CAHIERS D'ÉPISTÉMOLOGIE Publication du Groupe de Recherche en Épistémologie Comparée Directeur: Robert Nadeau Département de philosophie, Université du Québec à Montréal

Aquinas on Intellectual Representation

Claude Panaccio Cahier nº 2002 265e numéro

http://www.philo.uqam.ca

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Cette publication, la deux cent soixante-cinquième de la série, a été rendue possible grâce à la contribution financière du Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l’Aide à la Recherche du Québec ainsi que du Programme d’Aide à la Recherche et à la Création de l’UQAM. Tirage: 50 exemplaires Aucune partie de cette publication ne peut être conservée dans un système de recherche documentaire, traduite ou reproduite sous quelque forme que ce soit - imprimé, procédé photomécanique, microfilm, microfiche ou tout autre moyen - sans la permission écrite de l’éditeur. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays./ All rights reserved. No part of this publication covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic or mechanical - without the prior written permission of the publisher. Dépôt légal – 1e trimestre 2000 Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec Bibliothèque Nationale du Canada ISSN 0228-7080 ISBN 2-89449-065-8 © 2000 Claude Panaccio Ce cahier de recherche a été publié grâce à l’assistance éditoriale de Michel Robillard, étudiant au programme de maîtrise en philosophie à l’UQAM.

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AQUINAS ON INTELLECTUAL REPRESENTATION

Claude Panaccio

Département de philosophie Université du Québec à Trois –Rivières

Case postale 500 Trois-Rivières(Québec), Canada

G9A 5H7

claude_panaccio@uqtr.uquebec.ca

Ce texte a été présenté au Colloque “Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality” tenu à Bâle (Suisse) du 23 au 25 juin 1999. La recherche dont il est issu a reçu l’appui du Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada.

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any recent commentators on Thomas Aquinas have insisted that his theory of intellectual

cognition should not be seen as a brand of representationalism. Father Édouard Weber, for

example, has it that although Aquinas “ sometimes uses the traditional term of ‘similarity’ —

‘similitudo’ ”, he nevertheless “ excludes the idea of an intermediate representation ” in intellectual

knowledge1. Alain de Libera, in a similar vein, assures us that in using the term similitudo, “ Thomas

does not equate the mental concept with a representation of the thing ”2. And, of course, several

scholars have labelled Aquinas as a ‘direct realist’ in epistemology3. My point here will be that such

characterizations are in need of important qualifications : there is, as I will endeavour to show by

reviewing a number of relevant texts in Aquinas’s work, a perfectly acceptable sense in which his

theory of intellectual intentionality is basically representationalist.

By representationalism, I will mean, in this context, any theory of cognition which attributes

a crucial and indispensable role to some sort of mental representation. And by mental

representation, I will mean any symbolic token existing in some individual mind and endowed within

this mind with a semantic content. A mental representation, in this vocabulary, is a mental token

referring to something else, something extramental in most cases. What I would like to say, then, is

that Aquinas’s theory does attribute a crucial and indispensable role to such intermediate mental

entities in the very process of understanding.

First, I will briefly recall both the prima facie case for seeing Aquinas’s theory of intellectual

cognition as a brand of direct realism, and the prima facie case for seeing it as a brand of

representationalism as well. And second, I will explore ways of reconciling these two opposite

trends in Aquinas’s thought. My main point, then, will be that the representationalist aspect of the

theory must prevail in the last analysis.

1. Intentional identity and mental representations

1.1 Intentional identity

Why so many commentators see Aquinas’s theory of intellectual cognition as a brand of direct

realism, is straightforward. Scott MacDonald, for example, formulates the point in a paradigmatic

1. Weber [1990], 2709 (my translation) ; see also Weber [1970], 246. 2. Libera [1996], 275 (my translation).

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way : “ a cognizer, he writes, is assimilated to an object of cognition when the form that is

particularized in that object — such as a stone — comes to exist in the cognizer’s soul ”4. The idea

is that intellectual cognition is reached when the cognizer somehow becomes the object itself by

taking on its very form, its intelligible form that is.

Many Aquinas’s texts can be quoted in support of this reading. The Summa contra Gentiles, for

example, is quite explicit that “ any intelligible thing is understood insofar as it is one in act with the

intellectual cognizer ”5. And so is the Summa theologiae : “ cognition takes place insofar as what is

cognized is within the cognizer ”6. Aquinas even explains in this respect that “ non cognizers have

only their own forms, while cognizers are apt to have in addition to their own form the form of the

other thing as well ”7. Thus the thomistic doctrine does posit that some sort of identity — which we

can call intentional identity — is reached through the act of knowledge between the cognizer and

whatever it is that is cognized.

Such intentional identifications are thought to be possible because, as Aquinas makes it clear in

his commentary on the De anima, the very nature of the thing, its essence — human nature, for

example, or feline nature — “ can have two different modes of being : material being insofar as it is

in natural matter ; and immaterial being insofar as it is in the intellect ”8. The upshot would seem to

be that when cognition takes place, it is the very same nature, the very same essence which is in the

cognized thing on the one hand, and in the cognizer on the other hand, except that in the latter this

nature is abstracted from the individualizing conditions which singularize it within the material

cognized objects9. Intentional identity between the cognizer and the cognized thing is possible

precisely because of this special ubiquity of intelligible natures, which also accounts for the

objectivity of knowledge. What more direct form of realism could one hope for than such a doctrine

3 .See, for example, Kretzmann [1993], 138. 4. MacDonald [1993], 160. 5 .S. c. Gent. I, 47 : “ Omne intelligibile intelligitur secundum quod est unum actu cum intelligente ” ; see also I, 44 : “ Formae autem intellectae in actu fiunt unum cum intellectu actu intelligente ”. The English translations of Aquinas’s quotes in the body of the text are usually mine. 6 .S. Theol. I, 16, 1 : “ […] cognitio est secundum quod cognitum est in cognoscente ”. 7. S. Theol. I, 14, 1 : “ […] non cognoscentia nihil habent nisi formam suam tantum ; sed cognoscens natum est habere formam etiam rei alterius […] ”. 8. In De An. II, 12 : “ Ipsa autem natura cui advenit intentio universalitatis, puta natura hominis, habet duplex esse : unum quidem materiale secundum quod est in materia naturali, aliud autem immateriale secundum quod est in intellectu ”. 9 .See De Ente et Essentia III, 5 : “ Ipsa enim natura humana in intellectu habet esse abstractum ab omnibus

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which says that the very nature of the external thing — its essence — comes to exist in some way

within the cognizing subject ?10

1.2 Intellectual representations

This, however, is only one side of the coin, as we are about to discover. What exactly does it

mean to say that the nature of a stone, for example, comes to exist within the mind of the cognizer

in some way ? The striking thing here is that when Aquinas wants to tackle the question, he

inevitably resorts to the idea of mental similarity (similitudo) as being explicative in such matters.

