PART TWO

APPLICATION OF THE CRITERION TO DEMONSTRATE
THE TRUTH OF PURE KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER 1

The intuition of being, the source of all certainty,
is shown to be justified per se

1065. Generally speaking(25) at least, sceptics do not deny appearances. Without denying that we feel, they affirm that our perception deceives us and cannot therefore promote and sustain truth.

Our first natural intellection, on which all others depend (cf. 1044-1064), is that of being. Sceptical doubts against the veracity and genuineness of being can be reduced to three:

I. How do we know that the understanding of being (the form of any knowledge whatsoever) is not a pure illusion, having only apparent truth as far as we are concerned?

II. How can human beings perceive anything outside themselves? How can they get outside themselves? What forms the passage between human beings and things different from or outside them?

III. Even if what the spirit saw were not an illusion and did in fact possess some reality, would this object not be changed and falsified by the way we see it? Would it not seem natural for the spirit, in seeing things, to clothe them with its own forms as a mirror reflects the images of things, diminishing or enlarging them according to its own convex or concave plane? The mirror never shows things as they are, but as images formed in itself according to the shape it has.

The sceptics' arguments can be reduced to these three, to which we must now reply. But first it will be helpful to penetrate the human mind and note the steps leading it to such extreme attitudes of doubt.

1066. From the moment we come into this world our attention is continually occupied with sensible perceptions. If as adults, we devote ourselves to study, all the powers of our spirit are taken up and exhausted by an interminable quantity of evermore subtle, arduous, abstract and prolonged arguments. However, such an immense mass of perceptions and arguments, capable of absorbing and conquering all possible intellectual vigour, attracts by the vivacity and splendour of its composition: our needs, inclinations and noblest thoughts seek and long for satisfaction in the ocean of things that can be thought and felt.

Withdrawing our minds from all these perceptions and from the entire sphere of arguments that we love so much must be extremely difficult. Retreating into a kind of intellectual solitude, where the object of our attention is no longer the knowledge we have acquired but the mere possibility of some kind of knowledge, must inevitably be distasteful and abhorrent to our nature. Nevertheless, if we want to give our attention simply to the idea of being in all its universality, we have to distance and separate ourselves through abstraction from every kind of acquired knowledge and retain only our capacity for directing our attention, which is the outcome of the development we have undergone. If we succeed in concentrating on this idea, nothing indeed remains except the simple possibility of knowledge. This kind of abstinence, if we can call it that, is burdensome even if practised a little; it seems to reduce our thought to nothing, or annihilate us in sterile contemplation; it appears neither necessary nor helpful. Abstract meditation of this kind is therefore uncommon, and only embarked upon when a person is motivated by the particular necessity and urgent need that springs from a desire to find a foundation for all endangered human cognitions.

1067. It is a fact, of course, that research into the veracity of human knowledge is everyone's concern, and that everyone has something to say about it.

But the arguments offered to throw doubt upon all that ordinary people take as certain are the result of acquired, deducted knowledge. As I said, the human mind is drawn more forcefully to studies in all their extension with their untold riches. This is the mind's constant preoccupation.

The investigator sees that some of his observations are incorrect, and some of his arguments fallacious; one argument unexpectedly finds a counterpoise in another of equal or greater weight; an opinion held at one time is later discredited; discussion becomes a subtle, ferocious industry. Finally, sophists make their appearance, openly professing and methodically teaching how to test the pros and cons of everything. Their aim is to divert and prolong argument, to avoid every conclusion and to forestall agreement. And certainly it is impossible to reach any conclusion with someone whose aim, whether he is right or wrong, is to eschew every conclusion and never give way in any argument.

Human experience of the fallibility of reason, the flexibility and continual corrections found in discussions, the constant possibility of causing mental confusion, and the senseless ambition of proving one's intellectual ability through falsehood finally give rise to a doctrine of absolute scepticism amongst superficial or bewildered people.

But we must insist that the sophist's research in these matters concerns only the normal part of knowledge, to which learned people are usually attracted. It never draws on the entire range of knowledge. The consequence of this research, however, is not restricted to that part of knowledge in which such difficulties have been found; their conclusion is not limited to the section of knowledge which enfolds their premisses, but extended to universal knowledge which they declare to be invalid and false, or at least doubtful.

