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Human Souls and the Triad of Intellectual Operations

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Human Souls and the Triad of Intellectual Operations chapter 6 Human Souls and the Triad of Intellectual Operations As we have seen, all animals are superior to plants in that they have not only vegetative powers but also sensory, that is, cognitive powers. The possession of cognition is what establishes a psychological continuity between nonhuman and human animals. However, there is also a crucial discontinuity and it is this discontinuity that brings us closer to theories of animal rationality. In short, the discontinuity between humans and other animals consists in the fact that only the former have rational or intellectual souls. Consequently, humans are not simply animals but a very peculiar kind of animals, namely, ‘rational animals’ (animalia rationalia).1 They are, so to speak, ‘animals plus x’ with ‘x’ being the faculties of intellect and reason. Nonhuman animals are, in turn, ‘animals without x’. This lack of intellect and reason is why they were often called ‘ irrational animals’ (animalia irrationalia) or ‘brute animals’ (animalia bruta), as mentioned before. The possession of a rational soul thus establishes what modern scholars usually call an anthropological difference because it sets humans apart from all other animals. Medieval philosophers stressed this point. In his commentary on De ani- malibus, Peter of Spain, for instance, states that ‘humans excel any other ani- mal by the nobility of intellect and reason’ (homo enim excellit quodlibet animal nobilitate intellectus et rationis).2 In his Sentences commentary, Peter of John Olivi defines human beings as ‘intellectual animals or animals having intellect’ (bestiae intellectuales seu intellectum habentes).3 On the one hand, this shows that the animal nature of human beings was not denied. On the other hand, it emphasises that something crucial is added to this animal nature, namely, intellectual or rational faculties. Consequently, if these faculties are subtracted from a human animal, one no longer has a human animal. All that remains is an 1 ‘Animal rationale’ is simply the Latin translation of Aristotle’s Greek ‘zoon logon echon’ from Politica I.2, 1253a7-10. 2 Peter of Spain, Questiones super libro ‘De animalibus’ Aristotelis, lib. i, q. 4, ed. Navarro Sánchez (2015), 117. See also Köhler (2008), 191. 3 Peter of John Olivi, Quaestiones in secundum librum Sententiarum, q. 57, ed. Jansen (1924), 338. © Anselm Oelze, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004363779_009 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Anselm Oelze - 9789004363779 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 03:08:12AM via free access <UN> Human Souls and the Triad of Intellectual Operations 37 animal, as Henry of Ghent points out in his Quaestiones quodlibetales.4 There- fore, it is obviously the rational soul that defines humans qua humans and so ‘in reality, mankind is nothing else but the rational soul’, as Thomas Aquinas puts it in the Summa contra gentiles.5 Since this definition of humans was usu- ally taken for granted by medieval philosophers, one can rightly say that it was a fundamental ontological presupposition or a fundamental metaphysical and anthropological presupposition to which they subscribed.6 Yet, the most inter- esting question is, how do the rational souls of humans compare to the sensory souls of nonhuman animals? If having a soul means having certain capacities or engaging in certain operations that are characteristic of this soul, what are the specific operations of rational souls? In order to answer these questions one might first need to ask whether there is actually a difference between ‘intellect’ (intellectus) and ‘reason’ (ra- tio) because, on the one hand, they seem to be used interchangeably, and yet, on the other hand, it would be superfluous to speak of intellect and reason if they were not distinct powers. This question seemed to puzzle medieval au- thors, too. In the Summa theologiae, Thomas Aquinas, for example, explicitly addresses the question of whether intellect and reason are ‘separate powers’ ( diversae potentiae).7 He first presents a number of opinions from other authors who seem to suggest that intellect and reason are indeed distinct powers. The author of the influential De spiritu et anima, for instance, says that there is a clear hierarchy: first come the external senses, then the internal senses, then comes reason and then comes the intellect. Hence, the intellect is superior to reason. Augustine, in contrast, employs them synonymously and so do others. Aquinas’ tries to solve this contradiction by arguing that intellect and reason are not separate powers. Nonetheless, he concedes that there is a certain dif- ference between rational and intellectual cognition, between ‘ratiocinari’ and ‘intelligere’. While the latter means ‘to apprehend an intelligible truth per se’ (simpliciter veritatem intelligibilem apprehendere), the former means ‘to pro- ceed from one intelligible object to another in order to cognise an intelligible truth’ (procedere de uno intellecto ad aliud, ad veritatem intelligibilem cogno- scendam). One could illustrate this difference by comparing it to the differ- ence between solving a mathematical problem by intensive thinking or by 4 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones quodlibetales i, q. 15, ed. Macken (1979), 93: “Excepto enim eo quod intellectus est, non manet homo nisi bestia […].” 