ens primum cognitum in thomas aquinas and the tradition

26 Pages·2017·0.62 MB·English

by  Brian Kemple

ENS PRIMUM COGNITUM
IN THOMAS AQUINAS AND THE TRADITION

by

Brian A. Kemple
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Dr. Cicero Bruce, who taught me how to read.

Dr. Herbert Hartmann, who taught me how to think.

All the faculty of the Center for Thomistic Studies, who taught me
that there is always something more to discover.

Dr. John Deely, who taught me to check my mirrors, but
most importantly, to look at the road ahead.

Wagner, Boyer, and Plaza,
for the many long conversations.

My mother, who taught me first,
and teaches me still.

And many others, too numerous to name, without whose support
I never would have come this far.
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CONTENTS AT A GLANCE

ESCAPING THE FRAMEWORK OF MODERNITY ................................................................................................................................ 8
I. THE LATIN THOMISTS AND ENS PRIMUM COGNITUM...................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
II. RECENT THOMISTIC INTERPRETATIONS OF ENS PRIMUM COGNITUM .. ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
III. THE INTELLECTUS AGENS AND CONCEPT FORMATION ............................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
IV. THE DISCURSION OF CONCEPT FORMATION.................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
V. RELATION AND ENS PRIMUM COGNITUM............................................................. ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
VI. THE NATURE OF ENS PRIMUM COGNITUM ......................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
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CONTENTS IN DETAIL

ENS PRIMUM COGNITUM ............................................................................................................................................................................ I
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................................................................................. II
CONTENTS AT A GLANCE ........................................................................................................................................................................ III
CONTENTS IN DETAIL ................................................................................................................................................................................ IV
ESCAPING THE FRAMEWORK OF MODERNITY ................................................................................................................................ 8
PREFATORY NOTES ON TERMINOLOGY ....................................................................................................................................................... 13
Subject and object, ens naturae and ens rationis. .......................................................................................................................... 13
Ideoscopic and Cenoscopic ..................................................................................................................................................................14
Concept, verbum mentis, species expressa ...................................................................................................................................... 15
Ens ut primum cognitum and ens primum cognitum .................................................................................................................. 16
INFLUENTIAL APPROACHES TO ENS PRIMUM COGNITUM ......................................................................................................................... 17
OBJECTIVELY AND SOCIALLY-CONSTITUTED REALITY .............................................................................................................................. 21
THOMAS AQUINAS: INTELLECTUS AGENS, VERBUM MENTIS, RELATIO ..................................................................................................... 23
THE LATIN THOMISTS AND ENS PRIMUM COGNITUM ......................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
1.1 THE EARLY DISPUTE: SETTING THE STAGE ................................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
1.1.1 The Scotistic Foil ........................................................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.2 THOMAS CAJETAN AND THE DOCTRINE OF BEING ...................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
1.2.1 Cajetan’s Four Cognitions and Three Abstractions ......................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.2.2 The Doctrine of Analogy ........................................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.2.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
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1.3 JOHN POINSOT, THE NATURE OF CONCEPTS AND ENS UT PRIMUM COGNITUM ........................ ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
1.3.1 Objectivity and Conceptualization ....................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.3.2 De Primo Cognito ..................................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.3.3 Objectivity and the Concept of Ens Primum Cognitum .................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
RECENT THOMISTIC INTERPRETATIONS OF ENS PRIMUM COGNITUM ....... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
2.1 ÉTIENNE GILSON’S “METAPHYSICAL REALISM” ........................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
2.1.1 Overcoming Critique ............................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.1.2 Abstraction and the Nature of the Concept ....................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.1.3 Realism vs. Idealism and the Question of Ens ut Primum Cognitum .......................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.2 JACQUES MARITAIN ....................................................................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
2.2.1 Maritain on Abstraction ........................................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.2.2 Concept Formation ................................................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.2.3 Maritain on Ens Primum Cognitum ................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.3 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................. ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
THE INTELLECTUS AGENS AND CONCEPT FORMATION ...................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
3.1 ST. THOMAS AND THE OBIECTUM INTELLECTUS........................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
3.1.1 Ens, ens ut verum, and ens intelligibile ............................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.1.2 Quod quid est, quid est, and quod quid erat esse ............................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.1.3 Quidditas rei and quidditas rei materialis ........................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.2 INTELLECTUS AGENS ....................................................................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
3.2.1 Illuminare .................................................................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.2.2 Digression on Nature: Matter, Form, and Understanding ........................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.2.3 Abstrahere ................................................................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
THE DISCURSION OF CONCEPT FORMATION .......................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
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4.1 THE DISCURSION OF INTELLECTUAL DISCOVERY ........................................................................ ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
4.1.1 From Pre-Philosophical Cognition to Philosophical Science ......................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.1.2 Intellectual Discovery and the Philosophical Sciences ................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.2 FORMATION OF THE VERBUM MENTIS ......................................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
4.2.1 The Derivation of Primary Concepts ................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.2.2 Terminus of Intellectual Operation and Intentional Fundamentum ......................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.2.3 Necessity of Composition ...................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.2.4 Definition and Quiddity ........................................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.3 A RECURSIVE ANALYSIS OF THE SPECIES EXPRESSA .................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
4.3.1 True and False Concepts ........................................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.3.2 Species Expressae and Cognition-Dependent Objects ................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.3.3 What is Inessential to Things is Essential to Our Concepts .......................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
RELATION AND ENS PRIMUM COGNITUM ................................................................. ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
5.1 WHAT IS RELATION? ...................................................................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
5.1.1 Relativa Secundum Esse ......................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
5.1.2 Relativa Secundum Dici ......................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
5.1.3 The Constitution of Cognition-Dependent Relative Being ............................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
5.2 RELATIONS AND OBJECTIVITY ....................................................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
5.2.1 Intellectual Apprehension of Relations .............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
5.2.2 Interpretation and the Constitution of Objective Realities ........................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
5.2.3 “Reality”, “The Real”, and Objective Constitution ............................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
THE NATURE OF ENS PRIMUM COGNITUM ............................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
6.1 SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ............................................................................................................. ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
6.2 THE NATURE OF ENS PRIMUM COGNITUM .................................................................................. ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
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6.2.1 St. Thomas and the Resolutio ad Ens Primum Cognitum .............................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
6.3 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................. ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
CITED ..................................................................................................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
SELECTED .............................................................................................................................................. ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
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Introduction

