Thomistic Research Project: Toward a Fuller Appreciation of the Role of the Agent Intellect in Cognition

Written By Dr. Matthew Minerd

The present essay is preparatory work done for a much shorter presentation given at a session at the annual meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association in 2025 at Notre Dame University, IN. It has been written as something of a “research project” prospectus.

I have sometimes joked that scholastics present the process of intellectual cognition in a form that is either like a meat grinder or an X-ray. Along the lines of the first metaphor: in goes a whole bunch of sense data, combined together into phantasms, and then put through the grinder of the agent intellect so that the possible intellect can have an intelligible species sausage within it. Or, the x-ray version (which was, if I recall correctly, a metaphor used at least once by Monsignor Sokolowski): the agent intellect is too often presented as though it were a kind of x-ray that enables us to see the intelligible species in the phantasm and print it out on the possible intellect. The images are somewhat unfair, but not completely so. I have found that very often when Thomists tell the tale of human knowing, something of the vitality and labor of knowledge is completely missing. At the level of intelligence itself, we exert an immense amount of labor in order to form definitions, statements, and syllogisms. Whenever discussions of human knowledge become truncated merely to the “abstraction” of a form, I just sense—at a kind of common-sense, pre-philosophical level—that something immense is missing concerning the very reality of human knowing.

In this essay, I merely wish to present a kind of problem or question, a matter for future discussion and investigation. I have no settled position, even if my mind inclines toward a particular assertion, which I will show by way of authorities having endoxal status (standing as probable positions, especially if articulated by those having a kind of expertise),1 offering solid arguments for a particular position, namely: that the so-called “agent intellect” (the intellect as an active and illuminating source of intellectual vitality) plays a much richer role in human cognition than merely being a quick X-ray that pops out an intelligible species.

Admittedly, one might well say: “Minerd, this is mere anecdote. The plural of anecdote is not data.” So be it. Nonetheless, the same sort of observation was made by none less than Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, in passing in a footnote, almost as though it were a given: “Some Scholastics seem to consider in this intellectual light only its abstractive function and not its illuminating function which continues after the abstraction.”2 And, in a much more detailed and powerful statement of the same observation, Maritain remarks in a footnote in Degrees of Knowledge:

It would, indeed, be a mistake to think the role of the agent intellect ceases with the formation of the species impressa. St. Thomas has a much loftier idea of it, and the metaphysical importance of his view is often misunderstood. The agent intellect is the stamp of the divine light upon us. Whereas in the angel the strength or light of the intellect and the angel’s own vitality are absolutely one and the same, in us there is a division into two: the intellect that knows and is originally devoid of any form, has by itself a vitality characteristic of knowledge, is capable by itself of becoming the object in a living manner, yet the power it thus has is only actualized through the efficiency of an ever-actual intellectuality that alone can provide the reason for the process of immaterializing and understanding of which we are the authors and which already exists by itself at the highest level of actuality, but without an object, and in order to illumine, not to become. Thus, the agent intellect is the activator of intelligence, its light, the focus of all its force. . . .3

There is something more to human knowledge than solely the “abstraction” effected by the agent intellect. Sadly, I think that some contemporary Thomist discourse about human cognition risks minimizing this fact. In particular, the denial of the importance of the internal word (verbum mentis or species expressa) by certain quarters of Thomism4 seems, to my eyes, to represent a foreshortening of human cognition, unable to account for the immense labor that occurs as the object of our knowledge passes from being intelligible in act to being intellected in act. (Moreover, I believe that certain difficulties also arise in theological matters, quite importantly, as well, in view of the so-called “psychological analogy” of the Trinity, as well as certain points pertaining to the “superanalogy of faith”.5) But, what is more, I believe that without the notion of the “internal word,” the laborious process of forming definitions, statements, and syllogisms cannot be accounted for—let alone potential further issues in the practical order as well, some of which will be mentioned in what follows.

In point of fact, I believe that it is necessary always to remember that the intellect forms an internal word in all of its intellectual operations, whether abstractive-definitive, statement-oriented, or syllogistically. Moreover, this was the developed position of the Thomist school, and it has at least some textual grounding in Thomas himself.6 The mind must go on the hunt for its knowledge, and often this involves a kind of “pre-expressed moment” of intellectual insight which is quite real—for the intellect is indeed actuated (in first act) by the intelligible species—yet not yet articulated (in second act). In a text on which we will draw more below, Maritain observes well:

Thus it is that we know (not always, to be sure) what we are thinking, but we don't know how we are thinking; and that before being formed and expressed in concepts and judgments, intellectual knowledge is at first a beginning of insight, still unformulated, a kind of many-eyed cloud which is born from the impact of the light of the Illuminating Intellect on the world of images, and which is but a humble and trembling inchoation, yet invaluable, tending toward an intelligible content to be grasped.7

Or, as he remarks immediately before this:

Now the process of formation of intellectual knowledge is a very complex process of progressive spiritualization. For the act of intellectual vision can only be accomplished through the identification of spiritual intelligence with an object brought itself to a state of spirituality in act. The Illuminating Intellect only activates, it does not know. The intellect, on the other hand, which the ancients called intellectus possibilis, because it is first and of itself a tabula rasa, only in potency with respect to knowing and to the intelligible forms it will receive-the knowing intellect, in order to know, must be actuated and shaped, by what is drawn from the images, and the images are imbued with materiality.

Thus, at a first step, the intelligible content present in the images, and which, in the images, was only intelligible in potency (or capable of being made capable of becoming an object of intellectual vision), is made intelligible in act in a spiritual form (specie impressa, impressed pattern), let us say, in an intelligible germ, which is received from the images by the intellect, under the activation of the Illuminating Intellect. But still this is not enough to know. It is necessary that the intelligible content drawn from the images should be not only intelligible in act, or capable of becoming an object of intellectual vision but intellected in act, or actually become an object of intellectual vision.

Then it is the intellect itself, which, having been impregnated by the impressed pattern or intelligible germ, vitally produces always under the activation of the Illuminating Intellect—an inner fruit, a final and more fully determined spiritual form (species expressa), he concept, in which the content drawn from the images is brought to the very same state of spirituality in act in which the intellect-in-act is, and in which this now perfectly spiritualized content is seen, is actually an object of intellectual vision.8

Thus, the question is: what would be the role of the agent intellect in human knowledge, beyond its role in “abstracting” the intelligible species from the phantasms, actualizing what is only potential in the latter? To that end, I will primarily cite certain sources that I believe provide rather well-founded philosophical arguments. By no means will I be exhaustive in this article. But I do hope to show that this question has a profoundly grounded basis in the reality of cognition, as well as within a living tradition of Thomistic philosophizing, at times even in authors who have little direct genetic connection to each other. Following this gathering of sources, I will provide a kind of personal summary and synthesis of my takeaways concerning the whole question. The spirit of this essay is: Go and do likewise—but in a living way and not merely as a historian of sources.

Thomist Sources

Already above, I indicated two citations—one from Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange’s Christian Perfection and Contemplation and Maritain’s Degrees of Knowledge—that indicate that one should focus on the importance of the agent intellect’s continued illuminative presence in our knowledge—at least, as Maritain remarks, in our wayfaring knowledge:

Let us conclude, then, that, in the state of union with the body, it is through the activation of the agent intellect that the knowing intellect, after having been fecundated by the agent intellect by means of phantasms and formed in actu primo by the species impressa, produces within itself the species expressa and actuates itself in ultimate act.9

And, in fact, in a text from Cajetan cited by Maritain, it is said that “besides this operation [namely, to make the intelligible species be in act], the agent intellect has other proper operations as well, namely, to bring forth the evidence of self-evident propositions, and, by means of this evidence, to bring forth the evidence of all things that are known through first principles.”10

The final point made by Cajetan—“by means of this evidence…”—raises the important question concerning a very obvious example of intellectual vitality: the work of syllogizing. Most often overlooked in Thomist discourse is the “third operation” of the intellect, even though it is the most properly human aspect of human knowing, namely our discursive rationality. We are the lowest of intellects. Our spiritual intelligence must work its way toward insight only gradually and must illuminate our experience by way of the lengthy work of discourse—whether poetic, rhetorical, dialectical, or demonstrative. In fact, the most specifically human of all forms of discourse is dialectical logic, where probable certainty plays a very important role in structuring our assent to the realities that we are striving to know.11

In his The Domain of Logic According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, Robert Schmidt, based upon a great host of texts from Thomas himself, strongly asserts that an essential role is played by the agent intellect in the production of syllogistic conclusions:

This ability or power of the premises to make the conclusion known derives from the active or agent intellect, by whose light the conclusion is revealed… The knowledge of the principles alone would not suffice to bring the conclusion to light were it not for the agent intellect, which uses them as an artisan uses a tool or instrument to produce his product: the agent intellect uses the premises to make the conclusion intelligible or actually known…