1068. The part is taken for the whole without any realisation that the research has been confined to only one section of deduced knowledge, and does not extend to knowledge as a whole. This reduced part, undoubtedly of splendid breadth, is the continual object of human understanding, but another part, which is never subject to attacks attempting to render it doubtful, is passed over unnoticed. Like a shadow or a tiny, disregarded seed, it is left abandoned in a corner of the mind, or rather treated as a servant of the lowest order, unworthy of notice. This little element is overlooked, as infinity is in mathematics, or set aside as the poor are by the rich. As a result, arguments against knowledge remain unanswered; the uncertainty of a part of knowledge is predicated and arbitrarily affirmed of knowledge as a whole. People never imagine that this humble scrap of knowledge, confused with the rest of knowledge in human intelligence and not deigned worthy of thought, should be exempt from the general law or that it alone could save from condemnation the great, inflated knowledge of which we are so proud and which we think forms the whole of our understanding.

But here too the lowly must be exalted; the foundation of all certainty is found in a tiny, unobtrusive point of knowledge which, despite its minuteness and almost imperceptibility, is firm and rock-solid, a suitable resting place for the lever of reason to move human thought to extremely effective operations. This point is the idea of being from which, as we have seen, all the ideas that human beings possess derive their source and their being as ideas.

We maintain, therefore, that the first element of knowledge (which exists, but is normally unobserved) cannot be included in a general argument intended to annihilate all knowledge. The idea of being can be attacked only directly, and then will be seen as unassailable.

The reader should not be content with general arguments such as those employed by sceptics, but ask himself if they are valid when applied to individual parts of knowledge. In this way he will, I am sure, see clearly that the sceptics' arguments, although they may accord with all other parts of knowledge, can never accord with the idea of being, against which they are not only invalid but totally vain and indeed meaningless.

The reader can only be convinced of this, however, if he pays attention to understanding fully the character and nature proper to the idea of being. When his reflection on this idea has enabled him to experience its intimate nature and form, there is no doubt that he will understand for himself the irrelevance of sceptics' arguments. I hope to show this by presenting the proper characteristics of the idea of being, replying at the same time to the three sceptical doubts previously set out.

1069. As we have said (cf. 1066-1068), this doubt cannot arise if the intuition of existence in all its universality has been correctly understood according to its own particular nature, without being confused with other intellections.

An illusion or deceptive thought indicates something that is not. I deceive myself, for example, if I look and imagine that I see a human being at night in a wood under a new moon when I actually see a shadow, or a tree trunk, or a mass of rock. In taking an appearance for reality, however this may occur, I delude and deceive myself. The concept of illusion contains two elements, therefore: 1. appearance, and 2. reality. Appearance is that which appears to me, reality is what I judge to lie behind the appearance of what I see. I deceive and delude myself when I judge that something truly is, which only appears to me, and in fact is not.

No deception could arise within me, however, if something appeared to me, or I experienced a sensation, or saw something and I did not go beyond it, that is, did not judge that some reality corresponded to that appearance. The very possibility of deception necessarily presupposes a judgment on the part of the person who deceives himself. If there is no judgment, there is no illusion. Deception of this kind requires, therefore, two elements, an appearance and a reality, the second of which does not correspond to the first.

1070. These two conditions are lacking when we think of being in all its universality. This idea is perfectly simple (cf. vol. 2, 542-546). It is a pure intellective intuition, devoid of all judgment, and cannot therefore be the source of illusion. When I say 'existence in general' I neither affirm nor deny anything (ibid.). Thinking of being in all its universality does not even entail thinking that something subsists. If I think that something subsists, I can deceive myself; what I am thinking of can in fact not subsist; and what I consider not to subsist, could subsist. But to think of being in all its universality is not to think of one thing rather than another; it is to think of the possibility (cf. vol. 2, 408, 409) of anything whatsoever, that is, to think, but not to think of anything determinate. In a word, possibility is simply thinkability (cf. vol. 2, 542-546). Possibility is simply an entity sui generis which serves as a light to the mind without bearing within itself any contradiction or conflict.

