# The Philosophy and Psychology of Pietro Pomponazzi/Chapter VIII
## CHAPTER VIII

REASON
POMPONAZZI, like Aristotle, put unquestioning confidence in sense-experience. The senses may be deceived, they said, when the conditions of accurate sense-perception are not present; but that the impressions (species) made by outside realities upon the senses correspond with those realities, there need be no doubt whatever 1 .
Of illusions of the senses, Pomponazzi gives a perfectly correct account. It may happen, he says, that the usual course of events whereby the sensible thing acts on the external sense and the external sense on the " interior " sense and imagination, is reversed; and the sense is affected by the imagination without the presence of a real sensible object 2 . But all the senses are not deceived simultaneously; thus, for example, when we see a stick in water and it appears to be broken, the eye is deceived, but the other senses correct the false impression. Again, such
1 For Aristotle's views on this point see Zeller's Aristotle, Eng. trans., I. pp. 206 211, and notes; cf. Pomp., Coiiun. de Anima, f. 84 r.: "Visoquod sensus recipiat speciem sensibilem, videndum est modo quid sit illud quod producit speciem sensi- bilem; et brevi dicendum est quod objecta sunt, quae producunt species sensibiles "; p. 221 r.: "Hoc modo fit sensatio, scilicet, quod sensibile imprimit suum simulacrum in ipsum sensum," etc.
- "Natura primo sensibile agit in sensum exteriorem imprimendo in ilium suum simulacrum, demum sensus exterior imprimit simulacrum quod in se habet in sensum communem, sensus vero communis eodem modo agit in imaginativam, et in imagina- tiva reservatur ipsa species et hoc fit in ordine recto. In ordine vero retrograde fit modo contrario. Imaginativa enim quae sibi reservavit speciem sensibilem, earn imprimit in sensum exteriorem, et sic sensus exterior movetur iterum a specie sensibili, licet ipsum sensibile actu non existat, et non sit praesens." Coiiun. ile An. f. 221 v.
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illusions do not affect a number of persons together, and the individual aberration is rectified by the experience of others 1 .
But now the question arises, how the mind forms the notion of an individual being, regarded as a substance or "subject" in which sensible qualities inhere.
If the common conditions of sense-perception had been investigated before Kant by Aristotle, the notion of substance had been examined before Locke, and with much greater success than attended his efforts in this direction. And in analysing the nature of the sensibilc per accidens (______), the follower of Aristotle was discovering the true nature of knowledge and the part taken by the mind in the perceptions of sense.
Pomponazzi's account of the role of sensus interior imagination, memory, cogitativa in passing from the sensibile per se to the sensibile per accidens, and arriving at the notion of substance, is a characteristic part of his psychology. His cue is to deny that substance is sensibile per se, and to affirm that it is sensibile per accidens that is, properly, not an object of sense-perception at all, but a notion arrived at by the mind through a process of discursiis or ratiocinatio. Thus in the course of this discussion he carries a stage further his theory of the mind's activity in sense-perception.
The sections of the Commentary on the De Auima dealing with substance and the sensibile per accidens - shew that the
1 "Quod unus sensus decipiatur cst possibile, sicut oculus in visione baculi existentis in aqua, quia judicat ipsum esse fractum et in rei veritate non est fractus; sed quod omnes aut plures sensus dectpiantur circa idem objectum non contingit, quia (unus) certificat alterum sicut tactus certificat nos de baculo quod non sit fractus, quum per visum judicatus est esse fractus.... Remus videtur nobis fractus et non dicimus quod est fractus, et sic verum est quod nihil vere sentitur nisi illud sit existens praesens." Op. cit. ft". 222 v., 223 v. Cf. ft". 90, 91.
(1) "Utrum accidens ducat in cognitionem substantiae," ff. 33 35;
(2) A section only partly transcribed in Ferri's edition, ff. 91 93;
(3) "Utrum substantia materialis intelligatur per propriam speciem," ff. 187
189;
(4) Not transcribed in Ferri's edition. " Utrum species substantiae sit substantia
an accidens," f. 189;
(5) "Utrum substantia producat speciem substantiae in phantasia, an aliud,"
f. 190 r.;
(6) "Utrum cogitativa denudit speciem substantiae a sensibilibus propriis et
communibus," ft". 223, 224;
(7) "Utrum grave et leve sint substantiae," ff. 229 231.
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whole subject was in Pomponazzi's day much perplexed by forgotten controversies; and it is not very easy to extricate his own thought of it, which was really sufficiently clear, and in its way interesting.
We find Pomponazzi occupied as usual with various controversies. Against Averroes he denies that there is a power in sense to approach and apprehend substance directly. This negation broadens into a general denial of any sort of intuition or immediate apprehension of substance. Presently these contradictions appear as the negative aspect of his own thesis, that the conception of substance is formed or, as he would say (realistically), the apprehension of substance is reached by an act or process of discursive thought.
These discussions were of course carried on under the influence of scholastic hypostasising of abstract substance. The notion of the logical correlativity of substance and attribute, had it been clear to any of the controversialists or to Pomponazzi himself, would have greatly simplified the issue and proved a safe guide in the psychological analysis. Those who believed that the substance, as substance, could be approached by a specific act of the mind and apprehended per speciem propriam, supposed so because they believed the substance somehow existed in itself as apart from its attributes. The attributes, then, made their " impression " on the mind; the substance, by an equal right, could make its own.
It would not be easy to determine exactly how far Pomponazzi was emancipated from this fallacious mode of thought, or comprehended the true conception of Aristotle.
The truth is that he was not occupied with substance as concrete, in the modern meaning of that distinction; nor even, directly, with substance existing as a reality outside the mind. It never occurred to him to question that real existence. The question before him, suggested by the Aristotelian analysis, was the psychological question how the idea of that substance (which might be supposed to exist) came into the mind.
That substance existed, he never doubted, any more than any other schoolman. Whether he imagined it as existing out side of its attributes, is not an easy question: the fact of his
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holding that it could be known only in its attributes may suggest that he did not. The point of interest, certainly, in the history of thought is that according to him the substance or subject um was not to be apprehended by any mental act appropriated to it as a separate entity, but through induction from the knowledge of the attributes: "Substance is known through an act of discursive thought, from a mutual comparison of a number of attributes 1 ."
Every schoolman was a "realist" in the modern sense albeit a "representative realist" : to the thinker of that age the correspondence of thought and reality was not so much a postulate as an unquestioned and unconscious assumption. By the time of Pomponazzi every schoolman was also something of a psychologist. The only question was whether he should be a realist in the way of "common-sense" that is, broadly, in the "scientific" way or a realist in his own special and technical sense of hypostasising logical abstracts: the question was whether he should be a serious or a fantastic psychologist.
To the essentially psychological question which he set before him, Pomponazzi gave an unambiguous answer. In his polemic against the Averroist and quasi-Averroist theories of a direct intuition of substance he exploded a venerable psychological superstition. He assigned the abstract idea of substance the matter before him to a process of discursive thought, by induction from the knowledge of the attributes. Finally, we hear him affirm that neither can the attributes be known without the substance nor the substance without the attributes.
One limitation of his view and of the scope of his psycho logical enquiries, was characteristic of his time and his environment. The subject which he set before him was simply the abstract idea of substance; how, he asked, and by what stages, does the mind arrive at this conception of substance in the abstract? He did not enquire into substance as an objective category of thought constituting experience, but into the single phenomenon in consciousness of the subjective idea substance. He did not distinguish correctly as it was not given to that
1 " Suhstantia cognoscitur per discursum ex collatione plurium accidentium ad invicem." Of.cit.L 189 r.
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clay to distinguish between the idea of substance considered merely as an abstract conception, and substance regarded as concrete in particular sensible qualities. Yet his acute observation, as we shall see, did not fail to notice the deeper question; and he treated it with the respect it deserves.
