reich.” Cahiers de Philosophie de l’Université de Caen 38–39 (2002), 9–51. Sagües Azcona, Pío. “Un escotista desconocido. El Maestro Pedro de Navarra y el prologo de su comentario sobre las Sentencias.” Verdad y Vida 24 (1966), 351–434. –. El Maestro Pedro de Navarra, O.F.M., (+1347) “Doctor Fundatus” y su comentario sobre el Libro I de las Sentencias. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1966. Schabel, Christopher D. and Smith, Garrett R. “The Franciscan studium in Barcelona in the Early Fourteenth Century.” In Philosophy and Theology in the ‘Studia’ of the Religious Orders and at Papal and Royal Courts. Acts of the XVth Annual Colloquium of the Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale, University of Notre Dame, 8–10 October 2008. Edited by Kent jr. Emery, William J. Courtenay, and Stephen M. Metzger, 359–92. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012. Schabel, Christopher D. “Peter of Candia and the Prelude to the Quarrel at Louvain.” Eπετηρίδα του Κέντρου Επιστημονικών Ερευνών 24 (1998), 87–124. –. “Francis of Marchia on Divine Ideas.” In Intellect et imagination dans la philosophie médiévale. Edited by Maria Candida Pacheco and Josè Meirinhos, 1589–99. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006.

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–. “Francis of Marchia.” In The Stanford Enciclopédia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. [last consulted December 22, 2020]. Smith, Garrett R. “Bibliotheca manuscripta Petri Thomae.” Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 52 (2010), 161–200. –. “The Origin of Intelligibility According to Duns Scotus, William of Alnwick, and Petrus Thomae.” Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 81 (2014), 37–74. –. “Petrus Thomae on Divine Ideas and Intelligible Being.” In Divine Ideas in Franciscan Thought (XIIIth-XIVth century). Edited by Jacopo Francesco Falà and Irene Zavattero, 371–99. Rome: Aracne, 2018. Tachau, Katherine H. Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham: Optics, Epistemology and the Foundation of Semantics, 1250–1345. Leiden: Brill, 1988. Yokoyama, Tetsuo. “Zwei Quaestionen des Iacobus de Aesculo über das Esse obiectivum.” In Wahrheit und Verkündigung. Michael Schmaus zum 70. Geburtstag, vol. 1. Edited by Leo Scheffczyk, Werner Dettloff and Richard Heinzmann, 37–59. Münich: Schoningh, 1967. Zahnd, Ueli. “Easy-Going Scholars Lecturing Secundum Alium? Notes on Some French Franciscan Sentences Commentaries of the Fifteenth Century.” In Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, vol. 3. Edited by Philipp W. Rosemann, 267–314. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2015.

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Alfonso Briceño on Cognition, Distinction, and the Knowledge of God Roberto Hofmeister Pich

Introduction Born in Santiago de Chile, Alfonso Briceño (1587–1668) belongs to a second generation of Scotist thinkers who received academic education in Peru, at the Convento de San Francisco de Lima.1 The Franciscan friar Jerónimo Valera (1568–1625), who published the first philosophical book in the history of South America, namely, a logic ad mentem Scoti,2 was one of his masters in the capital of the viceroyalty. Briceño’s career was outstanding. Especially between 1637 and 1646, during his stay in Madrid and Rome, Briceño became known in European Franciscan circles as a remarkable reader and interpreter of Scotus. His two large volumes of Controversiae around key topics of Scotus’s Ordinatio I appeared in Madrid in 1639.3 Back in the New World, Briceño was made Bishop of Nicaragua (1646) and later of Caracas (1649), Venezuela, where he died in the city of Trujillo.4 The Controversiae can be seen as a useful tool for understanding the extent and characteristics of Scotism in Latin America in the first half of the 17th century – in fact, the spectrum and the depth of the debates in which Briceño engaged I wish to express my gratitude to the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), of which I am now a Researcher Level 1B, for the invaluable support given, since 2015, to my research on Latin American Scholasticism in general and the thought of Alfonso Briceño in particular; the present study is one more result of this support. 1 See Céspedes Agüero, “La filosofia escotista de Jerónimo de Valera,” 481, note 182. 2 Pich, “Notas sobre Jerónimo Valera e suas obras sobre lógica,” 171. 3 On Briceño’s life and works, see Urdaneta, Alonso Briceño: primer filósofo de América, 1973; Manzano, “Alonso Briceño (1587–1668): Franciscano, Pensador, Obispo”; Muñoz García, “Alonso Briceño, filósofo de Venezuela y América”; Skariča, “Alonso Briceño. Apuntes para una historia de la filosofía en Chile”; Cenci, “Notas bibliográficas sobre Alfonso Briceño”; Pich, “Alfonso Briceño (1587–1668) and the Controversiae on John Duns Scotus’s Philosophical Theology,” 65–69. For information about Briceño’s volumes in inventories and catalogues of Latin American libraries, see Redmond, Bibliography, 20. There is some confusion regarding the publication year of Briceño’s two volumes (1638/1639 or 1642); cf. the remarks in Andersen, “Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition,” 235–36. 4 See Hanisch Espínola, En torno a la filosofía en Chile (1594–1810), 26–28; Urdaneta, Alonso Briceño: primer filósofo de América, 99; Muñoz García, “Alonso Briceño, filósofo de Venezuela y América,” 126. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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are rather impressive. Due to the comprehensive character of his knowledge of Scotus’s works and Scotism, as well as to the quality of his intellectual skills, which were considered congenial to Scotus’s subtlety, one of his censors did not hesitate to call him “Scotulus” or “little Scotus.”5 In the two volumes of the Prima Pars of his incomplete project6 of commenting on open disputes raised by Scotus’s Ordinatio I (a project actually related to Scotus’s whole opera),7 Briceño, in a total of 12 Controversiae of different length, both offers an exposition of what is for him the metaphysical basis8 of Scotus’s theology, and systematically reconstructs Scotus’s theology as a metaphysical doctrine of God: “metaphysicalia”9 are treated everywhere in his published works. We should highlight the expositions in Controversies 1–8, structured according to the metaphysical properties of God, such as unity, truth, and goodness, as well as to divine “[pure] perfections” and “modes of being.”10 Every interpretation is accompanied by and every final stance preceded by controversies with Thomistic authors and ‘Scotizantes,’ a term that bears the twofold meaning of authors aligned with Duns Scotus’s doctrine and those unable to correctly render his thought.11 5 This expression is used by Dr. Pedro de Ortega Sotomayor, Professor in Lima, in one of the approbationes in Briceño, Prima pars celebriorum controversiarum in primum Sententiarum Ioannis Scoti Doctoris Subtilis (henceforth Prima pars celeb. contr.); Sotomayor’s unpaginated recommendation is contained in the second volume. 6 A Pars Secunda – in a third volume, or even more volumes – covering such themes as God’s will and power, predestination and Trinity, has either disappeared or was in fact never written; the whole project would have covered all major topics in John Duns Scotus’s Ord. I. See Cenci, “Notas bibliográficas sobre Alfonso Briceño,” 218–19. 7 Usually quoted from Cavellus’s edition. On early printed editions of Scotus’s opera, see Smeets, Lineamenta bibliographiae scotisticae, 2–4. 8 For systematic presentations of Scotus’s metaphysics, see Honnefelder, Ens inquantum ens; Honnefelder, Scientia transcendens, 3–199; Honnefelder, Duns Scotus, 48–112; Sondag, Duns Scot. The metaphysical basis of the most central theological topics for Scotus – especially the doctrine of the Trinity and of the incarnation – is explored in works by Richard Cross, cf. Cross, Duns Scotus; Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation; Cross, Duns Scotus on God. For a comprehensive exposition of Scotus’s theology, see Vos, The Theology of John Duns Scotus. 9 See Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, 106–7. A brief description of the content of each of the 12 Controversiae can be found in Pich, “Alfonso Briceño (1587–1668) and the Controversiae on John Duns Scotus’s Philosophical Theology,” 67–69. 10 See Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, 106. Contr. 5, on infinite being and infinity, has been the object of several studies; see Pich, “Alfonso Briceño (1587–1668) and the Controversiae on John Duns Scotus’s Philosophical Theology”; Pich, “Alfonso Briceño (1587– 1668) e a recepção de Scotus na América Latina”; Pich, “Alfonso Briceño (1587–1668) sobre o conceito de infinitude”; Pich, “Alfonso Briceño O.F.M. (1587–1668) on John Duns Scotus’s Metaphysical Groundworks of Theology.” 11 See Pich, “Alfonso Briceño (1587–1668) and the Controversiae on John Duns Scotus’s Philosophical Theology,” 66–73. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Alfonso Briceño on Cognition, Distinction, and the Knowledge of God

In recent research on Briceño, attempts have been made to highlight the significance of five “Metaphysical Appendixes,” which appear as a conceptual apparatus in Controversies 1, 2, 11, and 12, to be used in reading his difficult theological discussions. They have a philosophical importance of their own; we find in them Briceño’s most explicit understanding of the central views of and the existing controversies surrounding the interpretation of Scotus’s philosophy. (1) The first Metaphysical Appendix is about created being and existence;12 (2) in the second Metaphysical Appendix, Briceño explains created subsistence and its cause.13 (4) In the fourth Appendix, Briceño deals with the divine will and its formal object;14 (5) the fifth Metaphysical Appendix is about the objective being that creatures have from eternity (and “to which Scotus attributes an exemplary causality”).15 The present study focuses on (3) the third Metaphysical Appendix, which is “about the division of being into genus and species.”16 It would be fair to call this Appendix a late Tractatus de distinctionibus et formalitatibus. In other studies of mine about Briceño’s Metaphysical Supplements,17 I focused on 12 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 1 (Controversia prima de essentia, et simplicitate divinae naturae) art. 2 (Utrum actualitas sit de essentiali Dei conceptu?), “Appendix metaphysica; de esse, et existere, creatis,” nn. 1–24, 8–24. 13 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 1, art. 3 (Utrum in Deo subsistentia aliqua essentialis astruenda sit?), “Ad tertium articulum theologicum, de subsistentia absoluta Dei: Metaphysica appendix. Quid addat subsistere creatum, et quae sit eius causalitas?,” 31–61 (membr. 1: nn. 1–32, 31–41; membr. 2: nn. 1–36, 41–52; membr. 3: nn. 1–30, 52–61). 14 Briceño does not explicitly call this excursus a Metaphysical Appendix. See Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., II, contr. 11 (Controversia undecima generalis, de scientia Dei), dist. 1 (Distinctio Prima de Scientia Dei in se, et prout refertur ad obiecta non contingentia), “Ad Primum [An praedicatum Scientiae congruat Deo per modum actus primi, vel secundi?], et Secundum Articulum [De scientia Dei comparata ad creaturas possibiles; utrum ad illas in se ipsis terminari queat, tanquam in medio ex parte obiecti?] praecedentis distinctionis de Scientia Dei, Appendix Disputatio; de actualitate attributi voluntatis divinae, et obiecto formali illius,” art. 1–2, 38–98. Contr. 11 is about God’s knowledge of future contingents, cf. Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., II, contr. 11, 1–444; cf. Skariča, “Si los futuros contingentes son conocidos por Dios en si mismos, o sea, en su verdad determinada”; Skariča, “Predeterminación y libertad en fray Alonso Briceño”; Skariča, “El conocimiento divino de los actos futuros en Báñez, Molina, Suárez y Briceño.” 15 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., II, contr. 12 (Controversia duodecima de ideis, sive exemplaribus intellectus divini), “Appendix metaphysica; de obiectivo esse creaturarum ab aeterno, cui Scotus exemplarem causalitatem adscribit,” art. 1–4, 483–565. 16 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2 (Controversia secunda de unitate Dei), “Ad Controversiam secundam de unitate Dei Metaphysica appendix; de distinctione entis in genere, et specie,” art. 1–4, 166–202. Pich, “Alfonso Briceño O.F.M. (1587–1668) sobre o ente e a distinção,” 194–204, offers detailed summaries of the first three appendixes of volume I of Briceño’s Prima pars celeb. contr. 17 Pich, “Alfonso Briceño O.F.M. (1587–1668) sobre o ente e a distinção”; Pich, “Alfonso Briceño O.F.M. (1587–1668) sobre a distinção de razão.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Briceño’s account of (a) distinction as such and (b) the distinction of reason. As we might expect, due to the role it plays in the doctrine of God’s ontological simplicity, Briceño pursues in that ‘treatise’ a defense of the formal distinction. I will focus now on what Briceño says about a special kind of distinction, namely, the (c) “precising distinction” (distinctio praecisiva). Briceño’s digression on the precising distinction anticipates his explanation of real distinctions – that is, the real distinction (d) in general, (e) then the “modal distinction,” and (f) the “formal distinction ex natura rei.”18 The precising distinction is closely connected to a core topic of Alfonso Briceño’s Scotistic theory of cognition, namely, intuitive cognition.19 He inquires “About the precising distinction, whether it can accede to intuitive apprehensions?”20 As it turns out, Thomistic authors deny the existence of the precising distinction; Briceño, however, finds in Scotus’s theory of intuitive cognition a connection with that particular distinction, which prima facie should not be taken as a distinction of reason. The precising distinction, thus, concerns the characteristics of the “vision of God” and the question of the formal identity or the formal distinction between divine essence and divine attributes. The explanation of the distinctio praecisiva will be useful to interpret Briceño’s main topic in cognition theory, i. e., “the vision of God,” treated in his long Controversy 9, in which he discusses “the knowability of God through us.”21 It can also be taken as an indirect defense of the formal distinction.

1. Distinction as Such and Distinction of Reason In Article 1 of his Third Metaphysical Supplement, Briceño, after dealing with the transcendentals “being” and “unity,” defines metaphysical “distinction” as a negation in the sense of non-identity with another. The basis of distinction is “being” or any given “formality” (formalitas), since formalities express being. “Unity” (unitas) as a positive concept expresses a negation too, namely the negation of a plurality or multitude of things. Unity, however, as “entirety” or The metaphysical grounding of distinctions is presented in art. 1 of the third Metaphysical Appendix. In art. 2, Briceño discusses “distinction of reason” (distinctio rationis). He then explains, in art. 3, the “real distinction” (distinctio realis) in general and Scotus’s (or the Scotistic?) “modal distinction” (distinctio modalis) in particular, finishing his third Metaphysical Appendix with a firm defense of the “formal distinction” (distinctio formalis) ex natura rei (art. 4). 19 I have rendered both the expressions ‘cognitio intuitiva’ and ‘notitia intuitiva’ into English as “intuitive cognition.” 20 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., nn. 26–42, 181–86. 21 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 9 (Controversia nona generalis de cognoscibilitate Dei a nobis), 388–713. In extension, contr. 9 is second only to contr. 11, which covers 444 printed pages. 18

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Alfonso Briceño on Cognition, Distinction, and the Knowledge of God

“being-a-whole” does not explain distinctio as a central metaphysical difference. After all, distinction needs to be explained in relation to the difference between being and the convertible transcendental attributes.22 Unsurprisingly, for Briceño the first division of “distinction” is the one between “real” and “of reason.”23 Briceño initially establishes the debate on the distinction of reason by comparing the notions – inspired by Francisco Suárez SJ – of “distinction of reasoning reason” (distinctio rationis ratiocinantis; from now onwards: DRR1) and “distinction of reasoned reason” (distinctio rationis ratiocinatae; from now onwards: DRR2 ) both with one another and with John Duns Scotus’s formal distinction.24 Essentially, a given distinction is “of reason” if it is caused by the intellect. In Suárez’s metaphysics, the distinctions just mentioned, since they are sub-kinds of “relations of reason,” may be understood as beings of reason themselves.25 In general, Briceño accepts the idea that a being of reason, which can have some basis in reality or none,26 has a beingness that is invented by the intellect and an existence that depends on the intellect. Accordingly, a being of reason has objective being only.27 A being of reason is not itself or by itself suitable for real existence. Its cognoscibility or its cognizable content, thus, is an extrinsic one, in the sense of not being derived from the thing itself, but rather determined and denominated by the mind (depending, therefore, on “being thought” or “being known” by a given intellect).28 22 Pich, “Alfonso Briceño O.F.M. (1587–1668) sobre o ente e a distinção,” 172–93; Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 1, nn. 1–24, 167–73. 23 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, nn. 1–25, 173–81. 24 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 1, 174. 25 See Novotný, Ens rationis from Suárez to Caramuel, 98–100. Andersen, “Ens rationis ratiocinatae and ens rationis ratiocinantis,” 325, exposing Suárez, refers to DRR2 as having a fundament in reality and to DRR1, in contrast, as being a pure product of the mind. On these distinctions, see Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae, disp. 7 (De variis distinctionum generibus), sect. 1, nn. 4–8 (ed. S. Rábade Romeo, S. Caballero Sánchez, A. Puigcerver Zanón, vol. II), 11–15; on beings of reason (and relations of reason), see Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae, disp. 54, sect. 1, n. 8 (ed. cit., vol. VII), 395–96; ibid., sect. 6, nn. 1–11, 446–53. On the terminology ‘ens rationis ratiocinatae’ and ‘ens rationis ratiocinantis’ (posterior to Suárez, though influenced by him), see again Andersen, “Ens rationis ratiocinatae and ens rationis ratiocinantis,” 325–26. On these beings and distinctions treated here, see also Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 781–833. 26 According to Andersen, “Ens rationis ratiocinatae and ens rationis ratiocinantis,” 320– 21, despite some variances Franciscan masters, such as Bartolomeo Mastri (1602–1673) and Bonaventura Belluto (1603–1676), remained close to Suárez in this regard. See also Novotný, Ens rationis from Suárez to Caramuel, 138–63. 27 On “Suárez’s objectualism” behind this approach, see Novotný, Ens rationis from Suárez to Caramuel, 34. 28 See, for example, Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 38, 185: “Respondetur; ens rationis esse illud, quod non existit ante actum intellectus concipientis anahttps://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Although the details are beyond the scope of this discussion, Briceño contends with Gabriel Vázquez SJ (1549/1551–1604)29 in order to defend the thesis that DRR1 and DRR2 do not amount to one and the same distinction. He argues that there is an objective basis for affirming that they explain different inventions by the intellect. Firstly, DRR1, unlike DRR2, is not “founded in a multitude [of aspects] of the object [my italics]” that is perceived. DRR1 draws on the “fecundity of the intellect,” which repeats and reflects its concept “upon the same objective ratio,” submitting it to “diverse relations of subjection and predication.” This is what happens when (a) “the same is said of itself,” like in ‘Peter is this man;’ or when (b) “the same objective ratio” assumes opposite aspects “of term, subject, [and thus also of] identity:” it occurs when an individual is referred to itself “through a relation of identity, insofar as it is conceived of as identical to itself,” like in ‘Peter is Peter.’ In that case, the distinction between ‘Peter’ as the foundation, the substrate or the subject of that relation of identity, and ‘Peter’ as the term of such a relation of reflexivity, is of reason alone. Quite differently, DRR2 proceeds from the “eminence of the thing,” which is “divisible through the intellect,” where the intellect – because of its narrowness when compared to the nature of the known object – is incapable of covering, through “one single concept,” “the entire objective ratio of the thing.”30 The only aspect, thus, in which Briceño finds agreement with Gabriel Vázquez’s quite different thesis31 is that both DRR1 and DRR2 have extrinsic bases, although one should see that each extrinsic principle is differently explained each time.

logice ipsum ens fictum adinstar entis veri; quare tunc daretur discretio rationis, quando apprehenderetur pluralitas in obiecto, quae re vera non inesset; […].” See also Doyle, “The Borders of Knowability,” 645–47 and 649. 29 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 2, 174. 30 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 9, 176: “Observandum igitur est pro comparatione distinctionis ratiocinatae cum distinctione rationis ratiocinantis; quod haec distinctio, quae intellectus ratiocinantis dicitur, non fundatur in eminentiali aliqua multitudine obiecti, quae a mente percipiatur; sed in foecunditate intellectus geminantis seu conceptum suum repetentis circa eamdem rationem obiectivam, prout tantum substernitur diversis habitudinibus subiectionis et praedicationis. Ut quando idem de se ipso enuntiatur; verbi gratia, Petrus est hic homo; vel quando eadem ratio obiectiva subit munera per rationem opposita, termini, et subiecti, relationis identitatis. Quando nimirum individuum per identitatis respectum refertur ad se ipsum, quatenus concipitur ut idem sibi: quod idem genus distinctionis intercedere astruimos in omnibus aliis collationibus, quae inter eamdem omnino rationem obiectivam ad se ipsam relatam, haberi possunt. Quo fit, ut haec distinctionis ratio non oriatur ab eminentia rei, quae eatenus ab intellectu partibilis sit, quatenus per unicum conceptum exhauriri nequeat tota ratio obiectiva illius; ac proinde nec ex naturali impotentia seu defectu intellectualis virtutis.” 31 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 17, 178. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Alfonso Briceño on Cognition, Distinction, and the Knowledge of God