Contradiction or internal mental conflict is possible only if the elements of the conflict are received individually in my mind. The union of these contradictory elements cannot be thought of. Such a union would be sheer nothing; one element would destroy or remove the other; nothing would remain. But there can be no contradiction in something totally indeterminate; it is something I can conceive mentally, something thinkable, something possible.

In the pure and simple intuition of being, therefore, deception and illusion are impossible.

1071. It is a fact(26) that we have the concept of being. In other words, being is thinkable.

If the sceptic affirms that this concept of being is an illusion or deception, his words are meaningless, as I have shown. He applies deceit to what is incapable of deceiving. All he can do now is to uphold his denial of this fact by insisting that being is not conceivable by us. In this case, I reply that to deny being as conceivable is to deny all thought to human beings. Such a denial affirms that thought is an illusion, and does not, therefore, exist. In fact, nothing is left to be the object of thought; to say that something is the object of thought is to say that the knowledge of being is present. The sceptic's insistence annihilates and renders impossible all thought.

Scepticism of this nature should reduce the sceptic to total silence; his mind should be completely incapacitated because in speaking or thinking he would give the lie to himself. It is not a question of thinking truly or falsely; it is a question of thinking or not thinking. If you think (well or badly, truly or falsely), you think something, and to say that you think something is to say that you think being. We find ourselves at that precise point where knowledge and certainty become the same (cf. 1059- 1060).

1072. The sceptic has no right to assail truth in such an extreme fashion. His first step in this direction becomes an exercise in self-defeat because the possibility of thought lies beyond every assault. To attack the possibility of thought you would have to begin by not thinking. But you do not attack anything by not thinking. Your only achievement is to cut yourself off from mankind and place yourself in an animal, mineral or vegetable world.

1073. The proposition, 'possibility of thought', is identical with 'the thinkability of being'; thought, as we have said, is a mental operation which has being for its object.

Being, conceived under this aspect as the universal object of thought, is secure and beyond the range of any argument for this simple reason: in order to attack being, you must use thought. And because no one can contemporaneously attack and not attack, think and not think, no one can deny the intuition of being in all its universality.

The intuition of being therefore is necessarily admitted by everyone. Being as thinkable is a pure fact, not subject to our will. We contemplate it, and admit it mentally with the same necessity by which we are. It does not seek our consent or our dissent. It is. We either do not think, or we think being; thinking against being is absurd. Anyone imagining that he does think contrary to being simply does not understand what he is about; he believes he is doing what he is not doing. It is impossible for anyone to understand the significance of 'conceiving being in all its universality' and deny it. Denying it is to affirm it. It is impossible to doubt it as an illusion because it could not be even an illusion if it were not true and real. It is impossible to affirm as illusory that which is simple in the extreme(27) and ends in itself.

1074. We shall now synthesize our teaching in different words by reducing it to some simple principles already established (cf. vol. 2, 398-470). We said that:

1. Being is that element which enters into all our ideas.

2. Being is that which remains in our ideas after all possible abstractions have been made on them. The final abstraction leads us to being, pure and simple. If this were removed, every idea would be destroyed (cf. vol. 2, 410, 411).

Therefore, either we decide not to think or, if we think, we think being. We cannot deny the thinkability of being without thinking being in the very denial, and thus establishing it.

1075. The following propositions are corollaries of this teaching:

I. The idea of being, if it is the constitutive element of any idea whatsoever that we have,(28) must be the unchangeable element in every idea. Every other element can cease to be present to the mind.

1076. II. If the conception of being is unchangeable and the other elements in any of our ideas(29) changeable, differences of opinion can never be related to the idea of being. They can refer only to the determinations attributed to being, or to the subsistence of particular beings.

1077. III. For the same reason, when we say that the mass of people form inexact concepts of things, or when we note imprecision or some other defect in anyone's ideas, we never intend, nor can we intend, to criticize the idea of being or of ens, which is invariable and essential and the point of convergence for all who think. Our strictures are always concerned with the other elements which form part of the ideas which we are criticizing.

1078. The intuition of being, and even the conception of some indeterminate thing,(30) is a simple, undeniable FACT offering no succour to the illusion and deception feared by sceptics (cf. 1069, 1070). Here we are dealing not with a judgment, but with a factual intuition lacking affirmation or denial - only the possibility of denial or affirmation is seen.

