Introduction

What is a concept? What are thoughts? What is the formal and transcendental structure of the intellect? What are the relations that take place among its constituents? Is it material or immaterial? These are questions that have been posed for millenia. Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s On the Soul are the classic points of departure for the reflections that spanned for hundreds of years up to the present day about these topics.

In scholastic philosophy, and even in neoplatonic circles prior to that, Aristotle’s On the Soul was commented on extensively and served as a springboard for developments in the science of the soul (i.e, psychology in the classical sense). Ideas like reminiscence, divine illumination, abstraction, the agent and potential intellect, different divisions of the faculties of the soul and their corresponding operations and products, the relation between sense and understanding, and various others were taken up and transformed in the most creative and diverse ways by a myriad of thinkers, some with more systematicity than others.

The aim of this article is to present the general outline of a transcendental science of the intellect as such. This theory shall draw inspiration and borrow from ideas already developed by the neoplatonic, scholastic, kantian, phenomenological and analytic schools of philosophy as well as current scientific theories in a principled way which will be laid out at the proper place. However, it is my contention that, notwithstanding the amount of ink spilled and letters typed down in brilliant works dedicated to some parts of this theme, a complete transcendental science of the intellect has not been put forward yet.

What do I mean by ‘transcendental‘? I mean it both in the scholastic sense of that which transcends all the categories that constitute a specific realm of what exists somehow [and on this note I emphasize the common scholastic idea that the aristotelian categories only applied to real ens (we’ll use ‘ens‘ instead of ‘being‘ to avoid ambiguities due to the limitation of the English language) with few exceptions (some eclectic and scotist thinkers) – so I’m claiming that the noothetic (noo from nous [intellect] and thetic from thesis [posit], that is, that which pertains to and is produced by the intellect) realm has its own categories -] and in a somewhat kantian sense where we’re dealing with the formally necessary and internal a priori structure of the intellect as such. There’s also another at least superficial similarity to the kantian tradition: I present a rigorous method of deriving such categories and all the constituents, operations, relations and overall order of this noothetic realm.

Cosmonology: the Intellect as a Microcosm of all That is

The term ‘cosmonology‘ comes from cosmos and nous, the order which is the intellect. It’s a recurring theme in classical, scholastic and especially renaissance philosophy that the soul and the intellect are a microcosm inside us that reflect the order of the external world. However, this analogy, as simple as it can be, has never been pursued to its extreme conclusions. It’s necessary to demonstrate that the intellect is a microcosm and, even before that, that there is such a thing as an immaterial intellect to begin with. That pertains to fundamental cosmonology. It’s also necessary to lay out the principles which are pressuposed in every step of the way. That pertains to cosmonologic criteriology. We also need to deal with the origin of the intellectual faculties themselves and their structure and that is presented in fundamental cosmonogony (from gonos which means creation, origin). There are many other integral, potential and even subjective parts of this science, but they’ll be presented in due order in other posts.

Something that scholastic philosophy inherited from Aristotle through the mediation of the neoplatonic and arabic commentators was the distinction between the potential intellect [nous pathetikos] and the agent intellect [nous poiētikos], the former was understood to be the blank slate which was in potency to receiving the forms of things and the latter was understood to be the active principle which abstracted such forms from the sensible species or sense impressions. I don’t agree completely with the characterization of these two faculties and their respective operations. But what I want to focus on is the common analogy of the potential intellect being similar to prime matter in the intelligible realm and the impressed intelligible species being similar to substantial form (and from there, some would say that the act of intellection would be similar to the actus essendi and so on).

The crucial insight that in my opinion was underdeveloped in these analogies is that the study of the intellect [and here I should add that when I mention ‘intellect’ I mean all the intellectual faculties, including the will] and its constituents should profit even more from the study of the reality around us. So some questions that could arise, but never [at least explictly] did, would be:

What is the agent intellect analogous to? What is the principle of individuation of concepts given that they’re clearly the analogates of primary substances in the extramental reality? What are the categories under which every noothetic entity can be put under? What are the causes that govern the noothetic realm? What is the internal structure of a concept? What is the equivalent of the essence-actus essendi couplet in a concept? What would be the accidental forms of concepts? How would we talk about judgements and raciocinations? And many other questions that pop up in the study of natural extramental ens and the answer to some questions such as whether prime matter has its own entitative or virtual act or whether act is limited in itself or by potency and many others should find an analogous answer, with due proportion, in the noothetic realm.