At any rate, DRR2 is much more important for Briceño, and for our reflection on the distinction of precision. To say that the foundation of DRR2 is extrinsic amounts to saying that, due to an intellectual insufficiency that generates “insufficient knowledge” of a given object, a distinction “is produced between partial concepts,” through which one gets only to “explicit objective contents that are completely distinct from each other.”32 They fall short, however, of expressing what the thing is as such. Briceño affirms that any new “virtual difference” that the mind makes can be understood as a “denomination that comes extrinsically” to the thing, i. e., through concepts that in the end are inadequate and analogous only.33 Keeping in mind that our discussion about metaphysical distinctions is inserted by Briceño in his Controversy 2 (about the unity of God), DRR2 as the performance of an intellect that represents something through a multitude of objective rationes contrasts with the object such as it is in itself, i. e., God in his own being, which is “totally identical, and not partitioned.”34 Of course, Briceño is interested in avoiding any mixture of Scotus’s formal distinction with DRR2 as described so far. Calling it either ‘distinction of reasoned reason’ or ‘virtual distinction,’35 Suárez and Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza SJ (1578–1641)36 had allegedly obfuscated this most famous distinction of Scotism. Again, Briceño emphasizes that Scotus’s formal and Suárez’s virtual distinction explain different things. The formal distinction offers a “convenient ba-

32 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 11, 177: “Unde, apparet manifeste disparilitas inter discretionem rationis ratiocinantis, et ratiocinatae; esto enim quod Gabrieli Vazquez detur, fundamentum utriusque distinctionis ab extrinseco spectatum iri; adhuc tamen intra extrinseci fundamenti latitudinem maxime dissidet repetitio, et geminatio eiusdem omnino conceptus (prout tantum diversis habitudinibus rationis substernitur) a discretione rationis ratiocinatae, quae constituitur inter conceptus partiales, a quibus rationes obiectivae explicitae prorsus condistinctae accipiuntur.” 33 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 19, 179: “Addimus tamen, quod ex eo, quod haec virtualis discretio sit denominatio quaedam analogicis conceptibus extrinsece accedens; non sequitur, quod sic eadem cum distinctione rationis ratiocinantis; cum intra fundamenti extrinseci latitudinem detur diversitas ea, quae discretionem inter species distinctionis rationis praestare valeat; ut ex dictis satis superque constat.” 34 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 11, 177: “Licet enim ad obiectum in esse rei, et extra intellectum omnino idem, et non partitum, attineant; adhuc tamen asserendum est, dari fundamentum pluralitatis virtualis per habitudinem ad notitiam non comprehensivam; quatenus res maior sit, quam quod per inadaequatam conceptionem exprimi queat.” 35 On this distinction, see also Heider, “Suárez on the Metaphysics and Epistemology of Universals,” 166–68. 36 On Hurtado de Mendoza’s theory of beings of reason, see Novotný, Ens rationis from Suárez to Caramuel, 111–37. See Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 4, 174. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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sis for contradictions” formed by the intellect.37 By means of this distinction, one can verify contradictory statements about one and the same object in a very specific way: it is a tool to realize that propositions non-equivalent to each other on the conceptual level – e. g., ‘God is true’ or ‘God is good’ – are also different attributions and are accordingly true of the same simple subject matter; one may thus affirm that ‘divine truth and divine goodness are really identical,’ but also that ‘divine truth and divine goodness are not (really) the same.’ The virtual distinction introduces a “virtual plurality” (of concepts that can be indefinitely produced by a mind unable to perfectly apprehend some object), whereas the formal distinction introduces “actual plurality” (of real aspects that are actually distinct). The formal distinction and DRR2 detect and explain contradictions or formal irreducibilities with regard to an ontologically simple object, respectively, either because of a real-actual or because of an objective-actual plurality of aspects.38 For reasons of space, I shall not here discuss why that alleged actual plurality should be explained by means of the formal distinction rather than just being taken as a sign of epistemic inadequacy.39 Briceño has so far discussed what the formal distinction is not: it is not a virtual distinction, because any instance of that distinction is a non-actual, eminent multitude. In the case of a DRR2, the plurality of formal aspects exists only because of the mind’s inadequacy, because of which the mind is unable to apprehend at once the thing in its entire cognoscibility as the term of a single act of apprehension. Any actual plurality of aspects remaining is the result of several

Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 5, 174–75: “Secundo: quia distinctio rationis ratiocinatae, prout a communi Doctorum schola astruitur, est virtualis discretio, seu una res formaliter, et multa per aequivalentiam; eoquod distinctis intellectus conceptionibus aequipolleat. Sed distinctio formalis, ut ab Scoto expressa, nil aliud refert quam habile fundamentum contradictionum, quas format intellectus; cum eo praecise hoc distinctionis genus tradiderit, ut contradictoriae enuntiationis de eodem obiecto verificari possent: ergo cum id praestet virtualis discretio, reliquum est, ut a communi sententia non dissideat Scotus.” See also footnotes 40 and 41, below. 38 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 14, 177–78: “Ex quo sequitur discrimen inter distinctionem rationis ratiocinatae, et distinctionem formalem ex natura rei, quam astruit Scotus; et quare admissa distinctione virtuali, sive rationis ratiocinatae, adhuc necessaria sit formalis distinctio ex natura rei, quae actualem pluralitatem rationum formalium referat. Quia distinctio rationis ratiocinatae tantum valet ad verificandas contradictiones, quae ex partialibus, et inadaequatis conceptibus proveniunt, ad quas necessaria non est actualis distinctio ex natura rei; formalis vero discretio, quam constituit Scotus, necessario asserenda est pro contradictoriis, quae verificantur de re, non secundum obiectivum, ac denominativum esse, quod a cognitione nostra trahitur; sed secundum quidditativas rationes, quae rei congruunt, prout extra intellectum existit.” 39 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 6, 175. 37

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Alfonso Briceño on Cognition, Distinction, and the Knowledge of God

inadequate conceptions and exists only on the level of “objective” being.40 This is also the level on which contradictory statements about one and the same ontologically simple object – statements which are attributions of different properties that are formally irreducible to each other – are resolved.41 Briceño does appreciate the explaining power of DRR2 in such important areas as the ontology of the divine persons. An example: “divine paternity” may be said to suffer from DRR2 when it is dissociatively conceived both as a hypostatic form and a relation-with-the-son: “the father is not constituted, in the way of conceiving, by paternity as it is a relation, but as it is a hypostatic form.” Ex parte rei, this is not a true distinction about God, but ex parte mentis this is an explainable virtual – though really false – distinction between paternity as hypostasis and as relation. In this case, we cannot but produce a plurality of objective and analogous rationes about one and the same thing. The use of DRR2 somehow helps detect errors and understand both our cognitive equipment42 and the inadequacy of our metaphysical apparatus to conceive both Trinity and simplicity.43 40 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 12, 177: “Pro comparatione distinctionis rationis ratiocinatae cum distinctione formali ex natura rei, adnotandum est; quod cum fundamentum distinctionis rationis ratiocinatae non sit actualis, sed tantum eminentialis multitudo, quae quia maior est, quam quod ab uno actu intellectus finiri possit, ac proinde a pluribus compartialibus cognitionibus exhauriatur; ideo fit, ut multitudo actualis, quae ad tales inadaequatas conceptiones accedit, non sit pluralitas ex natura rei, sed tantum obiectiva.” 41 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 12, 177: “Quare, licet fundamentum esse queat illarum contradictionum, quae ex sola pluralitate inadaequatarum conceptionum emergunt; eoquod esse obiectivum explicitum, quod vi huius cognitionis fit, non sit illud esse obiectivum, quod vi alterius cognitionis formatur. At haec obiectiva discretio non praestat pro illis enuntiationibus contradictoriis verificandis, quae non cadunt supra obiectivum, aut denominativum esse, quod ab ipsa apprehensione trahitur; sed supra illud esse obiecti, quod extra intellectum existit.” 42 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 13, 177: “Quo fit; ut licet distinctio rationis ratiocinatae, quae constituitur inter paternitatem divinam, inquantum adit munus formae hypostaticae; et eamdem paternitatem, prout exercet relationem ad filium; praestare possit, ut ex modo concipiendi vera sit assertio ista; pater non constituitur ex modo concipiendi per paternitatem, ut relatio est, sed ut forma hypostatica est: at discretio ea, quae inter paternitatem, ut hypostasim, et ut relationem, posita est, non conferet, ut verum esse queat, quod pater non constituatur ex natura rei per relationem sub forma relationis; eoquod a parte rei, et extra conceptiones nostras nulla prorsus sit actualis discretio inter paternitatem, ut hypostasim, et ut relationem.” 43 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 18, 179: “Ut apparet in conceptibus inadaequatis relationis, et hypostasis in paternitate divina; et in conceptibus hypostasis, et dictionis, vel generationis activae in eadem relatione paternitatis. Quia secundum nostrum modum concipiendi inadaequatum, et analogicum, pater aeternus constituitur paternitate, non sub explicita forma relationis; sed suppositalitatis, et hypostasis. […]. Igitur fundamentum harum contradictionum, quae ex conceptibus relationis, hypostasis, et dictionis, in https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Its proponents understood DRR2 as a result of the intellect’s insufficiency in conceiving a given res, here in particular the divine essence. It arises because the thing is beyond any given concept and cannot be contained in what is virtually apprehended by a cognizing mind. Assigning it a different field of application, namely the metaphysics of the divine Trinity, Briceño explicitly claims that a Scotist thinker does not need to dismiss DRR2. He is convinced that DRR2 has to be admitted in “the school of Scotus” – for him, Scotus never rejected it.44 In this sense, the comparison between DRR2 and the “precising distinction” both confirms the emergence of a new distinction and further clarifies DRR2.

2. What Is a “Precising Distinction” and Why Is It Rejected by the Thomists? Both the question of whether there is a further kind of distinction of reason called ‘precising distinction’ and the question of whether DRR2 can be reduced to this kind of distinction are disputed among the Thomists and the Scotists. But

paternitate divina conflantur, est distinctio rationis ratiocinatae, seu virtualis, prout relata ad analogicos conceptus; qui creaturarum instar rationem hypostasis, relationis, et generationis, partiuntur: quod idem asserendum est de aliis rebus, in quibus propter obiectivam tantum distinctionem contradictiones verificantur.” Cf. ibid., art. 2, n. 22, 180: “Ad tertium: quod sola distinctio virtualis ex parte rei cum distinctione actuali inadaequatarum rationum obiectivarum suppetit ad verificandas contradictiones, quae enuntiantur de obiecto, non qua existit a parte rei, sed qua inadaequate concipitur. […]; at in re ipsa sicut pater aeternus per paternitatem, ut relatio est, constituitur, ita falsum est astruere, patrem ita per paternitatem constitui, ut refert formam hypostasis, quod non constituatur per paternitatem, ut exprimit habitudinem ad filium. Quo fit, ut ad verificandas contradictiones eas, quae spectant esse obiecti, quod extra intellectum sortitur, et non obiectivas tantum rationes, quae ab analogia conceptuum prodeunt; non praestet sola virtualis distinctio.” On the use by Briceño of the metaphysical apparatus to comprehend the Trinity and on some theoretical consequences of this application (in particular the impossibility of reaching any univocal concept of relation applicable in both the created and the uncreated spheres), see Pich, “Alfonso Briceño O.F.M. (1587–1668) sobre a distinção de razão.” On the debate on the constitution of persons through relational properties, see, e. g., Cross, Duns Scotus, 65–67; Cross, Duns Scotus on God, 233–40. 44 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, n. 18, 178–79: “Dicendum secundo: astruendam esse in schola Scoti distinctionem rationis ratiocinatae, etiam admissa distinctione formali ex natura rei. Et probatur: quia nunquam Scotus distinctionem rationis ratiocinatae, ut sic, seu in tota sua latitudine inficiatus est; […]. Licet enim distinctio actualis ex natura rei omnino necessaria sit pro illis contradictionibus, quae de eadem entitate verificantur a parte rei propter quidditatum diversitatem; dantur aliae enuntiationes, quae contradictionem non involvunt ex natura rei, sed ex modo inadaequatae conceptionis nostrae; pro quibus non distinctio ex natura rei, sed sola obiectiva, quae ab inadaequatis conceptibus patitur, constituenda est.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Alfonso Briceño on Cognition, Distinction, and the Knowledge of God

behind the assumption of a precising distinction there is – and in Briceño’s work this is the most characteristic dimension of that assumption – a further metaphysical and theological dispute about the kind of distinction that can be affirmed to exist between the divine essence and its attributes. This dispute has to do with the objective content of knowledge that someone will have through a notitia intuitiva, an intellectual “vision” of what God is, i. e., a “quiditative vision” of God. Briceño affirms that those who reject a distinction, based on reality, between the divine essence and the attributes, also have to claim that it is strictly impossible, even through God’s absolute power, that someone has a “vision” of what God’s essence is without the attributes, for the attributes are not really distinct from the essence. Being assumed that intellectual intuitive cognition is, by definition or at least as a rule, a full or perfect cognitive performance – a cognitive performance without flaws –, and thus the apprehensive knowledge of the thing such as the thing is, Thomistic authors would say that, since intuitive cognition as such does not produce any distinction ex parte rei, it cannot result in any distinction of reason, such as the distinction between the deity and its attributes.45 This is the initial thesis of these (unnamed) Thomists: an intuitive cognition does not leave behind a precising distinction (taken here as DRR2 ). Briceño reports five arguments in favor of their thesis, of which I mention only two. In the first argument, the Thomists rely on a passage in Scotus’s Ordinatio I d. 846 to affirm that, for Scotus, the intuiting intellect can only find a distinction in the thing insofar as the distinction exists there. The formula is well known: Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 26, 181: “Communior Thomistarum sententia asseverat, ab intuitivis apprehensionibus peti non posse discretionem aliquam rationis. Ita omnes, qui cum distinctionem ex natura rei inter Deitatem, et attributa inficientur; etiam de absoluta Dei potentia impossibilem faciunt quidditativam Deitatis visionem sine attributis; eoquod implicatorium iudicent, intuitivam notitiam praestare posse distinctionem rationis, ubi ea non insit.” I return to the problem of a visio Dei in section 3; cf. also the contribution by Damian Park in this present volume. 46 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 26, 181: “Et probatur primo authoritate Scotu in 1. Sent. distinct. 8. quaest. 4. §. […].”. See Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 8, pars 1, q. 4, n. 187 (ed. Vat. IV), 257: “Praeterea, intellectus intuitivus nullam habet distinctionem in obiecto nisi secundum quod exsistens est, quia sicut non cognoscit aliquod obiectum nisi ut exsistens, ita non cognoscit aliqua distincta formaliter in obiecto nisi ut exsistens est. Cum ergo intellectus divinus non cognoscat essentiam suam nisi intellectione intuitiva, quaecumque distinctio ponatur ibi in obiecto – sive sit distinctorum obiectorum formalium, sive ut rationum causatarum per actum intellectus – sequitur quod ista distinctio erit in obiecto ut actu exsistens est: et ita si ista est obiectorum formalium distinctorum in obiecto, erunt ista distincta formaliter (et tunc sequitur propositum, quod talis distinctio obiectorum formalium praecedit actum intellectus), si autem sit rationum causatarum per actum intelligendi, ergo intellectus divinus causabit aliquam intellectionem in essentia ‘ut relationem rationis,’ ut est exsistens, quod videtur absurdum.” 45

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intuitive cognition is an apprehension of the thing insofar as the thing exists and is present.47 If through intuitive cognition the existing thing is known, any aspects “formally” distinct ex parte rei are not known by the intellect unless they exist and are as such distinct. In the case at issue, intuitive cognition, by definition, would recognize in the divine essence, existing and present, “formally” distinct aspects ex parte rei only if they exist as such. The distinction ex natura rei between the divine attributes was already assumed early on by Briceño, in his Controversy 1.48 In fact, Briceño had admitted there, based on the performance of the intuiting intellect, that, the prerrogatives of intuitive cognition being recognized, “contradictory enunciations” in divine attributes are in fact apprehended. Of course, he endorses the view that any actual distinction recognized in an intuitive cognitive act presupposes the pre-existence of that distinction in the thing as such – and he will also endorse the idea of a connection between a successful intuitive cognition and the effecting of a distinction called ‘precising distinction’49 too (see below, section 3). But what is central in this first argument is that the Thomists, in their turn, contrary to that assumption, proposed that the foundation of a precising distinction is not and cannot be “an actual and formal plurality,” but rather an “eminential and virtual” plurality.50 To be sure, if Thomistic authors – in contrast to Briceño and the Scotists – reject, in divine reality, the distinction of attributes among themselves on an objective basis (based on the thing itself), it is not possible to claim, by means of intuitive cognition, granted its definition and its proper (perfect) cognitive performance, that it leaves behind any kind of “actual plurality.”51 Intuitive cognitions of God do See Pasnau, “Cognition”; Honnefelder, Duns Scotus, 34–36; Sondag, Duns Scot, 33–38; Vos, The Philosophy of John Duns Scotus, 322–30; Sondag, “Jean Duns Scot sur la connaissance intuitive intellectuelle (cognitio intuitiva)”; Pich, “Cognitio intuitiva e modalidades epistêmicas.” 48 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 1, art. 5, nn. 36–43, 88–90. 49 ‘Precising distinction’ is taken, here, as a distinction or an act of distinction by the intellect that apprehends total or complete separations of an intelligible content with regard to another intelligible content in an eminential and virtual sense; the intellect does not apprehend the thing in its totality, and therefore can only again and again approach the thing. 50 Again, apprehending contradictory enuntiations seems to amount to the knowledge of formal differences in the attributes – and, thus, of different formalities in the same object(s) –, that is, of aspects of things that are not apprehended according to an identity. In any case, propositions such as “the divine justice is (identical with) the divine goodness,” which seems to contradict the contents of its enunciation themselves, needs an explanation in terms of formal and / or virtual distinction. 51 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 26, 181: “Adde; quod nos supra in 1. controv. art. 5. num. marg. 39 vel eo contra Thomistas distinctionem ex natura rei inter attributa confirmavimus, quo intellectus intuitivus apprehendat contradictorias enuntiationes in attributis; cum actualem distinctionem concipere non valeat, si ipsa ex natura rei non praeexistat. Ergo cum distinctio praecisiva non praemittat, ut fundamentum, actualem, 47

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not produce precising distinctions of certain actual aspects apart from others because there is no distinction to be seen in the existing thing. If the intellect makes the distinction of one formal aspect from another when conceiving of God, this can only be caused by reason and be a distinction of reason. By the definition of intuitive cognition and what is assumed about the object,52 the “separation” (praecisio) at issue – of one aspect from another or others – can only be the result both of an effort to conceive the whole eminent thing and of the limitation of reason in the face of what the thing is in its actuality. What the precising distinction does cannot be done by intuitive cognition; the precising distinction rather amounts to a virtual distinction as explained in terms of DRR2. In the third Thomistic argument reported by Briceño, which gives further support to the thesis that an intuitive cognition does not produce any precising distinction qua DRR2, we are reminded that “the existence of the object, as in itself, is what formally specifies intuitive cognition.” As a cognitive act, thus, intuitive cognition is “formally” (formaliter) and “precisely” (praecise) set apart from “abstractive” cognition, since abstractive cognition “abstracts from the existence of the object.” Intuitive cognition, on the contrary, essentially concerns the object’s actual existence (and presence) and in this epistemic mode quiditatively knows of it; intuition is not a cognition through a mediation in place of the object’s existence and presence. Of course, the real and formal unity of the divine essence and its attributes is again presupposed in the argument. The “undivided quiddity of the object” that is God offers no ground for any “actual partition of formal contents ex natura rei,” that is, of aspects that are “completely identical” before any activity of the intellect. Therefore, if there happens to occur here any cognition that actualizes an “objective actual plurality,” it could only be “abstractive” or even “precising” (used then as synonyms), since it would abstract or be separated from “the total indivisibility of the object,” which, in extramental reality, is indivisible and simple.53 et formalem pluralitatem, sed solum eminentialem, et virtualem; fiet, ut ab intuitiva notitia peti nequeat actualis pluralitas.” 52 See also the fourth initial argument by the Thomists in Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 29, 181–82: “Quarto arguitur ratione, quam Vazquez evidentem iudicavit, 1. part. disputation. 48. capit. 2. numer. marginal. 7. procedens in obiecto omnino simplici puro, et indiviso qualis est Deus; in quo contradictio manifeste apparere videtur, quod sub quidditativam intellectus intuitionem cadere queat, si aliquid formale obiecti lateat videntem. Quia cum in substantia, et proprietatibus attributalibus Dei non detur distinctio aliqua, aut intensiva graduum latitudo; fieri nequit, ut aliquid Dei lateat videntem, quin tota Deitatis quidditas, et substantia ipsum etiam videntem lateat; cum in Deo non detur aliud, quod obiiciatur menti, et aliud, quod effugiat mentis intuitum. […].” 53 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 28, 181: “Tertio; quia existentia obiecti, ut in se, est formale specificativum intuitivae notitiae; quae in hoc formaliter, et praecise ab abstractiva secernitur, quod haec abstrahat ab existentia obiecti; intuitiva https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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3. Briceño and the Scotists on Intuitive Cognition and the Precising Distinction Briceño defends the thesis that “a precising distinction can be produced by an intuitive cognition” (in my concluding remarks, I shall return to what he seems to think about the precising distinction being “of reason” or “real”.) Taking into consideration both natural objects and the supernatural object, Briceño works with the idea of a “non-comprehensive intuition.” In the first argument for this thesis, he claims together with Christian tradition that “God is not comprehended by the blessed.” Even in the beatific vision – a human act of intuitive cognition of God –, some formal aspect of God remains hidden. Briceño calls upon several different authors, most of them from Spain, such as Pedro de Lorca OCist (1561–1612), Professor at the Universidad Complutense de Alcalá, and Juan de Salas SJ (1553–1612), Professor in Salamanca (at the Colegio del Espíritu Santo) and in Rome (at the Collegium Romanum). Juan de Salas holds that the blessed do not have cognition of “all formal predicates pertinent to God in [His] order toward creatures.” But Juan de Salas and his followers did not accept any “distinction ex natura rei” between God – whom the blessed apprehends “quiditatively” in vision – and the attributes not seen in the cognitive act. It is only the case that these (Thomistic?) authors interpret the beatific vision or the act of intuitive cognition of God in such a way that it is compatible with the precising distinction (of reason). The further reference to the Jesuit Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza (1578–1641), who taught philosophy at the Colegio de Pamplona (1608–1611) and later theology at the Universidad de Salamanca, makes clear that those authors understand that “quiditative intuition” is not equal to “comprehension of the object” or complete apprehension of it, and therefore intuition allows for a “distinction of reason.”54 Quiditative intuition as an act of vero illam essentialiter concernat. Sed cognitio ea, quae praesefert actualem pluralitatem obiectivam, non importat modum, et rationem existendi ipsius obiecti, quo existens est; cum indivisa obiecti quidditas non sustineat partitionem actualem ex natura rei rationum formalium, quae omnimodo identificantur ante intellectum: igitur notitia illa abstraheret ab omnimoda obiecti indivisibilitate, ac proinde abstractiva, seu praecisiva notitia asserenda esset, non vero intuitiva.” 54 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 31, 182: “At his non obstantibus probatissima, quam nos sequimur, sententia constituit; praecisivam distinctionem ex intuitiva notitia relinqui posse. Quam in primis tradunt omnes, qui ideo constanter autumant, Deum a beatis non comprehendi; quia aliquid formale Dei beatum lateat. Sic Petrus de Lorca primarius Complutensis alios referens, 1.2. tom. 1. in trac. de beatitudine, disp. 33. memb. 3. idem asserit Ioannes de Salas, tom. 1. in 1.2. quaest. 3. tract. 2. disp. 4. sect. 2. num. 10. multos authores enumerans, quos dum sequitur, astruit, de facto non cognosci a beatis omnia praedicata formalia, quae Deo congruunt in ordine ad creaturas; cum tamen tam Salas, quam hi, quos sequitur, authores, nullam distinctionem ex natura rei agnoscant inter https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Alfonso Briceño on Cognition, Distinction, and the Knowledge of God

