Subjectivity and knowledge in the philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas

Citation preview

Analecta

Gregoriana

Cura Pontificlae Unlversltatis Gregorianae edita

Vol. 148. Series Facultatis Philosophicae: sectio B, n. 14

Mariasusai DHAV AMONY S.

J.

SUBJECTIVITY AND KNOWLED6E IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS

GREGORIAN UNIVERSITY PRESS PIAZZA DELLA PILOTTA, 4 - ROMA

1965

' I

IMPRIMI POTEST

Romae, die 15 lunii 1965. R. P. EDUARDUS DHANIS, S. I. Rector Universitatis

IMPRIMATUR

E Vicariatu Urbis, die 18 Iunii l 965� )!4 ALOYSIUS

Card. Vicarius

TYPIS PONTIFICIAE UNIVERSITATIS GREGORIANAE - ROMAE

PREFACE The problem as to what is the nature and importance of the role of the knowing subject in objective knowledge accord­ ing to St Thomas Aquinas has occupied my mind since long. I was therefore very glad to have the permission of the faculty of Philosophy of the Gregorian University of Rome to offer to it in the form of a doctoral dissertation the results of my study of the subject and my reflections on it. It is my pleasant duty to thank Rev. Father Joseph de Finance whose direction has been of the greatest help to me, especially on account of his unrivalled knowledge of the Philo­ sophy of St Thomas Aquinas. It is thanks to his guidance and encouragement that this humble attempt has seen the light of day. I have to thank also Rev. Fr Francis O'Farrell for his valuable criticism and Rev. Fr Emile Gathier for the kindness which he has shown me in placing at my disposal books and manuscripts from the Library of the Gregorian University and in giving me advice whenever it was needed. MARIASUSAI DHAVAMONY

Sacred Heart College Shembaganur, India Feast of St Thomas Aquinas, 1963.

S. J.

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/subjectivityknow0148dhav

CONTENTS PREFACE

PAGE

.

INTRODUCTION 1) The mediaeval context 2) The problem of subjectivity and intellectual knowledge 3) The plan of the dissertation CHAPTER ONE: THE PRINCIPLE OF METAPHYSICAL CONTINUITY . 1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

Aquinas and the Pseudo-Dionysius The principle of metaphysical continuity in its historical setting Hierarchical continuity in the explicit texts of Aquinas . Hierarchical structure of the Thomist Universe . Systematic presentation of the doctrine of metaphysical continuity

V 3 3 4 5

9 9 11 15 20 24

CHAPTER Two: ONTOLOGICAL SUBJECTIVITY 1) The logical subject . 2) The ontological subject 3) The subsistent as subject 4) The human subsistent 5) The formal concept of personality 6) The spiritual nature of the subject 7) The human subject as spirit in matter

28 28 29 32 34 38 44 49

CHAPTER THREE: PSYCHOLOGICAL SUBJECTIVITY 1) The act of existing and the act of knowing . 2) The Thomist notion of object and of objectivity 3) The habitual knowledge of the soul by itself . 4) The concomitant consciousness of the subject as subject 5) The reflexive consciousness of the subject as subject

54 54 62 67 74 77

CHAPTER FOUR: OPEN SUBJECTIVITY 1) Openness of the human intellect 2) Openness of the intellect in the act of knowing . 3) The metaphysical essence of knowledge . 4) Knowledge of the self and knowledge of the other 5) Speculative value of subjective reflection ..

87

.

87 92 94 101 104

VIII

CONTENTS PAGE

CHAPTER FIVE: CONSTITUENT SUBJECTIVITY

1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

Spontaneous and active character of the intellect The agent intellect as intellectual light The intellect: the faculty of the act of existing The agent intellect and the object of knowledge . The intellect as a faculty of subjectivity . CONTINGENT SUBJECTIVITY . Knowledge as an activity of the human existent The formality of conceptual knowledge Intellectual dispositions Moral dispositions . Knowledge by connaturality

CHAPTER SIX:

1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY

SUBJECT INDEX INDEX OF AUTHORS INDEX OF AQUINAS' TEXTS

110 111 112 117 125 128

134 134 138 143 144 147 150 155 159

165

167

SUBJECTIVITY AND KNOWLEDGE IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF ST THOMAS AQUINAS

I

INTRODUCTION 1. - The Mediaeval Context.

The philosophers of the Middle Ages were profoundly in­ terested in the metaphysical explanation of reality. None of them questioned the validity of human knowledge; they took for granted the intellect's capacity to arrive at truth and to construct valid sciences. Problems raised by the mediaevals concerning human knowledge were those of the Universals, of the origin of ideas, of intellect and reason, and so on. Hence, it is not surprising to find St Thomas Aquinas treating the problem of knowledge under its metaphysical aspect. Many present-day thinkers claim that even within the meta­ physical explanation of knowledge, the Scholastic speculations centred round the object and the objectivity of knowledge with­ out giving importance to the knowing subject and the spiritual riches of subjectivity. The modern age is often called the age of the discovery of subjectivity 1, of the triumph of the think­ ing subject and his interiority over the anonymous, impersonal and exterior object. Certainly, one has to recognise the im­ portance accorded to the human subject in modern philosophy since Descartes and can even profit by what is true and good in its thinking. But is it true that Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas, to mention only the most important philosophers, ignored the positive riches of the spiritual subject and neglected the vital role of the subject in knowledge? Of course, we have to take note of the difference of perspective in the speculation of the moderns and that of the mediaevals, as does Maurice Merleau-Ponty 2• For the moderns, the subject-being is the ab­ solute form of being, that is to say, the being of the spiritual subject or of the soul is the canonical form of being, in refer­ ence to which all others derive their meaning 3• Not so for MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY, La decouverte de la subjectivite, in: « Les Philosophes celebres », Paris: Editions d'art, Lucien Mazenod, 1956, p. 186. ·2 Ibid., P. 187. 3 WOLFGANG STRUVE, Die neuzeitliche Philosophie als Metaphysik der Subjektivitat, in: Symposion, Jahrbuch fiir Philosophie, Band I, 1948, s. 224 ff. 1

4

INTRODUCTION

the ancients and the mediaevals. These, it is true, did not make use of the same philosophical terminology nor did they ask the same questions as the modems. But, given their own field of enquiry, the mediaeval thinkers did touch on the nerve-centre of the spiritual subject and had great insight into his nature and activity. In fact, the study of the soul is as ancient as Plato and Aristotle. One has only to take a look at the title, De Anima, of numerous treatises that honour the twelfth and the thirteenth century. We propose to study the problem of the spiritual subject in his relation to knowledge in the writings of the greatest of the mediaeval philosophers, St Thomas Aquinas. One of the characteristics of a great philosopher is that his doctrine exceeds his own time, and, if true, is valid for all times and carries in itself ' rationes seminales ' of new ideas that can meet the challenge of new times. Aquinas is certainly one such philosopher and many of his principles do have lasting value and could be evolved to the profit of the modern thought. 2. - The Problem of Subjectivity in Knowledge. The angelic doctor considers human knowledge as recep­ tive and acquisitive since he denies innate knowledge to man and proves instead that knowledge comes from outside ob­ jects 4• But, knowledge is not essentially a reception; in its formal notion it is activity; passivity enters only as a mark of imperfection in knowledge. Therefore, if we look for a meta­ physical explanation of knowledge in the line of activity itself, we come across the stringent principle : agere sequitur esse; unumquodque agens secundum hoc agit quod est actu 5• Ac­ tivity follows the act of existing; it means not only that a being in order to act, ought first to exist; not only that ac­ tivity and effect are proportionate to the agent; not only that the actuality of a being measures and manifests its activity; but more deeply, it means that there is a certain exigence of activity deriving from the act of existing. A being does not merely sustain activity but evolves itself in activity. It is the whole being, not only the operative potency, that acts. Now, applying this to knowledge, we have to say that, besides the 4 5

I, 84, 3. C. G. II, 6 and 7; I, 25, I.

INTRODUCTION

5

fact that the kind of knowledge is determined by the kind of existing subject, intellectual knowledge is required for a spir­ itual subsistent reality. Intellectual activity appears as the ex­ pression of the interior resources of a spiritual subject, or what comes to the same, the spiritual subject evolves himself in his intellectual activity to achieve his perfection. Perfectio autem spiritualis naturae in cognitione veritatis cansistit 6• At this point, we have to consider Aquinas' important statements on knowledge in order to give proper orientation to our theme of subjectivity and knowledge. Namely, Scitum est in sciente

secundum modum scientis 7; cognitum est in cognoscente se� cwulum modum cagnascentis; cognitio fit per hoc quad cogni­ tum est in cognoscente, unde ea ratione s.e extendit ejus intel­ lectus in id quad est extra se secundum quad illud quod extra ipsum est per essentiam natum est aliquo m:oda in ea esse 8• Cujuslibet cagnoscentis cognitia est secundum modum suae na­ turae 9• Quod maveri ab abjecto non est de ratione cognoscen­ tis in quantum est cagnascens sed in quantum est potentia ca­ gnoscens 10•

From these Thomist 11 texts arises a problem. In what way does the known object depend on the knowing subject? Can it be said that the more perfect knowledge is, the more it comes from within the knowing subject himself and vice versa? Does not the very rich and beautiful eleventh chapter of the fourth book of the Summa Contra Gentiles suggest the primacy of subjectivity or interiority in knowledge over dependance on exterior object? Assuredly, there seems to be some foundation for saying that the more subjective knowledge is, the more perfect it is. But then, the question arises as to the correct way in which the knowing subject and subjectivity have to be conceived. What is Aquinas' notion of true subjectivity? 3. - The Plan of this Dissertation. Having outlined the problem of our inquiry, we now set forth the plan of this dissertation, as follows. The first chapter u De Ver. 15, I. 1 I, 14, I, 3m.

8

9

I, 52, 2.

I, 12, 4. 1-0 I, 56, I. 11 By the term « Thomist » we understand what pertains to St Thomas Aquinas himself.

6

I NTRODUCTION

deals with the principle of metaphysical continuity : natura in­ ferior secundum supremum sui attingit infimum naturae supe­ rioris, because it is in the light of this principle that Aquinas solves the problem of the constitution of the human subj ect and of his intellectual activity 1 2 • Then comes the ambiguous term . subj ectivity. We under­ stand by subj ectivity, in the first place, that which pertains to the existing spiritual subj ect . A concrete subsistent being endowed with spiritual nature is what is meant by subj ect ; and subj ectivity is that which belongs to this subj ect, that is to say, his subsistence or immanence or interiority. Such a property of the subj ect , which is the very condition of know­ ledge can be termed ontological subj ectivity ; our second chapter centres round the notion of this ontological subj ectivity. Ontological subj ectivity manifests itself in activity and above all, in cognitional activity. The subj ectivity involved in the conscious activity can take the name of psychological subj ec­ tivity. The third chapter studies the psychological subj ect at various levels of consciousness. This psychological subj ectivity can be viewed as closed in itself, in which case the subj ect refers everything to himself ; values everything according to his own measure so that the supreme value of being is had only with reference to the subj ect . This idea of subj ectivity may be manifested in knowledge in various ways : knowledge depending only on particular disposi­ tions of the knower ; knowledge measured entirely by the in­ dividual subj ect's own norm , irrespective of universal norms . But in truth, in accordance with the nature of ontological sub­ jectivity which is open to all beings and has relation to all beings , psychological subj ectivity ought to be considered as open to other b eings. A true spiritual subj ect, if he is faith­ ful to his nature and exigence, has to be open to all beings . Such a subj ect, though he possesses his own legitimate indivi­ duality and value, is mindful of other subj ect ' s claims to indi­ viduality and proper values as well . Only an open subj ect can attain an obj ect as it is in itself, since he does so under the aspect of the act of existing. Such a subj ectivity and such alone will guarantee true obj ective knowledge . Only by such a subj ect is the obj ect recognised as obj ect , existing in itself, having its values of intelligibility and desirability. In short, this kind of subj ectivity is truely obj ective ; i . e . , the open spir1 '2

I Sen t . 3, 4, Im ; De Ver . 1 4, I, 9m ; 15, I ; 16, I ; I, 78, 2.

INTRODUCTI ON

7

itual subject needs the mediation of other subjects, as well as material beings, not only to know them truly but even to know himself and to perfect himself in every line, intellectual, moral and religious. The fourth chapter treats precisely of open sub­ jectivity in opposition to closed subjectivity. Open subjectivity can further be distinguished as constituent and contingent subjectivity inasfar as the dispositions of the knowing subject that influence knowledge pertain to the very nature of the knower as knower or are only contingently found in the knower. Accordingly, the fifth chapter concerns constitu­ ent subjectivity and the sixth, contingent subjectivity. With this preliminary analysis of the various kinds of sub­ jectivity with respect to human intellectual knowledge, we hope to avoid confusion and to proceed methodically and securely in our study of St Thomas Aquinas.