His oft-repeated principle is that “ a cognition takes place only insofar as a similitude of the cognized

thing is in the cognizer ”11 ; or in the wording of the Summa theologiae : “ […] it is required for

cognition to take place that a similitude of the cognized thing be in the cognizer somewhat as a form

of himself ”12. This cannot be seen as the mere result of occasional slips on Aquinas’s part, or of an

uncommitted concession to traditional ways of speaking. Accounting for intentionality on the basis

of similarity is, quite to the contrary, Aquinas’s considered strategy from the early time of the

disputed questions De veritate in the 1250s to the very end of his career in the 1270s13. Mental

similitudo, moreover, is sometimes explicitly associated with some form of representation, as in the

following passage, for example :“ Something is cognized insofar as it is represented in the cognizer,

and not insofar as it is existing in the cognizer ”14.

We must be careful, of course. It has sometimes been suggested that similitudo should not be

translated by ‘similarity’ in such contexts, and that repraesentare should not be translated by ‘to

represent’ either. What is needed, here, is a closer look at the thomistic doctrine of mental

similitudo.

individuantibus ”. 10. As many have remarked, this approach to intentional identidy seems to presuppose something like the avicennian doctrine of the three ‘statuses’ a given essence can have, according to whether it is considered in itself, in the individuals which exemplify it, or in the minds which are thinking it. This connection is aptly worked out, for example, by Libera and Michon [1993], 22-26 and by Libera [1996], 227-283. For a directly relevant passage, see Quodl. VIII, 1, 1 : “ Respondeo dicendum quod secundum Avicennam in sua Metaphysica, triplex est alicujus naturae consideratio […] ”. 11 .S. c. Gent. II, 77 : “ Omnis enim cognitio fit secundum similitudinem cogniti in cognoscente ”. 12 .S. Theol. I, 88, 1 : “ […] requiritur ad cognoscendum ut sit similitudo rei cognitae in cognoscente quasi quaedam forma ipsius ”. I take it here that “ ipsius ” refers back to the cognizer (cognoscens) ; what Aquinas means is that the similitude of the cognized thing must exist within the cognizer pretty much as a qualitative form would. 13. More of this in section 2.3 below. 14 .Quaest. Disp. de Ver. II, 5 : “ […] aliquid cognoscitur secundum quod est in cognoscente repraesentatum, et non

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A somewhat surprising, but quite distinctive, feature of this doctrine that soon emerges under

such scrutiny is that intellectual cognition according to Aquinas requires not one mental similitudo,

but two : the intelligible species, on the one hand, and the concept — or mental word — on the

other hand. Let us examine each one of them in turn.

1.2.1 Intelligible species

The intelligible species is what is deposited within the possible intellect as a result of the

action of the agent intellect15. The process is roughly the following : first, the cognizer gets in touch

with external objects through his senses (sight, hearing, and so on) and forms sensible images of

these external things ; and then the agent intellect takes over and abstracts intelligible forms from

these sensible images. These intelligible forms are the intelligible species I am now talking about.

They are deposited in the possible intellect and stored there for future use.

Aquinas’s view is that these intelligible species are necessary for intellectual cognition to take

place, and prima facie they seem to be exactly the sort of things that is usually meant by ‘mental

representation’ : mental tokens endowed with semantic content. Look at the following passage, for

example :

The soul is not the thing itself as some say, because it is not the stone which is in the soul, but the species of the stone, and what is meant when we say that the intellect in act is the intellected thing itself is that the species of the intellected thing is a species of the intellect in act16.

Intentional identity here is quite clearly accounted for by the presence of intermediate intelligible

species within the mind. And the Summa contra Gentiles is also quite explicit that such is the order

of explanation :

It is to be taken into consideration that the external things intellected by us do not exist in our intellect according to their own nature, but what has to be in our intellect is their species, in virtue of which the intellect comes to be in act. […] intellection itself stays within the cognizing subject and has with the thing which is intellected a relation, which

secundum quod est in cognoscente existens ” (italics are mine). 15 .For this doctrine of the species intelligibilis, see, most notably, S. Theol. I, 84-85. This part of Aquinas’s epistemology has been extensively studied. For recent presentations — and more bibliographical references — see in particular : Kenny [1993], Kretzmann [1993], Spruit [1994], Stump [1998]. 16. In De An. III, 7 : “ Non autem anima est ipse res, sicut illi posuerunt, quia lapis non est in anima, set species lapidis ; et per hunc modum dicitur intellectus in actu esse ipsum intellectum in actu, in quantum species intellecti est species intellectus in actu ”.

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depends on the fact that this aforesaid species […] is a similitude of the thing17. Cognition takes place not because the cognized thing is in the mind according to its proper

nature, but in virtue of a similitudo relation between the mental species and the external thing. This,

undeniably, sounds very much like some strong sort of representationalism.

1.2.2 Concepts

The process I have just described is that by which the intelligible species is originally acquired.