But when I think something, without determining further the object of my thought, I conceive two cases in which this 'something' is possible: it may be either in me, or outside me.

But then sceptics go on to say that it is impossible for me to be aware of something outside me because I can never go outside myself.

1079. Perhaps what the sceptic says is true. At least let us take it momentarily for granted that we cannot verify with certainty whether anything exists outside ourselves.

What I am affirming here, however, is limited to this: I can conceive and imagine something outside myself. I am not ascertaining whether what I conceive is truly outside myself or not. Nevertheless, from the moment I ask: 'Does some ens exist outside of me', I already conceive the notion of some possible ens both outside and inside me. We need to remember the definition of possibility. When I say that an ens can be outside myself, I am simply affirming that I can think of an object different from me and outside me even if I am unable to verify whether it is truly outside me.

When sceptics, therefore, deny that I can be aware of an ens outside myself, their very denial shows that they, too, possess at least the concept of an ens outside or inside me, and different from or identical with me.

But the perception of being in all its universality contains nothing more than this concept.

When I think an indeterminate ens, I neither think nor affirm that something truly exists outside myself. I only conceive that this is possible. In a word, I simply possess the notion of different and equal, of outside and inside, without applying it through the affirmation or denial of anything whatsoever.

The sceptics' objection, 'How can you know something different from yourself or outside yourself?', leaves the idea of being totally undisturbed. It even establishes and presupposes this idea, and by doing so shows that it stands apart from any assault. The sceptics themselves admit it, therefore, as something alien to controversy and outside discussion.

This confirms my previous observation that no one, not even sceptics, can put the idea of being in all its universality under attack in any argument whatsoever. This idea is presupposed and tacitly admitted by everyone as beyond dispute and as prior and superior to discussion because it is simply the possibility of discussion itself, a possibility confirmed when discussion takes place.

1080. The teaching developed in the previous number is reassumed in a proposition already established by me: 'Being in all its universality is the object of the understanding' (cf. vol. 2, 539-557).

When, and in so far as, I consider an entity, it is the object of my consideration.

Whatever the thing may be, the fact that it is an object means that it is considered by me in itself, without any relationship with me or others.

This is a simple description of the way in which we mentally conceive. When I say that I think an entity, I say that I am thinking the entity in itself (in so far as it is) without relationship with anything else.(31)

There is no doubt, therefore, that in analysing the thought of 'something' we discover that what is thought stands before us independently of its relationship with us. When I think of this object I do not think that it may be something in me, or of me, because I am not thinking of myself in any way whatsoever.

If I am not thinking that the thing is in me, but in itself, it follows that I possess the notion of things as they are in themselves. I may indeed err in applying this notion, but this does not detract from my really thinking the possibility of the thing in itself, independently of me.

It cannot be objected that I deceive myself with such a notion. It cannot be said that I only imagine I have the notion of something different from myself, or equal to me. If I did not have it, as I said, I could not on the one hand speak of it, nor on the other hand be contradicted. If I did not have it, I could not deceive myself.

Anyone calling such a notion into doubt, therefore, is certainly mistaken about the object of his doubt. If he understood what it was, he would realise that he is attempting to doubt what cannot be doubted. The sceptics' arsenal could perhaps inflict damage on the proposition, 'I know that an object subsists outside myself', but it cannot harm this next proposition: 'I understand and conceive perfectly the meaning of "an object different from, and outside myself".'

But, as we said, the conception of being does not include the first of these two propositions; only the second is present in some way in the conception. Conceiving being means 'conceiving something indeterminate in itself', and consequently not in me. Implicit in my conception, therefore, is the notion of something different from me. What I possess is without doubt an object of thought, different by nature from what is purely subject.

1081. The following are corollaries of what has been said:

I. The idea of being in all its universality is that idea through which we think the thing in itself.

Thinking something in itself means thinking it as independent of the subject, that is, independent of ourselves. When we think something as independent of ourselves, we think it as having a mode of existence different from our own (subjective). The idea of being, therefore, constitutes our possibility of going outside ourselves, as it were. It establishes the possibility of our thinking things different from ourselves.