CHAPTER ONE THE PRINCIPLE OF METAPHYSICAL CONTINUITY

An attentive study of Aquinas' writings on human know­ ledge shows that he very often has recourse to the principle of metaphysical continuity to explain the constitution of the knowing subject and of his intellectual activity. In fact, this principle forms his key-solution to the problem of human in­ telligence, namely, that man's faculty of knowing, in spite of being finite, is nonetheless intelligence, i. e., able to attain the absolute truth; and conversely, that in spite of being intelli­ gence, it still depends on outside sensible things for its objects ; and, what is more, even to understand the objects already ac­ quired, it needs a conversion to the phantasm. It is even said that this principle comes to strengthen the characteristic points of Thomism, and that it is the last word on its many crucial problems. Our study on knowledge and subjectivity is based on this important principle and therefore at the outset we devote a whole chapter on its origin, development and signification. 1 . - Aquinas and the Pseudo-Dionysius. Aquinas found the principle of metaphysical continuity in the profound speculations of the Pseudo-Dionysius. Many ex­ cellent studies on Medieval philosophy during the past thirty years or so have pointed out forcibly the great influence of the Latin translations of the Pseudo-Dionysius' writings on the philosophical and theological movement of the Middle Ages 1 • Dionysius, it appears, had a role equal to that of Aristotle to play on the genesis, development and dimensions of Aquinas' J. DE GH E L L INCK, Le mouvemen.t theologique du Xll e siecle, Bruxelles­ Paris, 1948, p. 101. cf also Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. 2, The Bellarmine Series, No. 12, 1950, p. 91. 1

10

CHAPTER

ONE

own philosophy 2 • Dionysius in the Middle Ages rapidly acquired an authority second only to that of Augustine 3 • Indeed, Diony­ sius' writings were in the University of Paris at that period the official text-book of teaching, the source of christian specula­ tion and inspiration 4 • Next, of much greater historical impor­ tance is the ' Liber de causis ', which passed in the twelfth cen­ tury for the work of Aristotle, but is in fact, as Aquinas him­ self recognised, a translation of an Arab's work of the ninth century, based on Proclus' s-ro izd 0)cri� ,fJ-s,/A0y�x·r; . Neoplatonism, finally, penetrated the West through Proclus' above-mentioned work, when in 1 268 the Flemish Dominican, William of Mor­ becca or Moerbeke, friend of Aquinas, produced a Latin version of it 5 • This translation was used by Aquinas in his last years. He quotes the book by name more than once in the De Sub­ stantiis separatis. A close study of Aquinas' writings reveals that the Diony­ sian thought is continually present in the mind of Aquinas at least in some implicit way. A subtle Neoplatonic vein runs across his fundamentally Aristotelian structure. When Aquinas comments on Dionysius, as on Aristotle, he tries to harmonise the Dionysian doctrine with his own synthesis. But this in­ tegration is far from being superficial. He places himself in the tradition of Maximus the Confessor who rendered the Areo­ pagi te intelligible to the Occidental World. Maximus, an Aris­ totelian by technique, and spiritually a Dionysian, was and is still the saviour of all commentators on Dionysius 6 • The com­ mentary on the Divine Names of Dionysius represents in the scientific activity of Aquinas an important step by its significa­ tion and consequences 7 • The architectural framework of the Theology of St Thomas remains Neoplatonic and Dionysian �. � M .-D. CHENU, Introduction a l'E tude de Saint Thomas d'Aquin, Pu­ blications de l'Institut d'Etudes medievales, XI, Montreal-Paris, 1 954, p. 1 93. Aquinas often cites Dionysius. In fact, there are more than 1700 explicit citations from Dionysius, besides innumerable passages where there is an implicit reference to the Dionysian doctrine. See also DURANTEL, Saint Thomas et le Pseudo-Denis, Paris, 19 1 9. 3 E. R. DODDS, Proclus. The Elements of Theology, Oxford, 1 933, p. xxvii. 4 M. D. CHENU, op. cit., p. 1 93. r, E. R. DODDS , op. cit., p. xxxi. c M.-D. CHENU, op. cit., p. 1 95. 7 Ibid. p. 193. '8 In I Sent., 2, Divisio textus : consideratio hujus doctrinae (Theolo­ giae ) erit de rebus, secundum quod exeunt a Deo ut a principio, et se�

THE PRINCI P L E OF META P HYSICA L CONTINUITY

11

Aquinas after discussing what Aristotle and Plato had to say on the origin and nature of spiritual substances undertakes to explore what Christianity had to say on these problems and for this he relies more on the Pseudo-Dionysius than on anyone else 9 • 2 . - The Principle of continuity zn its historical setting. Having briefly outlined the Dionysian influence on the me­ dievals and on Aquinas, let us go straight to consider the prin­ ciple of metaphysical continuity as found in Aquinas' commen­ tary on De divinis nominibus, ch 7, I. 4, n. 733. « . . . semper fines primorum, id est, infima supr.emorum, conjungit principiis se­ cundorum , id est, supremis inferiorum ». A historical survey of this principle will help us to understand better the meaning Dionysius and Aquinas gave to it respectively. The origin of this principle is ascribed to the Pythogorians rn . They discussed the problem of quantitative and mathematical continuity, (the continuous, uuvszsc; means hanging together) and discovered the. concept of the Mean. For example, 8 and 9 are related to the extremes 6 and 1 2 as means. 9 exceeds and is exceeded by the same number 3. This is called the arithmetical mean. ( &? �&µ·:;-:-�z·'l µscr6rr;c;). On the other hand, 8 exceeds and is ex12 ceeded by the same fraction of the extremes, for 8 == 12 - - - == 3 6 6 + . This is called the harmonic mean (&.pµov �x:� µscr6-rYJc;).

3

This discovery of the Mean suggested a new solution to the old Milesian problem of Opposites, namely, a blend (xpiimc;) of the opposites which might be numerically determined. The Greek phi losophers profiting by this discovery attempted to explain the harmony of the concordant intervals, which seemed cundum quod referuntur in ipsum ut in finem ». One may object to this evidence on the ground that Aquinas was certainly more under th e in­ fluence of Neoplatonism in the book on the Sentences than in his later ·works. Let him consult the Prologue to I-II., « ... de his quae processerunt ex divina potestate secundum ejus voluntatem ... », and specially the very plan of the Summa Theol.ogiae. De Substant. separatis, ch. 1 7, Marietti edition, p. 144 : Ad quod osten­ dendum utemur precipue Dionysii documentis, qui super alios ea quae ad spirituales substantias pertinent excellentius tradidit ». 10 PROC LUS, Theologia Platonica, VI, II. 345, as cited by E. R. DODDS, op. cit., p. 216. !)

12

CHAPTER ONE

to express the law of the Universe. Indeed, the central doc­ trine of all Greek philosophy is dominated from now on by the idea of Clpµo\lloc or « the tuning of a string » 1 1 • Aristotle speaks only of physical continuity in the material world 1 2 • But it belongs to the Neoplatonists to bring out the metaphysical import of the principle of continuity. These had depicted the world as proceeding by stages from the One as the result of a necessary self-diffusion of the divine Goodness. The principle of continuity governs this procession of the Universe. As there is no void in the physical Universe, so there is none in the spiritual Universe. But the spiritual beings are separated not by spatial but by immaterial intervals of a procession 1 3 • Spir­ itual continuity means that the immaterial interval between any term of procession and its immediate consequent is the mini­ mum difference compatible with distinctness. There are thus no gaps in the divine devolution. This principle had already been stated by Plotinus, 14 but it received a more precise and clear-cut formulation from Proclus who conceived it as the law that governs the procession of the universe. This law provides j ustification for the Jamblicho-Procline method of mean terms, i. e., that two doubly disj unct terms A B and not-A and not-B cannot be continuous but must be linked by an immediate term, either A not-B or B not-A, which forms a triad with them 1 5 • Jamblichus had already thought out the principle, « all things are in all things, but in each according to its proper nature » 1 6 • Dionysius the Areopagite, attempting a synthesis between Neoplatonism and Christianity proposed his own vision of the Universe. God, transcendent and unique, is the universal cause of all things. He is the principle (&pz� ), causing the procession of creatures (1tp6000�) and is the final cause (-rsAo�) drawing all to him by conversion ( brnnpocp� ) 1 7 • In the process of emana­ tion there is a successive gradation of the Good realised in Greek Philosophy, Part I, London 1 928, p. 48 and 56. Phys. VIII, 2, 252 b 26. d ycxp ev µtxpcj) x6crµep y(ve:Tcx.t, xcxt bJ µe:yti)..ep . xal, d Ev -r x6crµep, x&v T(:) &1te:lpep, e:foe:p e:votxe:Tm. x.tve:cr&cx.t -ro lfoe:tpov xcx.l. l)pe:1.Le:i'v o).ov . The Aristotelian theme of microcosm is engaged in a physics and in a naturalist anthropology. 1 � Enn. VI . IX. 8 ( I I . 5 1 9. 30). 1 1 Enn. I I . IX. 3 ( I . 1 87 . 14) . 1 " Cf E. R. Dooos, op. cit., p. xxii. 1 1 ; Ibid. 1 7 &� &px·� xal m:pm; 1tcx.v-r{t)v. De Divinis Nominibus, ch . IV, I. 23 , n. 256, Marietti edition, In lib. beati Dionysii de Div. Nom. expositio, Romae 1950, p. 222 . 11

1�

J o H N BURNET,

THE PRINCIP LE OF META P HYSICAL CONTINUITY

13

being, life and intelligence. The scale of emanation consists in three groups, angels ( v6s� ) men ( 41uzcd) and the sensible world. Every procession is a differentiation starting from the primitive unity 1 8 • Dionysius follows Proclus in holding that the prior principle does not become less through the process of emanation 1 9 • However, there seems to be an inclination in Dionysius to conceive creation as if it were a natural and even a spontaneous process, even though God is distinct from crea­ tures 2 0 • The Dionysian universe is all arrangement and accord in multiplicity ( ◊ttXx6crµYJcn� , suxoaµltX, su"C'tX�[a). Its structure is one of essential hierarchy. Everything is order and is accomplished Between beings there are links connecting in order (--ra�ic;) . one to the other. « The divine Peace unites all things; by middle terms, it links the extremes and joins them in a unique friendship which renders their natures similar » 2 1 • In the hier­ archical universe differences of various ranks are not suppressed. The divine wisdom establishes harmony between these different ranks by creating an order which consists in connecting ex­ tremes by middle terms. The triadic stn1cture of Dionysius' order is a heritage of Neoplatonism. The dynamic scheme, µov·� , np6oooc;, z.mcr-rpocp� in which Plotinus sees the essence of all reality is progressively multiplied into a hierarchy of triads rigorousely subordinated with one another and whose relations are submitted to strict laws. In each of them communication is made directly from one to another if these ranks are con­ tiguous, by the middle terms if they are extreme ranks. It is by its extreme terms that each triad enters into relation with the triad that precedes it or with that which follows it. For Proclus, whenever there are two natures, it is necessary that in the inferior nature there be something similar to the superior. The originality of Dionysius perhaps consists in this that this something similar will certainly be a participation by the in­ ferior nature in the essential perfection of the superior nature. Moreover, Proclus is rather silent about finality and order be­ tween the parts of the whole. But for Dionysius the lower being is ordained and subordinated to the higher being. Finally, while for Proclus, at the head of the intelligible world there is the unparticipated vou� , the unparticipated Zw� 1 s D e Divin. Nom., ch. II, 1. 2, n. 48-53, Marie tti edition, p. 44 and 50. FREDERICK Co P LESTON, op. cit., p. 97.

19 20

21

Ib id.

D e Divin. Na m .,

ch. XI, I. 2, n. 41 1, Marie tti edition, p. 334.