Aquinas, however, has it that when we actively think about something of which we already have an

intelligible species, we then form in ourselves something new, a concept (conceptus) or conception

(conceptio) or mental word (verbum mentis), which also turns out to be indispensable in order for

intellection to take place18. Inspired mainly by Augustine’s De Trinitate, this doctrine of the mental

word is frequently expounded by Aquinas, notably in the disputed questions De Veritate, in the

Summa contra Gentiles and in the disputed questions De Potentia19. Here is, from the Summa

Theologiae, a cameo presentation of it :

Whoever intelligizes, from the very fact that he intelligizes, achieves something within himself, which is a conception of the intellected thing, springing out of the intellectual power and coming from its cognition. And this conception is what the spoken word signifies ; and it is called the ‘word of the heart’ (verbum cordis) signified by the spoken word20.

This concept or mental word is said to differ from the intelligible species, the latter being the

starting point of the intellectual operation while the mental word is the result of this very operation,

its terminus ad quem so to say21. In the disputed questions De Potentia, Aquinas states that the

intellectual cognizer can, as cognizer, be related to four distinct items : the thing itself which is

intellected, the intelligible species, the act of intellection (the ‘intelligere’), and finally the conception

of the intellect, the mental word, “ which conception, he insists, differs from the other three

17. S. c. Gent. I, 53 : “ Considerandum est quod res exterior intellecta a nobis, in intellectu nostro non existit secundum propriam naturam ; sed oportet quod species ejus sit in intellectu nostro, per quam fit intellectus in actu. […] ipsum intelligere […] manet in ipso intelligente, et habet relationem ad rem quae intelligitur, ex eo quod species praedicta […] est similitudo illius ”. 18 .On Aquinas’s theory of the mental word, Paissac [1951] is still a must. For recent reviews of the theme, with additional references, see my [1992] and [1999], chap. 6. 19 .See Quaest. Disp. de Verit., 4 ; S. c. Gent. I, 53 et IV, 11 ; Quaest. Disp. de Pot., 8-9. 20. S. Theol. I, 27, 1 : “ Quicumque enim intelligit, ex hoc ipso quod intelligit, procedit aliquid intra ipsum, quod est conceptio rei intellectae, ex vi intellectia proveniens, et ex eius notitia procedems. Quam quidem conceptionem vox significat : et dicitur verbum cordis, significatum verbo vocis ”. 21. See Quodl. V, 5, 2 : “ Unde necesse est quod species intelligibilis, quae est principium operationis intellectualis,

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items ”22. The thomistic concept is definitely not to be identified with either the external thing, the

intelligible species, or the act of intellection ; it is simply something else. Although they differ,

however, both the intelligible species and the concept (or mental word) are described by Aquinas as

similitudines of external things23. Each intellectual cognition, in this theory, thus seems to require no

less than two distinct intellectual representations…

The Summa contra Gentiles is explicit indeed about the representational character of the

mental word : “ The internally conceived word, Aquinas writes, is some sort of ratio and similitudo

of the intellected thing ”24. And he then goes on to explain what he means by similitudo in this

context :

A similitude of something existing in some other thing can have the significance of an exemplar if it is like a model for the other thing ; or it has the significance of an image (imago) if what it is a similitude of is its model25.

The latter clearly applies in the case of the concepts. So one has no choice but to conclude

that the concept — or mental word — is here said by Aquinas to be a similitude of something in the

sense of being an image — an imago — of that thing. The De Veritate, moreover, neatly described

the concept as being intermediate between the intellect and the intellected thing26. And Aquinas

sometimes goes as far as to raise it to the status of primary object of intellection27. It seems difficult,

in view of such texts (and many others), to maintain that the thomistic concept is no mental

intermediate representation at all. Especially since the mental word is plainly said by Aquinas to

‘represent’ whatever it is that is intellected by it : “ For the word conceived in the mind is

differat a verbo cordis, quod per operationem intellectus formatur ”. 22 .Quaest. Disp. de Pot. 8, 1 : “ Intelligens autem in intelligendo ad quatuor potest habere ordinem : scilicet ad rem quae intelligitur, ad speciem intelligibilem, qua fit intellectus in actu, ad suum intelligere, et ad conceptionem intellectus. Quae quidem conceptio a tribus praedictis differt ”. 23 .See S. c. Gent. I, 53 : “ Haec autem intentio intellecta [i. e. the mental word or concept], cum sit quasi terminus intelligibilis operationis, est aliud a specie intelligibili quae facit intellectum in actu […] licet utrumque sit rei intellectae similitudo ”. (italics are mine). 24. S. c. Gent. IV, 11 : “ Verbum autem interius conceptum est quaedam ratio et similitudo rei intellectae ”. 25 .Ibid. : “ Similitudo autem alicuius in altero existens vel habet rationem exemplaris, si se habeat ut principium ; vel habet potius rationem imaginis, si se habeat ad id cuius est similitudo sicut ad principium ”. 26. Quaest Disp. de Verit. 4, 2 : “ […] conceptio intellectus est media inter intellectum et rem intellectam ”. (italics are mine). 27. See Quaest. Disp. de Pot. 9, 5 : “ Hoc ergo est primo et per se intellectum quod intellectus in seipso concipit de re intellecta, sive illud sit definitio, sive enunciatio […] ”. The opuscule De Natura Verbi Intellectus — of slightly doubtful authenticity — even compares the mental word to “ a mirror in which the thing is apprehended ” (“ Est enim tamquam speculum in quo res cernitur ”).

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representative (repraesentativum) of everything which is intellected in act ”28.

We now seem to have a very strong prima facie case for labelling Aquinas’s theory of

intellectual cognition as a brand of representationalism in the sense given earlier. And even as double

representationalism : intellectual cognition, according to Aquinas, involves both the intelligible

species and the mental word, and both are regularly described by him as similitudes — even

images — of the external things within the mind. But, remember, we also had in the previous section

a rather strong case for labelling Aquinas as a direct realist. So the question which is now before us

is how to reconcile these two apparently opposite ways of speaking we find in Aquinas : one

according to which the very nature of the cognized thing finds some sort of existence within the

cognizer’s mind, and the other according to which only similitudes of the external things —

representations — are present within the cognizer’s mind.