apprehension of what the thing is as long as it exists and is present can be a nonomni-comprehensive act. Preserving the central Thomistic thesis that ex natura rei there is no distinction between essence and attributes in God, other authors saw in intuitive cognition the quiditative vision of God, arguing that it was nonetheless possible “de potentia absoluta Dei” to see what God is without through that vision comprehending God’s attributes. This was the understanding of Diego Granado SJ (1571–1632), professor at the Colegio San Hermenegildo de Sevilla, Ambrosio Machin de Aquena (Ambrosius Machinus OMerc, 1580– 1640), Bishop of Alghero and Archbishop of Cagliari, and Diego de Alarcón SJ (1585–1634), who had taught in several Jesuit Colleges, such as those in Toledo, Múrcia, Alcalá, and Madrid.55 The opinion common to Briceño (and the “Scotists”) and those Thomists is, thus, that the quiditative intuitive cognition of something existent and present can be a cognition that is not comprehensive, but rather a cognition that does not see aspects, being, thus, non-comprehensive and, because of that, precising: what is apprehended is “cut off,” as it were, and all the rest that is not apprehended is “denied,” “ignored” or “supressed.” But does this incomprehensive intuitive cognition cause a precising distinction qua a distinction of reason? And what specifically characterizes it as a “Scotist” distinction of precision? The dissent about the link between intuitive cognition of the divine being and the resulting precising distinction between “Scotists” and the new group of authors that accept a non-comprehensive vision presupposes perhaps the thesis and the defense of the formal distinction. In any event, it certainly presupposes two things: a different account of what is an accurate description of the act of making precision(s) of ratio(nes) connected to intuitive cognition and a different view of how the real Deum a beatis quidditative apprehensum, et attributa ea, quae de facto non videntur. Idem tuetur Petrus Hurtado in sua Metaph. disp. 6. sect. 6. subsect. 2. §. marg. 176. ubi universaliter constituit, ad omnem intuitionem quidditativam, quae comprehensio obiecti non sit, distinctionem rationis accedere posse.” Hurtado de Mendoza’s Disputationes a summulis ad metaphysicam was first printed in 1615; Briceño uses a later edition with subsections and a new division into paragraphs. For Hurtado de Mendoza’s view of intuition and comprehension, see Andersen, “Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza on Abstractive, Intuitive, and Comprehensive Cognition.” 55 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 31, 182: “[…]. Nostrae etiam sententiae aperte suffragatur Iacobus Granado in 1. part. tract. de visione Dei disp. 5. num. marg. 6. ubi asseverat, quod stante omnimoda indiscretione ex natura rei inter attributa, et essentia; videri potest Deus quidditative a beatis, sine attributis, saltim de absoluta Dei potentia. Quod etiam probabile iudicavit Ambrosius Machin. Episcopus Algarensis, 1. part. disp. 19. section. 2. licet propter authoritatem D. Thomae, a nostra sententia se recedere autumet. Etiam nostrae sententiae suffragatur Alarcon, 1. p. tract. 1. de visione Dei, disp. 4. cap. 2. concl. 2. numer. margin. 5”. The biographical facts concerning the authors mentioned in this paragraph are gathered from Jacob Schmutz’s Scholasticon website. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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content expressed by intuitive cognition is possibly expressed more fully by subsequent acts of abstractive cognition. 3.1 Sensorial Intuition and Precising Distinction To answer these questions, more details about intuitive cognition are needed. Briceño firstly explains “sensorial intuition” (sensibilis intuitio), and secondly “intellective intuition” (intuitio intellectiva). A connection between the theory of intuitive cognition and the theory of perception is obvious here, where perception is understood as the apprehension of something of the external world, naturally connected to a judgment of existence.56 (i) “Sensorial intuition” already shows that intuitive cognition can cause a precising distinction. It is explained as a “corporeal vision” that reaches “the form of color” but does not see “the degree [or form] of corporeal being and of quality.” These last aspects in that vision are contracted “to that form of color.” A corporeal vision that attains the form of color and does not attain the degrees (or formal aspects) of corporeal being and quality is non-comprehensive. But this does not prevent that a vision of one aspect without the other can happen. Briceño makes use of rather hermetic terminology and the level of abstraction in his exposition is high. Talking about sensorial vision, he affirms then that, from the “figure” (idolum) and the “sensorial expressed image” (expressa imago sensibilis) of a material thing perceived, a precision can be produced, as well as the “negation of the degree [form] of being not apprehended through such an act.” This can also happen when an “actual distinction ex natura rei” between what is apprehended by vision and what is not is not presupposed.57 According to Briceño, Scotus too subscribed to the thesis that intuitive cognition can be non-comprehensive, divided between what is apprehended and what is not apprehended by way of a negation of a degree of being. Briceño attempts to show this in several passages of his Controversy 9 (On the Vision of

56 Pich, “Cognitio intuitiva e modalidades epistêmicas,” 358–59, 366–74, 380–82; Pich, “Tópicos de teoria do conhecimento em João Duns Scotus e Guilherme de Ockham,” 61–68. 57 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 32, 182: “Probatur autem assertio nostra, primo in sensibili intuitione; deinde in intuitione intellectiva. Quia visio corporalis attingens formam coloris, non intuetur gradum entis corporei, et qualitatis; qui ad talem coloris formam contrahitur; atqui apud Thomistas gradus generici, et specifici ex natura rei non secernuntur a gradibus numericis: igitur ad idolum expressamque imaginem sensibilem consequi potest praecisio, et negatio gradus essendi non apprehensi per talem actum, esto quod nulla actualis distinctio ex natura rei supponatur.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Alfonso Briceño on Cognition, Distinction, and the Knowledge of God

God).58 By criticizing Henry of Ghent,59 Scotus was able to show that “the ratio of the intuition or the apprehension of the object as existent” does not require that the object is seen “according to the entire ratio of being that it brings with itself as it exists a parte rei.” In other words, if it belongs to the definition of intuitive cognition that it is of the existent thing as it exists and is present as such, it does not belong to its definition that it is comprehensive of the entire cognoscibility of the thing that is apprehended. Within the realm of natural (perceptual) experience, our author can give even more subtle examples: “corporeal vision” reaches the color of some object or “whiteness composed with the supposit [the material substrate],” but it does not apprehend the “suppositality” – as a formal aspect ex parte rei – of that composite. There are many other knowable formal aspects that are not apprehended in a vision of this kind: the vision of whiteness (or of something white) does not necessarily apprehend the “inherence of whiteness” or “its composition with the underlying substrate.”60 It is assumed that these last aspects or contents could in principle be available to an actual mental-sensorial vision like that; in other words, they could in principle be apprehended in the material object that is actually seen. After all, they do belong to the thing in its ontological entirety. But apprehensions of colored material things can – and probably usually are – non-comprehensive. The Mercedarian Ambrosio Machin de Aquena et alii raised objections against the relevance of the analogical use of corporeal vision to prove the point about the non-comprehensive character of intuitive cognition. We are told that corporeal vision as such is not a “quiditative vision of the object” (italics mine). Machin de Aquena claims that corporeal vision is only the “form-figure” (idolum) and the “image” of the sensorial object “insofar as it is formally and reduMore exactly, on the “knowability of God through us;” see Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 9, 388–712. See ibid., I, contr. 9 (De cognoscibilitate Dei a nobis), dist. 3 (De actu visionis, et obiecto illius), subdist. 2 (De obiecto actus visionis), art. 2 (An videri possit essentia non visis relationibus?), n. 1, 34, 649–50, 664–65. The articles 1–2 of subdist. 2 of dist. 3, in contr. 9, are important sources for Briceño’s position on intuitive cognition and precising distinction. 59 On Henry of Ghent’s account of intuitive cognition, see Dumont, “Theology as a Science and Duns Scotus’s Distinction between Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition,” 579–81, 592–93. See also Brown, “The Medieval Background to the Abstractive vs. Intuitive Cognition Distinction.” 60 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 32, 182–83: “Haec ratio petitur ab Scoto, ut patet ex textu illius, quam expendimus infra in controv. 9. de visione Dei, dist. 3 sub distinct. 2. art. 2. numer. marginal. 34. Ubi dum agit contra Henricum, egregie ostendit Scotus ad rationem intuitionis, seu apprehensionis obiecti, ut existentis, non exposci, quod inspiciatur obiectum secundum omnem rationem essendi, quam importat prout a parte rei existit; cum visio corporalis attingat albedinem compositam supposito, et non apprehendat suppositalitatem illius; addo et ego: nec visionem albedinis apprehendere inhaerentiam albedinis, vel compositionem illius ad substratum suppositum.” 58

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plicatively sensorial.”61 Sensorial intuition, thus, does not express “the ratio of being and of quality,” which are predicates that “formally make no reference to sensoriality perceptible to corporeal senses,” even though “the object, insofar as it is formally sensorial, will be quiditatively represented by visible sensation [per visivam sensationem].”62 This is a difficult text! The basic idea is that objects that are cognizable through the senses, with regard to what they are, require sensorial aspects for their presentation: they have to be sensorially expressed. An example of this: something “colored” can never be known unless accompanied by some sensorial presentation. This is Briceño’s reply: “the ratio of color, as it refers to the form of the perceptible object by the power of vision, essentially absorbs [imbibit] the ratio of being and of accident.” This argument touches the idea that “being,” the first transcendental predicate, is the most common one.63 Our author says that “no positive and real concept can evade the broadest degree of being.” Any philosopher has to recognize that “it is more than certain that the ratio of being and of accident” transcend “the ultimate differences of every and any positive form,” that is, are somehow absorbed in every positive form and in all positive and real concepts. Nothing can escape the real (either common-quididative or virtual) predicative primacy64 of being (and, because of this primacy, of the co-extension of properties that necessarily belong to it such as substantial-or-accidental).65 As a result, either “colored” (coloratum), as an aspect that specifies “intuition as Both ‘idolum’ and ‘imago’ can be translated as ‘image’ or ‘form.’ But ‘imago’ bears the broader meaning of ‘representation,’ ‘presentation,’ and ‘appearance,’ expressing more fully the act of apprehension and the sensorial content. A corporeal vision as image of the sensorial object as sensorial seems to regard the idea that that reduplication specifies the formal aspect of the apprehended object, with the aim of removing from it transcendental contents or categories that would rather be purelly intellectual. 62 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 33, 183: “Quae ratio acriter perstringit adversarios, multaque comminiscuntur, ut se expediatur. Respondet Ambrosius Machin. loco citato in solutione ad 3. arg. visionem corpoream non esse quidditativam obiecti sicuti est perceptionem; sed tantum esse idolum, et imaginem obiecti sensibilis, quo sensibile est formaliter, ac reduplicative. Ac proinde non exprimere rationem entis, et qualitatis, quia haec praedicata non referunt formaliter sensibilitatem a corporeo sensu perceptibilem; esto quod obiectum, prout formaliter sensibile est, quidditative representetur per visivam sensationem.” 63 On the double (and mutually complementary) predicative primacy of ‘being’ as a univocal concept, that is, of “community” and of “virtuality,” by means of which “ens” effectively qualifies to be taken as the first adequate object of the human intellect (and the first object of metaphysics), see Honnefelder, Duns Scotus, 63–67. See also King, “Scotus on Metaphysics,” 18–21. 64 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 3, pars 1, q. 3, nn. 137–51 (ed. Vat. III), 85–94. 65 On this disjunctive property, see Wolter, The Transcendentals and their Function in the Metaphysics of Duns Scotus, 152–53. 61

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Alfonso Briceño on Cognition, Distinction, and the Knowledge of God

vision,” “essentially is not being,” hence it is “nothing,” or the degree or formal aspect of being “is absorbed in the ultimate specifying ratio of the object of vision,” i. e., in the form of color. “It is evident,” affirms Briceño, and “certified by experience itself” that the “form-figure of vision” (idolum visivum) or the appearance of the thing in the mind by the act of sensorial intuition “is no vision of the ratio of being or accident” in the act itself in which something colored is apprehended. Other (quite subtle) formal aspects would be left out of that “appearance of vision” or of that singular apprehension of something colored as well, such as “the aptitudinal inherence to the seen corporeal [thing]” or “the ratio of the material being as opposed to the spiritual being.” “Colored” or even “color” is precisely that aspect which, through “sensorial intuition,” is separated from the seen material corporeal thing. Briceño ends this remarkable passage by saying that “visual sensation” (sensatio visiva)66 “infers” a “precising negation” (negativo precisiva), insofar as it is “percipient of the colored thing [alone].” In other words, insofar as vision remains “in the perceived ratio” – which is color –, it “does so without [considering] the other degrees” that formally compose the existing material thing and that, “through the force [or: the capacity] of the form-figure [idolum] and of the vision image [imago visiva],” “are not expressed by the eyes through the seen body.”67 Each objection to Briceño’s explanations of the connection between intuitive cognition and precising distinction by means of analogies with sensorial intuitions is important, but I shall describe just one further example – the third in the sequence of his exposition –, as well as Briceño’s reply to it. The objection is proposed by Valentín de Herice SJ (1572–1636), who for more than twenty years had been professor of theology at the Jesuit Colleges of Valladolid and 66 It is difficult to judge if, when he talks of ‘sensation’ (sensatio) or ‘visual sensation’ (sensatio visiva), Briceño means anything different to the actual perception itself or the act of perception as accompanied by sensation or some attached sensorial impression. 67 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 33, 183: “Sed effugium istud manifesta ratione ita occluditur: ratio coloris, ut refert formam obiecti perceptibilis a potentia visiva, essentialiter imbibit rationem entis, et accidentis; cum nullus positivus, et realis conceptus latissimum gradum essendi subterfugere valeat; et apud Thomistas certo certius sit, rationem entis, et accidentis, ultimas differentias cuiuslibet positivae formae transcendere. Aut ergo coloratum, quo specificativum est intuitionis visivae, essentialiter non est ens, ac proinde ut sic esset merum nihil; aut gradus entis imbibitur in ultima ratione specificativa obiecti visionis, quod innegabile est. At evidens etiam est, et ipsomet experimento compertum; idolum visivum rationem entis, et accidentis non intueri, dum coloratum apprehendit; non enim inspicit aptitudinalem inhaerentiam corporeo obtutu; nec rationem entis materialis, prout opponitur enti spirituali, sed qua coloratum est praecise. Infert igitur sensatio visiva negationem praecisivam, dum percipiens coloratum, et sistens in ratione percepta, praescindit a gradibus aliis, qui vi idoli, imaginisque visivae, non exprimuntur ab oculo per corporeum obtutum.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Salamanca – where Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza was among his colleagues. For Valentín de Herice, irrespective of the merits of an analysis of sensorial intuition that reveals the intrinsic formal complexity of the perceived item and the arguably non-comprehensive character of vision, the analogy itself between sensorial intuition and intellectual intuition is not valid, because “absolutely speaking” corporeal vision, though certainly intuitive, cannot be a “quiditative” apprehension of the object seen – and this is exactly what matters regarding intuitive cognition and its performance qua “vision of God” and as an intellectual act that helps in understanding it.68 Briceño begins his reply by affirming that an “objective distinction” of quiditative aspects produced by the intellect where the distinction is not ex parte rei does not contradict quididative cognition, but, of course, it does contradict intuitive cognition. The implicit idea is that intuitive cognition addresses the existing and present item as such, nothing else, and therefore notes and produces a distinction that exists in act, if it exists in act. He explains his point by saying that “animal” and “rational” “are quiditatively perceived” according to their essential definitions. Philosophers separate “the objective rationes” of genus and difference, although for Thomistic authors they are in a particular thing, apart from the intellectual act, “the same formality” ex natura rei, expressed by a concrete general term, e. g., ‘homo.’ This amounts to saying that it does not contradict cognition – abstractive cognition, we suppose – as quiditative that there is an “objective partition in the thing,” which as such, the Thomists believe, is nonetheless simple. But it would be wrong if, for example, corporeal vision qua intuitive cognition, irrespective of being quiditative or not, were to make a precising consideration or separation “of a degree of being of the object” – which it does make, since after all there is an immediate vision of some aspect of the thing – where the separation as such does not exist. What happens instead is that corporeal vision precisely “abstracts” or “puts aside” – Briceño uses the verb “abstrahere” here – something like the intellectual perception of a colored body from “the degree of being as being and [the degree] of quality.” This is again a non-comprehensive intuitive cognition, which, in the act of seeing, precisely abstracts something simply because, by actually considering something, it leaves something outside of its consideration. Briceño, thus, again and again endorses the important thesis that it does not belong to the definition “of the object of intuitive cognition that it is expressed according to” its “entire undivided actuali-

Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 34, 183: “Aliter nostrae probationi occurrit Valentinus de Herice, tract. 4. de visione Dei, disp. 50. cap. 1. num. marg. 13. absolute negans, corpoream visionem quidditativam esse obiecti apprehensionem; esto quod intuitiva est.” For Herice, see again Jacob Schmutz’s Scholasticon website. 68

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ty” ex natura rei69 – an actuality that could in principle, through more comprehensive or even all-comprehensive intellectual visions, be cognized. In principle, intuitive cognition can produce separations between apprehended aspects and non-apprehension of something. Moreover, it is not even true that a corporeal vision is not a “quiditative perception of the material object.” After all, vision attains “white” “insofar as it is a separator of vision,” and that should count as “formal reason” of the vision of something. This passage seems to suggest that white or whiteness, as expression itself of the principle of light, gives room to color and vision and is as it were the cause of distinct vision – in opposition to black or blackness, which would be the cause of confusion or even impossibility in vision. The original idea of “white” as disgregativum visus or diakritikon opseos is found in Aristotle.70 Briceño also claims that, “for corporeal sensation of the faculty being considered a quiditative cognition of the object,” it is not necessary that it attains “all things that pertain to what is colored.” What is necessary for a corporeal sensation – perception through the senses – being also a quiditative cognition of the object is only that it “unconditionally [simpliciter] expresses the object through a proper species,” and “not through any analogous or improper similitude.” In this sense, “the form-figure” (idolum) or “the image [imago] of the faculty of vision represents the object under a proper ratio, though material.” Briceño thus equates corporeal sensation, to which idolum or imago are concomitant, with the “quiditative apprehension of the object itself.”71 The use of the verb ‘to represent’ Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 34, 183–84: “Sed nec vim rationis evacuat: quia partitio, et discretio obiectiva, ubi ea ex natura rei, non insit, non repugnat notitiae, quo quidditativa est; sed quo intuitiva. Quia animal, et rationale, quidditative percipiuntur, cum essentiales istorum graduum diffinitiones a philosophis tradantur; et tamen rationes obiectivas generici, et differentialis gradus, separant, esto quod apud Thomistas sint eadem omnino formalitas ex natura rei. Igitur non contradicit notitiae, qua quidditativa est, partitio obiectiva rei omnino extra intellectum simplicis, et indivisae; sed qua intuitiva est, attingens obiectum iuxta conditionem indivisae existentiae illius. Ac proinde, licet corporalis visio quidditativa obiecti apprehensio non esset; vel ex eo pr[a]ecise, quod intuitiva notitia astruatur, praescindere non posset ab aliquo gradu essendi proprii obiecti: at abstrahit a gradu entis, ut ens est pr[a]ecise, et qualitatis; igitur non est de ratione obiecti notitiae intuitivae, quod exprimatur secundum omnem indivisam actualitatem, quam sortitur ex natura rei.” It seems to be fair to affirm that, both in content and in terminology, in this passage Briceño is close to the idea of an abstractio praecisiva that was forged in early (14th century) Scotism. Of course, Briceño’s apparent use of it, here, has to do with his efforts of describing non-comprehensive intuitive cognitions and the production of a precising distinction. See, for example, Petrus Thomae, Quaestiones de ente, q. 4, art. 6, dist. 1, ll. 199–224, 46–47. 70 See Aristotle, Top. III, c. 5, 119a30–31. 71 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 35, 184: “Adde, nec verum esse, quod visio corporea non sit quidditativa obiecti materialis perceptio; cum attingat album, qua disgregativum est visus, quae est ratio formalis illius. Nec enim, ut sensatio cor69