14

CHA PTER ONE

and the unparticipated a v 2 2 , Dionysius unites all these in God, who is the cause of all perfections, in whom these perfections are found in substantial unity 2 3 • With this general outline of the Dionysian conception of the universe, let us come to the particular p rinciple under discussion. Semper finis primorum, i. e., infima supremorum, conjungit principiis secundorum, i. e., supremis inferiorum 2 4 • The context of this text shows that Dionysius is discussing how God is known by all because the divine wisdom is the effective cause of all things in as much as it produces beings which are -rcx. voYJ-r& (forms, ideas, exemplary causes) of all that participates in God. In his pursuit after the affirmative way of approaching God ( x.o:-rw:pcxnx� ) Dionysius shows how names like goodness, life, wisdom etc are applicable to God in a tran­ scendental manner and to creatures only because of their vary­ ing degrees of participation in these perfections which are found in God in substantial unity 2 5 • Now God is the Author of the order that exists in these realities in as much as they are gather­ ed among themselves and are ordained to the last end, namely, God himself. « . . . Nihil enim est ita infimum in rebus quad non aliquo divino dono participet, ex qua participatione sortitur ut habeat connaturalem amicitiam ad alias creaturas et ut ordi­ netur ad Deum, sicut ad ultimum finem » (In Div. Norn . XI, 1 . I I , 4 1 1 , comm . 9 1 0 ) . The particular way of establishing this order is such that the lowest of the superior reality is j oined to the highest of the inferior. Dionysius' own text is as follows . &d TIX -rf>:ri 't'WV 1tpo-rspwv (JUVCX.7t't'OU . ,s De Sp. Cr. I, 25m. De Ver. I , I. ,s.o Ibid. 8 1 De Sp. C r. 2 . s.� C. G. II, 30, 2-5 ... Illas enim res simpliciter et absolute necesse est esse, in quibus non est possibilitas ad non-esse. Quaedam autem res sic sunt a Deo in esse productae, ut in earum natura sit potentia ad non-esse ; quod quidem contingit ex hoc quod materia in eis est in potentia ad aliam ,n

46

CHA PTER TWO

A material being depends on other beings . Its identity with itself is essentially penetrated by non-identity with itself be­ cause it depends on a principle of non-identity, i . e . , matter. Such a being by reason of its essence, that is to say, by reason of the potency of its act of existing, is incomplete in itself, subsists in itself less perfectly than a spiritual subj ect . But on the contrary, a being whose form is not totally immersed in matter but subsists in itself, does not totally depen d on ex­ ternal things and is not dissolved at least totally. Hence we conclude that there is no opposition between the notion of subj ect or person and that of substance. Substance is not an obj ective category, applied only to things and not to spiritual subj ect as the moderns would have it. To say that a person is a substance is not at all to consider him similar to material things . A spiritual subject, because it is more perfect in the line of its subsistence , is also richer and fuller in the line of the transcendentals of being. The signification an d value of a being is derived from the act of existing. Ens sumitur ab actu es­ sendi 8 3 • A being exhibits its value only in so far as it exists . All its signification and value demand imperiously that it b e attached t o esse, defined a s a mode of esse. Now, a spiritual being, as we have seen , realises more the act of existing . And therefore its value and signification are richer. No wonder that Aquinas briefly expresses this idea by saying that the per­ son signifies what is noblest in the whole of nature . « . . . per­ sona significat id quod est perfectissimum in tota natura, sci­ licet subsistens in rationali natura » 84 • Every being is one because it is undivided in itself and distinct from all other beings. Being and one are convertib le . Something is said to be one and being from the same source . Ex eodem dicitur aliquid esse unwn et ens 8 5 • Now, something is being by the act of existing. I ts nature says how the thing is being whereas it is by the act of existing that the thing is a being (.ens dicitur ab esse) . Therefore , a being is one by the act of existing. The more perfect the act of existing of a being, formam ... Quae aute i:n j am sunt, propinqua sunt ad non-esse, per hoc quod habe t potentiam ad non-esse. Illa igitur quae sunt Deo propinquis­ sima et per hoc a non-esse remotissima, talia esse oportet, ad hoc quod si t ordo rerum completus, ut in eis non sit potentia ad non-esse s::i De Ver. I , I. 84 I, 29, 3 . '8 5 De unione Verb i Incarnati, a . 4.

ONTO LOGICA L SU BJECTIVITY

47

the greater its unity. A person on account of his intellectuality is more one in himself and more distinct from other beings than beings lacking personality. He is more one because the presence of the mind to itself through consciousness, love and liberty constitutes certainly a superior form of unity. The foun­ dation for this is the ontological simplicity of the mind, its spirituality. Even if we consider, as we ought, the whole man, he ought to be said to possess greater unity than mere material beings in as far as he has a spiritual form which also subsists in itself. A person is more distinct from others than material beings. On account of his intellectuality, man is free, is master of himself and acts by himself, unlike the other things which are acted upon. One who has dominion over his acts is not totally determined by outside influence and therefore he is more distinct from other beings than those that are totally determined by others 8 6 • Individuality does not imply limitation, opposition to other individuals, egoism and lack of spiritual values as if individual­ ity were opposed to personality 8 7 • Individuality is a pure per­ fection applicable also to God. Individuation should not be mixed up with individuality; the former results from potency, limitation and insufficiency 8 8 • It is because only individuals exist that individuality does not denote any limitation or nega­ tion but positive riches. A person is always individual. If a person is not individual, he is common. What is common does not subsist. A person cannot cease to be individual without ceasing to be (esse) . Further, personality itself implies essen­ tially individuality because subsistence which includes indivi­ duality is included in the essence of a person. To be an indi­ vidual substance is no less essential to a person than to be of an intellectual nature. A person is more individual than ma­ terial meings by reason of his intellectuality. Since it is proper to intellectual activity that the spiritual subj ect open out to the � r. I, 29, I: Sed adhuc quodam specialiori et p erfectiori modo inve­ nitur particulare et individuum in substantiis rationalibus, quae habent dominium sui actus, et non solum aguntur sicut alia sed per se ·agunt : actiones autem in singularibus sunt ... additur autem rationalis naturae, in quantum sign ificat singulare in rationalibus substantiis. s, J. MARITAIN in fact, opposes individuality to personality . Personality alone signifies intellectuality, universality, by which a person possesses value and merits veneration. See his article, La Personne et le bien conz­ mun, in: Rev. Thom., t. XLVI, 1946, p. 237-278, especially p. 245 ff. 188 I, 29, 3, 4m.

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universal and the absolute, it follows that precisely as a person becomes more individual, the more open he becomes to the total reality. Interiority, perfect possession of self and capacity for the whole reality imply each other. We cannot admit even a rational distinction between indi­ vidual and person in man on the ground that matter is the principle of individuation; that is to say, it is by virtue of the matter of a being that it exists as an individual within a given species and that the species itself is capable of infinite multi­ plication. Individuality is not a property that excludes from one's self all that other men are and cannot be described as the narrowness of the Ego, as a fragment of a species, subj ect to the determinism of the physical world. The human person is not an individual of a species in the sense that a plant or an elephant is an individual of its respec­ tive species. The nature of an infra-personal being is certainly subject to the determinism of the physical world. The nature of a human person is both determined and self-determining. The esse of the human person is spiritual and hence open to the totality of being; he is a spiritual subj ect open to the di­ mension of being itself. And so, man as an individual and particular nature is unique and more a whole than a mere part. Man is not a part of a whole as the other parts of physical nature. A part of a table does not contain in any way the whole table; but man is a part of society, containing in himself the whole society on account of his openess to the totality of being, truth and godness in the order of knowledge and love. Hence, man is a special kind of individual. « Naturae autem in­ tellectuales majorem habent affinitatem ad totum quam aliae na­ turae : nam unaquaeque intellectualis substantia est quodammo­ do omnia in quantum totius entis comprehensiva est suo intel­ lectu : quaelibet autem alia substantia particularem solam entis participationem habet. » (C. G. II, 1 1 2, 5). The intimacy of per­ sonality is constituted by relation to the universal values. In this way, we grasp better how a spiritual subj ect signifies what is noblest in the whole of nature. The intellectual nature which is the most perfect of all, since it is open to total reality, in its complete act of existing, is the most excellent of all beings. Being derives its value not only from the form which is act in the line of essence, but principally from the act of existing to which the determinations of essence owe all their value and all their reality because nothing presents itself as valuable un­ less it is or can exist. It is formally as being on account of

ONTOLOGICAL SUBJECTIVITY

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its act of existing that reality is revealed to the mind. Being is in a state of manifesting itself thanks to its act of exsting. Actualitas rei est quoddam lumen ipsius 8 9 • Actuality of all actuality is the act of existing ; thus it is by the act of existing that a being is intelligible. It is true that form as represen­ tative quiddity contributes to our conceptual knowledge and hence is also the principle of intelligibility ; but the conceptual knowledge itself derives its value of truth because of its relation to the act of existing in judgement. Truth, for Aquinas, is founded on the act of existing of things rather than on their quiddity 9 u _ Now, the act of existing of a spiritual subj ect , be­ cause of the intellectual substance in which it is received , is more noble and therefore the spiritual subj ect possesses a greater value of truth . Similarly as regards the value of the good ; for, the good expresses the correspondence of being to the appetitive power. The good is that which all desire. The more a being is, the nobler its perfection and the more can it be desired 9 1 • 7. - The human subject, Spirit in matter .. Our reasoning regarding the more perfect act of existing of the spiritual subj ect, one may obj ect, is all very well in as far as a being is purely spiritual. But man is a composite of spirit and matter. Man is not a pure subsisting form. It is the human composite that subsists. Hence we cannot apply the same norm of conceiving as we do to pure spirits . I t is very true that man has not to be considered in the same way as a mere material being, nor, on the contrary, is he to be reckoned among the pure spirits . The obj ection only forces us to eluci­ date further the act of existing of the human composite. For Plato , man is a soul, making use of the body as an instrument 92 • The union between the soul and body is only In lib . de Caus., Prop. 6, ed. Saffrey, p. 45. I Sent. 19, 5, 1, 7m: Et quia ratio veri tatis fundatur in esse, et non in quidditate, ut dictum est, ideo veritas et falsit;as proprie invenitur in secunda operatione ». 91 De Verit. I, I . n Alcibiades I, 129 e - 130 e ; i n some passages Plato seems t o give the name, man, to the whole composite. Cf. Phaedo, 17c, 92b, 95c and Timaeus, 90c. But in these he does not speak of what really constitutes a human � i.1

9· 0

4

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dynamic through physical influence 9 3 • On the contrary, Aris­ totle, author of hylemorphism, holds that the soul is the form of body 94 • It is difficult to interpret his doctrine of the intellect He says that it comes from outside and that it alone ( vou c; ). is divine 9 5 • Is the vouc; truly the faculty of the soul which is the dooc; crw1.vx-roc; and multiplied according to the individuals ? This has been denied by two eminent Aristotelians, Alexander of Aphrodisias and Averroes. In his De A nima, Alexander had argued that the human intellect, being part of a soul that was the form of matter, was corrupted with the corruption of that form 9 6 • Averroes saw clearly that a separate and unmixed in­ tellect should be immaterial and did not agree with Alexander that the intellect was corruptible. The intellect is immaterial and incorruptible and therefore is separate from the soul, which is the substantial form of the body, though the intellect cooper­ ates with the soul 9 7 • St Augustine, wanting to safeguard the unity of man but at the same time following Platonism, could not propose a fully coherent theory of the union of body and soul « Homo igitur ut homini apparet anima rationalis est mar­ tali atque terrerio utens corpore » 98• « Quid est homo? Anima rationalis habens corpus non facit duas personas, sed unum ho­ minem » 99 • « Homo non est corpus solum, vel anima sola, sed qui ex anima constat et corpore » 1 0 0 •

It is the original merit of Aquinas to have proposed a profounder solution to the problem of the unity of man. The soul is the form of body. Union between the two is natural. The soul with the body constitutes one principle of certain actions. But while other forms do not have their own esse but that of the composite, and in the composite, the soul has its own ess.e and communicates it to the body. The union is

person. Cf. J. SoUILHE, De Pl•a tonis Doctrina circa animam, Textus et Do­ cumenta, Series Philos. I, Pont. Univ. Greg., Romae, p. 16 ff. 93 Republ. IV, 441 e and 442 a-b. 19 1 · De Anima, II, I, 412 a 19-2 1 . '9 5 D e Gener. an. II, 3, 736 b 27. '9 t, De An. p. 12, lines 6-25, ed. I, BRUNS, Supplenzentum A ristotelicum, II, I, Berlin, 1887. For Aquinas' own understanding of Alexander, cf. C. G. II, 62. m AVERROIS CoRDUBENSIS Comm. Magnum in Arist. de Anima, ed. F. S. CRAWFORD, 1 953, II Comm. 4, p. 393, lines 196 ff. · 9 s De morib. u s Ecclesiae I, 27, 52, in: P.L., 41, 399. D 9 In Joan. Ev. XIX, 5, 15, in: P.L., 35, 1553. m o De Civit. Dei, XIII, 24, 2, in: P.L., 41 , 399.