As instruments of the agent intellect, the principles or premises in reason are efficient causes. But they presuppose the efficiency of the intellect as the principal agent. Under the influence of the agent intellect, they lead the possible intellect to see the conclusion. This they do by proposing to the intellect a comparison, or several comparisons. After comparing the terms of each premise to each other, and thus forming these propositions, the intellect compares the premises one to the other. In this, it sees the conclusion. That is, it makes the comparison of the terms in the conclusion, and in so doing it establishes a relationship of the conclusion to the premises.12

And, as an extrinsic confirmation of this same position, consider the observation of Melvin Glutz, in his The Manner of Demonstrating in Natural Philosophy, written for the old River Forest Dominican studium, citing several of the same texts found in Schmidt. Thus, Glutz:

It is in the light of the premises that the conclusion is inferred. The premises are extrinsic to the conclusion and give the intellect the power to assent to the conclusion. The conclusion is truly a new being, an actualization of what was only virtually contained in the premises. Therefore, as in the case of any transition from potency to act, there must be an efficient cause. The possible intellect, determined by the premises, is moved by the active intellect to consent to the conclusion. The premises concur as instrumental causes.13

John of St. Thomas likewise recognizes that, as regards the virtual productivity of the conclusion-verbum, “the intellect is the principal and universal agent of the assent to the conclusion” and “the premises are the efficient cause of the conclusion by way of energy and instrument.”14

Some further texts from John of St. Thomas are worth citing here as well, for they bear witness to a bit of debate within the Thomist school itself. Merely drawing on some remarks indicated in the index of the Reiser edition of the Cursus philosophicus, we read that the agent intellect is nobler—though only in a qualified sense—than the possible intellect:

It does not follow that the agent intellect is simply more noble, but only that it is so in relation to the formation of intelligible species, in which the possible intellect is inferior to it, since it is in potency. Yet, simply speaking, and with respect to the more noble act, which is understanding, the possible intellect has a higher status, although dependently—since it does not understand without species.15

But, this role of the agent intellect must not be minimized, for man is not an angel, born into existence “full of forms”:

But the entirely opposite situation holds in the human soul, which little by little acquires intellectual perfection and grows in it, just as generable bodies increase toward their own perfection. Hence, just as these require a power of growth (augmentative power),16 so the soul requires a power for the acquisition of species, which is the agent intellect.17

Nonetheless, we should note that for John of St. Thomas, it remains important to say that the agent intellect is only qualifiedly more perfect than the possible intellect when cognizing:

Finally, to the claim that the agent is more honorable than the patient, it is replied that the agent intellect is indeed more perfect than the possible intellect insofar as the latter is in a state of pure potency and in need of being informed through species. However, it is not more noble than the intellect once formed and actually cognizing, just as an object is more perfect than the sense with respect to giving it species, but not simply speaking, nor in regard to the elicitation of cognition.18

So, if anything, the agent intellect thus far seems to emerge imperfect in relation to the possible intellect, as though the former “hands off the ball” of actuality to the possible intellect, once the abstractive-illumination of the phantasms is complete. However, some further texts seem to shed light on the roles played by the agent intellect in relation to the possible intellect. First, he summarizes:

All the functions of the agent intellect can be reduced to three: The first concerns the species which it forms, and consequently the intelligible objects that shine forth in them; the second concerns the phantasms, from which such species are abstracted; the third concerns the knowledge of the possible intellect, which depends upon the illumination of the agent intellect.19

It is the third point here which is most interesting, and which merits a lengthier citation, drawn from the “third difficulty” raised in the article in question:

Concerning the third point, St. Thomas commonly attributes to the agent intellect not only the production of the species by abstracting and rendering objects intelligible in act but also the illumination of the possible intellect, manifesting to it the first principles by its own light, and, indirectly, those things which are known through such principles—as is clear from De Veritate, q. 10, art. 6 (at the end of the body) and as Cajetan discusses in ST III, q. 9, art. 4 (dub. 2). Similarly, he states that the agent intellect effects the conversion of the possible intellect toward the phantasms (as he teaches in In III Sent. d. 14, q. 1, art. 3, quaest. 5, ad 3).

More difficult, however, is what he teaches in SCG III, ch. 45 (at the end), namely: the separated soul understands separated substances through the light of the agent intellect, which is the likeness, in the soul, of the intellectual light existing in the separated substances. Indeed, this seems to make the agent intellect a knowing power, which we cannot affirm. The same doctrine appears in the Quaestiones disputatae de anima, a. 15, ad 9, where he says that “the separated soul, through the possible intellect, receives the species that flow from the separated substances, and through the agent intellect, has the power to understand.” These words, admittedly, are very obscure.

Furthermore, three actions are usually distinguished in the agent intellect with respect to the phantasms, namely: to illuminate the phantasms; to render the objects intelligible in act (which before were only in potency); and to abstract the species, which it then produces in the possible intellect. Thus, it seems difficult to distinguish so many acts of the agent intellect, both concerning the phantasms and the possible intellect.

Nevertheless, it seems that one must say: Apart from the production of species, which the agent intellect first produces, these effects of the agent intellect upon the possible intellect are not immediately from the agent intellect itself, but rather, mediately, inasmuch as in the species thus abstracted the power of the intellectual light shines forth, making the objects intelligible, which in turn can serve for the manifestation and attainment of other objects.

Therefore, by means of the species, the agent intellect exerts its influence upon all those acts of the intellect which are acts of knowing. However, it cannot exert that influence immediately. The light that it supplies is drawn entirely from those species that manifest the objects intelligibly.

This explanation is taken from Quaestiones disputatae de Anima, a. 4, ad 6, where St. Thomas says that the possible intellect, having been brought into act, is not sufficient to cause knowledge in us unless the agent intellect is presupposed. For, if we speak of the intellect in act as found in the person gaining knowledge, it can happen that the possible intellect of someone is in potency with respect to one thing and in act with respect to another, and by that through which it is in act, it can be brought also from potency to act with regard to what it was previously in potency to—just as, through that by which one actually knows first principles, one becomes actually knowing conclusions which were before only known in potency. However, the possible intellect cannot have actual knowledge of first principles except through the agent intellect, for the knowledge of first principles is taken from sensibles, and intelligible things cannot be taken from sensibles except through the abstraction effected by the agent intellect.

Thus, St. Thomas reduces the dependence of the knowledge had through the possible intellect upon the agent intellect to the dependence of that knowledge upon sensible things. However, sensible things are the objects that are rendered intelligible in the very species which the agent intellect abstracts. Therefore, the whole account of the illumination of the agent intellect is to be understood as taking place through intelligible objects and species. And the reason is that the agent intellect cannot illuminate by way of knowing, nor by producing any habitual light within the intellect, since a habit, if it is acquired, comes about through cognitive acts. And if it is infused, it does not come from the agent intellect but from God. Therefore, the entire illumination of the agent intellect must be derived from the side of the object represented in the species, insofar as from one object another is made manifest. [NB, however: made manifest only because of the agent intellect’s illumination of the phantasms.]

As for those acts that are numbered among the functions of the agent intellect with respect to phantasms, they are not distinct from the very action that produces the [intelligible] species but, rather, only add certain relations or connotations. For, in the very fact that a species is produced representing intelligibly the object that existed in the phantasm as sensible, it is said that the objects are rendered intelligible in act, and that the phantasms themselves are said to be illuminated and made apt for receiving an impression from the agent intellect, so that such a species might be produced. This is because the species is produced through the [objective-instrumental20] ministry of the phantasm, and consequently such production has regard both to the species as produced and to the objects represented in it as rendered intelligible through that immaterial representation. And all this takes place through one single action, which includes and regards all these things together—just as a principal agent, by one and the same action, regards both the instrument as serving and moved by it, the term as produced, and the end to which that term is ordered by nature.

Regarding the further objection drawn from St. Thomas in SCG III, it is said that the agent intellect is not said to manifest the first principles by its light because it imparts the very light which is the habit of first principles—for this habit is acquired through a cognitive act, since it is neither infused nor innate (as St. Thomas teaches in ST I-I, q. 51, a. 1). Instead, from the knowledge of the terms themselves, the assent to such principles arises, and the habit itself is produced. However, because this assent requires nothing more than the explication of the terms, and since this explication is had through the species themselves—even those first abstracted by the agent intellect—the first principles are said to be manifested by the light of the agent intellect.

As regards the conversion of the intellect toward the phantasms, since such conversion is a cognitive act, it pertains to the possible intellect. What this conversion consists in, and likewise what its necessity is, will be explained below (in De anima, q. 10, a. 4).