First of all, then, he denies the intuitive perception of a substance as such by sense. This seems to us an altogether extravagant supposition; but it was not by any means so in conceivable to those who imagined the substance as a somewhat existing separately beneath its attributes.
He presses 1 the language of Averroes closely to convict him of this monstrous doctrine. But he is eventually obliged to admit that this is rather to force Averroes's meaning 2 .
Two explanations were given of what Averroes meant by " sense " in this connection. One was that he referred to " interior sense," which as we know included imagination and even cogitativa; and that the perceptions of exterior sense (sense proper) were only the occasion on which the interior sense proceeded to the apprehension of substance 3 . Once more it was even said on behalf of Averroes that he intended to include a possible action of intellect, and that in ascribing to sensus a perception of substance he meant not sensus ut sensus est, but ut est sensus animalis intelligentis*.
Pomponazzi is not disposed 5 to admit that these suggestions harmonise with the language actually used by Averroes. In his later reference 6 however he concedes to Scotus another interpretation of that language which is more feasible, and in which it cannot lightly be dismissed: Sense (so this interpretation ran) in so far " apprehends substance " as substance is inextricably bound up with its own sensible qualities 7 . Pomponazzi attaches great weight to this aspect of the matter, and suggests that it may be reconciled with his own view 8 .
1 Op. cit. f. 92.
- "Dictum illucl possit extorqueri." Op. cit. f. 189 v.
    i "Per sensum exteriorem sensus interior deveniat in notitiam substantiae." Op. cit. f. 91 v.
4 Ibid. Cf. f. 230. 5 Op. cit. f. 92. G Op. cit. f. 189 v.
7 "Sed ejus sententiam veram esse ita concedit Scotus, quod sensus quomodo et involute cum ipsis sensibilibus cognoscit substantiam." Ibid.
8 "Forte quod isti possent simul conciliari." Ibid.
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I shall return to this point presently. Meanwhile, with respect to the other explanations of the action of sensits interior or even intellect on the data of sense to produce the conception of substance, Pomponazzi justly claims that they surrender the whole position. For as apprehended by sensus interior^ or by "sense as the sense of a thinking being," substance is no longer sensibile per se no longer an object of sense properly speaking at all 1 . On this shewing, the apprehension of substance, so far from being possible to external sense, involves a certain process of the mind. This is implied in its being, as thus admitted, sensibile per accidens. For this is, says Pomponazzi, the whole point 2 . If that be what Averroes meant, in short, by attributing the apprehension to sense, then the conception of substance is present in sense, but tacitly and as it were unconsciously there; and only comes to apprehension in imagination. According to others, the species substantiate is in no way present to sense at all, but is apprehended by imagination. They hold "that substance is thought by means of its special form... but as to how imagination apprehends substance, and not the external senses, different views are held. Some say that the sensible object produces its form, and that with its form the form of substance is involved, and that it first produces it in external sense, then in common sense, lastly in imagination: and they say that though the form of substance is present in special and common sense, yet sense itself does not apprehend it, but that of all the faculties imagination alone apprehends //....There are others however who say that the form of substance is not in sense, either special or common, yet that it is in imagination... They say that from the external senses the form of substance is produced in imagination. Those people therefore hold that substance is apprehended by imagination by means of its special form, whether the manner of
1 "Et ita est sensibile per accidens, quia per sensibile proprium sensus interior devenit in ejus notitiam; non tamen ita est quod sensus exterior cognoscat substantiam Si enim ex cognitione coloris vel figurae cognoscatur substantia ut substantia est, hoc non est sensus ut sensus est sed ut est sensus animalis intelligentis." Op. cit. f. 91 v.
2 "Totum ergo stat in hoc, quod si dicat sensum exteriorem cognoscere substantiam, debet intelligi per accidens." Ibid.
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its apprehension is according to the first opinion or to the second: and they hold that there is a special image of each material substance 1 ."
Pomponazzi in reply, while denying that substance is apprehended per propriam speciem^ recognises the part of imagination in the formation of the idea of substance. " I say that it is the special function of imagination to receive the form of substance, provided that it is properly predisposed, and receives the special attributes of the substance. For instance, if I wish to apprehend endive, it is not only necessary to apprehend it by sense, but also to connect together a number of sensible qualities, for instance that it possesses a certain smell, taste, colour, multiplicity, substance, mode of action, and the like; and this seems to be what Aristotle expresses in the first book of the De Anima ...when he says that, when we know a number of the special attributes, we can then apprehend something of the ultimate
specific nature of the substance This view necessarily admits
that substance is apprehended through an act of discursive thought, from a mutual comparison of a number of attributes, special namely and common 2 ."
1 " Putant substantiam intelligi per propriam speciem....Quomodo autem phantasia cognoscat substantiam et non sensus exteriores, de hoc sunt diversae opiniones. Aliqui dicunt quod sensibile producit speciem suam et cum sua specie est immixta species substantiae et primo producit earn in sensu exteriori, deinde in communi, demum in phantasia; et dicunt quod species substantiae licet sit in sensu particulari et communi, ipse tamen non cognoscit earn, sed sola phantasia inter omnes virtutes earn cognoscit Alii vero sunt dicentes speciem substantiae non esse in sensu proprio aut communi tamen esse in phantasia... dicunt quod ex sensibus exterioribus creatur species sub stantiae in phantasia. Isti ergo tenent substantiam cognosci per propriam speciem a phantasia, sive modo sit secundum primam opinionem, sive secundum secundam; et tenent uniuscujusque substantiae materialis esse proprium phantasma." Op. cit. ff. 187 v., i88r.
a "Dico quod proprium est phantasiae recipere speciem substantiae dummodoipsa sit bene disposita et recipiat accidentia propria istius substantiae. V. gr. si volo cognoscere endiviam, non oportet tantum cognoscere earn per sensum, sed oportet multa sensibilia congregare ad invicem, ut quod sit talis odoris, saporis, coloris, numeri, substantiae, operationis, et similia; et ista videtur esse expressa mens Philosophi primo hujus, textu commend undecimi, quando dicit quod quando cog- noverimus multa accidentia propria, tune de substantia habebimus aliquid ultimae differentiae. ...Isti tandem necessario confitentur quod substantia cognoscitur per discursum ex collatione plurium accidentium ad invicem, propriorum scilicet et communium." Op. cit. ff. i88v., 189 r.
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In another discussion 1 he appears to have in view certain incomplete theories of the action of intellectus in this connection. He describes a theory which assigns the apprehension of sub stance to intellectus in somewhat vague and general terms: "Attribute leads to the knowledge of substance.... Our intellect from a perceived form elicits the unperceived form of substance.... No sense rises to the conception of substance, but it is the intellect which apprehends it, after its attributes have first been apprehended by sense 2 ...." He accepts this as so far satisfactory. He regards it however as insufficient, and in reviewing it along with the other explanations here quoted, says that none of them is a correct interpretation of Aristotle. At the same time on stating the theory he adds, " But I do not wish to accept the criticism that John makes here 3 ."
With the same provisional acceptance he seems to quote the further, or alternative, doctrine that intellectus creates the conception of substance when " predisposed " by the conceptions of the accidents 4 . This is indeed in general accord with his own view as already quoted: " The special function of imagination is to receive the form of substance, provided the imagination is properly predisposed and receives the special attributes of the substance 5 ."
But the question still remains, how the idea of substance comes into thought whether by a process of discursive thought, or by some immediate intuition of, and impression by, a species substantiate as distinct from the accidents. " Though many agree in this view " (i.e. as above in assigning the apprehension of substance to intellect), " nevertheless they differ as to the mode of production of the form in intellect 6 ."
1 op. dt. ff. 33, 34.