ESCAPING THE FRAMEWORK OF MODERNITY

Illud quod primo cadit in apprehensione, est ens, cuius intellectus includitur in omnibus quaecumque quis
apprehendit – that which first falls into the apprehension is being, which is included by the intellect in all else
that it apprehends.1 What does it mean to apprehend—and what is this being which is apprehended first?
Étienne Gilson writes in his first missive against critical and idealist philosophies, Methodical Realism, that
the “epistemological” problem raised by the central question of modern philosophy, how it is that we know things
outside the mind, “is posed in terms which, of necessity, imply idealism itself as a solution.”2 Consequently,
Gilson asserts that any attempt to produce a realist philosophy which includes a critical turn is inevitably
condemned to the inescapable prison of idealism. Instead, he turns his focus to the primacy of the “real”—that
is, extramental being, the substances which exist independently of human consciousness. Whereas some
Thomists have attempted to found their theories of knowledge on a Kantian-influenced critique of knowledge
and thereby de facto reduced the primum cognitum to an a priori and innately possessed concept, Gilson and
others may have, on the other hand, been too quick to interpret the “being” of St. Thomas’ claim, that being is
the first apprehended, to include nothing other than what is often called ens reale, being as it exists
independently of any human understanding.
The Thomistic realism of the 20th century which developed largely on the basis of Gilson’s thought, while
successful in overcoming modern philosophy and its problematic way of ideas, nevertheless flirts continually

1 1271a: ST Ia-IIae, q.94, a.2, c.
2 Étienne Gilson 1935: Le réalisme méthodique (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin). References are to the English translation by Philip
Trower, Methodical Realism: a handbook for beginning realists (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 21.
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with the same error against which Gilson warned the Louvain school of transcendental Thomism:3 although they
did not fall into the trap that one must establish how it is that we know before it can be shown that one knows
things outside the mind, Gilson and his followers do seem to accept from modern philosophy an opposition of
the objects of cognition, i.e., as either within the mind or outside of it, which implies as the sole solution to the
problem of knowledge that the proper objects of knowledge are only those things that have their whole mode of
being entirely independent of human cognition.4 While this approach succeeds in escaping the epistemological
quagmire which follows upon taking knowledge of the extramental world as problematic, it does not fully explore
the nuances of Thomas’ own teachings on human knowledge. In other words, accepting that all objects of
thought are either ens reale, as something existing outside the mind, or ens rationis, as something existing only
in the mind, such that the two kinds of objects are mutually exclusive of one another,5 and interpreting St.
Thomas through this exhaustive and exclusive division of objects, does not fully accord with the teaching of the

