Comparison and common sense

Use in the book

Sight knows colors, hearing voices, and smell odors. None of these specialized powers by itself compares color with voice. Ficino’s question is how the mind can judge that they differ unless it knows both together. Merely collecting reports in one place does not yet explain that judgement: the compared contents must be available to the comparing act. Color remains color and voice remains voice, while one power apprehends their difference. Ficino pictures this inward power as a center receiving reports from five surrounding sensory instruments. The center models unified access; it does not by itself identify a location in the brain.

He next introduces an opponent’s concession: let there be two internal powers. If each knows both contents, each already performs the whole relevant work, and one is superfluous. Nature’s freedom from defect in necessities and excess in superfluities supports this horn. If instead each knows only its own content, neither can compare them; their juxtaposition leaves the relation unknown to either. This second horn fails independently of the economy principle. An additional common power must do the comparing, so the hypothesis intended to avoid such a power has merely postponed it. Chapter 2 then translates the dilemma into point and line, testing whether the ultimate comparing power could be quantitatively divided.

The conclusion does not abolish the plurality of sensory instruments. The account begins with five differently directed senses and later gives them different bodily media. What it denies is that a unified comparative judgement can be explained by mutually isolated apprehenders. One soul may possess differentiated functions and use distinct organs. The comparing power is common with respect to the contents it brings together, rather than indiscriminately identical with each external sense. Ficino also says it judges the senses’ operations, extending its scope beyond their objects. That claim helps explain its designation as their mistress, without supplying a complete theory of every form of self-consciousness.

A further metaphysical inference concerns the soul’s substance. Once the comparing power has been judged neither a body nor a quality diffused through body, Ficino argues that its source cannot remain corporeal: otherwise the power would be nobler than the substance to which it belongs. This premise about the adequacy of a source is an additional step, not a restatement of the earlier argument about comparative access. Chapter 3 accordingly calls inward sight and common sense more excellent and acute than each external sense, and therefore less dependent on bodily quantity. A still higher treatment of reason is promised; common sense is not thereby identified with rational intellection.

Places to read

1. VII.2.1Specialized senses require one inward comparing power.
2. VII.2.2The mistress of the senses is judged indivisible and superior to bodily diffusion.
3. VII.3.1Inward sight and common sense mediate the ascent from external senses toward reason.

Translation in this edition

At VII.2.1 the base aut... iudicet is rendered as a reformulation, “or, put another way,” rather than silently replaced by the later ut. Animus is translated “mind” for its comparing activity; this does not introduce a second substance beside anima.

anima / animus

anima / animus. Printed forms: anima; animae; Animam; animam; animi; animos; Animus; animus.

The living and knowing principle; animus can emphasize its inward cognitive activity without naming a second substance. Mind compares sensory contents in chapter 2; soul and mind alternate for the same persisting subject in the final argument. References: VII.2.1, VII.15.1. See Comparison and common sense.

attingere / persentire

attingere / persentire. Printed forms: attingit; persentiat.

To apprehend or reach an object, and thoroughly perceive it. Specialized sight reaches colors; in the line model either endpoint must perceive both contents to perform comparison. References: VII.2.1, VII.2.2. See Comparison and common sense.

centrum / vis interior

centrum / vis interior. Printed forms: centrum; interior animae.

The center-like inward power common to the senses. The image describes integrated comparison and judgement, without itself locating a material center in the brain. References: VII.2.1. See Comparison and common sense.

cognoscere / agnoscere / noscere

cognoscere / agnoscere / noscere. Printed forms: agnoscit; cognosceret; cognoscit; noscit.

To know or recognize the content at issue. The comparison argument repeatedly distinguishes a power’s acquaintance with its own object from knowledge of both compared objects. References: VII.2.1. See Comparison and common sense.

color / vox / odor

color / vox / odor. Printed forms: colorem; colores; colorum; odorem; odores; vocem; voces.