2 "Accidens ducit in cognitionem substantiae.... Intellectus noster ex specie sensata accidentis elicit speciem insensatam substantiae Nullus sensus profundat se ad substantiam, sed intellectus est qui earn cognoscit cognitis primis accidentibus per sensum...." Op. dt. f. 33 r.
3 "Nolo recipere impugnationem quam facit hie Joannes." Ibid.
4 "Intellectus non potest causare conceptum substantiae nisi prius disponatur per conceptus accidentium." Op. dt. f. 33 v.
5 " Proprium est phantasiae recipere speciem substantiae, dummodo ipsa sit bene disposita et recipiat accidentia propria istius substantiae." Op. dt. f. 188 v.
6 " Etsi multi sunt Concordes in hoc modo dicendi, sunt tamen adhuc diversi de generatione speciei in intellectu." Op. dt. f. 33 v.
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Here then is the last point which Pomponazzi, following Scotus, desires to make good namely that the idea of substance is the result of a process of discursive reasoning. He quotes under the name of John (Philoponus? or Gandavensis?) a theory satisfactory on all but this one point; " John supposes that the forms of the substance and the attribute are present simultaneously in the faculty of imagination, and that the intellect cannot receive the form of substance unless it has first received the form of the attribute which predisposes and prepares for the reception of the form of substance: yet even in this view the form of the substance produces knowledge of the substance, though through the mediation of the attribute 1 ." This possible hypothesis of a direct action of a distinct (and abstract) species substantiae on intellect of an immediate intuition (as it would practically come to be) by intellect of substance as distinct from attributes this was what Pomponazzi wished finally to guard against. As leaving this point undetermined, the general assignment of the idea of substance to intellectus, and the general admission of a predisposition through the conception of the attributes, were not sufficient; nor could those statements be accepted as the full doctrine of Aristotle. Every form of " intuition," even on the part of intellectus itself, must be excluded. " None of these is a correct interpretation of Aristotle, be cause... he does not speak of an intuitive knowledge without discursive thought, but of knowledge accompanied by discursive thought 2 ."
Every doctrine of " intuition of substance " is rejected in the most formal manner. Pomponazzi also notices in passing the contradiction which such a notion would imply of the accepted doctrine of "representative perception." "This kind of knowledge of substance, John, Caietanus and Apollinaris call intuitive, but most improperly and wrongly, because intuitive knowledge is in
1 "Joannes imaginatur quod in virtute phantastica sit simul species substantiae et accidentis, et quod intellectus non potest recipere speciem substantiae nisi prius recipiat speciem accidentis disponentem et preparantem pro receptione speciei sub stantiae; tamen cum hoc etiam species substantiae general notitiam substantiae, mediante tamen specie accidentis." Ibid.
2 "Nullus istorum est ad mentem Philosophi, quia...non loquitur de ista cognitione intuitiva sine discursu, sed loquitur de cognitione cum discursu. " Op. cit. f. 34 r.
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direct relation with reality. We have no such knowledge in this world, but we shall have it in heaven 1 ."
The doctrine of Pomponazzi himself on this subject has already appeared in various statements. A word or two may be added by way of summary.
(a) He fully recognises the function of sense as supplying the particulars on which the mind proceeds to the idea of substantial unity. He formally accepts the modification of the Averroist theory according to which the apprehension of substance was assigned, not to " sense in so far as it is sense" but to " sense in so far as it is the sense of an intelligent animal "; remarking that, on this or a similar view, " by means of external sense, internal sense arrives at the idea of substance." And finally, in leaving the subject, he adopts the concession of Scotus to Averroes: "In a way and as bound up with the sensible qualities themselves, sense apprehends substance." The significance of this admission, which in words seems like the abandonment of his own position, will be pointed out below.
(b) Secondly, phantasia plays its part. " It is the special function of imagination to receive the form of substance in so far as it is properly predisposed and receives the attributes peculiar to that substance."
(c) With regard to cogitativa, it was defined as the function of cogitativa to receive the form of substance apart from quantitative determinations to conceive of substance, that is to say, in a partial, but not an absolute, abstraction from sensible attributes.
(d) One account of the act of thought in the apprehension of the idea of substance is summed up in the words " Substantia cognoscitur per discursum, ex collatione plurium accidentium." The ideas of substance and accident are discussed somewhat fully, in their logical relation, on ff. 34 and 35. Not only, it is there said, do we pass from the knowledge
1 "Talem cognitionem substantiae Joannes, Caietanus, et Apollinaris appellant intuitivam, sed valde improprie et male, quia notitia intuitiva terminatur ad rem: nullam autem talem habemus in hoc mundo, sed habebimus in patria." Op. cit. f. 33 v. The sentence that follows, however, serves to remind us that the scholastic repre- sentationism was dogmatic and not sceptical, a "realism" and not "sensationalism": "Quod si in hac vita cognitio terminatur ad rem, quia phantasma formaliter ter minatur ad rem, non propter hoc est intuitiva." Ibid.
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of accidents to the knowledge of substance, but conversely a perfect knowledge of substance conveys the knowledge of the accidents as well 1 . A "perfect" knowledge of an accident is only given through a perfect knowledge of the substance, and that means, as above, of the other accidents as well 2 . Thus Pomponazzi develops the psychological history of the idea of substance. The passage, however, quoted above, in which he seems almost to abandon his characteristic doctrine of the relation of sense to the idea of substance, is too significant of the limitations of this whole mode of thought to be passed over without more particular notice. The passage is as follows: " But Scotus admits the truth of Averroes's view in so far as it maintains that, in some way and as bound up with the sensible qualities themselves, sense apprehends substance. For by its apprehension of a kind of aggregate resulting from a number of attributes, it apprehends also substance itself, just as there are rustics who know lettuce and other herbs by the simultaneous presence of a number of attributes 3 ."
The case which he has in view is evidently the case in which the abstract idea of substance has not been formed in thought, but in which the logical notion " substance " is practically and implicitly though unconsciously present. This is what is implied in the reference to rustics unreflecting persons, or persons in capable of abstract ideas.
The significant thing is his seeming to allow that in such a
1 "Cognitio accidentis confert ad cognitionem substantiae et e contra." (Op. cit. f. 34V.) " Non solum accidens ducit in cognitionem substantiae, sed etiam e con- verso." (Op. cit. f. 34 r.) "Dicit Averroes quod definitiones et declarationes quae non declarant accidentia sunt vanae; quod eodem modo contingit quum accidentia declarantia ipsam substantiam sunt maxime propria; quae vero non sic, non sunt propria saltern eodem modo. Sic enim perfectissima definitio declarat omnia acci dentia. (Op. cit. f. 35 v.) "Substantia ducit in cognitionem accidentis et e contra via discursiva et demonstrativa." (Op. cit. f. 35 r.) " Non enim per speciem substantiae ducimur in cognitionem accidentis." Op. cit. f. 34 r.
2 "Perfecta enim cognitio accidentis non potest haberi nisi post cognitionem substantiae." Op. cit. f. 34 v.
3 "Sed ejus sententiam veram esse ita concedit Scotus, quod sensus aliquo modo et involute cum ipsis sensibilibus cognoscit substantiam. Cognoscendo enim aliquid aggregatum ex multis accidentibus, et ipsam substantiam cognoscit: sicut sunt rustici qui cognoscunt lactucam et alias herbas ex aggregatione multorum accidentium simul." Op. cit. f. 189 v.
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case Averroes was right in seeing no action of thought at all. Yet he says, there is an apprehension of substance, obscure, but real 1 .
We have already seen that in his enquiry into the conception of substance Pomponazzi has before his mind the abstract idea of substance. He is concerned simply to trace the emergence of that idea, and to shew the psychological process by which it is reached. In the passage before us, he stands in the presence of another order of facts, and on the threshold of a different enquiry, into which however he does not enter.