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really substantial because of the one esse of the composite but this comes from the soul. Matter is assumed by the soul in t he unity of the act of existing. Aquinas argued that the Phil­ osopher evidently taught that the intellectual soul as inellectual substance was the substantial form of the body. Within the Aristotelian context itself Aquinas evolved his own theory which, so to say, transformed Aristotle's conception from within. In this transformation of Aristotelianism, we notice the influence of the oft quoted and well grasped Neoplatonic principle of metaphysical continuity, namely, semper supremum infimi at­ tingit infimum supremi. 1 0 1 The human soul, capable of subsisting and acting by itself i n as far as i t surpasses matter, is an incomplete spiritual sub­ stance ; the human body attains the spirit by participating in t he intellectual soul's act of existing. Thus it becomes the form of body. Form is the formal principle of the substantial esse of a being in which both form and matter communicate in one esse. Now, the subsistence by itself of the intellectual sub­ stance does not prevent it from being the formal principle of the esse of matter, quasi esse suum communicans materiae, be­ cause the same esse is the principle in which both the composite and the form itself subsist, since it is the form by which the composite exists 1 0 2 • The subsisting esse of the soul is com­ municated to the body in such a way that by the one and only esse of the composite both soul and body subsist 1 0 3 • It may be objected that the intellectual substance cannot communicate its spiritual esse to matter so that one and the same esse belong to spiritual substance and to material sub­ stance. Of course, this objection is valid on the supposition that the esse of the intellectual substance is communicated in the same way as the esse of matter. The same esse belongs to the matter as to the recipient and the subject, whereas it be­ longs to the intellectual substance as to its principle and a.c­ cording to its own proper nature 1 0 4 • This communication and connexion between spirit and mat­ ter is explained by the Neoplatonic principle of metaphysical continuity. Only then a fuller and deeper understanding of De Sp. Cr. 2. C. G. II, 58. 1 0 3 De Sp. Cr. 2, 3m. rn 4 C. G. II, 58 ; De Anima I, 17m. 1 01

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the human subj ect can be had . All reality is akin . In the scale of being from the pure actuality of God to the bare potentiality of matter there are beings of various degrees of perfection, in order that the divine Goodness may better be communicated, and thus is realised the marvellous perfection of the universe in the mutual ' give and take ' of beings among themselves. In this way is also realised the marvellous connection of things among themselves 1 0 5 • The human subj ect is a rational animal in terms of the Aristotelian categories . This definition granted as true and good, it does not, in our modest opinion, · give a complete understanding of man as he stands in continuity with the rest of the universe. To situate him in the ' straight j acket­ ed ' Porphyrian ' tree ' is to view him j ust in his specific nature without taking into consideration his participation in the intel­ lectual nature of the superior being. In his very rationality man p articipates in the intellectuality of higher beings and thus attains the world of pure spirits . This participated perfection of intellectuality is the highest (supremum) in m an. So the human subj ect exceeds his own specific perfection and has rela­ tion to a higher nature. Man is a composite being. The body, because it participates in the spiritual esse of the soul , achieves its full realisation in man. Mind and matter are not two utterly opposed worlds . They are related to one another because they participate in the same Absolute B eing and matter is ordained to mind, is at the service of the mind. Mind is not diminished in perfection because of its union with a body. On the contrary union with a body makes for the perfection the mind ; for, the mind connaturally requires the assist ence of the senses in order to know reality. « Substantiae enim spirituales inferiores, scilicet animae, habent esse affine corpori in quantum sunt cor­ poris formae : et idea ex ipso m·odo essendi competit eis ut a corporibus .et per corpora suam perfectionem in.telligibilem con­ sequantur : alioquin frustra corporibus unirentur » 1 0 6 • Let us sum up. The notion of the ontological subj ect is derived from that of the suppositum . Man by his spiritual act of existing becomes a concrete subj ect, individual and incom­ municable once for all. It is his act of existing that confers to his essence totality, self-identity, self-possession and self-suffi­ ciency that are the privileges of a spiritual subj ect , though these Hl:i

C. G. II, 5 8 . wr; I, 5 5 , 2.

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are applicable in a less perfect way to material beings as well. The openness of the human subject to the totality of being is again derived from his spiritual act of existing; this is better focused in the light of the principle of metaphysical continuity if we consider man as spirit in matter, as continuous with su­ perior intellectual beings and with material beings and as related to the whole Universe.

CHAPTER THREE PSYCHOLOGICAL SUBJECTIVITY

From the previous chapter it is evident that man by his in­ tellectual existential 1 act ( esse intellectuale) is constituted a spir­ itual subj ect possessing interiority, self-identity and individuality in the order of being. The spiritual subj ect in his ontological subj ectivity itself opens out to all other beings and is inserted in the Universe through his act of existing. He is situated in the grade of being between pure spirit and matter and is in con­ tinuity with both according to the Dionysian principle. Now the question arises as to how the spiritual subj ect possesses himself in the order of activity, especially in that of intellectual konwl­ edge ; in what way and how far the spiritual subj ect becomes conscious of himself at various levels of his cognitional activity . 1 . - The act of existing ( esse ) and the act of knowing ( intelligere ). Does the spiritual subj ect by the mere fact that he subsists in himself and insofar as he subsists in himself, become self­ conscious so that the existential act of a spiritual subj ect is identically the same as thought ? How does Aquinas conceive the relation between the act of existing and the act of knowing in the human subj ect ? Aristotle formulated the principle : To ◊E ��v Tote; �(0cn -ro dvoct fo··nv 3 • Life for the living thing is its very being. Aquinas com­ menting on it 3 says that form is the cause of being since it is 1

The term, existential, has to be understood within the Thomist con­ text and should not be t•aken in the sense of contemporary existentialism. What pertains to the act of existing (esse) is what is meant by ' existential '. II De Anima IV, 415b 1 3. :-1 In II de An. 1 , 7, n. 3 1 9: « ... forma, quad est causa essendi. Nam per formam unumquodque est actu. Sed anima viventibus est causa es­ sendi ; per animam enim vivunt, et ipsum vivere est esse eorum : ergo anima est causa viventi corporis, ut forma. :!

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by form that a being is in act. Its soul is the form of the living being inasmuch as by the soul it both exists and lives. Aristotle takes life in two senses. Life is defined in the case of animals by the power of perception and in that of man by the power of thought, or, life means activity that corresponds to the power of the soul 4 • In Aquinas also, the term, life, has two usages. It may signify the being itself of the living thing or it may also signify its activity ;) . Since knowledge is the supreme kind of life, it can be said that as life is for the living thing its being itself ( vivere viventibus est esse ), so also thought for the intel­ lectual being is its being itself (intelligere intelligentibus .e st esse). But then, this does not mean that thought is identical to the exstential act of a spiritual subject but it means only that there is in an intellectual being a substance to which thought belongs naturally . Life for a being means to be endowed with a living nature. Similarly, to think or to understand is for a spiritual subj ect to be endowed with an intellectual nature ; that is to say, thought can be taken to signify either the act of knowledge itself or the existential act of an intellectual substance It is in the latter sense that the principle : intelligere intelligentibus est esse is to be understood. There is no reason to consider that the soul's union with the body is a hindrance to this. The self­ subsisting soul whose existential act is spiritual, communicates this existential act to matter and the whole composite exists by one and the same spiritual act of existing 7 • Thus the subsisting (j .

E th. Niclz., 1170 a 16-19. I, 18, 2: ... vitae nomen ... ad significandam substantiam cui con­ Yenit secundum suam naturam movere seipsam, vel agere se quocumque modo ad operationem. Et secundum hoc, vivere nihil aliud est quam esse in tali natura ... Quandoque tamen vita sumitur minus proprie pro ope­ rationibus vitae, a quibus nomen vitae assumitur ... » I, 18, 2, Im: ... quad sentire et intelligere, et hujusmodi, quandoque sumuntur pro quibusdam operationibus, quandoque autem pro ipso esse sic operantium. Dicitur enim IX Ethic., quad esse est sentire vel intelligere, idest habere natu­ ram ad sentiendum vel intelligendum . G De Spir. Cr., 11, 14m: ... anima, in quantum est forma corporis se­ cundum suam essentiam, dat esse corpori, in quantum est forma sub­ stantialis ; et dat sibi hujusmodi esse quad est vivere, in quantum est talis forma, scilicet anima ; et dat ei hujusmodi vivere, scilicet intellectuali na­ tura, in quantum est talis anima, scilicet intellectiva. Intelligere autem quandoque sumitur pro operatione, et sic principium est potentia vel ha­ bitus ; quandoque vero pro ipso esse intellectualis naturae, et sic princi­ pium ejus quad est intelligere, est ipsa essentia animae intellictivae. Cf. an interesting article : Intelligere intelligentibus est esse, by JAMES H . ROBB, in: « An Etienne Gilson Tribute » Milwaukee, 1959, pp. 209-27. 1 De An. I, 13m: ... necesse est, si anima est forma corporis, quod -1

5

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intellectual soul gives to the human subj ect both his specific nature and his b eing so that we can speak of him as totally a spiritual subj ect, one who is spiritual both in nature and in the act of existing. In God there is perfect identity between his act of existing and his act of knowing. The subsistent Act of Existing is all perfection since the act of existing is the perfection of all per­ fections and the plenitude of the act of existing includes neces­ sarily all perfections in an infinite degree. This divine identity is realised imperfectly and in varying degrees in created spiritual beings . The created act of existing is only intentionally or ten­ dentially its act of knowing. The spiritual existential act of the pure spirit becomes identical intentionally to its act of knowing by itself. The existential act of the human subj ect is only or­ dained to the act of knowing. It does not realise this identity by itself except insofar as it is ' moved ' by an exterior obj ect . This is so because of the human subj ect's continuity with spirit and matter. The spiritual being fully verifies his intellectual nature only in the act of knowing. The act of existing subsisting in the in­ tellectual nature of man realises its virtuality and actualises its potentiality in the act of knowing. The condition of possibility of all activity is the communicativeness itself of the act of exist­ ing 8 ; and in the case of the act of knowing, the act of existing subsisting in the intellectual nature is the condition of its pos­ •sibility. Every being exists on account of its activity 9 • Activity is the proper actuality of the power that is in a being as the act of existing is the actuality of substance. Intellectual activity is the actuality of the spiritual power in a being and it is for this actualisation that a spiritual being itself exists . animae et corporis sit unum esse commune, quod est esse compositi. Nee hoc impeditur per hoc quod anima et corpus sint diversorum gene­ rum : nam neque anima neque corpus sunt in specie vel genere, nisi per reductionem, sicut partes reducuntur ad speciem vel genus totius. 8 De Pot., 2, I: ... natura cujuslibet actus est, quod seipsum commu­ nicet quantum possibile est. Unde unumquodque agens agit secundum quod in actu est. Agere vero nihil aliud est quam communicare illud per quad agens est actu, secundum quod est possibile. 9 I, 105, 5 : ... omnis res sit propter suam operationem. Semper enim imperfectum est propter perfectius : sicut igitur materia est propter for­ mam, ita forma quae est actus primus, est propter suam operationem, quae est actus secundus ; et sic operatio est finis rei creatae. I, II, 3, 2 : ... operatio est ultimus actus operantis ; unde et actus se­ cundus a Philosopho nominatur in II de Anima ...