2. Quiddities, species and concepts

The question can be put in the following terms : what could the relation be between the nature

which is said to exist in the mind in an intentional or immaterial mode, and the two sorts of mental

representations called for by the thomistic doctrine, the intelligible species and the concepts ? Once

this question is raised, the most tempting possibility at first sight would be that this relation simply is

identity. This approach then subdivides in two, according to whether the quiddities in the mind are

equated with intelligible species or with mental words. So let us consider each horn in turn.

2.1 Quiddities and intelligible species

Could the quiddity in the mind — the feline nature, for example, insofar as I am thinking it —

be identical with some intelligible species ? Aquinas sometimes seems to suggest as much :

The intellect, however, cognizes the very nature and substance of the thing ; and hence the intelligible species is a similitude of the very essence of the thing and it is in some way the very quiddity and nature of the thing according to intelligible being as it is in the things themselves ; and therefore everything which falls not under the senses or the imagination but solely under the intellect, is known in virtue of this that its essence or quiddity is in some way in the intellect29

28. S. Theol. I, 34, 3 : “ Verbum autem in mente conceptum, est repraesentativum omnis eius quod actu intelligitur ”. 29. Quodl. VIII, 2, 2 : “ Set intellectus cognoscit ipsam naturam et substantiam rei, unde species intelligibilis est similitudo ipsius essencie rei et est quodam modo ipsa quidditas et natura rei secundum esse intelligibile, non secundum esse naturale prout est in rebus ; et ideo omnia que non cadunt sub sensu et ymaginatione, set sub solo

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Upon reflection, though, this identification can hardly be sustained, and we must give great

weight to Aquinas’s own qualification, in this passage, to the effect that the intelligible species is

only in some way (quodam modo) the very quiddity of the thing. There are indeed, within the

thomistic doctrine, irreducible differences between the quiddities of things on the one hand and the

intelligible species on the other hand.

First and foremost, the quiddities of things are frequently said by Aquinas to be the proper

objects of the intellect30. The intelligible species, however, are normally not in his view the objects of

the intellect, they are not the id quod of intellection, but that in virtue of which intellection takes

place, the quo of intellection31. Secondly, the intelligible species are mental tokens and they are

multiplied according to the plurality of singular minds, while the essences are not so multiplied. Thus

having once more recalled, in the Compendium theologiae, that “ the object of the intellect is not the

intelligible species, but the quiddity of the thing ”, Aquinas justifies this distinction between mental

species and quiddities by stating that, even when you and I are thinking about the same quiddity, the

intelligible species we use for that are “ numerically distinct in me and in you ”32. And finally, the

intelligible species has the being of an accident of the cognizer33. How could an essence ever have

the being of an accident ?

2.2 Quiddities and concepts

It seems clear, then, that the intelligible species cannot literally be identified with the quiddity

of the external thing. What about the mental word, the concept ? Here again, there is something to

be said in favor of simply identifying it with the quiddity as it exists in the mind. Look at the

following passage, for example, from the disputed questions De Veritate :

The word of our intellect is that which the operation of our intellect terminates at, that which is intellected and which is called the conception of the intellect ; whether it is a

intellectu, cognoscuntur per hoc quod essencie vel quidditates eorum sunt aliquo modo in intellectu ”. (italics are mine). 30. See e.g. S. Theol. I, 17, 3 : “ Obiectum autem proprium intellectus est quidditas rei ”. 31. A typical passage on this would be the following one, from In De An. III, 2 : “ Manifestum est etiam quod species intelligibiles quibus intellectus possibilis fit in actu, non sunt obiectum intellectus. Non enim se habent ad intellectum sicut quod intelligitur, set sicut quo intellectus intelligit […] ”. 32.Comp. Theol., 85 : “ […] obiectum autem intellectus non est species intelligibilis, sed quidditas rei […] unde et species intelligibiles [sunt] aliae numero in me et in te […] ”. 33. See e.g. S. c. Gent. I, 46 : “ Species intelligibilis in intellectu praeter essentiam eius existens esse accidentale habet ”.

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conception which can be signified by a simple spoken word, as it happens when the intellect forms the quiddities of things, or by a complex phrase, as it happens when the intellect composes and divides34.

The mental word, here — which is either a concept or a combination of concepts — is said to

be the intellected itself (ipsum intellectum), and it is tempting, therefore, to identify it with what is

repeatedly accepted by Aquinas as the proper object of intellection, namely the quiddity. Moreover,

we do read in this same passage that “ the intellect forms the quiddities of things ” ; since the

concept or mental word is frequently described as what the intellect forms through the intellectual

act, the conclusion seems inviting that concepts just are the quiddities of things insofar as they have

intentional being within the mind. All the more so, since the mental word is sometimes explicitly

attributed a purely intentional mode of existence within the mind35 (by contrast, in particular, with

the accidental mode of existence of the intelligible species).

I am afraid, though, that this identification will not do either : mental words have peculiarities

of their own which do not fit quiddities very well. First, they are produced by the intellectual act,

engendered by it. In what sense could an essence, a quiddity be produced by the mind ? The

concept, Aquinas says, “ is the effect of the act of intellection ”36. Its causal pedigree, therefore,

differs from that of the essence itself, which can hardly be said to be the effect of some human act of

intellection. And surely, whenever A and B have different causal pedigrees, A and B cannot be

identical to each other.

Moreover, it has to be concluded from the way Aquinas describes concepts that, just like the

intelligible species, they are multiplied according to the plurality of the minds which produce them :

my concepts are produced by my mind, yours are produced by your mind. My concepts, in other

words, are transient tokens and they are not identical with yours. And if my concept of cat is not

identical with your concept of cat, it follows by the transitivity of identity that they cannot both be in

any strong sense identical with the same feline nature. This same argument forced us earlier to

distinguish the intelligible species from the corresponding quiddities, and it applies equally well to

34. Quaest. Disp. de Verit. IV, 2 : “ [ …] verbum intellectus nostri [ …] est id ad quod operatio intellectus nostri terminatur, quod est ipsum intellectum, quod dicitur conceptio intellectus ; sive sit conceptio significabilis per vocem incomplexam, ut accidit quando intellectus format quidditates rerum ; sive per vocem complexam, quod accidit quando intellectus componit et dividit ”. (italics are mine). 35. See e.g. Comp. Theol. I, 41 : “ [ …] oportet quod verbum in nostro intellectu conceptum, quod habet esse intelligibile tantum, alterius naturae sit quam intellectus noster, qui habet esse naturale ”. (italics are mine).