The fact which he here describes "that in a way, and as bound up with the sensible attributes themselves, sense apprehends substance " is the characteristic fact of human experience. Psychologically, it is correctly observed by Pomponazzi. He stumbles, however, in his attempted explanation of it that is, in referring it simpliciter (if we are to take the literal meaning of his words) to sense.
This explanation may be viewed in two ways. Critically regarded, it must be considered a self-contradiction on Pom-ponazzi's part; revealing the inadequacy of his method of thought, and incidentally of every merely psychological explanation of the fact of knowledge. Pomponazzi had of course no notion of the distinction between the logical prius, or prins de jure, and the psychological prius, or prius de facto. For want of this distinction he was at a loss.
In his oscillation between the two poles sense or reason, reason or sense and his falling back in the critical instance, on account of the absence of the explicit abstract notion of substance, upon sense as the alternative, we are forcibly reminded of the course of subsequent controversy. We are in presence of the issue which came to be discussed between the Intuitionalist and the Sense Empiricist. The advocates of a rational element in human experience set up an hypothesis of Ideas and Principles of Reason present to consciousness and explicitly recognised. These, however, had to be verified by psychological observation as facts. The opposite school, failing to discover rational principles in such an explicit and abstract form, and dismissing
1 " Ipsam substantiam coguoscit." Ibid.
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them as, psychologically speaking, fictions, referred all knowledge to the data furnished by sense.
The language of Pomponazzi, however, may also be interpreted in a more sympathetic spirit. He may be said to have stated the problem with insight and sincerity, even though in stating it he contradicted his own formal theory. He perceives that there is an apprehension of substance without the express and explicit idea of substance. He admits the part of sense in that apprehension, without withdrawing his repeated contention that sense is not by itself adequate to the task. With a broader and more comprehensive psychological observation than that of his age, he turns from the analysis of the ideas of the philosopher to the explanation of the experience of the plain man. At the same time he at least describes in words even if unconscious of the problem his words raise those facts which an accurate psychology can indicate, but which the observation of them does nothing to explain. In such phrases as, " Sense in so far as it is the sense of an intelligent animal," and " Substance the knowledge of which is implied in its sensible qualities," we may imagine a prophetic anticipation of the problem of modern philosophy.
In developing this theory of the formation of the idea of substance, Pomponazzi definitely broke with the mechanical explanation of mental action. That explanation was that there must be something in the mind as it were physically correspondent to the outward thing which produces an impression on the mind. Pomponazzi escapes from the bondage of this conception by a distinction, firmly grasped and applied, between actio realis and actio spiritualis.
(a) When, for example, the mechanical conception was invoked in favour of an immediate action of substance on the mind, as a real entity making its correspondent impression there, Pomponazzi replied by means of that distinction.
We notice this in that early discussion " Whether accident leads to the knowledge of substance" and "Whether the form of substance produces the knowledge of substance" of which an account has already been given. One of the modes of reasoning which Pomponazzi has constantly in view there is that "spiritual
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activity ought to correspond to material activity," and " as it is in real and material action so is it in spiritual 1 ."
Now substance, in the sphere of reality, according to the scholastic mind, exists apart from, and prior to, its accidents: therefore, the argument was supposed to run, the conception of substance should be prior to, and separate from, that of the accident. To this analogy Pomponazzi answers: " The principle that the relation of the thing to the physical action holds also
in the spiritual sphere is not universally true The exact
opposite is the case in spiritual activity, as has been said. In material things substance is prior to modification; in the spiritual sphere in many cases the exact opposite is true, as when the substance is unknown to us, while the modification is known: and in this way it is true of imperfect knowledge 2 ."
Still more generally does he express himself, to the same effect, in his last utterance on the subject 3 . The Averroist argument was: "The stone is not in the mind, but its form... the intellect receives all forms 4 / therefore the mind is impressed by the " form " of substance as such. Pomponazzi, in denying this immediate effect or impression of substance on the mind, distinguished the effect in question as a logical one (conceptus), the logical notion of the substance stone, the " action " that is, not as realis, but as spiritualis. " When it is said the stone is not in the mind and intellect is potentially all forms, I reply that though substance of this kind has no special form, yet it has a special conception that in a way represents the thing, by means of which conception the intellect arrives at knowledge of the substance 5 ."
1 "Actio spiritualis debet proportionari actioni materiali." Op. cit. f. 33 v. " Ita est in actione spiritual! ut in reali et materiali." Op. cit. f. 33 r.
2 " Ille modus dicendi non est universaliter verus, Sicut res se habet ad actionem realem ita ad spiritualem. ...Stat autem totum oppositum in actione spirituali, ut dictum est. In materialibus prius est substantia quam passio; in spiritualibus multoties est totum oppositum, ut quando substantia esset nobis ignota, passione existente nota; et hoc modo est verum de imperfecta notitia." Op. cit. f. 351.
s Op. cit. f. 189.
4 "Lapis non est in anima, sed species lapidis....Intellectus recipit omnes formas." Op. cit. f. iSyr.
5 "Cum dicitur, Mapis non est in anima; et intellectus est in potentia ad omnes formas, dico quod etsi tails (substantia) non habeat propriam speciem, habet tamen
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(3) But the mediaeval theory of mental action also met Pomponazzi in another form namely in the highly characteristic difficulty about accidents producing the idea of substance. Those who denied the separate and immediate " action " of substance found themselves in a fresh difficulty. " Substance," they reasoned, "does not act directly." But "how can accident produce the form of the substance? " Hence the perplexity of some whom Pomponazzi calls aliqui Thomistarum, and the futile expedient to which they had resort. They could not allow that "substance produces the form of substance 1 ." Yet neither could they understand, on their theory of the action of reality on the mind, accident " producing " anything but the species corresponding to itself, that namely of accident; or the species of substance being " produced " by anything but substance itself. So they had taken refuge in the exquisitely illusory explanation, a typical verbalism " the form of the special attribute produces in the intellect the form of each, and produces the form of sub stance by virtue of substance"."
It is interesting to notice that Pomponazzi escapes from this characteristic scholastic puzzle by the distinction between mental and physical "action." In the act of knowledge, he says, there is a direct relation between the mind and substance; though a physical or mechanical impression of the mind by substance is what he has all through denied. " The proposition substance does not act directly can be interpreted as holding only as regards physical action: but the action in question is purely spiritual 3 ."
The intellectus agens of St Thomas or of Pomponazzi bore no relation to the common Intelligence of Averroes, or the
proprium conceptum qui quoquo modo reputat rem, quo conceptu intellectus devenit in notitiam substantiae." Op. cit. f. 189 v.
1 The view which Pomponazzi again refers to here is that of Joannes (Philo- ponus?) "Aliqui putant quod, praeparato intellectu per speciem accidentis proprii, introducatur species substantiae ab ipsa substantia; et hoc tenet Joannes; et concedit ipse substantiam immediate agere." Op. cit. f. 190 r. Cf. f. 33: " Species substantiae generat notitiam substantiae, mediante tamen specie accidentis."
"Species accidentis proprii producat in intellectu speciem utriusque, sed producit speciem substantiae in virtute substantiae." Op. cit. f. 190 r.
3 " Potest glosari ilia propositio, quod substantia non agit immediate, quod sit vera tantum in actione reali: ista autem actio non est nisi spiritualis." Ibid.
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Divine Reason of Alexander influencing the human soul from without. The distinction of " active " and " passive " intellect they understood to be an abstract and logical distinction 1 , and "active intellect" to be a part of the human soul 2 . Averroes had indeed recognised the identity of active and passive intellect, and in his case that meant that he did not allow the latter any more than the former to belong to the nature of the soul of man.
By intellectus agens St Thomas and his followers understood the independence in which intelligence "begets in itself" by abstraction the logical notions of things 1 . To trace the "action" of intellectus agens, then, was to discover the contribution of thought itself to the conceptions of things in knowledge. It is probable that we should still speak, if we used ordinary popular language, of the constitutive " action " of thought.