1082. II. It is absurd, therefore, to ask how we can go outside ourselves, or what is the bridge enabling us to pass from ourselves to things different from us. Metaphorical expressions such as 'going outside' and 'communicating bridge' confuse the sense and make the question impossible to resolve. We are searching for a material or mechanical solution to a purely spiritual fact. We cannot go outside ourselves; no 'bridge' can be set up between us and that which is not us. We have to reduce the question to its proper terms and see it transformed in them.

The human being thinks of things as they are in themselves. This is the fact. He may or may not deceive himself with these thoughts of his, but his thought itself is such that its objects are present to him in themselves, that is, as objects, and not as subjects. This comes about as follows.

The innate idea of being in all its universality forms human intelligence. Possessing this idea is equivalent to possessing the possibility of seeing things in themselves. Human beings, therefore, have in some way innate in themselves this communicating 'bridge', if we want to use such a phrase, because they perceive ens in itself. Ens is the most common and essential quality of all things, which makes them what they are, independent of ourselves and separate from us subjects.(32)

From the first moment of its existence, therefore, the intelligent spirit has an aptitude for thinking things as they are in themselves, and not as they are in us. Our spirit has the concept of this diversity, this exteriority, or better this objectivity of things. We still have to see how the spirit can pass from conceiving a thing merely possible in itself to something really subsisting in itself and not in the spirit; here, we can deceive ourselves. But this is another question, which will be answered by seeing whether the human spirit can have any sure sign of something different from itself and outside its body. For the moment we state without doubt that the human spirit can simply think things. The innate idea of being in all its universality, by its own proper nature, makes the human spirit apt for this.

1083. The sceptic will press his point, granting perhaps that the human understanding has the capacity of thinking things objectively and hence as they are in themselves, as we have said. On the other hand, while conceding that the understanding can prescind from relationships expressing difference or non-difference from the thinking subject, or expressing an inside or outside to the thinking subject, he may ask whether this property itself is subjective? If so, it is a pure form imposed on things by the subject itself.

1084. Let us imagine that this sceptical doubt is true, and that the subject communicates to the things perceived a form which differs from the form they have in themselves. It follows that our apperception is not genuine and has no power to provide us with certain knowledge of things.

My reply is that this doubt, even if conceivable relative to the sense perceptions of our body, cannot be applied to the intuition our spirit has of being, or ens.

It is true, of course, that our bodily organs are moulded and configured in a specific way, and play their part in any effect produced in them. Such an effect, however, is the result not of one, but of two concomitant causes: the external agent, and the nature, quality and disposition of the organs themselves (cf. vol. 2, 878-905).

But to draw an analogy between what happens in corporeal perception and what could happen in the direct, spiritual intuition of being in all its universality is contrary to correct philosophical method, and leads to the very error that we are opposing. This error would never have occurred if analogies had been set aside completely and attention had been concentrated directly upon the object of the spiritual intuition we are considering, that is, upon being in all its universality.

Anyone examining being in all its universality will notice immediately the contradiction in terms when we say that such being could be a production of our subjective mind, or something informed and determined by the mind itself. Being in all its universality means that which is exempt from any form or mode of being, whatever its genus or nature.

1085. Analysis of the sceptical supposition we have hypothetically granted shows that it includes two forms or modes of being: 1. that of the thing in itself, unknown to us; 2. that of the thing in so far as it is perceived by us, a mode which, according to the sceptics, emanates from us as perceivers, and is known to ourselves alone.

These two modes of anything - the one real, the other apparent, the one necessarily unknown, the other known to us - are both possible, that is, thinkable by us. But note that we say thinkable, not verifiable. Let us grant for the moment that I cannot know if these two modes really exist in the thing. This means that I cannot verify them in nature. But I can know that they could exist, that is, I can think them. The sceptics, in fact, by proposing their doubt, already presuppose that I can think both the apparent and the real mode of anything. If I am to doubt whether the mode that I see in something is not real, but different from what is real, the concept of the possibility of the two modes has to be granted, that is, they have to be thought. But this supposition has no possible application whatsoever to the idea of being.

The idea of being in all its universality contains no judgment on the mode of being and, as completely indeterminate, is receptive, with perfect impartiality and indifference, to any one of all the thinkable modes of being. And because the mode is thinkable but, according to the fears of the sceptics, is necessarily hidden, it too can be received by the unlimited universal nature of being.

