HKB
5 passages · search this phrase →
Often appears with: reason and the intellect · active intellect · will, choice, and freedom · the problem of evil and theodicy · universal and particular · ultimate happiness · separate substances · potentiality to act · possible intellect · perception and the senses · memory and imagination · memory
Usually: argument (3) · detachment (3) · reflection (2) · the test or trial (1) · censure (1) · curiosity (1)
“And accordingly with us to understand is to be passive.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) · insight
“Wherefore every thing of which the likeness exists in the intellect must be actually understood.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) · insight
“Thus, therefore, if we take memory only for the power of retaining species, we must say that it is in the intellectual part.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) · precept
“Further, it is unreasonable that only the few of any species attain to the end of the species.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) · wit
He holds that understanding is ‘in a way to be passive’ in the third sense: created intellect moves from potentiality to act, so the intellect is a passive power though not corruptible.
*On the contrary,* The Philosopher says (De Anima iii, 4) that "to understand is in a way to be passive." *I answer that,* To be passive may be taken in three ways. Firstly, in its most strict sense, when from a thing is taken something which belongs to it by virtue either of its nature, or of its proper inclination: as when water loses coolness by heating, and as when a man becomes ill or sad. Secondly, less strict…
Aquinas replies that memory can belong to the intellectual part as retaining intelligible species, since intellect can preserve forms unchangeably; but “memory of the past” as fixed time belongs only in sense.
*On the contrary,* Augustine says (De Trin. x, 11) that "memory, understanding, and will are one mind." *I answer that,* Since it is of the nature of the memory to preserve the species of those things which are not actually apprehended, we must first of all consider whether the intelligible species can thus be preserved in the intellect: because Avicenna held that this was impossible. For he admitted that this could…
In disputing whether abstraction occurs from phantasms, Aquinas answers that humans understand material things by abstracting universal forms from individual matter represented by phantasms.
body, held that the objects of the intellect are separate ideas; and that we understand not by abstraction, but by participating things abstract, as stated above (Q. 84, A. 1). Reply Obj. 1: Abstraction may occur in two ways: First, by way of composition and division; thus we may understand that one thing does not exist in some other, or that it is separate therefrom. Secondly, by way of simple and absolute consider…
Aquinas explains Averroes’ claim that humans can reach knowledge of separate substances by becoming united with the active intellect, while noting differing views on how the passive intellect would participate in that happiness.
substances which do not fall under sense and imagination, cannot first and *per se* be known by us, according to the mode of knowledge which experience proves us to have. Nevertheless Averroes (Comment. De Anima iii) teaches that in this present life man can in the end arrive at the knowledge of separate substances by being coupled or united to some separate substance, which he calls the "active intellect," and whic…
Aquinas rejects Alexander’s view that the passive intellect cannot understand separate substances, arguing it fails logically, limits union with the active intellect, and would make true human happiness unattainable.
he says Alexander holds) the passive intellect can never understand separate substances (because according to him it is corruptible), but man understands separate substances by means of the active intellect. This opinion, however, is untrue. First, because, supposing the active intellect to be a separate substance, we could not formally understand by its instrumentality, for the medium of an agent's formal action co…