Regarding those passages which speak of the power of the agent intellect in the separated soul, whose interpretations may be seen in Sylvester of Ferrara’s comments on SCG III, ch. 45, and in Báñez, ST I, q. 79, a. 3, doubt 1, ad 3, we briefly say this: When St. Thomas says that the separated soul, through the agent intellect, has the power of understanding separated substances, and that it understands them through the light of the agent intellect, this does not mean that the soul understands through the agent intellect by eliciting cognition itself, nor that the agent intellect produces any species in the separated soul—for the soul then has no phantasms or sensible objects from which such a species might be drawn. Rather, what he means is: since the separated soul understands itself, and likewise other souls and angels, according to its own mode, the species of itself is said to be possessed through the agent intellect, understood radically. For in the state of separation, the soul understands itself through itself, and is itself, in a radical sense, the agent intellect. Hence, through the agent intellect taken radically, the soul receives the light of understanding itself and other separated substances in the state of separation, whereas in the state of union with the body it receives the species of itself and of others through the agent intellect taken formally, that is, as a power operating upon the phantasms.21

Certainly, this passage from John is something of a “mouthful.” The following conclusions can be gleaned from it, as regards his particular interpretation of Thomas and the realities in question:

  • By means of the species thus illuminated and abstracted, the agent intellect is present throughout all of the acts of intellection in a mediated fashion.

  • The possible intellect brings itself to act by mediacy of the principles in whose light it reasons,22 principles ultimately derived from the illuminative-abstractive labors of the agent intellect. John emphasizes the object’s role in this. Nonetheless, it is important to recognize that the object is an object (and not merely a res) only because the agent intellect has rendered it knowable.

  • The action of the agent intellect is a single operation in which are combined the illumination of the phantasms, the rendering of objects intelligible, and the abstracting of the species.

  • Principles are manifested by the agent intellect because their terms are manifested in the species produced by the agent intellect.

  • Regarding the separated soul, the agent intellect is not the power by which it knows. However, the agent intellect—the first power emanating from the spiritual soul—lies at the fontal source of the actuality that is the essence of the soul. It is there as in its root—“radically”—and, in this way, the separated soul, knowing itself through itself, can be said to know through the agent intellect.

The role of the agent intellect is somewhat deflated here in John, in a way differing from Schmidt (and the texts he cites) and Maritain (whom we will revisit soon). Nonetheless, certain salutary precisions have also been added, even if perhaps his account risks occluding certain important phenomena.

Another interesting voice here is Hug Banyeres, who notes (on the basis of a host of texts from St. Thomas), five functions of the agent intellect: to illuminate the phantasms; to abstract the species; to render things intelligible in act; to give evidence of the first principles; and to strengthen the possible intellect.23 In his brief but very interesting study, he presents a view of the agent intellect that emphasizes much more its role as the intellectual driving force24 of cognition, unifying the entire exercise of intellectual activity from top to bottom:

The desire to know and the tendency to speak are indicators of the prospective action of the agent intellect. One cannot render the full sense of Aristotle’s expression, to which Saint Thomas refers—“by nature everyone desires knowledge, as matter desires form”—except by means of a superior internal principle. The possible intellect is light only because it receives it. It is the reflector of that light, of which the agent intellect is the projector, illuminating both the species impressa and the species expressa.

In a single act of understanding, the agent intellect unifies the activity of sensibility—concretely, of the cogitative power—with that of the agent and possible intellects. Intelligere implies the unification of sensibility and understanding: “properly speaking, neither the intellect nor the sense knows anything, but man knows through both.”

Or, as Ségura says, the agent intellect is the conductor of the orchestra; and since “every being manifests that which is best in itself,” and “the agent intellect is more excellent than the possible intellect,” the latter should not be considered autonomous once actualized by the impressed species. Saint Thomas teaches that “a thing acts according as it is,” and that “the agent intellect is the principal agent”; moreover, “rational discourse leads to no certitude before encountering as its middle term the first principles into which reason resolves.” And since “to lead to the ultimate end belongs to the highest power,” this function of assistance indicates and realizes the prospective action of the agent intellect.25

Throughout the possible intellect’s work of coming to knowledge, the various impressed species used in statements and syllogisms are illuminated and proportioned by the light of the agent intellect:

We must analyze this assistance a bit more closely: when the possible intellect has conceived a mental term, two hypotheses can arise—either a similar sensation is repeated, or the intellect reflects. Sensibility is always in motion, especially because it is material; hence, we have distinct images. In the first case, the image is given “roundly” [rotunde] by sensation. In the second, it is given by memory and imagination, which may remain faithful to the first direct image or may introduce variations through omission or addition. The impact of this dynamic of successive nuances is not neutral. The impressed species receives accidental, or even essential, modifications if some obstacle has rendered the initial act of knowledge imperfect—whether through a failure in the “fittingness of the sensibles” or for another reason.26

And he even, with various citations from Thomas, ascribes to the agent intellect contributions in actualizing and updating the expressed species (or internal words), at times playing an important, pre-conceptual (one might even say “supra-conceptual”) role in memory and reminiscence:

The agent intellect contributes to actualizing, to updating, the expressed species; and without this activity there would be neither progress nor perfection in knowledge, nor in the knowing being itself. (The contrary would be like identifying the act of understanding with the idea, the subjective concept with the objective one.) Truth is immutable in itself, but not with respect to us. Certainly, by a correct apprehension we possess a fundamental, basic, and elementary truth; but it is most often obscure and confused. Yet we aspire to fullness and perfection, and our understanding clings to completed ideas. The search for perfection in knowledge is an indicator of the prospective action of the agent intellect.

Thus, we often try to memorize, and memory presents itself opportunely only after a certain delay. It is therefore frequent for it to arise suddenly, without deliberation—like a flash of light. What power has maintained the “order” to search? It can only be a power constantly sustaining its actuality. It is also a common experience that an unresolved problem, or one that seemed unclear at the time of reflection, finds its solution when one thinks of it least—on the road, while catching the bus, or reciting the Rosary (and with notable frequency). This manifests the underground work of an active intelligent faculty that directs the actualization of memory and reminiscence. Spontaneous recollection and the sudden solution of problems are indicators of the prospective action of the agent intellect.27

Something similar is found, he says, in the case of dialectics and oratory, where a kind of supra-conceptual agency is exercised in the light of the agent intellect: “On the contrary, in an oratorical joust, a debate, or a discussion—situations in which gaining time is crucial, where immediacy of response is vital—the agent intellect seeks immediate solutions through the exercise of its prospective activity.”28

Finally, in the technical domain of art craft (and, as I will mention at the end of this essay, in the domain of moral agency), the intellect finds itself thrust forward toward practical truth, moved toward what is not yet intelligible by a kind of “prospective élan” that is, mutatis mutandis akin to the illumination afforded by the agent intellect in speculative activity:

Finally, the construction of artifacts most clearly manifests the prospective action of the agent intellect. Instead of starting from an object to elaborate a concept, one starts from a concept in order to construct an object. Musical composition will serve us as a model, since the necessity of an immediate response in improvisation, along with the active presence of memory and imagination, constitute the daily bread of the liturgical organist composing through discourse.29

Along these same, artistic lines, I would be remiss if I failed to cite, at some length, several key texts from Maritain where he develops this insight in the domain of practical-artistic truth. In particular, there is a very important passage in Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry, partly cited earlier but now cited in full:

The reader will excuse me for this brief and rather chill irruption of Scholastic lecturing. For, in the views of Thomas Aquinas I just summarized on the structure of our intellectual activity, some points seem to me to be of basic interest for our purpose. There are two things in this structure of our intellectual activity which play an essential role: the Illuminating Intellect and the intelligible germ or impressed pattern. And philosophical reflection is able to establish, through the logical necessities of reasoning, the fact of their existence, but they totally escape experience and consciousness.

On the one hand, our intellect is fecundated by intelligible germs on which all the formation of ideas depends. And it draws from them, and produces within itself, through the most vital process, its own living fruits, its concepts and ideas. But it knows nothing either of these germs it receives within or of the very process through which it produces its concepts. Only the concepts are known. And even as regards the concepts, they cause the object seen in them to be known, but they themselves are not directly known; they are not known through their essence, they are known only through a reflective return of the intellect upon its own operations; and this kind of reflective grasping can possibly not occur. There can exist unconscious acts of thought and unconscious ideas.

On the other hand, and this is the fundamental point for me, we possess in ourselves the Illuminating Intellect, a spiritual sun ceaselessly radiating, which activates everything in intelligence, and whose light causes all our ideas to arise in us, and whose energy permeates every operation of our mind. And this primal source of light cannot be seen by us; it remains concealed in the unconscious of the spirit.

Furthermore, it illuminates with its spiritual light the images from which our concepts are drawn. And this very process of illumination is unknown to us, it takes place in the unconscious; and often these very images, without which there is no thought, remain also unconscious or scarcely perceived in the process, at least for the most part.

Thus it is that we know (not always, to be sure!) what we are thinking, but we don't know how we are thinking; and that before being formed and expressed in concepts and judgments, intellectual knowledge is at first a beginning of insight, still unformulated, a kind of many-eyed cloud which is born from the impact of the light of the Illuminating Intellect on the world of images, and which is but a humble and trembling inchoation, yet invaluable, tending toward an intelligible content to be grasped.

