Intellectual forms and intelligible essences

Use in the book

VIII.4 opens with a teaching attributed to Arab Platonists: intellect acquires a universal form signifying human beings and then judges that human nature is rational animality. This judgment can be described as conception, account, definition or knowledge, according to the aspect emphasized. The sequence distinguishes possession of a representing form from the articulated apprehension it supports; none of these names locates a bodily picture inside the mind.

Ficino later makes the terminology more exact. Mind acts in knowing only insofar as it is actual, and it is actualized through form. To contemplate an essence it therefore possesses a form of that essence as an image. The essence is intelligible; its image in the knower is more properly intellectual, although the latter is often also called intelligible. The refinement does not erase earlier overlapping usage. It distinguishes what is known from the representation through which the knower operates. The essence and its intellectual image remain distinct even when both are simple.

The chapter's first set of arguments tests what bodily parts the representing species might possess. Homogeneous parts would merely duplicate a complete account or add quantity. Unlike parts, modelled on genus and difference, would be indefinitely cut with the body's regions, destroying the bounded definition. Separating them to right and left cannot explain one mind's one knowledge of one thing. Unspecified parts and numerical component-sciences are also tested. These arguments concern the proposed composition of an intellectual species; they prepare but do not replace the more direct representational argument at VIII.4.9.

That renewed argument begins from an object judged simple: goodness under its universal account, or God or angel when truly understood. Suppose its representing form were scattered into parts. Either no part refers to the essence, only some do, or all do. If none refers, the assembled whole has no basis for referring. If only some do, the nonreferring parts are irrelevant to the intellectual form. If all do, Ficino asks whether their reference is the same or different. Aspectus and respectus here concern intentional regard, not literal optical rays.

If every portion adequately refers to the whole essence, each already performs the entire cognitive work. One suffices; the others are superfluous. If such duplicates track every potential bodily subdivision and each contributes to knowing, the hypothesis yields an actually innumerable set of operative forms. If the parts instead have different reference, each must answer to a different part of the object; the proposed representation thereby makes the supposedly simple essence multiple. Correctly judging simplicity requires a simple regard. The argument depends upon the correspondence between cognitive articulation and the object understood, rather than upon the assertion that every image is identical with its object.

Ficino anticipates the objection from knowledge of composites. A human body has parts, and ten can be divided into numbers, but humanity as humanity and ten as ten each have one defining account. A composite can therefore be known under an indivisible aspect without losing its bodily or numerical divisibility in other respects. Other objects, including unity and the first principles reached when analysis ends, are intrinsically simple. VIII.4.13 joins these two cases: simple objects and indivisible aspects of composites require simple acts and forms.

The conclusion then moves beyond representation to its subject. Ficino assumes that a mind receiving such forms must itself be simple, and that greater simplicity entails greater indissolubility. Since life is prior to intelligence, the living subject must possess the relevant permanence even more fundamentally than its reflective activity. These final premises make the immortality argument more than a lexical distinction between intellectual and intelligible. Keeping the steps separate lets the reader assess where the representational analysis ends and where the stronger metaphysical inference begins.

Places to read

1. VIII.4.1Universal form, conception, definition and knowledge are connected at the opening.
2. VIII.4.9Ficino explicitly distinguishes intellectual forms from intelligible essences and examines their possible parts.
3. VIII.4.13Simplicity of acts and forms supports simplicity of the knowing subject.

Translation in this edition

The qualification proprius matters: Ficino is refining usage, not asserting that every earlier occurrence of intelligibilis has named only the external essence. The English preserves both labels at VIII.4.9 rather than harmonizing them.

aspectus / respectus

aspectus / respectus. Printed forms: aspectu; aspectum; respectibus; respectus; respiciat.

The regard or reference by which an intellectual form represents an essence. The threefold test asks whether no parts, some parts or all parts refer, then whether their references duplicate or divide the object. References: VIII.4.9. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.

conceptus / conceptio

conceptus / conceptio. Printed forms: conceptio; conceptionisque; conceptus.

Conceived intellectual content or the act/product of conceiving it. A defining judgment counts as conception and knowledge; it cannot be explained by materially separated portions. References: VIII.1.1, VIII.4.1, VIII.4.8, VIII.4.13. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.

essentia

essentia. Printed forms: essentia; Essentia; essentiae; Essentiam; essentiam; essentias.

Essence, what a thing is as grasped in its defining account. V.72 distinguishes this from actual presence; V.1323456789101112131415161718 denies that a creature's essence is identical with its received being. References: V.7.1, V.7.2, V.13.7. See Essence and being.

Essence, what a thing is; as intelligible it is distinguished from mind's representing form. The simplicity of the known essence constrains its intellectual image; later essence is related to life and reflexive mind. References: VIII.4.9, VIII.15.1, VIII.15.2. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.

forma

forma. Printed forms: Forma; forma; formae; Formae; formam; formarum; formas; formis.