It is absurd, therefore, that being in all its universality, intuited by our mind, can possess a mode or form determined by the nature of our mind, to which it presents itself divested of all modes. Such a doubt cannot originate in the mind of anyone considering the proper character of being in all its universality. We repeat: this being has neither mode nor form, but constitutes the possibility of all the modes and forms which we think and imagine.

1086. This property of the idea of being forms our intelligence; it is what I call indetermination and universality (cf. vol. 2, 428, 434). It also forms and proves the perfect immateriality of our intelligence.

1087. Hence the following corollaries:

I. If myself, that is, the subject, is perfectly determinate (anything subsisting in the real mode must be determinate), and if BEING intuited naturally by the subject is perfectly indeterminate, it follows that being, an essentially objective conception, cannot be called a subjective conception. It constitutes the OBJECT of the spirit and differs from the spirit itself (the SUBJECT), which is the contrary of the object [App., no. 3].

Similarly, if myself is limited and particular, while BEING, naturally intuited by us, is unlimited and universal, being is not an effect or emanation of the spirit. The spirit, as a nature disparate from being, is incapable of causing and producing it.

1088. II. If being is the only idea we have in our spirit by nature, and all other ideas are acquired, it follows that our spirit adds to things only the concept of being. Being, however, is justified of itself because it is without any particular mode or form. Our spirit therefore (in so far as it is intellective) adds no mode or form to the things it perceives.

The subject does not falsify the things it perceives because it neither adds anything to them nor changes them; it perceives them exactly as they present(33) themselves.

Intelligence, therefore, is not a fallacious, deceitful faculty when it intuits being in all its universality or any other of its perceptions; it is essentially sincere, essentially truthful.

1089. III. This shows the foolishness of the sceptics' unease about reason, and the futility of their search for a critique of reason as though there could be something above reason that were not reason, yet could judge reason. Reason, or better intelligence, cannot be transcended by reasoning. In this sense, a transcendental philosophy is intrinsically absurd and repugnant.

It is a blatant contradiction to affirm that, because reason can be limited to some particular form, doubt about reason's deceptiveness could be above reason. What faculty enables us to think the possibility of another form different from that of reason? Only a superior reason with a more extended form could embrace both the form of reason and some other form. In this case, reason is simultaneously more and less extended than it actually is. But reason is one only. It is, therefore, less and more extended at the same time.

All these things show Kantianism to be founded upon the play of the imagination which first creates for itself a limited reason which it then judges and criticises. It is not reason as complete which judges and causes doubt. Complete reason embraces not only the imaginary, criticised faculty, but also the criticising faculty. Reason embraces the whole possibility of things.

(25) According to Sextus Empiricus (Hypotyposis, bk. 1, c. 8), even Pyrrho admitted sensible appearances; he simply denied that their reality could be proved.

(26) Antiquity was aware that the whole of philosophy began with the fact of the intuition of being in all its universality, that is, with the fact of the existence of intellective cognition. Antiquity was also aware that a fact cannot be known without the help of experience. It saw, too, that the fundamental fact of philosophy was a matter of internal experience, attested by consciousness. This experience was neglected by sensists who systematically abandoned it, as I have often noted. Evidence of antiquity's awareness of this primary source of philosophy can be found in a witness from the 13th century, the subtle philosopher and theologian from Duns. EXPERIMUR in nobis quod cognoscimus actu UNIVERSALE (he starts with experience of the universal): EXPERIMUR enim quod cognoscimus ENS, vel qualitatem sub ratione aliqua communiori, quam sit ratio primi objecti sensibilis, etiam respectu supremae sensitivae. EXPERIMUR etiam, etc., quodlibet autem istorum cognoscere est impossibile alicui sensitivae potentis tribuere (it is a fact that intellective knowledge is essentially different from sense knowledge). Si quis autem (denying the first fact destroys all possibility of argument) proterve neget illos actus inesse homini, non est cum eo ulterius disputandum; sicut nec cum dicente, non video colorem; sed illi dicendum: tu indiges sensu, quia coecus es. Ita quia quodam sensu, id est perceptione interiori (this is the interior experience of consciousness), experimur istos actus in nobis, si istos neget, dicendum est eum non esse hominem, quia non habet illam visionem interiorem, quam alii experiuntur se habere ['We EXPERIENCE in ourselves what we know by our UNIVERSAL act' (he starts with experience of the universal); 'for we EXPERIENCE that we know ENS, or quality, in a way more common than that in which we know the sensible object, relative to our supreme sensitive potency. We also EXPERIENCE, etc., the impossibility of attributing knowledge of anything of this kind to any sensitive potency' (it is a fact that intellective knowledge is essentially different from sense knowledge). 'But if anyone contumaciously denies that these acts are present in human beings, there is no question of further argument with him' (denying the first fact destroys all possibility of argument). 'We can only say what we would say to someone affirming that he is unable to see colour: "You are blind, you are sense-deficient." If anyone denies that we experience these acts in ourselves with a certain sense, that is, with interior perception' (this is the interior experience of consciousness), 'we have to declare that he is not human; he lacks that interior vision which others experience'] (John Duns Scotus, in bk. 4 of the Sentences, dis. 43, q. 2).