I have insisted upon these considerations because they deal with the intellect, with reason itself, taken in the full scope of its life within us. They enable us to see how the notion of a spiritual unconscious or preconscious is philosophically grounded. I have suggested calling it, also, musical unconscious, for, being one with the root activity of reason, it contains from the start a germ of melody. In these remarks, on the other hand, we have considered the spiritual unconscious from the general point of view of the structure of the intellect, and with regard to the abstractive function of intelligence and to the birth of ideas. It was not a question of poetry. It was even a question of the origin and formation of the instruments of that conceptual, logical, discursive knowledge with which poetry is on bad terms. Well, if there is in the spiritual unconscious a nonconceptual or preconceptual activity of the intellect even with regard to the birth of the concepts, we can with greater reason assume that such a nonconceptual activity of the intellect, such a nonrational activity of reason, in the spiritual unconscious, plays an essential part in the genesis of poetry and poetic inspiration. Thus a place is prepared in the highest parts of the soul, in the primeval translucid night where intelligence stirs the images under the light of the Illuminating Intellect, for the separate Muse of Plato to descend into man, and dwell within him, and become a part of our spiritual organism.30

The subsequent chapter then takes up the complete process in much more detail, tracing out the way that the “preconsciousness of the spirit” affects the operation of the intellect, imagination, and even external senses in the particular cognitional activity involved in the poetic insight that is distinct from, though regulative of, the work of artcraft.31

In the line of moral cognition, Georges Brazzola registers several remarks in the conclusion to his edition of Maritain’s natural law lectures (La loi naturelle ou loi non-écrite) which seem to be a legitimate development of Maritain’s own thought in other works:

The human intellect presents, in fact, this characteristic already noted by Aristotle: that there is within it a kind of duplication—there is the intellect which knows and which is originally in potency with respect to all intelligible objects; and there is a purely active energy, which after Aristotle came to be called the agent intellect, and which is the source of all its power. Well then, St. Thomas tells us (De Veritate, q. 16, a. 3): “It is impossible for the human soul to be deprived of the light of the agent intellect, through which the first principles, both in the speculative order and in the practical order, come to be known by us; for this light belongs to the very nature of the soul, since by it the soul is intellectual.”

The illuminating intellect is thus the seal of the divine light within us, and it is through this light that, in every circumstance, natural law reaches human consciousness—even if this consciousness can originally grasp it only “by a connaturality that is affective or directed toward the ends of human action” (cf. Maritain, Quatre essais sur l’esprit dans sa condition charnelle, p. 128). Ultimately, what is connatural to the human being will always imply a reference to what is his most precious endowment of nature: the illuminating intellect, which in him is the mirror of the divine light.

That this illuminating intellect is hidden like a sun in the “trans-luminous night” of the supraconscious of the spirit was implied by what St. Thomas has just told us about synderesis, but it was not explicitly recognized by him. Hence some of his disciples still imagine that this habitus of the first principles of morality springs forth fully formed from practical reason, just as Athena came forth, helmeted and armed, from the head of Zeus. Jacques Maritain, who never ceased exploring the wellsprings of the spirit, had not yet fully shown the role played there by the illuminating intellect, as he was later to do concerning another kind of knowledge by affective connaturality—that of the poet and the artist. Without explaining its role here in the knowledge of the natural law, he nonetheless says nothing different: the natural inclinations through which the natural law emerges into moral consciousness are inclinations properly human, which have passed through the crucible of the intellect, where it functions as the form of psychic activities, in an unconscious or preconscious mode.

For one who has understood this, it becomes easy to temper certain overly abrupt formulations which seem to allow, in this process of knowledge, no other mediating principle between the Divine Reason and ourselves than these natural inclinations. If they bear witness to a higher rationality, it is because they have received its imprint through the constant activation of what in us is the source of natural reason; what they make known to us, they make known by their own dynamism, awakened and illuminated by that center which is the highest participation of our nature in the Divine Intellectuality.

Even if discursive reason has originally no share in this knowledge, it is nonetheless the work of natural reason—that is, of an innate power in man to discover step by step, but in conformity with the most fundamental tendencies of a nature that in him goes to the infinite, the ideal order into which he is called to insert himself and according to which he must govern his life.

There is another consequence of the primordial role played here by the agent intellect: namely, that its activation is not limited to awakening the still unconscious notions from which flow those properly human inclinations through which the natural law is originally disclosed within moral experience. It also naturally tends to set reason into motion in its conceptual and logical exercise, so as to enable it to ascertain more securely the norms of the natural law that were first presented to it under a mode not properly rational. This work of verification and justification by spontaneous reason, under a conceptual mode, does not belong from the outset to philosophical reflection—which will come later to take it up and give it the rigor of a scientific discipline.32

Lest the present section of this essay continue to dilate endlessly, I will draw these citations to a close. However, I would be remiss if I did not refer the reader to several other relevant themes and texts in Maritain concerning the supraconscious life of the spirit, a topic closely connected to his reflections on the agent intellect. Of particular interest are his remarks on the “heaven of the soul” or “supraconscious of the spirit” which he deploys in regard to his particular theories concerning Christ’s beatific vision in via.33 Similarly, one should refer to Maritain’s relevant late-life comments in Untrammeled Approaches regarding Thomas’s rejection of the unicity of the intellect, where Maritain comments on the importance of his articulation of the role of the agent intellect, though still only in a sketched out form, as though following a foundational intuition awaiting further development.34 In the same volume, one should consider his discussion concerning the Fall’s effects upon human intellection.35

Sources in Thomas Aquinas

In this section, I will merely present the Latin of certain texts from Aquinas, for the interest of those who may wish to consider some—but not all—relevant loci which have played an important role for the previous authors. A very full catalogue, however, can be found in the aforementioned work of Banyeres.36 I will here follow the final chronology proposed by Jean-Pierre Torrell.

In III Sent. dist.,14, q. 1, art. 3, quaest. 1, ad 1

Dicendum, quod ex hac ratione non concluditur nisi quod cognoverit omnia quae per rationem naturalem cognosci possunt: quia sicut materia prima est in naturali potentia tantum ad illas formas quae per agens naturale produci possunt, quamvis Deus alia ex materia illa facere possit; ita etiam intellectus possibilis est in potentia naturali eorum tantum quae per lumen intellectus agentis cognosci possunt: et si haec tantum cognosceret, imperfectus non esset; sed Deus ex liberalitate sua infundit amplius lumen gratiae, per quod etiam plura intellectus possibilis cognoscit.

In III Sent. dist.,14, q. 1, art. 3, quaest. 5, ad 3:

Dicendum, quod per lumen intellectus agentis in Christo, non fuit aliqua species de novo recepta in intellectu possibili ejus; sed fuit facta conversio nova ad species quae erant in phantasia; sicut est in eo qui habet habitum sciendi eorum quae imaginatur vel videt.

In III Sent. d. 23, q. 2, a. 1, ad 4:

Ad quartum dicendum, quod argumentum proprie dicitur processus rationis de notis ad ignota manifestanda, secundum quod dicit Boetius, quod est ratio rei dubiae faciens fidem. Et quia tota vis argumenti consistit in medio termino, ex quo ad ignotorum probationem proceditur; ideo dicitur ipsum medium argumentum, sive sit signum, sive causa, sive effectus. Et quia in medio termino, vel in principio ex quo argumentando proceditur, continetur virtute totus processus argumentationis; ideo tractum est nomen argumenti ad hoc quod quaelibet brevis praelibatio futurae narrationis dicatur argumentum, sicut in epistolis Pauli singulis praemittuntur argumenta. Et quia principium vel medium dicitur argumentum inquantum habet virtutem manifestandi conclusionem, et haec virtus inest ei ex lumine intellectus agentis, cujus est instrumentum, quia omnia quae arguuntur, a lumine manifestantur, ut dicitur Ephes. 5; ideo ipsum lumen quo manifestantur principia, sicut principiis manifestantur conclusiones, potest dici argumentum ipsorum principiorum. Et his tribus ultimis modis potest dici fides argumentum. Primo inquantum ipsa fides est manifestativa alterius, sive inquantum unus articulus manifestat alium, sicut resurrectio Christi resurrectionem futuram; sive inquantum ex ipsis articulis quaedam alia in theologia syllogizantur; sive inquantum fides unius hominis confirmat fidem alterius. Secundo potest dici argumentum, inquantum est praelibatio futurae visionis, in qua veritas plenarie cognoscitur. Tertio inquantum lumen infusum, quod est habitus fidei, manifestat articulos, sicut lumen intellectus agentis manifestat principia naturaliter nota. Sed esse argumentum secundum primum modum accidit fidei; et ideo in definitione fidei ponitur argumentum secundum alterum duorum modorum ultimorum.