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(repraesentare) in this context could be misleading. At any rate, Briceño’s account does not admit the idea that in any intuitive cognition there is mediation, if that implies cognizing the thing with and/or through species or imago, without or independently of the presence of the existing thing. In the passage under analysis, our author is possibly implying that in the image – which accompanies the perceptual vision – the present and existing thing is, as it were, just presented again. 3.2 Intellective Intuition and Precising Distinction Finally, let’s recall that the Scotist view that intuitive cognition generates precising distinctions should be established secondarily – and with a direct connection to the theological-metaphysical disputes that are important for Alfonso Briceño – (ii) on the basis of an analysis of “intellectual intuition,” which is also called “spiritual” or “intellectual and beatific intuition.” It is the human intellect’s vision of what is immaterial. Intellectual or spiritual intuition refers, thus, to a special context, namely the vision of a non-material substance, and this is concerned with divine essence and its attributes. Briceño’s argument works with the premise of God’s intellectual and volitional immutability, as the divine essence freely offers itself to creaturely vision. God’s intellectual and volitional immutability are themes of Briceño’s Controversy 7.72 He also assumes the theological premise that the blessed, in the vision of God, “neither reaches all free decrees nor all distinguished aspects [terminationes, or: everything that objectively can be the terminus or the outcome] of the [complete] science of vision [scientiae visionis] [of the divine essence].” All this means that the blessed do not “perceive the intellect and the will of God in respect to the entire latitude and the quantity of its actuality”73 – what, in princi-

porea facultatis quidditativa obiecti notitia censeri debeat, necessum est, ut omnes colorati dependentias investiget, ut contendebat Herice; sed quod obiectum per propriam speciem simpliciter exprimat, et non per analogicam, aut impropriam similitudinem. At idolum, seu imago facultatis visivae repraesentat obiectum sub propria, licet materiali, ratione; ergo est quidditativa apprehensio proprii obiecti.” 72 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 36, 184: “Sed et Theologice assertionem nostram fulciamus, in intellectuali, et beatifica intuitione; de qua sic instruo rationem. Intellectio, et appetitio libera Dei, qua referunt liberam, et vitalem tendentiam in obiectum creatum; non addunt aliquid supra facultatem necessariam intellectivam, et appetitivam ipsiusmet Dei, ut in controversia de divina immutabilitate manifeste aperiemus; […].” See Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr. I, 7, 338–60. 73 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 36, 184: “[…]; atqui incontroversum est, beatum non attingere omnia decreta libera, nec omnes scientiae vihttps://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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ple, could be taken as an uncontroversial thesis about the vision of God due to God’s infinity.74 In the face of the premise of the free expression of God towards human beings and the premise of the limitation of what is contained in the vision of God by the blessed, the only reasonable conclusion is that that vision “falls short [praescindit] of” the “objective ratio” of divine perfection.75 From a theological perspective, in what would count as intellectual intuition alone – in the established context of the “visio Dei” and, thus, the intuitive cognition of the divine essence76 –, Briceño also concludes that it does not contradict intuitive cognition that it is non-comprehensive and brings with itself a separation between what is apprehended and what is not apprehended in the way of the negation of precisely apprehending further degrees or formal aspects of a given being. Briceño’s point is clear: any cognition “that is not the [total] comprehension of an object” infers, even if it is a quiditative apprehension of the object (as the intuitive cognition of God is), “a negation of the precision of every other objective ratio that is not perceived in the vital intuition.”77 The disputes over the connection between intellectual-spiritual intuition and precising distinction refer, in the end, to the controversy “over the incomprehensibility of God” (this is the title of Briceño’s Controversy 10).78 Presupposing divine infinity, the facts about the intellectual intuitive cognition of God are key to understanding the “ratio of divine incomprehensibility,” where no created intellect, in a cognitive act, is able to “exhaust divine actuality with respect to the total quantity of virtue or the [entire] substantial and formal latitude of its illimitation.”79 sionis terminationes: igitur nec percipit intellectum, et voluntatem Dei quoad omnem latitudinem, et quantitatem actualitatis suae, […].” 74 This is what contr. 5 is about; see Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 5, 253–91. 75 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 36, 184: “[…], ac proinde praescindit ab illo divinae perfectionis modo, seu obiectiva ratione, quam non exhaurit; […]. 76 This is from the beginning a Scotist context of the problem of intuitive cognition; see Pich, “Cognitio intuitiva e modalidades epistêmicas,” 358. 77 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 36, 184: “[…]; atque adeo fit, ut quaelibet cognitio, quae non est comprehensio obiecti, esto quod sit quidditativa apprehensio eius, inferat negationem praecisionis omnis alterius rationis obiectivae, quae vitalis intuitionis non percipitur.” 78 See Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 10, 713–38. On the theological-metaphysical debate on the comprehension / comprehensibility and the incomprehension / incomprehensibility of God in Baroque Scotism, see the important study by Andersen, “Comprehension at the Crossroads of Philosophy and Theology.” 79 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 36, 184: “Verum exactior nostrae sententiae comprobatio petenda est ex controversia de incomprehensibilitate Dei, ubi discutiemus an divinae incomprehensibilitatis ratio posita sit in hoc, quod nullus intellectus creatus exhaurire valeat actualitatem divinam quoad omnem quantitatem virtutis, seu latitudinem substantialem, et formalem illimitationis suae?” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Concluding Remarks The primary locus of Briceño’s account of intuitive cognition is his discussion of the visio Dei as a perfect state of essential knowledge of God as existing and present. At any rate, intuitive cognition is also used to describe the perception of the external world as a source of knowledge. This is revealing in regard to the way that notitia intuitiva, in the history of philosophy, is close to the problem of perception, which is a major topic in modern epistemology, along with the representational or non-representational status of perceptual cognition. In both cases, Briceño provides a revision of Scotus’s textual sources and checks what interpreters of Scotus from the early 14th century onwards had to say about the topic under discussion.80 Intuitive cognition can be divided into sensorial and purely intellectual. In both cases, it is first of all apprehension of the thing as existing and present. The debate on the relationship between intuitive cognition and precising distinction is strongly connected to a theological-metaphysical discussion on the nature of God and the identity of divine essence and divine attributes. Briceño’s account of the precising distinction, in its primary context of application, is not an attempt to simply prove the formal distinction. Briceño rather offers reasons not to equate DRR2 and the precising distinction. Let’s keep in mind that a precising distinction follows or at least can follow intuitive cognition, but does not represent a distinction between something apprehended (a part of a whole) and something else not-apprehended (all the rest).81 This would relate intuitive cognition to a virtual multitude of cognized aspects, where the second part of the distinction would be a kind of expression for something that is really not apprehended, but rather is created as an ens fictum and then is sort of ascribed to the object by the intellect; again, this procedure would be due to the intellect’s cognitive shortcomings. This is one version of what precising dis-

In his Controversiae, Briceño works with the methodological principle of returning ad fontes. In his interpretations of Scotus, he finds support in ‘Scotist’ authors, or authors he considers to be such, e. g., Francis of Mayronis, John of Bassolis, Peter Aureol, and William of Rubio; cf. Pich, “Alfonso Briceño (1587–1668) and the Controversiae on John Duns Scotus’s Philosophical Theology,” 66–67, 70–71. On the reception of 13th –14th century accounts of intuitive cognition – with an emphasis on Scotus’s doctrine – by second-scholastic authors, see Heider, “The Notitia Intuitiva and Notitia Abstractiva of the External Senses in Second Scholasticism.” 81 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 38, 185: “[…]; quia vero per intuitivam notitiam non concipitur discretio inter rationem obiecti cognitam, et non cognitam, ideo distinctio rationis non formatur.” For the rest of this passage by Briceño, see footnote 28, above. 80

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tinction means,82 but it is not Briceño’s version. Briceño’s view is that a precising distinction follows intuitive cognition – either of the limitless divine essence or of material bodies – as a difference between something apprehended and the negation or the non-apprehension of something else.83 There is no act of “discernere” between an apprehended ratio (e. g., a colored thing) and a non-apprehended ratio (e. g., being or quality or some devised content in place of them), but rather an act of apprehension of something (the colored thing) and the negation of the apprehension of anything else.84 In fact, this is finally what “praecidere” should be taken to mean: (a) ‘to separate [something] from [something],’ to ‘put [something] aside,’ ‘to not take [something] into consideration,’ and thus ‘to negate’ as ‘to fall short of [doing something].’85 The two basic directions in the translation could be summarized as there being at once and in the same act of perception a separation of one aspect, and attention to this aspect, and a lack of consideration of all the rest. The distinction can be described as an effect of intuitive cognitions both of physical and non-physical things. What a given precising distinction is and, thus what information it provides about 82 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 39, 185: “Sed urgebis, distinctionem hanc praecisivam non emergere ex natura rei, sed accedente intellectus functione; ac proinde esse quid rationis.” 83 This idea is also implicit in the following passage, in which Briceño distinguishes the intellect’s performance in the intuitive and in the abstractive cognition of what something is: Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 42, 186: “Ad ultimam rationem; quod licet intuitiva notitia praescindere possit ab aliquo gradu essendi actualis et existentis obiecti: ab ipsa tamen actualitate obiecti, a qua specificatur intuitio, abstrahere non valet; alias enim apprehensio intuitiva quidditative non secerneretur a notitia abstractiva, quae ex modo tendendi ab existentia sui obiecti praescindit: quo fit, ut rationes communes et praecisae ab existentiali, et individuali actu, intuitivum potentiae conatum terminare non possint.” 84 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 37, 184: “Nos tamen non astruimus, intellectum quidditative obiectum percipientem apprehendere pluralitatem, ubi ea non insit ex natura rei; sed quod sistere potest in aliquo obiecti, non cognita tota actualitate eius; non tamen ita ut discernat inter rationem apprehensam, et non apprehensam. Sicut et intuitio visiva attingens coloratum, et praescindens a ratione entis, et qualitatis, non format distinctionem inter hos gradus essendi; sed simpliciter sistit in ratione percepta. De quo vide insignem Scoti textum, a nobis explanatum in controv. 9. de visione Dei, dist. 3. subdist. 2. art. 1. num. marg. 22.” See also Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 9, dist. 3, subd. 2, art. 1 (Utrum proprietates absolutae Dei sint necessarium obiectum visionis beatificae?), n. 22, 648. 85 In another context, these two aspects of ‘praecidere’ and ‘praecisio’ come together again, namely in the discussion of the objective precision (praecisio obiectiva) of 17th –18th century Scotism – and of Jesuit Scholasticism as well. “Objective precisions” concern the intellectual separation of formal rationes that differ ex parte rei and the formation of the objective concept (conceptus obiectivus) of them. Cf. Heider, Universals in Second Scholasticism, 188–92. See also footnote 69, above. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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things, heavily depends on a human being’s cognitive performance. I think that Alfonso Briceño believes that any singular case of the precising distinction subsequent to an intuitive cognition, and especially subsequent to the visio Dei, is a kind of soft evidence or indication on the level of (immediate) cognition that things formally are in fact what abstractive thought afterwards, reflecting and acting upon the acquired species, show that they are. However, this leaves as undecided whether what is formally distinguished is distinguished due to the mind or whether it is grounded in what the real thing is as a whole. A precising distinction is a peculiar kind of distinction. Being inferred from an intuitive cognition, in which an objective ratio is positively apprehended, the distinction of precision is the objective negation of the apprehension of another objective ratio, but not of a part of the same apprehended objective ratio, as the second group of Thomistic authors thought. In this sense, Briceño’s reply to the first argument of the first group of Thomists (those who defended the idea that intuitive cognition does not produce any precising distinction, in this case, a distinction of reason) makes the following point clear: one should deny that, based on an intuitive cognition, the resulting combination of apprehending a ratio of the object and making a precision or separation of that ratio from apprehending another ratio of the object amounts to cognizing a pluralitas.86 In his reply to the third argument of the first group of Thomists, Briceño insists that intuitive cognition, properly taken, apprehends the existing and present object such as it is. This principle is not denied when Scotists describe that cognition as being compatible with precisely apprehending one objective ratio, and expressing it, and refraining from apprehending and expressing any other ratio. This does not amount to apprehending or expressing the thing differently from how it really is. Cognitive intuition, after all, can be non-comprehensive.87 Also in this case, the “objective being” (esse obiectivum) reached by intuitive cognition is not different 86 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 37, 184: “Quare pro nunc breviter ad fundamenta opposita. Ad primum ex authoritate Scoti; quod Doctor tantum intendit, intellectui quidditative obiectum, ut in se est, intuenti repugnare; quod pluralitatem apprehendat, ubi ea non existat ex natura rei; quod assertum ut verissimum recipimus. Inficiamur tamen, quod intuitio praescindens a ratione obiecti non percepta per illum actum; cognoscat pluralitatem, aut distinctionem inter rationem cognitam, et non cognitam; cum simplicissime sistat in ratione apprehensa.” 87 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 40, 185: “Ad tertium argumentum, solum obtinere, quod si intuitio obiecti referret pluralitatem obiectivam non existentem ex natura rei; non attingeret obiectum sicuti est, sed aliter quam est. At vero quidditativa obiecti apprehensio, quae simplicissime sistit in ratione obiectiva, quam exprimit, non apprehendit rem aliter quam est; quia illud, quod de obiecto percipit, ita se habet sicut cognoscitur, licet tota actualitas rei non finiatur vi talis intuitionis. Sicut et visio corporalis attingit coloratum sicuti est; esto quod non inspiciat totam colorati constitutionem ex gradibus entis, qualitatis, etc.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Alfonso Briceño on Cognition, Distinction, and the Knowledge of God

from “the being itself of the object” (ipsum esse obiecti) as it is in extramental reality.88 Precising apprehension plus negation of a further precising apprehension does not imply any corrupted or illusory expression of objective reality.89 Perhaps precising apprehension, so understood, can even work as a kind of evidence or indication that the esse obiectivum produced by the cognition bears further rationes, possibly to be apprehended in a positive and objective way – several distinguished objective aspects that a more comprehensive intuitive cognition could in principle have apprehended.90 Why does the precising distinction occur? On the cognitive level, it happens either (a) because the apprehended thing is objectively ‘greater’ or ‘more comprehensive’ than any power exerted by the intellect or – more simply – than any cognitive act that it performs or (b) because the apprehended thing simply is not apprehended according to everything that there is to apprehend of it, even if in principle it could have been apprehended according to everything that there is to apprehend of it. In contrast to what some Thomistic authors would certainly do – including those who accepted the connection between intuitive cognition and precising distinction with regard to the vision of God (cf. above, section 3) – Briceño never calls this distinction a distinction of reason. According to him, when this distinction occurs, neither what is apprehended nor the negation of the apprehension of another objective aspect are just inventions or beings of reason created by the intellect.91 Although it is true that the second part of what occurs in a precising distinction – negation, instead of position –

Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 40, 185: “Sed dices; a parte rei sortitur obiectum aliquam actualitatem, seu latitudinem quantitatis virtutis, quam non exprimit intuitiva illa cognitio; ergo esse obiectivum, quod a cognitione trahitur, aliter se habet, quam ipsum esse obiecti, quod ex natura rei, et extra intellectum existit.” 89 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 40, 185: “Respondetur; aliud esse, quod esse obiectivum, quod a cognitione fit, referat totam actualitatem, quam sortitur obiectum ex natura rei; aliud vero quod illud esse, quod a notitia petitur, non conformetur rei, ut est in se. Sicut aliud est, quod visio corporalis non attingat totam colorati compositionem ex gradibus entis, qualitatis, etc., aliud vero, quod illud, quod de colorato apprehenditur, ita non fit, sicut per visionem exprimitur.” 90 Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 37, 184: “Ad instantiam dicimus; quod ex hoc quod intellectus intuitivus apprehendat distinctionem, aut contradictionem inter rationes obiectivas; optime deducitur, ipsammet distinctionem anteire ex natura rei actum intellectus intuentis talem distinctionem in obiecto: eoquod notitia intuitiva formare nequeat obiectivarum rationum pluralitatem.” 91 See footnotes 28 and 81, above. See also Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 38, 184: “Ad secundum argumentum, fatemur cum communi sententia, ens rationis ab intuitiva notitia non formari; nec contrarium ex nostra sententia deduci. Cum opposita probatio ex falsa assumptione procedat; dum supponit, per notitiam intuitivam praescindentem a non percepta ratione obiecti, concipi pluralitatem.” 88

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does depend on the intellect, this is not the same as cognizing some other gradus that is not there but is rather invented.92 By talking about a “given negation of real precision” (negatio quaedam praecisionis realis), which is, with regard to its cognitive status, “inferred from intuitive cognition,” Briceño finds a brillant description, in cognitive-mental terms, of the distinction in question: “it leaves unconsidered [praescindit] any non-apprehended ratio of the object” and “remains within that objective ratio that it expresses.” Again, if this is then the positive focus of the intellect’s apprehension, “it does not pass over another [objective ratio], which it does not express.”93 Briceño seems rather to connect the precising distinction with the real distinction or some quasi-real distinction. What is distinct because of non-apprehension is at least an index of some really distinguishable items.94 However, a critical reader may still not be entirely convinced by Briceño’s arguments and may rather wish to concede to both parties in the dispute. We may then conclude that this kind of distinction should be situated on the very borderline between the works of reason and the demands of reality.

Bibliography Sources Briceño, Alfonso. Prima pars celebriorum controversiarum in primum Sententiarum Ioannis Scoti Doctoris Subtilis. Two volumes. Madrid: Typographia Regia, 1639. Duns Scotus, Ioannes. Opera omnia. Vatican edition. Edited by Carl Balić et al. Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950–2013. Briceño, Prima pars celeb. contr., I, contr. 2, met. app., art. 2, digr., n. 39, 185: “Respondetur; quod non omne, quod non existit ante actum intellectus, pro ente rationis habendum est; alias enim species intelligibilis expressa non esset ens reale, quia ante actionem dictivam intellectus non existit; cum illud tantum sit ens rationis, quod fit per analogiam ad ens reale, et apprehenditur adinstar entis. Quia tamen distinctio praecisiva, quae ad intuitivam notitiam consequitur, non importat actionem intellectus apprehendentis pluralitatem, et discretionem inter rationem obiecti perceptam, et non perceptam; ideo fictio rationis dici non debet, sed potius negatio quaedam praecisionis realis, quae ex natura rei infertur ab intuitiva notitia; eatenus enim praescindit a ratione obiecti non apprehensa, quatenus sistit in illa ratione obiectiva, quam exprimit, et non transit ad aliam, quam non exprimit. Adde, quod si negatio praecisionis, quae consequitur ad notitiam intuitivam non exhaurientem totam actualitatem obiecti, esset ens rationis; actus visionis corporalis formaret ens rationis, dum apprehendens formam colorati, abstrahit a gradu entis, qualitatis, etc.” 93 See the previous footnote. 94 It would seem that such items that, on the basis of a non-comprehensive intuitive cognition, are only really distinguishable in a vague sense, since they remain absorbed in the ratio that was actually grasped, can afterwards be separated from the apprehended content through cognitive acts of abstraction. 92

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Suárez, Francisco. Disputaciones metafísicas. Vol. II. Edición y traducción de Sergio Rábade Romeo, Salvador Caballero Sánchez, Antonio Puigcerver Zanón. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1960. –. Disputaciones metafísicas. Vol. VII. Edición y traducción de Sergio Rábade Romeo, Salvador Caballero Sánchez, Antonio Puigcerver Zanón. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1966. Thomae, Petrus. Quaestiones de ente. Edited by Garrett R. Smith. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2018.