Pomponazzi was mainly concerned with two interests 4 . On the one hand, like every mediaeval writer, he must maintain the " activity " of thought. The form in which this necessity presented itself to him was that of maintaining a distinction between intellect, as the act of thought, and species intelligibilis, which was supposed to be produced and presented to thought by the intermediate powers (sensus interior) "preserving" and " composing " the data of sense (exterior).
The other interest with which Pomponazzi was concerned was the psychological interest, the scientific interest of tracing and distinguishing the operations of these various powers.
1 "Tenet ergo haec nostra opinio quod ex intellectu agente et possibili continuatur
verum unum sicut ex materia et forma, ex actu et potentia Intellectus possibilis est
sicut materia, agens vero sicut forma." Op. cit. f. 163 v. (Ferri, Introduction, p. 53.)
* "Alexander... tenet intellectum agentem esse deum et primam causam, nee parteni esse animae nostrae. Aristoteles autem vult...quod sit pars animae nostrae." Op. cit. f. i38v.
3 See Siebeck, Gesch. d. Psych. I. 2, p. 456.
4 The principal sections dealing with the nature of thought (ff. 158 170) have not been transcribed in Ferri's edition. Of one important part of the discussion, however, to which reference will presently be made ("Utrum intellectio et species intelligibilis sint idem realiter," ff. 172 174), the text is given. The titles of the omitted sections are these: " Utrum intellectus agens et potentialis sint duae res realiter distinctae et quid sint"; " Utrum sit necessarium ponere intellectum agentem et quomodo"; "Utrum sit necesse ponere intellectum agentem propter intellectionem causandam stante priori necessitate."
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It must always be remembered that intellectio was the act of abstract thought, of forming an abstract idea. In distinguishing (say) the virtus cogitativa from intellectus, it was the act of pure abstraction that was denied to the former.
For the most part, Pomponazzi is hampered by the traditional separation of the intellectual from the sensitive powers. We shall find him, however, gradually and by a dialectical process arriving at the conception that there is no real difference between the intellectio and the species intelligibilis; that what intellect, by its agency, adds to the material presented by the lower powers is not a nova species but the intellectio itself as such the fact of intellectual apprehension. And this conception of the relation between intelligence in its characteristic exercise and the lower powers opens the way to a tentative conception of these as in some sense stages in the development of intelligence.
Besides the apprehension by sense of sensible qualities, objects are determined in general relations. But the two forms of apprehension are by no means on one footing. For the sensible qualities really exist previous to their apprehension. But this is exactly what we cannot say of that which thought apprehends, namely general relations and universal notions.
How then do they begin to be? The significant feature of Pomponazzi's reasoning is that for him the alternative to an " agency " of intellect itself was the real existence and agency of the general conceptions of intellect universalia ante rent, The analogy of sense was always before him. The objects of intelligence are different from the objects of sense: the data of sense were not sufficient, he felt, to call the conceptions of the mind into being. Was then the mind to be considered after the analogy of sense? Sense was purely passive, purely receptive: it was brought from potentiality to realisation by the action on it of its real objects outside itself. Was the actualisation of intelligence (this was the question) to be accounted for in the same way? If intelligence was purely receptive if it had no " agency " of its own its actualisation was explained by its objects, considered as real existences, acting on it.
But this was not the nature of the objects of thought. Such a supposition would restore the baseless, the exploded fiction
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of universalia ante rem. For the objects of thought were " universals."
Such then was the ground on which Pomponazzi demanded an "agency" in thought as such. For if that hypothesis of universalia realia were dismissed, and it were also assumed, as Pomponazzi professed to prove, that the faculties lower than intellectus are inadequate to the production of truly abstract and universal ideas, the conclusion followed that the actual exercise of intellectus is due to the " agency " of intellectus itself i.e. to intellectus agens.
This was the argument of Pomponazzi: it indicates in a cumbrous manner and in obsolete language the difference between sense and thought. The affirmation on the one hand of a contribution of thought itself to the actuality and by con sequence to the objects of thought; the denial on the other of the absolute existence, as independently real, of the terms of thought, of what thought attributes to its objects (of universalia ante rem) amount to a designation in scholastic language of the peculiar relation between thought and its objects.
I do not dwell on the abstract and unreal psychological presuppositions which run through this argument. Intellectus is considered as in absolute psychological isolation; and the verbal cogency of the argument depends upon an artificial distinction between intellectus on the one hand and imagination, memory, vis cogitativa, on the other. The inadequacy of "lower powers," as they are called, to the production of the contents of thought (universals) is constantly affirmed. We shall return to this point immediately.
In a parallel course of reasoning 1 Pomponazzi enquires what is the productive cause of the intermittent action of intelligence of its reduction, in the Peripatetic phraseology, from possibility to actuality. It cannot be, he says, following the same logic as we have just analysed, intellectus itself?& possibilis; for intellecttis possibilis is by its very definition inadequate to actual intelligence, since it is the mere expression of the potentiality of thought, and logically nothing but a passivity, a receptivity: thought potential, but essentially not actual. Nor, he goes on, can the cause of
1 Op. cit. ff. 166 169; Ferri, Introduction, p. 53.
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intellectio be the bare form (species nudd). What does he intend to deny here? The action of intelligence, he seems to say, can not be produced by the object acting through lower powers which are not thought itself: the object presented to those lower powers is not the same as the object of thought and their action is not thought's action, nor capable by itself of producing the action of thought. This is what Pomponazzi means by denying the production of thought to species nuda, or (what is the same thing) to vis cogitativa and imagination. For the species nuda is the object of knowledge as it presents itself to vis cogitativa, a faculty lower than intellectus. Vis cogitativa, it appears, was not capable of apprehending universals. Species accordingly, as present to cogitativa, was, in Prof. Ferri's words, " l'obbietto ideato, senza l'universalita 1 ." Something more than species in that sense some other "agent" as they said then was required before there should be thought proper.
Pomponazzi denies the sufficiency of species to cause intellectio on two grounds, (i) because species as apprehended by cogitativa is \QSS perfect than intellectio, and (2) because in so far as intelligi- bilis it is the object of intellectio, and therefore, in this respect, only itself comes into existence with the actualisation of intellectio.
Species being thus excluded, phantasma is dismissed by an argument a fortiori for it is the sole office of phantasia to present such species, and " if it is not present in the more likely case, it is not present in the less likely 2 ." Once more, then, an essential link in the argument for the " action " of intellectus as such is the absolute separation of intellectns from the other powers of the mind. This unpsychological division of powers led to a highly artificial treatment of mental action. It was partly imposed on Pomponazzi by the metaphysical interest in intellectus agens, and largely confirmed by the exigencies of the reasoning which has been described, in favour of the agency of intelligence (as abstractly understood) in its own processes. That reasoning, as we have seen, did not proceed by the analysis of the facts of mental action, which would have revealed the
1 Ferri, ibid.
a "De quo magis videtur inesse et non est, ergo nee de quo minus." Comm. de An. p. i68r. (Ferri, ibid.)
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unity of the whole mental process. The object was to discover the agency of intellectus as such; an abstract view of intellectus was implied in the whole method of enquiry; and intellect being once defined or considered as essentially distinct from imagination, cogitativa, etc., these must be consistently excluded from that " intellectual " action in which it was sought to trace " intellectual " agency. Thus the abstract and artificial psychology, which gave its peculiar form to the theory of intelligence, was itself stereotyped and confirmed in the course of arguments which were essentially abstract and verbal in their character.