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If the human subject's act of existing is ordained to the act of knowing, is it because a relation to the intellect belongs to the essential structure of the act of existing? In what way are being and throught related to each other? Can it be said that being for Aquinas is formally constituted by relation to thought? Certainly relation to thought is a property of being itself. Quidquid esse potest, intelligi palest 1 0 • Truth is one of the transcendentals of being. Every being is susceptible of being interiorised in thought and being known. And, therefore being and mind are strictly correlative. But this relation to thought is not a constitutive element of being. Being and truth are two distinct intentions for us. Ens et verum ratione distinguntur 1 1 • The notion of truth is not a direct, immediate notion but is ob­ tained by reflection. The object which the intellect grasps first is not truth but being in itself. Being is presented to the mind first as existing in itself and thus as distinct from thought. Being is presented as true only when the mind reflecting on its knowing activity knows the relation that obtains between the obj ect and itself. Verum non potest apprehendi nisi apprehen­ datur ratio entis nam ens cadit in ratione veri 1 2 • Cognoscitur au­ tem ab intellectu secundum qu·od intellectus reflectitur supra actum suum, non solum secundum quad cognoscit actum suum, sed secundum quad cognoscit proportionem ejus ad rem 1 3 • While being has meaning in itself, irrespective of its relation to thought, on the contrary, thought has meaning only in rela­ tion to being. Thought is intentionally directed to being in itself. Of course, by a reflexive return on thought itself the mind is capable of perceiving being more profoundly. While relation to thought is only a property of being, relation to being consti­ tutes thought itself. If being is not thought itself, if it is not in its essential structure constituted by thought, then at least with regard to the divine Thought, it appears true to say that being is because it is thought. In this case it is true that being is because it is C . G. II, 98, 7 : Est enim proprium objectum intellectus ens ligibile, quod quidem comprehendit omnes differentias et species possibiles ; quidquid enim esse potest intelligi potest. In II Me t. 1 , 2, n. 298 : ... unumquodque sicut se habet ad hoc sit, ita etiam se habet ad hoc quod habeat veritatem ... esse rei est verae existimationis quam mens habet de re. 11 D e Ver. I, I. 12 I, 16, 33. 1 3 De Ver. I, 9. 1-0

intel­ entis quod causa

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related to the divine Thought as its efficient and exemplary cause. Scientia Dei est causa rerum 1 4 • But it is not tru e that the created reality is only an idea of God. Being exists in itself because it is thought by God but being is not a mere thought of God. God creates beings by constituting them in themselves an d as distinct from Him . Therefore even with regard to the uncreated Thought, esse rerum non est earum percipi. Fr. Karl Rahner 1 5 argues from some texts of St Thomas for an original unity between the act of existing and the act of knowing ( eine urspriingliche Einheit von Sein und Erkennen) , even at the created level, s o that the act of knowing is the act of subsisting in itself (Beisichsein). Reditio super seipsum is realised according to the grade of possibility of being in one­ self. Knowledge is the subj ectivity of the act of existing itself (Das Erkennen ist die Subj ectivitat des Seins selbst . ) 1 6 Other­ wise, the transcendental intelligibility of the act of existing can­ not be understood. Thus , to-be-in-oneself as to-be-in-oneself-for­ oneself ( Beisichselbersein) and to-be-in-oneself-for-oneself as to­ be-put-against-another ( Gegen-anderes-gestellt-Sein) form a funda­ mental structure of the human intellect in its double aspect of the agent and the passive intellect . The arguments of Rahner are personal rather than Thomist. His exegesis of Thomist texts is not convincing. Quidquid enim esse potest, intelligi potest (C. G. I I , 98), Intelligible enim et in­ tellectum oportet proportionata esse et unius generis, cum in­ tellectus et intelligible in actu sint unum ( In Met. Proem), Intel­ lectum est perfectio intelligentis (C. G. I I , 98) , Idem est intellec­ tus et quad intelligitur ( I , 87, I , 3m). In eis quae sunt sine ma­ teria, idem est intellectus et quad intelligitur (De Sp . Cr. 8, 1 4m) : these texts taken in their context indicate only that there is unity and identity between the knower and the known in the act of knowing and that, therefore, there should be in being itself a possibility of being interiorised in thought. The texts do not imply identity at the connatural , entitative and physical level between esse and intelligere . Even the text most favourable to Rahner's position redire ad essentiam suam nihil aliud est quam rem subsistere in seipsa ( I , 14, 2, Im), rather argues for knowledge by essence and for reflexive consciousness in the case of man , than for any identity 14

15

1�

I, 14, 8. Geist in Welt, Mi.inchen, 19572 , p. 8 1-83 and p. 144-145. Ibid., p. 82.

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between the ontological and psychological presence. In the first part of the De Veritate, 2, 2, 2m, Aquinas takes redire ad essen­ t iam in the noetic sense, namely, to know oneself, as the objec­ tion does. But then in the latter part of the same text he ob­ serves that this is not the genuine sense of the author of the Liber de causis, who takes the expression in the ontological sense, namely, subsistence of a spiritual being. Reditio ad es­ sentiam suam in libro de causis nihil aliud dicitur nisi subsisten­ tia rei in seipsa (Ibid. ). The latter interpretation is again put in relief in the Summa Theologica (I, 1 4, 2, Im). Therefore we conclude that for Aquinas a subject who knows himself subsists in himself and that he knows himself because he subsists in him­ self; in other words, ontological presence is the condition of the psychological presence. Regarding the speculative arguments of Rabner, we admit the original unity between the act of existing and the act of knowing ; but this unity is found only in God ; at the created level the order of knowledge (esse cognitum) is distinct from the order of existing (esse entitativum or esse physicum) . Again, we admit that the created spiritual act of existing tends to the act of knowing ; so, there is a tendential but not actual identity between esse and intelligere. Finally, the transcendental intelli­ gibility of being can be explained in Thomism without having recourse to actual identity, as we have tried to show above. If the act of existing, distinct from the act of knowing, can be interiorised by thought, what is the condition of possibility of this interiorisation? Immateriality is the reason why a being is intelligible and intelligent. Secundum hoc aliqua res cognoscibilis secundum quad a materia separatur 1 1 • Ex hoc aliqua r.es est intelligens quad est sine materia 1 8 • Immunity from matter is the cause of i ntellectuality 1 9 • Still, there are many immaterial realities which 17

De Ver. 2, 2. Cf. Ib idem : ... oportet in intellectu cognoscente recipi aliquid immaterialiter. Et ideo videmus, quod secundum ordinem imma­ terialitatis in rebus, secundum hoc in eis natura cognitionis invenitur ... Similiter est etiam ordo in cognoscibilibus ... 1 8 C. G. I, 44, 4. Cf. ibide m : ... si ex hoc formae sunt intellectae in actu, quod sunt sine materia, oportet rem aliquam ex hoc esse intelli­ gentem quad est sine materia » on the whole question of the relation be­ tween immateriality and intellection, see the article of H. D. SIMONIN, Jmmaterialite e t intellection, in : Angelicum, 1930, p. 460-86. 19 Comp. Theo!. 28: Immunitas autem a materia est causa intellec­ tualitatis: cuj us signum est quod formae materiales effi.ciuntur intelligi-

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are intelligible but not intelligent, i. e., cannot know; as for example, will, grace, etc. Only subsistent immaterial realities, in other words, subj ects can be knowers. Every form that exists separate from matter is of an intellectual nature and if at the same time it subsists by itself, it will be also a knower 2 0 • An act that does not subsist in itself but in another is material (forma materialis ) ; it can be known but it cannot know. Sub­ sistence of an act is straight away linked with interiority or immanence in knowledge. An act that subsists in itself, neces­ sarily knows itself because by the subsistence of the act every potentiality with which it would be diffused, alienated, dispersed, is removed. A subsistent act is a substantial consciousness of itself either in the line of essence if it is a subsistent form or in the line of the act of existing, if it is the Subsistent Esse. The subsistent Act of existing is the actual subsistent knowledge of itself. Subsistent forms, pure spirits and the separate souls, are subsisent knowledge of themselves in the first act (in actu pri­ mo) ; it means that their intellect is determined to know their substance directly and perfectly. If the form subsists in itself only secundum quid, i. e., according to its intellect which is not communicated to its body, it cannot know itself directly and perfectly but only indirectly, by way of reflection. Thus, by reflection the spiritual human subj ect participates in an imper­ fect manner in the supreme interiority, subj ectivity, self-posses­ sion, in knowledge of the subsistent form and finally of the sub­ sistent Act of existing. Hence, independence from matter and from potentiality in general is realised fully in a self-subsistent act because the subbiles actu per hoc quod abstrahuntur a materia et a materialibus condi­ tionibus. Immateriality or immunity from matter is not to be understood in the sense of absence of matter alone but of any potentiality. Aquinas himself uses the term, materia, analogically : Deus est in fine separationis a materia ... in summo immaterialitatis, I, 14, I. These texts mean that God is farthest removed from any potentiality. Further, degrees of in­ tellectuality among spiritual beings themselves suggest that immateriality can also mean freedom from potentiality besides immunity from ma­ teriality. io I Sent. 35, I, I : ... oportet quad omnis forma per se existens sepa­ rata a materia sit intellectualis naturae: et si quidem sit per se sub­ sistens, erit et intelligens ; si autem non sit per se subsistens, sect quasi perfectio alicujus subsistentis non erit intelligens, sed principium intelli­ gendi: quemadmodum omnis forma non in se subsistens non operatur, sed est operationis principium, ut caliditas in igne.

PSYCHOLOGICAL SUBJECTIVITY

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sistent act exists in itself independently of another and is there­ fore able to return to itself, to possess itself interiorly in knowl­ edge. It is not in the nature of any body to revert upon itself since self-reversion implies that the reverted subject and that upon which it has reverted become identical. Only a spiritual subject can revert on himself. The self-subsistent form of the human subject is not totally immersed in matter, not totally alienated from itself, not fully determined by the information of matter, not completely buried, so to say, in the hie et nunc. It possesses itself and is present to itself ontologically. It is free from the restrictions on itself by its self-subsistence. So, it can possess itself and be present to itself psychologically. Self­ subsistence is the on to logical presence of a being and conditions its psychological presence. By the fact that the spiritual subj ect subsists in himself and possesses himself, he becomes able to know not only himself but also others. Because he surpasses matter, he can possess other forms without altering either himself or others. Because he is free from restricting conditions in his being, he is open to other beings; he leaves other subjects to be in themselves; he does not change them or make them mere states of conscious­ ness 2 1 • So, the intrinsic principle of subsistence of being, is the condition of all knowledge. A spiritual subject by his subsist­ ence is present to himself, possesses himself in himself. But, not every presence is necessarily knowledge. Simple ontological presence of a being to itself does not by itself suffice to possess itself consciously. In order that the subject be interiorised in knowledge, it has to be p resent to the mind as grasped by the '.!I In II de An., I. 5, n. 282-4. n. 282: ... viventia inferiora ... habent duplex esse ... unum ... materiale ... aliud autem immateriale, in quo communicant cum substantiis superio­ ribus aliqualiter. n. 283: . . . secundum vero esse imm ateriale, quad est amplum, et quo­ dammodo infinitum, inquantum non est per materiam terminatum, res non solum est id quad est, sed etiam est quodammodo alia. Unde in substantiis immaterialibus superioribus sunt quodammodo omnia, sicut in universalibus causis. n. 284: « Huj usmodi autem immateriale esse habet duos gradus in istis inferioribus. Nam quoddam est penitus immateriale, scilicet esse intelligibile. In intellectu enim res habent esse, et sine materia et sine conditionibus materialibus individuantibus, et etiam absque organo cor­ porali.

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mind 2 2 • Hence the simple ontological presence of the subj ect to himself is distinct from his presence through knowledge. Intel­ lectus noster seipsum intelligens est in seipso, non solum ut idem sibi per essentiam, sed etiam ut a se apprehensum intelligendo 23 • Presence therefore of a reality in an act of knowing is what is required to constitute the psychological presence. 2. - The Thomist n·otion of object and of objectivity in knowl­ edge As soon as the study of the psychological subj ect begins, there inevitably occurs the corresponding notion of obj ect and of obj ectivity since these notions are correlative in cognitive activity. A reality can be viewed under the aspect of being, existing or capable of existing in itself ; or under the aspect of being known. It is the latter that merits the name of obj ect . As human knowledge is not exhaustive, though we know the real, still we do not know it fully in all its complete intelligibility. Besides, a reality is not always known by us. Therefore we have to distinguish between reality as reality and reality as known or as object 2 4 • The fact of existing in itself is different from the fact of being known. But from this it does not follow that one excludes the other. The two concepts are distinct but they could be realised as a whole and in one and the same being. The concept of an obj ect which will at the same time exist in itself and be known is not contradictory. Surely, the obj ect of know­ ledge is what is known; now what is known insofar as it is known, is not in itself because it is recognised as known 2 5 • I Sent. 17, I, 4, 4m: ... ad hoc quod aliquid cognoscatur ab anima, non sufficit quad sit sibi praesens quocumque modo, sed in ratione objecti. 2 :1 C. G. IV, 11 Cfr. ibidem : Omne autem intellectum, in quantum in­ tellectum, oportet esse in intelligente ; significat enim ipsum intelligere apprehensionem ejus quad intelligitur per intellectum ... Here, we have the idea that the in telligere is an apprehensio, a grasp of the reality to be known and therefore the real has to be present to the intellect as grasped in order to realise a psychological presence. 24 De Pot. 9, 5: Id autem quad est per se intellectum non est res illa cujus notitia per intellectum habetur, cum illa quandoque sit intellecta in potentia tantum , et sit extra intelligentem, sicut cum homo intelligit res materiales, ut lapidem vel animal aut aliud hujusmodi : cum tamen oporteat quad intellectum sit in intelligente, et unum cum ipso. 25 J. MARITAIN, Les degres du savoir, Paris 1932, pp. 176 ff. 22

