Freedom from matter and causal priority

Use in the book

Ficino begins from a principle of causal superiority: a producer must be more excellent than what it produces, and excellence is associated with freedom from matter. An effect cannot therefore possess a greater freedom from matter than its cause. The resulting hierarchy is local and ordered. Nutrition works above and beyond the elemental order; sensation receives forms without the objects’ matter; understanding does so more fully, as a later discussion will show. Soul, the fountain of these powers, cannot arise from wholly bodily humors or their mixture and concord.

The wall illustrates the sensory step. Seeing its color does not bring the wall itself into sight; the soul apprehends a spiritual image of the color. The reductio then contrasts this with material reception through elemental qualities. Through heat and dryness one would receive bodily fire, through cold and dryness earth, not the spiritual appearances of those things. If this kind of reception sufficed for sensing, earth and stone would sense in the same way as soul.

The closing consequence is rejected, not offered as a general affirmation that stones perceive. Likewise, the article should not convert the qualitative hierarchy into a contemporary physical demonstration. It explains why, within Ficino’s metaphysical account of cause and effect, the activities he attributes to soul outrun the resources of a humoral harmony.

Places to read

1. VII.8.1The productive surplus of nutrition over instrumental heat supplies the earlier premise.
2. VII.13.1Causal excellence, three degrees of liberation and the fire–earth–stone reductio form the argument.

Translation in this edition

The Latin pairs super et praeter for nutrition’s relation to elemental order; both “above” and “beyond” matter. Understanding’s fuller freedom is explicitly promised for what follows. The present chapter should not be presented as already completing that demonstration.

caliditas / siccitas / frigus

caliditas / siccitas / frigus. Printed forms: caliditatem; frigus; siccitatemque; siccumque.

Heat, dryness and cold as elemental qualities. Heat with dryness would yield bodily fire, cold with dryness earth; neither mixture is the spiritual image needed for cognition. References: VII.13.1. See Freedom from matter and causal priority.

efficere / causa / effectus

efficere / causa / effectus. Printed forms: causa; effectus; efficit.

Producing, producer as cause, and the produced effect. The chapter premises that a productive cause is more excellent and freer from matter than its effect. References: VII.13.1. See Freedom from matter and causal priority.

humor / mixtio / procreare

humor / mixtio / procreare. Printed forms: humores; Humores; mixtione; procreare.

Bodily humors, their mixture, and producing offspring or effects. Ficino denies that their mixing or concord can generate powers freer from matter, much less the soul as their source. References: VII.13.1. See Freedom from matter and causal priority.

ignis / terra / lapis

ignis / terra / lapis. Printed forms: ignis; lapis; terra; terram.

Fire, earth and stone in the material-reception reductio. If receiving through bodily qualities sufficed for sensing, earth and stone would sense like soul. This is a rejected consequence. References: VII.13.1. See Freedom from matter and causal priority.

intelligentia

intelligentia. Printed forms: intelligentia; intelligentia pura; intelligentiae; intelligentiam.

Understanding as the soul’s activity directed to incorporeal objects. The passage treats pure exercise as difficult and late, not as continuously actual in every human being. References: VI.2.1. See Three offices and the order of proof.

Understanding as a still freer mode of cognition. Its superiority is announced but deferred to later demonstration; this unit does not complete the promised intellectual proof. References: VII.13.1. See Freedom from matter and causal priority.

Understanding as an act or activity; plural forms can designate acts or conceptions rather than separate minds. It names the highest stage of the opening ascent and later the acts whose hypothetical simultaneous infinity is rejected. References: VIII.1.1, VIII.1.2, VIII.1.5, VIII.3.6, VIII.3.7. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.

liber a materia

liber a materia. Printed forms: a materia libera; a materia liberior; a materia liberius; libera; liberae; liberior; liberius; materia; materiae.

Freedom from matter and immersion in matter as modes of dependence. The degrees of nutrition, sensing and understanding are used to deny their production by wholly bodily humors. References: VII.13.1. See Freedom from matter and causal priority.

praestantior / sublimior

praestantior / sublimior. Printed forms: praestantius; sublimius.

More excellent and higher in rank. The causal argument connects excellence with freedom from matter; it is a metaphysical premise, not a measurement of physical energy. References: VII.13.1. See Freedom from matter and causal priority.

ut alias ostendemus / ut in sequentibus apparebit / ut in superioribus enarravimus

ut alias ostendemus / ut in sequentibus apparebit / ut in superioribus enarravimus. Printed forms: ut alias ostendemus; ut in sequentibus apparebit; ut in superioribus enarravimus.

Explicit references backward or forward to further argumentative work. The indivisibility of meanings and understanding’s superior freedom receive promises, while the soul’s operations beyond humors appeal to earlier demonstrations. References: VII.5.4, VII.10.1, VII.13.1. See Freedom from matter and causal priority.