This difference in kind between universal thought and all other activities of the mind is accordingly maintained by Pomponazzi, though not with perfect consistency. He expresses it by the formula that the species nuda which as the product of phantasia and vis cogitativa is the highest product of mental action short of intcllectio " concurs in the cognition of the intelligible form, not as an efficient but as a predisposing cause 1 ." Ferri seems to find indications of waverings from this rigid distinction, which if they were real would mean a tendency towards a truer because a less abstract psychology: "Another account can be given, namely that image and active intellect both concur as efficient causes of the production of the form as if they were a single complete agent 2 ": and again: "I hold that there is no incongruity in supposing that the same thing concurs both as an efficient and as a predisposing cause*." How far Pomponazzi really moved in this direction, it is not easy to say: it is probable that he was carried a little way by an unconscious logic, without actually facing an alternative which would have meant the revision of his whole theory and the abandonment of his presuppositions. His conclusion at any rate is thus given: " The whole necessity for supposing an active intellect is to produce the intelligible form which is the view of Alexander 4 ."
1 " Concurrit ad speciem intelligendam non effective sed dispositive." Ferri, ibid.
2 " Aliter potest dici quod phantasma et intellectus agens ambo concurrunt effective ad speciem causandam sicut unum totale agens." Ibid.
3 "Dico quod non inconvenit idem concurrere effective et dispositive." Ibid.
4 "Necessitas igitur tota intellectus agentis ponitur ad speciem intelligibilem causandam, quae est sententia Alexandri." Ibid.
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The same elements appear, as the factors in Pomponazzi's theory of intellectio, in the discussion of the Quaestio, " Whether intellect and the intelligible form are identical in existence 1 ." The section is a piece of dialectic, very characteristic of Pomponazzi; of its details, however, the interest is for us completely extinct. Its plain drift is towards the establishment of an " agency " in intellectus as before. Species intelligibilis is evidently, as before, the work of phantasia, memorativa, and cogitativa-. It is "received" in intellectus] it is the object of intellectus*. But there is something added to species intelligibilis in actual intellectio. " Intellection is received in the intellect as modified by the form*."
We must not overlook the significance of the designation species intelligibilis. The regular name for the object of thought here takes the place of the negative designation above noted, species nnda. The latter was intended to indicate a difference between species as the work of cogitativa, etc., and intellectio. The title, species intelligibilis, marks the relation between species and intellectio, of which species is the content.
While Pomponazzi intends to distinguish by means of " species " and " intellectio " between the work of lower powers and that of intellectus proper, he yet considers species as intelligibilis. It is, in short, a " representation " by imagination and vis cogitativa retained also in memory of the contents (objectum) of a notion. Therefore it is intelligibilis. It is in one aspect a stage in the formation of the notion; in another, it supplies thought with its object 5 . Both aspects are included in the reference of St Thomas's dictum, which Pomponazzi
1 "Utrum intellectio et species intelligibilis sint idem realiter." Comm. de An.
ff. 172174-
2 E.g. " Dormiens non habet intellectionem et tamen habet speciem; aliter enim si species non remaneret in intellectu hominis (docti?) non esset rememoratio." Op. cit. f. 1731".
3 "In puro intellectu recipitur species." (Op. cit. f. 173 v.) "Intellectio... terminate ad speciem intelligibilem." Op. cit. f. 173 r.
4 "Intellectio recipitur in intellectu specie informato." Op. cit. f. 173 v.
5 "Ita se habet intellectus ad intelligibile sicut sensus ad sensibile, quia utraque cognitio terminate ad objectum proprium.... Intellectio. ..terminate ad speciem in telligibilem." Op. cit. f. i73r.
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follows: " The cognition of the thing results from the form and the faculty 1 ."
It is of course to be remembered, as the essential character of the species, that it was "representative." It was representative of the object that is, in the case of species intelligibilis, of the object of which thought was the apprehension 2 . The species sensibilis represented the objectum proprium sensus; the species intelligibilis the objectum proprium intellectus. The word objectum did not, of course, imply real existence (" objective " existence in the modern meaning of the word), except in a psychological reference, as the real existence of the notion with its contents. This is clearly illustrated in the course of the discussion under review, where Pomponazzi expressly argues for species intelligibilis as the true correlate (terminus) of intellectio y on the ground that the objectum may have no real existence. " I can have intellection of things that exist and of things that do not exist and cannot exist. What then I ask is the correlate of the intellection of the non-existent? Not the object, because the object neither exists nor can exist... Therefore the intelligible form 3 ."
At the same time it is always to be borne in mind that the mediaeval thinker never questioned the validity of knowledge. The species, while representative, certainly conveyed the know ledge of reality. This unquestioning confidence of scholasticism in the human mind, and the absence of all suspicion of the relativity of knowledge, does more even than the errors of its logic to shake its title to the name of philosophy. Subjective in the highest degree in its theory of knowledge, it was yet perfectly innocent of scepticism; and we might take as a concise formula of mediaeval representative realism the words, " The cognition of the thing results from the form and the faculty."
The ruling idea, meanwhile, of intellectus agens finds a new expression in the theory of a difference between intellectio and
1 "Ex specie et potentia fit cognitio rei." Ibid.
2 " Nulli est dubium quod different (species et intellectio) ratione, quum species representet tantum ipsum objectum, non autem intellectio." Op. cit. f. 1721-.
3 "Possum intelligere existentia et non existentia, nee possibilia existere. Tune quaero ad quod terminatur ista intellectio non-entis: non ad objectum quia objectum nee est nee potest esse...ergo ad speciem intelligibilem." Op. cit. f. 173 r.
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species intelligibilis of something added, as before, on the part of intellectiis to bring the species intelligibilis to actual intellect: " Intellect would add to the form either something independent or something relative 1 ."
Pomponazzi quotes first the arguments against this view; mention of these may be deferred until we come to give his answers to them.
Then follow the arguments in its favour, stated by Pomponazzi with his usual baffling impartiality, which makes it difficult to say how far he commits himself to them.
The first reason for affirming something " additional " in intellectio, plus the species intelligibilis, is that the species continues to exist even while there is no activity of intelligence; therefore, it is argued, where there is actual intellectio, some further agency must be at work. This permanent existence of the species (scil. species nuda) was implied in the received psycho logical theory that species resided somehow in the lower powers in memory and the virtus cogitativa (or comprehensive?) before the action of intellectus and in the intervals of its activity 2 .
The second argument is that the species is the efficient cause of intellectio; the third, that it is its object (using the word in the modern sense: terminus, ad quod terminatur). On both grounds, Pomponazzi argues, the two must be distinguished 3 .
An opinion of Avicenna which he quotes as bearing on the first or psychological argument might have pointed him towards a truer psychology. "Avicenna held that the intelligible form and intellection are entirely the same and that when intellection
1 "Vel intellectus adderet aliquid ahsolutum vel respectivum ipsi speciei." Op. cit. f. 172 v.
2 "Ilia non sunt eadem realiter quorum, uno non existente, alterum remanet. Sed species et intellectio tali modo se habent inter se quod unum remanet altero non existente.... Dormiens non habet intellectiones et tamen habet speciem; aliter enim si species non remaneret in intellectu hominis (docti?) non esset rememoratio." Op. cit. f. i73r.
3 "Ilia non sunt eadem quorum unum ab altero efficitur, sed species et intellectio
hoc modo se habent Est dictum Angelici quod ex specie et potentia fit cognitio
rei." (Ibid.) " Item quia ita se habet intellectus ad intelligibile sicut sensus ad sensibile, quia utraque cognitio terminatur ad objectum proprium... .Necessario dabitur species in telligibilis ad quam cum terminelur intellectio erit ab eadistincta sicut species sensibilis est distincta a sensatione." Ibid.
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stops, the intelligible form also ceases to exist, since he could not see how it could be in the cogitative faculty while there was no cognition of the thing 1 ." These words might have suggested the fictitious character, psychologically, of both the species intelligibilis and virtus comprehensiva as distinguished from intellectus; and indeed the concrete unity of mental action generally. Pomponazzi does not seem, however, to have accepted this view.