But there’s a twist: I think that the opposite is true. I think that the structure of the intellect can reveal the structure of the universe. I believe that cosmonology is prior to metaphysics and natural philosophy (but this priority consists in the former shedding light on how the objects of the latter are constituted, not that the intellect ‘creates’ extramental reality or anything of the sort). It’s clear, therefore, that cosmonology is not epistemology or gnoseology. It’s also clear that cosmonology can give (or help give) answers to questions regarding the analogy x univocity debates, how sense relates to the understanding and vice-versa and many other things. It’s clear that we can also extend the scope of our analogy to the soul itself with its other faculties, both sensitive and vegetative (and thus we can also talk about a science of the cosmos of the senses and the soul itself – cosmopneumatics). However, we’ll deal with cosmonology first because I believe that the intellect is the most important ‘faculty’ in us and it is the link that unites the material and immaterial realm. It is, in a sense, all things – to echo the words of Aristotle without agreeing with his particular way of developing such insight.

The intellect as such is the summit of the wisdom of everything and, insofar as God Himself is subsistent [more precisely, intensively differential] intellection and He Himself is the Eternal and Infinite Wisdom and thus everything is created orderly and wisely, the Intellect ut sic [as such] is the Speculum Sapientiae, the Mirror of Wisdom.

Some Preconceptions that must be Abolished

1. It’s been a common thing in scholastic and post-scholastic philosophy to say things to the effect that intellection taken in representative esse and its constituents have an esse diminutum – that is, that the being of the intellective realm is a diminished being, weak in comparison to the ‘real’ being of extramental things. On the contrary, I’ll defend and demonstrate that the beings [entia] that populate the noothetic realm are as ontically robust, if not more, as the entia that populate the extramental realm. You can have a glimpse at what I’m getting at if you ponder about the famous axiom that the more immaterial, and therefore spiritual, something is, the more noble and ‘actual’ it is as well. We’ll meet the scholastic rebuttals in the process of demonstrating this.
2. It’s also very common to say, especially during the baroque scholastic era, that the so-called agent intellect is not formally cognoscitive and its sole functions consist in illuminating the phantasms, abstracting and producing the impressed intelligible species and then placing it into the potential intellect. On the contrary, I’ll defend and demonstrate that the agent intellect is more properly said to be cognoscitive and that it is more noble in its operations, objects and taken in itself than the so-called potential intellect and that it is that through which we were principally made images of God since God is purely actual subsistent intensive intellection itself [ipsum intelligere intensivus] and the agent intellect is always in act. Not only that, I’ll demonstrate that the ad extra operations of God can be attributed to the agent intellect in an analogous manner given that the agent intellect semi-creates [not properly, it produces] the impressed and the expressed intelligible species [the latter is not, as it’s commonly thought, the product of only the potential intellect] and it also, in a sense, produces the potential intellect according to a trinitarian model first explored by St. Augustine and further developed by Dietrich von Freiberg where the agent intellect corresponds to memory in the augustinian triad of memory, intellect and will; that the agent intellect conserves the noothetic entities in ‘being’ [esse intelligibile]; that the agent intellect ‘physically premoves‘ and simultaneously concurs with the potential intellect in all its operations; and finally that the agent intellect governs and gives species, mode and order to all noothetic entia.
3. It’s been a common thing throughout ancient, medieval, modern and even contemporary philosophy and psychology [in the contemporary sense of the world] to use spatial analogies to talk about the structure of the ‘mind’. I don’t have a problem with that per se, but we should not be misled into reifying such analogies and we should purify concepts such as ‘containment’, ‘architecture’, ‘structure’ and such like of all sensible content as much as possible. In what I call intensive noomatics [the science of the purely intellectual as completely abstracted from the sensible as such], I’ll present a new lexicon and vocabulary to discuss these topics. But, for now, and for easy of understanding, I’ll continue to use the classic spatial-like terminology. Mystical theology often makes use of such terminology when talking about the depth of our soul, the interior mansions and similar concepts in order for us to get an initial grasp of such sublime realities.
