Andrew Halliday Douglas

“ For our thoughts are true when they correspond to an external object... In the first kind of truth, the object is measured and the mind is the measure; in the second, the object is the measure, while the mind is measured. Yet we must note here that the objects are not said to be true or false without qualification in themselves, when referred to our intellect, for otherwise one and the same object would be both true and false, if one man thought of it in one way and another man in another.... ”

“ These then are the elements of Pomponazzi's doctrine of phantasia, in which he claims to follow Aristotle: (1) "Imagination is a change produced by sense," (2) "the image moves the imagination," (3) " the intellect of man thinks only when it undergoes modification: it does not think without images, though the kind of knowledge it has is not identical with imagination."
We have already, in defining the function of memorativa in the apprehension of common sensibles, noted the language in which memory is spoken of as sensus interior 2 . ”

“ The explicitness with which he lays it down that only in general conceptions is there knowledge at all, is worthy of attention, since Pomponazzi also maintains that thought apprehends individuals. Pledged to the apprehension of individuals, he yet holds that knowledge is only of universals 4 .
He does not hesitate to draw the conclusion that there is no distinction between particular and universal, in the sense in which it had been asserted. Of a particular, as abstracted from all specific content, there can be no intellectio. ”

“ Pomponazzi, therefore, analyses the apprehension by thought of itself and asks, What precisely is the act of thought in which it apprehends itself as thought? He puts this question definitely, in the following form. " But a doubt remains. If it is possible for intellect to think itself by means of any form whatsoever, how is it possible that a single form, e.g. of an ass, should bring the intellect to have knowledge both of an ass and of the intellect itself*? ”

“ It is not the superstitions of Pomponazzi, however, that are interesting, but the drift and tendency of his thought and a sort of unconscious logic in it. His formula is that thought in man knows the singular and the universal. ”

“ St Thomas defines reflex motion as that which terminates at the point where it began; but since the human mind in the first place apprehends the particular by means of the cogitative faculty, and then the same mind apprehends the universal by means of the intellect, a universal which it grasps in the same particular as was known by imagination, it really makes a return and consequently a turning, since the same mind from a particular known by imagination returns by means of intellect to the same. ”

“ The cogitative faculty... is peculiar to man as man; for by this power man differs from the other animals, since they are without the cogitative faculty, though they have memory and imagination 1 ." The contradiction is direct and explicit, and illustrates the impossibility of escaping from an artificial dualism by the imagination of an intermediary which merely embodies the original gratuitous contradiction. And the illustration of this sort of speculation is completed when Pomponazzi adduces a new intermediary, to stand between cogitativa and the powers of sense. ”

“ Pomponazzi once more replies that the particulars as such are not the general conception, but are its materials, are that general conception in potentiality; therefore there is no "universal before a universal," and no reason to postulate an a priori universal conception (a priori, that is, as was argued, in consciousness) in order to explain the possibility of an empirical generalisation 4 .
The views of Pomponazzi on this subject may be thus summarised: "Intellect apprehends universals and particulars." ”

“ Finally it was incumbent on him from his corrected stand point to deal with the arguments for an unmediated apprehension of abstract universals.
He gives most attention to the argument which carries the least possible weight for us, but which bulked so largely in the thought of his time the a priori argument from the nature of intelligence: " Intellect receives universals, sense particulars 1 ." To us such an argument seems merely to beg the question; but we have only to glance over these pages to see how deeply the absolute idea of intelligence had rooted itself in the general mind ”

“ The universal cannot be prior to the particular apprehension, because there is no general conception which does not find its material in a particular experience. The particular cannot be prior to the universal, because there is no apprehension of a particular object which is not a general conception of it an apprehension of it, as we should say, in some relation. And so we find Pomponazzi saying " It is said that the intellect apprehends simultaneously the universal and the particular 4 ." ”

“ Or Pomponazzi's own alternative explanation: "Vel aliter quod cogitativa sit immediate serviens intellectui.... Dico quoad conservari, species pendent ab imaginativa aut memorativa: quo vero ad produci pendent a cogitativa, nunquam enim intellectus posset intelligere aliquid quod sit in memorativa aut imaginativa, nisi cogitativa prius illud cogitaret." ”

“ And there is a passage in which Pomponazzi improves upon the word-splitting explanations last quoted, and relates the notion of cogitativa to a real basis of psychological fact.
A pure abstract general notion is one thing, say in the form of a definition; the apprehension of an actual individual in a general relation is another. Now, by an extreme application of their doctrine of intelligence, the schoolmen denied to the latter act the name of intelligence. ”

“ It is the necessity for a presentation of sense-data through imagination which stamps the human mind as a receptive and not a creative intelligence " moved," as they said then, and not self-moving. The superior Intelligences, whose thought is self-moved, and not suggested from without, do not, according to him, employ phantasia ”

“ Sense receives only particulars, intellect both particulars and universals 2 ."
It need not be said that Pomponazzi's own account of human intelligence, and indeed his every thought upon the subject, is deeply coloured by the absolute theory of intelligence. The dualism of that theory runs as a flaw through the thoughts of every thinker of his time. He is really here in effect rejecting it rejecting it, that is, so far as the case in point is concerned, the case of real interest, the case of intelligence as in man ”