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the mental word.

A further consideration in favor of the same conclusion is that many of Aquinas’s usual ways

of speaking are more smoothly accommodated if we take it that concepts are not the quiddities

themselves, but representations of them. He sometimes speaks of the concepts, for example, as being

“ conceptions of the quiddities of things ”37, which strongly suggests that concepts are about

quiddities, rather than identical with them. We have already seen, to give one more example, that the

mental word was described as an ‘image’ in Summa contra Gentiles IV, 1138. This in itself seems

hardly compatible with any assertion of identity between concepts and natures. And the same

chapter, moreover, makes the point even clearer by drawing a distinction between two sorts of

images. First, x can be an image of y by virtue of sharing y’s nature, just like, for example, an

offspring is an image of his parents. But this, Aquinas says, is not the sort of image which the mental

word is. The mental word, instead, comes out as a salient example of the second category, that of

images “ which do not communicate in nature with what they are images of ”39 ; “ for the concept of

man in the intellect is not a man ”40. What I find telling here is that the concept is unhesitantly

described as an image which does not communicate in nature with what it is a concept of. It seems

difficult to believe that Aquinas would have expressed himself in such ways, had he explicitly

thought that the concept of something was in some strong sense identical with the nature of that

thing.

A last argument, finally — a very strong one, I believe — against the identification of the

mental word with the nature of the thing is that thinking about a concept is not the same, for

Aquinas, as thinking about what that concept is a concept of : “ Intelligizing a thing is not the same

as intelligizing the intellected intention itself [i.e. the mental word] ; the latter is accomplished by the

intellect when it reflects upon its own word ”41. Thinking about human nature is not the same as

thinking about the concept of man, and this again leads to our now familiar conclusion that the

concept is not in any strong sense identical with human nature in Aquinas’s view.

36. Quaest. Disp. de Verit. IV, 2 : “ ipsa enim conceptio est effectus actus intelligendi ”. 37. See e.g. Quaest. Disp. de Verit. IV, 2 : “ Omne autem intellectum in nobis est aliquid realiter progrediens ab altero […] sicut conceptiones quidditatum rerum posteriorum a quidditatibus priorum […] ”. (italics are mine). 38. See text quoted above p. 7, n. 25. 39. S. c. Gent. IV, 11 : “ Est autem aliqua imago quae non communicat in natura cum eo cuius est imago ”. 40. Ibid. : […] ratio enim hominis in intellectu non est homo ”. 41. Ibid. : “ Et quidem quod praedicta intentio non sit in nobis res intellecta, inde apparet quod aliud est intelligere

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2.3 From identity to similarity

What we have reached so far is a negative result : neither the intelligible species nor the

mental word is to be directly identified with the quiddity of the thing itself. They are representations

of it. Mental representations. In what sense, then, can it be said that quiddities are in the mind when

cognition takes place ?

Aquinas turns out to be rather explicit about that in his questions De Veritate : to say that the

quiddity of the thing is intentionally in the mind means nothing more than that there is a similitude

of it in the mind : “ […] the intellect forming quiddities has nothing but a similitude of the thing

existing outside the mind ”42. The very expression “ forming quiddities ” that could make us think

that the quiddities existed somehow in the mind is here entirely explained by — and hence reduced

to — similitude, rather than the other way around. And the Summa Theologiae goes in the same

direction : “ What is intellected, Aquinas writes, is not in the intellect by itself, but through its

similitude ”43 ; since quiddities are “ what is intellected ”, it follows that the quiddities are not in the

intellect by themselves, but by being represented there through some relation of similarity or other.

A most considered way of speaking, therefore, would seem to be what we find in the rather

late Commentary on the Metaphysics : “ Just as the perfection of the cognized thing consists in

having a certain form by which this thing is such or such, thus the perfection of cognition consists in

having a similitude of this form ”44. The very wording of this latter phrase ‘a similitude of this form’

(similitudo formae) strongly suggests that the aforesaid form — the quiddity — is not itself in the

mind, but is rather that which what is in the mind — the species or the concept — is a similitude of.

Similitude, then, is basic. And given that the Latin word ‘similis’ is normally translatable by

‘similar’ in English, I find it hard to believe that Aquinas’s mental similitudo would have, in the end,

rem, et aliud est intelligere ipsam intentionem intellectam, quod intellectus facit dum super suum opus reflectitur ”. 42. Quaest. Disp. de Verit. I, 3 : “ Intellectus formans quidditates non habet nisi similitudinem rei existentis extra animam ”. 43. S. Theol. I, 76, 2, ad 4 : “ Id enim quod intelligitur non est in intellectu secundum se, sed secundum suam similitudinem ”. 44. In Met. VI, 4 : “ […] sicut perfectio rei cognitae consistit in hoc quod habet talem formam per quam est res talis, ita perfectio cognitionis consistit in hoc quod habet similitudinem formae praedictae ” (italics are mine). Torrell [1993] dates the Commentary on the Metaphysics from around 1270-1272.

16

nothing to do with similarity, as some have suggested. Robert Pasnau, for example, holds that in

Aquinas’s doctrine “ no natural resemblance is required for cognition ”45. As far as I can see, though,

the texts he quotes in support of this assertion only say that agreement in nature (convenientia in

natura) is not needed for cognition to take place. But agreement in nature in such passages does not

amount to what Pasnau wants to call a ‘natural resemblance’. Agreement in nature is the sharing of

an essence (e.g. between two cats) ; natural resemblance, by contrast, is best exemplified, in

Pasnau’s own view, by the relation of a statue to its model46, a very different case indeed, in which,

normally, there need be no sharing of essence at all.

The following text, from the Commentary on the Sentences, is quite typical :

All that is required between cognizer and cognized is a likeness in terms of representation, not a likeness in terms of an agreement in nature. For it’s plain that the form of a stone in the soul is of a far higher nature than the form of a stone in matter. But that form, insofar as its represents the stone, is to that extent the principle leading to its cognition47.