4. The intellect is primarily apprehensive of difference and not sameness or identity. It’s often (at least tacitly) assumed that the intellect apprehends first the identity between two things rather than its difference first. On the contrary, I’ll dedicate a series of posts to the topic of the primacy of difference over sameness. But to understand the absurdity of this, it should be enough to remember some things. In order for our intellect, or any apprehensive faculty for that matter, to apprehend the identity of two or more things (or an appetitive faculty to be inclined to something), each thing must be apprehended as distinct first. You say: but distinction is apprehended after unity which seems to imply numerical identity or at least transcendental unity. On the contrary, I deny the antecedent and affirm that ultimate difference or that which is absolutely determining in its own order is apprehended first since it is maximally intelligible because it is maximally finitely actual, therefore etc. Further, I contradistinguish the antecedent and affirm that ultimate difference and unity are materially the same, though formally distinct insofar as unity is a property that flows from difference, to the proof: generic unity and specific unity come about when that which is determinable, such as a genus, whether supreme or subaltern, or a species, is determined by an extrinsic difference (which is a determining act in relation to the former), constituting a new subaltern generic unity if it’s a generic difference or a specific unity if it’s a specific difference or a numerical unity if it’s an ultimate individual difference, therefore etc. Further, I specify the terms of the antecedent and affirm that intensive difference (this concept shall be developed in its own proper place more clearly) is anterior to unity insofar as unity is the negation of division and division is only virtually distinct from difference and thus formally and materially identical to intensive difference, but that which is negated is prior to the concept of that which results from the negation of it, therefore etc. Thus, I affirm that something is constituted as one by its ultimate differences, whether generic, specific or individual. To the whole dispute, I respond that a) the more actual something is, the more intelligible and intellective it is, the more potential, the less – difference is a determining principle and that which is determined by it is determinable, i.e, potential, therefore it is less intelligible and intellective; b) the more confused something is, the less intelligible it is – but both 1) extramental confusion of all subtypes (entitative, integral, etc.) arise from the indistinction of the parts of the thing and 2) cognitive confusion of all subtypes arise from the indistinction of the parts of the thing cognized – that which disperses confusion is distinction, but subjective and objective distinction arise from the 1) presence and 2) apprehension of difference, i.e, distinction. Therefore, etc. I further respond that difference is that which gives order, you can’t intellectually apprehend anything that is confused and mingled, the intellect both gives order and apprehends order, therefore, etc. Further, I add a sign: someone who’s able to pick up on subtle distinctions among things that take place in their own order is said to have an acute mind – it’s by apprehending the distinctions among things that we come to more determinate knowledge of everything around us and make progress in learning, therefore etc. I further respond that God is absolutely actual and simple, but actuality and simplicity follow ultimate individual difference since difference is act and simplicity is the absence of parts whose differences are maximally determining (that is why a concept which is absolutely simple can only be absolutely distinct, never confused, because it is not composed of any parts – the concept of ens as maximally determinable is maximally confused insofar as it is apprehended under the confusive aspect of potentially containing all its differences, however, the concept of ens as maximally determinable is maximally distinct insofar as it can be prescinded from all its differences and, as such, it is absolutely simple and thus an ultimate entitative difference – more on this on the texts I’ll post about analogy and univocity and the unity of the concept of ens), therefore God’s formal constituent is subsistent intellection or absolutely ultimate differentiation, not insofar as there is something determinable in God which is constantly determined, but insofar as God is maximally the [act of] determining itself (itself refers to the act, not to God) in the same way that He is pure act itself without any passive potency to actualize. Further, intellection is differentiation since every act of intellection produces difference (expressed intelligible species, natural resultance of the faculties of the soul in a different order, all of this will be explored somewhere else) and this can also be applied to the Trinity where essential divine intellection, which is called notional when modified by the formal ratio of a subsistent relation, is productive of the Son and essential divine willing, which is called notional when modified by the formal ratio of a subsistent relation, is productive of the Holy Spirit with this caveat: knowing is loving insofar as volition is efficiently produced by intellection and is supported by intellection, volition is intellective inclination or intellection under the aspect of tending towards the object -while intellection formally is intellective apprehension or intellection under the aspect of drawing an object inwards – more on this on my article on the Trinitarian procession.

There are some other preconceptions, but we will present and deal with them along the way. These are enough to give food for thought and make us wonder what wondrous things lie hidden in the depth of our intellect and soul.