De Veritate, q. 10, a. 6:

Et ideo prae omnibus praedictis positionibus rationabilior est sententia philosophi, qui ponit scientiam mentis nostrae partim ab intrinseco et partim ab extrinseco esse; non solum a rebus a materia separatis, sed etiam ab ipsis sensibilibus. Cum enim mens nostra comparatur ad res sensibiles quae sunt extra animam, invenitur se habere ad eas in duplici habitudine. Uno modo ut actus ad potentiam: inquantum, scilicet, res quae sunt extra animam sunt intelligibiles in potentia. Ipsa vero mens est intelligibilis in actu; et secundum hoc ponitur in anima intellectus agens, qui faciat intelligibilia in potentia esse intelligibilia in actu. Alio modo ut potentia ad actum: prout scilicet in mente nostra formae rerum determinatae, sunt in potentia tantum, quae in rebus extra animam sunt in actu; et secundum hoc ponitur in anima nostra intellectus possibilis, cuius est recipere formas a rebus sensibilibus abstractas, factas intelligibiles in actu per lumen intellectus agentis. Quod quidem lumen intellectus agentis in anima procedit, sicut a prima origine, a substantiis separatis et praecipue a Deo. Et secundum hoc, verum est quod scientiam mens nostra a sensibilibus accipit; nihilominus tamen ipsa anima in se similitudines rerum format, inquantum per lumen intellectus agentis efficiuntur formae a sensibilibus abstractae intelligibiles actu, ut in intellectu possibili recipi possint. Et sic etiam in lumine intellectus agentis nobis est quodammodo originaliter omnis scientia originaliter indita, mediantibus universalibus conceptionibus, quae statim lumine intellectus agentis cognoscuntur, per quas sicut per universalia principia iudicamus de aliis, et ea praecognoscimus in ipsis. Ut secundum hoc etiam illa opinio veritatem habeat quae ponit, nos ea quae addiscimus, ante in notitia habuisse.

De Veritate 10, 13c:

Dicendum, quod Trinitas personarum dupliciter cognoscitur. Uno modo quantum ad propria, quibus personae distinguuntur: et his cognitis, vere Trinitas cognoscitur in divinis. Alio modo per essentialia, quae personis appropriantur, sicut potentia patri, sapientia filio, bonitas spiritui sancto; sed per talia Trinitas perfecte cognosci non potest, quia etiam Trinitate remota per intellectum, ista remanent in divinis; sed Trinitate supposita, huiusmodi attributa propter aliquam similitudinem ad propria personarum appropriantur personis. Haec autem personis appropriata naturali ratione cognosci possunt; propria vero personarum nequaquam. Cuius ratio est, quia ab agente non potest aliqua actio progredi ad quam se eius instrumenta extendere non possunt; sicut ars fabrilis non potest aedificare, quia ad hunc effectum non se extendunt fabrilia instrumenta. Prima autem principia demonstrationis, ut Commentator dicit, in III de anima, sunt in nobis quasi instrumenta intellectus agentis, cuius lumine in nobis viget ratio naturalis. Unde ad nullius cognitionem nostra naturalis ratio potest pertingere ad quod se prima principia non extendant. Primorum autem principiorum cognitio a sensibilibus ortum sumit, ut patet per philosophum, II posteriorum. Ex sensibilibus autem non potest perveniri ad cognoscendum propria personarum, sicut ex effectibus devenitur in causas; quia omne id quod rationem causalitatis in divinis habet, ad essentiam pertinet, cum Deus per essentiam suam sit causa rerum. Propria autem personarum sunt relationes, quibus personae non ad creaturas, sed ad invicem referuntur. Unde naturali ratione in propria personarum devenire non possumus.

SCG III, ch. 45:

Si ponitur corpori unitus secundum esse, non potest intelligere substantias separatas. Interest tamen qualiter de substantia ipsius sentiatur. Si enim ponatur esse quaedam virtus materialis generabilis et corruptibilis, ut quidam posuerunt, sequitur quod ex sua substantia determinatur ad intelligendum materialia. Unde necesse est quod nullo modo intelligere possit substantias separatas: quia impossibile erit ipsum esse separatum. Si autem intellectus possibilis, quamvis sit corpori unitus, est tamen incorruptibilis et a materia non dependens secundum suum esse, sicut supra ostendimus; sequitur quod obligatio ad intelligendas res materiales accidat ei ex unione ad corpus. Unde, cum anima a corpore tali fuerit separata, intellectus possibilis intelligere poterit ea quae sunt secundum se intelligibilia, scilicet substantias separatas, per lumen intellectus agentis, quae est similitudo in anima intellectualis luminis quod est in substantiis separatis.

De substantiis separatis, ch. 16:

Sed superiores intellectus sunt universalioris virtutis in cognoscendo, ut scilicet per intelligibilem speciem utrumque cognoscant, et universale et singulare. Secunda etiam ratio efficaciam non habet. Cum enim dicitur quod intellectum est perfectio intelligentis, hoc quidem veritatem habet secundum speciem intelligibilem, quae est forma intellectus inquantum est actu intelligens. Non enim natura lapidis, quae est in materia, est perfectio intellectus humani, sed species intelligibilis abstracta a phantasmatibus, per quam intellectus intelligit lapidis naturam. Unde oportet quod cum omnis forma derivata ab aliquo agente procedat, agens autem sit honorabilius patiente, seu recipiente, quod illud agens a quo intellectus speciem intelligibilem habet, sit perfectius intellectu: sicut in intellectu humano apparet, quod intellectus agens est nobilior intellectu possibili, qui recipit species intelligibiles actu ab intellectu agente factas, non autem ipsae res naturales cognitae sunt intellectu possibili nobiliores.

Quaestiones disputatae de Anima, a. 4, ad 6:

Dicendum quod intellectus possibilis factus in actu non sufficit ad causandum scientiam in nobis, nisi praesupposito intellectu agente. Si enim loquamur de intellectu in actu qui est in ipso addiscente, contingit quod intellectus possibilis alicuius sit in potentia quantum ad aliquid, et quantum ad aliquid in actu. Et per quod est in actu potest reduci, etiam quantum ad id quod est in potentia, in actum; sicut per id quod est actu cognoscens principia, fit in actu cognoscens conclusiones, quas prius cognoscebat in potentia. Sed tamen actualem cognitionem principiorum habere non potest intellectus possibilis nisi per intellectum agentem. Cognitio enim principiorum a sensibilibus accipitur ut dicitur in fine libri posteriorum. A sensibilibus autem non possunt intelligibilia accipi nisi per abstractionem intellectus agentis. Et ita patet quod intellectus in actu principiorum non sufficit ad reducendum intellectum possibilem de potentia in actum sine intellectu agente; sed in hac reductione intellectus agens se habet sicut artifex, et principia demonstrationis sicut instrumenta. Si autem loquamur de intellectu in actu docentis, manifestum est quod docens non causat scientiam in addiscente, tamquam interius agens, sed sicut exterius adminiculans; sicut etiam medicus sanat sicut exterius adminiculans, natura autem tamquam interius agens.

Quaestiones disputatae de Anima, a. 5c:

Quidam vero crediderunt intellectum agentem non esse aliud quam habitum principiorum indemonstrabilium in nobis. Sed hoc esse non potest, quia etiam ipsa principia indemonstrabilia cognoscimus abstrahendo a singularibus, ut docet philosophus in I Poster. Unde oportet praeexistere intellectum agentem habitui principiorum sicut causam ipsius; quia vero principia comparantur ad intellectum agentem ut instrumenta quaedam eius, quia per ea, facit alia intelligibilia actu.

Quaestiones disputatae de Anima, a. 5, ad 6:

Dicendum quod licet in anima nostra sit intellectus agens et possibilis, tamen requiritur aliquid extrinsecum ad hoc quod intelligere possimus. Et primo quidem requiruntur phantasmata a sensibilibus accepta, per quae repraesententur intellectui rerum determinatarum similitudines. Nam intellectus agens non est talis actus in quo omnium rerum species determinatae accipi possint ad cognoscendum; sicut nec lumen determinare potest visum ad species determinatas colorum, nisi adsint colores determinantes visum. Ulterius autem, cum posuerimus intellectum agentem esse quamdam virtutem participatam in animabus nostris, velut lumen quoddam, necesse est ponere aliam causam exteriorem a qua illud lumen participetur. Et hanc dicimus Deum, qui interius docet; in quantum huiusmodi lumen animae infundit, et supra huiusmodi lumen naturale addit, pro suo beneplacito, copiosius lumen ad cognoscendum ea ad quae naturalis ratio attingere non potest, sicut est lumen fidei et lumen prophetiae.

Quaestiones disputatae de Anima, q. 15, ad 9:

Dicendum quod operatio intellectus agentis et possibilis respicit phantasmata secundum quod est anima corpori unita; sed cum erit anima a corpore separata, per intellectum possibilem recipiet species effluentes a substantiis superioribus, et per intellectum agentem habebit virtutem ad intelligendum.

Quaestiones disputatae de Anima, q. 15, ad 19:

Dicendum quod intellectus possibilis non est natus recipere a phantasmatibus nihil secundum quod phantasmata fiunt actu per lumen intellectus agentis, quod est quaedam participatio luminis substantiarum superiorum. Et ideo non removetur quin a substantiis superioribus recipere possit.