“ Cogitativa est in medio imaginativae, quae servat species sensatas, et memorativae, quae conservat species insensatas Dicendum quod virtus serviens intellectui sit memorativa respectu specierum insensatarum aut imaginativa respectu specierum sensatarum. ”

“ It may be sufficient to say that he discusses scholastic realism with patience and care, especially in the reconstruction of it by Scotus and his followers 3 , and rejects every hypothesis of nniversalia ante rem. He expresses his own conclusion in a formula which indicates conceptualism with a leaning to nominalism: " The universal is a mode of thinking which in
verum cum anima humana per cogitativam comprehendit singulare primo, delude eadem per intellectum universale comprehendat quod tamen in eodem singular! ”

“ The analogy between the hierarchy of Nature generally and the ascending scale of powers and faculties in the nature of man, was of course a characteristic mediaeval thought. The macrocosm Nature was supposed to repeat itself, with the successive powers, in the order of their rank, within the microcosm Man. ”

“ In the second place Pomponazzi expounds the manner in which according to this theory the individual does come into apprehension that is, indirectly, by reflection, and through the general conceptions. The consequence of this is that the individual in itself is not apprehended (as indeed the isolated and abstract "individual" is not) : which is expressed in scholastic language by saying that it is known, not per se, but per accidens*.
1 "Si singulare recipitur in intellects, ad quid esset ponendus intellectus agens?" Ibid.
2 "Si intellectus haberet conceptus singulares ipsorum singularium." ”

“ He also questions the analogy between the general notion (universaU incomplexwri) and general knowledge of a matter of fact (universal* complexuni) . The universale complexum appears to mean a general truth in nature, an empirical observation, what we should call a law of nature or generalisation from experience 3 . Such a generalisation rests on particular experiences; so therefore, it was argued, must every general notion (universale incomplexmri) . But Pomponazzi first raises the question whether every general conception of matter of fact is based on particular experience ”

“ Pomponazzi raises a question about cogitativa as a faculty of the sensitive and material nature of man, which brings up the general question of thought and matter and prepares us for the conception elsewhere developed by him of an embodied intelligence. ”

“ At the same time, his doctrine of the general conception of individual things, above described, is far removed from nominalism. And even conceptualism, he appears to have felt 2 , is a solution only of one side of the problem, namely its psycho logical side. The fact remains that there are resemblances among (real) individual things, and that concretely the principle of individuality, whatever it be, is united with the common nature. ”

“ Some such unconscious logic produced those crowning fictions of an abstract and a priori psychology creations in which the ineradicable contradiction, the dualism of the original false abstraction, became almost a contradiction in terms the species intelligibilis which was not intellect, and the virttis comprehensive^ which was in no sense intellectus. ”

“ Then follow animals that have only touch and taste and vague imagination. After these there are animals that reach such perfection that we regard them as having intelligence.... A cogitative faculty too is reckoned among the perceptive powers Many distinguished men have thought that it is intellect. If we proceed a little higher we shall reach the intellect of man, just above the cogitative faculty and below purely spiritual being, participating in both 1 ."
The conception of vis cogitativa was attended by the difficulties which always beset such intermediating devices. ”

“ Otherwise we could say, with Thomas and others, that all the souls of the higher animals are indivisible, and they reply to the argument brought forward against them whatever is received is received in accordance with the nature of the recipient, but matter is quantitative and extended, there fore the soul which is received in it is extended and divisible - they reply by denying the unqualified truth of the major premise ”

“ Ibid.
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universale incomplexum is to be considered after the analogy of the universale complexum. The one is purely a logical notion (repraesentatur natura communis) , the other affirms a matter of fact (repraesentatur supposition) . The feature of the former is its universality, its absolute validity so far as it goes; and when we are investigating the source of that absolute character, it is not relevant to bring a merely empirical rule into comparison. ”

“ Intellect receives both universals and singulars, but it thinks universals in so far as it is separate from material conditions, particulars in so far as its activity depends on material conditions 3 . ”

“ But that individuals are the real objects of knowledge he expressly affirms 2 . On the other hand, in his deliberate revision of the arguments for his own position, he affirms that knowledge only takes place through general conceptions 3 . ”

“ Non potest habere speciem singularis. In prima operatione quando directe intelligit (intellectus) universale, tantum universale cognoscit....Si non habebit speciem singularis, non poterit inter ea differentiam ponere; cum tamen unum cognoscat, scilicet universale, quia ejus solius habet speciem. ”

“ The distinction from intellect is the thing which in this place he labours to maintain. He quotes the objection, " If the cogitative faculty abstracted the substantial form from the common and special sensible, it would apprehend the substantial form apart from quantity and space and likewise time and would then have a general conception... and thus would be intellect*" And to
1 "Dicatis quod licet cogitativa apprehendat speciem substantiae sine quantitate et situ, non tamen sequitur quod cogitativa ccgnoscat universaliter, quia ilia intentio est una et singularis licet sit sine quantitate ”

“ The distinction between prima and secunda intentio is elsewhere explained by Pomponazzi him self to be the distinction between a general notion as held in
1 "Ad aliud; universale abstrahitur, et ista abstractio non fit ab ignoto: dico quod est aequivocatio de abstractione; non enim abstrahitur eo modo quo argumentum concludit, ut quando notum a noto abstrahitur. Sed est abstractio ad hunc sensum, quia singulare quod est in potentia intellectus (m?) fit actu intellectus (m?) ”