PSYCHOLOGICA L SUBJECTIVITY

63

Whatever knowledge attains in any way whatever, whether the thing known is outside or inside the thinking subj ect is called obj ect 20 • Whatever is refered to the faculty of knowing is called obj ect of this faculty. Proprie autem illud assignatur objectum alicujus po tentiae vel habitus, sub cujus ratione om­ nia referentur ad po tentiam vel habitum . . . 2 1 • Obj ectivity should not be understood as something pertaining only to what con­ cerns the exterior obj ect and has nothing to do with the sub­ j ect. On the contrary, knowledge of the thinking subj ect itself and of its interior states of consciousness also have their obj ec­ tive value ; namely , they are universally valid and true and have ab solute value . Similarly, subj ectivity by itself is not adverse to obj ective knowledge . True subj ectivity, as we shall see, respects the absolute value and is open to all beings . Obj ectivity in its t rue signification is something of which the ontological and noetic value is not a caprice of my mind ; something that my mind recognises as being in itself, irrespective of my thinking . In this sense the subj ect known as subj ect also has its obj ective value because it is recognised in its real value of individuality and subj ectivity. Subj ectivity as such in knowledge pertains to perfection of knowledge since the more immanent knowledge is, the more perfect it is, as we shall see in the following chap­ ter. There is no danger of subj ectivism in conceiving knowledge this way, for anything contributed to knowledge by the nature of the thinking subj ect comes directly from the maker of this knowing subj ect ; i. e . , Truth itself. Subj ectivity in knowledge would be drowned in subj ectivism only when the subj ect is closed up in himself ; when knowledge is conceived against the true nature of the subj ect ; that is to say, when it is based on the subj ect's arbitrary, contingent and relative conditions . S ubj ective knowledge is unrealiable and risky when subjectivity finds only its own echo and creates a value of its own. S o , it is plain that the term, obj ect, is taken first in the J. DE ToNQUEDEC, La Critique de la cannaissance, Paris 1929, p. 32, footnote. 2�; In the cognitional context Aquinas often calls object of knowledge: cognitum, id quad est prima cognitum, id quad cognascitur, id quad in­ telligitur, object.u m. « . . . non oportet quod sit idem modus cognoscentis_ et c o g n i t i ». De Ver. 2, 5 , 7m. « Hoc ergo est p r i m o e t p e r s e 1 n t e 1 1 e c t u m ... » De Pot. 9, 5. « ... I d q u o d i n t e 1 1 i g i t u r e s t e n u m » I, 76, 24m . Sometimes the tenn, objectum, is expressly used : v (Xvsu U/\)'] c; "t'o (XU"To scrn '70 voouv x(Xt "t'O v o !)V !Ls vov s:3 In his quae sunt sine materia, idem est intelligens et intellectum . Thought and object of thought are not different in immaterial beings but are the same. The divine intellect will be one with the object of its thought. Since the intelligible in act is identically the intellect in act, the intelligible in act to which the contrary is lacking, necessarily knows itself ; I

\

I

,I

tl

i.

'

I

'

ceptual. « . . . experitur enim unusquisque seipsum esse qui intelligit » (De Ver. 10, 8 ) : « Perceptio enim experimentalem quandam notitiam signifi­ cat » ( I, 43, 5, 2m ) ; « Illa quae sunt per essentiam sui in anima cogno­ scuntur experimentali cognitione, in quantum homo experitur per actus, principia intrinseca : sicut voluntatem percipimus volendo, et vitam in operibus vitae » I-II, 112, 5, Im . .-,i2 C. G. IV, 1 1 . B 3 De Anima III, 4, 430-a 3 ff ; Met. XII, 9, 1075a 3 ff.

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such an intelligible is divine 8 4 ; such an intelligible is in act since every change in intellection always implies the p resence of some contrary ; such an intelligible is sep arate from matter for otherwise there would be potency in it and so i t could be changed 8 5 • A connection between self-knowledge and spirituality is evident. Aristotle explicitly refers to reflexive self-conscious­ ness in his Ethica Nic•om 86 • « . . . if we perceive, we perceive that we perceive, if we think, that we think ; and if to perceive that we perceive or think is to perceive that we exist (for existence was defined as perceiving or thinking) . . . » The Stoics 87 put forth the theory that the soul is material and that it finds its good in an introverted contemplation . Proclus 88 found this contradictory because the soul's power o f originating thought involves an activity directed towards itself and consequently the soul 's immateriality. Every self-moving being is capable of reversion upon itself. Everything that is capable of reverting upon itself is incorporeal. smv-rpoq>� means simply a turning towards ; when it is applied to mental acts , it means a turning or direction of consciousness. The soul is rcpoc; ECW't..�v tmcr-rpE:1t·nx� in the sense that it can be an obj ect of con sciousness to itself. All that is able to know self is capable of every form of self-reversion 8 9 • In self-knowledge knower and known are one and this knowledge has itself as obj ect. Since the subj ect knows itself, it is self-reversive in activity ; if it is self-reversive in activity, it should be so also in its being, for everything whose activity reverts upon itself has also an exis­ tence which is self-concentrated and self-constituted 90 • St. Augustine evolves the nature of the thinking subj ect from its own cogitation . The soul is not material ; since it has intuitive knowledge of itself, it knows certainly and immediately what it is. It has no such knowledge of any material body nor does it know immediately and certainly that it is body. The­ refore it is not body but something that clearly perceives that it is a substance which lives , remembers , understands and wills 9 1 • The mens is present to itself psychologically previous to any -" 4

Met. XII, 10, 1075 b 20-22.

�·. ,. Me t. XII, 10, 1075 b 22 and I, 1069 b 3. :-,.,; IX, 9, 1 170 a 31-34 and De Allima I, I.

-" 7

E P ICTETUS, D I S S . III, 22, 38-9 ; cited by Elenz. Tlzeol., Prop. 15-17. �u Ibid., Prop. 83. rH i Ibid. Prop. 44. 0 1 De Trin. X, 10 and XIV, 6 .

I:' �

DODDS,

op. cit., p. 202.

79

P SYCHOLOGICAL SU BJECTIVITY

inquiry into itself 9 2 • From the fact that we doubt, it becomes clear to us not only that we know something for certain, but that we are alive, think and will; especially that we understand 9 3 • Aquinas quite clearly proposes the reflexive consciousness of the ego, of the spiritual subject as subject in terms of reditio and reflexio 94 • Returning to one's essence and reflection are two distinct notions, implying two different currents of thought. Returning to one's essence as we have seen, is typically a Neopla­ tonic notion, signifying a conscious presence of a spiritual being to itself, autopossession, immediate consciousness of the subsist­ ing form. It is the subsistence of the form which is expressed in the luminous sphere of consciousness 9 5 • The non-subsisting forms are, so to say, poured forth over something else and are in no way gathered together in themselves. And therefore they cannot possess themselves in themselves in the sphere of activity of conscious life 9 6 • The expressions : exit us, reditus, conversio are metaphorical ; they do not indicate any local motion and The other ex­ therefore can be applied to spiritual realities 1 pression, reflexio, is Aristotelian, signifying a transit from one motion to the inverse motion. In the case of knowledge it does not imply a local motion but a metaphysical motion from the act of intending an object to the act of the intending subject. Every reflection and introverted act presupposes a direct and extrovert act; it is by reflection that man perceives himself, pos­ sesses himself psychologically. Let us not insist on the differ­ ence of these two notions of reditus and ref lexio. In Aristotle we find a certain idea of returning to one's essence when he says that thought and object of thought are the same in the case of things that have no matter. And, Aquinas himself understands the reditus ad essentiam through the mediation of an object 9 8 • Nor should we be adverse to the Augustinian interiority expres)7 .

n Ibid. X, 9. 93 Ibid. X, 10 and XV, 12. 94 The Latin word, conscientia, means for Aquinas moral conscience. Cfr I, 79, 1 3 ; De Ve r. 17, I ; Q uodl. 3, 12, 26 ; II Sent. 24, 2, 4. 9 ;) De Ver. 2, 2, 2m : « ... reditio ad essentiam suam in libro de Causis nihil aliud dicitur nisi subsistentia rei in seipsa ». 9 6 Ibid : « Formae enim in se non subsistentes, sunt super aliud ef­ fusae et nuUatenus ad seipsas collectae ... ». 9 7 I, 14, 2, Im and De Ver. 2, 2, 2m. gs De Ver. I, 9· and the citations given before as regards the knowledge of the act of knowing and of the subj ect in the act of knowing an exterior object.

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sed as follows : nihil tam menti adest quam ipsa mens 9 9 ; mens seipsam novit per seipsam qu·oniam est incorporea 1 00 • Aquinas accomodating and interpreting these texts observes that the soul's knowing itself by itself means that it knows itself by its acts : unumquodque cognoscibile est secundum quod est actu et non secundum quod est in potentia. The human intellect acts in genere intelligibilium as a being in potency 1 0 1 • It has to be set in action and setting in action implies knowledge of an ex­ terior object. And so, the human intellect knows itself by itself not in the sense of knowledge by its own essence but in the sense of knowledge by its acts of knowing 1 0 2 • More deeply, con­ sciousness of self is not had by way of knowledge by similitude or species. It is a knowledge by identity, by presence; when the mind knows an outside object, the habitual knowledge of itself by itself becomes actualised without any mediation of a species or similitude of the mind itself. Indeed, it is the mind itself that is immediately present to the intellect in the act of knowledge 1 0 3 • The spiritual subject knows himself, i. e., not his essence but his existence; by himself, i. e., not by his essence but by his presence in the act. Thus are harmonised the Au­ gustinian interiority and the Neoplatonic return to one's essence with the Aristotelian idea of reflection. Let us examine this spiritual experience of the subject by himself still further and make it more precise since it is vital to an understanding of the role of subjectivity in knowledge. The speculative value of the perception of the ego will be treated in the following chapter. Only a spiritual being can return to its essence by a com­ plete return, or reflect on itself fully. No external sense is re­ flexive on account of its materiality 1 0 4 • But there is a certain incomplete return or reflection in sensus communis which is the common radix and principium of external senses. It per­ ceives the sensations of external senses 1 0 5 • Can it be said that the sensus communis, besides being conscious of the acts, is nu De Trin. X, 1 0. De Trin. XIV, 7. 1 0 1 For the interpretation of Augustinian text, cfr. De Ver. 10, 8, Im. rn:! I, 87, I, for the interpretation of Aristotle by Aquinas. 1 1 1 3 De Ver. 10, 8. 1.o 4 C. G. II, 66 ; I, 14, 2, Im ; I, 87, 3, 3m. 1 0" I, 78, 4, 2m ; De Ver. I, 9 ; In III de An. I. 2, 584-91. Aquinas' dependance on Proclus and Avicenna regarding this point is evident. cfr De Ver. I, 9 and In lib. de Causis, Prop. 15. 1 0•0

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81

conscious also of the sentient subject? Is there a certain sensible consciousness of the subj ect? One does perceive that one is, while perceiving that one feels. Just as for an exterior sense, to perceive a quality is to perceive an existing body under the aspect of that quality, so also for the sensus communis, to per­ ceive a sensation is to perceive a sentient, living, existing being. In hoc enim aliquis percipit se animam habere et vivere et esse quad percipit se sentire, intelligere et alia lzujusmodi vitae opera exercere 1 0 G . Substance is not known by the senses per se be­ cause it does not by itself affect the senses and change them. But it is connected with those things that affect the senses by themselves and change them and so is said to be known by the senses per accidens 1 0 7 • Substance is, therefore, a sensible per accidens 1 0 8 • Man can feel per accidens by his senses that he is a self because of the fact that his self is connected with his sensations. But only the intelligence can make a judgement of existence : ego sum, since the seizing of the ego implies a complete return on oneself. The sense in other words perceives the existent but not qua existent; such a reflection or return is possible only in a spiritual subject. When the spiritual subject knows himself, he returns to him­ self fully according to his operation and his essence. He returns to himself fully because he knows himself and while knowing himself, knower and known are the same. He returns to him­ self according to his operation since knowing is an intelligible operation. He returns to himself according to his operation, because he returns to himself according to his essence; that is to say, the subject subsisting by himself and not being sustained by anyone else, is not turned to anything else but to himself. The spiritual subject has an intellectual substance which is sim­ ple and self-sufficient by itself (sufficiens sibi per seipsam) in the sense that it does not need a support for its subsistence. Thus, self-sufficiency, spirituality, individuality, subjectivity are brought to the luminous plane of consciousness in such a way that the spiritual subject possesses himself, interiorises himself, and be­ comes master of himself and so responsible for his free acts and for realising his destiny. The two kinds of return according to 1 06 107 ms

6

De Ver. 10, 8. Suppl. 92 , 2.