Studies Andersen, Claus A. “Ens rationis ratiocinatae and ens rationis ratiocinantis: Reflections on a New Book on Beings of Reason in Baroque-Age Scholasticism [D. D. Novotny, Ens rationis from Suárez to Caramuel. A Study in Scholasticism of the Baroque Era, Fordham University Press, New York 2013.” Quaestio 14 (2014), 315–27. –. “Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition, ‘Praecisiones Obiectivae,’ and the Formal Distinction in Mastri and Belluto and Later Scotist Authors.” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 108 (2015), 183–247. –. Metaphysik im Barockscotismus. Untersuchungen zum Metaphysikwerk des Bartholomaeus Mastrius. Mit Dokumentation der Metaphysik in der scotistischen Tradition ca. 1620– 1750. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2016. –. “Comprehension at the Crossroads of Philosophy and Theology. The Case of Mastri and Belluto’s Disputationes in De anima (1643).” Studia Neoaristotelica 15/1 (2018), 39–93. –. “Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza on Abstractive, Intuitive, and Comprehensive Cognition. Systematizing Scholastic Philosophico-Theological Epistemology AD 1615.” In Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza (1578–1641), System, Sources, and Influence. Edited by Lukáš Novák and Daniel Novotný. Leiden and Boston: Brill (forthcoming). Brown, Stephen F. “The Medieval Background to the Abstractive vs. Intuitive Cognition Distinction.” In Geistesleben im 13. Jahrhundert. Edited by Jan A. Aertsen and Andreas Speer, 79–90. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2011. Cenci, Márcio Paulo. “Notas bibliográficas sobre Alfonso Briceño.” Cauriensia 6 (2011), 213– 32. Céspedes Agüero, Víctor Santiago. “La filosofia escotista de Jerónimo de Valera (1568–1625).” In La complicada historia del pensamiento filosófico peruano, siglos XVII y XVIII (Selección de textos, notas y estúdios). Edited by José Carlos Ballón Vargas, 435–514. Lima: Universidad Científica del Sur–Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos / Ediciones del Vicerrectorado Académico, 2011. Cross, Richard. Duns Scotus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. –. The Metaphysics of the Incarnation. Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. –. Duns Scotus on God. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. Doyle, John P. “The Borders of Knowability: Thoughts from or Occasioned by SeventeenthCentury Jesuits.” In Die Logik des Transzendentalen. Festschrift für Jan. A. Aertsen zum 65 Geburtstag. Edited by Martin Pickavé, 643–58. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2003. Dumont, Stephen D. “Theology as a Science and Duns Scotus’s Distinction between Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition.” Speculum 64/3 (1989), 579–99. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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Hanisch Espíndola, Walter. En torno a la filosofía en Chile (1594–1810). Santiago de Chile: Universidad Católica de Chile, 1963. Heider, Daniel. “Suárez on the Metaphysics and Epistemology of Universals.” In A Companion to Francisco Suárez. Edited by Victor M. Salas and Robert L. Fastiggi, 164–91. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014. –. Universals in Second Scholasticism. A Comparative Study with Focus on the Theories of Francisco Suárez S.J. (1548–1617), João Poinsot O.P. (1589–1644) and Bartolomeo Mastri de Meldola O.F.M. Conv. (1602–1673) / Bonaventura Belluto O.F.M. Conv. (1600–1676). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2014. –. “The Notitia Intuitiva and Notitia Abstractiva of the External Senses in Second Scholasticism: Suárez, Poinsot and Francisco de Oviedo.” Vivarium 54/2–3 (2016), 173–203. Honnefelder, Ludger. Ens inquantum ens. Der Begriff des Seienden als solchen als Gegenstand der Metaphysik nach der Lehre des Johannes Duns Scotus. Münster: Aschendorff, 21989. –. Scientia transcendens. Die formale Bestimmung der Seiendheit und Realität in der Metaphysik des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (Duns Scotus–Suárez–Wolff –Kant–Peirce). Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1990. –. Duns Scotus. München: Verlag C. H. Beck, 2005. King, Peter. “Scotus on Metaphysics.” In The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus. Edited by Thomas Williams, 15–68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Manzano, Isidoro. “Alonso Briceño (1587–1668): Franciscano, Pensador, Obispo.” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 85 (1992), 333–66. Muñoz García, Ángel. “Alonso Briceño, filósofo de Venezuela y América.” Patio de Letras 2:1 (2004), 115–30. Novotný, Daniel D. Ens rationis from Suárez to Caramuel. A Study in Scholasticism of the Baroque Era. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013. Pasnau, Robert. “Cognition.” In The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus. Edited by Thomas Williams, 285–311. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pich, Roberto Hofmeister. “Cognitio intuitiva e modalidades epistêmicas.” Itinerarium 55 (2009), 357–91. –. “Tópicos de teoria do conhecimento em João Duns Scotus e Guilherme de Ockham.” In IV Congresso Nacional das Escolas Franciscanas – Educação e Ciência na Perspectiva Franciscana, 57–72. Santa Maria: Centro Universitário Franciscano, 2009. –. “Notas sobre Jerónimo Valera e suas obras sobre lógica.” Cauriensia 6 (2011), 169–202. –. “Alfonso Briceño (1587–1668) and the Controversiae on John Duns Scotus’s Philosophical Theology: The Case of Infinity.” The Modern Schoolman 89 (2012), 65–94. –. “Alfonso Briceño (1587–1668) e a recepção de Scotus na América Latina: um breve estudo sobre o conceito de infinito.” Scintilla 12 (2015), 77–97. –. “Alfonso Briceño (1587–1668) sobre o conceito de infinitude: três debates scotistas fundamentais.” In Festschrift [um tributo a Ernildo Stein]: viveu às voltas com a metafísica e a fenomenologia. Edited by Alfredo Culleton, Lenio Streck, Róbson Ramos dos Reis, 159– 82. São Leopoldo: Editora UNISINOS, 2015. –. “Alfonso Briceño O.F.M. (1587–1668) sobre a distinção de razão.” Veritas 62/3 (2017), 949– 75. –. “Alfonso Briceño O.F.M. (1587–1668) on John Duns Scotus’s Metaphysical Groundworks of Theology: The Controversies on Infinity.” In Contemplation and Philosophy: Scholastic and Mystical Modes of Medieval Philosophical Thought. A Tribute to Kent Emery, Jr..

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Edited by Roberto Hofmeister Pich and Andreas Speer, 705–38. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2018. –. “Alfonso Briceño O.F.M. (1587–1668) sobre o ente e a distinção.” In Filosofia medieval. Edited by Roberto Hofmeister Pich; Adriano Correia; Marco Aurélio Oliveira da Silva, 171–205. São Paulo: ANPOF, 2017. Redmond, Walter Bernard. Bibliography of the Philosophy in the Iberian Colonies of America. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972. Schmutz, Jacob. Scholasticon. [last consulted April 28, 2022]. Skariča, Mirko. “Si los futuros contingentes son conocidos por Dios en si mismos, o sea, en su verdad determinada – Alonso Briceño (Introducción y traducción del latín: Mirko Skariča).” Philosophica 15 (1992), 205–51. –. “Predeterminación y libertad en fray Alonso Briceño.” Philosophica 16 (1993), 57–63. –. “El conocimiento divino de los actos futuros en Báñez, Molina, Suárez y Briceño.” Philosophica 29 (2006), 287–303. –. “Alonso Briceño. Apuntes para una historia de la filosofía en Chile.” La Cañada 1 (2010), 6– 21. Smeets, Uriël. Lineamenta bibliographiae scotisticae. Prolegomena P. Caroli Balic. Roma: Commissio Scotistica, 1942. Sondag, Gérard. Duns Scot. La métaphysique de la singularité. Paris: Vrin, 2005. –. “Jean Duns Scot sur la connaissance intuitive intellectuelle (cognitio intuitiva).” In João Duns Scotus (1308–2008). Edited by Luis Alberto De Boni and Roberto Hofmeister Pich. Special issue of Veritas –53:3 (2008), 32–58. Urdaneta, Ramón. Alonso Briceño: primer filósofo de América. Caracas: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, 1973. Vos, Antonie. The Philosophy of John Duns Scotus. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. –. The Theology of John Duns Scotus. Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2018. Wolter, Allan B. The Transcendentals and their Function in the Metaphysics of Duns Scotus. St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: The Franciscan Institute, 1946.

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Making Room for the Virtual Distinction Bartolomeo Mastri between Scylla and Charybdis Lukáš Novák

Introduction Bartolomeo Mastri (1602–1673), the Prince of Scotists, cultivated the persona of a faithful disciple of the Subtle Doctor; in reality, however, he often significantly departed from the positions of his master. One such case is Mastri’s position on the matter of distinctions. Unlike Duns Scotus (and many of his followers), Mastri admitted not only the “Scotistic” formal distinction, but also the “Thomistic” virtual distinction as a possible basis for abstracting a univocal universal concept. In another paper,1 I have proposed a thorough analysis of Scotus’s arguably most profound and developed philosophical (as opposed to theological) reasoning in favour of the necessity of the formal distinction, found in his Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis VII, q. 19. In this paper, I follow up with an analysis and an assessment of the force of Mastri’s defence of the virtual distinction vis-à-vis Scotus’s arguments. I will start with briefly outlining Mastri’s innovative position on distinctions. Then I will provide a summary of Scotus’s reasoning for the necessity of admitting the formal distinction (which is elaborated in the other paper) and point out the problems it poses for Mastri’s attempt to secure room for the virtual distinction in a Scotist setting. Finally, I will seek to determine if Mastri can provide a solution to these problems.2

The research behind this paper has been supported by the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), grant project no. 21–35651S “Jsoucno a přirozená teologie ve scotismu.” I am indebted to the editors of this present volume, Claus A. Andersen and Daniel Heider, for their many helpful suggestions; and also to Světla Hanke Jarošová for correcting my English. 1 Novák, “Qui melius scit exponere, exponat! Scotus’s Metaphysical Case for the Formal Distinction.” That paper and this present one originated as two parts of a single presentation at the conference Cognitive Issues in the Long Scotist Tradition (Faculty of Theology, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, 11–13 February 2021) and belong together. 2 For a systematic exposition of Mastri’s theory of distinctions, see Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 657–839; cf. further Knebel, “What About Aureol?,” especially 429–36. I use the 1727 edition of Mastri and Bonaventura Belluto’s Philosophiae ad mentem Scoti Cursus integer. Mastri’s Disputationes ad mentem Scoti in duodecim libros Metaphysicorum (henceforward abbreviated as Met.) was first published in two volumes in 1646–1647; his (and Belluhttps://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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1. Mastri’s Innovation The view on the metaphysical prerequisites of the possibility of abstraction which Scotus bequeathed to his followers was that the abstraction of a universal concept is made possible by the existence of a distinctio a parte rei (viz. “in the thing itself” or “in reality”) between that which is being conceived, on the one hand, and that from which is being abstracted, on the other – for example, a distinction a parte rei between the formality of animality and the formality of rationality (and the individual differentia) makes it possible to abstract the concept animal from Peter. In Mastri’s times, this was commonly expressed in terms of the so-called objective precision: in order that objective precision can take place – that is, in order that on the level of intentional objects one aspect of the conceived thing (e. g., the formality of animality) can be conceived without other aspects of that thing (e. g., rationality or individuality) being conceived thereby –, the conceived aspect must be actually distinct from the unconceived aspects, prior to the work of the conceiving intellect.3 This actual distinction in reality may come in various kinds, of which the two generally recognized ones are the formal distinction, obtaining between two a parte rei distinct but really identical formalities, and the modal distinction, obtaining between a formality and its intrinsic mode (modus intrinsecus). But regardless of the differences in detail, the crucial tenet of this “orthodox” position is that in forming universal concepts, the intellect does not (and cannot) draw the required distinctions but finds them in reality as already actual. Mastri significantly departs from this “orthodox” Scotist wisdom and argues extensively that not only the formal distinction (and its weaker sibling, the modal distinction) is to be admitted in a Scotistic metaphysical and epistemological repertory, but also the “Thomist” virtual distinction (distinctio virtualis), or the distinction of reasoned reason (distinctio rationis ratiocinatae), also often called “distinction of reason with a foundation in reality” (distinctio rationis cum fundamento in re).4 Strictly speaking, the virtual distinction and the distinction to’s) Disputationes in Aristotelis Logicam (henceforward called Logica) was first published in 1639. Both of these works are contained in the Cursus. 3 For an analysis of the notion of objective precision and its bearing on the realism–nominalism dispute, see Novák, “Confusion or Precision? Disentangling the Semantics of a Pair of Scholastic Terms”; for the notion of objective precision in Mastri, see Renemann, “Mastri on ‘praecisio obiectiva’,” and Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 833–39. 4 I have not done extensive research on how universally and how explicitly this view had been accepted by the Scotists before Mastri, but there certainly was a widespread common sense that the virtual distinction is a “Thomist” thing, whereas Scotists insist on the formal distinction; and the way Mastri presents the problem makes a clear impression that despite his assertions that it is his view which is in accord with Scotus, he is well aware that he is in fact going against the Scotist mainstream: cf. Met., disp. 6, q. 15, art. 1, n. 271, 318a–b: “[O]stendo https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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of reasoned reason are not the same thing (despite being often so treated by the Scholastics. The virtual distinction is that which is in the thing itself, prior to, or independently of, its being conceived; so, it is something real, but – unlike the Scotist formal or modal distinctions – merely potential. In virtue of this distinction its terms are not actually distinct, but rather distinguishable by the intellect. The virtual distinction is, so to speak, an occasion for the intellect to actually draw a distinction where, in reality, there is none. The distinction of reasoned reason, on the other hand, is the result of this activity of the intellect. It is, already, an actual distinction – but it does not exist in reality (i. e., between two aspects of a thing insomuch as they exist in and for themselves, independently of being conceived), but merely intentionally (that is, between two aspects of a thing, insomuch as they are conceived separately by the intellect). In other words: the virtual distinction is real but merely potential, while the distinction of reasoned reason is actual but merely intentional – the virtual distinction being its fundamentum in re. Still, in a sense it is one and the same distinction, considered now in potency, now in act – and for that reason even the Scholastics often neglect the difference and use the terms distinctio virtualis and distinctio rationis cum fundamento in re interchangeably: a distinction that is potentially in the thing, and comes to be actualized only in the conceiving intellect.5 Now according to Mastri, it is not so that objective precision always requires an actual distinction on the part of the thing itself. An actual distinction (typically the formal distinction) is only needed for the abstraction of categorical concepts – that is, genera, species, and differentiae. Transcendental concepts, i. e., concepts applicable to more than one category or to a category and to God, only require a potential distinction in the thing in order that they may be abstracted – that is, the “Thomistic” virtual distinction. Besides, Mastri agrees with the common realist (as opposed to nominalist) wisdom that where there is not even a virtual distinction in the object at the appropriate place, the intellect cannot abstract two different concepts from it but is only capable of conceiving one Scotum, quidquid est de Scotistis formalizantibus, agnovisse et approbasse acceptionem distinctionis ratiocinatae, in sensu scilicet, quo de ea loquuntur Thomistae […].” Cf. also Mastri and Belluto’s review of Scotist positions in Logica, disp. 1, q. 5, art. 1, nn. 87–95, 91b–93b, where they defend the distinction of reasoned reason as rather implied than explicitly taught in Scotism, and Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 833: “Die distinctio rationis ratiocinatae wird […] wie ein Fremdelement behandelt, das stets als ‚thomistisch‘ bezeichnet wird […];” cf. further the survey of positions at ibid., 705. 5 For Mastri’s exposition of the notion of distinctio rationis ratiocinatae, see Met., disp. 6, q. 15, art. 1, nn. 269–79, 317b–21b; cf. especially n. 274, 319a–b: “[D]istinctio illa virtualis coincidit prorsus cum distinctione rationis ratiocinatae, aut certe est fundamentum eius, dicitur distinctio virtualis, quatenus praecedit huiusmodi fundamentum in re dicitur vero ratiocinata, quando per actum intellectus inadaequate concipientis, et praescindentis ista virtualitas distinctionis reducitur ad actum formando de eadem re simplici plures conceptus inadaequatos.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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different concepts

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Fig. 1.

and the same thing/concept in two different ways (e. g., once as a subject and once as a predicate, as in the identical judgement “Peter is Peter”), by means of two modi concipiendi. Figure 1 summarizes (the relevant part of) Mastri’s repertory of distinctions. Mastri’s generous approach to other schools’ (and especially the Thomists’) conceptual resources can be seen as a sign of open-mindedness and commendable willingness to give credit wherever it is due. On the other hand, the integration of elements foreign to the native Scotism into the system may have repercussions. Specifically in the case at hand, one can immediately think of two connected worries that need to be addressed: viz. 1) Will Mastri be able to avoid, on the transcendental level, the force of Scotus’s general arguments for the necessity of the formal distinction? And 2) Will he be able to do so without thereby compromising the force of the same arguments, or any arguments, on the categorical level? The present paper aims to provide a detailed answer to these two questions.

2. Scotus’s Case for the Formal Distinction So, what are Scotus’s arguments? Scotus’s case for the formal distinction falls apart into two distinct reasoning strategies, linked with the formal distinction’s two main areas of application. In the first place, Scotus employs the formal distinction in theology to explain the Holy Trinity (and other things divine). On this level, the gist of his reasoning is that the formal distinction is needed to resolve contradictions that would otherwise emerge, such as the divine essence both having and not having certain properties. The other area of the application is metaphysics; and here Scotus argues that the formal distinction is needed as a https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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sine qua non of the possibility of the abstraction of distinct concepts – that is, in late scholastic terms, as a metaphysical condition of objective precision. In this paper, I am only concerned with Scotus’s metaphysical case for the formal distinction: the point is to see whether and how Mastri’s innovations can square with it. As has been mentioned, Scotus’s most elaborate presentation of his metaphysical case for the formal distinction is contained in his Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis, Book VII, q. 19, “Whether the concept of a genus is different from the concept of a differentia.”6 However, Scotus is actually not focusing on the question of whether a generic concept and a differential concept differ (this is resolved fairly quickly in the affirmative), but on what the metaphysical prerequisites of their differing are. The core of the quaestio consists in Scotus’s complex and detailed evaluation, and ultimate rejection, of Henry of Ghent’s thesis that a sufficient prerequisite for the possibility of abstracting two distinct concepts, a genus and a differentia, is the intentional distinction (differentia intentionis). Interestingly, Henry’s notion of intentional distinction (at least qua understood by Scotus) is practically identical to the later Thomists’ (and Mastri’s) distinctio rationis ratiocinatae (sometimes, simply called distinctio ratiocinata). Scotus’s discussion of Henry’s theory therefore is of direct systematic relevance for Mastri’s reception of the Thomist notion. Scotus’s engagement with Henry is complex and its adequate presentation is beyond the scope of this paper.7 For the purposes of comparison with Mastri, we only need to understand what I call Scotus’s “Final Blow Argument,” viz. his ultimate rebuttal of the most refined formulation of Henry’s case resulting from the preceding discussion. In that discussion, Scotus had constantly turned his virtual Henrician opponent’s (and readers’) attention back to the epistemic aspect of the issue (as opposed to the causal one, highlighted in the opponent’s approach). For it may not be a problem to explain how two different cognitive acts (notitiae, viz., the mental concept of a genus and that of a differentia) can be caused in the intellect by a single, undistinguished real thing: it is a problem, however, to explain, how there can be two irreducibly distinct cognized conceptual contents or intentional objects which, nevertheless, must be identical to the external thing (otherwise we would not be cognizing the thing itself but something else).

The phrases ‘the concept of a genus’ and ‘the concept of a differentia’ are to be understood in the sense ‘the concept which is a genus’ and ‘the concept which is a differentia,’ not in the sense ‘the concept genus’ and ‘the concept differentia.’ In other words, they refer to first intentions, concepts such as animal (a genus) and rational (a differentia), not to second intentions, the predicables genus and differentia. 7 What here follows is a brief summary of my paper cited in note 1.

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Now the explanation to which Scotus’s Henrician opponent was finally obliged to resort – virtually his last chance of vindicating the sufficiency of the intentional distinction for abstraction – was the following: the conceived object is completely one and the same really, that is, according to its single real being, but it makes for two objects in the intellect according to its two distinct intentional beings or esse obiective. Thus, one and the same real thing (say, Socrates) is conceived as two objects: once (qua animal) by the concept of genus, and once (qua rational) by the concept of a differentia. In this way, the distinction between animal and rational only obtains on the level of intentional being – it is a mere intentional distinction in Henry’s terms –, whereas in reality there is a perfect identity. Scotus’s Final Blow Argument consists in showing that this “explanation of last resort” is untenable – and again on epistemic grounds.8 Scotus points out that if the only respect in which the single real thing is two is its twofold esse obiective, then, epistemically speaking, there will not be two distinct cognized objects but only one. The reason is that the twofold esse obiective is not part of that which is being cognized. The esse obiective is a property of the conceived object qua such, but it is not part of its conceptual content.9 A real object receives objective being in virtue of being conceived, but that which is conceived, by a real, first-order cognitive act (“formal concept” in later terminology), is just the real stuff coming from “out there.” In order to conceive the object together with its esse obiective, another cognitive act (formal concept) would be needed: a reflexive, second-order concept such as the concept of animal or the concept of rational. Such a concept, however, would not be predicable of the real object (Socrates) – i. e., it would not be a genus or a differentia. 8 Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis VII, q. 19, n. 38 (OPh IV), 368: “Sed per omnia dicta non videtur prima difficultas soluta quomodo duo obiecta formaliter in quantum obiecta et tamen una essentia, si illa essentia aliquo modo cognoscatur. Quia illa essentia una, si tantummodo per duo esse in intellectu est duo obiecta – et secundum illa non cognoscitur, quia illa accidunt obiecto –, non videtur quomodo erunt duo in quantum obiecta.” 9 This is more or less the point stressed by Avicenna in the famous passage in his Metaphysics V, c. 1 (ed. Verbeke), 228–29, providing a moderately-realist solution to the problem of universals which came to be almost universally accepted in the Latin High Scholasticism (including Scotus). Avicenna claims here that “equinity is just equinity” – meaning that the predicable conceptual content of the concept horse contains only the conceptual marks belonging to the specific essence of horseness, everything else being merely accidental to this “essence as such,” the predicable content of the concept. And this “everything else” includes, on the one hand, the real individuating features of individual horses, and, on the other hand, the merely intentional properties imparted to the essence of horse insomuch as it is conceived by the intellect as a universal – in other words, everything that belongs to its being conceived, i. e., in Scotus’s terminology, to its objective being. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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But that which formally specifies formal concepts (intellective acts) and distinguishes them from one another is precisely the conceived conceptual content, nothing else. Therefore, it follows that the plurality of esse obiective cannot be the source of the differentiation of the objective concepts to which this esse belongs. In short – under the proposed scenario, we would not have two distinct concepts but merely one and the same concept conceived twice. Thus, Henry’s position appears to be demolished, and Scotus concludes: “Qui melius scit exponere differentiam intentionis, evadendo dictas difficultates, exponat.”10

3. The Problems for Mastri Now let us turn back to Mastri. Now, Scotus’s metaphysical case for the necessity of the formal distinction is quite broad-scoped: it is not confined to this or that special case but concerns the possibility of abstracting two distinct concepts from one and the same object in general. Mastri, on the contrary, asserts that the formal distinction is only needed as a ground for the possibility of abstracting categorial concepts, whereas for the possibility of abstracting transcendental concepts a mere virtual distinction is sufficient. This immediately provokes the two already mentioned worries that motivate this entire paper: (1) Can Mastri avoid, on the transcendental level, the force of Scotus’s argument for the formal distinction, and how? (2) Can Mastri do so without eo ipso compromising the force of the very same argument on the categorial level? Let us see how Mastri fares in navigating through this narrow strait between the Scylla of making the need of the formal distinction for abstraction universal and the Charybdis of making it entirely unjustified.

