APPENDIX B

In his Nuovo Saggio Rosmini writes at length about the idea of being. He says there are many different kinds of ideas; on the one hand, there is the specific complete idea of a particular object - a tree for example. If we cease to regard the real existence of this particular tree we then form an idea which which becomes a type by means of which we are able to recognise other trees of the same type. If by further abstraction we cease to consider other characteristics such as leaves and fruit we form a more generic idea still, while in its wider application we are able to know a greater range of objects.

This process of abstraction can be carried further; by ceasing to observe various qualities a more generic idea is formed. Rosmini found that if all possible qualities were abstracted from a certain object, a point would be reached beyond which it would be impossible to go without ceasing to think of the object altogether; this idea is "being" - everything is, in the last analysis, a being - a thing. All ideas have a common ground in this idea of being. And this led him to believe that "we cannot think of anything whatever without the idea of being".

This idea is bound up with every thought, so that "we think being in a general way". He believed that the only way to explain a person's intellectual nature, was to admit that he had this permanent perception or intuition of ideal being. A person's thought life consists of forming ideas of particular beings and reflecting on them.

In answer to the question how we come to possess this intuition of being, Rosmini, after a process of elimination, concluded that the idea of being is innate, since a baby seems to have it when it first begins to speak. The young child, he noticed, calls everything a "thing" when he does not know its name - he does not seem to have to learn it; he knows the essence of being from an early stage and only gets to know particular beings through perception.

According to Rosmini this intuition of ideal being is what is normally called "The Light of Reason"; it is that which forms intelligence. He distinguished between subject and object in knowledge - the subject is the person and the object is the idea. Even though he says that the intuition of ideal being is innate, he does not underestimate the role of "sensation" in the acquisition of knowledge; ideal being only is innate while the matter of knowledge is provided by sensation. Other ideas are formed by means of existential judgments. Rosmini does not substitute intuition for perception - both have a place in his system. Intelligence is not something that is superimposed on animal nature - the human person is a unity; he is a feeling and intelligent being. Intellective perception must be clearly distinguished from sensitive perception, which is a sensitive awareness of the cause of sensation. The human being possesses this type of perception, in common with animals, by which he perceives things as having texture and colour. By intellective perception he perceives things as they are in themselves - as beings.