SYNOPTIC SCHEMA 3

REASON AND ITS FACULTIES

Reason is the faculty of applying the idea of being intuited by the intellect both to what is furnished by sense and to what the intellect itself proffers (the idea of being itself or the knowledge which reason itself produces). But because universal sensitivity accompanies all that is or that is done in the human soul, reason has for its term that which is passive and active in the soul. Thus movements of instinct and will, like all cognitions, become terms of reason. Simultaneously, however, the acts of reason, and the cognitions reason produces become principles of new instincts and volitions. This explains why I think it better to deal with the derivation of the instinctive and volitive faculties after deriving the rational faculties. Movement on the part of reason primarily pertains to instinct and then in general to the active faculties. On the other hand, reason considered as having obtained its term pertains to the receptive faculties. — Reason hsas three principal functions:

1. To form and modify knowledge, and to actually contemplate knowledge after its formation.
2. To preserve formed knowledge — Memory (Habit).
3. To recall it in act — Reminiscence (an habitual activity intervenes in its exercise).

The second and third functions are related to the first. It will therefore be sufficient to derive the different faculties from the first.

Faculty of reason which forms, modifies and actually contemplates knowledge.

These faculties can be specified and named 1. according to the different ways reason acts, or 2. according to the different kinds of formed knowledge.

I. Faculty of reason specified by the different ways in which the faculty acts:

A. Direct knowledge

1. Faculty of perception, which has three levels:

a) apprehension, b) affirmation, c) persuasion.

2. Faculty of universalisation or of full, specific ideas.

B. Reflective knowledge, reflection, which is

1. Partial, when the aim of reflection is to discover some part of what is knowable. In this case reflection is first level, second level, third level and so on indefinitely because it is always possible to reflect further on every product of reflection (dialectics). Every level of reflection has its correspondingly different product in the order of systematic knowledge.

Reflection acts in the following ways:

a) by analysis, the disentanglement of knowledge.

i) material, which is the source of numbers

ii) formal, the faculty of abstraction

b) by synthesis, the composition of knowledge.

i) faculty of judgment (judgments are affirmative or negative, conditional and alternative)

ii) faculty of reasoning (reasoning is categorical, hypothetical, disjunctive)

iii) faculty of argumentation (analytical, synthetical)

c) human rational faith

d) rational creation

i) faculty of hypothesis

ii) faculty of personification

iii) faculty of error (erroneous judgment, absurd abstraction)

2. Total, when the object of reflection is everything knowable or tends to integrate this knowledge.

a) faculty of principles

b) faculty of archetypes

c) faculty of method

d) faculty of absolute or transcendental knowledge

II. Faculty of reason specified by the different kinds of knowledge produced by use of this faculty.
The faculties mentioned in Schema 1 produce the following kinds of knowledge, which give their name to the faculties.

A. Faculty of persuasion (persuasion is a state of the soul produced by means of a mental word; word is the affirmation and is pronounced by the mind 1. in perception, when it is complete, 2. in integration, 3. in faith, 4. in rational creation, 5. in every judgment).

B. Faculty of variously determined ideas:
1. Realisable ideas (full species).
2. Completable ideas (abstract species, real genera or genera of substance).
3. Elementary ideas (these are only parts of ideas to which the mind restricts its attention).
4. Negative ideas (these make something known through its relationship with some other known thing).
5. Relationships of ideas (an idea multiplies when some of its relationships are considered together with it).
6. Ideas of pure sign (these are solely entities supposed by the mind with the help of a sign. For example, the idea of nothing, or any concept which, although absurd in itself, is not known as such by our mind).

C. Faculty of principles or of the application of ideas. Every idea can be changed into a principle when it is used as a norm for judging. But supreme principles can be reduced to the supreme idea of being, which takes the form of many principles according to its various applications. These supreme principles are:

1. The principle of knowledge, which directs theoretical reason,
a) principle of cognition
b) principle of contradiction
c) principle of substance
d) principle of substantial individual
e) principle of subject
f) principle of person
g) principle of the absolute (origin of transcendental or absolute knowledge)
h) principle of cause

i) efficient, which pertains to real being

ii) exemplary, which pertains to ideal being (sufficient reason)

iii) final, which pertains to moral being (origin of the faculty of moral reason)

i) principle of the order of being considered relative to theoretical reason, source of knowledge of relationships, origin of the principles that

i) the whole is greater than its part

ii) two things equal to a third are equal to each other

2. Principle of the order of being considered in relationship to practical reason

a) relative to contemplation, BEAUTY (archetype)

b) relative to perfection of the intelligent subject, law, morality