(27) The Pyrrhonists who, according to Sextus, admitted appearances would have been in contradiction with themselves if it were true, as Aenesidemus says, that they doubted about everything, including being: Immo neque verum neque falsum, neque ENS neque NON ENS, sed idem, ut sic dicatur, non potius verum esse quam falsum: aut probabile potius quam improbabile: aut ens, quam non ens: aut tum quidem tale, alias vero aliusmodi: aut uni tale, mox alteri etiam non tale [Indeed nothing is true or false, nothing is ENS or NOT ENS. All is the same so that nothing is true rather than false, or probable rather than improbable, or ens rather than not ens, or something at one moment and something else at another, or something relative to one thing which it is not to another]. This teaching, expounded by Aenesidemus in bk. 1 of the eight he wrote on the system of Pyrrho, is quoted by Photius in Biblioth., c. 212.

(28) I have shown that the idea of being can exist in us on its own (cf. vol. 2, 412).

(29) Even in those of sceptics.

(30) This phrase is perfectly synonymous with some indeterminate ens.

(31) We must make no mistake about this fact. It is indeed the case that what we positively know in things depends upon an action exercised over us by these things. Our act of understanding, however, is such that we conceive the thing itself, the ens itself that does the action, as a result of the action we experience. This is what I mean by conceiving the thing in itself, not in relationship with ourselves.

(32) The phrase 'outside ourselves' expresses some relationship with things exterior to our bodies, as we have said (cf. vol. 2, 834 ss.). It is equivalent to the other expression, 'different from our body'. The question: 'How can we be sure of what is outside ourselves?' was engendered by sensistic philosophy and soon applied to spiritual matters. This application to spiritual things of metaphors taken from sense experience, a habit introduced by the sensists, accustomed us to phrases such as: 'All our thought went outside ourselves.' At this point transcendentalism appeared. Kant no longer asked: 'How can we be sure of what is outside ourselves?' (that is, outside our bodies), but generalised by applying the question to the spirit. He asked: 'How can we be sure of the objects of our spirit?', that is, 'How can we be sure of what is different from ourselves?' This final question gave rise to critical scepticism, which we are refuting here.

(33) As I said, intelligence perceives things just as they present themselves without changing or falsifying them. I did not say, however, that things present themselves just as they are. Things are presented to our intelligence by internal and external sense in the first place, and we are entitled to ask if feeling presents them without altering, falsifying, restricting and limiting them according to its own form and nature. But these are questions that I shall deal with later when I speak about the certainty of our materiated knowledge, that is, of knowledge as a mixture of matter and form. At the moment, I am speaking simply of pure, solely intellective, formal knowledge. Relative to this kind of knowledge, I think I have shown quite clearly against the critical school that the intelligent spirit possesses no restrictive form with which it may alter and falsify the things it perceives. It has only one, unlimited form. This is the form of all possible forms, totally indeterminate and indifferent, and hence perfectly apt to receive all forms. It is impartial, without fraud or deceit, if I may put it that way. This utterly universal and genuine form is TRUTH itself, as I have shown (cf. 1062-1064).