What such passages say is merely that representational similitudo is not the sharing of a

nature (which, of course, raises no problem at all for a representationalist reading of Aquinas, quite

to the contrary), but they say nothing about whether this representational similitudo is reducible or

not to other forms of similarity.

Spatial isomorphism, obviously, cannot be required in the case of intellectual cognition as it is

in that of the statue, for intelligible species and concepts are not spread out in space. Nor is the

sharing of some sensible quality, for in what sense could a mental species or a concept literally be

attributed sensible qualities of their own ? Similarity, in its most general sense, however, can hardly

be reduced to the sharing of a spatial shape or of a sensible quality : any isomorphism will do,

however abstract48.

Aquinas, admittedly, is not very specific about the exact sort of isomorphism he needs here.

45. Pasnau [1997], 110. 46. Ibid. 47. In Sent IV 49, 2, 1, ad 7 : “ Inter cognoscens et cognitum non exigitur similitudo quae est secundum convenientiam in natura sed secundum repraesentationem tantum : constat enim quod forma lapidis in anima est longe alterius naturae quam forma lapidis in materia, sed in quantum repraesentat eam sic est principium ducens in cognitionem eius ”. This text is quoted by Pasnau [1997], 108 ; the translation I use is his. See also Quaest. Disp. de Verit. II, 5, ad 5 : “ Ad cognitionem non requiritur similitudo conformitatis in natura sed similitudo repraesentationis tantum, sicut per statuam auream ducimur in memoriam alicuius hominis ”.

17

When he wants to explain what similitudo is, he seems content to split it between two senses, and to

characterize the one he needs for intellectual cognition as corresponding to ‘similitude by

representation’ :

[…] a similitude between two things can be understood in one of two senses. In one sense, according to an agreement in their very nature, and such a similitude is not needed between the cognizer and the cognized thing […] The other sense has to do with similitude by representation, and this similitude is required between the cognizer and the cognized thing49.

Cognitive similitude, here, is explained by representation50.

The reverse, on the other hand, sometimes happens. In a later passage of the De veritate, for

example, Aquinas explains representation by recourse to similarity : “ to represent something, he

simply says, is to contain a similitude of it ”51. What we have, actually, is a network of

interconnected terms : similitudo, repraesentare, and even imago. The fact that these terms

interexplain each other suggests that Aquinas did not think of himself as using any of them in some

extraordinary sense. The standard practices of translation and theory reporting in the historiography

of philosophy certainly allow us to conclude, under such circumstances, that intellectual cognition,

for Aquinas, is reached only through similarities, representations, images, and so on. Intellectual

cognition, in the end, strictly requires the presence of mental representations within the mind of the

cognizer.

Eleonore Stump, in a recent paper, contends that there is nothing mysterious here : cognitive

similitude, she says, is just the sharing of a form52. This, however, does not amount to more than

what we have found so far : some sort of isomorphism is needed between mental representations on

the one hand and the external things — or their quiddities — on the other hand. One must take care,

though, that talking of the sameness of a form, as Stump proposes, naturally invites the question :

which sort of form would it be that the mind — or something in it — needs to share with the

cognized thing ? Not an accidental form, obviously, like being of the same colour, since the mind

48. Think of Wittgenstein’s notion of logical picturing in the Tractatus, 2.1s and 2.2s. 49. Quaest. Disp. de Verit. II, 3 : “ […] similitudo aliquorum duorum ad invicem potest dupliciter attendi. Uno modo secundum convenientiam in ipsa natura ; et talis similitudo non requiritur inter cognoscens et cognitum […] Alio modo quantum ad repraesentationem ; et haec similitudo requiritur cognoscentis ad cognitum ”. (italics are mine). 50. See also Quaest. Disp. de Verit. II, 13 : “ […] assimilatio scientis ad scitum non est secundum conformitatem naturae, sed secundum repraesentationem ”. 51. Quaest. Disp. de Verit. VII, 5 : “ […] repraesentare aliquid est similitudinem ejus continere ”.

18

normally does not take on the accidents of the cognized thing : nothing is red in my mind when I

think of red objects — or of redness. But not a substantial form either : you need not really take on

the substantial form of a rabbit in order to know rabbitness. You need only take it on intentionally.

Intentionally taking on the form of a rabbit, however, means nothing more, as we saw, than having

in one’s mind a similitude of rabbital nature…

A number of colleagues have suggested to me that what lies behind Aquinas’s views on the

matter is Avicenna’s doctrine of the three states of universals, according to whether they are

considered in themselves, or with the singular things that exemplify them, or again within the mind

that is thinking them. And it is quite true, as we have seen, that Aquinas sometimes expresses

himself in a closely related way53. What comes out of the texts I have reviewed, however, is that

intentional identity is explained, in Aquinas’s most considered formulations, in terms of similarity,

rather than the reverse.

We have to conclude, then, that Aquinas’s theory of intellectual cognition is basically

representationalist, in the quite standard sense of that term I have adopted here : it attributes a

crucial and indispensable role to certain mental tokens which it considers endowed with semantic

content. It even recognizes, actually, two such sorts of mental tokens : the intelligible species and

the concepts (or mental words), neither of which is in any strong sense seen as identical with the

quiddities it represents. Intentional identity, in Aquinas’s most considered ways of speaking, is

analyzed as a similitudo-relation rather than as a real identity-relation. What exactly this similitudo-

relation should be has been left open here, as in Aquinas himself. The question, as far as I can see, is

still in need of further elucidation. ‘Similitudo’, as Aquinas understood it on the basic of common

use in philosophy and theology, might have included, in some way or other, a causal component

which we would not normally associate, today, with ‘similarity’54. But the core of it would still have

to be some sort of isomorphism.

Does that preclude direct realism ? Well, Elizabeth Karger, at the Basel conference from

which this book is stemming, proposed an appropriately concise and standard characterization of

52 Stump [1998 ], 305. 53. See above p. 3, notes 8, 9, and 10. 54. Several commentators have insistently underlined this causal dimension of Aquinas’ cognitive similitude. See, for a classical instance, Hayen [1954], 210-226 ; and, for a recent one, Jacobs and Zeis [1997].