The Importance of this Study and further Developments

It should be clear how important this new science is. Let’s keep in mind that I haven’t been talking about classical psychology (whether aristotelian/neoplatonic/or otherwise-inspired), but about what some call today ”Intellekttheorie” (often associated with the dominican school of Cologne which is represented by great names like St. Albert the Great, Dietrich von Freiberg, Berthold von Moorsburg et alii – I’ll mention their special influence on my thought in another article) which, for the dominican school, was, at least tacitly, considered to be an autonomous science apart from the science of the soul and the highest one could climb in terms of natural knowledge after natural theology (and the merging of cosmonology and natural theology could be effected through the connection furnished by God’s formal constituent being Ipsum Intelligere Intensivus increatum and the agent intellect’s formal constituent being Ipsum Intelligere Intensivus creatum which could replace the entitative model of ens being contracted to infinite and finite, with the differential model of intelligere being contracted to uncreated and created in a field-theoretical differential approach to Prima Sophia or First Wisdom).

With that said, the fruits of cosmonology and all its integral, subjective and potential parts can be applied to all other fields of human knowledge. Not only that, but psychosmology, the science of the soul itself as a microcosm, can also be applied to different subjects. I’ll give one example, but there are applications of it in all areas of sacred and natural theology, gnoseology, philosophy of language, law, etc., psychology, phenomenology, epistemology, ontology, etc.

Sociomatics: the study of esse socialis and its different modes of contraction in social reality. One of its principles is the anthropic analogy where the different social institutuions are modeled following the constitution of the soul’s powers and society is conceiveid analogously as a living organism (something that was common in the aristotelian, neoplatonic, scholastic, german idealist, etc. traditions, but never fully taken to its possible limits). It has a descriptive and prescriptive part: the descriptie part presents how society is structured and how social institutions, since they’re maintained through human action and human action flows from its proximate foundations which are the faculties of the human soul, are produced and maintained by the faculties of the human soul so that their formal ratio is transferred truly and really to the social realm (and how the same human faculties are partially actualized by social institutions as well). It studies the way different societies grow and develop according to the different grades of souls and how social institutions naturally mirror the order of the human faculties. It also shows how such institutions are well or badly ordered (i.e, its parts are well or bardly disposed) and we can analyze that in terms of sociomatic habits – thus societies and institutions can be the subject of virtues and vices. The prescriptive part tells us how societies and its institutions should be in order to eliminate sociomatic vices and foster sociomatic virtues. This has implications for ethics, politics, ecclesiology, etc. I’ll dedicate a series of posts to this.

The General Outline of Cosmonology

*The blatant preference for the suffix -matics instead of -logy stems from 1) an appreciation for where -matics stems from: mathema – which is supreme knowledge and 2) a necessity to distinguish some of these disciplines from already established ones like sociology x sociomatics – which have clearly different formal objects.

It should also be clear that we’re dealing with the intellect as a pure perfection that is shared in different degrees by God, angels and humans. The study of the human intellect as such (anthronology), the angelic intellect as such (angelonology) and the divine intellect as such (theonology) are different integral parts of it and will be discussed about somewhere else.

Fundamental Cosmonology:

Cosmonologic criteriology: it deals with the principles that underlie the science of the intellect and its structure

Fundamental cosmonogony: it deals with the origin of the intellect and its formal structure

Transcendental Cosmonology: it deals with the transcendental structure of the intellect as such

Systematic Cosmonology:

Transcendental Noothetics: the study of the triadic nature of the intellect as such and how the intellectual faculties are really distinguished among themselves by relations of opposition, but really identical according to their shared subsistent intellectual essence (in accordance with what I call the augustinian principle of noetic identity and relative distinction)

Noothetic Poiematics: the study of the agent intellect as such and its structure

Nooethetic Dynamatics: the study of the potential intellect as such and its structure

Noothetic Theletics: the study of the will as such and its structure

Noothetic hexiology: the study of intellectual habits and their structure

Noergonics: the study of intellectual operations and their structure

Noematics: the study of intellectual contents and their structure

Conclusion

This blog will be dedicated to the publication of content that presents and critically engages with scholastic and contemporary thought. Some posts will have diferent levels of difficulty which I’ll specify in their categories. I’ll also have posts dedicated to answering questions received from supporters of the project.