Quaestiones disputatae de Anima, q. 18c:

Et ideo anima humana unita est corpori ut ex rebus materialibus species intelligibiles possit recipere secundum intellectum possibilem. Nec est ei maior virtus naturalis ad intelligendum, quam ut secundum huiusmodi formas sic determinatas in cognitione intelligibili perficiatur. Unde et lumen intelligibile quod participat, quod dicitur intellectus agens, hanc operationem habet, ut in huiusmodi species intelligibiles faciat actu. Quoniam igitur anima est unita corpori, ex ipsa unione corporis habet aspectum ad inferiora, a quibus accipit species intelligibiles proportionatas suae intellectivae virtuti, et sic in scientia perficitur. Sed, cum fuerit a corpore separata, habet aspectum ad superiora tantum, a quibus recipit influentiam specierum intelligibilium universalium. Et, licet minus universaliter recipiantur in ipsa quam sint in substantiis superioribus, tamen non est sibi tanta efficacia virtutis intellectivae, ut per huiusmodi genus specierum intelligibilium possit perfectam cognitionem consequi, intelligendo specialiter et determinate unumquodque; sed in quadam universitate et confusione, sicut cognoscuntur res in principiis universalibus. Hanc autem cognitionem acquirunt animae separatae subito per modum influentiae, et non successive per modum instructionis, ut Origenes dicit. Sic dicendum est igitur, quod animae separatae naturali cognitione in universali cognoscunt omnia naturalia, non autem specialiter unumquodque. De cognitione autem quam habent animae sanctorum per gratiam, alia ratio est; nam secundum illam Angelis adaequantur, prout vident omnia in verbo. Ergo respondendum est ad obiectiones.

Quaestiones disputatae de Anima, q. 18 ad 11:

Dicendum quod intellectus possibilis non potest reduci in actum cognitionis omnium naturalium per lumen solum intellectus agentis, sed per aliquam superiorem substantiam, cui actu adest cognitio omnium naturalium. Et si quis recte consideret, intellectus agens, secundum ea quae philosophus de ipso tradit non est activum respectu intellectus possibilis directe: sed magis respectu phantasmatum, quae facit intelligibilia actu, per quae intellectus possibilis reducitur in actum quando aspectus eius inclinatur ad inferiora ex unione corporis. Et eadem ratione quando aspectus eius est ad superiora post separationem a corpore, fit in actu per species actu intelligibiles quae sunt in substantiis superioribus, quasi per agens proprium. Et sic talis cognitio est naturalis.

Some Synthetic Remarks

In view of the sources above, I will now venture a brief personal synthesis, not as something with complete certainty, but rather, as a position with solid probability, at least in its main assertions.

At the root of all of our powers stand the intellect and the will, which we could respectively call the manifestive light of the whole of human existence and the appetite of the whole person. Because of the state of the particular question that I am considering here, I focus on the natural, supra-rational element involved in the former. However, much could be said also concerning the influence of the will in the operation of the intellect with respect to such pre-cognitional or supra-cognitional activity as well. A full account would require such treatment, which would have a bearing on cognition in all of its domains, whether speculative or practical.

The human person is uniquely a being made for being, in its fullest latitude: to know it (speculatively), to do it (morally), to make it (artistically); to know realities from those which are bodily all the way to uncreated truth (which the intellect can make known either mediately, by nature, or through supernatural attestation, by supernatural faith, or immediately, in the vision of God). We are made for being, and therefore the fundamental bent of our capacity for reality in its full breadth is the central activity, the central entelechy, the central “interior-end” that guides all that we do.

Just as a living organism, in all of its activities, is intelligently ordered by its substantial form, so too for us as living, intellectual beings. Now, even in the humble oak tree or tomato plant, this substantial activity is multiplied into various vital powers and operations. Thus, for example, it has a capacity for assimilating its environment and a capacity for gradually knitting together its complex wholeness within an extended quantity and through the morphogenic coordination of various parts. So too, mutatis mutandis, for the highest spiritual activity of the human person. Our substantial spiritual agency—which represents the loftiest height, or deepest root (depending on one’s metaphoric preferences)—is mediated through powers, above all those powers which emanate first and foremost from the soul, namely the intellect and will. And it is through their mediacy that all other powers will also emanate.

Physical nutrition requires nourishment, and being fed requires that we elevate our environment so that the beings that surround us might be food.37 Just as the power of nutrition is the means by which this elevating activity takes place in plants, so too, mutatis mutandis, the light of the agent intellect stretches our spiritual capacity “outward” toward the intelligible food which it seeks. It stirs up the entire mass of our immediate, external sensation and, most essentially, our interior capacities for cognitional integration and memory, so as to seek therein the what-is and why-is of the world that surrounds us. In other words, it stirs up the “phantasms” in order to gather them into its—and here comes a metaphor that is central to the whole Platonic-Aristotelian tradition—light.

We have all experienced this process. The gradual assimilation or birth of an idea. We seek to look across our experience and even to prospectively create new phantasms, new imaginings, in order to stabilize an insight, which is being born. Yet, strictly speaking, we do not yet intellectually know. Granted, the “cogitative power” is suffused with the luminosity of past intelligibility. Thus, the interrelating of various phantasms already involves something of a stamp of spiritual cognition. Yet, before articulating—at least to some degree—the what is or why is of something, we are faced with a state of mind which is something of an aggregate haze of particularity.

All of a sudden, however, we see emerge, amid this process, a kind of—to use Maritain’s expression—“many-eyed cloud,” a vague concept, an inchoate awareness of a given reality. We have considered many just actions; but now, without being quite clear even about what we are thinking, we have this general sense of justice, emergent in our knowledge and calling for a definition. We are at the stage of the impression of impressed cognitional species. The intellect is now “formed,” qualitatively modified, ready now to “form itself” by expressing a definition. In other words, the “possible” intellect has received from the vital work of intellectual manducation—“abstraction” and “illumination”—a kind of virtus, a power or ability, to do the work of defining.

But, it is not as though the root of the soul and the agent intellect now depart, leaving the possible intellect to be a kind of subcontracted worker, now ready to erect the scaffolding of a definition. Allow a parallel to clarify this point. Consider the person who has an inchoate virtue (a virtue in statu facile mobilis) or even a disposition to virtue. As such a person struggles to do a truly morally good act, it is not as though the disposition or inchoate virtue is left behind so that the moral agent can get down to the “real work” of performing a virtuous deed. Rather, from the vitality of the substantial form, mediated by the intellect and will, the person performs an action which is at once guided by that preliminary virtue or disposition, while also passing to “second act” in full, to the fulfillment of what was present in seed, yet now is expressed in the moral act. It is under the “pressure”—if I might use that metaphor—of the substantial being of the agent that this or that act comes to full blossom, through the mediacy of the powers and other qualities, without which there would be no specifying direction for the act itself.

So too, I believe, for intellection. All of the specification that will ever be present in the ultimate definition, statement, or syllogism formed by the possible intellect will be dependent upon the first radiance of reality brought to light by the agent intellect, as its light actualizes what previously had been only potentially intelligible. In this regard, the image of the “many-eyed cloud” might be deceptive, unless we understand that we are talking about first act in the order of knowledge, such that the implied “eyes” now must focus themselves up upon the truth to be expressed, to bring the potential multiplicity of vision into a singular focus. This is the work of conceptualization: of forming definitions, statements, and syllogisms. But none of this activity takes place without the knower-substance nor without the light of the agent intellect, by which our mind is opened to the stable being of what heretofore had been only particularized and differentiated, potentially intelligible, not actually such. “Second act,” the full operation of the knower in the act of knowing, will be something like the fruit contained in the flower of first act.

All of this is another way of stating what we saw above even in John of St. Thomas, who was perhaps the most sober of the Thomists regarding this topic. Namely: the terms of knowledge—whether in definitions, statements, or syllogisms—are always “downstream” of the illumination of the phantasms from which all reasoning begins. It is like the pressure exerted from human-substance, through the agent intellect, toward the terminus of achieved act.

What is a little bit more difficult to articulate is the particular role that is continually played by this illumination (which must be maintained, reinforced, and fostered through the human “quasi-movement” of discursive-rational thought) as the possible intellect unfolds its own labors. Yet there must be some such presence, some such continual light and focus. Radically, it derives from the vitality of the agent intellect as a faculty, from the natural desire to grope at the articulation of reality, of being in its full breadth. Then, in exercise, all human cognition is fertilized by the agent intellect’s ever-present illumination of the phantasms, in light of which all subsequent natural human cognition takes place. (Mutatis mutandis, some similar things could be said for the superelevated intellect, given the way that all acts of faith are mediated by articulated superanalogies—the light of assent to the articles of faith forever are present in all that we ever consider. However, this becomes increasingly complex and nuanced as we begin to introduce the data of mystical experience. The present essay has intended to remain within the domain of natural finalities.)

