Appendix 8.

(490) [St. Thomas on intellect and phantasms]

St. Thomas' teaching seems to agree with this. But we must understand clearly his manner of speaking. He teaches: 1. sensible phantasms are only likenesses of things; 2. the intellect perceives things in their essence: 'The quiddity of a thing is the proper object of the intellect' (quidditas rei est proprium objectum intellectus: S.T., I, q. 85, art. 5). If the intellect finds only likenesses of things in the phantasms, but nevertheless perceives things themselves, not their likenesses, as St. Thomas says, the intellect must supply the things, the entia. The intellect, therefore, posits ens while sense, according to Thomas, posits only the likeness of beings. An attentive reading of the following passage would show that my interpretation is correct: 'Because phantasms are LIKENESSES of individuals' (they do not have the human intellect's mode of being) 'they have no power to imprint anything in the possible intellect.' Of themselves the phantasms cannot communicate anything to the intellect. But St. Thomas explains how they can be brought to do this: 'The acting intellect turns its attention to the phantasms and BY ITS POWER a certain likeness results in the possible intellect (ex conversione intellectus agentis supra phantasmata); this likeness represents THE THINGS OF WHICH THEY ARE PHANTASMS, but in relationship to the nature of the species.' The species (idea) produced by the acting intellect does not represent the phantasms, likenesses or effects of the things - it represents the things themselves. If, therefore, the things themselves are not in the phantasms, the acting intellect must form the pure ideas of those things on the occasion of the phantasms by its own power (virtute intellectus), through the innate light, because it sees ens (the nature of the thing) where the phantasms are, and thus the thing itself. The expression, 'the intellect turning its attention to the phantasms' (converti supra phantasmata), can only mean 'to add ens to the phantasms received by the spirit.' We have sensations; we are conscious of them immediately and say: 'Some ens has produced these feelings in me.' Thus we turn to the phantasms and form the likeness or the species, not of the phantasms but of the ens that has produced the phantasms.

It may be claimed that for St. Thomas it is the acting intellect, not our spirit, that turns to the phantasms. But this way of speaking has its origin in the fact that the acting intellect supplies being, through which the species are made. Strictly speaking, this operation must be attributed to the human being himself. St. Thomas was in fact very careful about accuracy of speech and expressly points out that 'properly speaking, understanding is not a function of the intellect but of the soul through the intellect' (Intellegere proprie loquendo, non est intellectus, sed animae per intellectum) (De Verit., q. 10, art. 9, ad 3 in contrar.). This expression is valid for all the operations of the soul's powers. Hence it is better to say that our spirit turns to the phantasms it feels, and, where they are, sees an ens (supplied by the acting intellect). The species or idea of the thing is formed by the primal synthesis, the first step taken by reason.

We should also note that this turning of the acting intellect to the phantasms has the same meaning as St. Thomas' other phrase, 'to illumine the phantasms' (illuminare phantasmata), that is, to envelop them with the light of the acting intellect which is precisely being (cf. App., no. 9). Relative to my point, St. Thomas concludes: 'In the same way the intelligible species is said to be abstracted from the phantasms, [but this] is not because some form previously in the phantasms is afterwards numerically the same in the possible intellect (as though it were a body moved from one place to another' (S.T., I, q. 85, art. 1, ad 1). According to St. Thomas, nothing is moved from the phantasms into the intellect; only on the occasion of the phantasms does the intellect form the species in itself. In other words, by the light of being which it possesses, it sees the entia which produce the phantasms.