Color, voice and odor as distinct sensory contents. Their comparison requires joint cognitive access, not merely three separate reports. References: VII.2.1. See Comparison and common sense.

communis sensus

communis sensus. Printed forms: communi sensu.

The inward common sensory power coordinating individual senses. Its superiority and greater sufficiency prepare the ascent to the soul’s substance and finally to reason. References: VII.3.1. See Comparison and common sense.

comparare

comparare. Printed forms: comparabit; comparare; comparat; comparationis; comparatura; comparet.

To compare several contents with one another. A power must apprehend both objects to judge their difference; isolated reception by two powers is insufficient. References: VII.2.1. See Comparison and common sense.

diiudicare

diiudicare. Printed forms: diiudicat.

To discriminate and adjudicate among contents or activities. The one inward power judges both the objects and operations of the separate external senses. References: VII.2.1, VII.2.2. See Comparison and common sense.

geminus / apprehendere

geminus / apprehendere. Printed forms: apprehendat; apprehendit; geminae; geminas; geminis.

A pair of powers and their apprehension of objects. If both apprehend both, one is redundant; if each apprehends only one, neither compares them. References: VII.2.1. See Comparison and common sense.

magistra sensuum

magistra sensuum. Printed forms: magistra sensuum.

Mistress or governing judge of the senses. This epithet names the common inward power’s adjudication, not a sixth specialized sense with one narrow object. References: VII.2.2. See Comparison and common sense.

nobilior

nobilior. Printed forms: nobiliorem.

Nobler or higher in explanatory rank. Ficino rejects a theory that would make the soul’s indivisible power superior to the substance that possesses and produces it. References: VII.2.2. See Comparison and common sense.

nuntiare

nuntiare. Printed forms: nuntiantur; nuntiat.

To report or convey awareness. The five sensory instruments are likened to reporters to one center; the later foot example tests how such reporting can be understood. References: VII.2.1. See Comparison and common sense.

obiectum

obiectum. Printed forms: mentis obiectum; obiecta; obiecta mentis; obiecto; obiectum; sensus obiecto.

Object, what an operation is directed toward and from which it takes its species. Truth and good allow inward operations to range beyond the single species in which the creature itself exists. References: V.13.11, V.13.12. See Creature, power and operation.

The object toward which mind or sense is directed. Ficino tests whether intellectual objects move mind, or whether intellect independently fashions incorporeal structures. References: VI.2.9. See Intellectual objects and the owl’s eye.

An object of a sensory power, distinguished from that power’s operation. The inward comparing power judges both the external senses’ objects and their activities. References: VII.2.1. See Comparison and common sense.

scientia et ignorantia

scientia et ignorantia. Printed forms: cognitu; ignarus; ignota; manifesta.

Knowing, ignorance and manifestness as contrasts of explanatory access. A specialized sense does not know another sense’s object; known bodily composition does not yet reveal the soul’s activities or powers. References: VII.2.1, VII.12.1. See Comparison and common sense.

sufficere / supervacuus

sufficere / supervacuus. Printed forms: sufficiat; sufficit; supervacuis.

To suffice for a work; superfluous beyond what that work requires. Nature’s avoiding needless duplication supports the rejection of two equally comprehensive comparing powers. References: VII.2.1, VII.2.2. See Comparison and common sense.

vis / potentia / virtus

vis / potentia / virtus. Printed forms: potentiam; vires; virtus; vis.

Effective capacity or power, with different nouns used in overlapping ways. Soul’s power of sensing is the announced route of proof, while the eye’s small size does not measure the strength of inward sense. References: VII.1.1, VII.2.1, VII.3.1, VII.6.2. See Comparison and common sense.

visus / auditus / olfactus

visus / auditus / olfactus. Printed forms: auditus; olfactus; Visus.

Sight, hearing and smell, differentiated external senses. Each receives its proper kind of object; none alone compares color, voice and odor as different. References: VII.2.1. See Comparison and common sense.