I , 84, I , Im.

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one's operation and essence are only two moments in one and the same act of reflection 1 This spiritual perception of the subject is not an intuition in the strict sense of the term. Intuition means a direct and immediate seizing of the object by the intellect without media­ tion of any species. Consciousness of the spiritual subject is immediate since the soul itself is present to the intellect; but it is not direct since it is through reflection on the act of know­ ing that the subject seizes himself 1 1 0 • Self-consciousness is not conceptual but experimental; it is not objective in the sense that the subject is not seized as object, as aliud in quantum aliud ; but as a reality, i. e. , as subject. We have said that the spiritual substance of the soul itself is immediately present to the intellect; so, it can be termed knowledge by presence or by identity, as distinct from knowledge by similitude or species. This is the unique case where man attains his subjectivity as subjectivity. Let us explain this further. This perception of one's subjectivity as subjectivity is a second act specified by the direct intellection. In this second act, the first act itself is pres­ ent; otherwise, it will not be the concrete thought that is per­ ceived but a mere representation of thought; similarly, it will not be the concrete subject that is perceived but a mere repre­ sentation of the subject. More precisely, the reflexive act is the direct act itself becoming transparent to itself without any new representative element added to it. The direct act of knowing becomes intelligible while knowing an object and the reflexive act perceives the intelligibility of the direct act itself. This act is perceived distinctly as subsisting in a subject. While knowing an object, thought reveals itself as rooted in a concrete subject in which and by which it subsists; the esse ad of the act of knowing reveals the esse in of the act of knowing. Thus, the consciousness of the act of knowing is related to the conscious­ ness of the act of existing; the act of knowing knows itself not only in the order of thinking but also in the order of existing. This self-consciousness is the experimental, concrete, living perception of the subject qua subject, i. e., of a particular man as existing in the concrete 1 1 1 ; it is an experience of the existing subject : experitur .enim unusquisque seipsum esse qui intelli()1'1 .

1 9 :-1

On these points, cfr In libr. de Causis, Prop . 1 5, ed. Saffrey, p. 89-9 1 . no I, 87, I cf A . GARDEI L , art. cit ., p. 231 ff. 1 1.1 I, 79, I : « inveniat modum quo ista actio quae est intelligere, sit huj us hominis actio ».

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git 1 1 2 ; this experience is concrete and individual : in individuo ... in concreto .... experimentaliter 1 1 3 • There is no objection to the knowledge of the singularity of the subject on the ground that our intellect is of the universal. It is only that kind of sin­ gularity that implies materiality as a principle of individuation, that is excluded from the grasp of our intellect except by reflec­ tion on the phantasm. The singularity that is perfection, that is the privilege of spiritual beings, can be grasped in itself by our intellect 1 1 4 • In this experimental perception of the subject as subject the spirit is actively present to itself. If in his inner self the subject faces himself as a foreigner, as an unknown reality, he will be dispersed in his inner structure like a material being. On the contrary the spiritual subject is not outside of himself, not opposite to himself, but in himself, present to himself in the concrete grasp of himself through the knowing activity. It is this in teriority of consciousness, this immanence of the subject to himself that is called by Aquinas the complete return on oneself or full reflection. These notions should be under­ stood as signifying the psychological subsistence of the thinking subject in and by himself 1 1 5 • Spiritual immanence is meant certainly in the saying, « I think and insofar as I am thinking I think myself » . Perceiving its act the soul understands itself whenever it understands something » 1 1 6 • This existential pres­ ence of the subject to himself makes it possible for the subject to affirm himself in every kind of conscious life. Ibid. De Ver. 1 0, 8. In the reflexive consciousness of the subjec t as subject, we do not have objectification of the known in the strict sense, i. e., conscious possession of the subject through the medium of repre­ sentation of the subject. Because of this only can we speak of the refle­ xive consciousness of the subject as subject as experimental in as much as the subject is immediately and vitally present in the act of knowing. 1 1 -1 I, 79, 6, 2m: « Quia intelligere animae nostrae est quidam parti­ cularis actus ... Et hoc non repugnat intellectualitati: quia hujusmodi in­ telligere, quamvis sit quoddam particulare, tamen est immaterialis ac­ tus ... ». I, 86, I, 3m : « .•. singulare non repugnat intelligibilitati inquantum est singulare sed in quantum est materiale, quia nihil intelligitur nisi im­ materialiter » . 1 1 5 I, 14, 2, Im: « . . . redire ad essentiam suam nihil aliud est quam rem subsistere in seipsa. Forma enim, inquantum perficit materiam dando ei esse, quodammodo supra-ipsam effunditur : inquantum vero in seipsa habet esse, in seipsam redit ». Cfr S. STRASSER, op. cit., p. 185-188. 1 16 I, 93, 7, 4m. 112 11 3

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In this concrete and living self-knowledge of the subject is verified again the principle of metaphysical continuity. In the pure act of existing knower, known and the medium of knowing are identically the same ; the supreme unity of knowledge is realised in perfect identity between interiority, immanence and subjectivity of the subsistent act of existing and the act of know­ ing. A pure spirit participates in this supreme unity and sub­ jectivity of existing and of knowing insofar as knower, known and the medium of knowing are the same, i. e., its essence; but its act of existing is not its act of knowing and its essence is only a finite perfection. The human subject participates in a pure spirit's unity and subjectivity of existing and of knowing insofar as the soul knows itself by itself in the concrete seizing of self : knower, known and the medium of knowing are the same; this is the summit of the human knowledge, least imper­ fect, nearest to the perfection of a pure spirit's knowledge. But this consciousness is never fully intra-subjective, it takes place while knowing an exterior object and therefore it is re­ flexive whereas in pure spirits it is direct ; the soul itself is not known according to its essence (quid sit) but only according to its existence (an sit). This has to be so in accordance with the soul's union with body. One may say that such a knowledge is impossible because consciousness is consciousness of something. Rightly so; con­ sciousness is consciousness of the self, of something not in the strict sense of per modum objecti but in the sense that the sub­ j ect is a reality and as such is attained by the subject 1 1 1 • If the subject as subject cannot be known and if it always eludes the sphere of knowledge, one cannot say anything of it except that the act of knowing, like any accident, must have a subject. Self-consciousness seizes the ontological subject in itself and not a phenomenal subject ... Quad nullus erravit umquam in hoc quad non perciperet se vivere, quad pertinet ad cognitionem qua aliquis percipit quid in anima sua agatur ... » 1 1 8 « . . . quad c·ogi­ tari aliquid non esse, potest intelligi dupliciter : uno modo ut haec duo simul in apprehensione cadant ; et sic nihil prohibet quad quis cogitet se non esse sicut cogitat se .aliquando non fuisse . .. alio modo ita quod huic apprehensioni assensus adhi117

De Ver. 10, 8. In this experimental perception of the subject as subject, there is no species which represents the soul ; the soul itself is immediately present. us De Ver. 10, 8, 2m.

PSYCHO LOGICA L SUBJECTIVITY

85

beatur; et sic nullus potest cogitare se non esse cum assensu : in hoc enim quad cogitat aliquid, percipit se esse » 1 1 9 • No per­

son is closed up in the phenomenon as such. Affirmation of the phenomenal ego supposes a distinction between the ego in itself and the phenomenal ego; or, at least, that there is a phenomenal ego is itself something absolute. There are three possibilities : consciousness of an ontological ego, of merely a phenomenal ego, of no ego at all. For Aquinas, the latter two are excluded. One cannot but affirm oneself as existing when one knows something. Thought is not perceived as an impersonal abstract thought but as of someone. Consciousness of thought does not lead to the pure affirmation of an existence but to the affirmation of a sub­ stantial subject. Besides, consciousness of the self would re­ main phenomenal if it were not for the fact that the immediate grasp of the ontological subject is just the actualisation of the presence of the subject to itself through habitual knowledge 1 20 • The substantial union between body and mind is manifest in the psychological unity of the human subject. lpse idem homo est qui percipit se intelligere et se sentire 1 2 1 • All actions are re­ ferred to one and the same subject. Sensations and intellections are united in one and the same consciousness, which shows pre­ cisely that they belong to the same substance and to the same subj ect, for one and the same subject perceives the intellections and the sensations as pertaining to himself and not to two dif­ ferent subjects. A thought of an object is distinct from the thought of this thought. Alius est actus quo in telligit lapidem et alius est actus quo intelligit se intelligere lapidem 12 2 • The reason is that our intellection is not the act and perfection of the quidditas rei materialis 1 2 3 • Therefore, reflexive consciousness of the self is a secondary act supposing a direct act of knowledge. Finally, one can also have a conceptual knowledge of the

D e Ver. 10, 12, 7m ; I, 5, S m. De Ver. 1 0, 8 ; I, 87, I ; I, 87, 3 . We have seen that the habitual knowledge is an actus imperfectus in the line of knowledge and conditions the actual knowledge of the sub­ ject as soon as it comes into contact with an exterior object ; also that the soul itself is present to itself in the act of cognition as its principles as psychologically perceived. Therefore we are justified in making the above statement. l'::! l I, 76, I. 1 2 2 I, 87, 3, 2m. '1 2 3 Ibid. 1 19

- 1''..! I J

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subj ect per modum objecti 1 2 4 • Here, the subject is known as an obj ect, as distinct from the subject as .aliud in quantum aliud ; we have in this case the subj ect-object relation in the strict sense of the term. The obj ect is not the thinking thought but the thought thought. As a detailed anlaysis of the conceptual knowl­ edge of the subject is outside the scope of this chapter, we only make a passing reference to it. So in this chapter we have seen how the subject emerges to conscious activity and seizes himself and is present to him­ self psychologically. In a human subject, his act of existing tends to the act of knowing in order to realise itself fully. In the habitual knowledge of the soul there is an incipient self-pos­ session as a condition of perfect self-possession in the reflexive consciousness, where the subject is known as subject.

1 .:.: 4

De Ver. 1 0, 8.

CHAPTER FOUR OPEN SUBJ,E CTIVITY

Having explained how subsistence, unity, self-possession and presence to oneself at the level of the spiritual act of existing are realised fully and manifested clearly at the level of con­ sciousness, we are faced with the question whether the spiritual subject in knowing is closed up in himself, in his self-sufficiency and autonomy, or open to other beings. While dealing with ontological subjectivity, it has been noted that it is proper to the spiritual subject to open out to other beings and to the Absolute Being ; nay, even more, precisely the more individual a spiritual subject is, the more open he is to the total reality. Interiority, perfect self-possession and capacity for the whole imply each other. A detailed examination of the open character of the spiritual subject is important to an understanding of the role of the subject in knowledge. 1 . - Openness of the human intellect. In accordance with the principle of metaphysical continuity explained previously, the human subject cannot be considered as a closed being, isolated from the rest of creation but has to be situated in relation to all other beings and in affinity with them. There is in the human subject something more than his specific nature. Man has a spiritual nature that places him in a determined rank on the scale of beings ; but he is not only a nature, just what he is in himself ; by the very same spiritual nature he has a vaiue of totality ; he is open to other beings : est quodammodo omnia. Already, Heraclitus conceived the soul (4Jux� ) as the true re­ ality extending over all things. He said, « You cannot find out the boundaries of the soul ; so deep a measure hath it » 1 • ReaFragment 71, as quoted by 1 928, p. 59. :1

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son for this is that the soul participates in the Word (Myoc;) which as foundation of all reality contains all beings in itself. The soul is in communication with all beings through the Word; true knowledge, for Heraclitus, consists precisely in ' listening ' to the Word as manifested in all beings 2 • Parmenides proposed strict identity between what can be thought and what can be : -ro ya.p a1ho VCJ sr. v sc;-r �v --rs ✓-. CJ..t dv .:x i 3 • It is the same thing that can be thought ( fo-:-� 'JG sr.v ) and that can be (fo·-r�'J sbx�) It is impossible to think what is not and it is equally impossible for what cannot be thought to be. Par­ menides equated thought and being but did not determine the exact nature of identity between them. Arisotle, for his part, proposed in express and clear terms the open character of the human intellect. YJ yuz·� -:-a. onCJ.. m�)� s.'J'-:-�', n&v-·w.: the soul is in some way all beings 4 • Let us analyse from the context of the Aristotelian Philosophy the meaning of this principle. The distinction between act and potency shows that the intellectual soul is taken in the sense of an active principle of knowledge and therefore the axiom in question does not mean that the intellectual soul possesses in actual knowledge all beings. Further, the identity meant in the axiom is the intentional one, as opposed to the physical 5 • Man's mind in the act of knowing is not physically identical with the obj ect; because it knows all ( nciv --rn vosr'.), it has to be free from any admixture with its obj ects; moreover, the identity between intellect and being that is in question here is according to form ( doo�) ; the stone is not present in the mind but its form ( ou yap 6 ),[&o c; &:,J -r?) yux.?i , ct.MC1- -ro dooc;) 6 ; the intellect is the form of forms ( o vuGc; doo� d8c7)v ) 7 • Hence it is the potential and intentional identity that is meant by the axiom; namely, that man can become all beings intentionally and successively in the act of knowledge. -rcx ov-ra 2 Fragm . 91 ff, Cf ZE L LER, Die Philosophie der Griechen, Erster Teil, Zweite Halfte, Leipzig 1920, p. 898 ff. 3 Frag. 5, cf. ZE L LER, Die Philosophie der Griechen, Erster Teil, Erste I-falfte, Leipzig 1919, p. 687. We fully agree with the exegesis of Zeller with regard to this passage. He translates the Greek text not as ' Den­ ken und Sein ist dasselbe ', but « denn dasselbe kann gedacht werden und sein », nur das, was sein kann, I.asst sich denken. Cf ibid., footnote, I . 4 D e Anima, III, 8 , 431 b 21. 5 The terms, physical and intentional, are used to indicate two dif­ ferent orders, namely, of being and of knowledge, Hence, physical should not be taken in the sense of m aterial reality. a De Anima, loc. cit., 43 1 b 25. 7 De Anima, Ioc. cit., 432 a 2.