19

direct realism as the doctrine that an external object can be apprehended without a mental object

being apprehended. But precisely this, as we have seen, is something Aquinas does reject in his

theory of concepts (if not of intelligible species) : no external thing, for him, can be intellectually

cognized without a mental concept — or mental word — being formed as an intermediate object of

intellection55. Aquinas’s representationalism thus turns out to be incompatible with direct realism

after all.

55. See section 1.2.2 above and, in particular, the representative texts quoted on p. 7, notes 26 and 27. Other testimonies to the same include Quaest. Disp. de Verit. 4, 1 : “ […] cum verbum interius sit id quod intellectum est […] ”, and Comp. Theol. I, 37 : “ Intellectum autem prout est in intelligente, est verbum quoddam intellectus ”.

20

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Jacobs, J. & Zeis, J., “ Form and Cognition : How to Go Out of your Mind ”, The Monist 80/4 (1997), 539-557.

Kenny, A., Aquinas on Mind, London : Routledge 1993.

Kretzmann, N., “ Philosophy of Mind ”, in : Kretzmann and Stump [1993], 128-159.

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Numéros disponibles/Still available (Mars/March 2000)

Claude Panaccio: Attitudes propositionnelles, sciences humaines et langage de l'action (No 9001); Robert Nadeau: Cassirer et le programme d'une épistémologie comparée: trois critiques (No 9002); Jocelyne Couture: Le molécularisme: logique et sémantique (No 9003); Grzegorz Malinowski: Shades of Many-Valuedness (No 9004); Claude Panaccio: Solving the Insolubles: Hints from Ockham and Burley (No 9020); David Davies: Perspectives on Intentional Realism (No 9021); Stephen P. Stich: Moral Philosophy and Mental Representation (No 9101); Daniel Mary: La dualité génotype-phénotype en épistémologie évolutionnaire: remarques sur le modèle de David Hull (No 9102); Daniel Vanderveken: What Is a Proposition? (No 9103); Robert Nadeau: Trois images de la science (No 9107); Jean-Pierre Cometti: Pour une poétique des jeux de langage (No 9113); Michel Rosier: Rationalité universelle et raisons singulières (No 9115); Paul Dumouchel: Scrutinizing Science Scrutinized (No 9116); Jacques Carbou: Le Néo-finalisme de Raymond Ruyer (No 9117); Robert Nadeau: Friedman's Methodological Stance and Popper's Situational Logic (No 9118); Jocelyne Couture: Pour une approche légaliste et non réductionniste des droits moraux (No 9120); Jeremy Shearmur: Popper's Political Philosophy: Some Problems (No 9125); Richard Collette: La controverse du calcul socialiste: la question de Ludwig von Mises (No 9202); Lukas K. Sosoe: Henry Sidgwick et le fondement de l'éthique (No 9205); Paisley Livingston: Bratman's Dilemma: Aspects of Dynamic Rationality (No 9209); Paul Dumouchel: Les émotions sociales et la dichotomie affectif/cognitif (No 9210); Michael Hartney: Existe-t-il des droits collectifs? (No 9211); Jérôme Maucourant: Monnaie et calcul économique socialiste: la position de Karl Polanyi (No 9213); Andrea Salanti: Popper, Lakatos and Economics: Are We Begging the Questions? (No 9214); Pierre-Yves Bonin: La liberté de choisir son “style de vie”: le dilemme de Rawls (No 9215); Alfred R. Mele: Intentions, Reasons, and Beliefs: Morals of the Toxin Puzzle (No 9217); Kai Nielsen: Justice as a Kind of Impartiality (No 9218); Paul Dumouchel: Gilbert Simondon's Plea for a Philosophy of Technology (No 9219); Pierre Livet: L'intentionnalité réduite ou décomposée? (No 9221); Paisley Livingston: What's the Story? (No 9223); Claude Panaccio: Guillaume d'Ockham et la perplexité des platoniciens (No 9224); Dagfinn Føllesdal: In What Sense is Language Public? (No 9225); Denis Sauvé: La seconde théorie du langage de Wittgenstein (No 9227); Philippe Mongin: L'optimisation est-elle un critère de rationalité individuelle? (No 9301); Richard Vallée: Do “We” Really Matter? (No 9302); Denis Fisette & Pierre Livet: L'action mise en cause (No 9304); Charles Larmore: Moral Knowledge (No 9305); Robert Nadeau: Karl Popper et la méthodologie économique: un profond malentendu (No 9309); Jean-Guy Prévost et Jean-Pierre Beaud: How should occupations be classified? The Canadian model and its British-American counterpart in the inter-war period (No 9311); Daniel Vanderveken: A Complete Formulation of a Simple Logic of Elementary Illocutionary Acts (No 9312); Daniel Vanderveken: La théorie des actes de discours et l’analyse de la conversation (No 9313); Henri Atlan: Is Reality Rational? (No 9314); Robert Nadeau: Sur la pluralité des mondes. À propos de Nelson Goodman (No 9315); Pierre-Yves Bonin: Le libéralisme politique de Rawls (No 9316); Claude Panaccio: Belief-Sentences: Outline of A Nominalist Approach (No 9317); Stéphan D’Amour: Walter Gropius et le rationalisme constructiviste (No 9318); Michael Bratman: Shared Intention and Mutual Obligation (No 9319); Hugues Leblanc: Of A and B Being Logically Independent of Each Other and of Their Having No Common Factual Content (No 9322); Wenceslao J. González: Economic predictions and human activity. An analysis of prediction in Economics from Action Theory (No 9323); Pierre-Yves Bonin: Les deux libéralismes de Charles Taylor, le Québec et le Canada (No 9325); Richard Vallée: Do I Have To Believe What I Say? (No 9327);

