Chapter 4

Continuation — Special laws —
First law: the objectivity of thought

1328. It is commonly believed that all potencies have an object. The truth is, however, that they all have a term; only understanding has an object. But because we understand everything and speak only about what we understand, we change the terms of potencies into objects by the very act of perceiving the terms or thinking about them. The terms therefore of non-intellective potencies are subsequently called 'objects' in so far as they relate to our thought. But what does 'object' mean?

1329. The term of a potency is object when it is neither passively nor actively modified by the potency; the term is simply contained in the act of the potency. Only through this act does the potency enrich and benefit itself, without modifying the term in any way, as I have said.(163)
Moreover, if a potency is to have an object, it must possess that term for what it IS in itself, not for what it DOES in the potency.

1330. Hence three conditions are necessary for the object: 1. it must be immodifiable yet united to the potency in its own way; 2. it must unite and communicate itself in such a way that the effect of the union and communication is not the potency's apprehension of the object's action, but the apprehension and use of the object itself by the potency; 3. the potency which apprehends the object, must apprehend the object alone, not itself and the object. Hence the object is always separate from the potency by virtue of the very act of union and apprehension. This act places the object before the potency, hence the name 'objectum'.

1331. These three sublime conditions are not found in any of the terms of other potencies, only in the term (ens) of understanding. The terms of all potencies are: 1. passive relative to the potencies and receive modifications; 2. active and produce modifications in the potency in such a way that what the potency receives is only the action of an ens, not the ens itself; 3. sometimes modifications of the potency itself (for example, sensations, the terms of feeling, are simply modifications of the fundamental feeling); 4. united with the potency in such a way that they fuse with it, becoming a kind of continuation or actuality of it, etc.; in the act of union they are neither separate from nor opposed to the potency. On the contrary, a potency, when apprehending its term, simultaneously apprehends itself as modified, and therefore does not leave and apply itself totally to something different from itself.

1332. Careful consideration shows in fact that objectivity is such an essential condition of an ens that an ens which is not object, is not an ens. At the most it will be only a vestige of an ens conceived through an abstraction but unable to exist entirely by itself. Indeed if we carefully note the contents of the concept of an ens, we see no relationship in it between one ens and another. On the contrary, the concept excludes all relationship as something extra; it indicates the thing in itself, not as acting in another. But the thing is only in itself when in a mind. In fact, if we speak about a body not conceived by a mind, this body lacks the condition of being something in itself; it has no selfness. The same is true of a purely sensitive being; it also lacks SELF. Being, in ITSELF, is simply being conceived absolutely by an intellect, without relationship to anything else. To consider things not conceived by us as having an absolute existence is to fall into a kind of transcendental illusion. In the very act of conceiving and reasoning about them, we consider them as not conceived. Consequently, without realising it, we speak about things conceived in themselves. They certainly exist in se without our needing any other act to conceive them. It is sufficient that they present themselves to our thought to fulfil the condition required for their being in a mind. But we can never say that entia which we have neither really conceived nor imagined as conceived by another mind, in other words, entia unknown by every mind, are complete entia, are something in themselves. Objectivity is therefore an ESSENTIAL property or relationship of an ens.

1333. To say that objectivity is an essential relationship of an ens means that the ens is essentially knowable, that is, intelligibility is a necessary property of it. Entia therefore which are not known per se and require some means of knowledge to be known are incomplete. They need to be completed and finalised by a kind of marriage in the mind, that is, by the union of essential ens, ens per se intelligible. In fact objectivity is found in entia only in so far as they are in the mind. Hence objectivity and intelligibility present the same concept and mean the same thing under two aspects: 'object' means an ens understood in itself; 'intelligibility' is the property an ens has to be understood when this property is separated through abstraction.

1334. Aristotle states in several places that ens considered per se is the first thing understood; without it, other things cannot be understood. I will comment only on the fourth book of Metaphysics, where he teaches that 'the relationship of a thing to being is the same as its relationship to truth.' 'The most certain and known principle, about which it is impossible to lie,' he says, 'is the principle of contradiction', that is, 'Being cannot not be.' This supposes that the mind first knows what being is, as Alexander of Hales noted.(164) According to him, the principle of contradiction is necessary and not something hypothetical: 'Anyone wishing to study a discipline must know this principle beforehand and not search for it while studying.' It is 'this first truth without which we cannot know any ens whatsoever.'

1335. This gave rise to a subtle difference of opinion among the Aristotelians. They all agreed that ens was the first intelligible, but disagreed intensely whether this intelligibility pertained to an ens as ens or to an ens in act, which they saw as a special genus of ens. The fine Italian philosopher whom I have quoted above, Marc'Antonio Zimara (shamefully unknown in Italy), expresses the following opinion:

1336. This statement (that matter considered separately and in itself is an ens) is erroneous. As far as I know, neither Aristotle nor any of the ancients knew the doctrine of imperfect entia.(172) The doctrine is founded principally in the ontological law of synthesism. According to this law, finite entia sustain and support one another in such a way that, if they are divided and separated by abstraction, they are annihilated, and properly speaking no longer entia. Whatever remains of ens becomes an object of abstraction and can be called, at most, imperfect ens. This ens is something on the way, as it were, to being an ens; it is completed and becomes really possible when another ens on which it depends is added to it. Hence matter is an ens considered as term of the sentient principle; separated from this, it is a vestige of an ens, which in reality is nothing because it cannot exist in this way. Even in the mind it is an imperfect ens because, although the mind gives it some completion, without which it could not be thought, abstraction follows and removes anything not belonging to it. The mind can then consider it as naked matter, although matter is not naked in complex thought as a whole. 'Ens' therefore means 'act'; there is no ens as pure potency. Potency, as we saw earlier, is something negative and therefore more a non-ens than an ens.

Notes

(163) The ancients, who did not sufficiently distinguish between receptivity as such and passivity , were incapable of knowing how an ens is united to the soul. Even Plato, it seems, did not fully know the nature of the totally objective relationship between the soul and an ens. In The Sophist , he introduces a guest from Elea who represents Eleatic philosophy:' Guest : If knowing is acting , it would follow that being known means suffering . An essence (*), therefore, when known and in so far as known, must suffer as a result of knowledge, and in so far as it suffers, must be moved. The same cannot be said about something stable. Theaetetus : True.'Plato uses this principle to refute the Eleatic school which admitted only immobile ens. — I have demonstrated that the mind neither acts on nor modifies its objects. Cf. Rinnovamento , bk. 3, c. 47.

(164) PE , 8-12.

(165) Arist., De An ., 3, text. com. 17.

(166) Ibid ., text. com. 5.

(167) Metaph ., c. 9, text. comment.

(168) Text. com. 20.

(169) Arist., Poster ., bk. 1, cap. de universali .

(170) Text. comment. 35.

(171) M. A. Zimara, Quaestio de primo Cognito .

(172) Nevertheless the doctrine had been glimpsed, as we see from the Aristotelian principle that not forms but only composites can be placed in a genus or species (St. Thomas, S.T. , 1, q. 76, art. 3, ad 2). The reason is because they understood that the forms of composite things are not complete entia.