A determining principle through which a thing has its proper nature and being. A material form belongs to a composite's common being, while rational soul is form subsisting in itself. References: V.8.1, V.8.2, V.8.3, V.9.2. See Form and formal being.

A determining form, ranging from life-giving substantial principle to divided bodily form or separate intelligible form. The local adjective and causal role govern its sense: rejecting body does not automatically show that a form is indivisible, substantial or free from material origin. References: VI.2.10, VI.3.1, VI.7.3, VI.9.3, VI.12.18. See Substantial form and the receiving subject.

Determining form, or the form through which a knower apprehends an object. A form in bodily matter differs in mode from an intellectual representation; the argument cannot be read by assigning all forms one material location. References: VIII.4.1, VIII.4.9, VIII.13.1, VIII.13.2. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.

Graeci Platonici / Arabes Platonici

Graeci Platonici / Arabes Platonici. Printed forms: Graeci; Platonicorum Arabum.

The Greek and Arab Platonists named in the introduction to the form argument. Ficino groups authorities to support a doctrine of universal representation; no unnamed individual's precise doctrine is independently attributed here. References: VIII.4.1. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.

habitus

habitus. Printed forms: habitum; habitus.

Settled possession or condition, rather than always a momentary act. Knowledge may be one act or habit; in the mental-union argument habitus names the incorporeal condition into which received forms are brought. References: VIII.3.8, VIII.4.5, VIII.4.11, VIII.7.1. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.

intellectualis / intelligibilis

intellectualis / intelligibilis. Printed forms: intellectuale; intellectualem; intellectuali; intellectualis; intelligibiles; intelligibili; intelligibilia.

Intellectual refers to mind or its forms; intelligible properly refers to what is known. Ficino allows overlapping usage but explicitly refines the distinction between essence and mental representation in VIII.4.9. References: VIII.1.3, VIII.4.9, VIII.13.2, VIII.15.2, VIII.16.1, VIII.16.4. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.

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.

intelligibilis (additional forms)

intelligibilis (additional forms). Printed forms: intelligibilem; intelligibili; intelligibilis.

Intelligible, capable of being intellectually known, with a refined distinction from intellectual representation. Ficino sometimes uses the term for a mental form but calls the known essence intelligible in the more precise Platonic distinction. References: VIII.1.3, VIII.1.5, VIII.4.1, VIII.4.2, VIII.4.3, VIII.4.4, VIII.4.7, VIII.4.9. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.

intuitus / intueri / conspicere

intuitus / intueri / conspicere. Printed forms: conspiciat; conspicit; conspicitur; intueri; intuetur; intuitum; intuitus.

A directed intellectual gaze or apprehension, frequently described through visual language. The mind's unified regard can embrace simple content, a composite under one aspect or its own act; the metaphor does not make the intellect a bodily eye. References: VIII.1.5, VIII.3.2, VIII.3.7, VIII.4.2, VIII.4.11, VIII.7.1, VIII.9.1, VIII.14.1. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.

iudicare / pronuntiare

iudicare / pronuntiare. Printed forms: iudicare; iudicat; iudicet; Iudicium; pronuntiat.

Judging or explicitly declaring what an object is or how it is related. Phantasy identifies Plato; intellect defines humanity and evaluates truth. The same judgment vocabulary can therefore operate at different cognitive levels. References: VIII.1.1, VIII.2.8, VIII.4.1, VIII.16.2. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.

res

res. Printed forms: re; rebus; rei; rem; rerum; Res; res.

A thing or reality, whose exact ontological level must be learned from context. The word can refer to a composite, its form, soul or a hypothetical subject; 'thing' itself does not settle whether the referent is bodily. References: V.8.3, V.11.1, V.12.1, V.13.1. See Essence and being.

A thing or object under consideration, bodily or incorporeal according to its predicates. The phrase 'things known' does not by itself restrict knowledge to bodies, while a thing's account is distinguished from the particular mode of its material occurrence. References: VIII.1.1, VIII.1.4, VIII.2.1, VIII.2.5, VIII.2.7, VIII.2.8, VIII.3.1, VIII.3.2, VIII.3.3, VIII.3.4, VIII.3.5, VIII.3.6, VIII.3.7, VIII.3.8, VIII.4.1, VIII.4.2, VIII.4.3, VIII.4.4, VIII.4.5, VIII.4.9, VIII.4.10, VIII.4.11, VIII.4.12, VIII.4.13, VIII.5.1, VIII.6.1, VIII.7.1, VIII.8.1, VIII.9.1, VIII.10.1, VIII.10.2, VIII.13.1, VIII.13.2, VIII.14.1, VIII.15.1, VIII.15.3, VIII.16.1, VIII.16.2, VIII.16.3, VIII.16.4. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.

scitum / obiectum

scitum / obiectum. Printed forms: obiecta; obiecto; obiectum; sciti; scitum.

The object known, by reference to which a branch of knowledge is differentiated. If supposed component sciences have the same complete object, they duplicate the whole; if different, their relation to knowledge of the whole remains to be explained. References: VIII.4.8. See Intellectual forms and intelligible essences.