3 Among whom Gilson includes Mercier, Noël, Picard, Roland-Gosselin, and Marechal. Gilson 1939: Réalisme thomiste et critique de la
connaissance (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin). References are to the English translation by Mark A. Wauck, Thomist Realism and
the Critique of Knowledge (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012). See in passim. Hereafter Réalisme thomiste.
4 Cf. Gilson 1939: Réalisme thomiste, 205: “Here we discover the true realist meaning of the formula: ens est quod primum cadit in intellectu.
With its first truth the intellect apprehends what is most profound in its object: the actus essendi.” Note that an actus essendi is properly
said only of that which has being in the substantial order. Cf. 1935: Le réalisme méthodique, 86-92, wherein my point is not explicitly stated,
but is heavily implied by the distinctions which Gilson draws between realist and idealist epistemologies. See also Owens 1992: Cognition:
an epistemological inquiry (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press; Houston, TX: University of St. Thomas Center for Thomistic
Studies), 34: “The first problem, then, is to discern what is actually the basic object upon which your cognition directly bears, whether
upon externally existing things or upon internally present ideas and sensations. Upon that foundation the subsequent epistemology will
depend.” Ibid, 153: “The notion of an ‘objective concept’ does not fit very well into an epistemology in which real sensible things are the
direct object of our intellection. Rather, the object of the concept is the thing itself as known in abstraction. In this way the human nature,
the animal nature, and the vegetative nature of a perceived object are represented in separate concepts. They are represented apart from
each other, even though in reality they are never found in separation from the really existent individual. The existence these objects have
in separation from one another is accordingly cognitional existence. As abstracted they cannot be sensibly perceived or imagined, though
they are always known in a sensible image. The notion of ‘objective existence,’ as contrasted with real existence, would seem wrongly to
endow the abstracted nature with a kind of being in between cognitional and real existence.” Also Klubertanz 1952a: Introduction to the
Philosophy of Being (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1955), 35-40. The common problem indicated by these texts is not that they
engage the problem of modern epistemology in the framework of its own terms, but in rejecting the notion that ideas are the direct objects
of our acts of understanding, there is an overreaction and overemphasis on the priority of the “real” as the object of intellectual activity.
The consequence of this is that entia rationis are left without a sufficient account, not only in how they come to be known, but also in
terms of how they are incorporated into many of the discursively formed concepts of the intellect.
5 See, for instance, the treatment in Joseph Owens’ 1963: An Elementary Christian Metaphysics (Milwaukee, WI: Bruce Publishing Co.);
references are to the University of St. Thomas Center for Thomistic Studies edition reprinted in 1985 (South Bend, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press), 38-39, or, in the same work, in terms of first and second intention at 240: “The first intention bears directly upon the thing
as it is in real being or in the imagination. The second intention bears only upon the thing as it is in intentional being in the intellect.”
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Common Doctor. This opposition of ens reale and ens rationis, where the former deals with the reality of things
themselves and the latter with those things which exist only within the psychological subjectivity of the
individual mind, oversimplifies the nature of res and the “real” as well as the manner in which the cognitive
faculties of the human being interact with the world, both according to the teaching of St. Thomas and in truth.
Indeed, the term ens reale never appears once in the oeuvre of St. Thomas Aquinas; while this does not mean that
there is not some truth to the idea connoted by the term, the stark division of modern philosophy between the
mental and the extramental as objects of cognition is not to be found in Thomas.6
This approach to the objects of cognition, although it does result in a philosophical approach that avoids the
ultimately solipsistic disaster of modern philosophy, nevertheless lends itself to reliance upon an oversimplified
and at times insufficiently explained notion of abstraction, and, moreover, results in a conceptual framework
inadequately equipped to deal with the emerging importance of relation as a mode of reality equiprimordial with
substance.7 This equiprimordiality should not be misunderstood to signify that relation exists in a way
independent of substances, but rather that the mode of existence of all substances other than God—and even in
a certain sense within God, in the three Persons of the Divine Trinity—includes relation in its very nature.

6 Moreover, Thomas uses the term res rationis on more than one occasion (cf. c.1252/56a: In Sent., lib.2, d.37, q.1, a.1, c.; 1266-68: ST Ia, q.13,
a.7, c.; i.1256-59: DV q.28, a.6, c., q.29, a.4, ad.12, and 1271/2a: In Meta., lib.5, lec.9, n.897), indicating that the formal ratio of truth (DV q.1, a.1,
c.) does not necessarily consist in the adequatio of the intellect and a cognitively-independent thing. Cf. also Thomas Osborne 2010: “The
concept as a formal sign” in Semiotica 179:1-21, especially pages 11-12 for a discussion of how entia rationis can be objects of the intellect in
a manner similar to entia naturae.
7 Cf. Joseph Ratzinger 1970: Introduction to Christianity (New York: Herder and Herder), 132: “the undivided sway of thinking in terms of
substance is ended; relation is discovered as an equally valid primordial mode of reality.” Thomas Langan 1996: Being and Truth
(Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press), 39: “relation is emerging as central. This is inevitable, given the finite mind that does not—
as the divine Mind does—generate its own Word from itself but must find the stuff of its word given in a transcending reality. But it is
not just our knowledge that is relational. The things themselves (including, of course, our own bodies) because they, too, are finite, and
hence do not provide their own conditions, are caught up in webs of causality and other real relations, the basis of further networks of
implication between abstract concepts. Only because real relations between things are visible to us and recognizable as such do we have
a base for discovering the distinction between such real relations and those constructed imaginatively by the mind.” The importance of
relation is the central thesis to Adrian Pabst 2012: Metaphysics: The Creation of Hierarchy (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co.). Cf. c.5 below for my own discussion of relation, including many other relevant citations.