Kinship and separation · Lexicon

From the book

Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordCognatio is kinship or affinity; capax means capable of receiving or grasping.
In the Platonic TheologyFicino argues that intellect could not receive an intelligible object without some kinship with it.
In this editionIntelligenda and intelligibilis are locally explained as what can properly be understood; intelligens identifies what understands.
A place to readKinship links intelligible object and intellect, followed by the argument from separation

Meaning

Cognatio is kinship or affinity; capax means capable of receiving or grasping. Discessus names a departure or separation, and seorsum means apart. In this argument separation concerns the conditions of intelligibility, not merely movement away from a physical object.

Use in the book

Ficino argues that intellect could not receive an intelligible object without some kinship with it. He then connects two claims: separation from matter makes a form intelligible, and more fundamentally freedom from matter makes a thing intelligent. The direction of the argument should remain visible. Becoming available as an object of thought and being a thinking subject are different achievements, even though he traces both to immateriality.

The passage next assigns the most exact understanding to God, who is most remote from matter. “Remote” is not a distance measured beyond the last body. The text explicitly includes thinking things apart from matter and its conditions. It is thus concerned with the mode in which objects are known and with the nature of the knower.

Places to read

II.9.1Kinship links intelligible object and intellect, followed by the argument from separation
II.9.2God’s maximal remoteness from matter grounds exact understanding

Translation in this edition

Intelligenda and intelligibilis are locally explained as what can properly be understood; intelligens identifies what understands. Preserving the contrast avoids confusing a comprehensible form with a knowing mind.

cognatio

cognatio. Printed forms: cognatio.

Kinship or affinity of knower and knowable. The affinity connects intelligibility and intellectual capacity through their shared independence from matter. References: II.9.1. See Kinship and separation.