4. Avoiding Scylla: “Melius exponere”? To avoid the Scylla of ending up asserting what Scotus implies, viz. the universal need for the formal distinction as the only possible foundation in reality for the possibility of abstraction, Mastri must face Scotus’s challenge and provide some “better explanation” of the possibility of a genuine distinction between two concepts which is not based on an a parte rei distinction of their formal objects, or conceived contents insomuch as they exist in reality – a distinction, let us recall, that had been called “intentional distinction” (differentia intentionis) by Henry Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis VII, q. 19, n. 42 (OPh IV), 369. 10

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and Scotus and “distinction of reasoned reason” (distinctio rationis ratiocinatae) by Mastri (and late Scholastics in general). I have already mentioned that for Mastri, who in this point follows the Thomists’ ways, the possibility of this distinction is based on its having a certain foundation in the intrinsic reality of the thing, called “virtual distinction” (distinctio virtualis).11 In order to see whether Mastri is capable of specifically vindicating the possibility of merely rationally distinct transcendental concepts, we have to explore the merits of this notion. So: what is a virtual distinction? What is it precisely that its “virtuality” involves? ‘Virtual’ (virtualis, virtualiter, (in) virtute) is a tricky term in scholasticism, as it tends to be used in various closely connected yet distinct senses – at least three of them: (1) “A virtual X” or “being virtually X” can mean as much as being X merely potentially or merely in virtute: the chance of bringing it about that the respective thing becomes X is there but it is not (yet) actualized. This meaning of “virtual” seems to be peculiar to the usage of “merely virtual distinction” in contrast to a distinctio actualis a parte rei. (2) “Being virtually X” can also mean “being capable of producing X.” This meaning is primarily present in the notion of “virtual containment,” contrasted against “formal containment”: an essence contains “formally” the formalities that constitute it (i. e., its genera and differentiae), and it contains “virtually” the propria or proprias passiones which necessarily “flow” from the essence but are not constitutive of it. In this sense, a man is “virtually” capable of laugh, because this capability flows from his essence (but he is “formally” rational, because his essence is constituted by rationality). (3) Finally, “being virtually X” can also mean “behaving like X (but not in fact being X),” that is, “performing the causal functions of X.” The classical scholastic example is the Sun which is not in fact (“formally,” in a different sense than the one opposed to the previous sense of

Mastri seems to concede that a contributing factor to the distinction of reasoned reason’s foundation in reality may be a diversity of “extrinsic connotations.” Still, the presence of an “intrinsic” virtual distinction is required at any rate. See Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 15, art. 2, n. 283, 323b: “Media via nobis capienda est, ut scilicet dicamus cum Thomistis pro fundamento distinctionis ratiocinatae necessariam quidem esse ex parte obiecti virtualem aliquam distinctionem, seu eminentiam rei, non tamen omnino spernendam esse diversitatem extrinsecam connotatorum […]. Palam igitur est, quomodo sententia nostra mediet inter placita Thomistarum, ac nominalium […].” 11

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“virtually”12 ) hot, according to the Aristotelian physics (because dry heat is the property of fire which is not found in the supra-lunar realm), but it causally behaves as though it were. This is also the sense in which Aquinas claims that inferior substantial forms are “virtually contained” in a superior form – e. g., the form of elements or a vegetative soul in a human rational soul.13 A human soul is not a vegetative soul, but it can perform the functions of one. Now it seems that in the notion of virtual distinction, insomuch as it is conceived by Mastri, all these three senses are somehow present, although Mastri never explicitly distinguishes them: –

–

–

The two quasi-formalities which are merely virtually distinct are not, of course, distinct actually a parte rei: so, in the thing itself, the distinction is there merely potentially, and this potentiality is only actualized by the conceiving intellect (sense 1). At the same time, the thing is, in virtue of having a virtual distinction in itself, conceived as causally (co‐)responsible for bringing about the actual distinction in the intellect (actually, this sort of a “causal” explanation of the possibility of having two distinct concepts of a thing which is a parte rei one and the same was the main strategy underlying the Intentional Distinction Theory as criticized by Scotus):14 the thing has the virtue of producing two distinct cognitive acts in the intellect, and, by consequence, two distinct objective concepts (sense 2). And, finally, the thing behaves, epistemically, as if it were of itself actually distinct, even though it is not (sense 3).15

On the other hand, Mastri is well aware of the force of Scotus’s Final Blow Argument which establishes that mere different objective beings cannot distinguish two objective concepts epistemically, because they are not part of the conceived 12 Both properties contained sense(2)-formally and properties contained sense(2)-virtually in an object are contained in that object sense(3)-formally: a man truly is capable of laughter, just like he truly is rational or an animal. On the other hand, the Sun is not truly hot, the quality of heat is neither contained in its essence nor does it flow from it as its necessary property. 13 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, STh I, q. 76, art. 3, co. (ed. Leonina V), 221b. 14 For details, see Novák, “Qui melius scit exponere, exponat!” 15 Cf. Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 14, n. 263, 315a: “[D]istinctio ratiocinata versatur circa rem, quae licet a parte rei sit una, tamen ob sui eminentem naturam aequivalet pluribus rebus, ac formalitatibus […], et haec virtualis multiplicitas […] dicitur fundamentum, unde movetur intellectus ad formandos diversos conceptus […].” (My italics.) https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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conceptual content, or the objects-qua-conceived. And not only that – Mastri even himself explicitly argues against such a position (defended by Zaccaria Pasqualigo, † 1664), asserting that a direct cognitive act (a formal concept grasping something real) does not conceive the actual plurality of merely virtually distinct (quasi‐)formalities, but causes it:16 For although by these two cognitive acts the plurality and distinction of these formalities is not cognized, […], the plurality and distinction of formalities is caused by this twofold cognition […].17

To conceive (as opposed to produce) this plurality produced by the first, direct act, a second, reflexive act would be needed: 16 For Mastri’s critique of Pasqualigo’s position, see Knebel, “What About Aureol?” Knebel makes several intriguing claims on the relationship between Pasqualigo, whose position he significantly traces back to Auriol, and Mastri. Although I find his linking of Pasqualigo to Auriol correct, I disagree with Knebel’s general optics, which, in my opinion, exaggerates the differences between authors by placing selective emphases on different elements of their doctrines; this also leads him to several quite inadequate theses, such as his characterizing the Auriol-Pasqualigo position as a sort of aprioristic phenomenology. In my view, the crucial difference between the “Auriol-Pasqualigan” and the “Scotus-Mastrian” position stems from Auriol’s contention that the esse obiectivum (or apparens) is cognitively inseparable from the appearing content: a claim based on a rather “Berkeleyan” argument that an unconceived thing is inconceivable (under pain of contradiction). Cf. Petrus Aureolus, In II Sent., dist. 3, q. 2, art. 4, 70bD. Cf. also the brief exposition of Mastri’s account by Renemann, “Mastri on ‘praecisio obiectiva’,” 405–6. However, Renemann, although he correctly rejects the misguided traditional label “conceptualist” for Auriol, seems to tentatively ascribe to him the theory of “abstraction by means of confusion” (as opposed to objective precision). In fact, Auriol’s theory of universals (well presented, albeit once again under the misnomer of “conceptualism,” by Friedman in sect. 3 of his article on Auriol in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) involves objective precision in everything but a name – and objective precision is the hallmark of (moderate) realism (see Novák, “Confusion or Precision?,” 171–78). “Confused,” as applied to a concept, can mean as much as “universal” without any nominalist implications (ibid., especially 160 and 180–82). This is confirmed by the fact that Mastri does not attack Pasqualigo’s Aureolian position as “nominalist” (conceptualism is called “nominalism” in late scholastic jargon), but as a lame defence of realism (which leads to nominalism). For a vindication of Auriol’s being a realist, cf. Amerini, “Realism and Intentionality,” 250. Amerini (252– 59) also stresses an analogical point about Auriol’s relation to Hervaeus Natalis: Auriol is not less realist (universals-wise) than Hervaeus, but unlike him he denies (confusedly, according to Amerini) the possibility of distinguishing the cognized thing from its being cognized. It seems to me that Amerini’s criticism of Auriol’s misunderstanding of Hervaeus is ultimately the same point Mastri makes against Pasqualigo. See also Lička, “Perception and objective being,” for a convincing vindication of Auriol’s direct realism and general closeness to Scotus. 17 Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 16, art. 2, n. 304, 333a: “[Q]uamvis enim per illas duas cognitiones non cognoscatur pluralitas, et distinctio illarum formalitatum, sed tantum per actum reflexum, adhuc tamen illa pluralitas, et distinctio formalitatum per duplicem illam cognitionem causatur […].” (Quotation continued in note 21.) https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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It must be said that prior to the direct act by means of which the intellect divides one and the same object into a plurality of formalities, a virtual and fundamental distinction preexists in the object. This distinction is only reduced to act and completed by the act of cognition. And just like it was said to exist subjectively in reality […] while it was still virtual, so also after it has been made actual, it must be said, as far as this foundation is concerned, to exist subjectively in reality and objectively only in the intellect. Still, it is true that by means of this direct act the formalities are not perceived as actually many – rather, by means of that act, they become actually many. The former is only accomplished in virtue of a reflexive act by means of which the formalities are cognized as actually many and distinct. In virtue of the direct act they are cognized as merely virtually many and as fundamentally distinct – even though they become actually many and distinct by means of that act.18

The esse obiective or esse intentionale which is produced by a cognitive act is not, therefore, cognized by that very same act, and so it cannot serve as the distinguishing factor of the objective concept that terminates this act – which is precisely Scotus’s point in his Final Blow Argument: When, in virtue of the distinction of reasoned reason, [the formality] animal is cognized in a man while [the formality] rational is left uncognized, [the formality] animal is not cognized according to some intentional being which it has in virtue of being cognized, but according to its real being – although by means of such an act it is not cognized as actually prescinded from [the formality] rational (as that would require a reflexive act), but it is being actually prescinded from [the formality] rational by that very act. It is therefore wrong to say that the distinction of reasoned reason accounts for a distinction in the object precisely insomuch as it exists intentionally in the intellect, and that in this way one and the same real object can terminate distinct acts of cognition, viz. according to its distinct intentional beings. Proof of the assumption: […] By prescinding animal from rational, I cognize the animal insomuch as it is an ensouled sensitive substance and insomuch as it is endowed with sensitive operations; but these and similar predicates belong to it insomuch as it exists in reality and not according to some objective and intentional being.19 Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 16, art. 2, n. 304, 332b: “[D]icendum est antecedenter ad actum rectum, quo intellectus partitur idem obiectum in plures formalitates, praecedere in objecto distinctionem virtualem, et fundamentalem, quae ad actum reducitur, et completur per ipsam cognitionem, et sicut quando erat virtualis dicebatur subjective in re, et in objecto, sic etiam ratione talis fundamenti, postquam facta est actualis, dici debet esse subiective in re, et obiective solum in intellectu. Verum est tamen per illum actum rectum non attingi formalitates illas ut actualiter plures, immo potius per ipsum fiunt actualiter plures; sed hoc habetur solum ex vi actus reflexi, quo cognoscuntur illae formalitates, ut actualiter plures, et distinctae; ex vi autem actus recti cognoscuntur solum ut virtualiter plures, et fundamentaliter distinctae, licet per ipsum fiant actualiter plures, et distinctae […].” 19 Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 16, art. 2, n. 313, 336a: “Quando ex vi distinctionis ratiocinatae cognoscitur animal in homine non cognito rationali, tunc non cognoscitur animal secundum aliquod esse intentionale, quod habeat ex vi cognitionis, sed secundum esse reale, licet per 18

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In short, a direct cognitive act – that is, a formal concept directed at something real qua real – only grasps the real aspects of its object, i. e., those that had been out there prior to its being conceived. Intentional or objective being (Mastri uses these terms interchangeably) is not among them. But what is then the source of the actual plurality of the cognitive acts, and, consequently, of the objective concepts intended by these acts – if not the plurality of objective beings? Mastri’s response is that it is sufficiently founded by a “virtual plurality of the object(s)”: The plurality of cognitions derives also from the virtual plurality of the object. For an effect can perfectly well depend, according to its formal being, on a virtual cause – as for example heat comes from the virtual hotness of light, and a creature from God qua virtually containing their [viz. creatures’] perfection […]. Wherefore […] it is to be said that prior to its being cognized, the object has of itself a virtual capacity to terminate a plurality of inadequate cognitions according to various formalities; and for that reason, this twofold termination is grounded in the object rather than in the intellect.20

This “virtual plurality” is something that exists really in the object, and so – unlike the distinct intelligible beings – it can be part of the conceived content, it can “terminate the cognition”: For although by these two cognitive acts the plurality and distinction of these formalities is not cognized, […], the plurality and distinction of formalities is caused by this twofold cognition, and what is only perceived by it is a virtual and fundamental plurality. Therefore, […] it is to be said that these cognitions terminate neither at objects distinct actually ex natura rei prior to being cognized, nor at the object insomuch as it has an actual

talem actum non cognoscatur, ut praecisum actualiter a rationali, quia ad hoc requiritur actus reflexus, sed eo ipso actu praescinditur a rationali, ergo falsum est ex vi distinctionis ratiocinatae derivari distinctionem in obiecto praecise, quatenus intentionali modo existit in intellectu, et hac ratione idem obiectum reale secundum diversa esse intentionalia posse diversas terminare cognitiones. Probatur assumptum […] quia in praecisio animalis a rationali cognosco animal, secundum quod est substantia animata, sensitiva, et secundum quod ei conveniunt operationes sensitivae, sed haec, et similia praedicata ei competunt, secundum quod est a parte rei, non autem secundum aliquod esse obiectivum, et intentionale.” Note that Mastri’s argument here assumes his opponent’s view that the distinction between animal and rational is merely virtual – which, of course, is not his own position. 20 Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 16, art. 2, n. 304, 332b: “[I]psa quoque cognitionum pluralitas actualis pendet a virtuali pluralitate obiecti, bene enim potest effectus secundum suum esse formale dependere a causa virtuali, ut calor est a calore virtuali Lucis, et creatura a Deo, ut virtualiter continente perfectiones illarum […]. Quare […] dicendum obiectum antecedenter ad cognitionem habere virtualiter, quod possit plures terminare cognitiones sui inadaequatas secundum diversas formalitates, atque ideo duplex illa terminatio potius ex parte obiecti se tenebit quam ex parte intellectus.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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plurality in virtue of its being cognized, but at the object insomuch as it has a virtual plurality and distinction prior to its being cognized.21

This “virtual and fundamental plurality” which is not “actual and formal plurality” therefore, according to Mastri, suffices to enable abstraction by means of objective precision: Thus, although prior to the cognitive act by means of which, e. g., animal is prescinded from rational – or, to use an example conceded by all,22 prior to the act by means of which the calefactive power of the Sun is prescinded from its exsiccative power there are no ex natura rei distinct formalities in the Sun, still they precede the act as distinct virtually and fundamentally. And from this virtual plurality of objects also derives the plurality of acts: for these acts, being confused and inadequate, tend to their objects not insomuch as they are really and formally a parte rei one, but insomuch as they are virtually many and distinct. And by this antecedent virtual distinction in the object, objective precisions made by the intellect are vindicated. For by means of a direct act of intellect one [formality] is so prescinded from another that although in reality it is formally one and the same thing and realitas, still, owing to the virtual distinction and multiplication, it terminates distinct acts of cognition so that one [formality] terminates an act which the other does not terminate. And so it is clear that objective precisions arising from the “reasoned” distinction would not be successfully vindicated by saying that the distinct formalities terminate distinct acts of cognition according to their distinct intentional beings – for the distinction of reasoned reason is not a distinction between two beings of reason. Rather, [objective precision] is vindicated precisely by means of a diversity of formalities pre-existing in the object: not, to wit, an actual and formal diversity, but a virtual and fundamental one.23

Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 16, art. 2, n. 304, 333a: ”Quamvis enim per illas duas cognitiones non cognoscatur pluralitas, et distinctio illarum formalitatum […], adhuc tamen illa pluralitas, et distinctio formalitatum per duplicem illam cognitionem causatur, et per illam attingitur pluralitas tantum, et distinctio virtualis, et fundamentalis; unde […] dicendum est illas cognitiones neque terminari ad obiecta distincta actualiter ex natura rei ante cognitionem, neque ad obiectum ut habet pluralitatem, et distinctionem ex vi cognitioni, sed ad obiectum, ut habet pluralitatem, et distinctionem virtualem ante ipsam cognitionem […].” (This is a continuation of the quotation given in note 17.) 22 Again, Mastri has been assuming here the Thomist position which posits the virtual distinction on the categorial level. 23 Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 16, art. 2, n. 314, 336a: “Quare […] licet antecedenter ad cognitionem, qua animal v. g. praescinditur a rationali, vel ut utar exemplo ab omnibus concesso, qua virtus calefactiva in Sole praescinditur ab exsicativa, non praecedant in Sole huiusmodi formalitates ex natura rei distinctae; praecedunt tamen ut distinctae virtualiter, et fundamentaliter, et ex hac virtuali pluralitate obiectorum pendet etiam pluralitas actuum, nam isti actus tendunt in illa obiecta, non quidem ut unum realiter, et formaliter a parte rei, quia sunt actus confusi, et inadaequati, sed ut virtualiter plura, et distincta. Et ratione istius distinctionis virtualis in obiecto praecedentis salvantur praecisiones obiectivae per intellectum factae, nam per actum intellectus rectum ita una praescinditur ab alia, quod licet a parte rei sit una, et eadem 21