It does not appear likely that Pomponazzi, who elsewhere shews some comprehension of Peripatetic principles, accepted as his own the second and third arguments savouring so strongly as they do of scholastic " Realism "; and it is doubtless with reference to them that he quotes and, I imagine, adopts the finding of the later and better schoolmen: " The forms and the acts of intellection are not separable in existence 2 ."
To the question, then, "whether intellection and form are inseparable in existence " (idem realiter), he seems to return a qualified answer. He follows a middle course, maintaining on the one hand a difference between species and intellect, so as to allow for the agency of intellectus, but defining the difference on the other hand as not a difference realiter. "Almost all the Latin writers held that the forms and the acts of intellection are not separable in existence: but, if they differ, it is not clear what the intellection adds to the form 3 ." And as to this last point, characteristically, he takes in the end an attitude of indecision leaving the question open, as we shall see, between a modification of a view held by Scotus and another formula hesitatingly ascribed to St Thomas.
Practically, Pomponazzi seems to adopt the view of Scotus, in a sense which he proceeds to explain. He certainly holds
1 " Avicenna tenuit quod species intelligibilis et intellectio sint penitus idem, et quod cessante intellectione cesset species intelligibilis, quum ipse non potuit videre qualiter sit in virtute comprehensiva et non sit cognitio rei." Ibid.
2 "Species et intellectiones non distingui realiter." Op. cit. f. 173 v. We are not able at present to reproduce Pomponazzi's criticisms on these last two arguments, which would have been instructive, on account of a gap in Ferri's edition at this point; and for the same reason it is only by the use of a little conjecture that we arrive at the commentator's own mind on the subject.
3 " Omnes fere Latini posuerunt species et intellectiones non distingui realiter; sed dubium est, si differunt, quid superaddat intellectio speciei." Ibid.
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firmly that species and intellectio differ intellectus adding some thing to mere species: " But if they differ it is not clear what intellection adds to the form." He lays it down, with Scotus, as we have already seen, that intellectio is " more complete" {perfectior) than species, and that intellectus, as agens, while receiving species, adds something to it 1 .
But now we come to the most characteristic part of the theory of Pomponazzi, that part of it which is personal to him self. It is introduced in the form of a modification of the doctrine of Scotus. He proposes to correct that doctrine in two points. These points are related to each other; and the modification which Pomponazzi proposes with reference to them, and which constitutes his independent contribution to the subject, is another stage in emancipation from scholastic fictions and a great stride towards a more rational psychology.
The two objectionable features of which Pomponazzi desires to rid the Scotist doctrine are (1) the proposition, " Intellection adds to the form something that is not relative 2 , and (2) the consequence, " Intellection is another form that is clearer and more lucid than the original form 3 ." In explicit correction of the former he says: "Since it adds either something independent or something relative, it is said that intellection in itself is independent; yet I say, and it is agreed, that it is relative 4 ": and with manifest reference to the second: "When there is talk of an independent addition to the form, I say that that is intel lection itself 5 ."
What Pomponazzi thus denies is the abstract scholastic
1 "Tenet Scotus quod species et intellectio non sint una et eadem res formaliter, sed tenet quod species sit imperfectior intellectione, ita quod intellectio sit altera species multo clarior et lucidior ipsa specie prima Si dicatur quod est necessitas ponendi species intelligibiles, dicunt quod intellectio terminatur ad speciem sicut supra diximus. Ulterius cum dicitur unde causatur ilia diversitas speciei ab intellectione, dicunt pro- venire hoc ex agente et passo melius disposito, et etiam quia in puro intellectu recipitur species, intellectio vero recipitur in intellectu specie informato." Ibid.
2 "Intellectio addit speciei aliquid absolutum." Op. cit. f. 172 v.
3 "Intellectio sit altera species clarior et lucidior ipsa specie prima." Op. cit. f. 1 73V.
4 "Cum vel addit aliquid absolutum vel relativum dicitur quod intellectio in se est absolutum: dico tamen, et constat, relativum." Ibid.
5 "Cum dicitur quoad istud absolutum superadditum speciei, dico quod est ipsa intellectio." Op. cit. f. I74r.
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fiction of the intellectual power possessing, and bringing to the formation of the notion, specific content of its own, apart from that which is furnished to it by experience, from sense primarily and subsequently by the operation of memory, imagination, and rudimentary thought. He denies that intellect adds anything absolutum, independent, de novo (so to speak), holding instead that it invests with a universal meaning contents already furnished in experience. And he puts the same thing in another way when he denies that intellect is or introduces a new species (species intelligibilis perfectior); instead, he consistently maintains that species intelligibilis as such the pro duct, be it observed, of mental activity below the level (as he would have said) of thought is the object and contents of thought.
If we recall the arguments cited against the special agency of intellectus^, we shall see the meaning, and the reason to Pomponazzi's mind, of the concession which he makes later. He divides these counter arguments into two classes (a) those against the " addition " by intellectus to species of aliquid absolutum; and (b) those (of Scotus) against the addition of aliquid relativum. It is obvious that neither set of objections alone will be conclusive against the agency of intellectus, if the other can be got over. Accordingly, when accepting later Scotus's doctrine of intellect, he quietly ignores his objections to aliquid relativum. And when he introduces his correction of the Scotist position, the grounds of his rejection of absolutum are precisely those which he had begun by setting out. He concedes then the objections to absolutum; and in allowing the addition by intellectus declares for relativum.
We quote therefore his own reasonings against the absolute interference of intellectus. " If intellection added something in dependent, a new act of intellection would not result from the form unless something independent were acquired de novo^T The contents supplied by experience, that is, would not be sufficient; a specific new experience would be required. Now, he goes on,
1 At the beginning of the section, op. cit. f. 172 v.
2 "Si intellectio adderet aliquid absolutum, per speciem non acquireretur nova intellectio nisi aliquid absolutum de novo acquireretur." Op. cit. f. 172 v.
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it would be impossible to imagine the form such an experience should take; because it would be contrary to all the conditions of experience as we have it. " Only it is impossible to conjecture the nature of an absolute addition of this kind which intellection should make to the form. Also it does not seem to be the case that intellection is something absolute... because intellection as intellection is intellection of something 1 ."
In the sentence that follows we see the significance he attached to the second point on which he corrected Scotus, and its connection with the first. " Also it would be well to see that if intellection is something independent it will be simply a more complete intelligible form*? Under this phraseology he exposes the absurdity of supposing that intellect, abstractly considered, introduces fresh content into thought in giving it universal form. This new species must be either the same as the species intelligibilis, or not. If it be the same, one or other is superfluous. If the two be different, under which presentation is the object to be thought? It is impossible to see what the difference between the two could be: " It is impossible to see in what respect they differ, since they are of the same substance and content, as e.g. the thought of an ass and the form of an ass 3 ." But in truth species intelligibilis and intellectio are correlatives in the act of knowledge, and a new species (as sup posed by Scotus) in the actual intellectio is of all things most superfluous. " One of them would be useless, either the form or the intellection, since the form is that by which the thing is known and the intellection is that by which the thing is thought. It has therefore been proved that intellection does not add anything independent over and above the form itself 4 ."
It is in the light of this discussion, then, that we are to
1 " Modo non est fingere tale absolutum quod intellectio superaddat ipsi speciei. Item non videtur quod intellectio sit aliquid absolutum... quia intellectio, ut intellectio, est alicujus intellectio." Ibid.
2 " Item pulchrum esset videre quod si intellectio est quid absolutum, non erit aliud nisi species intelligibilis perfection " Ibid.
3 "Non est videre penes quod distinguantur, cum sint ejusdem substantiae et object!, sicut intellectio asini et species asini." Ibid.
