105. Understanding as Passive Power and the Agent Intellect

Subscribe in Podcast App | Download Transcript

Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Three Meanings of “Suffering” or “Undergoing” #

Thomas distinguishes three senses of the Latin word passio (Greek: pathē), which are conflated in English translations:

1. First Sense (Most Proper): Being acted upon in a way harmful or contrary to one’s nature—removal of what suits one’s nature or inclination (e.g., water losing coolness through heating, a person becoming sick)
2. Second Sense (Less Proper): Any change or alteration, whether beneficial or harmful—something is taken away whether suitable or not (e.g., healing through operation, rejoicing)
3. Third Sense (Most Broad): Receiving something while in potency without losing anything; being perfected and moved from potency to act (e.g., understanding receiving intelligible forms; sensing receiving sensible forms)

The understanding is a passive power only in the third sense. The objections against it being passive are based on confusion with the first two senses.

English Translation Problems #

Berquist highlights the semantic limitation of English words:

• The English word “suffering” is stuck on the first meaning (harmful change)
• The English word “power” refers only to active power, not the ability to be acted upon
• The Greek dunamis and Latin potentia encompass both active and passive powers
• Better English translations: “undergoing” (retains some sense of harm), “being acted upon,” or “ability” (able is carried over to passive sense: breakable, beatable, burnable)
• The word “undergoing” has not been tied exclusively to the harmful, making it superior to “suffering”

The Blank Tablet Metaphor #

Following Aristotle, Thomas teaches that the human understanding is initially in potency to all intelligible things—like a blank tablet (tabula rasa) with nothing written on it. Through experience and the work of the agent intellect, the possible intellect moves from potency to act.

The Two Powers of the Intellect #

Possible Intellect (intellectus possibilis):

• The passive power to receive intelligible forms
• Initially in potency to all understandables
• The lowest in the order of understandings, most remote from the perfection of the divine understanding
• Compared to matter that receives forms

Agent Intellect (intellectus agens):

• The active power that makes intelligible forms actually intelligible
• Abstracts universal forms from particular sensible images
• Illuminates phantasms (sensible images) so they can be understood
• Compared to light making colors actually visible
• Necessary because sensible things exist in matter and are only potentially intelligible

Why an Agent Intellect Is Necessary: The Platonic vs. Aristotelian Problem #

Plato’s Position: No agent intellect needed because

• Forms subsist separately from matter and are already actually intelligible (eidos)
• These separate Forms are understandable in act
• The intellect participates in these pre-existing, actually intelligible Forms

Aristotle’s Rejection: Forms do not subsist separately; only individual things exist in matter

• Therefore, the natures of sensible things are not actually intelligible outside the soul
• Forms existing in matter are only potentially intelligible
• Nothing moves from potency to act except through something already in act
• Therefore, some power must make potentially intelligible things actually intelligible

Thomistic Synthesis: While rejecting Plato’s separately existing Forms, Thomas notes the position has truth regarding God and angels:

• God’s understanding is pure act, knowing all things through His essence
• Angels have actually intelligible forms infused by God
• Humans, by contrast, must abstract universals from sensible particulars

Key Arguments #

Objection 1: The Proportion Between Sensation and Understanding #

Objection:

• Just as sensible things are to the senses, understandable things are to the understanding
• Sensibles in act exist outside the soul
• Therefore no active sense is needed—only a passive sensing power
• Similarly, no active intellect should be needed—only a passive understanding

Response:

• Sensibles in act are found outside the soul in the material world
• Intelligibles in act are not found outside the soul because forms existing in matter are only potentially intelligible
• The proportion holds, but the premises differ: since actually intelligible things are not outside the soul, an agent intellect is necessary to create them

Objection 2: Light and the Medium #

Objection:

• Light is required for sight only to make the medium (air) transparent, not to make colors actually visible
• Colors themselves are sensible in act
• Therefore, light is not analogous to an agent intellect; the latter is not necessary

Response:

• Even if light only makes the medium lucid (transparent), both light and agent intellect are necessary for their respective operations
• The first interpretation is preferable: light makes colors actually visible
• This provides a closer analogy to the agent intellect making intelligible forms actually intelligible

Objection 3: The Incorruptibility of the Understanding #

Objection:

• The understanding power is incorruptible
• But if understanding is passive (passivus), it would be corruptible (as stated in Aristotle’s De Anima III)
• Therefore, understanding is not passive

Response:

• The intellectus passivus mentioned by Aristotle refers to the sensitive appetite (where passions reside) or the particular reason (virtus cogitativa)
• These are passive in the first and second senses because they are acts of bodily organs
• The possible intellect (intellectus possibilis) is passive only in the third sense—receiving intelligible forms without harm
• Since it is not the act of a bodily organ, it is incorruptible

Objection 4: Agent More Noble Than Patient #

Objection:

• Augustine and Aristotle teach that the agent is more noble than the patient
• The vegetative powers are all active (agent-like) yet the lowest among soul powers
• Therefore, the understanding powers, being supreme, must be all active
• This suggests no passive power in understanding

Response:

• This holds when agent and patient refer to the same thing in the same respect
• The teacher is more noble than the student when acting upon the student
• But one passive power can be more noble than another active power when they refer to different things
• The possible intellect is passive with respect to the whole of universal being
• The vegetative powers are active only with respect to one particular being (the body)
• Therefore, the possible intellect’s passivity to universal being makes it more noble than the vegetative powers’ activity

Important Definitions #

• Passio (Greek: pathē): Suffering, undergoing, being acted upon; Thomas distinguishes three senses of this term
• Potentia (Greek: dunamis): Power, ability, potency; encompasses both active and passive capacities
• Intellectus possibilis: The possible intellect; the passive power to receive intelligible forms
• Intellectus agens: The agent intellect; the active power to make intelligible forms actually intelligible
• Phantasma (Greek: phantasma): Sensible image, imagination; the particular likeness upon which the agent intellect works
• Tabula rasa: Blank tablet; metaphor for the initial state of the human mind
• Eidos (Greek): Form (Platonic sense); sometimes badly translated in English as “idea”
• Actus (Latin): Act; actuality; what is in being rather than in potency
• Virtus cogitativa: The particular reason; an interior sense power that makes individual judgments about sensible things

Examples & Illustrations #

The Blank Blackboard #

Berquist compares the human mind to a blackboard at the beginning of class—nothing is written on it. The possible intellect begins as a blank slate, empty of intelligible forms. Through experience and the agent intellect’s work, forms are gradually inscribed upon it.

Studying Geometry #

When students study geometric figures (parallelograms, rhombuses, circles), they directly experience the agent intellect’s work:

• They observe particular drawn figures on paper
• They separate out universal properties common to all such figures
• This abstraction makes the universal form actually intelligible
• They can then understand “what a circle is” rather than just perceiving this particular drawn circle

The Pin and the Senses #

Berquist illustrates why sensory passivity differs from intellectual passivity:

• If someone sticks a pin in you (harmful passivity), you are acutely aware you are being acted upon
• When light from a face acts upon your eyes, you are less aware of being acted upon because it is not harmful
• Sensory passivity includes both harmful (first sense) and perfective (third sense) passivity
• Intellectual passivity is only perfective (third sense) because understanding is immaterial

The Three Meanings of “Seeing” #

Berquist illustrates semantic development through the word “seeing”:

• First Meaning (closest to senses): The act of the eye
• Second Meaning: Mental imagination or picturing (“I see my mother now” when she is absent; Hamlet: “I see my father now” in imagination)
• Third Meaning (most remote from sensible): Understanding (“I see” meaning “I understand”)

Notably, understanding is more important than physical seeing, yet physical seeing is named first because it is more sensible. Similarly, the most harmful passivity (first sense of passio) is most recognized by us.

Shakespeare and Blindness #

Berquist references King Lear: When the father is blinded (loses physical sight), he suddenly understands and “sees” what he failed to understand when he had his eyes. Shakespeare plays on the third meaning of “seeing” (understanding), showing that intellectual sight surpasses physical sight.

Questions Addressed #

Is the Understanding a Passive Power? #

Answer: Yes, but only in the third sense of “undergoing.” The understanding receives intelligible forms that actualize and perfect it, moving it from potency to act. It is not passive in the first two senses because it is not harmed or merely changed by its objects. Understanding is unique among human powers in combining both passivity (possible intellect) and activity (agent intellect).

Why Is an Agent Intellect Necessary? #

Answer: Because sensible forms exist only in matter and are therefore only potentially intelligible. The principle “nothing is reduced from potency to act except by something already in act” applies to understanding as it does to sensation. Since there are no actually intelligible things outside the soul (unlike sensible things), an active power within the soul must make potentially intelligible things actually intelligible.

How Does the Agent Intellect Function? #

Answer: It acts upon phantasms (sensible images retained in imagination) to abstract universal forms from their material conditions. It illuminates these images, making them actually intelligible so they can be received by the possible intellect. This is compared to light making colors actually visible.

Why Can’t We Always Understand When We Wish? #

Answer: Because the agent intellect requires particular phantasms (sensible images) to work upon. The agent intellect does not contain the likenesses of all sensible and imaginable things within itself. Without relevant sensory experience and imagination, there are no appropriate images upon which the agent intellect can work to produce intelligible forms.

Key Contrasts #

The Vegetative, Sensitive, and Rational Parts of the Soul #

In a concluding summary, Berquist notes:

• Vegetative Part (nourishing): All powers are active
• Sensitive Part (feeling): All powers are passive (both senses and sense-desire)
• Rational Part (understanding): Contains one active power (agent intellect) and one passive power (possible intellect)

This distribution shows the increasing perfection and complexity of the human soul as it transcends the purely material order.