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So, what are we to make of all this? It is clear that Mastri concedes Scotus’s main point against Henry, viz. that a plurality of cognitive acts presupposes a certain plurality on the part of their objects. Moreover, he concedes Scotus’s point that this plurality on the part of the objects cannot be reduced to the plurality of intentional beings which, being produced by these acts, is posterior to them and thus already presupposes the plurality of acts as established on some other grounds. An object considered qua existing intentionally in the intellect is a being of reason – i. e., something that as such is not real: it is an objective concept, not a real thing; therefore, it is not that which real concepts (such as “animal” and “rational”) intend. The crucial ingredient of Mastri’s position is, therefore, the notion of “virtual plurality” and his contention that an actual plurality of acts can be derived from a merely virtual plurality of objects. The notion of virtual plurality is designed to open a loophole in Scotus’s argument as an alternative he had not considered. But is there room for such an alternative at all? Can the notion of virtual plurality be given such a meaning as to justify Mastri’s attempt to avoid the Scylla of a universal need for the formal distinction as a sine qua non of objective precision? It is clear from what I have said so far that to understand “virtual plurality” merely in sense (1) – that is, in the sense of “potential plurality” – would not help at all. For to say that “the object has a virtual capacity to terminate a plurality of inadequate cognitions” would in this sense mean that the object has a merely potential capacity to terminate a plurality of cognitions, that is, that the object can have the capacity but does not actually have it – and therefore it actually is not capable of terminating a plurality of acts. To be present potentially is, in plain English, not to be in fact present, and so a plurality which is merely potential is not, as a matter of fact, a plurality. To do the required job, therefore, virtuality must mean something more than mere potentiality. What about adding sense (2)? Thus interpreted, “virtual plurality” would, in addition to meaning (1), include a capacity to produce a plurality of acts. This interpretation is strongly suggested by Mastri’s only attempt to anchor his assertions concerning virtuality in a general principle: viz. when he says that “an effect can perfectly well depend, according to its formal being, on a virtual cause.” But this is simply the “causal strategy” considered by Scotus and found wanting res, et realitas formaliter, tamen ob virtualem distinctionem, et multiplicitatem varias terminat cognitiones, adeo ut una hanc numero congnitionem terminet, quam non terminat alia. Et sic patet, quomodo praecisiones obiectivae ortae ex vi distinctionis ratiocinatae non per hoc bene salventur quod distinctae formalitates terminent distinctas cognitiones, secundum diversa esse intentionalia, quia […] distinctio rationis ratiocinatae non cadit inter diversa entia rationis, sed salvatur praecipue ob diversitatem formalitatum praecedentem in obiecto, non quidem formalem et actualem, sed virtualem et fundamentalem.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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on epistemic grounds: we must explain not only how the plurality of cognitive acts is possible causally, i. e., how it is possible that one and the same thing causes more than one cognitive act, but how it is possible epistemically, viz. how there can be two altogether distinct conceptual contents which are both perfectly identical to one and the same external reality. And on interpretation (1+2), the object is one and the same reality or formality – because being “virtually” many does not mean anything beyond (1) being capable of being multiplied but not in fact multiplied and (2) being capable of producing many cognitive acts. “To grasp the object according to its virtual plurality” would therefore just mean to grasp it according to its non-existent plurality, and so any two concepts of such an object would have perfectly identical content – they would be just one and the same concept thought several times over, as we have seen. Interpretation (3) seems to be the most promising one. Accordingly, an object having a virtual plurality means that the object is actually one but it behaves as if it were many: and, on that account, it is capable of terminating many cognitive acts. For clarity’s sake, let us imagine how that would work on the categorial level.24 For example, the one and actually undistinguished (let us assume that for the sake of argument) formality of man might present itself to the intellect either as the (quasi‐)formality man, or as the (quasi‐)formality animal, or as the formality rational, or as any of the higher-generic formalities such as substance or living being. Thus, it seems, we would finally have what we had been striving for: viz. several distinct concepts which truly differ according to their conceptual content, yet grasp a formality which is really and formally one and the same. Mastri, of course, would not apply this notion of virtual plurality on the categorial but on the transcendental level, but this is not our concern here: the hypothetical application to categorial concepts only serves to clarify the notion itself. Unfortunately, the feasibility of this interpretation is just an illusion: for it merely attempts to solve the problem by a fiat, so to speak. The notion of virtual plurality in this sense simply stipulates the desired solution, without, however, securing any conceptual room for it. For what does it mean that one and the same formality behaves or presents itself as though it were many? Does the formality man which presents itself now as if it were the formality animal, now as if it were the formality rational, now as if it were some other higher genus, merely pretend to be these distinct objects I am taking the same liberty as Mastri by exploring this notion of virtual plurality on the categorial level, although an example true to Mastri’s actual views would have to involve transcendental, not categorial concepts. But the scope of application is not at issue here: we are exploring the very notion of virtual plurality as such, and categorial concepts just serve as an uncomplicated hypothetical example. For, unfortunately, in Mastri the transcendental level involves additional problems which I would like to avoid here – see my “Scoti de conceptu entis doctrina” and note 36 below). 24

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without actually being them? If so, it would seem that the concepts animal and rational are in fact fictitious – they grasp not something real but something fake. Or shall we say that when the formality man presents itself as animal or as rational it also truly is these formalities? Then the concepts animal and rational will be real, they will indeed grasp something that truly is out there – but as a matter of fact, they will be one and the same concept. For if the formality man is the same both as the formality animal and as the formality rational, then, by transitivity of identity, man and rational are one and the same formality, one and the same conceptual content. Ultimately, the dilemma is precisely the one repeatedly stressed by Scotus.25 No matter how the formality man presents itself or what it pretends to be, either what is grasped by the concepts animal and rational is identical to that selfsame and actually undistinguished formality, and then they are one and the same concept, or it is not, and then it is not anything that can be essentially predicated of a man. It seems, therefore, that while Mastri’s notion of virtual plurality captures the desideratum of his (or, rather, the Thomist) theory, it ultimately fails to provide any actual vindication of that theory and is open to the same sort of devastating critique which Scotus poured upon the poor Henry.

5. What about Charybdis? If my analysis is correct, Mastri failed in his attempt to secure a conceptual place for objective precision without the formal distinction and so fell victim to the abovementioned Scylla. But let us now suppose, for the sake of analysis, that he succeeded. Perhaps I have made a mistake, perhaps there is a way to conceive the virtual distinction or a virtual plurality so as to slip through the net of Scotus’s reasoning. Assuming that Mastri can avoid Scylla, we can still ask: is there a way that doing so he may escape Charybdis? Assuming that Scotus’s arguments proving the necessity of the formal distinction can be thwarted somewhere, how do we avoid the same strategy being successful everywhere? If the formal distinction is not a necessary condition for objective precision, how shall we ever prove its existence at least somewhere? Or, more specifically: (1) Can Mastri, on this assumption, make Scotus’s argument for the formal distinction from the possibility of objective precision work somewhere? (2) And, if 1) is not possible, can he possibly prove the formal distinction in some other way?

25 Cf. Novák, “Qui melius scit exponere, exponat!,” figures 2 and 3 depicting the “Argument form Veridicity.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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5.1 An Argument from Objective Precision? In Mastri’s treatment of the matter I can discern the following main arguments for the formal distinction:26 (1) From diversity of definitions: a difference in definition presupposes a distinction between formalities;27 (2) From distinct adequate conceivability: distinct adequate concepts presuppose distinct formalities.28 (3) From composition of created things: created things cannot be as simple as God is, therefore they must be a parte rei composite;29 (4) From order of metaphysical grades: a genus is ex natura rei prior to a differentia, therefore they must be ex natura rei distinct;30 (5) From contradiction: contradictory predicates presuppose a parte rei distinct subjects;31 (6) From Holy Trinity: God’s one essence must be formally distinct from the relations that constitute the three Persons.32 Now since we are inquiring about Scotus’s philosophical arguments for the formal distinction, we can disregard argument (6). Of the remaining five, the first two can be interpreted as slightly modified incarnations of Scotus’s argument from possibility of abstraction; and, as a matter of fact, Argument (1) ultimately boils down to Argument (2). Mastri first formulates Argument (1) in the following way: The first argument is from definitions: many items which are really identical have different definitions […]. Therefore, since a definition expresses the formal and quidditative being which the thing has in reality prior to any work of the intellect whatsoever, an actual distinction in reality must be conceded between these items, one that is stronger than a distinction of reason or a virtual distinction but weaker than a real distinction. This is confirmed because separability indicates a proportionate distinction of the separable items. Therefore, just like real separability proves a real distinction between what is thus separable, so separability according to conceivability required actually ex natura rei See esp. Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 11, art. 1, n. 214ff., 296a ff., and the places cited below. In my presentation, I am systematizing Mastri’s rather chaotic treatment dispersed over several places. 27 Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 11, art. 1, n. 214, 296a–b. 28 Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 11, art. 1, n. 218, 297a. 29 Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 11, art. 1, n. 218, 297b; cf. also Mastrius / Bellutus, Logica, disp. 5, q. 3, art. 2, n. 127, 182b, and Mastrius, Met., disp. 8, q. 6, art. 2, n. 187, 61a–b. 30 Mastrius, Met., disp. 8, q. 6, art. 2, n. 188–189, 61b–62a. 31 Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 11, art. 1, n. 215–216, 296b–7a; but also Met., disp. 6, q. 12, n. 242, 306b, and Mastrius, Met., disp. 8, q. 6, art. 2, n. 190–193, 62a–63a. 32 Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 11, art. 1, n. 217, 297a. 26

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proves an actual distinction ex natura rei between thus conceivable contents which is stronger than a distinction of reason and weaker than a real distinction.33

This argument is certainly prone to criticism in many respects. It seems to be a concise version of Scotus’s Argument from Veridicity – the veridicity of distinct concepts or definitions somehow implies the ex natura rei nature (i. e., mindindependence) of the distinction between their contents – but it is nowhere as elaborate and explicit as Scotus’s. It remains hazy why the fact that the contents (rationes) expressed by the distinct concepts are extra-mental should imply that the distinction between these contents is extra-mental as well. And one cannot help suspecting that the required conclusion is somehow smuggled in by conceptual separability being qualified as “required actually ex natura rei” – we are never told what exactly this phrase means. But the greatest problem of this argument is that it appears to prove too much for Mastri. For concepts have distinct definitions not only on the categorial level, but also on the transcendental level – where, as we know, a mere virtual distinction suffices to ground them. Indeed – the same argument is commonly used by Scotits to prove the formal distinction even on the transcendental level, as can be seen, e. g., in the Prague Scotist Bernhard Sannig (1637–1704), who argues: I say, fourth, that the objective concept of being is metaphysically prescinded from the special objective concept[s] of its subordinates and its modes and is formally distinct from these concepts. […] The second part is proved: First, because being and its subordinates and modes have different definitions […]; therefore, the objective concept of being is formally distinct from the objective concept[s] of its subordinates and its modes. The inference holds because, in Scotism, different definitions of two identical things prove the formal distinction.34 Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 11, art. 1, n. 214, 296a: “[P]rima est via definitionis, nam multa realiter identificantur, quae tamen variis definitionibus explicantur […]. [C]um igitur definitio explicet esse formale, et quidditativum, quod habet res a parte rei antecedenter ad quodcumque opus Intellectus, concedenda est inter illa plura aliqua distinctio actualis a parte rei, quae sit maior distinctione rationis, et virtualis, et minor reali. Conf. quia separabilitas indicat proportionatam distinctionem in extremis separabilibus, sicut ergo seprabilitas secundum rem arguit inter extrema sic separabilia distinctionem realem, ita separabilitas secundum conceptibilitatem exigita actu ex natura rei arguit actualem distinctionem ex natura rei majorem distinctione rationis, et minorem reali inter rationes sic conceptibiles.” 34 Sannig, Schola philosophica scotistarum, tom. III, Met., disp. 2, q. 1, n. 11, 177b: “Dico quarto: conceptus obiectivus Entis est metaphysice praecisus a conceptu obiectivo speciali suorum inferiorum, et modorum; ac formaliter distinctus a conceptu eorundem. […] Probatur secunda pars: Tum quia Ens, eiusque inferiora, et modi habent diversas definitiones, ut patet ex alibi dictis, ubi Ens, substantiam, accidens etc. suis locis definivi: Ergo conceptus obiectivus Entis est formaliter distinctus a conceptu obiectivo inferiorum, et modorum. Consequentia tenet; quia diversae definitiones duarum rerum identificatarum arguunt distinctionem formalem in via Scoti.” 33

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But a formal distinction between being and its subordinates is precisely what Mastri rejects; and so, he needs to restrain the scope of the argument from definitions somehow. He does so immediately: However, to tread this path of demonstrating the necessity of the formal distinction correctly, we must be aware that “definition” must be understood as one composed of adequate concepts: for such [a definition] truly expresses the thing altogether as it is in reality prior to any work of the intellect whatsoever. A definition composed of inadequate concepts, on the other hand, does not express the thing altogether as it formally is in reality, and therefore a plurality of such definitions does not prove a formal and actual distinction between the many items, but merely a virtual and fundamental one. And this is why we said above that the formal distinction is concluded from separate conceivability by a perfectly conceiving intellect: for if such an intellect says that one content is not another, certainly such objective contents cannot be altogether identical in reality, or else such cognition would not be true and perfect.35

So, not every distinction of concepts or definitions is sufficient to prove the formal distinction, according to Mastri: they must be adequate concepts. And what is an adequate concept? It is a concept that grasps the formality or reality which it grasps in its entirety. The concept animal is adequate because it grasps the entire formality animal. The concept of being, according to Mastri, is not adequate, because it does not grasp any formality in its entirety, but it grasps partially both the formality of Infinite Being (God) and the formality of finite being. There is no such item as the formality being as such to be adequately conceived because the ratio entis is not, according to Mastri, formally distinct from its contracting principles.36 Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 11, art. 1, n. 214, 296a: “Verum ut hac via recte incedamus ad ostendendam necessitatem formalis distinctionis, advertendum est, id intelligendum esse de definitione, quae traditur per conceptus adaequatos; haec enim est, quae vere rem exprimit omnino ut se habet a parte rei ante quodcumque opus intellectus, definitionem autem, quae traditur per conceptus inadaequatos, non exprimit rem omnino, ut se habet a parte rei formaliter, et ideo pluralitas talium definitionum non arguit inter plura distinctionem formalem et actualem, sed tantum virtualem, et fundamentalem; et ideo supra diximus distinctionem formalem sumi ex separatione conceptibilitatum in ordine ad intellectum perfecte concipientem, si enim talis intellectus dicit unam rationem non esse aliam, non utique possunt tales rationes obiectivae a parte rei esse omnino idem, alias cognitio illa non esset vera, et perfecta.” 36 There seems to be a serious confusion in Mastri concerning what exactly these contracting principles are: viz. whether they are the intrinsic modes of finiteness and infinity or rather some essential formal rationes, unknown to us, upon which the formally-modally distinct intrinsic modes are grounded (which I believe is his actual, ill-expressed view). Cf. Novák, “Scoti de conceptu entis doctrina”, 254–57; and the critical response in Forlivesi, “The Nature of Transcendental Being.” Mastri agrees with Scotus in calling the concept of being “inadequate” and “imperfect,” but it is not clear whether he means the same thing as Scotus by these terms – in particular, whether in Scotus it has the implication of the lack of any a parte rei distinction, even 35

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The distinction between adequate and inadequate conceivability is therefore crucial for the argument, and so Argument (1) really boils down to Argument (2). But this precisely is the trouble: for how are we to discern which concept is a modal one, as it seems to have for Mastri. For Scotus, the concept of being is inadequate and imperfect simply because it abstracts from the intrinsic modi of finiteness and infiniteness (and not from differentiae); cf. Ord. I, dist. 8, p. 1, q. 3, nn. 138–42 (ed. Vat. IV), 222–24. However, the distinction between a reality/formality and its intrinsic mode is not a mere distinction of reason but is a parte rei, both for Mastri and for Scotus – cf. ibid., n. 140 (ed. Vat. IV), 223: “Si autem tantum esset distinctio in re sicut realitatis et sui modi intrinseci, non posset intellectus habere proprium conceptum illius realitatis et non habere conceptum illius modi intrinseci rei […] sed in illo perfecto conceptu haberet unum obiectum adaequatum illi […].” (Italics mine.) Mastri, however, seems to be committed to an incoherent triad: (i) the distinction between an intrisic mode and what it modifies is ex natura rei; (ii) being is contracted by intrisic modes; (iii) the distinction between being and its contracting principles is not ex natura rei but merely virtual. Forlivesi (272–81) retorts that Mastri’s position can be made coherent sense of, suggesting (279) that the contracting principles are intrinsic modes which are, exceptionally, merely virtually distinct from the inadequately conceived ratio entis (while in other cases intrinisc modes are ex natura rei distinct from what they modify, in agreement with Mastri’s standard teaching on the nature of modal distinction). But this contradicts Mastri’s explicit teaching that intrinsic modes are not constitutive parts of an essence (cf. “Scoti de conceptu entis doctrina,” 254). Moreover, Mastri never ever hints at the existence of any distinctio virtualis modalis in his catalogue of distinctions (instead, he clearly associates the modal distinction, which is ex natura rei, with the contraction of being by the modes of finitude and infinity). At the same time, however, he claims elsewhere (as Forlivesi himself notes on p. 275) that an ex natura rei distinct common reality would have to be contracted by differentiae and generally seems to conceptually associate contraction by modes with a mere rational distinction (which in turn he associates with “inadequate conceiving”). But that would rule out an ex natura rei modal distinction altogether, everywhere. So, I do not find Forlivesi’s vindication of the coherence of Mastri’s doctrine successful – but a satisfactory response would require a separate paper (hopefully to be written, sometime). Andersen, Metaphysik im Barockscotismus, 492–93, focuses on another aspect of the controversy and supports Forlivesi’s view that the problem is somehow sidestepped by pointing out that according to Mastri, there is no common realitas of being to be contracted, in the first place – the contraction only takes place in our intellect. This is true, of course, but even a mere conceptual contraction would require a virtual composition in reality of one contracted ratio and one contracting ratio, merely virtually distinct from each other – and the question is, what these rationes are like, and, if the contracting ones are intrinsic modes, how that squares with Mastri’s general doctrine on modal distinction which is ex natura rei and not merely virtual. (Andersen verbally endorses Forlivesi’s explanation of Mastri’s doctrine, but by acknowledging (492) that for Mastri, finitude and infinity are modes not of being but rather of the primarily diverse realitates of God and creature, he implicitly acknowledges my thesis that according to Mastri, the inadequately conceivable, merely virtually distinct ratio entis must be contracted to the adequately conceivable reality of either God or creature by some unspecified principles that are prior to the modi – which contradicts Forlivesi’s position that the virtually distinct contracting principles are the modi.) In the present paper, I simply assume that according to Mastri there is a virtual distinction between being and its contracting principles and bracket the question of what their exact nature might be. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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adequate and which is inadequate – without knowing first where there are formal distinctions in reality and where there are merely virtual ones? If the epistemic criterion of the formal distinction is adequate conceivability, then the criterion of adequate concepts cannot be that they are based on formal distinctions – such an account would be circular. And it seems that the circularity is there indeed – for Mastri explicitly defines “formality” by means of adequate conceivability: Formality is commonly defined by the Scotists as an objective content in a thing conceivable by a perfect and adequate concept, distinct from a concept by means of which another formality of the same thing is conceived. […] And it is said “by a perfect and adequate concept” because an objective content which is conceivable inadequately cannot properly be called a formality – such as, e. g., the ratio of being, of good, and any transcendental grade. For such contents are not conceivable in reality by a perfect and adequate concept but only by an inadequate one […].37

Thus, an adequate concept is such that it grasps a formality in its entirety, and a formality is that which is conceivable by an adequate concept – there seems to be no independent criterion of a concept’s adequacy. At any rate it seems clear that as far as the logical and epistemic nature of the respective concepts is concerned, adequate concepts do not differ from inadequate ones, as both are perfectly univocal, perfectly prescinded from their contracting principles etc. The upshot is that by confining the efficacy of Scotus’s argument from the possibility of objective precision to adequate concepts, Mastri effectively rejects this argument, because he no longer regards the possibility of objective precision as such as a sufficient ground for vindicating the formal distinction. By moving from separate conceivability to separate adequate conceivability, Mastri in fact drifts away from Scotus’s original principled reasons why the formal distinction is necessary in metaphysics. For him, any argument capable of establishing the formal distinction must be derived from the specific cases of its application, such as the genus–differentia composition, the relation of an essence to its propria passio,38 or the Trinity. The answer to the first question of this section must therefore be no: Mastri cannot possibly adopt, or adapt, Scotus’s main metaphysical argument for the formal distinction. Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 11, art. 1, n. 213, 295b: “Hinc apud Scotistas Formalitas definiri solet esse rationem obiectivam conceptibilem in re aliquo conceptu perfecto, et adaequato distincto a conceptu quo concipitur alia formalitas eiusdem rei. […] [D]icitur autem conceptu perfecto et adaequato, quia ratio obiectiva inadaequate conceptibilis proprie nequit dici Formalitas, ut ratio entis, boni, et cuiuscumque gradus transcendentis, istae enim rationes non sunt conceptibiles in re conceptu perfecto, et adaequato, sed tantum inadaequato […].” 38 For brevity’s sake, I leave aside the discussion of this application. Mastri’s treatment can be found at Logica, disp. 5, q. 4, art. 1, nn. 180–83, 192a–b, and Met., disp. 6, q. 11, art. 1, n. 218, 297b. 37

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Moreover, the argument from adequate conceivability is as such circular. It can only be upheld if it is reduced to some other argument that might provide an independent justification of Mastri’s claim that only categorial grades are adequately conceivable. 5.2 Other Arguments? The insufficiency – i. e., ultimate circularity – of the argument from adequate conceivability can be seen from the way Mastri tends to reduce it to his other arguments. The following is one example: The opponents concede that there can be a distinction in reality between items that have an adequate conceivability but not between those that have a merely inadequate one. But the generic and the differential grade are such that they have different adequate conceivabilities – therefore, etc. Proof of the minor premise: [The formality] animal existing in the man has of its nature one and the same conceivable content [ratio] as that which is in the horse; and it can be adequately conceived according to its entire actual perfection without [the formality of] rationality being conceived. For if it could not be thus adequately conceived, it would include in its perfection some [additional] determining feature and so it could not posses intrinsically one and the same conceivable content [ratio] both in the horse and in other species.39

Mastri clearly starts with the adequate conceivability argument but is forced to vindicate the crucial premise – viz. that the genus and the differentia indeed are adequately (and not merely inadequately) conceivable. How do we know that? Well, because otherwise the formality that we grasp by means of a generic concept would in reality include more content than is grasped by the concept – for example, the formality grasped by the concept of animal would, in the man, also include the ratio of the differentia rational (since there would be no distinction a parte rei between the two), but in the horse it would include the ratio of some other differentia – and so the formality conceived by a generic concept would be a parte rei different in each species. The problem is, however – why is this a problem? How do we know it is not in fact so? For this is precisely how Aquinas and the Thomists understand Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 11, art. 1, n. 218, 297a: “Adversarii concedunt posse reperiri distinctionem a parte rei inter illa, quae habent diversimodam conceptibilitatem adaequatam, non autem quae habent inadaequatam, sed ita se habent gradus genericus, et differentialis, quod diversam habent conceptibilitatem adaequatam, ergo etc. Probatur minor, quia animal quod est in homine ex natura sua est unius, et eiusdem rationis cum eo, quod est in equo, et adaequate concipi potest secundum totam suam propriam perfectionem actualem absque eo quod concipiatur rationalitas, si enim ita adaequate concipi non posset, iam in sua perfectione aliquid includeret ipsum determinans, et sic non posset esse eiusdem omnino rationis intrinsece in equo et aliis speciebus.” 39