I think that this is most evident in the work of dialectical logic, whether in the search of definitions or merely in the inventive quest to test truths from every side, through the vigorous debate-dialogue which unites two human minds in the search of the truth. As the possible intellect exercises its “third operation,” the agent intellect is constantly operative within experience—both in the dialectical questioner and in the respondent—to cast light upon possibly relevant facts, premises, and common principles. The work of inventio, of discovery, requires the constant arousal of intelligibility, the constant actualizing of potentialities which is the native work of the agent intellect.

Doubtless, something similar could be said for the work of definition and statement formation. In fact, very often, the very process of coming to know definitions and even per se nota truths requires us to deploy an immense activity of inventio, in order to state our terms aright and clearly. And this cannot help but deploy the constant light of the agent intellect—not to understand but to make reality understandable, so that the possible intellect might enable us to understand.

And even when we reach the terminal moment of contemplation—best exemplified in a solid definition through genus and specific difference, a per se nota proposition, or a syllogistically-concluded truth (especially one that is truly demonstrative)—the agent intellect remains present, illuminating all the terms. But it is now present most fully as first act is present in its second act, as knowing-being is present in knowing-activity, as the stem gives way to its flower, which now brings forth its fruit.

And how much more could be said, as well, for the way that this all plays out in the order of practical truth! The inventiveness of the artisan and the artist is a forever attentive to intelligible possibilities which he or she can make to be realities. There is a rich domain for future scholastic reflection here, for practical truth requires a kind of “prospective truthing” of experience, so as to see new truths in which the virtuous moral good or the rightly ordered artistic good might be lodged. Whatever might be the etymological truth of Thomas’s claim, the speculative insight remains: prudence is, in an important way, derived from the notion of providentia. Human moral (and artistic) agency is a kind of subordinated co-providentia (or, in the pregnant expression of Veritatis splendor, “participated theonomy”38). Granted, the directionality is, one might say, “reversed” here, for one is here seeking to do or make the true—but such is the nature of practical truth in distinction from speculative truth.39

And of course, as well, we can then speak of the intellectual connaturalization that takes place through various virtues—whether intellectual or moral—by which the intellect is itself strengthened. Thus, with the growth of character, in the broadest sense of the term, the intellect finds itself strengthened not only in its capacity for expressing knowledge, but even in its pre-rational (in the sense of supra-rational) inclination toward the manifestation of intelligibility. A great deal of room is left open here, therefore, for a sense of intuition that arises from the subjective strengthening of the intellect through the gradual cultivation of virtue (including the freeing of the intellect from the “cross-currents” of disordered passions and other effects of the Fall and sin upon human knowledge).

Doubtless, throughout one’s reflection on these matters, one must carefully distinguish between the active, natural light of the intellect, seeking intelligibility and, on the other hand, the intellect as a capacity for not illumination but, rather, for knowledge itself (i.e., the distinction between the agent and the possible intellect).

Likewise, further consideration should be taken into account regarding the role of the will in these matters—for it plays an immensely important role in the exercise of reason (quantum ad agere vel non agere), especially in dialectical matters, and even in relation to specification (quantum ad agere hoc vel illud) in questions of belief, whether human or divine, as well as very importantly in practical matters. But that is all part of a much fuller noetic discussion (one that would also include a great deal concerning the sub-rational powers too). All I have wished to do here is draw out some of the stakes at play in matters pertaining to the agent intellect, the spiritual sun at the root of our powers, so easily presupposed and overlooked yet perhaps deserving of more reflective attention that is often given to it in Thomist discourse.

  1. In other words, the present work is, for me, in via as a matter of dialectical consideration, issuing in probable certainty at best. Concerning the notion of dialectics broadly presupposed for this article, see Yvan Pelletier, La dialectique aristotélicienne: Les principes clés des Topiques (Laval: Société d’Études Aristotéliciennes, 2007). And although a little bit different from certain points in Pelletier, nonetheless, on the whole I follow Gardeil concerning the nature of Probable Certainty.↩︎

  2. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Christian Perfection and Contemplation, trans. M. Timothea Doyle (St. Louis: Herder, 1958), 53n5.↩︎

  3. Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, trans. Gerald B. Phelan et al. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 134n121.↩︎

  4. I am choosing to remain at the level of aliqui dicunt, “some say,” rather than provoke others.↩︎

  5. The former is well known. Regarding the latter, see in particular the remarks made by Garrigou-Lagrange and Hugon in the texts that I have gathered together here on To Be a Thomist in “Notes on the Super-Analogy of Faith in Garrigou-Lagrange, Hugon, Journet, and Maritain.” Search for “verbum mentis” and “expressed species”.↩︎

  6. Thus, as I have observed elsewhere, John of St. Thomas is of the opinion that, although we form one kind of verbum for the first operation of the intellect and another through the second (a position that predates him), there is not a unique kind of verbum for the third operation. Rather, the propositions are themselves modified. On the earlier history concerning the verbum produced by the second operation of the intellect, see André de Muralt, “La doctrine médiéviale de l’esse obiectivum,” in L’enjeu de la philosophie médiévale: études thomistes, scotistes, occamiennes (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 90–167 (esp. 127–29). For John of St. Thomas’s own position, see Cursus philosophicus thomisticus, ed. Beatus Reiser, vol. 3 (Naturalis philosophia, vol. 2) (Turin: Marietti, 1930), q. 11, a. 3 (esp. 372A7–373B17). The topic of the verbum mentis formed by the intellect’s second operation is presented also by Yves Simon and L-M. Régis, as well as by Maritain in his logic textbook.↩︎

  7. Jacques Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (New York: Meridian Books, 1966), 73.↩︎

  8. Ibid., 71–2.↩︎

  9. Maritain, Degrees, 134n121.↩︎

  10. Cajetan, In ST III, q. 9, a. 4. The entire text deserves consideration, especially in light of Maritain’s later-life discussion of the supra-consciousness in Christ.↩︎

  11. It was the reading of Pelletier that convinced me of the immense importance of dialectical logic, something I had reflected on only occasionally in the past.↩︎

  12. Robert W. Schmidt, The Domain of Logic According to Saint Thomas Aquinas (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), 254–6.↩︎

  13. See Melvin A Glutz, The Manner of Demonstrating in Natural Philosophy (River Forest, IL: Pontifical Faculty of Philosophy Studium Generale of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1956), 6-7.↩︎

  14. See John of St. Thomas, The Material Logic of John of St. Thomas, trans. Yves R. Simon, John J. Glanville, G. Donald Hollenhorst (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), q. 24, a. 2 (here, p. 451 and 543)↩︎

  15. John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus thomisticus, vol. 4, ed. Beatus Reiser (Turin: Marietti, 1937), pt. 4, q. 10, a. 1 (p. 300a40–b2).↩︎

  16. Interestingly, he will establish an explicit parallel between this augmentative power of the agent intellect and that of the vegetative soul. See ibid., p. 303b28ff.↩︎

  17. Ibid., p. 300b38–46.↩︎

  18. Ibid., 304a3–13.↩︎

  19. Ibid., q. 10, a. 2 (p. 304a22–30).↩︎

  20. On the notion of “objective instrument” as applied to the causality of the phantasm, see Yves Simon, Introduction to Metaphysics of Knowledge, trans. Vukan Kuic and Richard J. Thompson (New York: Fordham University Press, 1990), 113–127; John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 3, Philosophia naturalis pt. 4 (De anima), q. 10, a. 2 (306b37–309b33, esp. 308b20–38).↩︎

  21. John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 3, Philosophia naturalis pt. 4 (De anima), p. 309b37–48.↩︎

  22. Going beyond John’s own words, we might also add here: and also in the first operation of the intellect, by means of the confused idea that serves as the means for attaining the more defined idea. See Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Sense of Mystery, trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2017), 23:

    At the end of this venatio definitionis realis, of this hunt for the definition (as Aristotle says in providing the rules for such a chase), the vague concept, which was THE GUIDING PRINCIPLE of the ascending and descending search, is itself recognized in the distinct concept, as a man who is half asleep recognizes himself when, fully awake, he looks at himself in a mirror. Thus, the search for the definition is the work of understanding [intelligence]—more a work of νους than it is a work of discursive reason.

    And ibid., 23n31.

    There is much that could be said about this subject, as much in theology as in philosophy. We cannot here pay heed to this capitally important subject. We can only note what seems to us to be the principal point. It is understanding, νους, that progressively passes from the first vague [confuse] intellectual apprehension (before any judgment or reasoning) to distinct intellectual apprehension. To accomplish this, it uses as its instruments (in a sense inferior to it) ascending comparative induction and descending division. However, these are only instruments for it, and the real definition attained by this process exceeds these instruments.

    Various works published in recent years concerning the Aristotelian method of research for the definition (i.e., treating Posterior analytics 2) do not reflect on what is most important in this research, that is, its guiding principle—which is superior to discursive reason and which is nothing other than νους and its vague [confuse] intellectual apprehension of the thing to be defined. This apprehension is expressed in the quid nominis, which contains in a vague manner [confusément] the quid rei. The intellect would not search for the real definition if it had not in some sense already have found it.