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Christian Brassac: Actes de langage et enchaînement conversationnel (No 9401); Claude Panaccio: De la reconstruction en histoire de la philosophie (No 9403); Richard Vallée: Talking About Oneself (No 9404); Robert Nadeau: Trois approches pour renouveler l’enseignement des sciences (No 9405); Robert Nadeau: Economics and Intentionality (No 9407); Myriam Jezequel-Dubois: La communauté en question (No 9410); Alfred R. Mele: Real Self-Deception (No 9412); Paul Dumouchel: Voir et craindre un lion. Hobbes et la rationalité des passions (No 9413); Jean-Pierre Cometti: Pragmatisme, politique et philosophie (No 9415); Jean-Pierre Cometti: Le langage et l’ombre de la grammaire (No 9416); Paul Dumouchel: De la tolérance (No 9417); Jean-Pierre Cometti: Quelle rationalité ? Quelle modernité ? (No 9418); Paul Dumouchel: Rationality and the Self-Organisation of Preferences (No 9419); Chantale LaCasse & Don Ross: A Game Theoretic Critique of Economic Contractarianism (No 9420); Christian Schmidt: Newcomb’s Problem : A Case of Pathological Rationality ? (No 9502); Mufit Sabooglu: Hayek et l’ordre spontané (No 9503); Jean-Paul Harpes: Plaidoyer en faveur d’une portion congrue de démocratie directe et de démocratie modulée (No 9504); Paul Dumouchel: Pinel’s Nosographie and the Status of Psychiatry (No 9505); Ianick Marcil: La signification des anticipations rationnelles face à la dynamique de stabilité faible (No 9507); Robert Nadeau: Disputing the Rhetoricist Creed (No 9508); Paul Dumouchel: Le corps et la coordination sociale (No 9509); Gilles Dostaler: La genèse de la pensée de Keynes (No 9510); R. A. Cowan & Mario J. Rizzo: The Genetic-Causal Tradition and Modern Economic Theory (No 9602); Claude Panaccio: Des signes dans l'intellect (No 9603); Don Ross & Fred Bennett: The Possibility of Economic Objectivity (No 9605); Paul Dumouchel: Persona: Reason & Representation in Hobbes's Political Philosophy (No 9606); Shigeki Tominaga: Voice and Silence in the Public Space: The French Revolution and the Problem of Secondary Groups (No 9607); Paisley Livingston: Reconstruction, Rationalization, and Deconstruction (No 9608); Richard Hudson: Rosenberg, Intentionality, and the ‘Joint Hypothesis Problem’ in Financial Economics (No 9609); Claude Meidinger: Vertus artificielles et règles de justice chez Hume: une solution au dilemme du prisonnier en termes de sentiments moraux (No 9610); David Gauthier: Resolute Choice and Rational Deliberation: A Critique and a Defence (No 9611); Pierre-Yves Bonin: Neutralité libérale et croissance économique (No 9612); Paul Dumouchel: Exchange & Emotions (No 9613); Robert Nadeau: The Theory of Spontaneous Order (No 9614); Jean-Guy Prévost: Francis Walker’s Theory of Immigration and the Birth Rate: An Early Twentieth-Century Demographic Controversy (No 9701); Don Ross: The Early Darwinians, Natural Selection and Cognitive Science (No 9702); Raimondo Cubeddu: The Critique of Max Weber in Mises’s Privatseminar (No 9703); Jean Mathiot: Monnaie, macroéconomie et philosophie (No 9704); Luciano Boi: Questions de géométrie et de phénoménologie husserliennes: intuition spatiale, modes de la constitution et prégnances (No 9705); Daniel Vanderveken: Formal Pragmatics and Non Literal Meaning (No 9706); Robert Nadeau: Hayek’s Popperian Critique of the Keynesian Methodology (No 9707); Louis Roy: Pour une interprétation large de la norme fondamentale-transcendantale de Hans Kelsen (No. 9708]; Marguerite Deslauriers: La radicale égalité féministe et l'histoire de la philosophie (No. 9709); Claude Panaccio: Le nominalisme et les modalités (No. 9710); Steven Horwitz: From The Sensory Order to the Liberal Order:Hayek's Non-rationalist Liberalism (No.9711); Pierre Desrochers: A Geographical Perspective on Austrian Economics (No 9801); Andrew Wayne: Bayesianism, Confirmation, and the Problem of Diverse Evidence (No. 9802); Pierre-Yves Bonin: La justification politique de la liberté (No.9804); Josiane Boulad-Ayoub: Du débat des Lumières sur le luxe au système jacobin du maximum (No. 9805); Jean-Christophe Merle: Des théories néolibérales contemporaines de la propriété comme alternative au bien-être social (Nozick et Dworkin) (No. 9806); Barbara Debays: De l’épistémologie au politique: l’unité de la pensée de Karl Popper (No. 9807);

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Stéphane D’Amour: Planifier l’implanifiable: futur et conséquences non voulues en architecture (No. 9808); Jean Eisenstaedt: La relativité générale: une révolution? (No. 9809) ; François Blais: L’allocation universelle et la réconciliation de l’efficacité et de l’équité (No. 9901); Michel Rosier: Max U versus Ad hoc (No. 9902); Luc Faucher: Émotions fortes, constructionnisme faible et éliminativisme (No. 9903); Claude Panaccio : La philosophie analytique et l’histoire de la philosophie (No. 9904); Jean Robillard: L’analyse et l’enquête en sciences sociales : trois problèmes (No. 9905); Don Ross: Philosophical aspects of the Hayek-Keynes debate on monetary policy and theory, 1925-1937 (No. 9906); Daniel Vanderveken: The Basic Logic of Action (No. 9907); Daniel Desjardins : Aspects épistémologiques de la pensée de J.A. Schumpeter (No 9908); Luc Faucher : L'histoire de la folie à l'âge de la construction sociale: Compte rendu critique de L'âme réécrite de Ian Hacking (9910); Jean-Pierre Cometti : Activating Art followed by « Further remarks on art and “ arthood ” in contemporary French aesthetics » (No 9911); Daniel Vanderveken : Illocutionary Logic and Discourse Typology (No 9912); Dominique Lecourt : Sciences, mythes et éthique (No 2001).

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