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the nature of a genus: recall Aquinas’s insistence in De ente et essentia that a genus or a species signifies the entire individual essence as a whole, albeit indistinctly.40 It is not a bug but a feature of the Thomist (or, generally, non-Scotist) position that the entire individual is, as it were, one single formality and any universal concept only expresses it inadequately (because it at least fails to grasp its individuality). How is this alternative excluded by Mastri’s argument? The answer is that so far it is not, and I dare say Mastri knows that: for he rushes to offer another argument for the crucial minor premise: Another proof of the same minor premise: God only conceives things adequately and distinctly. But God conceives the sameness and the difference of the man and the brute, for he does not conceive them as differing by their entire essence (or else either the man or the brute would not be an animal) nor as being the same according to their entire essence (for then he would cognize the brute as being no less a rational animal than the man). Therefore, to grasp both the sameness and the difference of the man and the brute, God clearly must conceive those grades as ex natura rei and adequately distinct; and if he did not so conceive them, he would certainly perceive neither the difference between the man and the brute nor their sameness, which is absurd.41

We are here witnessing Mastri’s reasoning gradually delving into what seem to me to be his deepest reasons for the necessity of the formal distinction – viz. those derived from the need to vindicate the reality of both sameness and difference (or similarity and dissimilarity) between two species of the same genus (or two inferior genera of the same superior genus). An immediate retort to the given argument could be that the very same argument could be applied to the transcendental concept of being: God certainly must perceive both the difference (in the respective modes of finiteness and infinity) and similarity (in the common ratio entis) between Himself and the creatures – and yet Mastri does not posit the ratio entis as ex natura rei distinct from its contracting principles. God, acThomas Aquinas, De ente et essentia, c. 2 (ed. Leonina XLIII), 373a: “[…] [S]icut […] genus, prout praedicabatur de specie, implicabat in sua significatione, quamvis indistincte, totum quod determinate est in specie, ita etiam et […] species, secundum quod praedicatur de individuo, oportet quod significet totum id quod est essentialiter in individuo, licet indistincte.” Ibid., c. 3 (ed. Leonina XLIII), 374a: “[…] ratio generis vel speciei conveniat essentiae, secundum quod significatur per modum totius, ut nomine hominis vel animalis, prout implicite et indistincte continet totum hoc, quod in individuo est.” 41 Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 11, art. 1, n. 218, 297a: “[P]robatur etiam eadem minor, quia Deus non cognoscit res, nisi adaequate, et distincte, sed Deus cognoscit convenientiam, et differentiam inter hominem, et brutum, non enim concipit illa in tota essentia differe, quia vel homo, vel brutum non esset animal, neque in tota essentia convenire, quia tunc cognosceret brutum non minus esse animal rationale, quam sit homo: ut ergo cognoscatur a Deo convenientia, et differentia hominis, et bruti, plane concipere debet gradus illos, ut ex natura rei, et adaequate distinctos, quod si eos non concipit, certe discrimen inter hominem, et brutum, nec convenientiam inter illa attingit, quod est absurdum.” 40

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cording to Mastri, is both similar and dissimilar to creatures according to one and the very same formality. So why does a coincidence of sameness and difference in creatures require the formal distinction (between the grade in which two species are similar to each other and the grade in which they differ) while in God it does not? We have just reduced the case to what seems to be Mastri’s ultimate argument for the formal distinction – viz. to the Argument from Contradiction, either explicitly or implicitly present at many places of his reasoning. To facilitate understanding, I will first sketch the general outline of the argument and then proceed to show how Mastri implements it in his texts. The gist of the argument consists in an inference that can be expressed in the following way: (x is F) & (y is not F), therefore,

there is a distinction between x and y;

or perhaps more precisely, (x is F qua R) & (x is not F qua S), therefore,

there is a distinction between the aspects R and S.

But what kind of distinction? Well, that depends on the kind of contradiction. Mastri distinguishes three possible cases:42

42 Mastrius, Met., disp. 6, q. 11, art. 1, nn. 215–16, 296b: “Advertendum est […] non posse hanc [formalem] distinctionem inferri ex quacumque contradictione absolute sumpta, quia contradictio infert distinctionem praecise cum ipsa commensuratam, non maiorem, neque minorem; si est contradictio facta per intellectum et secundum esse diversum esse rationis, infert solam distinctionem rationis, ut constat in propositione identica de Petro posito a parte subjecti, ac etiam praedicati; si est contradictio secundum esse reale, ac entitativum, ut esse, et non esse absolute sumpta, aut saltem secundum praedicata ad tale esse spectantia, ut esse productum, vel non productum, causatum, vel non causatum, infert realem, ac entitativam distinctionem inter extrema, de quibus verificatur; si denique est contradictio secundum esse formale, aut praedicata ad tale esse spectantia, infert tantum formalem distinctionem, non vero realem […]. [D]istinctio virtualis non ponit actu aliquid diversum in extremis ante operationem intellectus, ergo fundare non potest veritatem actualem utriusque partis actualis contradictionis, sed poterit tantum fundare, quando accedente opere intellectus advenit distinctio actualis inter extrema actu multiplicata per intellectum.” Cf. also Met., disp. 6, q. 12, n. 242, 306b: “[Q]ualis est contradictio, talem etiam distinctionem ex ipsa inferimus; si est contradictio rationis, solam infert quoque rationis distinctionem, si est contradictio realis, et actu a parte rei verificata, infert pariter distinctionem ex natura rei actualem, et non tantum virtualem inter extrema de quibus verificatur.” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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– The contradiction is entitative, (i. e., concerning matters of existence, production, etc.) – then the distinction implied is a real distinction; – The contradiction is formal and actual (i. e., concerning formal predicates) – then the implied distinction is a formal distinction; – The distinction is mind-dependent (i. e., only arises in dependence on an act of the intellect) – then the implied distinction is a distinction of (either reasoned or reasoning) reason. So why, then, must the contradiction between sameness and difference (i. e., notsameness) be resolved by means of the formal distinction on the specific or generic level, whereas on the transcendental level the mere virtual distinction is sufficient? Elsewhere, Mastri provides an answer: because God and creature are both the same and different in one and the same respect, but not in the same way: for their difference is actual whereas their sameness is virtual and dispositional – and this is not a contradiction.43

In other words: a man is both actually similar and actually dissimilar to a horse; therefore, there must be an actual distinction in reality between the aspect of the man’s essence according to which he is similar to a horse and the aspect of the man’s essence according to which he is dissimilar to it. On the other hand, only God’s dissimilarity to a creature exists actually a parte rei, whereas his similarity is not actual but merely “virtual” or “dispositional” (aptitudinalis) – that is, there is a disposition or aptitude a parte rei to be conceived as similar in terms of the inadequate concept of being, but prior to the abstraction of this concept there is no actual similarity.44 Mastrius, Met., disp. 2, q. 3, art. 1. n. 87, 49b: “Deus, et creatura secundum idem a parte rei conveniunt et differunt, sed non eodem modo, nam differunt actualiter, conveniunt virtualiter, et aptitudinaliter, quod non contradicit […].” 44 This, however, is not to say that the similarity is not real or a parte rei! According to Mastri, the “virtual” or “inchoative” similarity between God and creatures is out there a parte rei and ante opus intellectus, as irrespective of any work of any intellect both God and a creature are capable of causing a concept common to both (note again the causal language!). There is a dialectic: qua in the thing, the similarity is real but merely virtual or fundamental, qua actualized it is no longer real but merely “of reason.” Cf. Mastrius, Met., disp. 2, q. 3, art. 1, nn. 86–87, 49b: “Circumscripto omni intellectu Deus, et creatura habent aliquam convenientiam, quia plus conveniunt, quam ens, et nihil; ergo illa convenientia est realis, et consequenter fundamentum istius convenientiae debet esse reale, nempe realis unitas alicuius naturae communis, quae conceptui entis correspondeat. […] Deus et Creatura ob infinitam eorum distantiam sunt primo diversa in realitate, adhuc tamen conveniunt in conceptu entis, et verum est unitatem huius conceptus habere fundamentum reale, nempe realem convenientiam Dei, et creaturae in ratione essendi; sed hic maxime advertendum […] similitudinem hanc realem […] ante abstractionem conceptus entis non esse actualem, et positivam […], sed adest tantum convenientia fundamentalis, et aptitudinalis […] et talis convenientia fundamentalis est,

43

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As already Scotus claimed, God and creatures are primo diversa in realitate (despite not being so in conceptu) – although it is questionable whether he meant the same thing, or derived from that assertion the same implications, as Mastri.45 And for that reason, the contradiction of God’s being at the same time and in the same respect (that is, according to one and the same formality) both like and unlike the creatures is a mere “contradiction of reason” – it only arises due to the way we conceive God, it is not an actual contradiction in reality. It might seem that Mastri’s notion of a mere “virtual and dispositional sameness/similarity” is an ad hoc construction, designed only to reconcile God’s simplicity with the univocity of being. But it is not so. It is Mastri’s explicit and systematic conviction that univocal concepts can be abstracted even from irreducibly diverse realities that have nothing in common: There are two possible grounds that may allow a thing to be grasped in a confused and indistinct way according to some common feature. [i] Either that it has some reality ex natura rei in common with another thing. On that account, whenever that reality is adequately and distinctly conceived, at once anything that contains it and is therefore subordinate to it will be said to be conceived in a confused and indistinct way. This is how things are said to be conceived confusedly and indistinctly when they are grasped according to their common categorial features. […] [ii] Another way a thing may be said to be conceived confusedly and indistinctly is when it is conceived inadequately owing to a certain affinity or as if an inchoative similarity which it has to another thing. This is how things are said to be conceived when they are grasped according to transcendental features: for such concepts are grounded not in one common nature existing in reality on the part of both God and creatures but in a certain virtual and inchoative similarity between them.46

quod quodlibet istorum natum est causare conceptum communem ambobus, quoad rationem essendi apud intellectum inadaequate concipientem […].” 45 Duns Scotus, Ord. I, dist. 8, p. 1, q. 3, n. 82 (ed. Vat. IV), 190. In Scotus, ‘reality’ here means the same as ‘formality’; and as it is made clear later (ibid., nn. 138–42, ed. Vat. IV, 222– 24), the “irreducible diversity in realitate” refers not simply to a diversity according to what is really there, but to the realitates of God and creatures qua including their respective intrinsic modes (of finiteness and infiniteness). It is doubtful that Scotus wants to imply that the distinction between a reality and its intrinsic mode is not actual a parte rei. He actually seems to assert the opposite; cf. note 36 above. 46 Mastrius, Met., disp. 2, q. 3, art. 1. n. 82, 48a: “[R]es […] aliqua potest intelligi confuse, et indistincte in signo quodam communi ex duplici capite: vel quia realitatem quandam ex natura rei communem cum alia habet, unde cum illa adaequate, et distincte concipitur, statim inferiora illam includentia dicuntur concipi confuse, et indistincte; et in hoc sensu res concipi dicuntur confuse, et indistincte, quando attinguntur secundum gradus communes praedicamentales […]. Alio modo dici potest res aliqua concipi confuse, et indistincte, quia inadaequate concipitur ob aliquam convenientiam, et veluti inchoatam similitudinem, quam habet cum alia re, et in hoc sensu concipi dicuntur, quando attinguntur per gradus transcendentales, quia https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

Making Room for the Virtual Distinction

And the case of God and creatures is not the only instance of this – another one, explicitly noted by Mastri and quite ubiquitous, is agreement between irreducibly simple finite formalities. Irreducibly simple ultimate generic and specific differentiae are similar in their function of differentiating; individual differentiae agree in differentiating individually – and yet they do not and cannot have – on pain of infinite regress – any a parte rei distinct formality in common.47 Mastri’s theory of a mere “virtual,” “inchoative,” or “dispositional” similarity can explain this puzzle in the Scotist theory of common concepts – but not without a price. The price is, of course, the ever-recurring problem that once the requirements on a necessary ground for the abstraction of common concepts are lowered in certain cases, their vindication in the other cases becomes problematic. The argument that there must be instances of a merely “inchoative” or “virtual” similarity is convincing enough – especially considering the case of the ultimate differentiae. But how do we know that it is not the case that all instances of similarity are merely “virtual” or “inchoative”? There is perhaps a certain persuasiveness to the argument that the similarity of creatures to one another must be of a substantially stronger sort than that between God and creatures (but could not even that be explained merely by God’s infinity?). But ultimate differentiae are not infinitely distant from one another, so what justifies the claim that, say, an angel and a lump of quartz are substantially more similar than, e. g., the irreducibly diverse ultimate differentiae rational and sensitive? Unfortunately, Mastri never develops his suggestion that the notion of “virtual similarity” might be applicable to ultimate differentiae or its implications for the general discussion regarding the justification of the formal distinction. He focuses on the case of God and creatures and the difference between “transcendental” and “categorial” similarity – but even on this perspective there always is the same worry lurking: if the formal distinction is not needed on the transcendental level, why do we need it on the categorial level? One of Mastri’s opponents who voices precisely this concern is his Irish nemesis John Punch, who maintains the universal necessity of the formal distinction as a ground of abstraction, even with respect to the concept of being: I know that the Thomists try to solve this and similar arguments that the Scotists employ to demonstrate the formal distinction between metaphysical grades by means of their “virtual” or “fundamental” distinction – and this is perhaps how Mastri will respond, isti non fundantur in una natura communi reperta a parte rei in Deo et creatura, sed super quandam virtualem, et inchoatam similitudinem, quae reperitur inter ipsa […].” 47 Mastrius, Met., disp. 2, q. 3, art. 1. n. 88, 49b–50a: “Sed sane non video, cur etiam ultimae differentiae dici nequeant similes saltem fundamentaliter in ratione faciendi differre, cum omnes eodem modo differe faciant scilicet ultimo, et ideo probabile censemus etiam ab ipsis inadaequate conceptis abstrahi posse, si non conceptum entis, quia ipsum non includunt, saltem conceptum ultimae differentiae, et haecceitatis […].” https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4767-6 .

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too. But if such a response were valid here, it will be valid everywhere and we won’t be able to demonstrate the formal distinction anywhere.48

Mastri defends himself, trying to vindicate the disparity between the categorial and the transcendental level – and this indeed is his ultimate response: You will object that this solution [viz. that even primo diversa can agree in a concept] completely demolishes Scotus’s principal grounds for admitting common natures a parte rei: […]. For [Scotus’s argument] is founded precisely in the contradiction that a man a parte rei both agrees with a donkey and a horse (in being an animal) and differs from them (in being rational). This is why these must be formalities distinct ex natura rei, because simultaneous sameness and difference of two things in altogether one and the same respect cannot occur.49 I respond by rejecting the validity of the inference. For Scotus is speaking of a real, actual, and positive similarity in his argument, which is the one that occurs between individuals of the same species and between a man and a horse in their being sentient. Such, however, is not the similarity occurring between God and creature in the ratio of being, because it is merely virtual and fundamental, as has been said.50 You will say: why is the similarity between God and creature in being not actual and positive while the one between a horse and a man in being sentient is? […] This is obviously an ad hoc response. I respond that the response is not ad hoc but well founded. For species and individuals are not irreducibly diverse but “somewhat the same,” i. e., agreeing in some reality, and therefore they ground a positive similarity to one another. God and creature, on the other hand, are irreducibly diverse in reality, as everyone concedes, and therefore cannot ground a real, actual, and positive similarity, but merely a virtual and fundamental one, thanks to which both can cause the common concept of being in an inadequately conceiving intellect. Besides, there is no doubt that God and creature are incommensurably more distant than two species, or two individuals of the same species; and so there is no

Joannes Poncius, Philosophiae ad mentem Scoti cursus integer, Met., disp. 2, q. 2, add., 885a–b: “Scio Thomistas conari solvere haec et similia argumenta, quae adducunt Scotistae ad probandam distinctionem formalem graduum Metaphysicorum, mediante sua distinctione virtuali aut fundamentali, aut rationis ratiocinatae; et sic etiam fortassis respondebit Mastrius. At si hic valeat illa responsio ubique valebit, et sic nullibi poterimus probare distinctionem formalem.” 49 Mastrius, Met., disp. 2, q. 4, art. 1. n. 88, 49b: “Sed dices per hanc solutionem penitus enervari principale fundamentum, quo Scotus admittit naturas communes a parte rei […] nam praecipue fundatur in hac contradictione, quod homo a parte rei convenit cum asino, et equo, ut animal est, differt ab ipsis, ut rationalis est, ergo istae sunt diversae formalitates ex natura rei, quia secundum eandem penitus rationem convenientia, et dissimilitudo inter aliqua duo contingere non potest.” 50 Ibid.: “Respondeo negando consequentiam, quia in ea ratione Doctor loquitur de similitudine reali, actuali et positiva, qualis est illa quae versatur inter individua eiusdem speciei, et inter hominem, et equum in ratione sentiendi, talis autem non est similitudo, quae inter Deum, et creaturam invenitur in ratione entis, quia […] est virtualis tantum, et fundamentalis.” 48

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Making Room for the Virtual Distinction

wonder that there can be a positive actual similarity in the latter case while in the former case there cannot […].51

It indeed seems that Mastri’s ultimate justification of the formal distinction is that created things are much more similar to each other than they are to God, and therefore there must be common natures separated from the differentiating differentiae ex natura rei. But this is a very vague argument, incomparably less clear than Scotus’s argument from the possibility of abstraction: for no one beside the Scotists has a problem in explaining how God is so much more different from creatures than the creatures from one another, even though they are all “irreducibly diverse,” according to the Scotist standards, because there are no formal distinctions and therefore no ex natura rei common natures. Punch, to be sure, is not convinced either: This response, however, strikes me as merely formal, without any probability of its actual content. Therefore, I say that if God and creature were so irreducibly diverse that they had no actual similarity to each other but a virtual one,52 so that the formality in which they agreed would not be a parte rei distinct from that in which they differ, the very same should be said of created species and individuals in comparison to one another. And to assert otherwise would be to beg the question, because no argument could be given that would demonstrate that similarity and distinction in them. And, conversely, if a positive similarity and an agreement in reality can be demonstrated, e. g., between a man and a brute, it will be possible to demonstrate the same kind of similarity between God and a creature in the ratio of being.53

Ibid.: “Dices, quare similitudo inter Deum, et creaturam in ratione essendi non est actualis, et positiva, bene tamen inter equum, et hominem in ratione sentiendi […]; plane hoc prorsus videtur voluntarie dictum. Respondeo non esse voluntarie dictum, sed satis rationabiliter, quia nimirum species, et individua non sunt primo diversa, sed aliquid idem entia, id est in aliquo realiter convenientia, et ideo fundant similitudinem positivam ad invicem; at Deus, et creatura sunt inter se primo diversa in realitate, ut apud omnes est in concesso, et ideo fundare nequeunt realem actualem, et positivam similitudinem, sed tantum virtualem, et fundamentalem, ratione cuius ambo causare possunt conceptum communem entis apud intellectum inadaequate concipientem; Tum quia nulli dubium est magis distare sine ulla proportione Deum, et creaturam abinvicem, quam duas species, vel duo individua sub eadem specie, et ideo mirum non est, si haec aliquam actualem positivam similitudinem fundare possunt, non illa […].” 52 Punch rejects that – according to him, God and creatures agree in the formally distinct ratio entis. 53 Poncius, Philosophiae ad mentem Scoti cursus integer, Met., disp. 2, q. 2, add., 888a: “Sed haec responsio mihi videtur esse mere formalis, sine ulla probabilitate in re ipsa. Unde dico si Deus et creatura sint ita primo diversa ut non habeant similitudinem actualem, sed virtualem et propterea formalitas in qua conveniunt non distinguatur a parte rei ab illa qua disconveniunt, idem omnino dicendum de speciebus, et individuis creatis inter se comparatis, et gratis asseri oppositum, cum nulla possit dari ratio ob quam similitudo, aut distinctio in ea probari 51

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The plight of the Mastrian position is salient also in another Scotist’s work, that of Crescentius Krisper (1679/1680–1749),54 a late Scotist who only rarely departs from Mastri (he even provides a list of these exceptional departures in his Philosophia scholae Scotisticae55 ). In the matter of distinctions, Krisper wholeheartedly subscribes to Mastrianism and defends the doctrine of merely virtual distinctions on the transcendental level. Nevertheless, when pressed by arguments like those discussed above – such as the following: You will object: There is no reason to multiply the formalities, for everything can be explained by means of a single real ratio and a plurality of merely objectively distinct rationes, inadequately conceived by the intellect in a thing; consequently, everything can be achieved by means of [merely] intentional logical abstractions.56

– Krisper gives the following reply: Against that: I reject the premise, […] because a created essence requires not only a composition of accidents and modes, but also an intrinsic and essential one, since it cannot possibly equal the simplicity of God […].57

What has happened here? Obviously, Krisper simply reduced the Argument from Contradiction to yet