4 "In vanum esset unum istorum vel species vel intellectio, quum species est ilia per quam res cognoscitur, et intellectio est etiam per quam res intelligitur. Probatum est ergo quod intellectio non addat aliquid absolutum super ipsam speciem." Ibid.
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understand the words of Pomponazzi when he says, referring directly to these objections, that what intellect adds is ipsa intellectio: ipsa intellect, not nova species^.
We may now understand the intention with which Pomponazzi, just before leaving the matter, goes back to those counter arguments: it is to introduce, by a concession to them, his profound modification of the Scotist doctrine of intellect. " Then in reply to the counter arguments: to the first, which says that intellection in itself is independent, since it adds either something absolute or something relative, I reply, and this is agreed, that it is relative: to the second, which speaks of an independent addition, I reply that that is intellection itself*."
In the sense thus explained, Pomponazzi maintains his doctrine of an agency in intellectus; and, in this sense only, the difference between species intelligibilis and intellect. " Intellection is essentially more complete than the form When it is
said, what is the cause of the difference? I reply that it is caused by what is active and by the passive factor which is better disposed.... When it is said that one of those (i.e. form and intellection) is a useless assumption, the reply is No, for the form alone cannot effect what intellection effects, since the form is less complete than the intellection 3 ." Intellectus agens is thus plainly affirmed. At the same time place is left for the operation of the various factors in mental life, in the allowance for passive mind that is melius dispositus*.
Finally, there is yet another modification of the theory of intellectual action, which if it is only suggested is yet strongly
1 "Quoad istud absolutum superadditum speciei, dico quod est ipsa intellectio." Op. cit. f. 1 74 r.
2 "Tune ad rationes in oppositum dicitur: ad primam, cum vel addit aliquid absolutum vel relativum, dicitur quod intellectio in se est absolutum; dico tamen, et constat, relativum. Ad aliam, cum dicitur quoad istud absolutum superadditum speciei, dico quod est ipsa intellectio." Ibid.
3 "Intellectio est essentialiter perfectior specie. ...Cum dicitur, unde causatur ista diversitas (dico) hoc quod causatur ab agente et melius disposito. ...Cum dicitur in vanum poneretur una istorum (scil., species et intellectio) dicitur quod non, quia species sola non potest facere istud quod facit intellectio quum species sit imperfectior intellectione." Ibid.
4 " Cum dicitur unde causatur ilia diversitas speciei ab intellectione, dicunt pro- venire hoc ex agente et passo melius disposito; et etiam quia in puro intellectu recipitur species, intellectio vero recipitur in intelleclu specie informato." Op. cit. f. 173 v.
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indicative of the direction in which, in a mind like Pomponazzi s, thought was moving.
Just at the end of the same Quaestio he mentions another theory of this actio intellectus, this additio super speciem, besides that of Scotus which he had been engaged in expounding and amending. The characteristic of this theory, which he doubtfully ascribes to St Thomas 1 , was a somewhat different view of species, bringing it nearer to intellectio, and making the action of intellectus upon it a matter easier of explanation. " Form," it was said, on this view (form as the product of memory and cogitativa), " is a kind of incomplete intellection." " They differ as the more and the less complete." Or again even more strongly: " And it is called form in so far as it represents an external object, but it is called intellection in so far as the object by means of it is thought in the mind. ...This view differs from the first, since the first does not assume that the form is the same in quality as the intellection 2 ." Here then was the basis for a different theory of the additio intellectus. " Almost all the Latin writers," Pomponazzi had said, " held that the form and the act of intellection are not separate in existence, but if they differ it is not clear what the intellection adds to the form 3 ." If, now, we take species to be quaedam intellectio, eadem qualitate cum intellectione, the additio is simply the change from the "less perfect" to the "more perfect" in intellectio; "So it seems that there is a certain addition, involving a change not to another form, but from one mode of existence to another 4 ." The difficulties, that is to say, about the " action " of intellectus that it seemed to add specific contents while forming the notion, and to import a new species* on this view disappear, and with
1 " Ita videtur dicere semper Thomas; non assevero hanc esse sententiam Thomae." Op. cit. f. 1 74 r.
2 "Differunt (species et intellectio) ut magis perfectum et minus perfectum. Species enim est quaedam intellectio imperfecta. ...Et dicitur species pro quanto repraesentat objectum ad extra, dicitur vero intellectio pro quanto per earn ad intra intelligitur. Differt autem haec opinio a prinaa, quum prima non ponit speciem esse eaclem qualitate cum intellectione." Ibid.
3 See note 3, p. 194.
4 "Ita videtur esse quaedam additio non in alteram speciem sed in unum ab alio esse." Ibid.
6 "Acquirere aliquid absolutum de novo," "altera species." Op. cit. f. 172 v.
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them the objections to the action of intellectus on species as now understood. For so far from intellect introducing new content (altera species), intellectio and species are on this view absolutely correlative: " It is called form in so far as it represents an external object, but it is called intellection in so far as by that form an object is thought in the mind. So it seems that there is a certain addition, involving a change not to another form, but from one mode of existence to another."
We may resent the tantalising indecisiveness with which Pomponazzi simply states this theory alongside of the other, without pronouncing for either. Or we may welcome this fresh example of the suggestive and dialectical method of his thinking, so faithfully revealing the movement of thought in his time. From this point of view we may regard this suggested alter native, along with his dissent from the "absolute" intellectio of Scotus, as indicating a tendency towards a truer because a more concrete psychology. The intellectual power, he had already stipulated (against Scotus), must receive the contents of its notions from experience, and through the other powers of the mind. He began to seek unity in mental action and a partial loosening of the shackles in which a system of abstractions and logical fictions had bound psychology. And the suggestion that " form is in a sense intellection, and is called form in so far as it represents an external object... intellection in so far as by that form the object is thought in the mind " this suggestion in so far as Pomponazzi contemplated it led him one step nearer to the realities of mental history, and prepared the way still further for the breaking down of the artificial partitions of Averroist psychology.
For if species, the product of sensus interior and cogitativa, be quaedam intellectio imperfecta, then there is no longer a difference in kind between thought and the lower powers. And that the notion of really relating them, and reducing cogitativa and intellectus to a common denominator as stages in a single development, had definitely entered Pomponazzi's mind, appears plainly from his words in another place: " I say that from the intelligent soul and body modified by the cogitative faculty there results an essential unity, because the cogitative faculty is not
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the complete essence of a man. And if it be said... that it is impossible for the same thing to have two forms of being, I reply that that is true only in the case of two forms of being that are ultimate and equally perfect 1 ."
A question is raised by Ferri which is not so much a psychological as a metaphysical question namely how far, according to Pomponazzi, thought is immanently constitutive of the human intelligence. As it is doubtful whether this question presented itself to Pomponazzi, and since, if it did, the passages bearing on it have not been transcribed for us, I content myself with quoting Prof. Ferri's words on the point: " Quanto all esercizio dell intelletto agente il Pomponazzi o il suo Com- mento non si spiega molto chiaramente sul punto delicato di sapere se si debba ammettere in esso un atto immanente oltre i suoi modi transitorii; ma dell insieme di questa parte della trattazione e delle altre ancora di tutta questa dottrina sembra risultare sicuramente che l'atto immanente dell intelletto umano non differisca da un atto costitutivo della sua materia e della sua forma o funzione, potenza e atto che per se stessi son tutto e non son nulla, in quanto l'una per ricevere e l'altro per fare l'intellezione determinata, abbisognano del lavoro delle funzioni inferiori, della cogitativa, della fantasia, della memoria, e dei sensi 2 ."
1 "Dico quod ex anima intellectiva et corpora informato per cogitativam fit per se unum, quia cogitativa non est hominis essentia per se complens....Et si dicitur... impossibile est idem habere duo esse, dico quod est verum de duobus esse ultimatis, et aeque perfectis." Op. cit. f. 142 r.
2 Ferri, Introduction, p. 54.