Reflexive understanding and willing · Lexicon

From the book

Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordReflexio is a return of activity upon itself; animadversio is noticing or attentive awareness.
In the Platonic TheologyBodily action is presented as passing into external matter.
In this editionThe apparatus preserves either/or at the close: an endless sequence of operations or repeated self-folding of one operation.
A place to readInward operation, essence–life–mind and recursive knowing and willing are developed together.

Meaning

Reflexio is a return of activity upon itself; animadversio is noticing or attentive awareness. Voluntas is rational appetite. Reflexive knowing and willing concern awareness of an act and a further act directed toward that act, rather than mere repetition of its original external object.

Use in the book

Bodily action is presented as passing into external matter. Intellectual activity can remain within the agent: mind knows itself, knows its own knowing, and can recognize that recognition. An outward artwork may result when intelligence moves will and will moves the arms, but that mediated result is distinguished from understanding's proper terminus.

Ficino contrasts sensation, moved by external objects and directed toward an external end, with mind's free inward inspection. He then aligns essence, life and mind with repose, motion and reflection. Without life essence would be dormant; without mind life would flow outward. Mind holds life's movement within itself and turns it back to essence through self-awareness. These are an attributed Platonic ordering, not a modern taxonomy of conscious experiences.

The operation can be repeated without an assigned last level: understanding a thing, noticing that understanding, noticing that notice; willing something, willing to will, and willing the further willing. Ficino allows either a series of acts terminating in further acts or one act repeatedly folded upon itself. He does not resolve those alternatives into one obligatory mechanism.

This reflexivity supports incorporeality and later perpetuity. It must also be distinguished from VIII.1.5's reflexive return to a particular image: both are returns, but their immediate objects and explanatory tasks differ.

Places to read

VIII.15.1Inward operation, essence–life–mind and recursive knowing and willing are developed together.
VIII.16.1The recursive sequence is one source of the mind’s qualified limitless power.

Translation in this edition

The apparatus preserves either/or at the close: an endless sequence of operations or repeated self-folding of one operation. It also records the correction to eadem. “Infinite reflection” should not be paraphrased as infinitely many completed conscious thoughts at a single instant.

brachium / opus extra

brachium / opus extra. Printed forms: brachiis; extra; opus; voluntatem.

Arms and an outward work produced through will's bodily action. Understanding may initiate external production through will and limbs, although its proper act can remain within mind. References: VIII.15.1. See Reflexive understanding and willing.

cognitio

cognitio. Printed forms: cognitio; cognitione; cognitionem.

Knowledge or knowing, including acts that can be directed toward other acts. The direct life/reflexive cognition distinction prevents this word from being treated as a synonym for the whole source of living being. References: VIII.3.4, VIII.3.7, VIII.4.8, VIII.9.1, VIII.12.1, VIII.16.3. See Reflexive understanding and willing.

conscius / animadversio

conscius / animadversio. Printed forms: agnoscit; animadversione; animadvertat; animadvertit; conscius.

Self-aware, attentive noticing and recognition of one's own act. Reflexive mind knows its knowing and willing, unlike sensation as characterized in this argument; recursive levels need not be simultaneously completed. References: VIII.15.1, VIII.16.1. See Reflexive understanding and willing.

essentia–vita–mens

essentia–vita–mens. Printed forms: essentia; mens; Mens; motus; reflexio; status; vita.

The triad essence, life and mind, correlated with repose, activity and self-return. Ficino attributes the ordering to Plato: life activates essence, and mind prevents vital activity from being wholly effluent into an external work. References: VIII.15.1. See Reflexive understanding and willing.

rationalis

rationalis. Printed forms: rationalemque; rationali; rationalique; rationalis.

Rational, belonging to reason or governed by its direction. It differentiates the human species, qualifies steady moral appetite and describes self-returning life; those uses share rational form without becoming the same argument. References: VIII.3.1, VIII.3.3, VIII.4.4, VIII.4.10, VIII.15.3, VIII.16.1. See Reflexive understanding and willing.

reflexio / reflectere

reflexio / reflectere. Printed forms: reflectens; reflectit; reflexio; reflexo; reflexum.

Turning an activity back toward its source or a prior object. The return to a particular image differs from mind's later inward knowing of its own act; both are nonspatial intellectual returns. References: VIII.1.5, VIII.4.13, VIII.9.1, VIII.15.1. See Reflexive understanding and willing.

voluntas / velle

voluntas / velle. Printed forms: nolemus; nolumus; nolunt; velit; velle; volemus; volumus; volunt; voluntas; voluntatem; voluntatis; vult.

Rational appetite and willing; the same will can take its own act as an object. Steadfast moral choice follows reason, and recursive willing accompanies recursive knowing without becoming an infinite simultaneous collection of acts. References: VIII.3.5, VIII.4.5, VIII.4.8, VIII.15.1, VIII.16.1. See Reflexive understanding and willing.