    ↩︎

  23. Hug Banyeres, “Les fonctions de l’intellect agent,” https://www.thomas-d-aquin.com/documents/files/IntelectAgent.pdf. Important for his study seems to be the work of José Ángel García Cuadrado, La luz del intelecto agente. Estudio desde la metafísica de Báñez (Pamplona: Universidad de Navarra, 1998).↩︎

  24. Though, without a whiff of Transcendental Thomism.↩︎

  25. Ibid.↩︎

  26. Ibid.↩︎

  27. Ibid.↩︎

  28. Ibid.↩︎

  29. Ibid.↩︎

  30. Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry, 72–74.↩︎

  31. On this final point, see ibid., 101:

    At the same time the expression "creative idea," which makes sense only as the craftsman's creative idea, was used to designate the poetic intuition itself in its creative aspect, the poetic intuition born in emotion, in the primeval sources of the preconscious life of the intellect. And poor Eckermann was to ask his wonderful Goethe what was the idea he had endeavored to embody in Faust. “As if I knew,” Goethe answered, “as if I myself could tell! From Heaven, through Earth, down to Hell, there's an explanation, if you want one: but that is not the idea, that's the development of the action. . .”

    That was not the idea, for there was no idea, but only poetic intuition, which is in no way an idea. In reality–this is a point I shall emphasize again in the next chapter–poetic intuition transcends the virtue of art. And poetic intuition involves and contains within itself, in a superior state and eminent manner, formaliter-eminenter, as a scholastic would say, all that exists—and infinitely more (for it is both cognitive and creative)—in the craftsman’s creative idea. It is enough for poetic intuition to pass to actual operative exercise; by the same stroke it will enter the sphere and dynamism of the virtue of art, whose more or less adequate means it will bring into play.

    ↩︎

  32. Georges Brazzola in Jacques Maritain, La loi naturelle ou loi non écrite, ed. Georges Brazzola (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 1986), 243–5.↩︎

  33. See Jacques Maritain, On the Grace and Humanity of Jesus, trans. Joseph W. Evans (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), 48ff. This theory has been debated by various thinkers. One can search for works by Stephen Doering, William Chami, Andrew V. Rosato, and Jean-Hervé Nicolas. A full treatment of the question, however, then engages one in the literature concerning Christ’s Self-Consciousness, as debated by others too, such as Galtier, Rahner, and Lonergan.↩︎

  34. Jacques Maritain, “No Knowledge Without Intuitivity,” in Untrammeled Approaches, trans. Bernard Doering (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 317–320.↩︎

  35. See Maritain, “Reflections on Wounded Nature,” in Untrammeled Approaches, 207–236. Certain things said in “No Knowledge Without Intuitivity” also pertain to this question as well.↩︎

  36. Banyeres, “Les fonctions de l’intellect agent,” https://www.thomas-d-aquin.com/documents/files/IntelectAgent.pdf.↩︎

  37. These remarks are meant with full technical weight. See Jacques Maritain, “Philosophie de l’organisme: Notes sur la fonction de nutrition,” in Oeuvres complètes, vol. 6 (Fribourg, Switzerland: Éditions Universitaires, 1984), 981–1000; Ambrose Little, “Are You What You Eat or Something More?,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 92, no. 1 (2018): 1–20; Leon Kass, The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature (Washington, DC: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 17–56.↩︎

  38. John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, no. 41.↩︎

  39. This is not to say that speculative truth is not presupposed for practical truth. Speculatively-practical first truths exist in the order of morals; and in some way we can say that art relies upon the riches of nature and our encounter with it. However, the present essay is not the place to adjudicate these important but difficult questions of moral and artistic “psychology.” Prudential cognition is a kind of “participated Providence” and artistic fabrication is a kind of “sub-creation.”

    Concerning the former, I have written a great deal about my own particular interpretation of the Thomist tradition. See Matthew K. Minerd: “A Synthetic Overview of Conscience and Prudence in Moral Reasoning,” in Conscience: Four Thomistic Treatments (Providence, RI: Cluny Media, 2022), 1–78; “A Note on Synderesis, Moral Science, and Knowledge of the Natural Law,” Lex naturalis 5 (2020): 43–55; “Wisdom be Attentive: The Noetic Structure of Sapiential Knowledge,” Nova et Vetera (English) 18, no. 4 (2020): 1103–46; “Beyond Non-Being: Thomistic Metaphysics on Second Intentions, Ens morale, and Ens artificiale,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 91, no. 3 (2017): 353–79; “Appendix 2: On the Speculative, the Speculatively-Practical, and the Practically-Practical,” in Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, “Remarks Concerning the Metaphysical Character of St. Thomas’s Moral Theology, in Particular as It Is Related to Prudence and Conscience,” Nova et Vetera (English) 17, no. 1 (2019): 245–70, at 266–70; “Ius Gentium as Publicly Articulated Moral Science,” Nova et Vetera, English Edition, vol. 21, no. 3 (2023): 1043–1058; “What You Don’t Know Can Still Harm You: Memory and Docility as Virtues for Forming an Unformed Conscience,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 23, no. 4 (Winter 2023): 615–636. Also, see a forthcoming article in Nova et Vetera, a draft of which can be found on To Be a Thomist as “Reorienting Discussions regarding ‘Knowledge of the Natural Law through Connaturality.’”

    In matters of art, I am most influenced by Maritain and Marie-Dominique Philippe, though somewhat by Gilson. For a guiding thread from Maritain, see Maritain, Creative Intuition, 100:

    If we turn to the useful arts we observe that poetic knowledge or intuitive emotion is not in them the spiritual germ of the work to be made. Poetic intuition can play a part in them–then a concern for beauty will creep into them; but poetic intuition is not the determinative focus of their creativity. This determinative focus is what the Schoolmen called the idea factiva, say the “creative idea.” They took care, moreover, to warn us that the craftsman's creative idea is in no way a concept, for it is neither cognitive nor representative, it is only generative; it does not tend to make our mind conformed to things, but to make a thing conformed to our mind. They never even used the word "idea" in the sense of “concept,” as we have done since the time of Descartes. And so, if we may continue to speak of the craftsman's creative idea, it is on the condition that we be aware of the fact that this word idea is merely analogous when applied to that creative idea and to what we usually call ideas. The craftsman's creative idea is an intellectual form, or a spiritual matrix, containing implicitly, in its complex unity, the thing which, perhaps for the first time, will be brought into actual existence. And this creative idea pertains to the virtue of art, is involved in the virtue of art, is the initial determinative focus in the exercise of this virtue.

    Well, by a most unfortunate occurrence, it happened that this same expression, creative idea, was transferred from the realm of the useful arts to the realm of the fine arts, better to say, of those arts which depend on the Platonic mousikè, or on poetry. As a result, the worst confusions came about. Theoreticians of art, mistaking this "idea" for a concept, fancied that the so-called creative idea was an ideal model sitting for the artist in his own brain, the work supposedly being a copy or portrait of it. This would make of art a cemetery of imitations. The work is an original, not a copy, and never has such a thing as this idea as model existed except in the mind of some aestheticians imbued With spurious Platonism, or some philosophers misreading the theological notion of the divine Ideas.

    For further works of interest, see Marie-Dominique Philippe, L’activité artistique: Philosophie du faire, 2 vols. (Paris: Beauchesne, 1969–1970), republished as vols. 1–2 of Philosophie de l’Art (Paris: Éditions Universitaires, 1991–1994); see also his “Situation de la philosophie de l’art dans la philosophie Aristotélico-Thomiste,” Studia philosophica 13 (1953): 99–112. The standard canon of twentieth century Thomistic works on this topic comprises: Jacques Maritain, Art and Scholasticism and the Frontiers of Poetry, trans. Joseph W. Evans (New York: Scribner, 1962); Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (Providence, RI: Cluny Media, 2018); Jacques Maritain and Raïssa Maritain, The Situation of Poetry, trans. Marshall Suther (New York: Philosophical Library, 1955); Étienne Gilson, Painting and Reality (Providence, RI: Cluny Media, 2020); Gilson, The Arts of the Beautiful (Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 2000); Gilson, Forms and Substances in the Arts (Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 2000); Gilson, Choir of Muses, trans. Maisie Ward (Providence, RI: Cluny Media, 2018); Gilson, La société de masse et sa culture: arts plastiques, musique, littérature, liturgies (Paris: Vrin, 1986).↩︎

Dr. Matthew Minerd

A Ruthenian Catholic, husband, and father, I am a professor of philosophy and moral theology at Ss. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA. My academic work has appeared in the journals Nova et Vetera, The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Saint Anselm Journal, Lex Naturalis, Downside Review, The Review of Metaphysics, and Maritain Studies, as well in volumes published by the American Maritain Association through the Catholic University of America Press. I have served as author, translator, and/or editor for volumes published by The Catholic University of America Press, Emmaus Academic, Cluny Media, and Ascension Press.

https://www.matthewminerd.com
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