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are the sensible realities ((Xtcr.S·YJ1 ct ) and intelligible realities ( vo·tJ -:-:x.) . How can identity between intellect and being be pos­ sible since there is the mediation of species? The actual identity realised in knowledge has therefore to be based on the potential identity of the intellect with all beings. The intellect is the in­ tellegibles in some way, that is to say, in potency and according to form : o--:-� ou\:&µs� m0 c; fo-n -ra voYJ-rcx o vou c; 8 • Aquinas taking up Aristotle's doctrine gives a deeper mean­ ing to the axiom evidently under the influence of Neoplatonism and Augustinianism. He agrees with Aristotle in undestanding the formula in the sense of potential and intentional identity of the human intellect with all things 9 • But he deepens the meaning of being by giving existential depth to it 10 , and takes esse in the sense of the act of existing; he also deepens the meaning of the human intellect by his theory of participation. The soul is in some way all things according to sense and in­ tellect because whatever has the act of existing, insofar as it has it, is knowable 1 1 • The soul is all things insofar as it is in potency to all 1 2 ; by sense to all sensibles and by intellect to all intelligibles u . The intellect by becoming all intelligibles in some way approaches the resemblance of God in whom all things preexist, as Dionysius has said 1 4 • The mind is compre" De Anima, III, 4, 429, b 30-3 1. :, There is a difference b etween the text of Aristotle and that of Aquinas. The l atter does not say as Aristotle, ' the soul is in some wa y a ll bein g s ', but ' the soul is in some way all '. Cf. I, 16, 3, as an exam ple. I, 84, 2, 2m : ' ... in quantum est in potentia ad omnia '. 1' Cf. E. GILSON, L'E tre et !'essence, Paris i 948 ; p. 77 and p. 59. 11 « Unum q uodque autem in quantum habet de esse, intantum est co­ gnoscib ile. Et propter hoc dicitur ... quad ,anima est quodammodo omnia secundum sensum et intellectum » I, 16, 3. 1 2

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itual nature there is a positive natural tendency for the Vision without any ordination to it 3 7 • Such a desire is not to be con­ fused with the natural desire for natural beatitude. The latter is due to nature and is obtainable by its own forces ; there is strict proportion between the natural potency and the perfection to be attained ; the desire for it would be frustrated if it were not attained ; there is an exigency between the nature and the perfection it craves for. This natural desire expresses the dy­ namism of the spiritual being considered as a determined nature. But the former is not due to nature 3 8 ; it is unattainable by its own forces ; there is no proportion between the natural potency and the perfection to be obtained ; the desire for it would not be frustrated if it were not attained, since nature is kept intact and its perfections that are due to it are safeguarded ; again, such a desire would be mutilated if there were no possibility of the Vision ; there is an exigency in this case only for possible realisation. This kind of natural desire expresses the dynamism of the spiritual subject considered not as a determined nature but as a spiritual act of existing open to the totality of being 3 9 ; it is the dynamism of the intellect which is not merely satisfied .; :- Concerning man's natural desire for the beatific vision, there have been recently many interpretations put forward. O 'MAHONY identifies the natural desire for the Vision with the ordination inscribed in the onto­ logical structure of the created mind ( The desire of Go d in the Philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas, Dublin 1 929, p. 1 90 ff) ; G. DE BROGLIE considers it as an elicited desire implied necessarily in every act of the will (De la place du s.u rnaturel dans la philosophie de Sain t Tho mas, in: Recherches de Sc. rel., 1 924, p. 1 93-245 and 48 1-496) ; J. MARECHAL holds the implicit desire for the Vision as the guarantee of the absolute value of human thought ( Le point de depart de la 1n:e taphysique, cah. 5, p. 262-316) ; ED. BRI SBOIS is of the view that, the natural desire for the Vision granted, the certain knowledge of it and of its implications are knowable to the human intellect only through the light of faith ( Le desir de voir Dieu e t la me taphysique du vouloir selon Sain t Thomas, in: Nouv. Rev. Theol., 1 936, p. 978-989 and 1089-1113). :i� It is to be noted that the terms: natural, desire, inclination, do not mean the same thing when they are applied to two different orders « . . . ali­ quid dicitur naturale dupliciter. Uno modo cujus principium sufficiens ha­ betur ex quo de necessitate illud consequitur, nisi aliquid impediat . . . Alio modo dicitur aliquid alicui naturale, qui,a habet naturalem inclina­ tionem in illud, quamvis in se non habeat sufficiens illius principium ex quo necessario consequatur ... » De Ver. 24, 10, I. We have also to distinguish between natural appetite and natural potency: the first signifies only the desiring capacity of nature, the second a relation to the agent capable of fulfilling it. 3�) J. DE FINANCE, £tre et Agir, p. 352.

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in knowing the existence of the first cause through its effects but which seeks to see the essence of the first cause itself. « Omnis intellectus naturaliter desiderat divinae substantiae Vi­ sonem » 4 0 • This natural desire for the Vision is not in vain since it demands the possibility of fulfilment ; there is a positive and extrinsic possibility of the term of this desire being realised ; otherwise the tendency would be specified by an irreal obj ect and would be unintelligible ; also there should be an agent ca­ pable of fulfilling this desire ; act is prior to potency ; the end is unintelligible except by a proportionate efficient causality . In the present historical order there i s an exigency of God in us calling for the Vision, consequent on our being ordained to the supernatural end as our only last end. Hence, the natural desire for the Vision, existentially p resent in the concrete man is coloured so to say by the reality of his vocation to the beatific Vision even before any grace is received in his soul . Therefore, in the present set up of things the human intellect not only has an obediential potency for the Vision ; not merely an inborn desire for it ; but also an existential calling to the immediate Vision of God - n . This existential calling, present in the human mind is not the same as the effective ordination to the super­ natural end by grace ; the existential calling of which we speak here would not be present, if it were not for the divine will to call man to the Vision. This will of God for calling man for the Vision has to affect human nature in some way since it is n ot noth ing and there is always a corresponding effect to God's decree. What interests us here from the point of view of philosophy is that there is a natural, positive, though inefficacious, tendency in the human intellect for the Vision and that the beatific Vision is the intellect's adequate obj ect. In the order of finality there­ fore, if the intellect affirms a finite being, it is because the in­ tellect tends to the Absolute . It is in this sense, it appears to us, that the view that the intellect is the faculty of the real because it is the faculty of the divine has to be understood. This way of defining the intellect is obtained after analysing its ac­ tivity and examining the condition of possibility of its affirma­ tion of the particular obj ect . C. G. I I I , 57, 3 . is good to recall Fr KARL RAHNER's Theorie vom. « ubernaturli­ chcn Existential ». Cfr his book, Schrif ten zur Theologie, I, Ztirich-Koln, 1 954, p. 323 ff and his article Natur und Gnade, in : Orientierung, 1950, p. 14 1 ff. -ilJ

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But there is another way of considering the intellect , namely, as a faculty of the divine because it is a faculty of being. This method pertains to the order of the actual exercise of know ledge through its formal and proper obj ects . The absolute act of exist­ ing is explicitly known a posteriori through the finite act of existing by the mediation of the ipsum esse.. In other words , we demonstrate God's existence by ascending from the created being through the intermediary of the act of exis ting itself which in­ cludes both the unparticipated and the participated act of ex­ isting . God infinitely transcends all creatures in the order of nature ; but He is immanent to them as cause of their act o f existing 4 2 • « Res ad invicem non distinguuntur secundum quad esse habent, quia in hoc omnia conveniunt » 4 ·1 • This unity of the act of existing in which all come together is a unity of an intelligible movement of the finite mind from the finite to the infinite, including in one and the same affirmation Being and beings, a unity which is founded on the common dependance of beings on Being through participation and causality. The unity of the concept of being is one of analogy ; because God , cause o f beings , possesses eminently their perfections, these per­ fections can be predicated of him. One might say that the mind cannot get the idea of the infinite from the idea of the finite because the idea of the fini te itsel f supposes that of the infinite ; negation of the finite implies the notion of the infinite, as this negation is a step over the finite and as such involves the notion of the infinite. Perception of the infinite should therefore precede that of the finite . As a step towards an answer, it has to be admitted that the percep­ tion of the infinite is prior in nature to that of the finite. But this infini te is not the Absolute B eing. Aquinas would distin­ guish two kinds of the infinite : the infinite in the strict sense, i. e . , God, and the infinite in the broad sense, i . e . , the indeter­ minate ipsum esse 44 • In the human intellect's ascent to God there is the indeterminate act of existing which is the inter­ mediary between the finite being and the Infinite Being. The notion of the finite is possible without the previous notion of the Infinite Being inasmuch as the notion of the indeterminate act of existing is had . .i:z I, 8, I, Im : « Deus est supra omnia per excellentiam suae naturae et tamen est in omnibus rebus ut oausans omnium esse ». 4 3 C. G. I, 26. 44 C. G. I, 43, 8: « lpsum esse absolute consideratum, infinitum est. Nam ab infinitis, et modis infinitis, participari possibile est ».

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Thus the intellect is the faculty of the divine because it is the faculty of being. Though the view of the intellect, as the faculty of being because it is the faculty of the divine, also begins its ascent to God a posteriori, namely, through the effects, still it is concerned in analysing the tendential activity of knowl­ edge and is occupied in finding the condition of possibility of particular affirmations, whereas the other view, not using the transcendental method, knows God through the notion of being as such. The transcendental method is only implicit in Aquinas' writings and is well in the line of his thought whereas the other method is explicit 4 5 • We consider that both are legitimate and complement each other. 4. - The Agent intellect and the object of knowledge.

If the constituent form of the agent intellect is the act of existing itself, what is its relation to a particular object of knowledge? Does this suppose that objects lack the act of ex­ isting and derive it from the agent intellect? It would be a great misunderstanding of Aquinas' position to conclude that the agent intellect produces the existential act of objects. For him the order of being is sacred and the lowest degree of being is provided with a metaphysical dignity which pertains to it properly and really before its assumption by the created know­ ing subjects in knowledge. There is not a single contingent being which is so contingent as to be devoid of some necessity or of some absolute value. « Nihil adeo contingens quin in se aliquid necessarium habeat » 4 6 • Forms in things are a certain imprint of divine Thought 4 7 • Beings possess intelligibility in themselves. Their actuality is a certain light manifesting their values of truth and goodness. In fact, Martin Grabmann has very well seen that the central idea by which the philosophy of the middle ages in general and of St Thomas in particular can be understood is that the world is a cosmos, that it moves ac-i s It is to the credit of Fr J. MARECHA L to have explicitated the transcendental method latent in Aquinas. Our dependance on his works c-n the question of the dynamism of the human intellect is evident. Cfr his article, already cited, Le dynamisme intellectuel, and his book, Le point de depart de la metaphysique, cah. V, p. 18 ff. 4