5 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, lib. iv, c. 81, ed. Leonina xv (1930), 253: “Et secun- dum hoc, humanitas non est aliud realiter quam anima rationalis.” 6 This is how Köhler (1992), 718, and (2008), 295, puts it. 7 See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae i, q. 79, a. 8, ed. Leonina v (1889), 274f. Anselm Oelze - 9789004363779 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 03:08:12AM via free access <UN> 38 chapter 6 sudden inspiration. If one solves the problem by intensive thinking it takes some time until one arrives at the solution. One might have to search for the right approach, take notes, and so forth. That is, one makes various steps and so jumps from one partial solution to another. In the case of a sudden inspira- tion, however, the solution immediately appears. One sees the problem and – in a flash of insight – knows the solution. The latter is certainly a much more impressive way of solving mathematical problems. In this sense, intelligere is somehow superior to ratiocinari. Still, both ways lead to the same result and both cognitive acts are brought about by one and the same cognitive power, according to Aquinas. Admittedly, Aquinas’ view is only one among many. Other medieval au- thors had (slightly) different thoughts about the distinction between reason and intellect.8 For the present study, however, the more decisive question is whether this distinction matters for the aspect of animal rationality. On the one hand, it seems to be negligible because neither of these faculties of the soul was ascribed to nonhuman animals by any of the authors covered here. So even if some of them held the view that there is a difference between the two, it remains relatively insignificant if one is looking at animals which, by definition, lack both of these powers. On the other hand, the distinction might not be entirely irrelevant insofar as there were at least some authors who as- cribed the capacity of ‘reasoning’ (ratiocinari) to other animals, as we will see in Part 4. Thus, the slight inferiority of rational cognition in comparison to in- tellectual cognition might actually imply a greater proximity to the powers and operations of the sensory soul (see Chapter 33). But before dealing with these details we first need to see what kind of operations and capacities were usu- ally taken to come along with the possession of a ‘rational’ or ‘intellective soul’ (anima rationalis; anima intellectiva). What are the typical tasks or operations of the higher faculties? In most accounts there are three main intellectual operations, namely, (i) universal cognition and concept formation, (ii) judging, and (iii) reason- ing. These operations built upon each other, as, once again, Thomas Aqui- nas points out.9 First of all, the intellect ‘apprehends the quiddity of a thing’ ( apprehendit quidditatem rei), say, the quiddity of a rose. Apprehending the quiddity of a rose significantly differs from apprehending a rose via the senses. 8 For the full picture from Augustine to Buridan see Enders (2001); Speer (2001); Hoenen (2001). On the Aristotelian and Neoplatonic origins of the distinction see also briefly Sorabji (1993b), 74f. 9 See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae i, q. 85, a. 5 co., ed. Leonina v (1889), 341. On this article see also the analysis by Pasnau (2002), 273. Anselm Oelze - 9789004363779 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 03:08:12AM via free access <UN> Human Souls and the Triad of Intellectual Operations 39 If one sees, smells, or touches a rose, for example, one perceives certain features of a particular thing. It is this or that rose one sees or smells or touches and one would not have any of these perceptions if no rose were presently there. Hence, sensory cognition is of present and particular things. But what if one remembers or imagines a rose? In this case, one does not presently perceive a rose but still has a sensory impression. In fact, one can have sensory impres- sions without presently perceiving things. But these sensory impressions are nonetheless the impressions of a particular thing such as of the particular rose one saw yesterday in the garden. To apprehend the quiddity of a rose, however, means to abstract from any material and temporal conditions because the quiddity of a rose is what is common to all roses, not only to this or that particular rose one has perceived at this or that particular time and place. The colour red, for instance, does not belong to the quiddity of roses because there are also white or yellow roses.
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